Last October, just when Southern California was putting out their Halloween decorations and preparing for spooky mayhem, Santa Clarita Studios was experiencing another type of darkness — The Happytime Murders. I went with a group of journalists to the set where we got the chance to speak to some of the cast, crew, and puppets.
On a day almost exactly halfway through production, we visited the Henson puppet shop on set, watched a pivotal (and spoiler-filled) scene from the finale of the film being shot, and chatted with stars Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, and Elizabeth Banks in addition to producer Ben Falcone and director Brian Henson about the unique experience of creating a film that stars both humans and puppets.
Disney and Blizzard have announced a huge deal for Overwatch League broadcasting. As part of a deal announced today, the inaugural Overwatch League playoffs will be broadcast on Disney’s network of channels, including ESPN, Disney XD, and ABC. This kicked off on July 11 with playoff rounds and continues with the Grand Finals from the Barclays Center in New York on July 27-28. The competition will air on ESPN and Disney XD, along with mobile platforms in the form of the ESPN App and Disney Now.
On July 29, after the competition wraps up, a “recap show” will be broadcast on ABC in primetime, which represents the first time the championship of an esports tournament will be shown in primetime on ABC.
Disney and ESPN executive Justin Connolly said the Overwatch League Grand Finals represents the network’s “most comprehensive television distribution” ever for an esports tournament on a single weekend. There will be 10 hours of competition broadcast over three days. “This overall collaboration with Disney/ABC, ESPN and Blizzard represents our continued commitment to esports, and we look forward to providing marquee Overwatch League coverage across our television platforms for fans,” Connolly said.
The winning team of the Grand Finals will take home the inaugural Overwatch League trophy and the bulk of a $1.4 million prize pool.
It kicks off on Friday, July 27, at 7 PM ET with best-of-five matches on ESPN. The competition continues the next day on ESPN, starting at 4:30 PM ET, while additional matches will air on Disney XD. Matches will also be broadcast on Twitch, MLG.com, ESPN, and ABC. Here is the full programming schedule:
The Overwatch League started in January. There are 12 teams in the league, and in a first for an esports organisation, they are based in cities just like traditional sports leagues. You can learn more about the Overwatch League playoffs here on the Overwatch website.
To promote the upcoming launch of World of Warcraft‘s seventh expansion, Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard teamed up with a popular Sydney burger joint for WoW-themed burgers.
Blizzard ANZ partnered with Burgers by Josh for two new burgers, which are inspired by the Horde and the Alliance. Available from this Friday at the Annandale Hotel and The Raby Tavern, the burgers take inspiration from the game’s two factions. The Horde Burger ($20 AUD) comes with a red dyed potato bun and pickled guindilla chili peppers as horns. It’s stuffed with fried chicken, jalapenos, maple bacon, and more.
The Alliance burger ($22 AUD) features two wagyu beef patties inside a blue-dyed bun. It also has American cheese, bacon, a hash brown, and other familiar trappings such as lettuce, tomato, and onion. You can see a full rundown of ingredients for both burgers at the bottom of this post.
The burgers will be available until Battle of Azeroth launches on August 14. After that, the best-selling one will stay on the menu for an additional month. These burgers are exclusively available in Sydney, Australia.
Pre-sales for Battle for Azeroth are now live for the game’s standard and deluxe editions. Pre-ordering the expansion gets you a lot of nice bonuses, including extra content for other Blizzard games like Overwatch, along with an instant World of Warcraft character boost to 110.
Recently, Epic Games announced that it will offer $100 million in prize pool money for Fortnite competitive tournaments in 2018 and 2019, and now we’ve learned where some of that will go. The company has announced the “Summer Skirmish” series, which is an eight-week run of events where people will compete for a share of $8 million in prize money.
This series kicks off this weekend with a $250,000 Duos competition. The specifics are not immediately clear, but Epic said “community creators” and regular Fortnite players who have “demonstrated their competitive prowess” will be invited to participate.
Invitations went out already for this first Summer Skirmish series, but Epic said in the future it will communicate the details on how you can qualify for future skirmishes. “The format and competitors may change from week-to-week, so stay on your toes,” Epic said.
The $100 million in prize money for Fortnite’s 2018-2019 competitive season is more than double the $38 million in total prize money that Valve’s Dota 2 paid out in 2017 across all of its tournaments, according to E-Sports Earnings (via CNBC). The International, which is Valve’s massive Dota 2 event, paid out the biggest prize pool in gaming history last year with almost $25 million for the single event. For another point of comparison, the inaugural Overwatch League tournament will pay out a total of $3.5 million in prize money for its entire season.
Fortnite brings in more than $1 million every single day from its mobile version alone, according to SensorTower; Epic makes even more money from the console and PC editions. The game is free, but players can spend real money on cosmetics (which do not impact gameplay whatsoever).
In other Fortnite news, the game’s much-anticipated Season 5 kicks off on July 12–and we’re expecting big things. Here’s a rundown of everything you need to know.
