YouTube Makes Cobra Kai Season 1 Free Without Premium Subscription
You can now watch YouTube's Karate Kid spin-off series Cobra Kai without needing a premium subscription.
YouTube's newest initiative is set to make the platform's original series and specials free to watch with ads enabled. This kicks off with the first season of Cobra Kai, which is available now with season 2, and episodes will drop weekly as of September 11.
There were a few episodes of the show available without premium, but now you'll be able to watch the whole thing so long as you're fine with the ads.
Cobra Kai was the fastest YouTube Original series to make it to 20 million views and took the top spot for the highest rated YouTube Red show.
Hulu’s Castle Rock: Season 2 Gets a Release Date
Season 2 of the psychological horror series Castle Rock has a release date on Hulu.
The anthology, which features stories set in Stephen King's fictional town in Maine, will return to the streaming service on Wednesday, October 23 - just in time for Halloween!
Season 2 boasts the climax of a conflict between two sects as well as the introduction of Annie Wilkes, the psychotic nurse who stars in King's 1987 novel Misery. Wilkes will be played by Lizzy Caplan who's best known for her work in Cloverfield and Mean Girls.
The episodes take inspiration from King's work, using the suspense and thriller themes the writer is known for. King also acts as an executive producer alongside other names such as J.J. Abrams, Ben Stephenson, Sam Shaw, and Dustin Thomason. Shaw and Thomason are also showrunners for the series.
Valve To Fight EU Antitrust Charges, Capcom and Bandai Namco Agree To Settle
Valve will be fighting EU antitrust charges over geo-blocking within the EU. Five other video game companies that were presented with similar charges will settle the case.
Reuters reports from sources familiar with the matter that six companies - Valve, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media, and ZeniMax - have been charged by the European Commission for antitrust practices.
Specifically, the EU claims that the six companies prevented customers in the EU from shopping for better deals on video games within the 28-country bloc. The EU alleges the six companies used geo-blocking keys, so a customer in one EU country couldn’t access another EU country’s web store which might offer the same game for less.
Check out These Beautiful Shots from the Yakuza 7 Trailer
SEGA threw Yakuza fans for a loop this week with the reveal of Yakuza 7 in a gorgeous new reveal trailer. The new title, called Yakuza: Like a Dragon in the West, is due out in 2020 on PS4.
The new trailer shows off the newest protagonist Ichiban Kasuga and follows his story in Isezaki Ijin, Yokohama. In the trailer, he appears to turn himself into police, serve some time in prison, and is released 18 years later. The trailer, of course, has its emotional moments, but also shows off some of the quirkiness Yakuza is known for. Check out our favorite stills in the gallery below.
This iteration of Yakuza is a bit of an outlier, however, from what long-time fans might know the game to be. This Yakuza is steering away from its brawler roots to a turn-based combat system.
SEGA Genesis vs SNES
Decades of video game tribalism, juvenile insults, and schoolyard myths about distant uncles working at certain console manufacturers can be traced back to one provenance: Super Nintendo vs. Sega Genesis. Yes, there were ancient console wars in the '80s, and today there exists a mild chill between Sony adherents and Microsoft lifers, but the battle was never more ferocious than it was in the mid '90s, when Sega fielded their Hedgehog against Nintendo's plumber, and threatened a fight to the death.
Disney decided to throw gasoline on this long-dormant fire on Wednesday, when the company announced they'll be remastering a pair of the classic platformers: The Lion King and Aladdin, to release fall 2019.
The Switch Lite Is Literally Pocket-Sized Without Feeling Too Small
Welcooome to Nintendo Voice Chat, IGN's Nintendo show! This week, Seth Macy joins the NVC crew to discuss his hands-on time with the Switch Lite. Then, could an Amazon posting for an Overwatch Switch case mean that Blizzard’s popular team shooter is heading to Switch? The panel also discusses Mario Kart Tour’s upcoming release, the classic Lion King and Aladdin remasters, new Shovel Knight details, and more!
Finding Humanity in the Gods of Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “Nobody goes to Godzilla movies for the characters!” Such an oft-repeated refrain isn’t entirely without merit, to be fair, as what kaiju fan wouldn’t crave wildly entertaining monster mayhem over a quiet character study? However, there is so much more to director Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters than just kaiju-vs-kaiju set pieces.
What allows this film to both have and eat its cake is in its handling of the human element. Not that anyone on paper is much more than a familiar archetype (this is a Godzilla movie, after all), but Dougherty and his writers are almost fervent in grounding their script with profoundly human perspectives on one of the story's main running themes - namely, facing the consequences of our hubris and grasping at the possibility of redemption - to lend meaning to all the loaded religious allusions and mythic underpinnings found among the larger-than-life entities of King of the Monsters.
Joker’s Director Fought Hard for His R-Rated Vision
Joker is an unusual DC movie for a number of reasons, not least of which being its hard R-rating. And as director Todd Phillips tells The LA Times, it took a great deal of convincing before WB signed off on his vision for the film.
According to Phillips, he had to spend an entire year making his case for an R-rated Joker movie before studio executives finally signed off on his pitch.
"It was a year-long process from when we finished the script just to get the new people on board with this vision, because I pitched it to an entirely different team than made it,” Phillips said. “There were emails about: ‘You realize we sell Joker pajamas at Target.’ There were a zillion hurdles, and you just sort of had to navigate those one at a time.... At the time I would curse them in my head every day. But then I have to put it in perspective and go, ‘They’re pretty bold that they did this.’"
Watch the Trailer for Netflix’s The I-Land
Netflix has released the official trailer for its upcoming sci-fi thriller series, called The I-Land. The limited series event is set to release on the streaming provider on Thursday, September 12, 2019.
"When ten people wake up on a treacherous island with no memory of who they are or how they got there, they set off on a trek to try to get back home. They soon discover this world is not as it seems. Faced with the I-Land’s extreme psychological and physical challenges, they must rise to their better selves -- or die as their worst ones," according to a synopsis from Netflix.
Be sure to check out the trailer in the video above.
The I-Land features the acting talents of Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns), Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four), Natalie Martinez (End of Watch) and Ronald Peet (Blindspot).
She-Hulk Explained: Who Is the New Disney+ Marvel Hero?
She-Hulk has starred in comic books since 1980, has been a regular character in animated television shows, and even headlined her own official (if little-known) prose novel, but she has never been seen in live action—but that’s about to change! She-Hulk is one of three brand new, live-action shows that will debut on the Disney+ streaming service (the other two being Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel).