Shazam! Only Wants Us to Remember the Best of the DCEU
At this point, the trials and tribulations of Warner Bros.’ attempts to build a cohesive cinematic universe akin to the MCU have been well documented. Love it or hate it, the journey from Man of Steel to Shazam! has been full of controversial choices. From Man of Steel’s wanton destruction of Smallville and Metropolis to Batman v. Superman’s uncompromising bleakness to Justice League’s full-on attempted reversal of all of it, there’s always been as much discussion about the decisions behind the movies as there has been about the films themselves.
But with the Big Two -- Superman and Batman -- off the table at the present time while Warner Bros. plans their futures, the studio has found success in other characters to lead the charge while they figure out what’s next for the World’s Finest. They’ll be back in leading roles eventually, no doubt, but in the meantime, the torch has been passed to Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and most recently, Shazam to carry on the dream of a living, breathing on-screen DCU. Though Warners seems to be moving away from the trendy need to build an intricately connected shared universe (there’s only a one-off mention of Steppenwolf in Aquaman, for example), execs at the studio seem to be willing to keep moving forward with a more loosely connected universe where continuity is a bit more fluid.
Shazam! Only Wants Us to Remember the Best of the DCEU
At this point, the trials and tribulations of Warner Bros.’ attempts to build a cohesive cinematic universe akin to the MCU have been well documented. Love it or hate it, the journey from Man of Steel to Shazam! has been full of controversial choices. From Man of Steel’s wanton destruction of Smallville and Metropolis to Batman v. Superman’s uncompromising bleakness to Justice League’s full-on attempted reversal of all of it, there’s always been as much discussion about the decisions behind the movies as there has been about the films themselves.
But with the Big Two -- Superman and Batman -- off the table at the present time while Warner Bros. plans their futures, the studio has found success in other characters to lead the charge while they figure out what’s next for the World’s Finest. They’ll be back in leading roles eventually, no doubt, but in the meantime, the torch has been passed to Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and most recently, Shazam to carry on the dream of a living, breathing on-screen DCU. Though Warners seems to be moving away from the trendy need to build an intricately connected shared universe (there’s only a one-off mention of Steppenwolf in Aquaman, for example), execs at the studio seem to be willing to keep moving forward with a more loosely connected universe where continuity is a bit more fluid.
Ubisoft CEO on How He Balances Artistic Expression With Business
When you’re a studio making big budget games like Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, Far Cry, or Assassin’s Creed, it can be hard to balance the artistic expression of your developers with the nitty gritty details of finances. Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot sat down on this month’s episode of IGN Unfiltered to tell editor Ryan McCaffrey about how Ubisoft values the idea of giving some of their games a whole lot of time to incubate.
“It helps our teams to take more risk,” Guillemot said. “Sometimes it's not a good risk, but at the end of the day, I think what I've seen in the long run is that when you have people that are very smart, with a lot of passion, giving them time is the best way to come up with something that will be profitable.”
You Probably Didn’t Shed a Tear for This Game of Thrones Casualty
In honor of the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones, IGN is taking a look back at some of the iconic characters who've fallen along the way, and the lasting impact they had on the story. These heroes and villains may not have made it to the end of the road, but their lives weren't in vain - they stand as a fitting reminder that when you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die.
Perhaps best known for all the colorful insults his mother, Lady Olenna, used to describe him, Mace Tyrell was a simple but well-meaning lord who left the scheming to his family members. Mace was outsmarted by all of those around him: his hilarious and conniving mother, his manipulative and power-hungry daughter Margaery, and his vengeful, fierce son Loras.
New Avengers: Endgame Tease Shows Captain America’s Pep Talk
A tweet from the official The Avengers Twitter account has revealed a little more new footage from the upcoming Avengers: Endgame.
The 30-second teaser sees Captain America give the team a pep talk ahead of what is undoubtedly their biggest mission so far, to which Rocket Racoon notes “He’s pretty good at that”. Ant-Man agrees, and so do we.
Most of the footage in the tease has previously been shown before, although the narration is new. The final few seconds however shows a previously unseen sequence where the Avengers respond to Cap's talk by putting their firsts together in solidarity. They’re all wearing the white and red Advanced Suits that we saw in previous trailers.
The Tick Season 2: Dangerboat Returns and More
I have been onboard Dangerboat!
Last summer, I visited the set of Amazon Prime’s The Tick as the cast and crew were hard at work shooting the second season of the show. And yes, that meant I got to climb inside the sentient, lovestruck, high-tech craft which once watched the show’s Arthur (Griffin Newman) take a shower. It was great.
Peter Serafinowicz is back as the Tick, as is Newman as his trusty sidekick. And creator and showrunner Ben Edlund is also steering the ship (and Dangerboat) once again in Season 2, which just debuted on April 5. Read on for some of the highlights from my visit!
Some very vague spoilers follow for The Tick.
Peter Serafinowicz is back as the Tick.
Annabelle Comes Home Sets Loose the Demon Doll
The release of Avengers: Endgame, now just weeks away, kicks off 2019’s summer movie season. This year, we’re foregoing a traditional summer movie preview -- a single list-style film preview -- in favor of a month-long series of IGN First summer movie spotlights, featuring exclusive video debuts, image reveals, interviews and more.
IGN First is IGN's editorially-driven month-long spotlight of exclusives around upcoming film titles that both our audience -- and our staff! -- are excited about. We'll be rolling out exclusives on some of the most exciting new movies opening between the beginning of May until the end of August, so make sure to check back for even more exclusives throughout April.
Mark Hamill Pitched a Different Ending for The Force Awakens to JJ Abrams
Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself, recently described a different ending to Star Wars: The Force Awakens that he pitched to director J.J. Abrams that would have been a touching call-back to A New Hope.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter on the Awards Chatter Podcast for his role in History's Knightfall, their discussion eventually went to Star Wars. During their conversation, Hamill revealed a pitch he gave to Abrams that would have led to the reunion of Luke, Leia, and Han.
“You can still have me come in at the very end,” Hamill explains. “But how about this? Leia’s trying to contact me telepathically. She gets frustrated because there’s no answer so she rushes to the new Death Star…that's three so far...and she almost gets there when she’s stopped by two Stormtroopers. Just before she’s abducted, one Stormtrooper turns to the other and blows him away, pulls off his helmet and says, “Hi sis, I’m here to rescue you.”
Netflix Is Launching a Comedy Radio Station
Netflix is launching its first audio-only channel that will broadcast snippets from the streaming platform's comedy specials around the clock, in addition to other original content.
Netflix Is A Joke Radio will launch on April 15 and air on SiriusXM's Channel 93.
The station will be home to highlights from a stable of talent including Adam Sandler, Aziz Ansari, Bill Burr, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Ellen DeGeneres, Gabriel Iglesias, Jerry Seinfeld, John Mulaney, Ken Jeong, Ricky Gervais, Sarah Silverman, Sebastian Maniscalco, Trevor Noah, Wanda Sykes, and more.
"Netflix Is A Joke Radio on SiriusXM will be an audio extension of our award winning stand-up comedy on Netflix,” said Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, in a press release via TechRadar. “We are thrilled to feature some of the greatest and funniest performers in the world with highlights from Netflix shows as well as original programming that further celebrates the art of comedy, and we are excited to do this in partnership with SiriusXM.”
Nvidia Delivers Ray Tracing to GTX GPUs and Several Tech Demos
Last month Nvidia announced it was bringing "basic ray tracing" to some of its non-RTX GPUs in April, and that update is now live on Nvidia's website. You can download the new graphics driver from Nvidia in order to enable this functionality, but keep in mind that "basic RT" effects are limited to just Pascal GPUs, and the GTX variants of its Turing cards, such as the GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660 (as well as laptops with equivalent GPUs). People who own RTX cards don't get much out of this update, other than the ability to say, "welcome to the party" to people with lesser GPUs in the comment sections of websites such as this.