Fast & Furious director Justin Lin has stepped down from Fast X, and now the race is on to find a replacement as it’s costing Universal an absolute fortune.

According to Variety, the director’s quick exit from the upcoming Fast & Furious sequel has left the studio forking out up to $1 million per day to keep the production in limbo.

“The production is burning through cash to keep key crew and cast members in limbo,” they explained. “Sources from different studios with experience replacing directors midstream estimated that it could be costing Universal upwards of $600,000 to $1 million a day.”

After just one week in production, director Justin Lin stepped down from Fast X.

“With the support of Universal, I have made the difficult decision to step back as director of Fast X, while remaining with the project as a producer,” he said in a statement.

It’s thought that his hasty exit at the start of the shoot may have been to keep costs down in his wake – beginning expensive stunt work or set pieces would have pushed the studio’s costs even higher while finding his replacement.

“Over 10 years and five films, we have been able to shoot the best actors, the best stunts, and the best damn car chases,” he added. “On a personal note, as the child of Asian immigrants, I am proud of helping to build the most diverse franchise in movie history. I will forever be grateful to the amazing cast, crew and studio for their support, and for welcoming me into the Fast family.”

Of course, there’s also the matter of the film’s busier stars…

Jason Momoa and Brie Larson are both dedicated to other big studio franchises, with the pair suiting up as Aquaman and Captain Marvel respectively. Any delays to Fast X could affect their already busy schedules… and that could cost the studio even more to sort out.

As for who will take over at the helm of Fast X, fans are already pleading for James Wan.

He’s already familiar with the Fast & Furious franchise, having directed Furious 7 back in 2015. The only problem is his availability – currently, Wan is deep into post-production on DC’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

So, it looks as though Universal may have to look elsewhere. But for now, we’ll have to wait and see.

Fast X stars Vin Diesel as Dom Toretto alongside Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Jason Momoa, and Brie Larson.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man is often fondly remembered, and even made a triumphant return recently in Spider-Man: No Way Home. But we need to talk about those web shooters…

During an interview with Variety, director Sam Raimi explained how his organic version of Spider-Man’s iconic web shooters went down with the fans.

“I don’t think that the fans thought I was the right person to direct Spider-Man in general,” he said. “And then the organic web shooters — when the fans found out I was going that way, they tried to have me removed from the picture.”

In the comic books, Peter Parker invents his own web fluid and shooters, but Raimi decided to go a very different way by making them a part of his spider-bite mutation.

Unfortunately, that didn’t go down well with the fans.

Before the film was released, there was a significant backlash to the organic web shooters, with Spider-Man fans demanding Raimi be removed from his director position.

“I was aware of it, and it wasn’t a good thing for me,” he explained. “I didn’t have a great experience of the fans.”

Thankfully, Sony didn’t bow to the pressure and Raimi got to keep his organic web shooters, even if they are a bit gross.

“People had a lot of opinions about what we should and shouldn’t do, who we should hire as the director, who we should hire to play Peter, everything else,” said former Sony boss Amy Pascal. “But it was nothing in comparison to what it’s like now.”

Where did they come from? Well, that’s all down to James Cameron…

Before Spider-Man made it to the big screen, Cameron was attached to write and direct his own version. It ultimately fell apart, but Cameron’s treatment remained… and Spider-Man writer David Koepp liked one of his many fresh ideas.

“He had some very good ideas in it,” Koepp told IGN. “I like the organic web-shooters, which some people liked and some people didn't, but that was his idea and I was happy to use it.”

Ultimately, they made it into the movie – regardless of what you think. And the two other Peters in No Way Home seemed pretty impressed… if a bit freaked out.

Want more Spider-Man action? Read about all the upcoming Spider-Man spin-offs currently in development.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Warning: Spoilers for Nope contained within.

What kind of fiendish threat could make a whole town just say, "Nope"? Thanks to a Universal presentation at CinemaCo today, we might have some clues. Director Jordan Peele took to the stage to shed a little light on the premise of Nope.

The first trailer for Nope only hinted at a fiendish force threatening our main characters. In the trailer, Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer play James and Jill Haywood, folks who own and work at a Black-run horse farm. The farm in question trains horses for Hollywood productions and things are going great until something mysterious appears in the sky above the farm. The trailer then cuts to other characters also seeing something… above them. There are also shots of people that don't seem entirely human. The poster also hinted at a potential alien threat, showing a horse and other objects floating in the night sky.

Peele addressed the many fan theories surrounding Nope on the internet. Peele confirmed today that, yep, the film is about aliens. Nope will involve some sort of alien invasion affecting those in and around the horse farm in question.

"The discovery and the surprise of it is part of the fun," Peele added in Q&A, as noted by The Hollywood Reporter. "Trailers will give you a taste, but we want to retain some of the mystery, so you can be satisfied going to the damn movie."

Nope is shot on 65mm and IMAX, so you can expect some amazing vistas of rural California, right before it's all lifted into the sky. The film's cinematographer is Hoyte van Hoytema, who previously shot Dunkirk, Tenet, Interstellar, and Her.

Like his previous films Get Out and Us, Nope was written and directed by Peele. The movie stars Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun, alongside Barbie Ferreira, Brandon Perea, and Michael Wincott. Peele is producing with Ian Cooper, his long-time partner at Monkeypaw Productions. The Universal Pictures film will debut in theaters on July 22, 2022.

Mike Williams is a freelance writer at IGN

Lucasfilm is doing its best to slowly expand the Star Wars universe in live-action and animation. The latter medium is able to do some things the former is not, on a considerably smaller budget. The Mandalorian and Ahsoka producer Dave Filoni even started out on the animation side of Lucasfilm. Current and upcoming shows consist of Galaxy of Adventures shorts, The Bad Batch, Star Wars: Visions, and the kid-focused Galactic Pals.

Now it seems there's another animated show on the horizon. The panel schedule for Star Wars Celebration Anaheim went up earlier today and as noted by Gizmodo, one panel mentioned an animated series called Tales of the Jedi. The panel description listed Filoni as an attendee, pointing to the series being another show under his purview. That schedule listing has since been scrubbed from the site.

We don't know what the series will entail. It's unlikely that it's another anime anthology series like Visions. "Jedi" is a pretty broad concept, meaning the show could take place anywhere in the Star Wars timeline. It could take place in the Old Republic, the High Republic, the Clone Wars era, or even after The Rise of Skywalker.

The name potentially points toward the show perhaps jumping around through the timeline. Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi was the title of a Dark Horse Comics series that began in 1993. It was one of the many Expanded Universe projects, telling stories involving various mythical Jedi. Many of the stories were set during the Great Sith War in the Old Republic, involving the fall of Jedi Ulic Qel-Droma, the saga of his great love Nomi Sunrider, or the evil Sith Lord Exar Kun.

The comic series was the direct inspiration for the Knights of the Old Republic video games and the subsequent comics of the same name. Despite this, their spot in canon is of a dubious nature, given Disney wiping the Expanded Universe from its ongoing story. That said, it's entirely possible that a Tales of the Jedi animated series could work like many modern Lucasfilm projects, re-canonizing the best parts of those old comics.

We won't know the full scope of Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi until Star Wars Celebration. The convention is taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center from May 26-29, 2022. We'll certainly hear about Tales of the Jedi and all the other upcoming Star Wars projects there.

If you have yet watch any of the Star Wars animated shows, you should probably get on that. Not only is The Clone Wars some of the best Star Wars storytelling around, but it's increasingly clear that characters from the animated projects are continuing to make the transition to live-action. Anakin's Padawan Ahsoka Tano appeared in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett played by Rosario Dawson, with her own upcoming Disney+ series on the way. Likewise, the Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze made the jump to live-action in the second season of The Mandalorian.

Mike Williams is a freelance writer at IGN.

The world is ready to give Ewan McGregor a hearty "Hello there!" when he returns as Obi-Wan Kenobi, as the actor is reprising his role in the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series on Disney+. The last time McGregor played Obi-Wan, he was closing out the prequel trilogy in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith way back in 2005.

That trilogy was the story of Anakin Skywalker, however. That meant that while McGregor was there swinging his lightsaber around and doing a great job of filling the shoes of Alec Guinness, there wasn't a lot for him to really do. With the upcoming eponymous series, the focus is squarely on Obi-Wan, and McGregor is happy for the change.

"It was nice to come back and to bridge that gap between me and Alec Guinness. I got as much, or more, out of playing him this time than I did in the first three movies put together," he told Total Film magazine. "That’s to do with the writing, and the people we were making the series with, and the technology, and how different everything is."

Obi-Wan Kenobi is a limited series, but McGregor's experience has been so positive that he's up for putting on those Jedi robes and wandering the dunes of Tatooine once again.

"If we were to get an opportunity to do it again, I’d be totally up for that," he admitted.

Obi-Wan Kenobi will premiere on Disney+ on May 27 with two episodes. The show is starring McGregor, alongside Hayden Christensen, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Moses Ingram, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, and Sung Kang. Deborah Chow is directing the series and Joby Harold is the showrunner, with John Williams and Natalie Holt composing the score.

Hayden Christensen has prepared hard for his own return as Darth Vader, binging all of the Star Wars animated shows as research. Christensen said revisting Anakin was "surreal," but "natural" for him, despite the intervening years. And despite the long history between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul, that Sith Lord coming back in the Disney+ series was never in the cards.

Mike Williams is a freelance writer at IGN.

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers is shaping up to be a bizarre ode to classic Disney properties, and the latest trailer is stuffed full of nostalgic references.

The new movie coming to Disney Plus stars Andy Samberg and John Mulaney as Chip and Dale, three decades after the original Rescue Rangers show was canceled. In the new trailer, we can see the chipmunks interact with tons of Disney characters from days gone by,

Beauty and the Beast's Lumière appears, as does Flounder from The Little Mermaid. You can also see the live-action version of The Lion King's Pumba, Sneezy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, a car from Pixar's Cars series, a sheep from Shaun the Sheep, and a very frightening grownup Peter Pan.

The references extend beyond characters, too, as eagle-eyed viewers can spot a Keyblade from the Kingdom Hearts series, Jimmy Neutron's iconic hair, and more. That's just the tip of the iceberg of what can be found in this trailer. See how many more characters and references you can spot by watching the video above.

The trailer shows how Chip and Dale have gone down different paths since their cartoon stardom in the 1990s. Chip got a job as an insurance agent, while Dale had CGI surgery (the cartoon equivalent of plastic surgery) and continues living in his past glory at fan conventions. When cartoon characters start going missing, Chip and Dale reunite for one more ride.

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers was revealed on Disney Plus Day 2021, and is looking a lot different than classic Chip 'n' Dale fans might expect. In a trailer released earlier this year, we first learned just how meta the new movie looks.

Along with Samberg and Mulaney, Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers stars KiKi Layne, Will Arnett, Eric Bana, Flula Borg, Dennis Haysbert, Keegan-Michael Key, Tress MacNeille, Tim Robinson, Seth Rogen, J.K. Simmons, and Chris Parnell. The movie is set to debut on Disney Plus on May 20.

For more, you can check out everything coming to Disney Plus in May 2022.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Get ready to hear from a lot of confused and angry cheaters.

Activision’s Team RICOCHET has unveiled several new ways they’re working against cheaters in a new blog post, including a rollout for the PC kernel-level anti-cheat driver for Call of Duty: Vanguard. The update will release across both Vanguard and Call of Duty: Warzone in an effort to curb players who cheat in the popular first-person shooter.

In the past, they have enacted a number of in-game mitigation techniques to help identify cheaters. Not only do these help identify their behaviors by collecting their data but it also employs ways that impede their ability to properly play the game. Today, the newest technique called cloaking has been unveiled, and it heavily affects their gameplay ability.

Cloaking stops cheating players from seeing opposing players in the game world.

"Characters, bullets, even sound from legitimate players will be undetectable to cheaters” the blog post details. On the flip side? Legitimate players can see the cheaters as they succumb to the madness of not being able to see anything going on around them."

Activision has also recognized how cheating may be impacting leaderboards across the globe in Vanguard. Going forward, if a ban is enacted against a player who has weaseled their way onto the leaderboards, their entry on the board will be deleted. This will give more room for players who play fairly.

Be sure to check out the trailer for Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone Season Three Battle Pass to see which two iconic beasts it features.

Casey David Muir-Taylor is a freelance writer at IGN.

Melissa McBride won’t be playing Carol Peletier after all in the planned Walking Dead spin-off featuring Norman Reedus , TVLine reports. Instead, what was once a Carol-Daryl spin-off will simply be a Daryl spin-off.

Universal released the following statement in response to McBride’s departure.

"Melissa McBride has given life to one of the most interesting, real, human and popular characters in ‘The Walking Dead’ Universe. Unfortunately, she is no longer able to participate in the previously announced spin-off focused on the Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier characters, which will be set and filmed in Europe this summer and premiere next year. Relocating to Europe became logistically untenable for Melissa at this time. We know fans will be disappointed by this news, but ‘The Walking Dead’ Universe continues to grow and expand in interesting ways and we very much hope to see Carol again in the near future."

Over the course of The Walking Dead’s 11 seasons, there have been a number of cast members who have exited the show. Currently, Norman Reedus and McBride, who play Daryl and Carol respectively, are the only members remaining from the show’s original season 1 cast.

The spin-off, announced in September of 2020, is one of several in the works. Besides the Carol and Daryl-centric one, a spin-off following Negan and Maggie is also in development. In it, the duo will head to the Big Apple. Besides that, an anthology series titled Tales of the Walking Dead is also heading to AMC and will premiere this summer.

If you’re disappointed in the news of McBride’s exit, you’ll be able to catch her and Reedus as they finish up the final season’s third arc when it premieres sometime in the future. In the meantime, check out our list of the best Daryl and Carol moments.

Casey David Muir-Taylor is a freelancer at IGN.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is more than 15 years now, if you can believe it, encompassing a wide array of TV shows and movies. And if Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has anything to say about it, it won't be ending anytime soon.

Feige was on-hand for Disney's presentation at Cinemacon 2022, where Marvel unveiled new footage of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness among other events. During the show, Feige said that Marvel's leadership is currently planning their first retreat in three years, which will be used to plot out the next 10 years of the MCU.

There will be plenty to discuss. The MCU is packed these days, with a range of new heroes including Natalie Portman's Mighty Thor, and a whole multiverse to explore. The MCU has also dramatically expanded into streaming, with shows like Loki and WandaVision driving the larger event movies.

It's hard to get a feel for where the MCU is headed in the next decade and change, but there's no sign of the public burning out on superheroes any time soon. And with a couple exceptions, Marvel has rarely put a foot wrong to this point.

We'll know more when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness releases on May 6. While you wait, check out how Thor: Love and Thunder can reconcile the MCU's most inconsistent character arc.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

May might just be the biggest month of 2022 for Star Wars fans on Disney+ as it will see the two-episode premiere of the long-awaited Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

Set between Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi will see the return of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan and Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader. Following the two-episode premiere, episodes will debut each Wednesday.

For a bit more Star Wars goodness, Disney Gallery: The Book of Boba Fett will help fans celebrate Star Wars Day (May the 4th Be With You!) with a look into how The Book of Boba Fett was brought to life. May 4 will also see the arrival of Moon Knight's season one finale. A week later, Moon Knight will get its own behind-the-scenes feature in Marvel Studios: Assembled - The Making of Moon Knight.

Fans of Chip 'n Dale will be happy to know that the most famous chipmunks in the world will be having a "comeback 30 years in the making" with Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. Starring John Mulaney as Chip and Andy Samberg as Dale, this hybrid live-action/CG animated action-comedy will introduce a new generation to the hilarious duo.

Sneakerella will also make its way to Disney+ on May 13 and looks to be a "high-energy, music-driven movie that puts a contemporary twist on the 'Cinderella' fairy tale." The film is set in the "avant-garde street-sneaker subculture of New York City" and stars Lexi Underwood, Kolton Stewart, John Salley, Chosen Jacobs, and more.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for a spotlight of some of the most notable May 2022 Disney+ releases, followed by the full list:

Wednesday, May 4

• Life Below Zero (S18)
• Disney Gallery: The Book of Boba Fett
• Moon Knight - Episode 6 (Finale)

Wednesday, May 11

• Just Like Me (S1, S2)
• Mira, Royal Detective (S2, 10 episodes)
• Something Bit Me! (S1)
• The Chicken Squad (S1, 5 episodes)
• The Wizard of Paws (S2)
• Marvel Studios: Assembled - The Making of Moon Knight
• The Quest

Friday, May 13

• Sneakerella

Wednesday, May 18

• Alice's Wonderland Bakery (S1, 5 episodes)
• I Cavalieri Di Castelcorvo (S1)
• Secrets Of The Zoo (S5)

Friday, May 20

• Shook
• Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers

Friday, May 27

• Bad Boys
• D. Wade: Life Unexpected
• Hubble’s Cosmic Journey
• Mission Pluto
• Obi-Wan Kenobi - 2-Episode Premiere "Part I and II"
• We Feed People

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.