Though Amazon is already working on its own The Lord of the Rings series, many J.R.R. Tolkien fans encountered an unseen television adaptation of the author's fantasy novels earlier this year. A Soviet-produced TV movie based on The Lord of the Rings has reemerged online, thirty years after its original air date. Based on Tolkien's fantasy novel, Khraniteli, or The Protectors, was a two-part, two-hour-long program that aired in 1991, mere months before the Soviet Union's collapse. After spending decades unavailable to the public, Producer 5TV, formerly known as Leningrad TV, posted a copy of the movie online in March. Since then, Khraniteli has accrued 2.3 million views on YouTube as more Tolkien fans discover the odd and endearing adaptation. In Variety's deep dive on the project's resurgence, 89-year-old actor Georgiy Shtil recounted his recent surge in popularity after Khraniteli became available online. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/24/the-lord-of-the-rings-gollum-teaser-trailer"] "Friends started calling me with compliments, but at first I couldn’t even recall what they were talking about,” Shtil said. “I did many films at the time that never got to see the light of day… It was a very, very hard time when we were making the movie; people were more focused on the changes in government than any show.” Though the production had a limited budget, Khraniteli is still jam-packed with effects work and costuming to match the high fantasy of Tolkien's source material. Sixty-eight-year-old actor Sergey Shelgunov, who played Merry Brandybuck in the film, explained the project's high aesthetic ambitions, despite an estimated shooting schedule of "about nine hours over the span of less than a week." “We used everything that the TV station had to offer at the time. The backdrops, the cheap plastic props, the wigs and make-up, everything was just what we could find there for free,” Shelgunov said. "[Director Natalya 'Natasha' Serebryakova] wanted to create a sort of mysterious atmosphere, so she’d put some candles in the foreground and try to shoot through them for a kind of blur effect... The film is 100% the result of her struggles, working 30 years ago without any money. Frankly, it’s a huge win that it looks as good as it does.” Shelgunov also played Gollum in his theater company's live productions of The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, an adaptation of The Hobbit which Leningrad TV adapted into a TV movie in 1985. Without a properly translated version of Tolkien's novel available to them, Shelgunov and his collaborators were given plenty of artistic license in their conception of the character. "There wasn’t a clear idea of what kind of creature he was. The director decided he should just look strange,” Shelgunov said. “We didn’t know Gollum’s gender, so we made him something between girl and boy — a bit of both... I tried to understand his psychology and what kind of person he is. I tried to depict his deep loneliness." Shtil also voiced his love of Peter Jackson's blockbuster adaptation of The Lord of The Rings, though he retained that Khraniteli has its own unique charms. "Ours has professional ballerinas, and a lot of songs and poems. The foreign movie doesn’t have that," Shtil said. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=amazons-the-lord-of-the-rings-cast-and-characters-gallery&captions=true"] In other Lord of the Rings news, Amazon recently hired The Witcher director Charlotte Brändström to helm episodes of the studio's upcoming Middle-earth television show. The studio intends for the mega-budget production to work for a "giant, global audience." Meanwhile, actors involved in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy have also been talkative lately. Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, who played Merry and Pippin respectively, are launching a podcast themed around their experience making all three films. A trio of actors also recently revealed the origin of The Two Towers' infamous line "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!" [poilib element="accentDivider"] J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

Though Amazon is already working on its own The Lord of the Rings series, many J.R.R. Tolkien fans encountered an unseen television adaptation of the author's fantasy novels earlier this year. A Soviet-produced TV movie based on The Lord of the Rings has reemerged online, thirty years after its original air date. Based on Tolkien's fantasy novel, Khraniteli, or The Protectors, was a two-part, two-hour-long program that aired in 1991, mere months before the Soviet Union's collapse. After spending decades unavailable to the public, Producer 5TV, formerly known as Leningrad TV, posted a copy of the movie online in March. Since then, Khraniteli has accrued 2.3 million views on YouTube as more Tolkien fans discover the odd and endearing adaptation. In Variety's deep dive on the project's resurgence, 89-year-old actor Georgiy Shtil recounted his recent surge in popularity after Khraniteli became available online. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/24/the-lord-of-the-rings-gollum-teaser-trailer"] "Friends started calling me with compliments, but at first I couldn’t even recall what they were talking about,” Shtil said. “I did many films at the time that never got to see the light of day… It was a very, very hard time when we were making the movie; people were more focused on the changes in government than any show.” Though the production had a limited budget, Khraniteli is still jam-packed with effects work and costuming to match the high fantasy of Tolkien's source material. Sixty-eight-year-old actor Sergey Shelgunov, who played Merry Brandybuck in the film, explained the project's high aesthetic ambitions, despite an estimated shooting schedule of "about nine hours over the span of less than a week." “We used everything that the TV station had to offer at the time. The backdrops, the cheap plastic props, the wigs and make-up, everything was just what we could find there for free,” Shelgunov said. "[Director Natalya 'Natasha' Serebryakova] wanted to create a sort of mysterious atmosphere, so she’d put some candles in the foreground and try to shoot through them for a kind of blur effect... The film is 100% the result of her struggles, working 30 years ago without any money. Frankly, it’s a huge win that it looks as good as it does.” Shelgunov also played Gollum in his theater company's live productions of The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, an adaptation of The Hobbit which Leningrad TV adapted into a TV movie in 1985. Without a properly translated version of Tolkien's novel available to them, Shelgunov and his collaborators were given plenty of artistic license in their conception of the character. "There wasn’t a clear idea of what kind of creature he was. The director decided he should just look strange,” Shelgunov said. “We didn’t know Gollum’s gender, so we made him something between girl and boy — a bit of both... I tried to understand his psychology and what kind of person he is. I tried to depict his deep loneliness." Shtil also voiced his love of Peter Jackson's blockbuster adaptation of The Lord of The Rings, though he retained that Khraniteli has its own unique charms. "Ours has professional ballerinas, and a lot of songs and poems. The foreign movie doesn’t have that," Shtil said. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=amazons-the-lord-of-the-rings-cast-and-characters-gallery&captions=true"] In other Lord of the Rings news, Amazon recently hired The Witcher director Charlotte Brändström to helm episodes of the studio's upcoming Middle-earth television show. The studio intends for the mega-budget production to work for a "giant, global audience." Meanwhile, actors involved in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy have also been talkative lately. Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, who played Merry and Pippin respectively, are launching a podcast themed around their experience making all three films. A trio of actors also recently revealed the origin of The Two Towers' infamous line "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!" [poilib element="accentDivider"] J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

If you hoped EA and Xbox’s recent partnership on Game Pass meant you might be able to play Mass Effect Legendary Edition on the subscription service, we have some bad news. An EA community manager has confirmed that the only subscription service it's available on is EA Play Pro.

If you’re a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber, you’ve instead automatically got a basic EA Play membership, which gets you a 10% discount on games in addition to access to the EA Play game library. You can of course still purchase Mass Effect Legendary Edition on the usual digital or retail storefronts.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/13/mass-effect-legendary-edition-the-10-biggest-changes"]

Keep in mind that EA Play Pro is also a PC-exclusive membership, so if you’ve only got consoles around the house, you’re similarly out of luck. EA Play Pro is available for $15 a month, which gets you access to all the latest EA PC games at launch.

Still, it’s possible that Mass Effect Legendary Edition may come to Game Pass in the future. FIFA 21 similarly debuted on EA Play Pro, but landed on Game Pass a mere six months later. That’ll depend entirely on EA’s plans for the remastered trilogy, though.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/13/mass-effect-legendary-edition-the-first-21-minutes-of-gameplay-4k-60fps"]

“[Mass Effect Legendary Edition coming to Game Pass is] certainly a possibility, though I'm not aware of any current plans or a timeframe for anything beyond EA Play Pro access at this point,” EA said.

Still on the fence about whether or not to pick up the Mass Effect remaster? You might have to stay there a little while longer for IGN’s review. EA provided review codes on Monday, so reviews editor Dan Stapleton is still cracking through the massive RPG franchise, just not at the expense of his *checks notes* family? You can check out his very, very early off-the-cuff impressions in the link above.

In the meantime, check out the 10 biggest changes in Mass Effect Legendary Edition, or what comes in each pre-order edition. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN.

If you hoped EA and Xbox’s recent partnership on Game Pass meant you might be able to play Mass Effect Legendary Edition on the subscription service, we have some bad news. An EA community manager has confirmed that the only subscription service it's available on is EA Play Pro.

If you’re a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber, you’ve instead automatically got a basic EA Play membership, which gets you a 10% discount on games in addition to access to the EA Play game library. You can of course still purchase Mass Effect Legendary Edition on the usual digital or retail storefronts.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/13/mass-effect-legendary-edition-the-10-biggest-changes"]

Keep in mind that EA Play Pro is also a PC-exclusive membership, so if you’ve only got consoles around the house, you’re similarly out of luck. EA Play Pro is available for $15 a month, which gets you access to all the latest EA PC games at launch.

Still, it’s possible that Mass Effect Legendary Edition may come to Game Pass in the future. FIFA 21 similarly debuted on EA Play Pro, but landed on Game Pass a mere six months later. That’ll depend entirely on EA’s plans for the remastered trilogy, though.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/13/mass-effect-legendary-edition-the-first-21-minutes-of-gameplay-4k-60fps"]

“[Mass Effect Legendary Edition coming to Game Pass is] certainly a possibility, though I'm not aware of any current plans or a timeframe for anything beyond EA Play Pro access at this point,” EA said.

Still on the fence about whether or not to pick up the Mass Effect remaster? You might have to stay there a little while longer for IGN’s review. EA provided review codes on Monday, so reviews editor Dan Stapleton is still cracking through the massive RPG franchise, just not at the expense of his *checks notes* family? You can check out his very, very early off-the-cuff impressions in the link above.

In the meantime, check out the 10 biggest changes in Mass Effect Legendary Edition, or what comes in each pre-order edition. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will be available exclusively in theaters for 45 days, Disney announced during today's earning call. This means that it won't be getting the same simultaneous release that many other movies, from Black Widow to Cruella, will be getting. Instead, Shang-Chi will be doing things the old-fashioned way, by going with a theatrical release first. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/04/20/shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings-trailer-breakdown"] Disney called it a sign of returning confidence in attending movie theaters, which have been hit hard for by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. Disney and other distributors have responded to the pandemic by releasing many of their films, such as Pixar's Luca, exclusively on platforms like Disney Plus. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is slated for release on September 3.

Disney added just a few more million subscribers to Disney+ over the last couple of months, totaling just over 103 million, which executives will likely have to address on the company's earnings call later today.

As people in the United States start to venture out again, questions about what's next for Disney are likely to come up on the call. Disney is preparing for movies to be released in theaters again (Cruella, Black Widow), more attendees at parks (Disneyand is open and Avengers Campus is just about ready to debut), and sports are basically back (good news for ESPN). New shows like WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier are keeping people's attention — but are they still driving subscriber growth? Are the rainclouds that hovered over nearly every single one of Disney’s sectors are beginning to lift, or is it still too early to tell?

"We’re pleased to see more encouraging signs of recovery across our businesses, and we remain focused on ramping up our operations while also fueling long-term growth for the company,” Bob Chapek, CEO of Disney said in a press release. “This is clearly reflected in the reopening of our theme parks and resorts, increased production at our studios, the continued success of our streaming services, and the expansion of our unrivaled portfolio of multiyear sports rights deals for ESPN and ESPN+."

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/04/08/avengers-campus-opening-date-announcement-trailer"]

The most magical place on Earth

There’s no question that Disney has faced a tough year. While some of its competitors were able to lean on the strengths of their parent companies (both WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal are subsidiaries of AT&T and Comcast respectively, which saw broadband and mobile usage increase over the pandemic), Disney couldn't. Two of the company’s top revenue drivers, Parks and Studios, took the biggest hit. Executives pointed to Disney+’s exponential growth as a highlight, and while there’s no question the speed of scaling is impressive, streaming isn’t yet a super profitable business.

Everything comes back to theme parks. In pre-pandemic times, the parks were Disney’s biggest revenue driver. By Disney’s third fiscal quarter in 2020 (ending in late June 2020), Disney saw its Parks revenue drop by 85 percent. Disney only recorded $983 million for the quarter compared to $6.58 billion the year before. By October 2020, as more people started to venture out to parks (including Disney World in Florida) albeit within a limited capacity, revenue grew slightly. Disney brought in $2.5 billion, but that was still a 61% drop from the year before, which saw $6.66 billion in revenue.

As of this quarter, Disney is seeing some return to life. The company recorded $3.2 billion in parks revenue. Still down from the same time period last year, but better than recent quarters.

For Disney executives, an increase is an increase. As vaccination rates continue to rise, and with new incentives for families and fans to visit parks (including Avengers Campus), executives are pointing toward the future for even stronger revenue growth. It may still be some time before Disney is hitting pre-pandemic numbers at its parks as capacity restrictions and general consumer hesitance is still in place, but as cases decline and as vaccination rates climb, Parks may once again become a big form of revenue.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/10/11/disneys-jungle-cruise-official-trailer"]

Figuring out how to get more people into the parks comes back to what Disney does best — content. Jungle Cruise, for example, is a live-action movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt based on a theme park ride of the same name. Much like Pirates of the Caribbean, part of developing a film or series based on a theme park ride is encouraging fans to then purchase tickets to the park and enjoy said ride.

Content is king

On that note, Disney executives are going to have to answer questions about how they’re approaching theatrical exclusives versus hybrid releases. Just before today’s earnings, Dwayne Johnson confirmed Jungle Cruise would hit theaters and Disney+ as a Premier Access title (meaning it’ll cost subscribers an extra $30) on the same day. This is the same strategy Disney has used with Mulan, Raya and the Last Dragon, Cruella, and Black Widow.

Previously, CEO Bob Chapek referred to the decision to release some films through a hybrid distribution model as dependent on “what our slate of titles are and whether we think that we need to put something on the service for those particular guests or whether this is something that we could use as another data point in our exploration of Premier Access same date with theatrical.” Or, more simply, movies that Disney executives think people will pay for on Disney+ instead of using a “free” film to entice more subscribers to sign up, like Soul.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/03/09/black-widow-official-final-trailer"]

What does this mean for big tentpole titles down the road like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings? The theatrical business is still crucial to Disney; arguably, it is the most crucial for Disney out of all the studios. Disney films are also the most crucial for theatrical exhibitors like AMC, making up more than 50% of all global box office revenue in 2019. How are executives thinking about streaming exclusives, hybrids, and theatrical only movies going forward?

This is especially true when the average revenue per user (ARPU) on the Disney+ side is $3.99, down from $5.63 the year before.

It's not all doom and gloom. For the last year, Disney has proven its streaming strategy is working. More subscribers are being added every quarter, Disney has a robust line of new shows (including several from Marvel and Star Wars) hitting Disney+ throughout the year. Disney is also making deals to make ESPN+ and Hulu more appealing to customers, including bringing FX titles to Hulu and looking out for more sport leagues licensing opportunities to satiate cord cutters desires.

But if Disney+ growth is beginning to slow, there are questions that need to be answered. Executives just need to help analysts, investors, and fans understand how all of Disney's various sections fit together together as life approaches some form of normalcy again. Hopefully, many of these questions will be answered during today's call.

Auto-save has been a hot topic of conversation among Returnal players since its release last month. Housemarque's roguelite is excellent, but it's also very hard, and runs can last for more than two hours. That's a long time to anchor yourself to your PS5. Housemarque says it's heard the feedback from fans, but that implementing a save feature is easier said than done. "We understand that there are some systems in place that are currently a hindering factor," Housemarque marketing director Mikael Havari told Axios today. Havari's comments dampen hopes of a solution that would enable players to quit without fear of losing their progress. While other roguelites like Hades includes a quicksave solution that retains the tension of permadeath, it's clearly not so easy to implement such a feature in Returnal. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/04/29/returnal-review"] Other developers have sounded off on this subject. "I often see players exclaim how easy it is to add something, especially if other games have it," Spelunky designer Derek Yu told Vice Games last week, "but every team and game has different priorities and nothing is really as trivial as it seems from the outside." As one of the first so-called "AAA roguelites," Returnal stands out for its beautiful visuals, arcade mechanics, and storytelling features. While its progression revolves around discrete "chambers," they tend to flow more smoothly than in other roguelites, where you pass through a door to enter the next room. This is in part because Roguelite is meant to highlight the lack of load times on the PS5. (https://www.ign.com/videos/how-returnal-shows-the-ps5s-power-performance-review) Still, difficult as it is, Havari says Housemarque is looking for a solution. "But currently, we just don't know exactly what it is. So it's very difficult to announce anything, because I think there's a lot of different people looking for different things." Looks like you'll have to keep your PS5 in rest mode a little longer. If you're impatient, here's info on Returnal's main ending and its true ending. You can also read our Returnal review right here. Returnal is available now on PS5.

A paralyzed man is using his mind to create real-time sentences on a screen. The man's name is unknown, but he's referred to as T5 by the team of researchers from Stanford University studying his brain and according to a CNN report, he's able to write sentences on a screen in real-time by visualizing the movement required to write letters. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-25-best-sci-fi-movies&captions=true"] If he wants to write "yes," he must visualize himself writing the y, the e, and the s. T5 was 65 years old when the study was performed and he was paralyzed from the neck down for nearly a decade after sustaining a spinal cord injury in 2007, according to CNN. The Stanford University team implanted two sensors into the left side of T5's brain and asked him to imagine writing on paper with a pen. The implanted sensors, which were comprised of 4-millimeter by 4-millimeter electrodes, then translated the brain activity happening as a result of T5 trying to imagine writing into words on a screen. It did all of this in real-time, too. According to CNN, T5 "was able to communicate by text at speeds rivaling those achieved by his able-bodied peers texting on a smartphone." More specifically, T5 was able write 18 words per minute, which is more than double the previous for someone typing with a brain interface like this, according to the team's Nature journal published about the study, as noted by CNN. The team says that on average, an able-bodied person types about 23 words per minute on a smartphone. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2017/03/28/elon-musk-wants-to-put-a-chip-in-your-brain-ign-daily-fix"] Stanford professor, Jaimie Henderson, who is one of the people behind the study, told CNN that this "new development could be life changing for those who have suffered devastating injuries like brain stem stroke" and more. The technology could allow anyone currently paralyzed to write using just their brain activity and while that's exciting for a number of reasons, the team told CNN that there's a lot of work to be done before this technology is available to the mass public. They said it will probably take years, but hopefully not decades, for that time to come. For more about brain interfaces, read about how Elon Musk's brain company, Neuralink, plans to make a cyborg monkey play "mind pong" and then read about how one of the co-founders of Neuralink says they could build a Jurassic Park if they wanted to. Check out IGN's list of the top 25 best Sci Fi movies after that. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes. 

It’s no secret that actor Dave Bautista really, really wants to play Marcus Fenix in a Gears of War movie, but it may not be entirely clear just how bad he wants it. In an interview with Collider, Bautista says that he turned down an offer from Universal to play a role in a Fast & The Furious movie in order to promote a Gears of War adaptation.

"I don’t make any pretense about it,” Bautista said. “I had a chance to get a meeting at WB, they were talking to me about this and that and I said 'hey, let’s talk about Bane.' That happened to me one other time in my career. They wanted to talk to me about Fast and the Furious, and I said 'I’m not interested, let’s talk about [Gears of War character] Marcus Fenix.’”

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/09/08/dave-bautista-responds-to-ign-comments"]

Bautista later added that he thinks Universal was “a little put off,” but that he didn’t regret taking his shot.

“I don’t mean to offend anybody,” Bautista said. “I’m not putting down anything else, I’m just saying [Gears] is way more interesting to me. I don’t want to pretend like I’m actually interested in something I’m not when there’s something I’m actually really excited about that you guys have under control. ‘Would you consider me for that?’ I don’t think there’s any harm in that. I’m not trying to step on anybody else’s toes, I’m just saying like this is what I love and I’m seriously passionate about this. ‘I can do a good job for you guys on this.’”

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/04/14/fast-furious-9-michelle-rodriguez-and-john-cena-on-giant-magnets-and-flying-cars"]

The Gears of War movie has wallowed in development hell since 2007, with writers coming and going from the project until ownership transferred over to Universal. Bautista has lobbied for the position of the COG soldier Marcus Fenix for so long that the actor was actually added to Gears 5 as a playable multiplayer character.

While the Gears of War movie shows no recent signs of life, it can’t be understated that turning down a Fast & The Furious job simply to badger Universal again is no small decision. The Fate of the Furious surpassed $1 billion at the box office as of mid-2017, and F9 stars one of Bautista’s old WWE coworkers John Cena in a starring role as the brother of Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto. [poilib element="accentDivider"]

Kathryn Hahn is jumping from one mystery into another as the WandaVision actress is the latest star to join the cast of Knives Out 2. This was first reported by Deadline. As with the other cast members — which now includes Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, and Janelle Monáe — Hahn's role is being kept a secret. The only character whose identity we know is Daniel Craig's who will return as gentleman detective Benoit Blanc. Rian Johnson is set to return as writer and director for the Knives Out sequel for Netflix. The streaming service paid over $400 million for the rights to the next two Knives Out movies, meaning there will be another one after this. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/31/netflix-purchases-knives-out-sequels-for-450-million-ign-news"] Hahn is a critically-acclaimed actress but many will recognize her as Agatha from Disney Plus' WandaVision MCU series. While we won't divulge spoilers here, Hahn's character in WandaVision was more than she appears at first, and that could be the same case for her character in Knives Out 2. Johnson has said a Knives Out sequel will be focused on a new mystery with new characters, so don't expect any of the actors from the first film to appear again. This includes stars from the first Knives Out like Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=marvel-cinematic-universe-every-upcoming-movie-and-tv-show&captions=true"]

As the cast for Knives Out 2 continues to grow, production is scheduled to begin filming this summer in Greece. Check out IGN's full WandaVision review (mostly spoiler-free) for our thoughts on the last mystery Hahn found herself in.

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Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor.

(Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for IFP)