The Oscars’ New Popular Film Category Is a Bad Idea
What wins Best Picture this year at the Oscars? The Best Picture, or the Best Popular Picture?
For the last several years, members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have openly fretted about the increasingly falling ratings for the Oscars telecast. For the last televised ceremony, wherein The Shape of Water won Best Picture, ratings were the lowest they have ever been, gathering a mere 26.5 million viewers, a full 20% lower than the year before. This sparked a familiar discussion among film pundits, citing the usual reasons for loss of a mass audience: For one, the ceremony, which can easily run over four hours, often seems like too much of a chore for casual film fans. What's more, the Academy – as pundits frequently mention – is out of step with a broader popular audience, often awarding Best Picture to smaller indie films like Moonlight and The Shape of Water, while failing to award broad-range pop commercial successes like, say, Wonder Woman or Star Wars. Were more popular films nominated for Best Picture, the logic goes, more people would tune into the Oscars, right?
Marvel Sets Up a New Kind of Doctor Doom
Marvel's long-awaited Fantastic Four relaunch is finally here, but it's Doctor Doom who gets the biggest makeover in the first issue.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for Fantastic Four #1!
Victor Von Doom has been on quite a whirlwind journey in recent years. First he became master of all reality in 2015's Secret Wars. Then the character resurfaced in Invincible iron Man, with a handsome new visage and a desire to do good for a change. But with his short-lived career as "The Infamous Iron Man" over, Doom seems to be reverting to a more traditional status quo.
IGN Beyond: Why Guacamelee 2 Has Us Hungry for More
BEYOND!
This week on IGN's PlayStation show Beyond, host Jonathon Dornbush – who was so excited about his Spyro pool toy he initially forgot to intro his guests — is joined by Brian Altano, Barrett Courtney, and Casey DeFritas to discuss their impressions of the first couple of hours of Guacamelee 2 and how it may be shaping up to surpass the original.
Additionally, the crew discusses new releases like Castaway Paradise, Flipping Death, this month's PlayStation Plus offerings, and Casey offers a breakdown of the Final Fantasy/Monster Hunter World crossover event content. Then, the crew dives into their lingering questions about Marvel's Spider-Man, and later IGN's John Borba joins the crew to discuss all of the big video game board games he saw at Gen Con.
Every Stephen King Easter Egg in Hulu’s Castle Rock
UPDATE 8/29: This story has been updated to include references and spoilers for Episode 1.08 - "Past Perfect."
Castle Rock isn't the first TV series based on a Stephen King story, but it's certainly the first TV series based on all of them. The new show, which airs Wednesdays on Hulu, takes place in the fictional Maine community of Castle Rock, where many of King's most horrifying stories took place, and where all of them seem to intersect.
Although Castle Rock tells an original story, the series is full of direct and indirect references to Stephen King's other stories, films, and even his real life. And while you can certainly enjoy the series without catching all of these Easter Eggs, it's a heck of a lot more fun to find those shout-outs while you're also enjoying the new plot and characters.
Child of Light on Switch Announcement Teases Child of Light 2
Child of Light 2 has been teased alongside the announcement that Child of Light: Ultimate Edition and Valiant Hearts: The Great War are headed to the Nintendo Switch later this year.
Shortly following the news of these ports by a Ubisoft blogpost, creative director Patrick Plourde tweeted out that he was "Sorry for the long silence. But we have this little thing up and running." As you can see, that "little thing" was Child of Light running on the Switch.
Update: James Gunn Might Still Have a Future with Disney and Marvel
Update: Discussions between Marvel Studios and Disney are reportedly taking place to potentially reinstate James Gunn as the director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
According to Deadline's anonymous sources, Marvel is trying to persuade Disney to rehire Gunn. Marvel reportedly believes this would be in everyone's best interest, especially after the core main Guardians cast recently released a join statement supporting Gunn.
However, bringing Gunn back is still currently considered to be a long shot but talks are ongoing, according to Deadline.
James Gunn in Demand by Studio Execs as he Works Out Disney Negotiations
Several top film producers and executives are looking to work with James Gunn, who was fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 by Walt Disney Studios late last month.
According to THR, Gunn has been approached by multiple faces at major studios. They spoke with approximately a dozen studio executives and producers who wanted to remain anonymous, due to Gunn not being allowed to engage in any offers while he works out his exit negotiations at Disney.
Deadpool 2 Easter Egg Featurette Breakdown
With Deadpool 2 now available on Digital HD, which comes with a plethora of bonus features, there is quite a bit to unpack from this release. We have already delved through the Super Duper Cut to break down all of the deleted and extended scenes, but now it’s time to take a look at another bonus feature, "Deadpool’s Lips are Sealed - Secrets and Easter Eggs".
While a lot of these Easter Eggs have already been discovered by eagle-eyed fans, there are some surprising secrets that are revealed from star Ryan Reynolds, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and director David Leitch, among others.
Aquaman Won’t Feature Other Justice League Characters
Don't expect to see Wonder Woman or Batman in the upcoming Aquaman solo film.
Speaking to EW, director James Wan revealed the DC movie won't feature other Justice League characters. The filmmaker explained he wanted Aquaman to focus on its titular character, rather than worrying about what other superheroes have been doing in the DCEU.
“I wanted to keep the story to the world of Aquaman and not have to worry about what other characters are doing in their films and how that would affect us," Wan said.
"I just thought the simplest way was to keep it clean — keep it simple and let it be an Aquaman story.”
Riot Games Comments on Accusations of Sexist Culture at League of Legends Studio
After a major expose on League of Legends developer Riot Games came out about a culture of sexism in its workplace, Riot has made an official response to allegations included in the piece.
The in-depth article, written by Cecilia D'Anastasio, comes from Kotaku. The article details various alleged instances of sexist incidents in Riot's workplace after interviewing 28 current and former employees.
These incidents include female employees regularly being passed up for leadership roles, potentially sexist hiring practices, ideas from female employees being ignored in favor of identical ideas from male employees, being shown unsolicited pictures of male genitalia by bosses and colleagues, and much, much more.