Scarlett Johansson Drops Out of Transgender Biopic
Scarlett Johansson has officially left the transgender biopic film Rub and Tug after receiving public backlash for accepting the role.
Johansson gave her statement exclusively to the LGBTQ website and magazine Out, detailing her reasons for withdrawing from the role as Dante Tex Gill, a transgender gangster who rose to prominence in the 70's and 80's.
"In light of recent ethical questions raised surrounding my casting as Dante Tex Gill, I have decided to respectfully withdraw my participation in the project," said Johansson. "Our cultural understanding of transgender people continues to advance, and I’ve learned a lot from the community since making my first statement about my casting and realize it was insensitive."
Bumblebee: Two Decepticons Unveiled
The villains for Paramount's upcoming Bumblebee standalone movie have been revealed.
Per EW, Bumblebee will be going up against two Decepticon muscle cars who are tracking the titular Otobot. Angela Bassett will be voicing one of the villains, Shatter, who takes the form of a cherry-red Plymouth Satellite.
Meanwhile, Justin Theroux will voice Dropkick, whose vehicle form is a blue AMC Javelin. The Decepticon's will also be sporting wheels instead of wings. However, there's also one more villain who flies, but the character's identity and voice actor are still being kept under wraps.
Joss Whedon Gets Victorian Sci-Fi Series at HBO
HBO has ordered a straight-to-series Victorian sci-fi show from Joss Whedon called The Nevers.
As revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, Whedon will act as writer, director, executive producer and showrunner on The Nevers, though the episode count and premiere date have yet to be determined. The show was reportedly up for grabs from a number of competing networks and services, including the streaming giant Netflix.
Black Ops 4 Blackout, Multiplayer Beta Dates Announced
Those anticipating Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 can look forward to not just a single beta before the game's launch. Activision and Treyarch today announced Black Ops 4 will have two betas, the first of which will debut as a timed PlayStation 4 exclusive on August 3.
Dubbed the Private Multiplayer Beta, this initial beta has different dates for all three platforms, including an early access date for the PC version, which will be exclusive to Activision Blizzard's Battle.net. The dates and times are as follows:
- PlayStation 4 (August 3 at 10 a.m. PT through August 6 at 10 a.m. PT)
- PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (August 10 at 10 a.m. PT through August 13 at 10 a.m. PT)
Metal Gear Solid Director Shares Concept Art for 31st Anniversary
The director of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie Jordan Vogt-Roberts is sharing 31 pieces of unseen concept art to celebrate the 31st anniversary of Hideo Kojima's landmark stealth series.
The news was revealed in a tweet by Vogt-Roberts, asking fans to follow along for more updates and "nano-machine infused-artwork."
The tweet comes packaged with a fully voice-acted Colonel Campbell codec conversation, in which the anniversary is celebrated in true Metal Gear fashion, and it is revealed that there will be one piece of art shown for the next 31 days.
Exclusive Mary and the Witch’s Flower Merch Coming to Comic-Con
Mondo will have new merchandise from the anime feature film Mary and the Witch's Flower available for sale exclusively at next week's San Diego Comic-Con.
Mary and the Witch's Flower, the debut film from Studio Ponoc, is receiving new posters, vinyl soundtracks and a T-shirt made by Mondo. Though some of the variants of the merchandise will be exclusive to SDCC, regular versions will be made available concurrently on Mondo's website.
Items available exclusively at the Mondo booth (booth #435) during SDCC include a special 18"x24" screen print poster of the film, a special version of the film's soundtrack with glow-in-the-dark vinyl discs, and an exclusive T-shirt featuring Tib the cat.
Halo-Meets-Portal Shooter Gets New Name, Still Looks Awesome
The arena FPS previously called Wormhole Wars has a new name, a new look, and the same great concept that made it so exciting before. Now called Splitgate: Arena Warfare, developer 1047 Games has a simple but rather brilliant vision: take a Halo 2 and 3-style PvP shooter and give every player a portal gun. It’s an idea that was so fun, so skillful, and so natural-feeling when I played, I immediately wondered why nobody had tried it before.
Splitgate requires you to basically rewire your brain from how you’re used to thinking in a traditional FPS. Instead of attacking enemies head-on, the bread and butter move of Splitgate is actually to shoot a portal behind your target and then ambush them. It makes every duel completely unlike other shooters, even with its clear Halo inspiration.
Fortnite: Season 5 Skins and Items Leaked
Season 5 of Fortnite kicked off this week, bringing vehicles, and a new desert biome with it to the Fortnite map. Update V5.0 rolled out yesterday but has already been datamined, revealing alleged new items, skins, and emotes that will drop during the course of the season. There are 13 skins, nine pickaxes, eight back blings, three contrails, seven gliders, and nine emotes that dataminers have discovered.
Twitter user @SiloxLeaks shared the details of the items, some of which are part of the Battlepass and some of which have yet to be released.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters New Images Provide First Look at Atomic Breath
It looks like Godzilla will be unleashing one of his most powerful attacks in the upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Per EW, a new image from the sequel has been released and it provides a decent look at Godzilla's blue atomic breath. Check out the striking image below.
Godzilla: King of Monsters, via EW
Destiny 2 Getting a New PvP Mode
Destiny 2 is getting a new competitive PvP mode as part of its upcoming Forsaken DLC.
According to the latest issue of Game Informer, the new mode is named Breakthrough, a Crucible mode challenges players to capture points on the map.
Breakthrough has two different phases. In the first phase, two teams of four race to capture a single point called the Breaker. In the second phase, the team that captured the Breaker will go on the attack to capture the other team's Vault, a new point on the map. Naturally, the team that does not capture the Breaker is tasked with defending their Vault from the attacking team in this second phase.
The mode has multiple rounds, with the team that either successfully captures or successfully defends each round's Vault being awarded a point. It's not clear at this time how many rounds each match will have.