Shazam 2 director David F. Sandberg has shared a behind-the-scenes photo to celebrate crossing the finish line on the upcoming DC sequel.

Sandberg declared Shazam! Fury of the Gods is officially in the can by sharing a sneak peek of Zachary Levi's titular character in action. "Finished! Now for a little time off," the filmmaker tweeted alongside an image of Billy Batson suited up as his super-powered alter-ego, bearing a magical staff in the middle of a stadium illuminated by a lightning bolt.

Finished! Now for a little time off. #ShazamMovie March 17 pic.twitter.com/ocK9kYXTzD

— David F. Sandberg (@ponysmasher) October 31, 2022

The movie will see the Shazam family (established at the end of the first film) balancing their normal lives with being superheroes before two goddesses – Helen Mirren's Hespera and Lucy Liu's Kalypso – visit the world and stir up some trouble. As such, Shazam 2 is expected to feature more "adult stakes and adult issues" than the kid-friendly original.

Fans will have to wait a little while longer to see how it all plays out in the Shazam sequel, as Warner Bros. Discovery recently pushed back the movie's release date, shifting it from its former December spot to March 17, 2023. Fury of the Gods will therefore arrive several months after spin-off Black Adam, which debuted on the big screen in October.

Despite being comic book nemeses, it doesn't look like Shazam and Black Adam will be crossing paths any time soon. Sandberg revealed earlier this year that there hadn't been any conversations about pitting Zachary Levi's Shazam against Dwayne Johnson's Black Adam, but the latter might end up having his fists full with the return of Henry Cavill's Superman.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Sony has shipped more than 25 million PlayStation 5 consoles to date as the company has significantly stepped up production.

Revealed during its latest earnings results, Sony sold a further 3.3 million PS5s in the three month period leading up to September 30, equalling the amount it shifted during the same period in 2021.

Sony has therefore sold around 5.7 million PS5s since the beginning of this financial year (April 2022), leaving the company in somewhat of an uphill battle if it's to reach its target of selling 18 million consoles by March 2023.

According to Sony’s executive deputy president and CFO Hiroki Totoki, however, the 18 million target is still achievable as Sony has exceeded its own expectations by fabricating 6.5 million PS5s during the Q2 period alone.

"We recognize that demand from customers for the PS5 continues to be strong as the actual sales situation at retail stores in the U.S. is such that, in September, it took an average of 17.5 hours to sell out of 100 thousand units after their arrival," Sony's earnings presentation reads.

"To meet this strong demand, we will do our utmost to bring forward supply into the year-end holiday selling season and aim to exceed our financial year 2022 forecast of 18 million units."

The crippling semiconductor chip shortage seriously hamstrung the creation of new PS5 consoles but this didn't stop the PS5 from surpassing 20 million units sold as of June, at which point Sony executive Veronica Rogers announced that the company was "planning on a significant ramp-up in PS5 production this year".

Totoki also noted that the PS5 price increase hadn’t significantly dampened demand for the console, but that this would be monitored moving forward. During this time, PlayStation hardware sales amounted to ¥179.2 billion (around $1.2 billion), up from ¥160.6 billion (around $1.09 billion) from Q2 2021.

On the software side of things PlayStation users bought a total of 62.5 million games across all platforms, 63% of which were digital downloads and 6.7 million of which were first party titles. The number of games sold is down significantly from Q2 2021, yet amounted to a revenue of around ¥370 billion (around $2.5 billion) - up from the ¥343 billion (around $2.3 million) from Q2 2021.

It was also revealed that God of War (2018) has now sold 23 million copies to date over all platforms, with Sony saying that it expects the sequel, God of War Ragnarok to do similarly well.

Overall sales for the gaming division were up 12% to ¥720.7 billion (around $4.9 billion) over the same period in 2021, but the operating income - which is the company’s profit once costs and expenses are taken into account - slumped significantly from ¥82.7 billion (around $562 million) in Q2 2021 to ¥42.1 billion ($286 million) in Q2 2022.

This reduction has been attributed to a range of factors including an increase in the cost of game development and decreases in sales from non-first party games relative to previous years. The figures also take into account money spent on acquisitions including Bungie, which was bought by Sony back in July for $3.7 billion.

Anthony Wood is a freelance science writer for IGN.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever gives Namor the Sub-Mariner two different pronunciations of his name, but for a very specific reason.

During an interview with Phase Zero, producer Nate Moore revealed it’s all to do with the character’s heritage. “There is certainly a way that a Spanish speaker, or even a Mayan speaker, would say Nämor, versus a way that an English speaker, or somebody who is a little more Western in slant, might say Nāmor,” he explained.

"We thought that was just interesting. I mean, it's a reality that people face, and it felt more genuine than having everybody pronounce it correctly, to be quite honest.”

Namor makes his MCU debut in Wakanda Forever played by Mexican-born actor Tenoch Huerta. Instead of hailing from Atlantis like the comic books, however, the classic Marvel superhero will instead be the ruler of Talocan – an underwater city inspired by Aztec and Mayan culture. Given the actor’s heritage, this change makes a lot of sense, and so does the mispronunciation of his name.

“Nämor obviously was given that name by someone in the film,” said Moore. “So, it's not even something that is from him.”

Essentially, it sounds as though “Nāmor” is the way it should be pronounced, with other characters instead mispronouncing it as “Nämor”. Still, if you want to know exactly how to pronounce Namor, you better take it from the man himself.

He made a pretty serious entrance in the recent Wakanda Forever trailer that doesn't appear to go well for the film's heroes. Often described as Marvel’s “first mutant” in the comic books, it’s fitting that Namor is likely one of the very first mutants to appear in the MCU.

We've also seen Patrick Stewart recently reprised his role as Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, while Ms. Marvel also teased the prospect of mutants.

Want to read more about Black Panther 2? Check out Huerta’s admission that he couldn’t swim before Wakanda Forever and find out why Namor is a villain in the upcoming sequel.

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

Peacock has announced a straight-to-series order for a Friday the 13th prequel, Crystal Lake, with Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller at the helm.

In the reveal from Peacock, Fuller is listed as the writer, showrunner, and executive producer of the new Friday the 13th series. For now, more details on the prequel are slim, but Fuller is accompanied by executive producers A24, Marc Toberoff, Victor Miller, and Rob Barsamian.

“Friday the 13th is one of the most iconic horror franchises in movie history and we were dying to revisit this story with our upcoming drama series Crystal Lake,” said Susan Rovner, Chairman, Entertainment Content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “We can’t wait to get to work with Bryan Fuller, a gifted, visionary creator who I’ve had the pleasure of being a longtime friend and collaborator, along with our incredible partners at A24, in this updated version for Peacock that will thrill long-standing fans of the franchise.”

Friday the 13th isn't the first classic series Fuller has worked on, with writing credits on Star Trek and Carrie. Most notably, Fuller was also the NBC Hannibal series developer, writer, and executive producer. IGN praised all three seasons, and called its finale "a terrific culmination to the deliciously complicated Hannibal/Will dynamic."

“I discovered Friday the 13th in the pages of Famous Monsters magazine when I was 10 years old and I have been thinking about this story ever since," said Fuller. "When it comes to horror, A24 raises the bar and pushes the envelope and I’m thrilled to be exploring the camp grounds of Crystal Lake under their banner. And Susan Rovner is simply the best at what she does. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be working with her again."

It's been a while since the iconic slasher saw even a film entry, with the last movie, simply titled Friday the 13th, released back in 2009. Since then, Jason has kept up in playable appearances, like in Friday the 13th: The Game. The asymmetrical horror game dropped its dedicated server support years ago, but you can still celebrate the scary season with peer-to-peer matches.

As for more information on the state of streaming, be sure to also check out IGN's coverage on Peacock.

Andrea Shearon is a freelance news writer at IGN covering games and entertainment. Find her on Twitter (@Maajora) chatting about FFXIV and other RPGs.

Marvel has seemingly found its Wonder Man.

Deadline reports Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is in talks to play Simon Williams/Wonder Man in the upcoming Disney+ series.

DC fans will recognize Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta from the Aquaman films, and as Cal Abar in HBO's Watchmen. The actor made headlines last month for calling his role on Aquaman "clown work", saying he likes to balance comic book appearances with more serious films. The actor has also appeared in The Trial of the Chicago 7 and as Morpheus in The Matrix Resurrections.

Wonder Man was created in the 1980s and is a key member of the West Coast Avengers. His ties to Wanda and Vision make him an interesting character to introduce, especially with the Vision Quest spinoff in the works.

Abdul-Mateen II will join Ben Kingsley in Wonder Man, who will reprise his role as struggling actor/faux-Mandarin Trevor Slattery. Reports claim that Kingsley's character "will play a major role" in Wonder Man, which is set to have a comedic tone.

Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton will serve as executive producer for the upcoming Wonder Man series on Disney+, with Andrew Guest on board as head writer. Cretton is a big part of the MCU's future plans, as the filmmaker will also direct Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and a Shang-Chi sequel.

We don't yet know when Wonder Man will hit Disney+. For now, MCU fans are looking forward to November's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which just got its first trailer.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Apple TV+ has revealed a handful of stars joining the cast of Severance Season 2, including Game of Thrones' Gwendoline Christie, Bob Balaban, and more.

In addition to returning cast members like Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, and others, Severance is adding eight new actors into the mix.

The new cast additions are listed below:

• Bob Balaban (The Chair, The Politician, The French Dispatch, Isle of Dogs)
• Robby Benson (Beauty and The Beast, One To One)
• Stefano Carannante (Mirabilia)
• Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones, The Sandman, Wednesday)
• John Noble (Fringe, Elementary, The Lord of the Rings films)
• Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The Tourist, Trapped, The Missing)
• Alia Shawkat (Search Party, Being the Ricardos, The Old Man)
• Merritt Wever (Godless, Unbelievable, Nurse Jackie)

Director Ben Stiller announced that they are back on set for Severance Season 2, with Apple TV+ also sharing a first look at star Adam Scott from the set. Stiller joked, "Though we don't know how long we've been gone or who we are outside, we are told people enjoy the show and we couldn't be happier. Praise Kier!”

Severance follows Scott's Mark Scout as he leads a team at Lumon Industries, where employees have undergone a "severance procedure" that separates their work and personal lives. Severance is helmed by creator and writer Dan Erickson and director and executive producer Ben Stiller, and the show is produced by Fifth Season.

In our review of Season 1's premiere, we said "the excellent cast, eerie visuals, and offputting score make every moment of the first two episodes feel worth the ride."

For more on Severance, read why the creator stopped reading Reddit theories about the show, or get ready for Season 2 with IGN's Severance ending explained.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

NASA has greenlit a mission to explore the metal-heavy asteroid Psyche, which could represent the exposed core of a long-dead planet. The survival of the mission had previously been called into question following technical issues that forced it to miss its 2022 launch window.

In 1852 the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis discovered a roaming heavenly body traversing the night sky, which he named for the Greek goddess of the soul, Psyche.

Later telescope observations revealed that Psyche was in fact a 140-mile (226 km)-wide asteroid with a high metal content, that orbited in the main asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Psyche’s metal-heavy makeup — which accounts for somewhere between 30 - 60 percent of its total mass — set it apart from the rest of the million-plus asteroids that are known to roam our solar system. Many astronomers now believe that the strange body may be the exposed nickel-iron core of an ancient primordial planet, the outer layers of which were blasted off during a series of ancient collisions with other young planetoids.

If this were to be the case, Psyche would represent a unique opportunity to explore the core of a world born in the chaotic environment that was thought to prevail in the space around our young star billions of years ago.

Ordinarily, it would be impossible to make direct observations of a planet’s core. Earth’s metal-dominated heart, for example, is locked away some 3,000 km (1,800 miles) below the surface in a phenomenally high-pressure environment, which has a temperature of around 5,000°C (9,000°F). These are not ideal conditions for scientific study.

Therefore, despite the fact that it is orbiting the Sun in the hostile environment of interplanetary space, Psyche’s exposed core seems almost too good to be true. By observing the planetary remnant, astronomers could gain insights into the formation of the mighty planets of the solar system, including Earth and the multitude of distant exoplanets that have been discovered to date.

In 2017, NASA announced its intention to send an uncrewed probe to rendezvous with and explore the alien world. The spacecraft will be powered by two solar panels — which together give the probe an impressive wingspan of 81 ft (25 meters).

Alongside running the suite of scientific instruments mounted aboard the probe, the electricity generated by the panels will also be used to convert xenon gas into xenon ions, which can then be fired out of the rear of the spacecraft to provide thrust.

The Psyche mission is currently progressing through rigorous testing prior to its eventual launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

However, the road to launch has been anything but smooth. Psyche missed its initial 2022 launch date thanks to a series of technical setbacks, including issues with the probe’s flight control software. These problems were so severe that both an internal review and an independent probe were established to examine the technical issues surrounding the mission and to see whether it was still viable.

The findings of the independent review are still being finalized and will be made available to the public at a later date.

However, on Oct. 10, NASA announced that the mission would not be scrapped after all and that instead, the agency was aiming to launch the robotic spacecraft as soon as Oct. 10 next year. The mission has a lifetime budget of $985 million US dollars, of which over $717 million has already been spent.

If all goes well during the October 2023 launch, the lonely probe will travel through interplanetary space for around three years before using the gravity of Mars to radically alter its trajectory in 2026. Assuming this is a success, mission operators expect the probe to rendezvous with the asteroid Psyche in August 2029.

“I appreciate the hard work of the independent review board and the JPL-led team toward mission success,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, the Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The lessons learned from Psyche will be implemented across our entire mission portfolio. I am excited about the science insights Psyche will provide during its lifetime and its promise to contribute to our understanding of our own planet’s core.”

Stay tuned to IGN’s Science page to stay up to date with the weird and wonderful world of science.

Anthony Wood is a freelance science writer for IGN

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ./Space Systems Loral/Peter Rubin

Sony Pictures VR officially announced the official title and release window for its upcoming Ghostbusters VR game.

Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord is slated to launch in 2023 for the Meta Quest 2 and PlayStation VR2. The game was initially announced back in April during Meta's Gaming Showcase as a surprise announcement to wrap up the show.

Set in San Francisco, players run their own ghost-busting business. As noted in the press release, players will have the chance to play solo or with up to three friends as they try and "stop the powerful Ghost Lord and his band of malevolent ghosts from causing chaos" through San Francisco.

Sony Pictures VR confirmed to IGN that the upcoming Ghostbusters game will not be a direct sequel to the 2021 film Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Instead, the publisher explained that it was "really important" for the game's developer, nDreams, to "move forward and create a whole storyline."

While nothing firm outside of a 2023 release window has been announced, the game will release the same year Sony's second generation VR headset, PlayStation VR2, will release.

In August, Sony confirmed that it will launch the PSVR2 in early 2023. While the Meta Quest 2 is showing its age, we do know that the newly-announced (and costly) Quest Pro was announced a few weeks back. While it is designed to focus on work and productivity, it is compatible with the Meta Quest 2 library.

Meta has also confirmed that the gamer-focused Quest 3 will release next year and might also include backward compatibility for Quest 2 games.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Cristin Milioti has joined HBO Max's Penguin spinoff of The Batman, where she will play Sofia Falcone.

Deadline first reported the casting news, saying Milioti's Sofia Falcone is the daughter of Carmine Falcone, and will fight with The Penguin for control of the city. Fans will have recently seen different iterations of Sofia Falcone in both Gotham and Batman: The Long Halloween.

Milioti is known for appearing in How I Met Your Mother as the titular mother, as well as 2020's Palm Springs, HBO Max's Made for Love, and Peacock's The Resort.

The Penguin spinoff on HBO Max is coming from The Batman director Matt Reeves, as one of a handful of planned Batman villain spinoffs. Milioti will star alongside Colin Farrell's Penguin, who is thrilled to return to the character following The Batman.

Farrell recently shared a few details about the Penguin show, saying it begins "about a week after the film The Batman ends, so Gotham is still somewhat underwater... I read the first script for the first episode, and it opens up with my feet splashing through the water in Falcone's office. Even just that alone, I read it, I was like, 'Oh, jeez.'"

In a time of great change for DC, The Batman universe appears to be safe. In addition to the Penguin show, The Batman 2 appears to be moving ahead with Reeves. We'll have to see if the plan for future The Batman projects changes at all now that James Gunn and Peter Safran are taking over the reorganized DC Studios.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Image Credit: (Photo by: David Yeh/Peacock via Getty Images)

Daniel Radcliffe has shut down the idea that he might succeed Hugh Jackman as the next Wolverine in the X-Men movies, labelling recent speculation as "purely a press tour rumor."

In a new interview with GQ magazine, Radcliffe addressed the latest round of Wolverine casting rumors, admitting that he hasn't always helped speculation. He said his responses during press tours have sometimes fuelled the X-Men buzz, but ultimately, he isn't looking to get his claws stuck into a role that he could get "locked" into for a long time.

"It's purely a press tour rumor; I say something, and then occasionally I get bored of answering that way so I say something different, and that sets it off again. I should just never open my mouth," Radcliffe observed, later adding, "I just don't ever want to get locked into something that I am not sure I will be able to love the same amount the whole time."

Rumors that Radcliffe could be playing the next Wolverine have been swirling for years, but he has repeatedly denied claims that he is taking over the role in the MCU. The actor told The View in March that speculation fires up because "Wolverine is short, so every so often they're like, 'Who's a short actor?' There's never been any actual truth to it.

"Every so often I get bored of answering the questions sensibly," he admitted to the hosts of the ABC talk show. "So I just make a joke like I did the other day and that sort of has reignited the rumors of it, but there's nothing going on."

Radcliffe might not be suiting up as Wolverine any time soon, but Jackman is ready to return to the role again. He last played Wolverine in 2017's Logan, publicly stating at the time that it would be his last film as the clawed superhero. He has since revealed that he is reprising the role for Deadpool 3 — we just hope he's wearing the character's classic yellow suit.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.