TV, Movies & Home Theatre News - Page 1

One of the strangest and most beloved characters in J.R.R Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy is officially coming to Amazon's The Rings of Power season 2.

That character is none other than Tom Bombadil, who was famously cut from Peter Jackson's iconic trilogy of movies. For those that don't know who Tom Bombadil is, he is a merry fellow that lives in the valley of the Withywindle in the depths of the Old Forest, east of Buckland, and close to the dangerous Barrow-downs. While movie fans have never seen Tom, he is a big part of the start of The Fellowship of the Ring book where he rescues the hobbits from an old willow tree, and again from Wights in the Barrow-Downs.

The origin of Bombadil was purposely left in ambiguity, with very little canonical information to go by besides Tom being described as "Eldest" Tom, himself, said he remembers the "first raindrop and the first acorn... He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside." Tom is one of, if not the most mysterious character in Tolkien's legendarium, with the majority of his intervention being in the Third Age of Middle-Earth, or in the age of Frodo, Bilbo and the One Ring.

Viggo Mortensen, the actor who played Aragorn in Peter Jackson's beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy has been asked if he will reprise his role of the Numenorian king in the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum movie.

For those that missed the news, last year Warner Discovery announced it was creating three new Lord of the Rings movies. There was radio silence from the studio for quite some time until its recent earnings call this year where it announced the title and release year for next film. The Hunt for Gollum will star and be directed by Andy Serkis, and produced by Peter Jackson. More good news is that it will be written by Jackson's original trilogy writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.

Canonically, The Hunt for Gollum takes place between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies. Please read no further if you don't want any spoilers, as I'm about to explain the basic premise for the movie based on the events that take place in the books.

Apple recently released iOS 17.5 to all of its users, and one bug that some users were reporting was concerning to many as it revived long-deleted photos on devices, leading owners to believe Apple has kept all of their deleted photos.

The bug quickly became controversial as users were reporting seeing images reappear in the Photos app that were deleted and even permanently deleted. Apple described this issue as "rare" and issued an iOS 17.5.1 update, which addressed the bug but didn't provide an explanation as to what caused it in the first place, with the company writing it was related to photos experiencing "database corruption," enabling them to reappear in the Photos library despite being deleted.

Now, Apple has given a proper explanation as to what is behind the bug, with the Cupertino company explaining to 9to5Mac, the bug has nothing to do with iCloud Photos and the problem can be traced to the "corrupt database entry that existed on the device's file system" and that a photo reappearing on a device from years ago (some cases as old as 2010) can be explained by the new device restoring from an old backup.

The latest hit to land on the Apple TV Plus streaming service appears to be Dark Matter, a sci-fi show that's based on a best-selling book of the same name by Black Crouch and starring Joel Edgerton alongside Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly.

The new show has only been available since its premiere on May 8 but it's already taking the streaming charts by storm. New figures shared by the data collectors at Reelgood have Dark Matter sitting at the top of the pile in terms of the TV show streaming chart for the week beginning May 9. To get there it beat out some big names including Fallout, Baby Reindeer, and a Man in Full. In fact, the show also came out at the top of the overall streaming chart which includes both TV shows and movies.

The Dark Matter book was hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade and follows Jason Dessen (played by Edgerton), a physicist, professor and family man who is abducted into an alternate version of his life. From there he's left to figure out what is going on and then try to get back to his real life all the while trying to figure out who was behind the whole thing. It's a gripping story, and one that is sure to prove popular as the later episodes begin streaming. The finale isn't due to arrive until June 26.

If you're a Comcast Xfinity internet or TV customer you can now get your hands on a trio of top-notch streaming services under a single monthly fee. And if that sounds like the cable of old, that's probably because it's very similar indeed - except your content will now come over the internet instead of a traditional TV signal.

The new offering, dubbed Xfinity StreamSaver, bundles Apple TV Plus, Netflix, and Peacock together under a $15 per month fee and will launch next week across the United States. We're told that StreamSaver will include Netflix Standard with ads, Peacock Premium, and Apple TV Plus with savings of almost $100 per year when compared to paying for all of the subscriptions separately.

Those who want to add another service to their bundle can choose to add NOW TV for an additional $15 per month, making the full bundle $30 per month. That'll give streamers access to more than 40 live TV channels including AMC, A&E, Hallmark, History Channel, Lifetime, and WEtv, as well as more than two dozen integrated FAST channels including AccuWeather, NBC News, TODAY All Day, and Xumo Movies.

If you're an Apple TV Plus subscriber on the lookout for their next binge-worthy show, the streamer has confirmed that a new drama starring Natalie Portman will premiere on July 19. The Lady in the Lake will premiere with two episodes available on that date and then a new one will arrive every Friday through to the season's conclusion on August 23.

The show, which will run for seven episodes and stars Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winner Natalie Portman, also features Emmy Award nominee Moses Ingram. Portman also serves as executive producer on the project.

Starring alongside Portman and Ingram in the series are Y'lan Noel, Brett Gelman, Byron Bowers, Noah Jupe, Josiah Cross, Mikey Madison, and Pruitt Taylor Vince.

If you're a Spanish-speaking Apple TV Plus subscriber you can look forward to a new crime drama TV show hitting your screen on July 31. The show will debut globally and will carry the Spanish title Las Azules.

Apple offered a first look at the new show via a press release today, setting the premiere date and confirming that the upcoming 10-episode show features an entirely Hispanic cast and crew. That cast will be led by Ariel Award nominee Bárbara Mori. Apple also confirmed that the first two episodes of the show will be available to stream on July 31 while a new episode will then debut weekly through to the season's conclusion on September 25.

Apple's press release describes the show as having been inspired by true events and set in 1970. It tells the story of four women who choose to defy ultraconservative norms and join Mexico's first female police force. However, they then find that the whole thing was just a publicity stunt to distract the media from a serial killer who is on the loose.

Warner Bros. has announced when it will be releasing the first of the "multiple Lord of the Rings movies" called Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.

It was last year when Warner Bros. Discovery announced it was making "multiple Lord of the Rings movies" and since then it has been radio silence - until now. During Warner Bros. latest earnings call it was details were revealed about the first of the multiple movies, such as it will be made with New Line Cinema, the production company behind Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Trilogy, and when it will be hitting theaters.

According to Variety, Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will be released sometime in 2026 and will be directed by Andy Serkis, who will also reprise his role as the character Gollum, the tragic Hobbit-like creature whose fate gets tied to the One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien's novels and Peter Jackson's movies. Additionally, Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and are going to be "involved every step of the way," said Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

LG has become the very first TV company to add support for Dolby Atmos Apple Music playback to its products, and you won't need to have one of its latest sets to benefit, either. The company says that TVs from as far back as 2018 are good to go, and TVs that don't natively support Dolby Atmos will also work when paired with a compatible soundbar.

The discovery was first made by FlatPanelsHD and later confirmed by LG in a statement to the outlet. This means that LG has set the bar for other TV companies, but it remains to be seen if those companies already have plans in motion to add their own Dolby Atmos support.

While TVs with support for Dolby Atmos can of course play Apple Music via their built-in speakers, you're going to want to hook up a soundbar or compatible audio system to get the most out of the experience. Apple Music isn't the only streamer to offer Dolby Atmos support, either, with Amazon Music and Tidal also offering such a thing - although there is no smart TV support currently. Spotify simply hasn't added Dolby Atmos to anything yet, although that's likely something that will launch if and when the fabled lossless music support arrives.

Apple TV Plus, the Apple-owned streaming service best known for shows like Severance and Ted Lasso, has announced the first season premiere date for something entirely different - an epic animated adventure called WondLa. The season is the first of a trilogy and is based on the New York Times bestselling book series "The Search for WondLa" by Tony DiTerlizzi.

Apple TV Plus confirmed that the seven-episode first season of WondLa will premiere globally on the streaming service on Friday, June 28, although there is no confirmation on when the rest of the trilogy will land on our screens.

The press page for the WondLa show on Apple's website says that the adventure centers around Eva, a character voiced by Jeanine Mason, a character who's described as being curious, enthusiastic, and a spirited teenager. She's being raised in a state-of-the-art underground bunker by Muthr, a robot caretaker, voiced by Emmy Award nominee Teri Hatcher. But on her 16th birthday, an attack on the bunker forced her onto the Earth's surface which just so happens to now be inhabited by aliens and otherworldly fauna.