TV, Movies & Home Theatre - Page 23

The showrunner for Netflix's incredible Witcher TV show has explained during a podcast how she designed The Witcher world and where she drew her inspiration from.

The showrunner, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, appeared on the 85th episode of the 'Writer Experience' podcast and sat down for a lengthy chat about how she wrote the hit series. Throughout the chat, Hissrich was asked that even though the Netflix show is based on the book series, did she take anything out of the CD Projekt Red video games. To the surprise of the audience, she replied with yes.

Here's what she said when asked the question, "You know, when I first - I'm not a gamer myself, but when I first took on the project, I found a friend of mine, Matt Owens, who is a huge gamer and I basically insisted that he let me play. And then very quickly, I realized I stopped. So I watched him play and drank some beers. And I took in the visuals of the world. And what I will say is that, that's probably the biggest thing I took from the game".

During Super Bowl 2020, we saw a bunch of different advertisements, but one that caught many Rick and Morty fans' eyes was the Pringles ad.

The Pringles ad that was shown at the big game was from a few days ago and showed a bunch of robotic Morty's chanting a Pringle's mantra. It also showed Rick breaking the forth-wall and realizing that he was in a Pringles commercial. He says that he and Summer must have been taken over while they were sleeping.

Now, the official Rick and Morty Twitter account have released a short video showcasing that the new Rick and Morty 'Pickle Rick' flavor will be ready "soon". The video depicts a production line of hundreds of 'Pickle Rick' flavored Pringles. At the moment, it's still unknown how this new flavor is going to taste, and while pickle-flavored Pringles don't sound fantastic, I'm still excited to give them a shot!

Netflix has been ruling the roost of streaming platforms for quite a while now, but as time goes on, the biggest streaming platform has some competitors plotting in the slums.

Those competitors are Amazon's Prime Video, Disney's Disney Plus, Hulu, Apple and HBO Max. As more and more people are convinced to head on over to other streaming platforms that aren't Netflix, Netflix has to think of strategies to keep new customers as well as keep their old ones. According to a new report from DataDads, Netflix is spending five times more money on content for its platform than it did five years ago.

DataDads acquired this knowledge from Netflix's recent earnings report, which revealed that the company is planning on spending $20 billion new content for 2020. This figure includes new shows, licensing deals, programming, and more. During 2018, Netflix spent $12 billion on programming new content, and back in 2015, the streaming service only spent $4.5 billion.

Millions of Americans have been enjoying Super Bowl 2020 festivities today, with Marvel dropping a 30-second teaser of its upcoming Disney+ shows.

We've had a triple-teaser of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the mysterious Loki series, and WandaVision. Starting with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which sees the return of Anthony Mackay as Sam "Falcon" Wilson and Sebastian Stan as Wilson as Bucky "Winter Soldier" Barnes, with their series kicking off right after the MCU arc at the end of Avengers: Endgame where Captain America hands Falcon Cap's shield. We also see a brief tease of Zemo, the villain in Captain America: Civil War.

The super-brief tease of Loki sees Tom Hiddleston back in the titular role, where he simply says "I'm gonna burn this place to the ground" -- but it is WandaVision that could be quite the fun, and most likely very sad ride. Elizabeth Olsen returns for her role as Wanda Maximoff, joined by her love Vision, played by Paul Bettany.

The Matrix 4 will soon be adding another cast member to its roster, with Priyanka Chopra reportedly in final talks to join the case of the movie alongside Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Neil Patrick Harris, and more. Unfortunately, one of my favorite actors from the movie and fellow Aussie -- Hugo Weaving, will not be returning to his role of Agent Smith in The Matrix 4.

Priyanka Chopra has been previously spotted on the recent Baywatch movie, as well as ABC's Quantico. Chopra hasn't talked about whether she's got any formal involvement with The Matrix 4 on any of her social media feeds, but I'm sure that will change once ink hits paper and she can come out and confirm the news.

Warner Bros. is close to starting official production on The Matrix 4, with Variety reporting that production is to "begin imminently" in northern California. It has been reported that Keanu Reeves began training for both The Matrix 4 and John Wick 4 in December 2019, with Variety also adding that the rest of the cast started fight training recently.

Netflix will be taking another leap into making another live-action TV show, this time around they will be adopting the anime show One Piece.

According to the One Piece Netflix Twitter account, Netflix will be bringing the beloved manga series over to the big-boy streaming platform as a live-action show. Originally, the show was announced back in 2017, but as you can expect, these things take some time to get the ball rolling, and now it has finally happened.

The official description for the show is, "A live-action adventure story based on the bestselling manga by Eiichiro Oda." Steven Maeda (Lost, CSI: Miami) and Matt Owens will be taking the reins as the new TV shows showrunners. At the moment, there is no word of who will be cast for the show, but we do know that the first season will consist of ten episodes. There's also no known release date as of yet.

Netflix and other streaming platforms will eventually adopt some game series' that are almost bigger than life and turn them into TV shows. What game series do you think would be good enough to be made into a TV show?

Cory Barlog, the director behind the God of War series, thinks that his story of Kratos would be a perfect fit. Barlog took to Twitter in a re-tweet of GamesIndustry asking the question I asked above. Barlog said, "God of War. (At least, I think so). Personally, I think Barlog is right on the money with this one, a God of War Netflix-style TV show would be incredible for not only the over-the-top fight scenes but also character development, environments, story-arcs and everything else in between.

Before the internet could take what Barlog said as a hint towards Netflix prospecting the God of War games series into a TV show, Barlog clarified "By the way, this is not a hint or anything. I just believe that games would make great TV shows because you spend so much time with the characters in fantastic worlds. Games, like TV, are like relationships with the characters, where movies are more like a date. Both can be great."

As expected, Pringles have taken over Rick and Morty in a new advertisement that recommends and a new flavor of Pringles.

The above ad has been released on the official Rick and Morty Twitter page and showcases Rick and Summer sitting in their house watching TV. On TV a Pringles ad just finishes showing off a triple-layer-dip-stick, Summer then asks Rick "how much do you think Pringles paid these people?", Rick then replies, "hardly anything". This is a tongue-in-cheek dig at Pringles not paying Adult Swim enough money for this advertisement.

Morty then enters the room, asking Summer and Rick if they want to combine some Pringles flavors to create a whole new flavor. Rick then realizes that Morty is, in fact, a robot and that everyone is trapped in a Pringles commercial. A bunch of more robot Morty's then enter the room chanting "stack Pringles and make endless new flavors".

The creators behind the hit show Rick and Morty have announced that a brand new show will be arriving exclusively on Hulu this May.

The new show is called 'Solar Opposites' and its about a family of four aliens that are from an advanced planet and are forced into living in America. Craig Erwich, who is the senior vice president of Hulu originals announced the new series at the Television Critics Association 2020 Winter Press Tour in Pasadena just this past Friday.

The show is being created by Rick and Morty star Justin Roiland and Mike McMahn who is a producer for Rick and Morty. Judging by the creative drive put behind Solar Opposites I would say that the new TV show will have the same ridiculous comedic sense that Rick and Morty does. I'd expect the same type of brilliant humour but portrayed in a different way since the characters are now all aliens. On May 8th this year, all eight episodes of the first season of Solar Opposites will be released on Hulu. (There is also season 2 in production).

It seems like every time I write about the upcoming Uncharted movie, its bad news, and this time is no different. Uncharted fans, I apologize, but I have to inform you that the movie has been delayed.

The Uncharted movie has been in development for over a decade now, and just when you would probably think things are looking up, they aren't. The movie has suffered many production delays, which have then caused the hired director to leave the movie. This has happened six times already, the following directors were hired by Sony and then left on their own merit; David O. Russell, Seth Gordon, Neil Burger, Dan Trachtenberg, Shawn Levy, and Travis Knight.

According to Deadline, the movie will now officially be delayed until March 5th, 2021. Originally the film was meant to be released at the end of this year (December 2020), but after the sixth director, Travis Knight, left the film back in late December 2019 that release date was put into question. Tom Holland is set to play a young Nathan Drake, and Mark Wahlberg is cast as Victor "Sully" Sullivan. Holland is shooting the new Spider-Man movie at the moment, and the colliding scheduling has no doubt caused some issues with filming the Uncharted movie.

Marvel fans have started a new petition to replace Captain Marvel actress, Brie Larson, with a "woman of color". The petition has got more traction than you'd think.

The petition which has been started on ThePetitionSite details that Brie Larson must step down from her role as Captain Marvel to prove that she is an ally of social justice. The description for the petition also states that if Larson stepped down, she should be replaced with "Monica, the original female & BLACK Captain Marvel instead of white-washing characters for the benefit of the straight, white men running Disney."

At the time of writing this, the petition has already gathered 27,897 signatures and is well on its way to its goal of 30,000. Kevin Feige, the head of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), has stated that Captain Marvel will be an extremely important part of the MCU moving forward. This makes me think that this petition won't be changing anything, especially since Larson has established herself in the role of Captain Marvel in several MCU movies.

Disney hasn't outright cancelled its ambitious and massively anticipated Obi-Wan show, but it has put the project in stasis.

As of right now, Disney's new Obi-Wan show starring Ewan McGregor currently doesn't have a script. The project has been paused until new screenwriters are conscripted, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

The show's scripts and overall story have been cut, leaving the series currently without any direction. Ewan McGregor is still firmly attached and Disney still plans to launch the show, albeit next year in 2021. Sources say early storylines would bridge the period between the prequels and original trilogy with Obi-Wan transporting baby Luke and Leia Skywalker.

Netflix undoubtedly wants to continue riding that Witcher hype train for as long as possible. One way to make sure that train never stops is just releasing as much Witcher content as possible.

Instead of making a Netflix original Witcher movie, rumors have begun flying and have since been confirmed about a new Witcher story. Netflix has decided to move towards an animated film, which makes sense as the development studio behind the TV show is already working on future seasons, and no doubt has a heavy workload. But an animated Witcher film can be done alongside the new seasons, and it's called The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf.

According to the above Twitter post, showrunner for Netflix's The Witcher, Lauren S. Hissrich will be working on the project alongside Beau DeMayo. The post also mentions that the studio behind Legend of Korra will also be working on the film. Hissrich also mentioned that she is interested in Mark Hamill playing Vesemir in the new season of The Witcher, check out that story here.

It has been a very long and anxious wait for more Rick and Morty, and unfortunately, this article isn't going to be telling you when the rest of season 4 will be coming out. What it will tell you is that Morty's are going to be taking over the Super Bowl...

Yes, that's right. A legion of Morty's who have learned what a three-layer dip stack means will be taking over this year's Super Bowl. So, what exactly is a three-layer dip stack? If you watch the above video, you will learn that the chip company Pringles has partnered up with Rick and Morty for an advertisement about a new flavor of Pringles.

This new chip will combine three flavors; cheddar, BBQ wavy, and sour cream & onion. This new flavor creates what the Morty's call "3 layer dip stack". Funnily enough, this isn't the first time Rick and Morty have crossed over with Pringles, back in late December last year Pringles announced a new "Pickle Rick" flavor. In that teaser, they say that a new flavor will be revealed on 2/2, which is the date of the Big Game. Check out more information on that new flavor here.

The Matrix 4 and John Wick 4 are both due out on the same day on May 21, 2021 -- which should be the biggest day in cinema history, especially for actor and franchise leader of both these movies: Keanu Reeves.

Keanu Reeves will return to his role as Neo while Carrie-Anne Moss is making a return, which should see her playing Trinity again -- but Agent Smith will not be appearing in The Matrix 4. Agent Smith actor Hugo Wearing confirmed he will not be appearing in The Matrix 4, telling Time Out: "I'm not, no...".

Weaving added: "It's unfortunate but actually I had this offer [for upcoming movie The Visit] and then the offer came from The Matrix, so I knew it was happening but I didn't have dates. I thought [I] could do both and it took eight weeks to work out that the dates would work - I held off on accepting [a role in The Visit]".

Since the release of the first season of The Witcher, fans have been speculating about who could fit the role of some pivotal characters in the new season. One of those characters is the legendary Vesemir.

The Internet is doing what it does best, sifting through a large pile of potentials and spitting out a selection that should fit the bill. One of the main actors that are being thrown into the mix to play Vesemir is none other than Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. Back in March 2018, Hamill got caught up in a few tweets from Lauren S. Hissrich when she spoke out about the characteristics of Vesemir. Hamill replied to the tweets saying, "I have no idea what this is or what it's about but agree it could/should be played by me."

Hissrich has since spoken out about that moment a few years ago, saying "Mark has always been of interest to me and interest to the project. We have not contacted his agent yet because we're not casting the role quite yet, but that being said, I am loving what's happening on the Internet. And I'm loving all of the fan reaction to it. Obviously, we've seen what a huge fanbase The Witcher has, and to add that to a Star Wars fanbase... it makes my mind explode a little bit."

Netflix has released its Q4 2019 earnings, and from the stats, we have learned that The Witcher TV show is Netflix's best first season of television ever.

According to the report, The Witcher TV show was watched by a whopping 76 million households. But what counts as "watched"? Netflix has given their definition of how they count a viewer, and originally "watched" meant that the viewer sat through 70% of a single episode of a series. Now, it means that the viewer sat down and streamed at least 2 minutes of the show.

So why the change in metrics? Easy, these numbers look much better than if Netflix was running off the old way to do the statistics. Netflix says that the choice to move to the two minute time period was because they felt this way of measuring is "long enough to indicate the choice was intentional." Netflix also acknowledges that measuring the viewers this way is "about 35% higher on average than the prior metric." It should also be noted that BBC's iPlayer, YouTube and The New York Times also follow this same way of measuring viewers.

It's been quite a while since the last entry in the National Treasure series, and now news has begun flying about a third installment being in pre-production.

Information has come out from The Hollywood Reporter in regards to a third installment in the series officially beginning pre-production. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bad Boys for Life's writer Chris Bremner is working on the film, and Jerry Bruckheimer will be the one to produce the film.

At the moment, it isn't confirmed whether Nick Cage will be the one to star in the third movie. If you have seen the two previous movies, then you'd be aware that Nick Cage was the main star of the movies playing the highly intelligent treasure hunter Ben Gates. Hopefully, Nick Cage returns to play Ben Gates as I believe that the third movie would just seem strange if Cage wasn't playing the main character.

James Bond is a man, and will be a man for the foreseeable future -- even with rumors and a push from those who want more diversity in the character and for Bond to be female. But sorry, it ain't happening... at least not on producer Barbara Broccoli's watch.

In a recent interview with Variety, James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli said she is keen to create new female characters inside of the 007 franchise but Bond was, and will always, be a man. She said: "He can be of any color, but he is male. I believe we should be creating new characters for women--strong female characters. I'm not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that".

Pierce Brosnan who played Bond in the 90s said it was time for Bond to be a woman, but now Broccoli has stepped up and squashed those rumors. At the time, Brosnan said: "I think we've watched the guys do it for the last 40 years. Get out of the way, guys, and put a woman up there. I think it would be exhilarating; it would be exciting".

At TCA, Amazon Studios officially announced the first group of actors who will be starring in their upcoming Lord of the Rings TV show.

If you have been out of the loop, Amazon Studios are currently gathering all resources to begin shooting for their upcoming Lord of the Rings TV show that will be based within J.R.R. Tolkien's Second Age of Middle-Earth. We knew that young Ned Stark actor from Game of Thrones, Robert Aramayo, will star in the series, but we didn't know who else would be stepping into some vital roles. Now, Amazon Studios has revealed a further fifteen actors who will be appearing in the show.

The following actors were announced by Amazon Studios, "Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Tom Budge, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, and Daniel Weyman." Amazon plans to start shooting sometime next month in New Zealand. According to Amazon Co-head of TV, Vernon Sanders, who spoke at TCA, "We still have a few key roles to cast." So in the coming months, we can expect some other actors to join in on Amazon's massive project.