I'm a writer/editor who's been at the site since 2015. I cover politics, weird history, video games and... well, anything really. Keep it breezy, keep it light, keep it straightforward.
The Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the world of film and television more than anything in their history. The entertainment industry has endured writer's strikes, global depressions and even World War II, but nothing's come close for the sheer impact of Coronavirus. The CW's Arrowverse line-up has been no exception. Though many of the episodes were already shot, the various effects studios working on their CGI had to quickly adapt to working from home.
Todd McFarlane has been teasing his Spawn movie for years now and over that time, he's convinced an enviable array of talent to sign on. So far, he's got Jamie Foxx set to play the title role, Jeremy Renner as co-star, and one of the best practical visual effects guys in the business, The Walking Dead's resident gorehound Greg Nicotero. Unfortunately, however, the only thing he hasn't been able to get on board is a major studio and as of right now, the movie is still waiting to be greenlit.
As has become popular recently, Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi (and Mark Ruffalo and Tessa Thompson) recently held a live watch-along of Thor: Ragnarok during which they answered questions from fans. Naturally, Waititi was fairly tight-lipped on exactly what's coming in 2022, though he did hint that an obscure X-Men villain may appear in the movie.
The last ten years of superhero cinema has seen a lot of rule-breaking. Batman has been hanging out with Gandalf and Velociraptors in the LEGO movies, actors and directors are able to work on both DC and Marvel films, and Sony's Venomverse looks set to merge with the MCU. But one rule that's still respected is that actors only play one live-action superhero at a time and there's no doubling up. But even that looks like it might be broken now.
There is a long and noble tradition of adapting movies into video games. Over the years we've everything from The Godfather, Napoleon Dynamite and Back to the Future adapted into games, but it's safe to say nobody predicted Cannibal Holocaust would join them. Ruggero Deodato's notoriously gory and violent 1980 film pioneered the found footage format and seemed so realistic that the director was put on trial for the murder of his cast (the charges were dropped when the cast confirmed they weren't dead).
Tiger King has been an unexpected smash for Netflix. The documentary series about the feud between zoo owner Joe Exotic and animal rescue advocate Carole Baskin has captured the attention of pretty much the entire planet. Perhaps the key to its success is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Coronavirus pandemic, allowing viewers to forget all that unpleasantness and bask in eccentric people and footage of big cats. As an example of the heights the show has reached, questions were even asked about pardoning Joe Exotic during a Presidential press conference this week.
50 years after the Tate-LaBianco murders and three years on from his death, Charles Manson is having a moment in the spotlight. Last year saw Quentin Tarantino's excellent Once Upon a Time in Hollywood explore the crimes, with the somewhat less excellent recent movies The Haunting of Sharon Tate and Charlie Says covering the same territory. Now, Epix is getting in on the action with a six-part docuseries titled Helter Skelter.