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Most had assumed the Transformers franchise would be rebooted after the chaos of The Last Knight, but now both it and Bumblebee are confirmed to get sequels.
While all eyes might be on the upcoming full-blooded Pokémon game Pokémon Sword and Shield and the potentially massive Detective Pikachu, Niantic's Pokemon Go is still going strong. Since its launch in 2016 the company has continually added new features to the game, including recently announcing that the game would get a cool-sounding photography mode. Now, to mark the changing of the seasons, they've announced a Pokémon Go 'Equinox Event', which will celebrate the arrival of spring (or autumn if you're in the southern hemisphere.
I am forever impressed at the diligence and skill of data miners, who trawl through the game's files and code in order to find secrets that the developer might have preferred stay hidden. Respawn Entertainment's Apex Legends exploded in popularity last month, and with that came a thorough search through the game to see what's coming up. @Shrugtal already turned up a tonne of cool information, including the existence of a new weapon: the L-STAR EMG. And now he or she has discovered a fully textured model for the gun, including legendary skins. Check it out below:
There's been an avalanche of half-baked criticisms of Captain Marvel becoming part of the MCU and if you pick away at most of them, they nearly all boil down to "ewwwww girls." But one with slightly more validity is that if Carol Danvers really is going to be this powerful, doesn't it lessen every threat if you know that she could solve it easily?
I've always loved that after Thanos achieved his goal of wiping out half of all life, he settled down for a quiet life as an isolated farmer. That he isn't some crazed conqueror seeking power for its own ends and desiring a throne to rule over everyone makes his desires sincere rather than self-serving. It's also a neat classical allusion to the Roman patrician Cincinnatus. He was a Roman military leader who was called upon to defends Rome and in doing so achieved complete power over the state. He could have become a despot like so many Emperors, but instead willingly gave up his absolute power and returned to the life of a simple country farmer.
James Gunn's deserved return to the director's seat for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has been a surprise to most people. After his abrupt firing back in July 2018 for some tasteless decade-old tweets, there was a campaign to reinstate him. But even the most ardent supporters seemed to have accepted defeat after Gunn announced he'd be directing Warner Bros' The Suicide Squad. But there was one particularly stalwart supporter who stuck to his Gunn(s), never stopped declaring his support and who seems to have had advance wind of this news.
Karen Gillan has done very well in the MCU. In the original script for Guardians of the Galaxy Nebula was supposed to be killed, but Gillan impressed James Gunn so much in her audition that he substantially expanded the role, rethought Nebula's potential and made her relationship with Gamora one of the key emotional centres of the franchise. The character then made it into Infinity War, surviving Thanos' Snap and looking as if she's going to play a key role in Avengers: Endgame.
Netflix's Bird Box was a big hit for the company over Christmas and New Year's, picking up rave reviews, terrifying audiences and even launching the hilarious Bird Box challenge fad. But one aspect of the movie that was decidedly not cool was the film using footage of the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster (which caused the death of 47 people) to illustrate the chaos of society breaking down.
The first reaction to the news back in July 2018 that James Gunn had been fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was a howl of despair. After all, the first two Guardians of the Galaxy movies had his fingerprints all over them, with him using the heroes to tell what seemed to be pretty personal stories. But while I might have thought it was a bad decision, it seemed like we should at least start thinking about who could fill Gunn's boots. Taika Waititi was the front-runner for a long time before ruling himself out, followed by some talk of Anchorman director Adam McKay filling the role, and there was also some talk that Marvel Studios were looking for a woman to take the job.