Chris McKay brought the Dark Knight to life in a new way with 2017’s ‘The Lego Batman Movie.’ The featured starred Will Arnett as Bruce Wayne, Michael Cera as Robin, Zach Galifianakis as Joker, and Rosario Dawson as Batgirl. It was a huge hit with audiences, garnering over $312 million at the box office.
It stood to reason that the animated film would receive a sequel as its predecessor, 2014’s ‘The Lego Movie,’ got one in the form of 2019’s ‘The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.’
After laboring for a time in development limbo, ‘The Lego Batman Movie 2’ would never receive a green light from Warner Media.
In an interview with ScreenCrush, Chris McKay briefly touched on the proposed sequel and why it would has not come to fruition.
‘The Tomorrow War’ director confirmed that a script was drafted with ‘Community’ and ‘Rick and Morty’ co-creator Dan Harmon’s team.
“It was a story about the Justice League and where Batman was in terms of the Justice League now, and the struggles they were going through, as well as flashing back to how the Justice League came together,” explained McKay. “[It also featured] Batman and Superman’s relationship, as well as Batman’s relationship to a lot of the other members of the Justice League. And Robin, obviously, there was a really great part for Robin.”
While the chances of a sequel are getting smaller, Arnett has expressed an interest in returning to the role of Batman.
“For me, the highlight was getting to do The LEGO Batman Movie, which I stand by,” he told SyFy in 2020. “Chris McKay and I put a lot of hard work into it, so it would be nice if we got to do it again.”
He did briefly in the form of a “deleted scene” on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ which spoofed the library scene from ‘Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice.’ When Arnett walks onto the set, Kimmel, Henry Cavill, and Ben Affleck shout, “Nobody cares about Lego Batman!”
Chris McKay Discusses Canceled LEGO Batman Movie Sequel
AnimeLab Streaming Service Is Joining Funimation
AnimeLab is a video-on-demand service that was started in 2014. It brought several anime titles to the Australian and New Zealand markets. At its inception, it had several titles from Madman Entertainment and in 2017 received select titles from Adult Swim’s back catalogue.
In June 2021, it was announced that AnimeLab would merge with Funimation, joining their streaming service.
According to the Funimation blog, “A big g’day and kia ora to Funimation Australia/New Zealand! We’re thrilled to share the news today that AnimeLab will soon become Funimation, starting June 17, 2021.”
“All the anime you can handle, plus a global community of fans just like you,” they continued. “With exclusive benefits to being a part of the global Funimation family, plus the same local team you know and love, your world of anime is about to get a whole lot bigger.”
Funimation explained that AnimeLab’s social media will also be merged into their service.
“Though your existing Aussie social media team is still here, over the next couple of months, you’ll start to see some changes to the AnimeLab social accounts rolling out as handles and branding evolve,” Funimation continued. “Once the transition is complete, the AnimeLab blog will ultimately retire, and we’ll continue publishing our articles over at (Funimation Blog.) We’d love to tell you all our secrets right now but shhh… there are a few more coming in the next few weeks. Until then, sit back and relax – we’ve got you.”
“AnimeLab was built from the ground up by a team of Australians,” said Senior Vice President of International for Funimation Global Group Tim Anderson. “To be able to take what we have built and unify to be part of an expansive global growth brand like Funimation, it presents opportunities that we never dreamed possible. With the same great local team and access to a world-class service, it’s a win for fans locally.”
Anderson is also a co-founder of Madman Anime Group and AnimeLab.
The official AnimeLab Facebook page added that they will “be around for a few more months to smooth out any bumps, but will ultimately close.”
Bruce Campbell Narrates The Gameplay Reveal for ‘Evil Dead: The Game’!
The first teaser trailer for the game dropped late last year and showed off a tiny bit of gameplay. That’s all we’ve had to go on for a while. Today the first extended look at what the game is like has jetted out of the woods and right into our internets!
Let’s check it out!
Your first look at the gameplay of Evil Dead: The Game is here!
Narrated by the one and only @GroovyBruce himself
Watch the full-length version in 4K at https://t.co/E4GfAWfXON and stay tuned for more gameplay episodes coming soon pic.twitter.com/QIZHsXwaNL
— EvilDeadTheGame (@EvilDeadTheGame) June 10, 2021
Bruce Campbell should narrate all things. The Bible. Government legislation. The phonebook. I could listen to that man read anything, any day, of any week.
Well, now that I’ve seen the gameplay, I have more questions. Are we just killing Deadites in a small map? Is there a campaign mode? Is this multiplayer only? Is there a leveling-up system or upgrades to the weapons? How is the multiplayer structured? Are there multiple modes? Sigh…
All we’ve really been able to work out from the available material is that Evil Dead: The Game will mix elements and characters from all over the franchise’s lore. From the original film to Ash VS The Evil Dead, expect many easter eggs and familiar characters. Pablo, Kelly, Cheryl, and even Arthur, to name a few, will be in the game.
From the game’s official website, the Evil Dead: The Game is described as, “Step into the shoes of Ash Williams or his friends from the iconic Evil Dead franchise and work together in a game loaded with over-the-top co-op and PVP multiplayer action! Play as a team of four survivors, exploring, looting, crafting, managing your fear, and finding key items to seal the breach between worlds in a game inspired by all three original Evil Dead films as well as the Starz original Ash vs. Evil Dead television series.”
Feast your eyes on the official cover art for EVIL DEAD: THE GAME
Featuring Ash, Kelly, Scotty, & Lord Arthur ready to kick some Deadite ass
Be sure to tune in tomorrow @ 11am PT / 2pm ET to witness the world premiere of the first Gameplay Trailer exclusively at @summergamefest pic.twitter.com/6GKoSKgrya
— EvilDeadTheGame (@EvilDeadTheGame) June 9, 2021
What are your thoughts on the gameplay footage? Have you played any of the other Evil Dead games from years past? Let us know in the comments.
‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ Director Confirms T-Rex Rumble With Gigantosaurus
The Tyrannosaurus Rex stunned audiences when it first appeared in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jurassic Park’ back in 1993. Since then, the T-Rex has made varying appearances in the dinosaur film franchise from Universal Pictures.
With Colin Trevorrow returning to direct ‘Jurassic World: Dominion,’ he has set his sights on another giant dinosaur to appear on the silver screen. The Gigantosaurus, a dinosaur ironically from the Cretaceous period, is billed as “one of the largest known terrestrial carnivores.” The giant lizard will make his Jurassic Park debut and rumble with the mighty T-Rex in the upcoming sequel.
“If you were brutally murdered 65 million years ago, [you’d] probably [be] pretty mad about it,” Trevorrow joked to Slash Film, referencing upcoming IMAX footage featuring the Gigantosaurus defeating a T-Rex.
“The Giganotosaurus, who’s the one that takes down our T-Rex, I knew that that’s the largest carnivore known to humankind and I really wanted to make sure that we held her back to make sure that we had a villain for the third movie,” he explained. “We are introducing a major villain and a rivalry in a lot of ways.”
Trevorrow also talked about other dinosaurs that will appear in the film, including some that are incredibly small compared to other creatures we have seen in the franchise.
“The Morus Interpidus was the one that’s eating out of the Giganotosaurus’ teeth,” ‘The Book of Henry’ director said. “It was discovered only a couple of years ago and I’m sure it probably popped into your feed if you follow dinosaur stuff.”
He continued, “They called it the tiny T-Rex, and I just got fascinated with it immediately. That’s one of the great joys of making these movies. I marched into the office and said, ‘We’re putting this guy in the movie, this is cool!’ It’s fun.”
“We chose the ones that seem cool, but it’s a combination of also knowing that if we got to make more than one movie, that we wanted to keep certain species in the tank to really hold back for scientists and fans who follow this stuff,” Trevorrow added.
Taika Waititi Wants To Make His Star Wars Film
With Star Wars in a state of flux due to the poor reception of several releases since Disney’s acquisition of LucasFilm, several projects have seemingly stalled or have been canceled. One of the major announcements that has appeared to be moved to the backburner is a new feature in the galaxy far far away helmed by ‘Jojo Rabbit’ director Taika Waititi.
The New Zealand filmmaker has already directed three episodes of ‘The Mandalorian’ and even provided the voice acting for the bounty hunting robot IG-11, but there has been little to no news about his proposed Star Wars film.
Waititi recently sat down with the Sydney Morning Herald to discuss his upcoming Marvel Studios feature ‘Thor: Love and Thunder,’ but the conversation soon moved to his desire to make a Star Wars movie.
“I don’t know if that’s going to be ‘Star Wars,'” he explained. “I hope it’ll be that but there’s a whole lot of other little things that I’ve got my sticky little fingers attached to so we’ll see.”
Waititi is slated to not only direct the film but also co-write it with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, who won a BAFTA for Outstanding British Film of the Year for her work on the war film ‘1917.’ No release date or title has been given for the proposed Star Wars movie.
With ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ wrapping production, Waititi seems to be eager to get back to work while praising the cast and crew for his Marvel Cinematic Universe sequel.
“I think this might be funnier. Everything we did with ‘Ragnarok’, we’ve just multiplied it,” he said. “Who knows if we do another one after this but I definitely feel like we put everything – every idea and every single ridiculous concept or gag or stunt or character – into this film. I couldn’t be happier with it.”
A Rainbow In The Night! Super7 Is Making Silverhawks!
Wings of silver! Nerves of steel! Silverhawks are here!
Super7 is going to send us all to the poorhouse. The company has been launching so many toy lines based on retro properties that we GenXers are going broke collecting all this awesome stuff.
Joining Super7’s elite line of merchandise known as Ultimates is the 1980s Rankin/Bass cartoon Silverhawks.
At long last, it is a pleasure to finally bring back SilverHawks to battle Mon*Star and the forces of evil throughout the universe,” said Super7 Founder & Owner, Brian Flynn. “What is super exciting is that the ULTIMATES! figures are just the beginning. We have a much larger relationship with SilverHawks LLC, and we will see SilverHawks available again for years to come.
Since this is Super7’s Ultimates line, that means the prices reflect that. Quicksilver, Steelheart, and Buzzsaw will all be priced at $55 apiece. Mon*Star, however, will command a larger price tag due to his size. For 11″ of villainous plastic, you’ll be paying $85.
The Silverhawks line will launch in the Spring of 2022.
The short-lived but memorable series has been long overdue for the high detail, high articulation treatment. They’ll join the Thundercats and Masters of the Universe in a line of highly sought-after collectibles.
If you were a kid in the ’80s, you’d remember the original toys from Kenner. They all had that awesome chrome-like finish. Due to the show’s short run, these toys became difficult to find and now fetch a pretty penny on eBay.
The downside to the figures was that the Silverhawks themselves didn’t have much articulation due to the wingspread action feature. Essentially the Silverhawks were the first toys that T-posed as a selling point.
Buzzsaw was my favorite. He had multiple spinning blades, and his action feature was biting. Awe yeah! He could have given up intergalactic crime and just gotten a killer job at a lumber yard.
Does anyone remember the Silverhawks toys that were in the Burger King kids’ meal? If I recall correctly, I kept getting the Mon*Star thing. I think it was a ring with a sliding top half that would use a red plastic lens to reveal Mon*Star’s other form.
At Last! Arcade1Up Is Making a Simpsons Cabinet!
The classic Konami arcade machine featuring The Simpsons is finally coming out! When Arcade1Up first started producing scaled-down cabinets a few years ago, all I’d hoped for was this very thing.
If you had an XBOX 360 years back, Konami released multiple classics from their arcade line. These included The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The X-MEN. After all this time, each machine is available for home purchase. Does this mean I can finally sell my aging XBOX?
GameSpot is where I spotted this news. While looking for more details, it was noticed that this product does not even show up on 1Up’s website.
The cabinet features the original color scheme and artwork and thankfully comes with four joysticks. This is a prototype, so expect some things to get tweaked. I hope the screen gets shifted down a tiny bit. Being 6’1″ makes playing these things a bit of a pain even with the lift kit on.
The Simpsons arcade game has a pretty basic, though expectedly silly premise. One day Smithers, for some reason, decides to rob a jewelry store. Upon exiting, he bumps into the Simpsons. The accident causes a large diamond to fly up in the air and land in Maggie’s mouth. Rather than just grabbing the gem from the baby and running off, Smithers takes both the youngest Simpson and the diamond.
So, your family quest starts. The Simpsons, each with varied attacks and co-op attacks if you’re playing with 2-4 players. The journey takes the animated family throughout Springfield and beyond in one case. Krustyland, Moe’s, and even a graveyard are some of the locations you’ll visit. It’s your basic beat’em up. Smash all the goons and save the baby.
Pre-orders won’t be available until later this Summer. We’ll let you know when they are, for sure. So, don’t have a cow.
Do you remember the first time you played this classic? I do. Islands of Adventure in 1991! Five dollars worth of my dad’s quarters later, I was in love with the game.
A One-Bit Hand-Cranked Game Console Called Playdate?
I was skimming through Arstechnica and saw this weird little yellow box that looked like a squished GameBoy with a hand-crank. It’s called the Playdate, and it will be available for pre-order in July.
We’ll give you the basic rundown in my typical blunt style. It’s a portable game system that will feature lots of indie games. It’s a true boutique item.
Yes, that crank is functional. What does it do? In Playdate’s own words, “Yes, the crank. Is it a gimmick? Nah. Does it charge Playdate’s battery? Nope. Is it really fun? Yes yes yes. It’s an analog controller that flips out from the side, allowing you to precisely dial in the action. Not every game uses it, but some really do …”
It works with some games. I don’t want to be a contrarian, but that does make it a bit of a gimmick. Hey, a new way to play … but will you want to play something that way at length?
The Playdate will also come with games:
Here’s the truly unique bit. Playdate isn’t just an empty system. Once you set up your Playdate, you’ll start to receive two brand new games… every week. For 12 weeks.
That’s 24 free games, in lots of genres. Some are short. Some are long. Will you love them all? Probably not. Will you have a great time trying them? Absolutely.
That’s a step up from the Ouya, for sure. The first “season” of games features the following titles from a list of developers.
● Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure, developed by uvula (Keita Takahashi, Ryan Mohler), Matthew Grimm, and Shaun Inman
● Battleship Godios, developed by TPM.CO SOFT WORKS
● Boogie Loops, developed by May-Li Khoe and Andy Matuschak
● Casual Birder, developed by Diego Garcia; music/sound by Max Coburn
● DemonQuest 85, developed by Alex Ashby, Lawrence Bishop, Duncan Fyfe, Belinda Leung, and Jared Emerson-Johnson
● Echoic Memory, developed by Samantha Kalman, Everest Pipkin, Carol Mertz, and Rachelle Viola
● Executive Golf DX, developed by davemakes
● Flipper Lifter, developed by Serenity Forge
● Forrest Byrnes: Up in Smoke, developed by Nels Anderson and Christina “castpixel” Neofotistou
● Hyper Meteor, developed by Vertex Pop
● Lost Your Marbles, developed by Sweet Baby Inc. & Friends
● Omaze, developed by Gregory Kogos.
● Pick Pack Pup, developed by Nic Magnier and Arthur Hamer; music by Logan Gabriel
● Questy Chess, developed by Dadako
● Ratcheteer, developed by Shaun Inman, Matthew Grimm, and Charlie Davis
● Sasquatchers, developed by Chuck Jordan; music/sound by Jared Emerson-Johnson
● Snak, developed by Zach Gage; art by Neven Mrgan
● Spellcorked!, developed by Jada Gibbs, Nick Splendorr, Ryan Splendorr, and Tony Ghostbrite; music by A Shell in the Pit (Em Halberstadt)
● Zipper, developed by Bennett Foddy
● Saturday Edition, developed by Chris Makris; music by A Shell in the Pit (Gord McGladdery, Alfonso Salinas)
● Whitewater Wipeout, developed by Chuhai Labs
Specs? Yup, here they are:
What do you think of the Playdate? Innovation or innovat-yawn? Let us know in the comments.
[Source: Arstechnica]
Battlefield 2042 Leaked And Officially Revealed On The Same Day
Well, this is awkward. A couple of hours after artwork for the newest Battlefield game was leaked, EA officially revealed it. Maybe this really shouldn’t be classified as a leak? More like a premature release, right?
GameSpot posted Tweets of the leaked art, and later on, showed off the official reveal trailer.
More images.
THIS LOOKS AMAZING!! #BATTLEFIELD pic.twitter.com/nbca6VWlna
— Okami (@Okami13_) June 9, 2021
I’m not gonna lie; that art looks cool. I’ve been burned before by Battlefield, though. Battlefield V felt like a half-hearted effort that led to the least amount of hours I’ve ever banked into that franchise in 15 years. Will 2042 fix the problems? The trailer hints at gameplay elements that may freshen up this old mare.
Weather is now a mechanic in the game, I guess. That could be really cool as long as it isn’t boiled down to one tornado on a map that you can easily evade. If the winds are strong enough to throw tanks around and drastically change the map due to destruction, I’m all in.
Another positive is the map size. Gamestop interviewed the game’s design director Daniel Berlin where he stated, “So if you just took a classic Battlefield map and a classic size, and you just said like, yeah, we’re just going to scale this up, almost just take it and you just expand it, that doesn’t necessarily turn out to be a good gameplay experience. Talking from experience, we tested it, it didn’t really play well. So we lean into this concept of the clustering, right? And this is a way for us to control the pacing and really let players choose their own pacing in a sense.”
A concern I have is that this game is launching on both new and old consoles. So, is this really going to be optimized for console owners? Then again, the only real way to play and compete is by choosing the PC version. Regardless, we’ll find out how this all pans out of October 22, 2021.
[Source: GameSpot]
Elijah Wood Wants To Remake ‘Children of the Corn’ AND ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’
Reboots and remakes have become one of the most normalized trends in Hollywood with studios rehashing old properties with new takes or perspectives.
Horror flicks in particular have been targeted for remakes with new directors wanting to remake the films with their own spin. Both 1984’s ‘Children of the Corn’ and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ spun off massive franchises with both garnering twenty-first century remakes in 2009 and 2010 respectively.
That does not seem to matter to ‘Lord of the Rings’ actor Elijah Wood, who seems keen on doing remakes or direct sequels to both films through his movie production company SpectreVision.
“I know that there’s already a remake coming out, but we still really love ‘Children of the Corn,’ he told Comicbook.com. “I feel like that would be an exciting thing to … from the ground up, taking it from the novel, not remaking the movie, but actually take the short story and flesh that out in an interesting way.”
“I feel like that would be an exciting thing to … from the ground up, taking it from the novel, not remaking the movie, but actually take the short story and flesh that out in an interesting way,” Wood said.
The original ‘Children of the Corn’ was based on a short story by Stephen King which follows a married couple getting lost in a rural community where the children have murdered their parents and worship a mysterious being known as ‘He Who Walks Behind the Rows.’ The original franchise produced seven films with the reboot producing three.
When it comes to ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street,’ Wood expressed his desire to either do a remake or a direct sequel to the original franchise. Either way, he wants Robert Englund to reprise his role as the dream slayer Freddy Krueger.
“We, personally, have talked a lot about, internally, ‘Elm Street’ and how incredible it would be to play in that universe again and see that universe, to see Freddy and just that concept be explored again,” Wood said. “That’s something we’re fascinated in. Obviously, that is not a lesser-known, smaller thing that should be remade into a big one.”
“You have to bring Robert Englund back for one more film. I think, especially if you’re going to open up a new franchise and take it in different directions, you have to establish it with him and then you can move on.” He added,
“I don’t think it’s interesting to tell the same story over and over again, we don’t need another origin story of Freddy Krueger, I don’t think it should even really be so much about Freddy.”
The original version of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ was written and directed by Wes Craven. The horror franchise had a total of eight films with 1994’s ‘A New Nightmare’ being the only sequel Wes Craven returned to direct.
