The Christmas Movie Classic That Marked Chevy Chase’s Biggest ‘90s Mistake
It is easy to forget just how big Chevy Chase was in the 1980s. During a boom decade for comedies and cads, Chase might have been the biggest cad to dominate the box office scene of them all. He even appeared in Caddyshack (1980)!
These days folks tend to focus on the turbulent star’s behind-the-scenes reputation and various gossips, but in the era of Reagan, his name helped get movies like Three Amigos! and Spies Like Us greenlit. Also much to Chase’s personal satisfaction, he was still considered something of a sex symbol thanks to films like Fletch (1985), a byproduct of the early aura-farming he did back in his breakout success on the first season of SNLin 1975-6.
Yet if there was one subgenre of laughers that most explained his appeal, it was the family comedy, the increasingly popular baby boomer variation on father knows best tales from their youth, which came roaring back on television in the ‘80s with allegedly wholesome entertainment like The Cosby Show and Full House, and on the big screen via efforts like Mr. Mom and Three Men and the Baby. In certain ways, Chase pioneered what would soon become a defining feature of that entertainment as more boomers aged into parenthood over the next 20 years: the family movie about an oafish and slightly naughty father.
Thus entered Clark Griswold, the snide, selfish, and lecherous head of the Griswold clan in Harold Ramis and John Hughes’ National Lampoon’s Vacation. While that R-rated 1983 hit felt like a subversion of the burgeoning ‘80s sitcom, premiering one year after Family Ties put Michael J. Fox on Steven Spielberg’s radar and one year before The Cosby Show fooled most of America, by the time of Chase’s third outing as a pitiful paterfamilias in Christmas Vacation (1989), the rough edges had been smoothed over and the rating blunted to a PG.
To be clear, Christmas Vacation is a holiday favorite nearly 40 years later for a reason. Its cynicism about the indignities of holiday gatherings is only matched by its accuracy—at least in the scenes where Clark is struggling with Christmas lights and not sexually harassing a clerk in front of his son. It was one of the 20 biggest movies of ’89 and capped a decade that saw SNL’s would-be heartthrob transform into the face of reliable family entertainments like the Griswold flicks and 1988’s Funny Farm.
All of which is to explain why Chase made one of the biggest mistakes of his career in the ‘90s when he failed to follow up on Christmas Vacation with what became another holiday staple. This is how Chevy missed out on The Santa Clause.
Admittedly, there was no obvious way of recognizing in 1992 that a screenplay by television comedy writers Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick would become a VHS and cable television favorite in the years to come. Benvenuti and Rudnick had some experience writing for Carol Burnett’s briefly revived variety show in 1991, as well as for Dennis Miller’s talk show, but the pair had never written a feature when the story of Scott Calvin, a toy executive with fortuitous initials, started making the rounds at Disney.
The story obviously had its appeal, with yet another buffoonish dad finding out he’s been litigiously bamboozled into becoming the next Santa Claus after he scared the last guy off a roof—meaning this is the rare Christmas movie that incidentally begins with what might be second-degree manslaughter. No seriously, in the earliest draft(s), Scott even shot Santa, thinking he was a burglar.
In 1992, it had appeal to a revitalized Walt Disney Pictures, which under the stewardship of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg was all-in on movie star vehicles. This is probably why they thought they had a great one for a comedian with a proven track record in this sort of thing. The problem was Chase simply didn’t want to be that kind of star at this time.
At the turn of the decade, Chase’s notoriously difficult reputation was reaching a zenith as he sought to avoid doing the kind of family movies that studio executives might want to pigeonhole him in. He wanted to pivot not just back to more adult-skewing comedies like Fletch but outright dramatic roles. It’s supposedly why the actor butted heads with not only the Memoirs of an Invisible Man’s screenwriter, William Goldman, but its initial director Ivan Reitman. Chase championed the project at Warners as an opportunity to stretch his dramatic muscles as a romantic leading man. The experience left Goldman allegedly snarking, “I’m sorry, but I’m too old and too rich to put up with this shit,” (a quote he later walked back).
That film was ultimately directed by John Carpenter who also had nothing nice to say about the project. The film was a disaster by the time it came out in 1992, and shortly afterward Chase would pivot again to the project he would ultimately do instead of The Santa Clause: The Chevy Chase Show.
Chase’s contentious history with late night actually went back further than his movie career, with the comedian being eyed as a potential successor for Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show as early as 1975. After the first episode of Saturday Night, Dave Tebet reportedly said to other executives, “Chase is the only white gentile comedian around today. Think what that means when Johnny leaves.”
And in a profile cover story in New York magazine, Chase publicly toyed with the idea before dismissing it: “I’d never be tied down for five years interviewing TV personalities.” Perhaps that line is why Chase was never invited to guest host The Tonight Show like NBC executives dreamed, or why it would be another half-decade before Chase was invited again to be a guest on Carson’s show.
Circa 1993, however, things were different. Chase’s pivot to “dramatic” work had gone up in smoke. Meanwhile studios were still offering him roles like playing… the Santa Claus. So in the wake of Carson finally retiring for realsies from The Tonight Show, and his throne remaining in question as David Letterman defected to CBS, Chase took a $3 million offer from Fox Broadcasting to become their own late night gamble—after Dolly Parton passed.
In addition to signing Chase for $3 million, Fox spent another $1 million renovating Los Angeles’ Aquarius Theater into the renamed “Chevy Chase Theater.” And on Sept. 7, 1993, The Chevy Chase Show debuted on Fox, a week after Letterman’s new CBS premier and a little over a year after Jay Leno’s ascent on CBS. The Fox contender was canceled six weeks later.
In a statement to The New York Times about his show’s ignoble end, Chase said he found talk shows to be a “very constraining format” and that “my hat is off to those guys who do this kind of work. It takes a tremendous effort and long hours of commitment.” But in a telling further pivot, he said he was already looking forward to the other movie he shot in early ’93: Cops & Robbersons, a late jumper on the buddy cop movie bandwagon that paired Chase, playing a street-wise crook, with Jack Palance as a “too-old-for-this-shit” cop. It was a flop.
Meanwhile Disney found its Santa Clause star after another SNL alum, Bill Murray, likewise passed: they looked to television where one of the new ‘90s era sitcom dads on ABC was a little more gruff; a little more loutish; a little more like Clark Griswold.
By leading The Santa Clause, Tim Allen found a clean transition from TV to the big screen, becoming a permanent fixture of family entertainment in the ‘90s, 2000s, and honestly to this day where he is still milking Santa and Disney’s jolly red robes in The Santa Clauses, a 2023 Disney+ sequel to the trilogy of Christmas movies he ended up making between ’94 and 2006. And the O.G. remains a favorite on Disney streaming.
Conversely, Chase went back to family comedies before the ‘90s ended in Man of the House (1995), Vegas Vacation (1997), and Snow Day (2000).
Brainiac Casting Means Man of Steel Can Recreate One of Comics’ Most Disturbing Team-Ups
For some comic book fans, the news that Lars Eidinger had been cast as Brainiac for James Gunn‘s follow-up to Superman brings one phrase to mind: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? The uninitiated would answer, “Nothing! Man of Tomorrow is the name of the Superman sequel and obviously it’s coming along fine!” But comic book fans know “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” as the title of a monumental two-part story by Alan Moore.
Published in 1986, “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” was intended to be the final story of the Silver Age Superman, who was rebooted along with the rest of the DC Universe with the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. The story features art by George Pérez and Silver Age Superman penciller Curt Swan and contains many elements from the Man of Steel’s most outrageous stories, including an incredibly upsetting subplot in which Brainiac possesses Lex Luthor.
Lex Luthor and Brainiac are just two of the villains who show up in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”. In fact, the story reads like a grisly survey of Silver Age Superman concepts. Once light-hearted characters like Bizarro and Toyman become murderers, and we watch as Lana Lang and Krypto get brutally killed. Eventually, we learn that everything has gone wrong because the fifth dimensional imp Mister Mxyzptlk, usually a gleeful trickster who uses his reality-warping abilities to play pranks on Superman, has grown bored with being mischievous and has decided to become evil. His first act of evil is turning all of Superman’s enemies into sadistic killers.
Upsetting as all of those elements are, they have nothing on two scenes involving Lex Luthor and Brainiac. It begins with Luthor traveling across the arctic, not unlike he did in Superman, this time to find the body of Brainiac, who was portrayed as a skeletal alien during the Silver Age. Thinking Brainiac had died, Luthor lifts the robot’s head and monologues about looking forward to dismantling his one-time ally in evil. But then, machine parts begin swarming over Luthor’s body and his shouts of defiance turn into pleas for mercy. “I welcome you to the new Brainiac-Luthor team-up,” declares Brainiac in a cold, robot voice.
Whether drawn by Perez or Swan, the combination is horrifying. The team-up creature wears Brainiac’s expressionless metal face over Luthor’s own human face, a horrified and helpless look visible beneath, reminding us that he remains alive but unable to control his own body. It gets worse when Luthor’s body dies, but Brainiac keeps it animated, resulting in a terrifying image of Luthor’s limp and lifeless body still walking and firing a gun to kill Jimmy Olsen.
The Brainiac-Luthor team-up has been referenced many times since that story, most memorably in the Justice League animated series. And with Brainiac now officially confirmed to be the villain in Man of Tomorrow, it’s hard to imagine that Nicholas Hoult‘s Luthor won’t at least attempt to partner with the Coluan villain. But Gunn has been clear that Man of Tomorrow will find Luthor joining forces with David Corenswet’s Superman, perhaps after Rick Flag Sr. sends them both to Salvation, so any Brainiac-Luthor team-up will be short-lived.
Which is a good thing. Man of Tomorrow is just the second adventure for the new DCU Superman, still at the start of his story. “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” was the end of an entire era of Superman stories, closing out on a note both horrifying and hopeful. Until the DCU has matched the Silver Age Superman in terms of longevity and quality, even an upsetting supervillain team-up is still premature.
Man of Tomorrow is slated for release on July 9, 2027.
First Trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey Puts Human Drama First
Although it dates back to the 8th century BC, The Odyssey has long been a monumental part of the Western literary canon, and with good reason. The story of Odysseus’ decade-long return from the Trojan War to his home Ithaca is filled with high adventure and incredible monsters. Gods such as Athena and Poseidon, nymphs and sirens, and cannibal giants all appear in Homer’s incredible adventure.
But very little of that shows up in the first trailer for Christopher Nolan‘s take on The Odyssey. Instead, the trailer emphasizes the basic human drama of Odysseus (Matt Damon) struggling to get home and realizing that he shares some guilt for keeping his men away. Throughout the trailer, we get glimpses of some of the other human players in that drama, including Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland as Odysseus’s wife Penelope and son Telemachus, and Benny Safdie as Agamemnon, the Greek king who forced Odysseus into serving in the Trojan War. By focusing on these human beings, Nolan promises an epic grounded in real emotions.
For some, the lack of gods and monsters in The Odyssey trailer highlights a problem with Christopher Nolan’s approach. While the filmmaker often makes high concept movies about dream heists, time capers, and Batman, Nolan tries to ground them as much as possible. Batman Begins famously provided a real-world reason for every part of the Caped Crusader’s mythos. Even Oppenheimer was less about the atomic bomb itself and more about J. Robert Oppenheimer’s doomed relationships.
To that end, some have criticized Nolan’s visual style, especially in relationship to The Odyssey. Beyond even the complaints about historical accuracy, which have been brewing ever since Damon was seen wearing a Hollywood-style push broom helmet instead of those worn by actual ancient Greeks, is the issue of his stylization. Nolan tends to take a brutalist approach, using muted grays and browns and emphasizing scale. He does not have an expansive color palette.
Yet, the trailer is not without its mythic elements. Most obviously, there’s the imposing design of Agamemnon. With his black armor, highlighted by gold insignias and a spinal column adorning the back of his helmet, Agamemnon feels larger than life, even before we see Odysseus kneel before him. There’s a golden hour shot of Odysseus’s men pulling the Trojan Horse from water. There’s an undead army rising from the ground and the briefest glimpse of the Cyclops emerging from the cave.
As those elements demonstrate, Nolan is certainly embracing the mythical parts of The Odyssey. He’s not going to cheat by making, say, a large man with one eye missing stand in as the “real” version of what becomes Homer’s monster. The sirens likely won’t be beautiful women with whom Odysseyus’s men had a very bad drunken night in port.
But the trailer also shows that Christopher Nolan remains Christopher Nolan, and he’s always going to be most interested in the basic human drama. Fundamentally for him, The Odyssey is the story of a man who wants to get back home to his family, making Odysseus a hero not unlike Cobb from Inception or Coop from Interstellar. While that familiarity may disappoint hardcore mythology nuts, it will certainly help modern audiences connect with a story from several centuries ago.
The Odyssey comes to theaters on July 17, 2026.
Why Is Avatar So Big But No One Seems to Care?
Before viewers returned to Pandora in Avatar: Fire and Ash, they quickly checked in with an old friend. The first teaser for Avengers: Doomsday, which played before James Cameron‘s latest sci-fi adventure, featured no epic battles, no scenes of superheroes saving the day, not even a quippy one-liner. The one minute teaser consisted of nothing but Chris Evans as Steve Rogers riding to a nondescript one-story home and smiling at his infant child. Yet, that was enough to elicit gasps and cheers from the general audience at this writer’s screening, equal to anything that happened during Fire and Ash.
It’s hard to imagine people doing the same for Jake Sully, the human marine played by Sam Worthington, who becomes Na’Vi in the Avatar franchise. The Avatar films are fantastic fun and make tons of money. The previous two received strong notices from critics and currently are the #1 and #3 slots on lists of all-time box office hits, with the third entry sure to follow suit.
But for everything that Cameron does right in the Avatar franchise, certain aspects of the movies keep them from permeating the culture like other phenomena of the 21st century.
The Past Colonizing the Future
Don’t be fooled by the aliens, spaceships, and mech suits. Avatar comes not from the future, but from the past, especially the colonial fictions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Stories about Robinson Crusoe, Alan Quatermain, and Natty Bumppo turned the European expansionist project into high adventure, making the process of white conquest into non-white spaces look like a battle of good and evil.
With Avatar, James Cameron explicitly and implicitly repudiates the racism of those narratives. Most obviously, the films do not portray any actual human beings as the uncivilized other that must be improved by a white hero. Instead, the citizens of Pandora are blue aliens, and the human conquerers include people from across the globe, of various nationalities and ethnicities.
Even with that fictional remove in place, Avatar tries not to embrace the standard colonizing narrative. The film directly identifies Jake and his marines as colonizers who don’t care about the living creatures in Pandora. They want to exploit the land for their own end, to replace the planet that they already destroyed, and they don’t care who they harm in the process. Even when he abandons humans to join the Na’vi, Jake’s mere presence hurts the people because he brings more humans with them. Unlike Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking novels, Jake doesn’t become the bridge between the Na’vi and the humans as the former dies out; rather, he urges the Na’vi to fight against the encroaching humans, directly stating that humans must be fully driven out of Pandora.
Yet, for as much as Cameron tries to marry post-colonial perspective into his films, they can’t escape the fact that modern audiences don’t have the same thirst for exploration and conquest as those of the past. Whether that represents a better understanding of the evils of colonialism, or if cyberspace is now the great frontier, or if people just don’t love adventure like they used to, the desire just isn’t there. The idea of seeing something new or going someplace never before visited isn’t quite the draw it once was.
Thus, the worlds that Avatar creates are wonderful and beautiful, but viewers who can see everything from their phones don’t have the same interests as housebound Victorians did.
Uncharacteristically Characterless
When one thinks of the culturally-defining movie moments of the past two decades, what comes to mind? The exhausted Avengers eating schwarma? Dominic Toretto sharing Dos Equis with the family? Elsa or Elphaba belting out songs of self-acceptance?
Although all of these movies have their moments of high drama and pure spectacle, it’s these quiet scenes that get turned into memes and get reenacted on TikTok. Why? Because people care about the characters first, and only invest in the spectacles to the extent that things happen to the people they care about. And that’s where Avatar truly falls short.
Each of the characters in Avatar can be defined by a couple of words. Jake is strong and protective, Neytiri is fierce and loyal, Quaritch is headstrong and cruel, Kiri is rebellious and curious, etc. This simplicity helps viewers keep track of the characters while being immersed in amazing worlds, as do Cameron’s simple and timeless themes about the power of family, welcoming the outsider, caring for the environment, and so on.
However, the same familairity that keeps us from being overwhelmed also prevents us from caring about the characters after we leave the theater. No one clammers for a Jake Sully T-shirt because there have already been countless other guys who have a heroic moral turn, often in stories that emphasize that moral complexity more than they do the fantastic world in which the change of heart takes place.
It’s telling that the only parts of Avatar to really become internet memes are Payakan the Tulkun, who gets a plot in Fire and Ash that feels shoehorned in to please the web, and the movie’s papyrus font.
A Cinematic Amusement
To be clear, none of this means that Avatar movies are bad. They are incredible spectacles and demonstrations of pure cinematic prowess. In each of the three films, Cameron combines meat-and-potatoes filmmaking fundamentals with audacious visual flourishes, resulting in films that are both exhilarating and legible.
Moreover, in a time when Netflix and other companies want to destroy the cinema experience, the Avatar movies are celebrations of the theater. They absolutely deserve to be seen in 3D and on the biggest possible screen, as Cameron uses the technology as not just a gimmick to earn an up charge, but to build out the world and reinforce the film’s themes. Each and every Avatar film turns the theater into an amusement park in a manner unique to cinemas.
But, ultimately, the joy of Avatar stays entirely within the movie theater. As soon as you walk out and you deposit your glasses in the recycling bin, your adventures on Pandora slip away just as easily. That’s not a bad thing, but it is certainly a thing with the Avatar franchise, movies that belong on the screen and not in the culture.
Avatar: Fire and Ash should be watched, and should only be watched, in theaters where it is now playing worldwide.
Last Christmas Deserves to Be a Holiday Favorite
Last Christmas, you didn’t watch Last Christmas. And that was probably the same the Christmas before that and the Christmas before that. Immediately after the holiday rom-com released in 2019, it was mocked by moviegoers, who derided star Emilia Clarke‘s decidedly non-Daenerys role as a messy Englishwoman with a bad heart and mocked the film’s absurd twist, a reach even by rom-com standards.
Yet, the further we get from Game of Thrones and the more that merely the title Hot Frosty can win the internet’s favor, Last Christmas ages better and better. The very things that made the movie a laughingstock to its first viewers have proven to be its strengths. Last Christmas belongs in your regular holiday viewing because it is so aggressively odd.
Christmas is Corny
Last Christmas lays out its central appeals in the first scene of a subplot running throughout the movie, involving a romance between Santa (Michelle Yeoh), who runs the Christmas shop where Clarke’s character works, and an awkward Danish man (Peter Mygind) who adores the holidays. The man stumbles in and holds up a gaudy Santa Claus tchotchke and asks if the store has anything “dissimilar.” Santa, just as smitten with him as he is with her, stutters out a response, affirming that they have many things that are dissimilar. By way of example, she produces a Christmas gibbon, a horrendous ornament featuring a glowing red primate.
Why would anyone want to buy those ugly things? Who in real life would misuse the word “dissimilar” like that, let alone find it charming? Who would use such a clumsy misunderstanding to start a relationship?
Last Christmas answers those questions by saying, “People in a Christmas rom-com.” Directed by Paul Feig and written by Emma Thompson and Bryony Kimmings, Last Christmas stars Clarke as Kate, the daughter of Yugoslavian immigrants who holds to her dream of being a professional singer, despite no sign of success. We meet her as she’s booted from friend’s apartment after friend’s apartment, kicked out each time her carelessness crosses a line, until she finally agrees to move back in with her worrying mother Petra (Thompson) and father Ivan (Boris Isaković, in a complete 180 from his acclaimed role in Quo Vadis, Aida?).
Petra worries so much because Kate suffers from a deadly heart condition that threatened to kill her at a young age. Even though she received a heart transplant year before the movie’s main events, the constant doting has left Kate unable to commit and in a tense relationship with not just her parents, but also her sister Marta (Lydia Leonard), a successful lawyer.
Into this situation comes Tom (Henry Golding), a seemingly care-free man who appears around the Christmas shop in Central London and takes her on all sorts of low-key adventures, including a walk in the park or breaking into an ice rink to learn to skate. Through Tom’s stress-free spotting, Kate learns to stop worrying, to show compassion for other people, and, yes, fall in love, all during Christmas time.
Contrived? Yes. Implausible? Certainly. But that’s what makes Last Christmas so wonderful.
Last Christmas’s First Principles
Last Christmas has a lot going on and, to its credit, it embraces it with the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning.
That enthusiasm is most pronounced in the qualities one would expect of its chief creatives. Clarke gives her famously expressive face a full work out in the movie, pushing her eyebrows down to underscore Kate’s latest disappointment and letting her countenance beam as Kate begins to open up to others. Clarke’s performance lacks any of the weight increasingly piled upon her Game of Thrones character, and she embraces that lightness with an energetic take that could be annoying, were she not so charming. Even when Kate’s accidentally setting ablaze a friend’s model ship or mocking a customer at the shop, we remain on her side because Clarke gives herself over to the role.
As a Paul Feig movie, Last Christmas does have some of the improvisation that sometimes results in classics (Freaks and Geeks) and sometimes disasters (Another Simple Favor). Here, it usually involves Clarke and Thompson, who settle into an immigrant mother and naturalized daughter schtick that works despite its familiarity. It works not just because Thompson’s a seasoned enough actor to keep her character grounded, even with a broad Eastern European accent, but also because Feig exercises rare restraint, not letting any of the improvised scenes go on for too long.
Most of all, Last Christmas works because it understands its genre, a point best illustrated by the love interest Tom. Tom is, of course, perfect. He’s impossibly handsome, impossibly charming, and impossibly supportive. The film displays these qualities in Kate and Tom’s first conversation after their meet-cute.
As they decorate a tree in Santa’s shop, Kate dumps all sorts of backstory about her family and her tense relationship with them. Tom navigates the potential emotional minefield with uncanny nimbleness. He asks follow-up questions when needed, he keeps quiet for as long as she needs, and when he follows her confession with a witty observation about an ugly ornament, it works to cut the tension and doesn’t make her feel like he’s diminished what she’s shared.
No such combination exists in real life. But Last Christmas isn’t real life. It’s a rom-com set a Christmas, and thus exists to deliver warm feelings and a relationship fantasy. One must keep that fact in mind when getting to the most infamous part of the movie, its twist ending.
Note: The following contains spoilers for the ending of Last Christmas. Yes, really.
The Ghost of Christmas Past
Remember the first line of the Wham! song “Last Christmas”? Well, it’s literal in the movie. While searching in a park for Tom, who does not have a phone that she can call and who only appears around this area, Kate discovers a bench with a plaque on it. The plaque commemorates Thomas Webster, a man so devoted to helping others that he even donated his organs at death, including a heart that went to a would-be singer with a heart condition.
Yes, Kate has fallen in love with the ghost of the man who donated his heart to her.
There are lots of reasons to roll your eyes and scoff at this reveal. But if you do, you’ve missed the entire point of the film’s whimsy and you should just go watch Black Christmas—but not the classic one or even the socially-conscious remake from a few years ago; no, you’ve got to watch the mean one from the mid-2000s with all the eyeball stuff because you have no happiness within you and you only deserve nastiness.
Look, the twist of Last Christmas is silly and contrived, but no more so than the rest of the film. And it should be contrived, because Christmas movies are often about contrived affirmations, such as God stopping the entire flow of time to tell George Bailey that he matters or Santa buying a little girl a house. And rom-coms are often contrived, which is how Sam and Annie ended up on the Empire State Building’s observation deck
Last Christmas understands and embraces both of its genres, and it executes them with such aplomb and charm that its oddities become positives. It demands that you accept it on its own terms, aligning those who refuse with pre-fall-in-love Kate.
Give it Your Heart
If you’re looking for raw relationship drama, go watch a John Cassavetes movie. If you’re looking for a film that takes health problems seriously, you can still watch Lorenzo’s Oil. And if you want a great movie with holiday ghosts, you have plenty of A Christmas Carol adaptations to choose from.
But if you want a movie that’s going to take yuletide optimism to its furthest extreme and be endlessly charming in the process, then Last Christmas should be on your must watch list every Christmas.
Netflix Has a House, And Yes, You Can Visit It: Inside The Netflix House Dallas Grand Opening
For years, studios and networks have constructed expensive, temporary activations at fan events like San Diego Comic-Con, or introduced touring experiences featuring beloved IP. As Netflix does, they went bigger, fittingly, in Texas, by letting fans step inside their favorite stories at a new 100,000-square-foot entertainment venue, Netflix House Dallas.
On Dec. 9th, Den of Geek attended the VIP opening of Netflix House Dallas; a sprawling immersive playground where the streamer’s biggest shows come to life. The Red Envelope entrance, a callback to the company’s origins as a DVD mailing service, at the Galleria Dallas is the entry way into an atrium of towering art installations featuring imagery from streaming hits like The Queen’s Gambit, Big Mouth, Wednesday, and One Piece, just to name a few. Guests are welcomed to eat, shop, play, and pose inside the worlds they’ve spent years binge-watching at home.
Although Netflix House Philadelphia’s opening marked the company’s first permanent attraction earlier in 2025, the streaming platform has spent the past five years experimenting with immersive, live events. In 2020, Los Angeles hosted a limited-time Stranger Things: The Drive-Into Experience, which drew significant fan attention and encouraged Netflix’s Vice President of Experiences, Greg Lombardo, to further explore live, in-person attractions.
“For two decades, fans have welcomed us into their homes, and we thought it’s about time we welcome them into ours,” Lombardo tells Den of Geek from a plush couch inside of the Squid Game experience. “Netflix House is a chance for fans to get closer to all the different stories they love.”
For Lombardo, accessibility is key. Netflix House requires no entry fee, with games and attractions priced between $10 and $39. At the Dallas location, guests can step into Stranger Things-themed areas, developed in collaboration with the Duffer Brothers and cast members, alongside separate attractions inspired by Squid Game.
At the Housewarming Party, Stranger Things stars David Harbour and Cara Buono were amongst the esteemed guests. They were struck by how closely the featured attraction, Stranger Things: Escape the Dark, resembled their on-set environment.
“You know what’s funny,” Harbour commented on the red carpet. “The vines they use in this house on the wall [are] the same exact vines we have [on set].”
NETFLIX HOUSE DALLAS – Stranger Things: Escape the Dark. Photo by Justin Clemons.
Stranger Things: Escape the Dark indeed feels like stepping into the world of Hawkins. The 55-minute walk-through experience puts you on the search and rescue team with a flashlight and headset and sends you off into the dark to explore several locations in the fictional Indiana town. While we won’t spoil the plot, Escape the Dark borrows elements of a haunted house, escape room, and immersive theater. It’s so well constructed, down to every minute detail, that at points Hawkins begins to feel less like fiction and more like your own tortured reality.
The second headline experience, Squid Game: Survive The Trials, puts fans inside of the global hit, in a competitive and (mostly) family friendly game environment. These experiences were developed uniquely for Netflix House Dallas, while Philadelphia’s Netflix House features experiences headlined by Wednesday and One Piece. Each Netflix House is tailored to its location. In Dallas, Netflix partnered with local tradespeople and artists, providing nearly 300 jobs and creative opportunities to the area. Dallas-based muralist, Jeremy Biggers created the large-scale exterior mural for Netflix House, along with several artworks featured throughout the interior.
“Philadelphia and Dallas were great first cities for the pilots,” Lombardo says. “You have a big population of fans of entertainment, and in both cases, rich cultural cities where there’s art and a lot to do.”
“With Netflix House, you don’t have to hop on a plane,” Lombardo says. “You can come day in, day out [and] experience something new throughout the year. “We want to be a local destination. We want to be something you can come again and again throughout the year, whether it’s with your family or as a date night.”
At the Philadelphia location, a theater will stream Stranger Things season 5 finale on Dec. 31. In 2027, Netflix also plans to open a third House location in Las Vegas. Lombardo teased additional programming coming to Netflix House locations, including trivia nights, screenings, and live sporting events, some ticketed, others free to enter. At Galleria Dallas, customers can enter via giant Red Envelope or access the venue from inside the mall.
NETFLIX HOUSE DALLAS – Squid Game: Survive the Trials. Photo by Justin Clemons.
Although the venues are permanent, Lombardo says the offerings will continually evolve as new shows rise in popularity. The concept is modular by design and ready to be tweaked, even before the grand opening. The team rushed to include nods to the breakout sensation KPop Demon Hunters inside Netflix Bites. To that end, Lombardo hopes each visit feels different from the last, meaning the Netflix Houses will adapt alongside the platform’s original programming. For fans who might not have time for the full Squid Game or Stranger Things experiences, Replay, an arcade with customized games featuring various Netflix IP, such as The Floor is Lava and an NFL Blitz type button masher for Happy Gilmore 2, was a standout at Netflix House.
“We have to be able to move at the speed of the stories that come on service,” Lombardo says. “We have to be able to follow what fans love. You’ll see the space change throughout the year, whether it’s the featured experiences, the atrium, retail or the menu at Netflix Bites.”
While Stranger Things: Escape the Dark was the clear winner amongst the attendees of the VIP night, I’ll chalk winning red light, green light inside Squid Game as my own personal highlight. We didn’t just survive the trials, we thrived.
“If we can give fans their hero moment in these experiences, then we’ve done our job,” Lombardo says.
Comics and Last-Minute Collectible Gift Ideas from Walmart
Did you know that Walmart’s online store actually carries graded comics? It’s true! And the line-up of box sets and multi-volume collections are just the thing for that last minute gift for that comic-loving family member who’s coming in from out of town next week. Don’t sleep on these great ideas for the fans in your life, including our picks for collectible plush doll mystery packs with bonus DLC. And should you happen to get a Walmart gift card in your own stocking, you know exactly where to go!
Comics & Book Sets
The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (1974)
With a CGC grade of 8.5, this Bronze Age issue features the first appearance of the Punisher, introducing Marvel’s most enduring antihero at the height of 1970s grit. With Spidey caught between justice and vigilantism, this installment remains one of the era’s most influential and consistently in-demand keys.
This modern-era issue, with its CGC grade of 9.8 serves as an accessible jumping-on point, spotlighting the X-Men’s post-Schism status quo. This collectible comic is packaged together with ten other titles in The X-Men and Uncanny X-Men.
Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Omnibus Vol. 2 (2015)
Collecting the heart of Geoff Johns’ acclaimed run, this omnibus chronicles the expansion of the emotional spectrum and the rise of the Blackest Night saga. A must-have modern hardcover for DC fans, it’s prized for its definitive storytelling and appealing oversized format, great for a shelf display.
This deluxe collection brings together prestige one-shots exploring Gotham’s most iconic villains through self-contained stories that any Batman fan will love. As a boxed set, it offers both display value and modern collectibility, pairing A-list creators with a concept inspired by The Killing Joke.
Premium Marvel Comics Grab Bag (Collection of 24 Superhero Comics)
What fan of Marvel comics wouldn’t love getting 24 comics all at once under the Christmas tree? This premium grab bag is a great way to impress the collector in your life with a massive stack of reading material that will carry them through the new year.
Unbox one of six 8-inch surprise fruit characters, including Eastern Dragon, T-Rex, Kitsune, Creation, Yeti, and Eagle, from the Series 3 collection. Part of the fun in giving a mystery box is guessing which one you’re going to get. It’s fun for the gift giver as well as the recipient!
There are ten possible minifigures available in this mystery box of four 1.5-inch toys, including a chance for both physical and permanent DLC. This is a great way to buy multiple figures at the same time, making it impossible to disappoint the collector in your life. Collect them all!
The halfway mark between the two above sets is this pair of 4-inch mystery characters. You have the possibility of unwrapping two of the following Series 2 characters: Bomb, Spike, Chop, Love, Sand, Dark, Revive, Magma, and Mammoth. You know plush toys have to have a friend!
Dress To Impress: Mystery Models Superstar 5-Pack (Series 1)
If the collector in your life prefers dolls to plush toys, try this grab bag of five mystery dolls which includes more than 30 accessories, five collector cards, and a bonus DLC token. Each articulated figure features fully customizable outfits, letting fans mix and match hair, clothing, shoes, and accessories to create endless runway-ready looks. The set also includes a striking 14-inch gold star case that doubles as stylish storage for your collection. It even unlocks exclusive digital rewards to extend the fun beyond the physical figures.
If you’ve got young children on your list, why not let them hatch one of six surprise eggs, each revealing a randomized collectible pet figure? The set includes display stands and accessories, making it easy to show off each new companion. Collectors can hunt for Series 2 favorites, including ultra-rare Rainbow and Golden pets with exclusive finishes, and enjoy bonus in-game rewards with two DLC codes.
Noah Schnapp Weighs in On the Mike and Will Relationship Ahead of Stranger Things Finale
As the clock ticks down to the final episodes of Stranger Things, it’s getting wild out there in the internet streets. Speculation and fan theories are rampant, with viewers eagerly dissecting the latest Volume 2 trailer and combing through cast interviews with an occasionally frightening zeal. Who will survive? How will Vecna be defeated? And will poor Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) ever catch a boyfriend break?
For those that don’t know, a huge portion of the Stranger Things fandom has been not-so-secretly hoping that best friends Will and Mike (also known as “Byler”) will discover their friendship is something more than strictly platonic. (Don’t believe me? There are over 65,000 TikToks tagged “byleredit” right now. A surprising amount of them are set to Hozier.) And Stranger Things has, in some ways, leaned into this idea, using Will’s obvious crush on his bestie to tease out the show’s exploration of his sexuality.
To be fair, the show has largely depicted Will’s journey with a deft hand. While it’s fair to complain that the show sidelined the character too heavily in recent seasons, it’s never punched down at him for his feelings or made them into a joke for the other characters to laugh at. Instead, Will’s acquired a sort of mentor in Robin (Maya Hawke), who spent most of season 5’s first volume trying to help the younger boy sort out not only his sexual orientation, but his self-worth, offering comforting advice about what it means to feel so different in a world that expects everyone to be the same.
But then, of course, Will finally got powers and saved Mike’s life in one of the series’ most impressive scenes to date, and suddenly, anything seems possible. With the character finally coming into his own like this, could Will actually confess his true feelings to his best friend? Maybe. But don’t hold your breath that it means Byler’s destined for a happy (or at least non-platonic) ending.
Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike, has already cast doubt on whether the friends might ever become something more, insisting that a romance between them at this point “wouldn’t feel that earned”. Now, during a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live, Schanpp also seemingly downplayed the idea of a surprise Byler endgame. (Sorry, guys.)
“Oh man, are we live? Um,” he laughed, when asked about his reaction to the viewers who want Will and Mike together romantically. “I think… I mean look, it’s like a real kind of authentic representation of a queer kid in the ‘80s. I’ve dealt with that myself, being in love with a friend and maybe they don’t love you back, or they feel differently.”
Not exactly the most ringing endorsement of a Will and Mike endgame we’ve ever heard. But, while it seems unlikely that a real romance is in the offering, that doesn’t mean that Stranger Things won’t use these final episodes to reinforce how much the two best friends who’ve been at the center of the show since its beginning mean to one another.
And, if you believe Schnapp about this, you probably also have to believe him that the show sticks the landing. (And that has to count for something.)
“I’m not gonna spoil anything,” he said. “But I think the Duffers close it really well.”
Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 premieres on Netflix at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 25. Volume 3 premieres Wednesday, December 31, at 8 p.m. ET.
Gaming Sneak Peeks: Hands On With Two Anticipated 2026 Titles
The gaming industry came together to celebrate its biggest achievements in 2025 when The Game Awards reconvened in Los Angeles this month. Den of Geek was on site to attend, not only reflecting on a triumphant year, especially for indie games, but also to get a sneak peek of what is set to launch in 2026. This preview included several hands-on game demos of early builds from upcoming eagerly anticipated games set to debut throughout the new year.
From imaginative dungeon-crawlers to unique twists on fantasy hack-and-slash adventures, 2026 is quickly shaping up to be packed with exciting new games. This comes as The Game Awards provided plenty of blockbuster announcements as part of the star-studded annual event. Without further ado, here’s what we saw at The Game Awards 2025 and got to sit down and play for ourselves.
Phantom Blade Zero
S-GAME has been working on Phantom Blade Zero for a long time and all that hard work is definitely setting up the title to become one of the most hotly anticipated fantasy action games of 2026. Set in the Phantom World, drawing from cultural and mythological elements from China’s Ming Dynasty, the game lets you play as Soul, a stoic assassin with a reserved demeanor working for a powerful organization known simply as The Order. After being framed for murder, Soul becomes the focus of a harrowing manhunt, with a grave injury leaving him 66 days to live. Soul is determined to learn who set him up with the time that he has left.
We had previously played an early build of Phantom Blade Zero at Summer Game Fest 2024 and, in the subsequent year and half, the game has come a long way since its already impressive teaser. The latest build that S-GAME let us play with goes even deeper with the experience, navigating through a feudal village besieged by monstrous forces inspired by classic Chinese folklore. This build gave me a fuller idea of what the game will ultimately look like, from a wider arsenal of weapons to choose from on the fly, a more formidable array of combat and evasion techniques, and a more sweeping look at the gorgeous environments as I lethally flitted between enemies in the village and nearby canyon.
Just as with the SGF 2024 build, this early version of the game really soared during its boss battles, and I powered through several during this demo. There is an intensely operatic feel to these set pieces, whether caught in a frenzied duel on a rooftop overlooking a valley or confronting a real juggernaut of an opponent in a burning courtyard. S-GAME was heavily inspired by classical wuxia and anyone who’s ever seen something like Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon will recognize these familiar martial arts aesthetics.
Despite its emphasis on melee combat and dark fantasy elements, Phantom Blade Zero isn’t a soulslike game and, with more elegant fighting styles, it’s not quite a standard hack-and-slash experience either. Instead the game feels like a blend of epic historical martial arts films, including Once Upon a Time in China, along with intense action that favors technique and timing, but without the unforgiving difficulty of a soulslike. For any fan of the fantasy genre or sword-based combat, this a title to definitely keep an eye on going into 2026.
Developed and published by S-GAME, Phantom Blade Zero launches Sept. 5 for PlayStation 5 and PC.
DAMON and BABY
While Arc System Works may be hard at work continuing to support fighting games like Guilty Gear Strive and the upcoming Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, they’re also working on a variety of original games debuting throughout 2026. One of the earliest is DAMON and BABY, a cozy dungeon-crawler with a solid companionship dynamic. Players control Damon, the Demon King, as he navigates dimly lit caverns and other environments with a child riding atop his shoulders.
I got to play an early build of DAMON and BABY and one of the things that struck me as unique about it right away was the fact that Damon isn’t armed with the medieval melee weapons typical to the genre, but a modern handgun. Using both joysticks, players can move and aim as they blast through waves of enemies. Though the demo started with Damon armed only with a sidearm, other glimpses at the game showcase him with an expanded arsenal, including with submachine guns and assault rifles. This sets it significantly apart from other games in the genre, though there are also melee mechanics for those who want to get up close and personal.
The other big mechanic is how Damon works with Baby to advance, able to throw the little girl and warp to her when it comes to the game’s platforming elements. This also informs the game’s quirky humor, which I got snippets of while playing through the build, though a lot of this experience was understandably geared more towards the gameplay than the overarching narrative. Finally, Arc System Works teased that the game would feature two-player co-op gameplay, though I didn’t have the chance to give it a spin at this time.
Another step beyond the fighting game genre that Arc System Works usually associated with, DAMON and BABY is set up to be a quirky and approachable title some time in 2026. For all the gameplay and fantasy action, this title feels much more intimate in scale, closer to something like Silksong rather than a big, bombastic spectacle. This was only an early build of the game that I got to sample, but I’m intrigued to see where Arc System Works goes with this.
Developed and published by Arc System Works, Damon and Baby launches in early 2026 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Not Bringing Faith Back for the Buffy Revival Is a Big Missed Opportunity
The forthcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival certainly sounds as though it’s going to do things right. Rather than a cheap retread that gleefully rewrites everything we loved about the original, the series will feature original Chosen One Sarah Michelle Gellar and honor its legacy, even as it moves the franchise into a new era alongside a brand new Slayer. (Or Slayers, we’re not 100% clear on this point given how everything went down in the original series finale.)
No one knows precisely how Gellar’s Buffy will fit into the canvas of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale, though we’re all assuming she’s going to have a more Watcher-style mentor role. But her involvement — clearly the biggest hurdle to making any sort of sequel series work — means that fans are already speculating about which other original cast members might eventually show up alongside her. James Marsters is already out there being incredibly cryptic about it. But we do know for sure that one original star won’t be back.
Eliza Dushku, who played the rogue slayer Faith Lehane on Buffy and later crossed over for several multi-episode arcs on its spin-off series Angel, has categorically denied any plans to return to her most popular role. After over two decades in the industry, Dushku has completely changed her career path, becoming a therapist who specializes in using psychedelic therapies to help patients deal with trauma. She’s produced a Netflix documentary on the subject (In Waves and War) and, if her recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter is anything to go by, seems as happy and well-adjusted as anyone could hope for. She’s also fairly adamant that she’s done with acting for good.
“Oh yeah. I will not be in front of a camera again unless it’s in some capacity that is in service of my new work and passion,” Dushku said. “People ask me all the time if I miss it. And I don’t. Again, not because it wasn’t fulfilling. It was, and I did it for 25 years. I’ve met people who point out to me that I have lived these two lives, and I value both of them.”
And you know what? Good for her. Dushku certainly seems genuinely happy, and after facing both sexual assault and harassment during her years in the entertainment industry, goodness knows she’s earned a fresh start, however she wants one.
But it’s still difficult not to wonder what revisiting Dushku’s Buffy heroine might be like all these years later. Though Faith made only 26 television appearances across both Buffy and Angel, the character’s arc was one of the franchise’s strongest.
Faith was initially introduced as a sort of cautionary tale, a reminder of the kind of volatile, dangerous Slayer that Buffy could have easily become without the support system of her friends and family around her. But her story ultimately evolves into so much more than that. Her evolution from villain to hero is deeply satisfying precisely because it is so earned, and Faith’s arc is perhaps the franchise’s best example of the idea that goodness and heroism aren’t innate qualities, but choices, and that no one is so lost that they cannot find their way back to the light.
Yes, we see Faith kill someone, succumb to her inner darkness, and literally try to steal Buffy’s life. But we also see her choose to change, and not because of a sense of misplaced duty or guilt, but from a genuine desire to be a better person, and to atone for the wrong she has done. Faith actually goes to prison for her crimes — which, let’s be clear, is more direct punishment than either Angel or Spike face for their worst actions — and spends a lot of time (albeit mostly offscreen) working on herself and (with some help from Angel) confronting the darkness within. By the time Buffy season 7 rolls around, she’s become the leader she always saw Buffy as, a confidante to the new slayer recruits and a partner who finally gets to stand on the side of the good guys without apology. It’s hard to imagine a better lesson to teach a new Slayer than her story.
And while the series finale “Chosen” is a satisfying end to Faith’s story on many levels, people’s lives don’t have such neat bookends. How has Faith used all these lessons in the 25 years since the series’ original ending? What kind of Slayer did she become? Or did she, like her portrayer, walk away from the world she had known for so long? What might draw her back into it? Alas, it seems we’ll never know.
Of course, Gellar herself used to swear up and down she’d never pick up a stake again, either. Look how that turned out. Maybe Faith’s portrayer could have a similar change of heart one day.
Archie Comics Teams With Indie Publisher To Continue Its Creative Reinvention
To the average person, Archie Andrews remains stuck in the Eisenhower Era. Even after the soapy ridiculousness that was the CW show Riverdale, Archie’s name brings to mind malt shops, sock hops, and driving a jalopy around town. All of those elements remain true for the character today as much as they did when he first debuted in 1941’s Pep Comics #22.
But the publishing house that bears Andrews’ name hopes to bring Riverdale into 2026 by teaming with a respected independent comic company. As announced by The Hollywood Reporter, Archie Comics have teamed with Oni Press to publish new, modern takes on Archie and his friends, as well as related characters Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Josie and the Pussycats. The series will be written and drawn by award-winning creators such as W. Maxwell Prince of Ice Cream Man, Fábio Moon of Daytripper, and Corinna Bechko of Green Lantern: Earth One.
Such a high-profile announcement might lead those who know Archie as the clean-cut kid from the ’40s to think that the series needs a creative overhaul. But the fact of the matter is that Archie Comics have been putting out interesting work for a while now, more than just the weird phenomenon that was Riverdale.
The company began to reinvent the line with its new look comics from 2007, which veered away from the cartoony house style established by Bob Montana and later revised by Dan DeCarlo and embraced more realistic illustrations. But the line grew most ambitious in 2010, first with the Life With Archie series and then with the introduction of gay character Kevin Keller.
In addition to tackling hot button issues such as gun control, Life With Archie also resolved the franchise’s age-old question in the most comic book way possible. The series followed two timelines, one in which Archie chose Betty and another in which he chose Veronica. The series led to a multiversal mystery investigated by resident nerd Dilton Doiley, in a way that felt fresh before alternate realities saturated pop culture.
Shortly thereafter came Archie’s horror line, with books such as Afterlife With Archie, in which Jughead accidentally unleashes a zombie apocalypse while trying to revive his beloved pup Hot Dog, and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which leaned into the character’s occult elements. 2015 saw the release of surprising crossovers such as Archie vs. Predator, which does indeed feature several scenes of a Yautja ripping the spines out of Riverdale teens, but somehow also feels like a legitimate Archie story.
Lest one think that the line was all gimmicks, Archie Comics also relaunched its main books in 2015, spearheaded by top-level creators such as Mark Waid, Fiona Staples, and Annie Wu. While updated for the 2010s, the series retained Archie’s central themes, about a group of average teens going through adolescent life in America.
Given this history, it’s clear that the partnership between Archie Comics and Oni Press isn’t an attempt to save an out-of-touch franchise. Rather, it’s an opportunity to get new readers to check out a character who has continued to grow for the times, while remaining true to his malt-shop roots.
Archie #1 from Oni Press launches in September 2026.
Avatar Reminds Us that Hollywood Special Effects Blockbusters Don’t Have to Be Ugly
Just a few months ago, one of the most highly-anticipated films of the year began with the desecration of a cinematic icon. Literally. Wicked: For Good opened with Elphaba the Wicked Witch (Cynthia Erivo) smashing the Yellow Brick Road of Oz, an act framed by the movie’s revisionist take as a method of superheroic resistance against a fascist regime. Whatever the political intentions behind the scene, it also signaled an affront to movie history. A classic bit of old school cinematic movie making was being destroyed by an ugly, CGI blob.
For every person who lamented the hideous visuals of Wicked: For Good, all pink and green digital effects smeared across the screen, two more defended them as just the status quo for a modern blockbuster. And they had a point. The Fantastic Four: First Steps continued Marvel‘s habit of turning Jack Kirby illustrations into flat splotches of concrete grey. Jurassic World Rebirth did away with the majesty of the Steven Spielberg‘s original film and replaced it with beasts that looked like lumps of brown clay. Even Superman, which at least had a distinct vision, became a mess of rainbow nothing during a rescue sequence.
On those grounds alone, Avatar: Fire and Ash is a welcome corrective. Pandora remains just as stunning as it was in 2009 and in 2022, thanks to James Cameron‘s ability to find new corners of the world to explore: the death obsessed Ash people, new monsters from the deep, and merchants who travel across the sky. But the most impressive thing about Fire and Ash is far more simple: it just looks good.
There’s nothing too revolutionary about the film’s alien designs. The Na’vi do indeed look like slender cat people, not that different from those you’d find in any number of sci-fi or fantasy stories. Same with its plants and animals, which mostly look like mashups of sea creatures and fauna found on Earth. However, Cameron introduces those features in a way that demands attention.
Cameron knows how to block his actors so that the action remains clear and legible. When, in a sequence toward the climax of Fire and Ash, Spider (Jackson Champion) and Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) run from a chopper by ducking through pipes in a foundry, Cameron assures that we always understand the spacial relationship between the three figures, using search lights and explosions to illuminate even the hiding characters. A very different chase sequence occurs earlier in the film, in which the Ash People chase the Sully children through the jungle. Cameron uses the red and black body paints of the Ash People to help viewers easily distinguish them from our friendly Na’vi, and contrasts different parts of the jungle to
Even better are the many awe-inspiring moments of Fire and Ash. Some may scoff at the hippie dippy ideas of Eywa, the sentient plant life running through Pandora, but Cameron gets us to believe in its power. Whenever Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) connects with Eywa, the simple decision to move the camera along bits of flora and fauna that start to glow heightens our anticipation, which eventually pays off with psychedelic shots of an illuminated face in the foliage.
At this point, some may point out that Cameron enjoys privileges others do not. After all, he’s the guy who made blockbuster classics such as Terminator 2 and Titanic. More than once, observers have mocked him for spending way too much on ideas that sound terrible, and each time, his films release to critical acclaim and huge box office payouts. Cameron can demand higher budgets and more freedom than anyone else in Hollywood, even the producers behind the MCU and Wicked.
But Cameron’s technological feats shouldn’t distract from his basic filmmaking chops, which are the real reason his movies look so good. He never forgets to communicate information to the audience in simple, visual terms. Even when indulging in the most nonsense lore, he uses familiar themes and tropes to keep the audience from getting lost: Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) is sad because her son died in The Way of Water, and so she frowns. Varang of the Ash People (Oona Chaplin) is the bad guy, so she hisses a lot. We may not know or care about the differences between the Omatikaya, the Metkayina, or the Mangkwan, but we know what frowns and sneers are.
The unmessy fundamentals of Cameron’s approach undermines any defense of the messes that Hollywood regularly serves up to movie going audiences. It’s not a matter of needing higher budgets from billionaire-run studios, it’s not a matter of overworking your SFX teams even more. It’s just a matter of mixing your colors well, basic blocking, and foregrounding recognizable human emotions.
Any movie that puts those elements first will always look good. That’s was true in the days of The Wizard of Oz and it’s still true today.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is now playing in theaters worldwide.
Paul McGann Clears Up The Doctor Who Rumor We All Wanted to Be True
Even though we’re over a year away from Doctor Who’s post-Disney era return to our screens, speculation is already running rampant about what’s likely to happen when it does. Showrunner Russell T. Davies says he already knows what’s going to happen in the 2026 Christmas special, but hasn’t been terribly forthcoming about what that means. And, as so often happens, the internet has stepped in to fill that gap with some wild speculation.
Season 15 finale, “The Reality War,” saw Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor regenerate into Billie Piper, but the episode itself wasn’t at all clear about why exactly that happened. Piper’s clearly not playing the Doctor – she didn’t get the customary end-of-episode introductory tag that every other official Time Lord has received — so who is she playing? How does this character bridge the gap to the next Doctor? Will the special even introduce the next Doctor? And who is going to appear in the special alongside her to get us there? (As much as we all love Piper, it seems like an awful heavy lift to ask her to carry an entire special on her back.)
Given Piper’s long history with former Doctor David Tennant, a lot of viewers have already started wishcasting that next year’s festive outing could somehow mark yet another return for the popular actor. (After all, his Fourteenth Doctor is still hanging around Donna Noble’s house.) Another popular fan theory is that somehow this special will finally give one of the franchise’s most underappreciated Doctors his due.
Paul McGann played the eighth incarnation of the popular Time Lord in the (horrendous) 1996 film that basically sent the franchise into the wilderness for the better part of the decade. Nevertheless, he remains a fan favorite, headlining an expansive series of Big Finish audio dramas about Eight’s adventures. He’s even popped back up on the flagship series briefly, appearing in the 50th anniversary mini-episode “The Night of the Doctor” that detailed his Doctor’s regeneration and again for Jodie Whittaker’s final adventure, “The Power of the Doctor,” in 2022. Heck, next year even marks the 30th anniversary of his franchise debut. Kismet? Destiny? Stranger things have happened in the world of Doctor Who.
The announcement that McGann was canceling his early 2026 appearance at the popular Gallifrey One fan convention due to “acting work in the new year” was enough to get the engines of speculation turning, as that’s when the new installment was rumored to be filming. (Another blind guess, but we’ll go with it.) But it was the appearance of a supposedly leaked image – purported to show McGann and Piper filming together on a TARDIS set, with the latter dressed in Gatwa’s former costume— that sent the fandom into overdrive. Yes, the timing seemed odd. Sure, Davies said he hadn’t even finished writing the special yet. But… could it be?
Unfortunately, no. Sorry to crush the dreams of Whovians everywhere, but McGann himself has confirmed that the image is nothing but very believable AI. During an appearance on the Gerry Anderson Podcast, the actor confirmed he’s not returning to the show, nor taking part in the festive special.
“Just recently, I mean in the last week or so, there’s me and Billie Piper working together. If only,” McGann said. “And so people are like, ‘Oh, come on, it has to be true,’ and the rumor mill kicks in.”
McGann was then asked if he signed an NDA and therefore can’t confirm or deny his involvement, and McGann laughingly responded, “You’re making this thing worse. You’re part of the problem.”
In truth, it sounds like the former Doctor is just as in the dark about the show’s future as the rest of us.
“Quite honestly, I know nothing,” McGann added. “And if I had to say zip, if I was sworn to secrecy, I would just tell you I was sworn to secrecy. It’s happened before.”
“2025 Was a Warm-Up” Marvel Rivals Creators on Leveling Up the Game
It’s been just over a year since NetEase Games launched the enormously popular online hero shooter Marvel Rivals and the game has only grown over the ensuing months. The title has teams of heroes and villains from across the Marvel multiverse battling against each other as part of a cosmic chaos that dueling versions of Doctor Doom have unleashed on reality. While the core game revolves around objective-based 6v6 online combat, it has also unveiled new game modes across its run, thrilling tens of millions of players worldwide.
While in Los Angeles for The Game Awards 2025, where NetEase announced the sixth season for Marvel Rivals adding Deadpool and Elsa Bloodstone to the playable roster, Den of Geek sat down with the Marvel Rivals team. The developers reflected on the first year of the game’s lifecycle, including how they strategized building upon its launch foundations and keeping the experience fresh for players. Moreover, NetEase is not only committed to ensuring the game’s future remains bright, but are excited for players to see what the team is cooking up next.
“2025 was more of a warm-up period for us,” Marvel Games executive producer Danny Koo declares. “Next year, we’re going to have bigger plans. We’re not going to slow down. We’ve already planned more than a year ahead and I can’t wait for our players to see it.”
And what a warm-up it was.
In its first year, the game released five seasons of new content. This bolstered the playable roster from its launch number of 33 to 45, with two more formally announced and set to join the fight soon, along with hundreds of new costumes for the cast and new stages to duke it out in. But one of the big standouts from the year was a PvE mode based on the Disney+ animated series Marvel Zombies, that saw a small group of heroes blast through hordes of zombies while moving to defeat their undead leader, the Queen of the Dead. Timed not only with the animated series’ premiere but also in time for Halloween, the new game mode expanded what Marvel Rivals could and can be.
“We saw Marvel Zombies and knew it was a good story that we could collaborate with on the Marvel IP side,” explains NetEase Games publishing and marketing lead Yachen Bian. “A lot of players really loved the PvE mode. I also think that we chose very good timing. We made it for Halloween but it also was good timing for the lifecycle of the game. We provided players with something new that refreshed their experience for the first year.”
Koo notes that the team had considered creating a PvE mode for a while but couldn’t settle on the right narrative context until they watched a special advance screening of the animated series. Realizing the show’s concept fit their game’s ethos perfectly, the Marvel Rivals team was able to assemble a prototype of the Marvel Zombies game mode in about six months, experimenting with the new player skills for the PvE mode. This was followed by an 18v18 competitive mode which encourages players to try new playable characters and makes the gameplay even more fast-paced and frenetic as the larger teams do battle.
“In the next year, we want to provide more game modes,” Bian teases. “It’s why we have prototypes in the game, like PvE and 18v18. We want to give the players more choices of different game modes beyond the basic gameplay because your fundamental experience might be very different. When you’re fighting against zombies, it’s quite different from fighting against other people.”
Marvel Rivals is NetEase’s title with the largest global audience to date, with over 40 million players in territories from the Americas and Europe to Asia and Oceania. After initially promoting its launch at major gaming events throughout 2024, the development team has been positively overwhelmed by the rapidly growing community. This has only fueled the team to match the fans’ passion with their own dedication towards continuing to support the game and take it to new heights.
“That process has brought the team together even closer,” observes Koo. “It’s a lot of hard work and it always feels different and exciting. This game is releasing new content every week. Even my own team comes in every day asking what’s new today. Everyone’s excited. They want to continue to make this happen. Everyone wants to make this the biggest game possible.”
Judging by the team’s achievements and continued success after over a year in an increasingly crowded market, NetEase Games has taken great strides towards reaching this ambitious goal with Marvel Rivals. But with plenty more Marvel projects set to premiere and launch throughout 2026, you can bet that Marvel Rivals is going to reflect the ever-evolving state of Marvel as the game officially dives into its second year.
Developed and published by NetEase Games, Marvel Rivals is available now for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
The Best Movies of 2025
It’s been a tumultuous year. When 2025 began, the state of things already felt in upheaval. Whether it be technology, trade, or just pop culture, everywhere you looked was chaos. Obviously that’s only gotten turbo-charged by year’s end as we now take stock of bidding wars, great storytellers taken from us too soon, and whatever the heck is going on with AI.
But what can get lost in such tidings are the stories of goodwill; the moments of grace; the pauses we must savor while embracing our commonality and fellowship. The big screen remains one of the last great touchstones for such gatherings, and though its popularity might diminish, cinema’s power has never dimmed. There have been a number of great cinematic experiences this year that have tied us together, and plenty more underseen or underappreciated that deserve better attention. So with that in mind, here’s a toast to the best films of the year that was.
25. Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro has been chasing the dream of Frankensteinsince he was six years old. It shows in a passion project that is gorgeously wrought and acted, if perhaps not quite as exquisite as the del Toro fantasias it’s already inspired earlier in his life. As a standalone interpretation of Mary Shelley, however, it is the most aesthetically sumptuous retelling since the days of James Whale and features a performance by Jacob Elordi as the Creature that’s more fragile than Christ cast in stained glass mural. We wouldn’t call him a monster, nor necessarily even Shelley’s fallen angel of the page, but it’s a turn that makes the movie a worthy addition to the Frankenstein canon.
24. Is This Thing On?
Bradley Cooper steps again behind the camera and for the first time without directing himself as lead. He should do so more often since Is This Thing On? feels like a small but sweetly intimate palate cleanser after Maestro’s excesses. It also casts Will Arnett in a paradigm-shifting role as a standup comic trapped in what at first appears to be a wistful drama. As Arnett’s middle-aged finance bro confesses the first time he picks up a mic at the Comedy Cellar, he has no idea why he’s doing this but he thinks he is going through a divorce. The first clue was he’s living in the city and his wife and children are not. Dammit if the audience doesn’t laugh.
Apparently much of the “comedy” was improvised by Arnett, who himself had never done standup until Cooper cast him to lead this story and placed a camera at what seems to be centimeters from his face. It’s compelling, as is the larger exploration of the catharsis of art. But as with every Cooper directorial joint to date, the film is most interested in the interplay between creativity and intimacy, and how much more messy that can become after 20 years of marriage and waylaid dreams in the case of Arnett’s Alex and an excellent Laura Dern as estranged wife Tess.
23. The Phoenician Scheme
More than a decade after The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson’s latest feels like a return to form for the master of the symmetrical frame. That’s because while the lines remain obsessively straight in cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel’s storybook compositions, the characters inhabiting them feel refreshingly human. A full-chested Benicio del Toro domineers the frame even while rarely raising his voice above a monotone whisper. Luckily, this familiar Anderson contrast takes on pathos when del Toro’s industrialist is reunited with an estranged daughter and prospective sister of the cloth, Liesl (Mia Threapleton, terrific).
Strained dynamics between lousy fathers and adult children is familiar terrain for the helmer but new fault lines are unearthed this time, perhaps because the director is now closer in age to del Toro’s Zsa-zsa than Threapleton’s Liesl. It also gives dramatic heft to Anderson’s acerbic style which is downright giddy in this yarn about cheats, scoundrels, and deep cut cinema references.
22. It Was Just an Accident
Writer-director Jafar Panahi filmed It Was Just an Accident on the streets of a Tehran still patrolled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. That act of bravery is itself an eye-opening achievement considering the film’s depiction of a repressed theocratic state where citizens are unable, whether physically or mentally, to move past lifetimes of oppression.
This is manifested in a loaded allegory wherein disparate strangers are connected only by the suffering they felt as wards of the government’s torture chambers. Now they think they’re able to turn the tables when they kidnap one of their lead interrogators. The only problem is no one is certain since they only ever heard his menacing voice through a black bag or blindfold. The politics of the film are not subtle, and the melodrama is a bit thick, but the authenticity is so palpable the film won the Palme d’Or.
21. The Ballad of Wallis Island
Director James Griffiths and stars/writers Tom Basden and Tim Key previously made a version of The Ballad of Wallis Island as a short film in 2007. Waiting nearly two decades to turn the concept into a feature proved apropos for the wistful dramedy. While on the one hand this movie works as a satire of many a creative’s worst fear—being trapped on an isolated island with a worshipful fan—on the other it is a far more deliberate meditation on the music and cultural touchstones that shape us… and how those touchstones can become anchors dragging at our feet.
Such is the alternating lifestyles of both folk singer Herb McGwyer (Basden) and eccentric millionaire Charles Heath (Key). Charles has invited Herb to play an intimate concert of old 2000s hits for longtime fans on a hard-to-get-to island. Only when Herb arrives, he discovers the intimate audience consists of one lonely dude: Charles. Also Charlie invited Herb’s ex-girlfriend and achingly missed collaborator, the now married Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan). It’s a setup that can go many ways, and yet all of the collaborators, including a warmly reflective Mulligan, take it to a place that is never anything less than amusing and cozy. Be warned though, even warmth can burn.
20. Superman
A quarter century on since a pair of claws and organic webshooters reinvented the modern superhero movie, the world of capes and cowls runs the risk of growing stagnant. There was even apprehension this time last year about one of the genre’s new darlings taking a stab at a character that has stumbled every other big screen suitor since the 1980s. Yet James Gunn’s Supermanturned out to burst with an energy and joy that eludes most masked things nowadays, and it has gone a long way to restore confidence in not only men-in-tights summer tentpoles, but in the cinematic appeal of kindness unto itself.
David Corenswet makes for a Clark Kent who is unapologetically buoyant and bubbly, and Gunn in turn has the wisdom to juxtapose that square-jawed goodness against Rachel Brosnahan’s pitch perfect take on Lois Lane. She’s her own Girl Friday. Known for his sense of irony and occasionally twisted humor, Gunn eschews both impulses while embracing an ebullience in a movie that has concern for everyone—even a squirrel in peril. The film features a number of the drawbacks which bedevil many modern superhero movies, including a surplus of characters and universe-building, but a picture that has the confidence and restraint to spend 20 minutes between Lois and Clark debating the finer points of ethical journalism, or the merits of punk rockery, really does know how to fly.
19. Eternity
The best love triangles to watch (if not experience) are those without an easy answer. In which case, ooh boy is Elizabeth Olsen’s Joan trapped in a good one during Eternity, David Freyne’s charming throwback to the high-concept rom-coms of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Like Robert Montgomery or Rex Harrison before her, Joan discovers her problems are only beginning when she gets to the afterlife and learns that in addition to reclaiming her youth, she must choose between her beloved husband of the last 67 years, Larry (Miles Teller), and that first great love who died during the Korean War and has waited for her ever since: Luke (Callum Turner).
The setup is strong, but it is the gentle amiability that Freyne cultivates in this deliberately paced laugher which ingratiates and beguiles. All three lead performances are played with empathy and affection, with Teller going against type as a nebbish sweater-vest on feet. Still, it’s really Olsen’s picture as a woman faced with an impossible choice and wisdom that seems to far exceed the years on her face. Freyne and co-writer Pat Cunnane’s screenplay never seek to downplay the potential tragedy or bittersweetness of their scenario, but those touches only heighten the absurdity of the rest of the material, with Zazu Myers’ retro Mediterranean chic production design becoming its own kind of cozy hell for a party of three.
18. Blue Moon
At Sardi’s restaurant, the legendary Broadway haunt in New York City’s Theater District, the caricatured portraits of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein hang in pride of place above the bar. As they should; this is the pair who invented the modern Broadway musical with Oklahoma! Nonetheless, it’s tragicomic that the portrait of Lorenz Hart, Rodgers’ first lyricist with whom he wrote songs like “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and of course “Blue Moon,” is located somewhere else entirely removed from his legendary co-writer. Hart is forgotten—another face in a sea of well-blended countenances.
Richard Linklater recognizes this bitter irony in Blue Moon to such a degree that he and writer Robert Kaplow set their biographical study of Hart on a single evening at Sardi’s: the night Oklahoma! opened. With the grinning melancholy of a reflection in a martini glass, Blue Moon could have been a play but works beautifully as the rare type of adult drama they don’t make anymore. In a single night, it infers a lifetime of regrets and slights for the five-foot-flat, closeted genius who nurses a severe problem with drink but a great gift for wordplay. It also gift wraps Ethan Hawke one of the best roles of his career. He’s the clown aware of how his opera ends.
17. Bugonia
If the last few years have proven anything, it’s that Americans seem to be living on different planets. So leave it to Yorgos Lanthimos to make their accusations explicit in this deeply cynical allegory for the 21st century. The original idea actually hails from Korean filmmaker Jang Joon-hwan, who wrote and directed the same story 22 years ago in the little-seen Save the Green Planet! Even so, the acerbic filmmaker of The Lobsterand Poor Things, working with Will Tracy who previously wrote The Menu and large swaths of Succession, make a compelling case for this story belonging in a post-Trump, post-facts West where one conspiracy theory nutter (Jesse Plemons) kidnaps his hometown’s pharmaceutical CEO queen bee (Emma Stone). Now he demands that she confess she’s an alien and take him to her leader.
By happily playing like a kid who’s found his dad’s gun with imagery of the terminally online, misogynistic loner and an untouchable C-suite aristocrat who knows how to bury secrets and bodies, Lanthimos makes the angriest movie of his career. It pairs nicely, too, with Plemons’ high-wire act of playing both a ghoul and a deeply damaged antihero, and Stone going full reptile, if not necessarily alien, with her Ripley in Alien 3 buzz cut and pitiless stare behind a media-trained smile. And yes, the ending is satisfying.
After nearly two decades of chasing awards and prestige, it’s nice to see Darren Aronofsky return to his roots and do a throwback thriller so retro that he went ahead and set it in the ‘90s. Based on Charlie Huston’s book of the same name (and which Huston adapted for the screen), Caught Stealing is a sprightly exercise in swagger over substance as it presents a hell of a week in the life of Hank (Austin Butler), a bartender in a pre-gentrified, sleazy Lower East Side. Hank has a chip on his shoulder because a drunk driving accident stole his baseball career, but the other shoulder is outright black and blue after Ukrainian mobsters get done with him.
See, the mobsters are on the lookout for Hank’s drug dealing neighbor Russ (Matt Smith in a glorious mohawk that was already out of fashion in 1998), but somehow a case of misplaced aggression leads to a sordid tale of booze, duffle bags stuffed with money, murder, and a very cute kitty. And I haven’t even mentioned the Hasidic hitmen played by Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio that invite Hank over for Shabbat.
Caught Stealing isn’t particularly deep, nor does it need to be. It’s just the type of highly entertaining potboiler that used to be Hollywood’s bread and butter, and that still goes down smooth thanks to Aronofsky’s kinetic pacing and sharp eye for period aesthetics. Whether it’s watching Butler smolder with an otherwise underutilized Zoë Kravitz, or simply go along for the ride while Schreiber and D’Onofrio introduce him to Matzo Ball Soup whilst between shootouts, Caught Stealing’s is as playful as Alphabet City is scuzzy.
15. Predator: Badlands
If this list was based purely around onscreen buddy chemistry, then Predator: Badlandswould be up there with a plasma caster. Admittedly Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) and Thia (Elle Fanning) make for a pretty odd coupling. He’s a galaxy-hopping Yautja out to prove his apex bona fides one severed head and ripped spine at a time; she’s a gabby Weyland-Yutani robo-gal lacking an off-switch—or for that matter legs. Yet when she pulls this banished Predator runt out of some tall grass with a sing-songy optimism that even disembowelment cannot dampen, genre sparks fly.
Much of this is a testament to the instincts of writer-director Dan Trachtenberg, who has said the idea of Predator: Badlands sprang from the mental image he had of a Predator carrying a bisected robot around its shoulders like a backpack. But more than a poster-ready silhouette, Trachtenberg conjures the old-fashioned sincerity of blockbusters past, even as he sacrifices the testosterone-drenched machismo of the Predator brand specifically for something that feels a little more Amblin-esque in nature. Fanning also deserves many flowers since she is practically having a conversation with herself half the movie, and has enough boundless charisma for that to be in the film’s favor. She gets to be a synthetic Scarecrow to Schuster-Koloamatangi’s brooding and brutish Dorothy. If only she had the legs to dance along a yellow brick road of glowy green blood.
14. Wake Up Dead Man
Up until now, each of Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc mysteries have, like the original title promised, kept their knives out. They are satires seeking to weigh, judge, and most definitely devour its cast of rich and affluent suspects, even if only one of them gets carted off to prison at the end. Which makes Wake Up Dead Man both a departure and a genuine grace note for the filmmakers in every sense of the term. Using a kooky locked room mystery to partner the writer-director’s intense skepticism—as exemplified by Blanc at his grayest—with a lifelong need to believe in kindness and forbearance, a la this film’s true protagonist Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), Wake Up Dead Man is a hymn to the harmony which can exist between faith and reason.
Both aspects are approached with warmth and intelligence by a screenplay still good-humored enough to keep audiences entertained by the mystery of a monsignor slaughtered in some impossible manner. But it is the compassion the film has for Father Duplenticy’s own need to empathize and protect his flock that gives the thing its soul—that and O’Connor’s eyes pleading, even while staring into the countenance of a murderer.
13. Friendship
Tim Robinson’s brand of comedy can be an acquired taste. Reliant on evoking cringes until your muscles hurt, his gags have always been punishingly cruel. Now that sadism has been elevated to a joyous place in Friendship, a new laugher written and directed by Andrew DeYoung that gets a lot of mileage out of our familiarity with Paul Rudd. After all, Paul Rudd is a cool dude, and his onscreen Austin is indeed the coolest with his Anchorman-era ‘stache and I Love You Man smile.
But it’s only after audiences are encouraged to recognize Robinson’s needy and pathetic Craig is more than just a clinger, but also a kind of milquetoast 2020s Travis Bickle, that the penny drops. Friendship is a comedy told from the delusional POV of the villain. So watching him destroy his marriage to Kate Mara, his heinous job at a parasitic tech company, and eventually even his bromance with Rudd offers a biblical degree of schadenfreude. Also just wait for the toad glands scene.
12. Hamnet
It is still a matter of scholarly debate whether there is any correlation between Hamlet, William Shakespeare’s four-hour classic that grapples with death and the riddle of mortality, and the fact that the Bard had a young son named Hamnet who died three years before the first Danish prince trod the Globe Theatre’s boards. It’s fair to say Chloé Zhao’s Hamnetdisposes of such obtuse pedantry within seconds while suggesting the greatest tragedy of Shakespeare’s life was the family he left behind in Stratford.
Told solely from the perspective of neglected wife Anne Hathaway—here called by her nickname Agnes and pronounced “Anyers” in early modern English—Hamnet is as meditative and discreet as you’d expect from the filmmaker of Nomadland. It also is exquisitely devastating courtesy of Jessie Buckley’s heart-rinding turn which can express entire folios in a single, strained glance. While the film indulges Zhao’s preference for the natural world, taking on an even storybook and pagan quality when Agnes first meets the local poet and tutor (Paul Mescal) in the woods, it’s when Hamnet finally goes to London town, and Agnes and audiences see for themselves what Will has become, that the movie’s paean to the myriad complexities of motherhood finds its unutterable glory.
11. 28 Years Later
It may not have been a full 28 years since Danny Boyle and Alex Garland transformed the zombie subgenre forever, but it turns out we waited long enough for this grandly meaty, if curiously bucolic, exercise in horror. To be sure, Boyle announces early and with maximum wrath that he can still channel the frantic energy of his early oeuvre with the editing of a 2002-set zombie attack packing more fury than the rage-infected “zombies” carrying this series’ fateful virus.
But it’s the subsequent time jump that unveils the movie’s loftier and elegiac concerns. Abandoning the urban dystopia of the original for an agrarian serenity that is positively medieval, 28 Years Lateris an adroit metaphor for a UK stuck perpetually in the past after the rest of the 21st century left it behind. The greatest horror is the future generations unaware of the world their elders have forsaken. Still, in its primeval return to an England where life ebbed and flowed with the turnings of the tide, there is also a deep appreciation for the difference between a good and bad death that feels transgressive in a movie playing with Hollywood money.
10. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
The first time I saw Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You was for a genre festival in Austin, Texas. In a weekend suffused with horror movies, chillers, and other assorted terrors, Legs was the most intense thing playing, bar none. It also might have been the funniest and most thrilling since the picture is a tonal and emotional magic trick. Such imagery also describes its apocalyptic vision of motherhood.
The best of the recent mom trauma movies to dominate arthouses, Bronstein’s Legs innovates the unreliable narrator conceit by immersing viewers in a grainy, 16mm trance state that suggests either sleep deprivation or delirium while taking on the perspective of Linda (Rose Byrne). Never once is the audience allowed to ascertain what is objectively occurring in the life of a mother with a child suffering from an undiagnosed illness, but by virtue of Bronstein refusing to ever show the daughter’s face (or give her a name), Linda’s sense of obligation takes on an oppressive quality that borders on demonic. It can also be darkly funny as Byrne provides a tour de force that flits between gallows humor and warm, inviting despair. It’s the performance of the year, synthesizing a tornado of impulses and brava choices. And it’s in service of a movie so twisted that it casts Conan O’Brien as the most humorless figure in the whole thing.
9. The Life of Chuck
Stephen King is an author usually celebrated for his gift for suspense and terror. Yet his constant readers know him just as well for the soft humanism and moral certitude he laces throughout most of his writing. It seems safe to say that writer-director Mike Flanagan can be counted as one of those admirers. The filmmaker already has given us the best King adaptations made in this century, including Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. Now The Life of Chuck can be added to the list. Like Rob Reiner and Frank Darabont before him, Flanagan has picked up one of King’s less well-known tales or short stories that is only the sentimentality—no pesky horror this time, please! Instead we’re in for entirely “good vibes,” even with an enigmatic mystery set during the end of the world.
Indeed, the apocalypse does appear to be nigh in one of the film’s disparate vignettes where disasters around the globe are said to be occurring. But Flanagan nor Life of Chuck give them any mind while focusing on the failed but enduring marriage of Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan). How this narrative connects with other chapters about a handful of days in the life of a mild mannered accountant named Chuck (Tom Hiddleston, Benjamin Pajak, and Jacob Tremblay, depending on the sequence) is perhaps the biggest mystery of all. But the logic of the narrative is far less important than the emotional truth it evokes every time one of the Chucks gives into the ache in his heart, or the twinkle in his toes. Some might call it saccharine, but I call it a sublime crowdpleaser that needs to find a bigger venue.
While currently enjoying a UK release, Harry Lighton’s Pillion will not be released Stateside until February. It is perhaps for that reason the film has fallen under the radar in many end-of-year discussions. If so, it’s an injustice for what is is simultaneously the most unorthodox and unabashedly yearning love story we have had in some time. A cinematic encapsulation of the yearlong romance between a dominant (Alexander Skarsgård) and his sub (Harry Melling), Pillion seems destined to push buttons, even if the NC-17 cut of the film will apparently be reedited down to R in the States next year.
The film is quite graphic in its leather-clad depiction of a relationship that on the surface is unquestionably imbalanced. But the more you get to know about Skarsgård’s Ray and Melling’s Colin, the more you appreciate a film that neither condones nor condemns what some would see as an erotic fantasy, and others a nightmare. For his part, Lighton chooses to depict a journey of one inexperienced partner learning a lot about love and himself in a tragicomic union where little is spoken due to Ray’s circumspect nature, but volumes are felt. Skarsgård has the more challenging role as a figure who could on paper read as a cipher, but the Swedish actor is able to wrap his arms around the ephemeral heart of a story, wrestling out a surprisingly droll sense of humor in the material. Well that, and maybe even a flickering of conventional affection, which complements the moist sadness in Melling’s eyes whenever his Viking god vanishes.
7. Black Bag
More than one cynic has observed that marriages can be cold wars. Few though actually come with literal government surveillance equipment and the potential for a body count. If that sounds extreme, you absolutely must meet George Woodhouse and Kathryn St. Jean, Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett’s fascinating MI6 power couple in Steven Soderbergh’s slippery Black Bag. Benefitting from an erudite and underhanded screenplay by David Koepp (who hasn’t been this playful in years), Black Bag is another throwback, this time to when sharp thrillers could be seen as date night entertainment for adults who like their thrills served in a frosted glass.
Black Bag even begins with the dinner party from hell where the divinely played George and Kathryn invite all their coworkers in espionage, including a showy ensemble with Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris, Tom Burke, and Marisa Abela, to dine. Unbeknownst to the guests is that George slipped some truth serum into the roast. It certainly makes for lively table conversation. It also acts as an opening salvo for a story about the risks that come with trust, loyalty, and knowing your partner in a setting where the stakes are no less high than treason and summary execution.
6. Weapons
Writer-director Zach Cregger is adamant that his latest melding of horror and humor is not about anything specific. Or rather, it’s not about anything we can easily infer, as he so claimed in multiple interviews that acknowledged the personal tragedy which inspired the story but always included statements to the effect of “I have nothing to say with this movie.” That might be his public stance, but any piece of art that pertains the ghostly projection of an AR-17 floating above a classroom is screaming a whole hell of a lot in modern day America, whether the author cops to it or otherwise.
A return to high-concept mysteries that would sprinkle a dusting of the supernatural on top, Weapons takes fiendish pleasure in its centerpiece puzzle: Why would nearly an entire classroom of elementary schoolers rise from their childhood bedrooms and run into the dark at 2:17 a.m.? The answers discovered by their teacher (Julia Garner) and a grieving father (Josh Brolin) who would blame her for his son’s disappearance, are as satisfying as they are unexpectedly primal. This is achieved by casting an overwhelming pallor of ambiguity over the proceedings before a final, triumphant puncturing of that dark cloud. Still, the reason the film gnaws at the imagination is that like all catastrophes which invade our schools and communities, the consequences linger long after the danger’s abided. We suppose, apparently coincidentally, like the specter of an assault rifle over a once innocent but now desecrated school.
5. No Other Choice
Over the last decade, Korean cinema has done a better job at pinpointing the rot of 21st century capitalism than almost all celluloid and digital Western fiction. So it tracks that when it came time to adapt Donald Westlake’s scathing satire of a deadly job market in The Ax (1997), the task would fall to Oldboyand Decision to Leavemaster Park Chan-wook. Relocating the tale to Seoul and in an even more ruthless era of automation and encroaching AI, No Other Choice offers a pitch black study of an upper-middle class maestro in paper production (Lee Byung-hun) who finds himself without a job and unable to claim the single musical chair left in his industry when three other out-of-work paper executives are all up for the same job. If only there was some way to… eliminate the competition?
Despite being an obvious student and product of Eastern cinema, Park has always had more than a touch of Hitchcock in his vision board, and he brings that out with a film that takes perverse pleasure in the haphazard homicidal daydreams that become action here. He outright makes a hero of a would-be killer that might seem nefarious if he wasn’t so endearingly clumsy in his desperation to keep the family home, pay for his daughter’s cello lessons, and buy back the family dogs that were given away. There is a wry physicality to Lee’s performance which never quite crosses over into comedy, but it tempers the darkness of the material nicely, especially when paired with Son Ye-jin as Lee’s devoted and inquisitive wife. Together they anchor an indictment of a system that pits the lower classes in a literal death struggle to be the lucky one who gets to keep their head above water. Then again, the movie is delightfully cynical about what happens to anyone who exposes their neck for the American suits on top.
4. Sentimental Value
Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is a far quieter film than the rest of the top five in this list, but it is no less a masterful achievement. An artful portrait of a family who can only communicate through art—and even then dysfunctionally—Sentimental Value draws with human lines when it introduces us to renowned Norwegian filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) and his adult daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). By virtue of the haunted family home they have kept in the family for nearly a century, one comes to intuit their malfunction goes back generations, as evidenced by the over-the-hill Gustav wanting to make a final film that is about his suicidal mother… but as played by his estranged daughter. It’s a role Nora also promptly declines, leading to the intrusion of a well-meaning Hollywood starlet (Elle Fanning) who speaks neither Norwegian or Swedish but will attempt all the same to inhabit the mother and child both for an old man.
A film keenly concerned with characters and acting choices, even more so than Trier and Reinsve’s essay about arrested Millennial development, The Worst Person in the World, Sentimental Value lives and dies by what is never said by Gustav and his daughters, lest one of them is behind a camera or the other in front of it. Lilleaas therefore has the most challenging role since she is the only one of the three who grew up not to be an artist. Instead Agnes is a historian, which gives her a sense of perspective on her family’s ennui that the others lack.
Agnes also can see the warmth bubbling in this multigenerational tale, going so far as to extend empathy to interlopers like Fanning’s carefully calibrated performance of a good actor who is simply out of her depth and time zone. The metatextual quality of an actor’s film which is in large part about the neuroses that make great performances possible gives the picture a wry affability. Like Fanning’s character, we’ll never be family here but we enjoy sitting at their table and hearing the old stories that none of them fully understand.
3. Sinners
The fields of cotton can almost look angelic when towering over you on a 76-foot screen. Lined up in neat rows and captured with stunning 65mm IMAX cameras, the Mississippi of Ryan Coogler’s Sinnersis vibrant and lush. It also is far more sinister than even the title suggests. When Michael B. Jordan’s dual characters in the film, twin brothers Smoke and Stack, are asked why they came back after making a fortune in Chicago, one answers that everywhere in America is a plantation and “we might as well deal with the devil we know.”
There is indeed an acute knowingness about Coogler’s Sinners which looks soberly at its setting despite washing it in nostalgia for a people and place, if not a time. Coogler has spoken candidly about how this horror movie originally stemmed from his family’s own complex history with Mississippi and stories his uncle passed down. The filmmaker in turn has mythologized them into a great American epic about being Black in the Jim Crow South, and the continuum that ties us all to that moment a hundred years on. But despite featuring such a sobering backdrop, not to mention literal vampires and a hefty body count, Sinners is exhilarating due its rapturous conviviality, a superb ensemble led by two sweating Jordan performances, and of course its music.
Tying into old Southern legends about the allure of a blues guitar playing at midnight in a crossroads, Coogler’s movie peaks when a revelatory Miles Caton croons in a juke joint in what is the movie moment of the year. He connects the past, present, and future of the Black American experience into a metaphysical communion so strong that the living and the dead must take notice. It’s a sequence so grand that it makes you almost pity when the vampires finally show up, though that too is executed with unforgettable showmanship.
Timothée Chalamet has described working on a Josh Safdie set as organized chaos, with the director cultivating a sense of spontaneity and surprise among his collaborators. For audiences, it’s closer to blind, grueling panic. In Marty Supreme, however, those same anxiety attacks take on a buzzy triumphalist high. As a film happily drunk on the arrogance of youth, Marty Supreme is a big American movie about a quintessential subscriber to manifest destiny fantasies: Chalamet’s Marty Mauser. Brash, impulsive, and entirely self-centered, he is in many ways the idol of his age, as demonstrated when the film culminates with Marty traveling to the still crumbled ruins of Tokyo to “drop another atomic bomb” on the competition in his chosen field of battle: table tennis.
The sheer absurdity of the crux of Marty’s talent and fixation—a game also known as ping-pong—and the absolutely nightmarish scenarios the character and Safdie create for him to chase it to the ends of the earth, makes for an experience equal parts farcical and operatic. The film flitters between sports movie formulae, gritty period piece naturalism courtesy of its meticulous recreation of 1952 Manhattan, and gangster flick dread. Through it all is an unbowed bravado that miraculously comes across as endearing instead of off-putting. Chalamet has indeed been searching for this material all his life. It’s a cinematic encapsulation of both the joy and disgust of unquenchable ambition, and for 149 minutes, it is absolutely spellbinding.
1. One Battle After Another
There are no curves in the road. Nor is there a sharp turn or even a whisper of oncoming traffic. During the climax of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, one driver is simply following another along a straight line of hilly desert terrain, and it is among the most suspenseful and adrenaline-soaked car chases of the century. Part of this is a credit to how PTA captures the action via pristine VistaVision lenses, but it better encapsulates just how propulsive and gripping cinema can still be when it is channeled by a talent as eager to entertain as he is to provoke.
One Battle After Another is that rare masterpiece of art and commerce; a lean, mean action movie (despite its nearly three-hour running time) that also offers a frank and unnerving depiction of corrupt ICE officials raining an illegal and murderous war down on the underground dissidents of yesteryear. Anderson claims the film’s political subtexts are coincidental since the movie loosely adapts Thomas Pynchon’s eulogy to faded 1960s revolutionaries. But the film’s purposeful structure of tying the flawed idealism of the past and the director’s own generation—represented by another top shelf descent by Leonardo DiCaprio into dimwittery—to that of future generations doomed to inherit our bullshit, a la Chase Infiniti’s teenage daughter conscripted to the culture wars, turns the film into a strangely optimistic and subversive call to the barricades.
Wrapped within that radical flag, One Battle After Another is also many other things: a stoner comedy, an emblem of feminine righteousness and fury personified by Teyana Taylor, and even a droll Coen-esque satire of the racist good ol’ boys who run the world like it’s a WASPy country club located on a Christmas tree farm. They’re even eating sugar cookies while ordering Sean Penn’s soiled GI Joe doll to squeeze Old Glory ever further up his behind.
But most importantly, and poignantly, Anderson’s latest is an addictive piece of cinema that will reward rewatches and debates for all the years, and battles, to come.
Avengers: Doomsday Teaser Shows the MCU is Poised to Repeat Comics’ Greatest Mistake
Captain America is back! That’s the message conveyed by the first teaser trailer for Avengers: Doomsday. Coming in at just over one minute long, the leaked clip (now running before showings of Avatar: Fire and Ash) finds Chris Evans playing Steve Rogers in a state of domestic bliss, complete with a young child. Though he may have put his star-spangled suit in storage, the final text promises it won’t stay that way for long. “Steve Rogers will return in Avengers: Doomsday,” it reads.
While that might be good news for those who stopped caring about the franchise after Endgame, it raises questions for those who hoped the MCU could continue to grow. After all, Marvel already has a Captain America in the form of Sam Wilson, to whom Steve left the shield. It seems unlikely that he’ll come to wrestle back the title from Sam, which means that we may end up having two Captain Americas in the MCU. Such a move isn’t unheard of, as both Steve and Sam are Captain America in the Marvel Universe. But here’s the thing: it’s a problem that there are (at least) two Captain Americas in the comics. And if the comics are any indication, that’s two too many.
The Legacy Conundrum
Legacy has always been part of superhero comics, especially in the DC Universe. Thanks to its many reboots, time jumps, and various Crises on Infinite Earths, the line regularly has established characters die, retire, and grow up, leaving established superhero identities for others to inherit.
Marvel uses a sliding timeline that perpetually keeps its main characters in their late twenties or early thirties, thus making reboots and time jumps less likely, but even they’ve come to embrace legacy. Over the past two decades, we’ve had various versions of Captain America, the Hulk, Black Widow, and more. And then there’s Miles Morales, a kid from an alternate reality called the Ultimate Universe who took on the Spider-Man name when his Peter Parker died and now has been integrated into the main Marvel Universe.
Wonderful as Miles is, he represents the problem with legacy characters. There was a legitimate story reason for him to become Spider-Man, as the Peter Parker of the Ultimate Universe died and so that world was without a Spidey. But then, he proved popular enough to stand on his own, so when Marvel decided to end its Ultimate Universe comics in 2015, they found a convoluted way to put Miles into the main universe, which means that there are (at least) two people called Spider-Man swinging around New York City on Earth-616.
Within that fictional NYC, the two Spideys don’t seem to be a problem. But in our world, it’s clearly a problem. If I were to tell you my favorite character is Spider-Man, what comes to mind? You think Peter Parker, your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man in the blue and red duds who has been played by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland. But what about the other guy? If I want to tell you my favorite character is the main character of the Spider-Verse movies, do I say that my favorite character is Spider-Man? No, I say my favorite character is Miles Morales, which means that he is not the de facto Spider-Man.
Instead of elevating Miles to equal standing to Peter, the fact that he’s a Spider-Man in the same world as Peter Parker means that Miles is not, in fact, ever going to be Spider-Man.
Multiple Universes, Only a Few Identities
At this point, one might reasonably ask why Marvel didn’t just integrate Miles into the mainline universe by copying the Ultimate Universe? Our Peter Parker dies heroically, and now Miles steps up to carry on his legacy, making him the one true Spider-Man.
One need only look back at DC to see why this never happens. In 1986, the Flash a.k.a. Barry Allen heroically sacrifices himself to stop the Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Not only was it a powerful death, but it was easily the most exciting thing Barry Allen as a character had ever done.
He was replaced by his sidekick Wally West a.k.a. Kid Flash, who became the new Flash. Even better, Wally had incredible character development over several years and creative teams, a true rarity in mainline superhero comics, so that by the mid-’90s, he was fully established as the favorite version of the Flash. There was no need to bring back Barry Allen, because Wally did everything that Barry could do and he was a better character.
And yet, in 2008’s Final Crisis #2, Barry Allen comes back. And even though DC tried to keep both around, Wally was soon rendered unnecessary and Barry became the true Flash again.
Why did DC bring back Barry Allen, when they had a better Flash already in the Universe? Because some readers and writers like Barry best, and DC wants to sell comics to them. But they also want to sell comics to Wally fans, so they’ll keep Wally. And they also want to create jumping on points for potential new Flash fans, so every couple of years, they’ll make someone the new Flash, and keep them around, just in case.
As a result, the DC Universe is filled with Flashes, as well as Green Lanterns and Robins and Wonder Girls and, like, three Wildcats for some reason. It’s a mess.
Never Let Go
And now, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is ready to follow suit, bringing back Chris Evans as Captain America, for the same reason it brought back Maguire and Garfield as Spider-Man, which is the same reason that there are so many Flashes and Robins and Spider-Mans in comics. People have their favorites and they don’t want them to move on from them. And Marvel wants their money, so they don’t make them move on.
While there’s certainly something to be said for giving the people what they want, it does limit story opportunities, as we may see with Steve Rogers’s return to the MCU. Although we haven’t seen much of Sam as Captain America, he’s already staked out a position unique to himself, something that Steve could never do. Both The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and, to a lesser extent, Captain America: Brave New World have dealt with the fact that a Black man has become the symbol of America, an interesting spin on a well-established character.
Now, the Doomsday teaser does say that Steve Rogers, not Captain America, will return. So there’s a chance that Steve’s not coming back to be Cap. But he doesn’t have to pull on a uniform to undercut Sam. At best, his presence means that there’s going to be two Captains America running the MCU, which creates confusion in the minds of the audience. At worst, and most likely, Sam will be diminished as the also-ran, even if he gets to keep the Captain America title.
Avengers: Doomsday brings Steve Rogers back to theaters on December 18, 2026.
Avengers: Doomsday – Who Is Steve Rogers’ Child?
Even if old man Steve Rogers didn’t want to tell us about his post-Avengers: Endgame life, we all figured that he and Peggy Carter would spend some time kissing and hugging—I mean, you saw the way she looked at him when he came out of that pod in The First Avenger, right? In the first teaser for Avengers: Doomsday, we learn that their kissing and hugging has yielded a child; a little blond moppet that Steve cradles before putting on his red, white, and blue duds and punching Doctor Doom, probably.
Now, this might all be set-up, in which Steve leaves his happy home to join the battle and we never see his family again. But given that this kid’s mom is likely Agent Carter and given that the one thing we’ve actually seen Doom do so far is interact with some superheroes’ kid, namely Franklin Richards in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the littlest Rogers may indeed be important. And while Steve is childless in the world of mainline Marvel Comics, there are enough Variants, alternate realities, and forgotten stories to give us with a few possibilities to consider as we look forward to Doomsday.
Ian or Ellie Rogers
The most likely identity of the MCU kid is a variation of Ian Rogers, as he follows in his father’s heroic footsteps and even takes on one Steve’s alternate identities, Nomad. Introduced by Rick Remender and John Romita Jr. in 2012’s Captain America #1, Ian was in fact a child created by the mad scientist Arnim Zola and sent to Dimension X. When Steve, who had become trapped in the Dimension, discovers the infinant, he frees Ian from Zola’s lab and raises the boy on his own.
Steve brings Ian with him when he finally escapes Dimension X, to live with him and Sharon Carter (Steve’s main squeeze in the comics). Eventually, Ian becomes Nomad and fights alongside Sam Wilson as Captain America and later, in an alternate future, with Steve and Sharon’s daughter Ellie. Ellie also becomes a hero, especially after Arnim Zola returns to create a dark, dystopian future. However, she does not adopt a code name or get a cool costume.
While very little of that lines up with the MCU’s status quo, Ian is the most prominent Rogers child and, therefore, seems most likely to be adapted into live action.
The Alternate Reality Oddities
Unsurprisingly given his importance in the Marvel Universe, Steve Rogers shows up in several alternate reality stories and in issues of What If…?, the anthology series that puts Marvel’s heroes in different scenarios. In several of these stories, Steve has become a proud papa. Sometimes, he just has “normal” kids named Rick or Nick or something with Sharon or Peggy. But often, he’ll pair up with another superheroine, leading to fun but unlikely progeny.
There’s Sarah Rogers, a.k.a. Crusader, the daughter of Steve and Rogue of the X-Men (except really Carol Danvers because she had control of Rogue’s body after Rogue took all of Carol’s memories, which is actually how she has super-strength and flight, and that’s the streamlined version) who carries both the shield and Thor’s hammer Mjolnir. In What If? Avengers: Dissembled, we meet the unnamed and creepy blond twins he has with Scarlet Witch, who seems cursed to only give birth to creepy twins.
The 2008 animated movie The Next Avengers introduced James Rogers, son of Steve and Natasha Romanoff, who leads a team made up of other Nepo-Avengers, including the son of Thor and Storm of the X-Men and the son of Hawkeye and Mockingbird.
Finally, we have Sharon Rogers from the video game Marvel Future Fight, who for some reason looks more like the daughter of Captain America and the Scarlet Witch than either of the two creepy kids that Steve and Wanda had.
Fun as these mashups are, MCU fans want to see Steve with Peggy, so they’re probably not going to be the baby Rogers we see in the Doomsday teaser
Red Skull
Even the most die-hard Peggy Carter fan would gladly take a Steve/Wanda pairing if it meant they didn’t have to deal with Steve Rogers’ son from the Ultimate Universe, and not just because this one becomes the Red Skull.
Launched in 2000, Ultimate Marvel took classic Marvel characters and rebooted them from scratch in the present. While that often meant just new versions of the standard characters we know, sometimes creators would come up with radically different takes. And sometimes, those radically new takes were terrible. And usually, those terrible takes came from Scottish writer Mark Millar, who sadly wrote a lot of Ultimate Marvel comics.
So Millar introduced the Ultimate version of the Red Skull in 2009’s Ultimate Avengers #1, penciled by Carlos Pacheco. In this storyline, Steve and his World War II crush Gail (not Peggy, for whatever reason) had one last night together before he went off to war. Not wanting a premarital pregnancy to tarnish Steve’s reputation, the U.S. government took the boy and raised him in a lab. Although he initially seemed like a second Steve Rogers, both in terms of strength and abilities but also in terms of moral clarity, the boy turned out to be a psychopath and murdered everyone. He flayed the skin off of his face and devoted himself to destroying everything his father stood for, at least until Steve killed him by crashing a jet into him.
So, yeah. We’re not getting this version of baby Steve Rogers in the movie, and that is a very, very good thing.
Who, then, is that baby who Steve Rogers is holding? We don’t know, but Marvel Comics gave the writers plenty of options to work with and one option we really, really hope they avoid.
Avengers: Doomsday brings Lil’ Baby Rogers to the screen on December 18, 2026.
Avengers: Doomsday – Captain America Return Supports an Endgame Fan Theory
This post contains rumors for Avengers: Doomsday, and sometimes rumors turn into spoilers.
Steve Rogers told us back in World War II: he can do this all day. Turns out, he will be doing it for all time, because the first teaser for Avengers: Doomsday is out and it’s all about Steve. The short teaser, which leaked earlier this week and is the first of four that will be attached to Avatar: Fire and Ash over the next several weeks, is all vibe and little plot. Set to a slow, instrumental version of Alan Silvestri’s score from The Avengers, we see Steve park his motorcycle in front of a nice ranch house, and go inside to cradle a baby. “Steve Rogers will return,” says the font on screen.
By this point, it should come as no surprise that Chris Evans would return to the role. Not only did he put a particularly foul-mouthed spin on Johnny Storm for Deadpool & Wolverine, but his fellow Avengers: Endgame casualty Robert Downey Jr. is back, this time as Marvel’s greatest supervillain Victor Von Doom. But the real question remains: why is Steve back for Doomsday? As expected, the internet has a theory. And this one is actually pretty good.
The big question surrounding Doomsday has been, “Why does Doctor Doom, the dictator of Latveria with a famously scarred face, look like Tony Stark?” Joe and Anthony Russo, also joining Downey Jr. and Evans in returning to Marvel, have said that there’s a legitimate story reason for the actor to play Doom, and that still leaves a lot of possibilities. The most obvious reason is that Tony Stark is Doctor Doom on some other Earth, and so the person that RDJ plays in Doomsday is a Variant of the Tony we know and love.
But the Steve Rogers focus in the first trailer, and the buzz about another trailer focusing on Thor, has led some to wonder if Downey Jr. is actually playing Victor Von Doom of Latveria from another reality, and that he’s chosen to look like Tony Stark to mess with the Earth-616 Avengers. And who better to mess with than Steve Rogers, the man who always admired Stark, even when they clashed?
So the next question is, why is Doom mad at Steve? And that’s where the rumors get interesting.
The prevalent rumor is based on the end of Avengers: Endgame, when Steve went back in time to return the Infinity Stones. Obviously, Steve changed things on his cross-time trek, getting to spend his life with Peggy instead of staying in the ice to be thawed out decades later. When the Joe Biden-looking Steve shows up at the end of Endgame to hand over his shield to Sam, we just assumed all was well, that he changed everything for the better.
But what if those changes had a cost? And what if someone else had to pay it? The prevalent Doomsday rumor suggests that something that Steve did while returning the stones and changing his past caused an Incursion in Doom’s reality. Incursions, MCU fans might remember, are when two Earths from different realities interact, resulting in the destruction of one or both. So great was the devastation left by the Steve-caused Incursion that Doom has launched a plan to get revenge, starting by modeling himself after Captain America’s greatest ally, Tony Stark.
That reading has its compelling and troubling aspects. On one hand, it allows Doomsday to tie directly into Endgame, assuring strict continuity between both. Further, it allows the story to focus on the core team, and give Robert Downey Jr. a good reason to come back without undercutting the power of Tony’s death.
On the other hand, it totally misses the point of Doctor Doom. Perhaps if his country Latveria is particularly destroyed, then Doom would go on such a mission. But generally, Doom is above such petty things as revenge. Moreover, Doom may not respect Steve Rogers or Tony Stark, but there’s only one man he truly hates, and that’s Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four.
But it’s not worth getting too angry about yet. Right now, all we have is a teaser and we’re still in speculation mode. All we know right now is this, that the universe is in danger and Steve Rogers is once again ready to stand up against bullies, just like he’s been doing since World War II.
Avengers: Doomsday comes to theaters on December 18, 2026.
James Cameron Is So Devoted to Practical Acting He Made His Avatar Star Puke
To the casual viewer, Avatar isn’t that different from your average video game. Incredible visuals, amazing creatures, and exciting action, sure, but none of it’s real. It’s all made by computers. Those viewers better not let the famously cantankerous director James Cameron hear it. While we may see only the digitally-rendered blue Na’vi version of Jake Sully on screen, Cameron insists that the character is entirely based on actor Sam Worthington‘s real performance. And Worthington has the upset stomach to prove it.
In an interview with Deadline that covered Cameron and Worthington’s long relationship making three Avatar films, the actor recalled being told to play disgust at a food he was given. “So I said to Jim, ‘Well, you got to just give me something disgusting.’ I think he mixed a concoction of fish oil?” remembered Worthington. “So when I drunk it, it did the exact thing you wanted. It was disgusting. But it was so disgusting it came flying out.”
Yet, even in this supremely and upsettingly physical moment, technology was still involved. “Of course, we’ve got head cams on, so all the liquid hit the head camera,” Worthington continued. “The problem was then, the head camera kind of set on fire. And me being me, I ran around the room, forgetting that it was connected to my head. When all I had to do was take the helmet off.”
Messy as it is, moments like these are exactly what Cameron wants to preserve, even as he pushes the technological limits of filmmaking. The Avatar series may have began as the story of human beings who use technology to create Na’vi versions of themselves to find a valuable element called unobtainium, but Cameron never wants the digital to supplant the physical.
Beyond Worthington’s stomach-churning moment, Cameron also pointed to Sigourney Weaver‘s performance in the second films The Way of Water and Fire and Ash as an example. After playing a human scientist in the first film, Weaver returns to the cast as a Na’vi teen.
“I still see in print media, all the time, ‘Sigourney voices Kiri,’ because they can’t imagine that she’s actually physically performing a 15-year-old at the age of 71, or 72 when she was doing it,” he said. “And it’s like, no, she didn’t do a voice part. She was on the movie for 18 months, performing every scene, including all the underwater work, all the work at the surface, riding the creatures, all that stuff. It’s a complete physical performance. It’s not just a voice performance, right?”
For Cameron, the physical is so important because it allows him to retain the human element in the art of filmmaking, even technologically advanced filmmaking, which cannot be done with AI. But for Worthington, the physical elements are much more simple.
“That’s the process,” he said of his on-set puking experience. “The process is always problem-solving. And it’s often something so out of the box it leads down to these kind of moments.” Those moments may not always be glamorous, but they are always human, which is what Cameron always wants in his films.
Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters worldwide on Friday, December 19, 2025.
The MCU Needs to Ditch the Crazy, Powerful Woman Trope
Wanda Maximoff may be the villain of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but that doesn’t mean she’s not right. Early in the film, when Stephen Strange charges Wanda with being reckless with her magical abilities, she points out that she gave Thanos the Time Stone, the one thing the Sorcerer Supreme must defend. “You break the rules and become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy,” she sneers. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
Wanda is right. Male heroes are lauded for gaining great power and doing things their own way, whether it’s Tony Stark disregarding the U.S. government or Star-Lord violating galactic treaties. But when women get power, they immediately go mad, proving not only that they cannot be trusted with great abilities, but also that they are fundamentally weaker than their male counterparts. It’s a problem that goes deeper than Multiverse of Madness, before the MCU, all the way to the heart of Marvel Comics.
Girl Power?
Women have always been part of the Marvel comics universe, which counted Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four as one of its first characters before adding founding X-Man Jean Grey and founding Avenger Wasp not too long afterwards.
Admirable as this inclusion may be, few would find much to cheer about in these early Marvel stories. Not only did the characters’ codenames diminish them—Sue was Invisible Girl until long after she had become a wife and mother, and Jean was (and often is again) Marvel Girl—but the dialogue that Stan Lee wrote over the pencils of Jack Kirby and other artists was often frankly insulting. Sue, in particular, would trip over nothing in the middle of battle, get easily captured by bad guys, or go off to sulk.
Later writers gave Marvel’s female characters more to do, but unpleasant tropes persisted. In 1970’s Avengers #83, a team called the Lady Liberators—consisting of Valkyrie, Medusa of the Inhumans, Black Widow, and Scarlet Witch—resist male oppression by taking over Avengers Mansion. Even though Wasp defeats the Liberators and even though they’re revealed to be mind-controlled by Thor villain the Enchantress, the issue trades in a lot of unpleasant stereotypes.
The most infamous example of Marvel misogyny may be Avengers #200, penciled by George Pérez and credited to four writers: then Marvel Editor in Chief Jim Shooter, Pérez, Bob Layton, and David Michelinie. The story involves Carol Danvers, then called Ms. Marvel, suddenly becoming pregnant with the child of a Kang the Conquerer variant called Marcus Immortus. The child ages rapidly to adulthood and reveals his identity, which, for some reason, convinces Carol to go into space with him.
Carol’s story was later called out and retconned in the fantastic Avengers Annual #10, and even Shooter, a man not famous for his apologies, admitted that it shouldn’t have made it to print. But that doesn’t take away the fact that the Marcus Immortus story, like many of the crazy women tales, has become one of the characters’ defining moments. And when a character gets adapted into other media, such as the MCU, those stories often travel with them.
A History of Hysteria
Jean Grey died a hero. Even though the Dark Phoenix Saga has been adapted into two movies, X-Men: The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix, that fact may come as a surprise. But it’s a crucial point that’s important for understanding what writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne were trying to do in Uncanny X-Men #129–138 (1980).
The story begins with Jean Grey pushing her telekenetic powers further than ever before to save the X-Men from dying in a crashing shuttle. The event draws the attention of a galactic force of nature called the Phoenix, who nestles inside of her and gives her even more abilities. Shortly thereafter, the psychic villain Mastermind undergoes a long campaign of manipulation, which eventually unleashes Jean’s new abilities and changes her into the Dark Phoenix.
When the Dark Phoenix destroys a planet full of people who look like broccoli for some reason, she’s held for trial by the Shi’ar Empire. When the trial and the Phoenix threaten to destroy the X-Men, Jean decides to sacrifice herself to save her beloved friends.
From Claremont’s perspective, the Dark Phoenix Saga was about Jean Grey facing down an incredible cosmic threat and eventually overcoming it, even if she lost her life. But to most people adapting the story, the Dark Phoenix Saga is about a woman who received great power and was overcome by it.
Sadly, that latter reading is more true of other stories by the saga’s co-creator, John Byrne. In the pages of West Coast Avengers, Byrne told how Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch, still troubled by the loss of her husband Vision of their children Tommy and Billy, is manipulated by her father Magneto into turning against her teammates. Although a man is at the root of her heel turn, the implication is that Wanda is too weak, too susceptible to manipulation to handle her vast magical abilities. Years later, writer Brian Michael Bendis would double-down on that point, when Wanda suffers another breakdown and uses her reality-warping abilities to first destroy the Avengers and later to wipe out most of the mutants.
The list goes on: Sue Storm getting possessed by Malice, She-Hulk experiencing bursts of rage like her cousin Bruce, Rogue having too many voices in her head, and so on. Most major female characters in the Marvel Universe have gone mad with power at some point. And, in many cases, that becomes their defining story.
These stories stick in readers’ imaginations for obvious reasons. They have incredible stakes, and watching someone turn from good to evil always creates interesting drama. But when they become the defining stories of female characters, these stories begin to reinforce a trope, suggesting that we all are threatened when women gain power.
More Women, More Stories
At this point, one might lodge a counter-argument. Isn’t it a good thing that the MCU adapts the comics? Isn’t that we love about seeing the Avengers get together or watching deep cuts like Shang-Chi and the Guardians of the Galaxy on screen?
Others may point out that male characters often go mad too. Marvel has given us Steve Rogers as a Nazi, Tony Stark as a secret agent of Kang, and Professor X doing all manner of shady stuff. How come we’re not worried about those?
The answer to the first charge is obviously “Yes.” But the MCU has never slavishly adapted the source material without making changes. Even when it copies direct moments from the comics, such as Captain America punching Hitler or the dead gods in Thor: Love and Thunder, the franchise re-contextualizes things for a new story or to update out-of-date social norms. Certainly, they can do the same, finding new ways to tell the Dark Phoenix Saga, Wanda’s madness, or other touchstone tales in a manner that gives the women agency.
The second charge brings up an even better solution to the problem of Marvel’s crazy women. The reason we don’t fret too much about the time Cap said “Hail Hydra” or Tony Stark served Kang is because they aren’t the defining stories involving those characters. Steve, Tony, Charles Xavier, and nearly every other male Marvel hero gets to have a whole range of experiences. So, sure, Peter Parker always goes a little nuts when he wears his black symbiote suit, but we forgive him because we’ve seen him do so many other things.
So if we want to keep stories about Jean losing her mind from the Phoenix or Wanda’s brain breaking when her dad starts messing with her, that’s fine—as long as they get a lot of other stories too, showing how they, like every other human being, has a variety of moods and mindsets.
Only then will crazy powerful arcs just be one more moment in the life of a superhero. Only then will it be fair.
The Muppet Show Is Returning at Exactly the Right Time
In 2026, it will finally be time to play the music. Now, more than any other point since Disney bought the rights to the characters in 2004, is the time to light the lights. This is the exact correct point for The Muppet Show.
So it’s a good thing that Disney is finally bringing back The Muppet Show. Not Muppets Tonight or Muppets TV or any other variation. As announced with a short clip of Kermit flipping the switch on the Muppet Theater, set to an instrumental version of “The Rainbow Connection,” the actual, original style of The Muppet Show is coming back, right when Broadway and musicals are bigger than ever.
For those who haven’t seen the series that made the Muppets into household names, which aired 120 episodes between 1976 and 1981, The Muppet Show was a variety show with backstage antics. Each episode of The Muppet Show featured a special guest star, who would come and perform various songs and sketches, sometimes with the Muppet performers and sometimes without. There would also be segments featuring Muppet performers without guests, most famously Fozzie Bear’s stand-up routine or Gonzo the Great’s daredevil stunts, and storylines involving the behind-the-scenes production of the show.
More the felt characters that Jim Henson and Frank Oz brought to life with their fellow performers, The Muppet Show was about the agony and ecstasy of putting on a show. Even if the kids first watching the series didn’t know or care who Joel Grey or Harvey Korman or Twiggy were, they remained invested in the series. They sympathized with Kermit stressing out over production snafus, laughed at Miss Piggy trying to steal the spotlight, and swooned when, despite everything going wrong, Elton John belted out “Crocodile Rock” alongside puppet crocodiles or when Gilda Radner played along with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s shenanigans.
That emphasis on performance is why 2026 is the perfect time to bring back The Muppet Show. Not only are musicals as popular as ever, with touring productions bring hits like Les Misérables and Hamilton all over the world and Wicked once again brining in big Hollywood cash. It’s also because performance has become a part of daily life. Social media apps like TikTok make it possible for everyone to put on a show from their bed room, and thus get the chance to experience the anxiety that comes from a performance gone wrong.
Granted, Disney has tried to tie the Muppets to the zeitgeist before, with very mixed results. The Jason Segel-led The Muppets managed to work as a nostalgia-filled early legacy sequel, and the recent Muppets Now translated The Muppet Show format to a streaming service conceit. But other attempts to update the franchise, especially the ill-conceived Office-style sitcom the muppets. suggested that Disney had no idea how to bring the characters up to date.
The heavy nostalgia of this first teaser for the new special suggests that Disney has realized that they don’t need to update the Muppets for our times, because our times have learned to love the showbiz razzle dazzle that The Muppet Show has always celebrated.
The Muppet Show airs on Disney+ on February 4, 2026.
Wonder Man Will Make Trevor Slattery Into More Than a Joke
Even though his Lear was the toast of Croydon, Trevor Slattery has never enjoyed respect, neither within the fictional MCU nor in the real world. Some fans still hate the fake out from Iron Man 3, which revealed that Iron Man’s feared magic-using terrorist arch-enemy is an actually an English actor called Trevor. Others like him, but only as a bumbling fool who undercut the racist tropes in the Mandarin character and then got to pal around with Shang-Chi.
According to Trevor’s actor Sir Ben Kingsley, all of that will change with the Disney+ series Wonder Man. The series will not only return Trevor to Hollywood, but also give him a chance at success. “A series of extraordinary events place him exactly in that space, which crowns him and compromises him at the same time,” Kingsley told Entertainment Weekly. “He’s pulled in two directions at the same time.”
Wonder Man will team Trevor with Simon Williams, a struggling actor portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. When he learns that an idiosyncratic auteur plans to remake a ’70s children show about a fictional superhero called Wonder Man, Williams goes all out to earn the part, including hiring Trevor as an acting coach and, eventually, getting superpowers.
Wonder Manfinally brings a long-standing member of the Avengers to the MCU, but it does so in a somewhat unexpected manner. The Wonder Man of the comics began as a likable lunkhead who gets tricked into fighting the Avengers, and promptly sacrifices himself to save the team. Long later, and after his memories were used to help create the Avenger Vision, Wonder Man is resurrected and his backstory is fleshed out, revealing that he was a nerdy scientist who gained super-strength during ionic-based experiments. Some time after his resurrection, and during his tenure with the Avengers, Wonder Man went to Hollywood to become a stunt man and, eventually, a leading man.
As a Hollywood story, Wonder Man will deal with the idiosyncrasies of show biz, Kingsely explained. “We look at the casting process, we look at the auditioning process, we look at the directing process, the writing process… We look at the ego traps. We look at the seductive side of fame. We look at everything that’s beautiful and good, and also everything that’s vulnerable and rather unhealthy, but in a very entertaining, non-judgmental way.”
Even more importantly for his character, Kingsley said Wonder Man presents a “fascinating” story, in which Trevor will be “faced with a terrible dilemma: he can reach his ambition, but it’s at a terrible cost.”
Hard choices and terrible dilemmas? Sounds like the sort of thing that would make for Shakespearean drama and a fitting role for someone who brought King Lear to the good people of Croydon.
Wonder Man streams on Disney+ on January 27, 2026.
Neon Has a Novel Approach to Promoting No Other Choice
Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice is already one of the most talked-about films of the year after winning Best Director at the Sitges Film Festival and the International People’s Choice Award at TIFF. It’s also been selected as South Korea’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the next Academy Awards, but distributor Neon isn’t letting the conversation around the movie slip away ahead of its limited December 25 release stateside.
The dark comedy thriller, which Park also co-wrote, adapts Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax and follows a middle-aged man called Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) who gets desperate after being laid off after 25 years. To support his family and secure new work, Man-su resorts to extreme measures to hobble his competition.
No Other Choice promises to be a razor-sharp social satire from the man who brought us Oldboy and Decision to Leave, which seems to have inspired Neon’s promotional team to set up a very targeted screening.
“This is truly a film that speaks to our gracious executive leaders and the culture they have cultivated,” Neon posted this week, along with an open invitation to all the Fortune 500 CEOs that promised them a private screening of the film that will spotlight “many parts of your humble mission to achieve corporate greatness.”
On behalf of Director Park Chan-wook's new film, we are cordially inviting all Fortune 500 CEOs to a special screening of NO OTHER CHOICE.
This is truly a film that speaks to our gracious executive leaders and the culture they have cultivated.
“From the unbearable weight you carry upholding your employees’ livelihoods, to the systems you strive to conquer for economic growth, to the conditions and resources you govern in times of strategic mergers and realignment – this is truly a film that speaks to you and the culture you have cultivated,” the invite continues.
Social media reactions to the screening invite were largely supportive, with comments like “marketing on point” to “Awesome. None of them will go. But still awesome.”
Though it’s unlikely that any Fortune 500 CEOs will show up, this screening of No Other Choice really would be like holding up a mirror to some of those who are responsible for the human cost of corporate greed, so it would be interesting to see if its themes moved any of them.
Probably not, but we can dream.
A Brief Note About the Comments Section
As it may have come to your attention in recent months, the comments section has not been as well-moderated as we—and perhaps especially you—would have liked it to be. This was partially due to behind-the-scenes technical issues with Disqus that did not present an easy solution.
We have now found one. Taking a page out of the patron saint of xenomorphia, we decided to nuke the old system from space. It was the only way to be sure. However, comments will not be gone for long. We plan to have the comments section reinstalled within the next 48 hours at which time, conversations can continue uninterrupted—and hopefully more unpolluted going forward. Unfortunately old discussions from the past five years will be lost, but it is in hopes that new ones can be saved. Apologies for the inconvenience and happy holidays.
