15 Actors You Forgot Did Movies as Kids

Most of the world’s most famous actors didn’t start their careers as adults, rather as children or young adults getting whatever parts they could score. Being part of the industry means hard work, often from a very young age, and on roles that might not get a whole lot of recognition.

Hence why it is so fun to find the first few films of known performers, letting you see them at the start of their careers. Their acting might not be the best (they were children after all), but their faces are instantly recognizable. These are the child roles of famous actors.

Elijah Wood in The Good Son

Before becoming Frodo, Elijah Wood appeared in several childhood roles during the early 1990s, including the dark thriller The Good Son alongside Macaulay Culkin.

Scarlett Johansson in Home Alone 3

Johansson appeared in Home Alone 3 years before becoming a global superstar, making the strange sequel an unexpectedly early stop in her career.

Ryan Gosling in Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Before becoming one of Hollywood’s most recognizable leading men, Gosling spent the 1990s appearing in children’s television and family-friendly Canadian productions.

Kristen Stewart in Panic Room

Years before Twilight, Stewart gained attention playing Jodie Foster’s diabetic daughter in David Fincher’s tense home-invasion thriller Panic Room.

Jake Gyllenhaal in City Slickers

Gyllenhaal appeared as Billy Crystal’s son in City Slickers while still a child, long before becoming known for heavier dramatic performances later in his career.

Jessica Alba in Camp Nowhere

Before becoming a major Hollywood star in the 2000s, Jessica Alba appeared as a child actor in family comedies like Camp Nowhere during the early stages of her career.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Angels in the Outfield

Before Inception and 500 Days of Summer, Gordon-Levitt spent much of the 1990s acting in family movies and sitcoms aimed squarely at younger audiences.

Amy Adams in Drop Dead Gorgeous

Adams quietly appeared in supporting comedic roles during the late 1990s, years before eventually becoming one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed dramatic actors.

Seth Green in Can’t Buy Me Love

Green worked steadily as a child actor throughout the 1980s, appearing in teen comedies and family movies, and would later become famous for comedy and voice acting.

Mila Kunis in Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves

Kunis appeared in family-oriented Disney projects before That ’70s Show made her famous, including the direct-to-video sequel Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.

Ben Affleck in The Voyage of the Mimi

Affleck began acting as a child in educational television during the 1980s, an oddly humble beginning considering he later became an Oscar-winning filmmaker and Batman.

Keri Russell in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Before Felicity and The Americans, Russell appeared in family films and children’s programming throughout the early stages of her acting career.

Kurt Russell in Follow Me, Boys!

Russell actually started acting as a Disney child star during the 1960s, decades before audiences associated him with tougher action and western roles.

Joaquin Phoenix in Parenthood

Before Joker and Gladiator, Phoenix appeared in several family-oriented projects as a child actor while still using the name Leaf Phoenix professionally.

Leonardo DiCaprio in Critters 3

DiCaprio made one of his earliest movie appearances in the low-budget horror sequel Critters 3, a far cry from the prestige films that later defined his career.

The Absence of a Major Character Overshadows The Boys Finale

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 5 finale.

In the penultimate episode of The Boys, Homelander (Antony Starr) reacted badly to the news that his biological father, Ben, a.k.a. Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) had simply had enough of him and was leaving. Having tried in vain to convince Ben that he could live a life of fame and fortune with him, Homelander suddenly choked him unconscious and stuffed him back on ice to deal with later.

Soldier Boy did not emerge from cold storage in the series finale, which is now streaming on Prime Video for fans to feast on. However, his absence still managed to overshadow the final episode of The Boys: in the end, Soldier Boy wasn’t just the face of the franchise’s narrative past with his upcoming prequel spinoff series, Vought Rising, but also the potential face of its future, with the character’s fate left undecided in the present.

That’s surely by design. Ackles has been a charming and charismatic presence on The Boys, and much of Soldier Boy’s screen time in season 5 has been paving the way for Vought Rising, even introducing a teammate from his 1950s-set escapades called Bombsight and clashing with Homelander over their relationships with Clara Vought, a fascist Supe who became the first successful test case of Compound V and used those powers to commit crimes against minorities. She’ll also be back in Vought Rising, so the show felt compelled to remind us who she was and why she mattered during its final season. This has often been infuriating for fans, who have gleefully made memes blaming season 5’s perceived creative problems on being “what Clara would have wanted.”

Yet, the creatives behind The Boys clearly didn’t want Soldier Boy getting in the way of wrapping up the stories of the show’s main characters, conveniently popping him in a box ahead of the final showdown. This was also problematic, leading to a lack of resolution for Laz Alonso’s Mother’s Milk, whose grandfather was killed by Soldier Boy and who still held a grudge against him when he was simply taken out of the equation with a laughable chokehold that he was arguably strong enough to counter. Still, this might have been a bit less annoying if Soldier Boy hadn’t largely been used as an unsubtle plot device in the slow lead-up to the finale.

Soldier Boy’s feelings for Homelander wildly fluctuated from episode to episode after he returned to the ensemble. One minute, he hated him; the next, he was helping him with his insidious plans, flip-flopping to be whatever kind of character the show needed him to be at any given moment. He shut Homelander in a cell, hoping he would be endlessly tortured with radiation poisoning, only to hand him a shot of V1 so that he could become immortal. He balked at every move Homelander made, but whenever Homelander got close to vulnerability, he stepped up to help him wriggle out of it.

Yes, yes. It’s what Clara would have wanted, but since we only know a few spare details about Soldier Boy’s relationship with Clara before Vought Rising fleshes out their relationship, his season 5 arc felt disingenuous and contrived. Hell, he didn’t even need to be in the season at all. There are plenty of ways that Homelander could have got the V1. Soldier Boy was just the most convenient chess piece to keep fans interested in the franchise going forward.

Setting the stage for a full season of Soldier Boy adventures wasn’t enough for the writers of The Boys, though. They had to make it possible for him to reemerge in future spinoffs set in the present by allowing him to live through the mothership show, and that also seems by design. Like most prequels, Vought Rising will wield little peril for its main character. We already know Soldier Boy makes it out alive. By not killing him in the present and clutching onto the possibility that he’ll be back in the future (perhaps with a more complex backstory shoring him up) it feels like the show took one last swing at gauging our interest in seeing Soldier Boy, and this franchise, survive.

The Boys Season 5 Episode 8 Finale Review: Reboot the Universe

This review contains spoilers for The Boys season 5 episode 8.

I could sit here and go over all the ways that this season of The Boys has been disappointing, but I’ve touched on basically all of them in my previous episodic reviews. The only other thing that’s been bugging me is how small this season has felt, given its stakes. Most scenes have taken place inside on set, with two or three characters sharing dialogue. Occasionally, the show has ventured out to a field, a beach, a street, or a wooded area for a bit. But aside from the Freedom Camp-set premiere, it feels like the show’s been pretty tight with its budget. I guess I was always wondering whether Prime Video had given the makers of The Boys fewer bucks to spend on its much-touted final season or whether they were saving the bucks they had for their big finale. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m frankly none the wiser.

Our final episode starts with a touching found-family burial for Frenchie, and we learn that something is wrong with Kimiko. Even Butcher looks a little scared of her. The payoff to this setup works better than anything else in the episode. Pushing away the expectation that becoming way more powerful might make Kimiko villainous, it turns out she’s just too sad about Frenchie dying to rev up the necessary rage to hit someone with her new “tit blast.” Butcher has Sister Sage savagely provoke her until she reluctantly unleashes, taking away Sage’s powers (for what they were worth).

Later, Kimiko sees a vision of her dead lover when she fails to go off. A really sweet moment ensues as Frenchie gently tells her that anger was never her power, but her big old heart, pushing Kimiko to key into the depths of her love. Is this The Boys’ equivalent of a Care Bear Stare? Sure, but I loved it regardless. Sue me!

Prior to this, we learn that Homelander is planning to “reboot the universe” with a live announcement of his second coming on Easter (complete with an empty-chair countdown dig at Marvel). When he finally addresses the nation, the Boys implement their plan to creep into the White House and take him out. Of course, they walk straight into a trap, but are saved by a desperate, rebellious Ashley. They then split up. Mother’s Milk and Hughie take out Oh-Father with Chekhov’s ball gag, while Starlight takes out The Deep by blasting him into a furious ocean. Neither of their deaths is particularly impactful; merely inevitable.

Following a rebuff from Ryan, Homelander is also triggered by the word “Father” in his big speech, and goes off message, threatening America until Butcher and Kimiko arrive in the Oval Office, along with a courageous Ryan, to make their final move. Kimiko, spurred on by that vision of Frenchie, hits all three Supes with a blast that drains them completely. As the world watches, Butcher kills a powerless and grizzling Homelander.

After five seasons, is Homelander’s long-awaited death satisfying? Not really. It’s gross enough, don’t get me wrong, but it’s been such a slog to get here this year, stuffed with so much “I’m god now” nonsense that his death actually feels like as much of a mercy on all of us as the people he’s terrorized.

When someone evil dies, the monstrous things they’ve done don’t just go away; the impact of those actions lives on. We won’t get to see that, so The Boys shows us Ryan’s grim reaction to Homelander’s murder. Meanwhile, Butcher feels nothing after his brief sense of triumph has worn off. Like us, Butcher looks upon Homelander’s corpse and only feels empty inside. Homelander’s Trump substitute (and the man himself) has simply proved that it only takes one powerful, charismatic person to quash the country’s freedoms, greasing the wheels for anyone else who fancies giving it a go later.

The Boys isn’t interested in dwelling too much on any of that. We cut to Ashley taking credit for the plan and immediately being impeached, while Ryan rejects Butcher’s offer to become a family. After Terror passes away in his sleep, Butcher is plagued by the knowledge that Homelander’s death won’t be enough to stop Vought and is unable to rest. He decides to use the virus by loading it into the sprinkler system at the company’s HQ. It’s up to Hughie alone to stop him, and he does. Butcher makes peace with Hughie and his fatal choice before succumbing to a single gunshot wound.

There are happy endings for everyone else. Ryan goes off with Mother’s Milk, Kimiko heads to France to honor Frenchie, Singer is back as President, and Hughie and Annie start their own family. They’re naming their unborn daughter after Hughie’s dead girlfriend, which feels a bit weird, but whatever.

As a finale, it’s surprisingly low-key and predictable. Still, it’s generally fine. The emotional beats hit, and there’s room for the story to continue one day, with Soldier Boy and the Gen V crew still alive and well. We’ve been hearing how many characters and stories there are to wrap up, and that’s been blamed for why so much of this season has felt slow and infuriating, but in the end, it all happens in short order.

Does this finale, such as it is, make me forget what a slog this season has been? Hell no. I just spent hours of my life yelling “oh come on” at every hackneyed plot point, convenience, line of dialogue, and Vought Rising breadcrumb thrown my way. And although it’s a decent hour of television, there’s a lot of restraint at work that feels like exhaustion behind the scenes. The razor-sharp era of The Boys has been in our rearview for a while, and there’s none of the show’s admirable viciousness at work here to surprise anyone as this five-season-long story wraps up.

I’ll stop yapping now, but as we say goodbye to The Boys, which has given us so many fantastic moments over the years (and at least three stellar seasons) it’s hard not to compare it to that other violent Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg-produced superhero comic book adaptation on Prime Video, Invincible. Having just released an incredible fourth season with remarkably deft storytelling that’s kept fans on their toes, despite not killing any of its main characters, Invincible has remained consistently good throughout its run. In comparison, The Boys has rather faded away. Is that better than burning out? Time, and indeed you, will be the judge of that.

All eight episodes of The Boys season 5 are available to stream on Prime Video now.

Dutton Ranch: Natalie Alyn Lind on Becoming a Cowboy… and Art the Clown

For an actor, every day is like Halloween. But few have embraced the spirit of the holiday better than Natalie Alyn Lind, star of the latest Yellowstone spinoff Dutton Ranch. Lind plays Oreana Lynn Jackson, the strong-willed daughter of local tough Rob-Will Jackson (Jai Courtney). But before joining Taylor Sheridan’s massive TV franchise, Lind also appeared in Gotham, The Gifted, and The Goldbergs. And one Halloween, she even played Art the Clown, the murderous mime from the Terrifier series.

All of those parts required some training, especially getting ready to be part of the rough and tumble world of Dutton Ranch.

“It was a whirlwind of an experience,” Lind tells Den of Geek. “I was sent the sides for the initial audition, and then they flew me to Texas. I was in Texas, did the screen test, and on the flight home, found out that I had booked it. They called and said, ‘You have a couple of days to pack up all your stuff, you’re going to Texas.’ I got off the plane and went straight to Cowboy Camp.

“I had this overwhelming sense of so many emotions, happiness and intimidation about being on a new show in a franchise people love so much. But it was all positive feelings, only the most excitement.”

Fun as it all is for her, one specific part of Cowboy Camp particularly stands out for Lind: cutting.

“Cutting is when you have a herd of cows, and you have to narrow one out. You have to go up to the cows and break one cow apart, and then you have to cut back and forth to make sure that he can’t leave that specific place,” she explains. “That was a lot of fun because it felt so interactive, kind of like a video game.”

As much fun as Lind had in Cowboy Camp, the excitement began even before she landed in Texas, back when she was offered the chance to join the world of Yellowstone.

“I was a massive fan. I’ve seen not only Yellowstone, but all of the prequels, all of the different versions,” she admits. “I’ve been a true believer in the show since day one.

“My amazing manager and team knew that I wanted to be in this universe because I’ve always found it fascinating. So when the opportunity came through, they knew it would be something I’d be excited to do.”

Through Cowboy Camp, Lind and her castmates learned how to go from fans who love the franchise to people who inhabit the world.

“On the Yellowstone franchise, they don’t just teach us things to look good on camera, they teach us these things to really know the skill. So my character never ropes on camera, but she might. Even though that was the biggest thing I struggled with, was roping.”

Certainly, the training helps reinforce the show’s verisimilitude. It also helps appease fans, a real concern for a show with a fanbase as large and committed as Dutton Ranch and its predecessor, Yellowstone. But Lind didn’t find the expectations surprising, or troubling.

“I love fan speculation. I’ve been on shows that are based in comic book worlds,” she says, citing her time in Batman and X-Men spinoffs. “It’s interesting to see what fans catch onto so fast.

“The fans of the Yellowstone universe are so intelligent that there have been many predictions that I’ve seen and know are accurate,” she teases. “This universe is fun to come into because there’s such an incredible fanbase. The fans are so passionate, and so kind. It can be kind of scary, like being the new kid in school, wondering if everyone’s going to like me. But it’s only been positive feedback.”

Lind’s experiences have been just as welcoming in front of the camera as they’ve been with the audience, especially when working alongside Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser, veterans who have been with the franchise since the beginning.

“There is a moment of intimidation when you meet somebody that you feel like you’ve grown up with, but they’re so different than their characters,” Lind reveals. “They’re so kind and welcoming. They brought us in with open arms.

“Seeing the way they develop their characters over the last years into icons that are known worldwide, and seeing how they’re able to expand further on what they’ve done—it’s just awesome to watch.”

Working with franchises and discovering that the people who are scary on screen can be kind in real life comes in handy with Lind’s other obsession: horror movies.

“I just did my own horror movie, Halloween Store, and I’m happy to be part of that franchise, I hope it progresses into sequels,” she raves before talking about her favorite classic.

“When I was little, I had Michael Myers dolls instead of Barbie dolls, so I think Halloween would be a crazy franchise to be part of,” she enthuses—with one caveat. “I would want to be like Michael Myers.”

Thus far, she hasn’t had the chance to be the killer on screen, but she does get to play that part every year on October 31. “I always dress up as the craziest thing. I’m the opposite of a hot girl on Halloween. I’m like the weird little nerd in the corner,” she enthuses.

Of course, it also helps that Lind gets to work with make-up legend John Caglione Jr., who helped design the mobsters in Dick Tracy and Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight before coming to Dutton Ranch.

“He knew what a horror fan I was, so he reached out to Terrifer director Damien Leone, who sent me an actual prosthetic piece of Art the Clown from the movie. I was terrified to put it on, because you only get one shot with it. But I went as Art the Clown this Halloween, and that was one of my favorite moments, one of my favorite characters I played for one night.”

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“I’m inspired by Damien because he does all the special effects and make-up in the films, and he does an incredible job. I look at all the detail in every single crease. There’s a part of me that didn’t want to put it on, because I wanted to frame it and put it on my wall.”

Lind’s passion for the genre also led her to produce Halloween Store and make it an ode to films past. “The movie is my love letter to horror. There are so many different references to old school horror films because, growing up, they were the thing that made me happy.

“And for me, growing up, they were the things that always used to make me happy. I guess I sound like a psychotic little kid, but even to this day, whenever I’m stressed out, I go to sleep watching horror movies. So I wanted Halloween Store to have references and images from some of my favorite movies. I’m really excited for horror fans to pick up on them.”

Where she wants horror fans to enjoy Halloween Store‘s connections to the past, Lind is excited for Yellowstone‘s audience to see how Dutton Ranch takes the franchise into the future.

“Dutton Ranch isn’t the same thing as Yellowstone,” Lind explains. “It’s a new story and a new perspective on the Duttons. So we in the cast wanted to bring our own kind of flair to it.”

And if there’s one thing Natalie Alyn Lind knows how to do, it’s bring a unique flair to a part, whether that’s causing trouble in Texas, running from Sentinels with other mutants, or just freaking people out on Halloween night.

Dutton Ranch streams new episodes every Friday on Paramount+.

Netflix Unveils an Impressive Summer Anime Roster

The summer season is upon us and as fun as it can be to go and catch some rays at the beach, there’s sometimes nothing more satisfying than beating the heat with a new anime and cranking the volume and air conditioning all the way up. More than half of Netflix subscribers are watching anime and the streamer has made sure that fans have their bases covered this summer.

Netflix’s diverse summer anime slate includes high-stakes sports showdowns, the Straw Hat Pirates’ intensifying chaos on Whole Cake Island, and the conclusion of an extraterrestrial assassination shonen epic. It’s always the right season to binge-watch modern anime hits and retro classics, but here are the new titles that are hitting Netflix this May and June.

Akane-Banashi – May 16

Akane-banashi is a cathartic coming-of-age revenge story that uses the intricate art of rakugo — a Japanese form of storytelling where a singular performer tells a story with multiple roles — as its tool of vengeance. Akane is a rakugo wunderkind who infiltrates a prestigious rakugo school to get honor for her disgraced father. It’s a beautiful blend of comedy and drama that shines a light on a niche craft. Akane-banashi only just started its run in Japan in April and it’s already making waves as one of summer’s most exciting new anime and a title to keep an eye on.

Blue Lock vs.. U-20 Japan – May 25

Blue Lock takes a sports anime and mixes it with the all-or-nothing survival mentality of the death game genre. Blue Lock vs. U-20 Japan is the anime’s 14-episode second season that exposes Yoichi Isagi and the rest of the surviving egoist strikers to even greater training challenges. This season hinges on a thrilling showdown against Japan’s national team that distills Blue Lock’s suspenseful action storytelling to its strongest components.

My Dress-Up Darling Season 2 – May 25

My Dress-Up Darling is sublime slice of life storytelling that sees an introverted hina doll crafter shift his skills to cosplay after befriending a popular cosplayer. It’s a tender rom-com that features real characters who are hard not to adore. The anime’s second season continues and concludes Wakana and Marin’s endearing adventures and now the entire anime can be enjoyed on Netflix. It’s a modern anime love story for the ages.

Assassination Classroom Season 2 – June 1

A class of juvenile delinquents is tasked with the extermination of their superpowered tentacle alien homeroom teacher who previously destroyed 70% of the moon. Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High have a year to pull off this assassination feat, otherwise the alien educator — Koro-sensei — will destroy the Earth. Assassination Classroom is tight, addictive battle shonen storytelling that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Season 2 resolves this gripping narrative, which hits as hard as it does because it’s only a two-season story.

Shangri-La Frontier Season 2 – June 1

There is no shortage of fantasy and isekai anime that feature savvy gamers invading MMORPGs and VR worlds. Shangri-La Frontier is a subversive spin on this type of adventure that keys in on “trash games” — titles that are in the “so bad they’re good” category. Shangri-La Frontier’s hero, Rakuro, is a trash game savant who applies his skills to this glitch-filled and broken fantasy world. The highly-awaited season 2 adds 25 more episodes and, with a third season already confirmed, Netflix subscribers can binge-ahead knowing that answers are on the way.

Milky☆Subway: The Galactic Limited Express Movie – June 1

Milky☆Subway: The Galactic Limited Express Movie is a theatrical edit of the 12-episode anime that served as the sequel to 2022’s Milky☆Highway. A bio-engineered superhuman and a cyborg are sentenced to community service cleaning the Milky Subway train, which soon turns into a macabre murder mystery. Milky☆Subway: The Galactic Limited Express is also a 3DCG anime that rises above the medium’s stereotypes and showcases some stunning visuals that properly celebrate space’s infinite wonder.

ONE PIECE: Whole Cake Island Batch 6 & 7 – June 1

There are close to 1000 episodes of One Piece on Netflix and it’s truly impressive how much the streamer has closed the gap in terms of what’s available from the franchise’s lengthy run. Whole Cake Island Batches 6 & 7 contain One Piece Episodes 850-863 and 864-877. Whole Cake Island is one of One Piece’s longer storylines, but these new episodes nearly bring it to a close as they detail Luffy’s top-tier battle against Charlotte Katakuri in Mirror World.

Spider-Noir Final Trailer Puts a New Twist on an Enduring Spider-Man Question

Even if you’ve never read a Spider-Man comic, you probably know the eighth page of Amazing Spider-Man #50. That splash page features a trash can in the foreground with the Spider-Man costume stuffed on top. In the background, Peter Parker sulks away in his civilian clothes. The page, recreated in all manner of media, including 2004’s Spider-Man 2, pays off the promise of the story’s title: “Spider-Man, no more!”

The new series Spider-Noir takes place in a different universe than that of Amazing Spider-Man #50, a 1930s New York populated by gangsters and super-people. And instead of Peter Parker, the show is about Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), a man who once fought crime as a web-slinger called the Spider. But as the final trailer for Spider-Noir makes clear, Ben Reilly crumbles under the weight of great power and great responsibility, just like every other Spider-Man in every other reality.

In the trailer, we learn that Ben used to be the wall-crawling hero. But for reasons not yet clear, Ben set his costume aside and has been making a living as a private detective. But when the gangster Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) starts gaining strength via his super-powered henchmen, Ben feels the call to become the Spider once again.

Whether Ben Reilly or Peter Parker, whether in comics or films, whether in animation or live action, every Spider-Person entertains the thought of chucking it all into the garbage and living their lives. The tension is implied in the most famous line from the Spider-Man franchise, with great power comes great responsibility.

Certainly, other superheroes existed before Spidey made his debut in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy #15. And most of those heroes have greater powers than the ability to do whatever a spider can. Superman, Batman, even the members of the Fantastic Four, who inaugurated the Marvel Universe a year before Spider-Man’s debut, outmatch Peter Parker. And yet Pete spends more time worrying about the cost of his powers than all of those heroes combined.

Why? Because that’s the central appeal of Spider-Man. He’s a regular guy who was minding his own business when he had power thrust upon him. And now, he can’t help but do the right thing.

Spider-Noir takes that premise and gives it a hard-boiled twist. Cage bases his performance of Reilly on Humphrey Bogart, and with good reason. Like Bogey’s greatest characters—Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Rick Blaine—a tragedy from the past has driven him to become cynical and selfish. Even though they didn’t have to deal with people who could shoot lightening or turn into sand, Bogey’s characters, like Spider-Man, want nothing more than to just take care of themselves.

But, of course, Spidey can never give up for long, and he always finds his way back to being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Will Ben Reilly be able to do the same? Or is the world of Spider-Noir too bleak for even this wall-crawler? We’ll find out soon.

Spider-Noir streams May 25, 2026, on MGM+ and May 27, 2026, on Prime Video.

The Justice League Members We Want to See in the DCU

Believe it or not, the DCU is still in its infancy. At the time of this writing, the new universe consists only of one feature film (Superman) and two TV shows (Creature Commandos and Peacemaker). Yet, the universe is coming together quickly, which means that DC’s flagship team will arrive soon. Thus, now is the perfect time to start speculating about who will be in the new DCU’s version of the Justice League.

For the most part, we’re going to assume that the big seven will be involved. That is canonical founding members Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Flash, and Green Lantern (although the specific Flash or Lantern can alternate), as well as mainstays Superman and Batman. And we’ll also assume that major characters already in the DCU have a good shot of joining, such as Justice Gang members Mister Terrific, Hawkgirl, and Metamorpho.

Instead, we’re going to use this place to make a wishlist for the deep-cuts and fan-favorites who James Gunn should bring into the new Justice League.

Black Canary

When the Justice League debuted in 1960’s Brave and the Bold #28, written by Gardner Fox and penciled by Mike Sekowsky, it consisted of the aforementioned five founders, with Barry Allen and Hal Jordan as Flash and Green Lantern, respectively. However, that story began with the team already in place, leaving room for retcons. One of the most enduring reimaginings places Dinah Lance a.k.a. Black Canary at the team’s beginnings, even before Superman and Batman joined on.

It’s easy to see why Black Canary would be such an important early Leaguer. The character has roots that go back to the Golden Age of comics, with the current incarnation generally depicted as the daughter of the World War II original (with some time-travel and multiverse stuff involved). Since then, she’s led the Justice Society, the Birds of Prey, and even the Justice League. Her combination of legacy connections and street-smart toughness makes her an ideal teammate, and that’s even before we get to her romance with Green Arrow.

Green Arrow

Speaking of which, Green Arrow has to be in the Justice League. Like his Marvel counterpart, Green Arrow is just a guy with a bow and arrow, fighting alongside Superman and Wonder Woman. However, unlike Hawkeye, Green Arrow is a loud-mouthed liberal who, yes, can be insufferable. But he also keeps his fellow heroes grounded, preventing them from letting the power go to their heads.

Green Arrow has, of course, been portrayed in live action, in the enormously popular series Smallville and Arrow. However, those interpretations shared only the barest similarities to the guy from the comics, particularly when part of the Justice League. A proper DCU version would require a proper Oliver Queen, obnoxious, left-leaning, and utterly charming.

Vixen

After just two appearances, Vixen joined the big team in Justice League of America #233 (1984). Unfortunately, she happened to make the jump just in time for one of the worst eras of the JLA, serving alongside stinkers like Vibe and Steel (Hank Heywood, not John Henry Irons) for the Detroit-based incarnation of the team. Fortunately, she managed to escape that trainwreck largely unscathed, and has become a fan favorite.

When not traveling the world as supermodel Mari McCabe, Vixen fights evil using the Tantu Totem, a magical item passed through her family that allows her to replicate the abilities of any animal. Vixen’s powers make for varied and exciting action scenes, which would play perfectly with Gunn’s sensibilities. Furthermore, Gina Torres’ take on the Justice League Unlimited animated series, as fun, playful, and smitten with the Green Lantern John Stewart, a dynamic that would be fun to replicate with the character Aaron Pierre is playing on Lanterns.

Blue Beetle and Booster Gold

Even more so than Green Arrow and Black Canary, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold need to come as a pair. They didn’t start out that way, as the Ted Kord Blue Beetle got his start after the death of his mentor Dan Garrett, using gadgets to fight crime instead of a magical/alien scarab. A washed-up college football star from the 25th century, Michael Jon Carter stole tech from a superhero museum and went back to our time to establish himself as superhero Booster Gold.

The two carried their own comics for a while, but they didn’t really click until writers Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis paired them in the Justice League International series from the 1980s. Since then, the two have been the superheroic equivalent to JD and Turk—which made the casting of Donald Faison as Booster, in a cameo at the end of the Legends of Tomorrow finale perfect and frustrating. Even if the Scrubs stars don’t get to play the duo in live action, Beetle and Booster bring the necessary goofball energy to blockbuster superhero action.

Silver Sorceress

DC and Marvel have long not only borrowed from each other, but also parodied each other’s characters. Thus far, no member of the Squadron Supreme, Marvel’s take on the Justice League, have made it to the MCU, but that’s all the more reason for DC to beat them to the punch by bringing in Silver Sorceress, the Scarlet Witch analogue in the Champions of Angor, the DC version of the Avengers.

Silver Sorceress is a magic user who comes to our reality alongside teammates Blue Jay and Wandjina (think Ant-Man and Thor) after the destruction of their world. Like the original Scarlet Witch, Silver Sorceress’ powers are based on luck, which creates an interesting dynamic in fights. Given that Wanda Maximoff of the MCU basically shot red magic bolts, Silver Sorceress would be an opportunity to do old-school Scarlet Witch stuff, albeit with the Distinguished Competition.

Steel

Every Justice League needs a Superman. And while David Corenswet’s Man of Tomorrow will certainly be on the roster, his brief replacement John Henry Irons a.k.a. Steel is just as valuable. Irons is a tech genius who designed his own supersuit to stand in the gap when the main Superman died fighting Doomsday. Since then, Steel has been one of the premier super-scientists in the DC Universe, particularly when someone needs a new suit upgrade or some different gadgets.

That last point distinguishes Steel from Mister Terrific, another scientific genius certain to be on the DCU JLA. Where Edi Gathegi plays Terrific as someone precise, but disinterested in personal interactions, Steel tends to be warmer and more hands-on. He’s a craftsman first, making him a unique and valuable addition to any incarnation of the League.

Blue Devil

According to comic book lore, the Justice League was so popular in 1960 that publisher Martin Goodman told his nephew-in-law Stan Lee to pitch some new superheroes, leading to the creation of the Fantastic Four and the beginning of Marvel Comics. Since the birth of the Fantastic Four, it seems like every superhero teen needs at least one blue-collar lug, a hard worker with a heart of gold, who serves as the soul of the team. Metamorpho often occupies that spot for the JLA, but with Anthony Carrigan playing a softer, weirdo take on Rex Mason, the DCU should choose instead Blue Devil.

Created by Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, and Paris Cullins for 1984’s Fury of Firestorm #24, Blue Devil is Dan Cassidy, a Hollywood stuntman and special effects whiz who gets magically bonded to a costume he made for a movie. The suit makes Dan a magnet for otherworldly phenomena, which he handles with the no-nonsense gruff of a working man.

Plastic Man

When Grant Morrison revived the League for JLA #1 (1997), they approached the big seven as representations of the Olympic gods: Superman was Zeus, Batman was Hades, Wonder Woman was Hera, etc. Yet, Morrison found the Seven made for an incomplete pantheon without a Dionysus, a shape-shifting trickster. To fill this gap, Morrison added the ever-adaptable Plastic Man to be the uncontrollable agent of chaos.

Created by the incomparable Jack Cole for 1941’s Police Comics #1, Plastic Man was once Eel O’Brian, a small-time hood who falls into a vat of chemicals after getting shot. The chemicals changed the make-up of his body, allowing him to take any shape he desires. In those original comics and in Morrison’s run, Plastic Man was the ultimate oddity, a guy so incredibly powerful that it boggles the mind and whose mind is so thoroughly boggled.

Aztek

Plastic Man may have been a favorite of Morrison’s, but was not a Morrison creation. Aztek, however, does come directly from the famed writer, who created the Mexican hero alongside Mark Millar and N. Steven Harris in 1996. The result of both scientific engineering and occult magic, Aztek is the champion of the Q Foundation, a secret society devoted to serving their god Quetzalcoatl’s battle against his twin, Tezcatlipoca. Aztek wears a battle suit designed by the Q Foundation, and enters the world with both the slanted view of someone raised by extremists and the heart of someone who wants to do good in the world.

Aztek’s presence puts an interesting spin on superheroing, especially since the original incarnation had a finite life. Aztek remained simultaneously cheerful and fatalistic, right up until he sacrificed himself to save the League. But if that’s too heavy, the DCU could use his recently-introduced successor, Nayeli Constant, a software engineer from Texas recruited into the Q Foundation’s mission.

The Question

Originally created as a way for legendary artist Steve Ditko to espouse his Objectivist philosophy, the blank-faced sleuth known as the Question has gone through many incarnations, most famously inspiring the Watchmen anti-hero Rorsach. Whether as a Zen detective, a conspiracy theorist, an urban shaman, or, most recently, a hard-boiled gumshoe, the Question does not seem like a team player.

And yet, the Question has joined the League in some memorable stories. Fans of Justice League Unlimited love Jeffery Combs’ take on the Question as weirdo whose unconventional approach uncovers a secret plot. More recently, the second Question—former Gotham City detective Renee Montoya—has been installed as the League’s sheriff, where she protects the heroes who protect the universe. These two examples prove that the Question makes for an interesting outlier in the world’s greatest superhero team.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu Review: This Is Not the Way

I don’t know how much screen time in Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is actually Pedro Pascal in the shiny chromatic suit, but I hope not much for a couple of reasons.

First of all, Brendan Wayne is credited as the “Mandalorian Suit Performer” right under Pascal in the final ending credits scroll, which means Wayne deserves his fair due. But secondly, and in spite of how spiffy that costume looks (and it’s real spiffy!), there’s little here of the enigmatic presence and physicality that Pascal brings to so many other roles, be it the lasciviously limber Red Viper of Game of Thrones or the aloof yet nevertheless scene-stealing third wheel in Materialists. Despite getting top billing in the poster, Pascal’s eponymous metal head is virtually a blank slate in this movie—a vessel as empty as a well-armored mannequin at San Diego in July.

To be fair, performances entombed by full masks and costumes are always tough. Robbed of eyes or a countenance, a pedant might argue the actor is denied a soul. Yet from Edward Norton’s haunting cameo as a philosophical leper in Kingdom of Heaven to Hugo Weaving’s demented formalities in V for Vendetta, there are exceptions that disprove the rule. A careful eye can even catch in V the early scenes shot with a different performer in the Guy Fawkes gear before Weaving took over.

Still, I get nothing from the beloved Mando in Jon Favreau’s new, expensive Memorial Day weekend relaunch of Star Wars on the big screen (or just The Mandalorian season 4 with a heckuva surcharge for a family of four). The costume is neat, catching the reflection of sunlight now on a shimmering, digital IMAX screen, but whether interacting with the title’s second more popular half, the mascot colloquially known as Baby Yoda, or opposite a flesh-and-blood human every once in a while like Sigourney Weaver, Mando and his companion suggest all the depth and personality of theme park meet and greet characters.

They will charm the youngest of attendees, and tickle the fancy of some Disney and Star Wars adults, but everyone else will just be waiting around for the next ride. Unfortunately on that count too, the rollercoaster thrill components come up lackluster; a first when compared to even the worst of the Star Wars movies that came before.

The Mandalorian and Grogu isn’t a bad film, per se, it’s just a disappointingly average one set in a universe that once inspired awe. There are still moments of fun or faint wonder betwixt the many beats undoubtedly approved in a boardroom. In fact, a particularly lovely passage of the film is entirely about the puppet. After being separated for spoilerish reasons from his papa, Grogu is forced to fend for himself in the wilderness of a swamp filmed wholly in the verticality of IMAX. Revisiting some of the quieter, simpler whimsy of early Star Wars movies, Mandalorian and Grogu briefly becomes a vibe-poem about a child’s view of the world and the goodwill that can engender.

It’s sequences like this where the special effects wizardry matches the warmth of Favreau’s early movies, and we get a sweeter, better adventure. Even David Klein’s previously blockbuster beige cinematography shakes off the blue screen and Volume soundstage doldrums of what came earlier for a saturated set of textured greens and invitingly earthy mud puddles. Alas, these grace notes are few and far between in a movie that feels still born from and constricted by its Disney+ origins.

Admittedly, I have never been a huge fan of The Mandalorian despite its early adoration on streaming, though I get the appeal. The lone warrior and his cub sidekick is a winning trope and lends itself to episodic adventures. But despite a clearly bigger budget for the occasional space battle and AT-AT sequence, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu never looks bigger than an episode of a TV show. Or maybe a couple of them.

The first and at least narratively sounder one involves Mando and his adopted child taking on the task of hunting down a leftover Imperial officer still making trouble for the New Republic on the Outer Rim of the galaxy. For those who have never watched the Disney+ show, this film is set in the aftermath of Return of the Jedi where the Empire has fallen, but the Rebel Alliance’s new galactic government is on shaky ground. Hence contracting bounty hunts from guys who look suspiciously like Boba Fett.

Mando is hired to find an Empire war criminal, but in truth his adventure is really about how he will parlay that information out of the Hutt Family. Aye, there are more Hutts than just Jabba, as indicated in The Phantom Menace 27 years ago, and his twin siblings (who are known simply as “The Twins”) will give Mando/the New Republic valuable information, provided that the bounty hunter rescues their nephew and Jabba’s son, Rotta the Hutt (played allegedly, and preposterously, by Jeremy Allen White). Yet when we find this wayward, CG space slug on a planet that looks suspiciously like Los Angeles circa Blade Runner 2049, he’s not a prisoner and barely a slug. Instead the digital creature is a buff, gladiatorial heartthrob in the local fighting pits of an urban moon.

That’s the first episode. Part two starts when the Mandalorian and Grogu essentially take on Rotta as the special guest. The kid turns out to be a big-hearted and big-boned third sidekick in the ship. This doesn’t sit well with Rotta’s aunt and uncle, however, who have no shortage of bounty hunters to chase our heroes. You can probably fill in the remaining blanks.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is not the worst Star Wars movie. It’s hard to get any drearier than The Rise of Skywalker, the moribund 2019 corporate bauble shrink-wrapped out of any risk, meaningful storytelling, or soul. However, Mandalorian and Grogu could be the dullest SW adventure, which is a problem when it’s the first movie in that galaxy far, far away to come about since Rise’s big screen thud seven years ago. Furthermore, it’s supposed to signal a new, next-gen era in this world.

In some ways, the film takes welcome risks with the material. As previously suggested, Favreau happily eschews George Lucas’ mid-20th century cinematic vernacular for a more modern look, and Ludwig Göransson’s score is nothing short of hypnotic. There are sprinkles of John Williams homages throughout, albeit more of the master’s Spielbergian twinkle when Grogu does something particularly adorable, as opposed to just reheating those 1977 trumpets again. Elsewhere, Göransson suggests a moody techno crime thriller while Mando does his thing.

The problem is that the movie does not match the evocative nature of that sound. The somewhat underrated Solo: A Star Wars Movie made a better gangster-twinged space adventure eight years ago, in fact. That movie had a bit of a helter skelter personality due to multiple chefs in the kitchen, but it still had something to wrap your Force gloves around at its core.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is just benign. It postures as both a crime thriller and an adventure flick about fathers and sons, but the father and sons have all the authenticity of a twentysomething sweating it out in a Mickey Mouse costume, and the crime sequences are often shot in the dull sterile digital flatness that bedevils so many blockbusters and streaming shows of the last decade.

Take the gladiatorial sequence where Mando meets Rotta. It’s not the first time Star Wars has tried to channel their inner-Ridley Scott—or Stanley Kubrick if you’re George Lucas. The Roman inspired bits in Attack of the Clones and especially Phantom Menace, which replaced chariots with podracers, had a kinetic excitement that was otherwise missing in those often staid prequels. But the arena of The Mandalorian and Grogu? A gray stage in a gray world where even the creepy King Kong-like monsters added to the arena are never allowed to do anything too nasty lest it turn off a segment of the four quadrants. It’s afraid to have the teeth of the far goofier Rancor sequence in another Hutt’s space palace.

But that is what continues to be a frustrating problem of every Star Wars movie of the Disney era not named The Last Jedi or Rogue One (throw in Andor if we’re talking TV). What we see are just lesser remixes and pale imitations of something that came before in this franchise. In this one, particularly, it’s mostly about more Clone Wars droids, more Empire Strikes Back snowbound AT-ATs, more Hutts and their palaces, more bounty hunters and their jet packs, and more Yoda. Only now he functions as both a baby and babysitter screen.

Maybe it’s an aging fallacy to dream of more for that galaxy far, far away, but it’s better than having no new dreams at all in a summer blockbuster that feels curiously like a rerun.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opens in theaters on Friday, May 22.

15 Sequels That Didn’t Care About the Fans One Bit

Not all stories need continuations, but when something we’re fans of does, we expect some level of respect for the source material. After all, if we loved something, it’s because of the care and attention the creators gave that product; we only ask that the same care is maintained from movie to movie.

Well, filmmaking is a business, and when something sells, you need to make more. Having no ideas or time to do the next thing is no excuse, apparently, since the machine needs to keep churning content. This is how we end up with sequels that don’t value us as consumers at all.

Highlander II: The Quickening

The sequel completely rewrote the mythology of the original movie by turning immortals into aliens, instantly alienating fans who loved the fantasy-mysticism approach of the first film.

Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

Rian Johnson deliberately challenged audience expectations surrounding Luke Skywalker and franchise mythology, creating one of the most divisive fan reactions in blockbuster history.

Terminator: Dark Fate

The movie immediately kills John Connor despite years of franchise buildup around his importance, a decision many longtime fans considered outright disrespectful.

Alien 3

The opening minutes abruptly kill beloved survivors Hicks and Newt offscreen, undoing the hopeful ending of Aliens before the story even properly begins.

Blues Brothers 2000

The sequel attempted to continue without John Belushi while recycling much of the original movie’s structure, leaving many fans cold immediately.

Independence Day: Resurgence

The sequel ignored much of what audiences enjoyed about the original, replacing character-driven charm with endless sequel setup and large-scale CGI destruction.

Speed 2: Cruise Control

Without Keanu Reeves, the sequel abandoned the tense momentum of the original and replaced it with a notoriously slow-moving disaster scenario.

The Matrix Resurrections

The movie openly mocks franchise reboots and corporate sequel culture so aggressively that some audiences felt the film barely wanted to exist at all.

Son of the Mask

Rather than capturing the chaotic energy of the original, the sequel transformed the concept into a family comedy that barely resembled the movie audiences remembered.

Exorcist II: The Heretic

The sequel largely abandoned the grounded horror and psychological dread of The Exorcist in favor of surreal imagery and baffling mythology expansion.

Pacific Rim: Uprising

Many fans criticized the sequel for losing the scale, atmosphere, and sincerity that made Guillermo del Toro’s original giant-robot movie feel distinctive.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

The sequel recast major characters, overloaded itself with rushed plotlines, and sacrificed coherence entirely in a frantic attempt to include more game references.

Zoolander 2

Released after years of anticipation, the sequel relied heavily on celebrity cameos and recycled jokes while missing much of the original movie’s satirical edge.

Jaws: The Revenge

The fourth installment pushed the franchise into near self-parody territory, ignoring realism entirely in favor of a revenge-driven shark somehow stalking one specific family.

The Rise of Skywalker

The movie aggressively reversed or ignored several ideas introduced in The Last Jedi, creating a sequel many viewers felt was reacting to internet backlash in real time.

The Weirdest Celebrity Cameos Nobody Remembers

Celebrity cameos are never the focus of a film, no matter how well integrated they are. We do enjoy a good cameo, since there is a sense of joy to be had from recognizing someone, not to mention that someone acting as themselves. But when overdone, such a practice can overstay its welcome.

You see, cameos need to be memorable above all, since they won’t even be a core part of the story. Otherwise, it isn’t a cameo, it’s just another character of the film. Well, these following cameos didn’t do enough, even though they were odd to behold when their respective films were released.

David Bowie in Zoolander

Bowie suddenly appearing as the judge for a male-model “walk-off” feels so surreal that many viewers completely forget one of rock music’s biggest icons randomly stops by the comedy.

Glenn Close in Hook

Close briefly appears disguised as the pirate shoved into the “boo box,” creating one of the strangest hidden celebrity cameos in a major family blockbuster.

Matt Damon in EuroTrip

Damon unexpectedly shows up covered in piercings and singing “Scotty Doesn’t Know,” a bizarre cameo many audiences still do not notice on first viewing.

Cate Blanchett in Hot Fuzz

Blanchett appears completely hidden behind forensic gear as Nicholas Angel’s ex-girlfriend, making her cameo almost impossible to recognize unless viewers already know she is there.

Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder

Cruise’s heavily disguised performance as foul-mouthed producer Les Grossman was so unexpected many audiences genuinely did not realize it was him until the credits rolled.

Dan Aykroyd in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Aykroyd suddenly appears for less than a minute as a British official helping Indiana Jones board a plane before disappearing from the movie entirely.

Carrie Fisher in Scream 3

Fisher briefly appears as a sarcastic studio archivist joking about losing the role of Princess Leia, creating an unusually meta horror-comedy cameo.

Billy Idol in The Wedding Singer

The punk rock icon unexpectedly helps Adam Sandler give relationship advice during a plane ride, somehow becoming one of the movie’s weirdest emotional supporters.

Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein

Hackman secretly filmed his cameo as the blind hermit without taking screen credit, making the bizarre appearance even more surprising for unsuspecting audiences.

Michael Jackson in Men in Black II

Jackson appears as himself lobbying to become an alien agent, a cameo so odd that many viewers completely forget the King of Pop exists inside the Men in Black universe.

Stephen King in Maximum Overdrive

King briefly appears at an ATM yelling because the machine called him an offensive name, perfectly matching the movie’s famously chaotic energy.

Bruce Willis in Friends

Willis randomly appeared as the emotionally unstable father of Ross’s girlfriend after reportedly losing a bet to Matthew Perry.

Ozzy Osbourne in Little Nicky

Ozzy unexpectedly saves the world by biting the head off a demon bat, turning one of his most infamous real-life controversies into an absurd punchline.

Kurt Vonnegut in Back to School

Vonnegut appears as himself reading a paper secretly written by him, only to criticize it harshly in one of cinema’s strangest literary cameos.

Charlton Heston in Wayne’s World 2

Heston suddenly appears to perform an intensely dramatic emotional monologue in the middle of an otherwise goofy comedy scene, creating one of the strangest tone-shift cameos of the 1990s.

First Baby Chickens Ever Grown in Artificial Eggs Born in Texas

Since the dawn of time—or at least since humans started raising livestock instead of hunting and gathering—a simple question has perplexed farmers, philosophers, and (eventually) scientists: what came first, the chicken or the egg? While there might still be some semantic wiggle room to debate this, with the advent of the world’s first entirely artificial and synthetic egg being used to incubate and grow a chick inside a laboratory—a hundred of them, in fact—it would seem we have a possible answer.

“I think we have to assume the egg came first,” Colossal Biosciences CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm quips when we sit down for a Zoom interview. In truth, though, he notes the quandary is mooted. “It doesn’t matter what came first now that we have the egg.” And it’s an egg that might just change the world in both subtle and immediate ways.

The breakthrough itself is a feat in bioengineering: the world’s first shell-less incubation system that can support the development process of an avian embryo, from early stages to hatching. It also could have significant implications in everything from Colossal’s much publicized efforts in “de-extinction” to the biomedical industries and animal conservation fields. And it comes complete with the below video, which highlights how this was made possible.

Attempts at shell-less avian development has been a scientific inquiry since at least the 1980s when attempts were made to map a chicken egg’s development process. Yet at the time, the studies consistently resulted in instructive but limited results, in part because of how large quantities of pure oxygen tended to damage DNA genomes. However, by virtue of seeking to develop eggs big enough to birth a milieu of extinct species, including most prominently the great moa of New Zealand (a passion project for filmmaker and investor Peter Jackson), Colossal has spent the last four and a half years researching how to make a completely artificial egg that can bring the extinct moa back to term.

“We knew that there’s nothing large enough to gestate a South Island giant moa,” Lamm tells us. “Their eggs alone are eight times larger than an emu egg, so they’re just massive. So we always knew that for that project we’d either have to engineer a much larger surrogate, which sounds terrifying in itself, or you just have to figure out how to build an exogenous development system for birds where you could transport and supplement.”

While the bioengineering executive doesn’t necessarily rule out creating a great moa with a living surrogate as impossible, he speculates creating a mother large enough to do so could add another decade in genetic engineering, and certainly would not be… “elegant.”

Conversely, the image of the chicks brought to term in shell-less eggs are exceedingly endearing, even to Lamm who first held one of the hundred baby birds in the palm of his hand after it was transported from post-incubation.

“Obviously from an optics perspective and a weight perspective, it is the same,” Lamm says. “Which is good. It’s what you want, right? … You want it to look right and you want it to be healthy in the right size and shape and everything. But it is cool knowing that this is the most famous little chick in the world. That’s kind of fun.”

It’s also the result of a system that allows Colossal to currently produce up to 36 chicks at a time, although Lamm ensures us that they have no plans to grow more than the hundred that have been produced to date. The process was essentially a test to see if avian nature could finally be duplicated—if not perhaps improved upon.

Says Lamm, “[If] we’re going to reinvent the egg and completely re-engineer it, we don’t just copy nature; we want to improve upon it for our use cases.”

In the column of “reinventing” nature, one of the biggest challenges proved to be letting the chicken embryo breathe oxygen without damaging the genetic material. For the record, this is the same issue that scientists ran into in the 1980s and ‘90s.

“If you ask the average human, do eggs breathe, because they seem pretty self-contained, most people I don’t think know that they are porous,” explains Lamm. “But there is an atmospheric transference that has to occur.” The solution was to design a material that is gas permeable yet still supported the weight, integrity, and even pitch of an organic egg.

However, in the “improving nature” column, at least from a bioengineering perspective, the artificial egg did not need to just resemble an egg’s shell and be reusable; it needed to also be reconfigured for constant study and adjustment during the development process.

“If we’re going to reimagine the egg and we want to re-engineer it for additional use cases [and that includes] having this large windowing at the top that gives us accessibility,” notes Lamm. “We can attach it to a microscope, so that we can double-check to make sure that the changes that we’re making are showing up developmentally in stages… But [that means] we had to change the internal shape of the egg to compensate, because we’re changing the top of the egg. Since we’re not building just a replica of an egg, we actually have to re-engineer that pitch of the internal structures of your hexagons, as well as the base.”

Furthermore, they developed entire systems of mirroring and low, slanted slits around the egg, so as to not allow direct light to hit the developing embryo, even when studying it with different wavelengths of lights in proverbial dark rooms.

In a statement released to the press by George Church, a Colossal co-founder and Harvard professor, the geneticist said, “The embryo needs a place to grow that recapitulates the gas exchange, humidity, and mechanical environment of a natural egg—at whatever size the species requires. Colossal’s artificial egg solves the scalability dimension. It is a platform technology, and its implications extend well beyond any single species.”

Indeed, while the goal is to clearly size up an artificial egg for the great moa, Lamm tells us the company already plans to use the same tech to help breed their version of the extinct dodo bird, in addition to using a form of large chicken as a surrogate for the first generation. This parallel path is not necessary, but it will be instructive, similar to how the company is looking for a bird smaller than a chicken—probably a breed of pigeon—to examine how small they can take the artificial egg.

Via the longer term, the CEO sees the technology having major applications in the conservation space. While Colossal has not officially spoken with any conservation partners or governments about using artificial eggs to grow endangered species, Lamm would be eager to see this tech used to protect the Kākāpō, a flightless, heavy parrot indigenous to New Zealand.

“They are facing the same trajectory that a lot of other New Zealand birds are facing,” says Lamm. “The introduction of invasive species like the brushtail possum, rats, and others to the island of New Zealand are killing off bird species, specifically ground dwelling bird species. So this would be one that I would love to work on.”

Additionally there is interest in seeing how it could be used to develop and engineer specific attributes found in eggs via various PGC (primordial germ cell research) projects. Says Lamm, “I think the vaccine development in biopharma will be big.”

While Colossal’s breed of peculiar chicken may not grow larger than the first generation of a hundred birds, those flightless creatures might leave behind a sizable footprint. In the meantime, they are expected to spend the rest of their days on a free-range ranch.

“Our lab animals live quite well,” Lamm muses.

15 Actors Who Were Much Younger Than You Thought They Were

Actors often, if not always, portray characters that aren’t the age they really are in real life. This can be masked through makeup and special effects, at least when the difference is significant, but usually the difference is not of visual significance. Someone can be 35 and play a character that’s 25 or 40.

Some differences, though, are far more significant, making us think the actor must really be of that age. To our surprise, this isn’t the case, and many performers end up acting well above their age. They can be child actors or seasoned veterans, what matters is that they’ve convinced us of being much older than what they were.

Laurence Fishburne in Apocalypse Now

Fishburne was only 14 when filming began, despite convincingly playing an older soldier during the Vietnam War. Many viewers assume he was already an adult because of the movie’s intense subject matter and his mature screen presence.

Orson Welles in Citizen Kane

Welles directed, co-wrote, and starred in Citizen Kane at just 25 years old, astonishing audiences who often assume someone much older created such an ambitious and technically influential masterpiece.

Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn

Ronan was only 21 while carrying an emotionally complex immigration drama with the confidence and subtlety of a much older, more experienced dramatic performer.

Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider

Castle-Hughes earned an Academy Award nomination at only 13 years old, delivering a grounded and emotionally mature performance many audiences assumed came from an older actor.

Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit

Steinfeld was just 13 during filming, yet completely held her own opposite veteran actors like Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon throughout the movie.

Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver

Foster was only 12 when she appeared in Martin Scorsese’s disturbing psychological drama, something many viewers do not realize because of the film’s extremely adult themes.

Amy Poehler in Mean Girls

Poehler was only seven years older than Rachel McAdams while playing Regina’s hilariously inappropriate mother, a fact that still surprises people.

Kirsten Dunst in Interview with the Vampire

Dunst was only 11 while acting opposite Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in a dark gothic horror film filled with mature emotional material.

Anna Paquin in The Piano

Paquin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at just 11 years old, astonishing audiences with a performance that felt far older and more emotionally controlled.

Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun

Bale was only 13 when leading Steven Spielberg’s war drama, already showing the intense commitment and emotional discipline that later defined his adult career.

Natalie Portman in Léon: The Professional

Portman was just 12 during filming, though many first-time viewers assume she was significantly older because of the movie’s heavy themes and unusually mature dialogue.

Tatum O’Neal in Paper Moon

O’Neal became the youngest competitive Oscar winner ever at age 10, delivering comic timing and emotional confidence that made audiences think she was far older.

Max von Sydow in The Exorcist

Heavy makeup helped, but audiences were shocked to learn von Sydow was only 44 while portraying the much older Father Merrin.

Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild

Wallis received a Best Actress Oscar nomination at age 9, giving a raw and emotionally powerful performance many viewers assumed came from an older child actor.

Wilford Brimley in Cocoon

Brimley was only 50 while playing a retiree among elderly characters, thanks largely to his mustache and permanently middle-aged energy making him seem decades older.

‘Hello Fellow Kids’ 15 Embarrassing Times Movies Tried to Appeal to Young Audiences

Age restrictions in movies are there because children aren’t ready for mature themes, not because they can’t tackle any complex topics. But movies aren’t made by kids, they are made by greedy adults that want to tap on any market for a profit, including a child’s innocent interest in films.

This is how we get movies and moments that showcase a lack of understanding of their audience, where children are taken for granted and quality is thrown out the window. At least we can laugh at their expense now, pointing out the worst offenders of this trend.

Batman & Robin

The movie aggressively leaned into toyetic costumes, neon visuals, and cartoonish humor in an obvious attempt to attract younger audiences and sell merchandise simultaneously.

The Emoji Movie

Sony built an entire animated feature around smartphone apps, internet slang, and social media culture, creating a movie many critics compared to an extended advertisement.

Catwoman

The film overloaded itself with trendy editing, awkward slang, and early-2000s “cool” aesthetics that immediately felt dated even when the movie was originally released.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The sequel doubled down on louder explosions, hyperactive comedy, and juvenile humor clearly designed to keep younger audiences constantly distracted by nonstop chaos.

Suicide Squad

Warner Bros. heavily re-edited the movie after trailer reactions, stuffing the final cut with pop songs, flashy graphics, and meme-like humor targeting younger viewers.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

Responding to parental criticism, the sequel reduced weapon use and emphasized sillier comedy, making the turtles feel noticeably softer and more child-focused than before.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

The live-action adaptation aggressively packed itself with contemporary pop music, celebrity references, and hyperactive humor designed almost entirely around children’s short attention spans.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

The sequel constantly references gaming culture, streaming platforms, and internet-era branding in ways that often feel more corporate than genuinely entertaining.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The movie tried desperately to position Spider-Man as a quippy, ultra-cool modern hero, occasionally pushing the humor and trendy dialogue into awkward territory.

Scooby-Doo

The adaptation overloaded itself with early-2000s sarcasm, pop culture humor, and exaggerated “extreme” energy clearly intended to modernize the classic cartoon for younger audiences.

The Last Airbender

Nickelodeon heavily pushed the adaptation toward younger mainstream viewers, but awkward exposition and flattened humor made the movie feel strangely artificial instead of accessible.

Pixels

The movie attempted to capitalize on gaming nostalgia and internet culture simultaneously, often reducing beloved arcade characters to shallow references and product recognition.

Masters of the Universe

The adaptation moved much of the story to modern Earth partly to appeal to mainstream younger audiences and reduce production costs, frustrating many fans of the original cartoon.

Shrek the Third

The sequel increasingly relied on celebrity jokes, trendy humor, and pop culture references instead of the sharper fairy-tale satire that made the original movies successful.

Ghostbusters

The reboot frequently leaned on improvisational internet-style humor and rapid-fire jokes in ways many audiences felt were trying far too hard to appear modern and meme-friendly.

15 Cringey Moments in Otherwise Fine Movies

When we cringe, it isn’t because a given scene is outright bad, at least when it comes to movies. It’s mostly a combination of awkwardness and poor execution that makes us feel that strange level of embarrassment; in a movie with a different tone, or a different method of execution, these moments could’ve been fine.

Sadly, they aren’t fine, since the most positive sentiment we can have of these moments is laughter at the expense of them. At least we can look back at them fondly, seeing them as the movie fumbles that makes creatives human.

Spider-Man 3

Peter Parker’s infamous “emo” dance montage remains one of superhero cinema’s most second-hand-embarrassing sequences, clashing wildly with the emotional tone surrounding the rest of the movie.

The Dark Knight Rises

Marion Cotillard’s death scene became unintentionally awkward because of its stiff delivery and abrupt execution, standing out sharply inside an otherwise serious and ambitious finale.

Avengers: Endgame

The brief “girl power” battlefield pose drew criticism for feeling forced and overly staged, even among fans who otherwise loved the emotional payoff of the film. Nothing against women being empowered, but everyone admits the scene felt bad.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Legolas surfing down an oliphaunt trunk while firing arrows pushed the fantasy action into unexpectedly cartoonish territory for some viewers during the climactic battle.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1

The sudden semi-explicit Harry and Hermione dance scene divided audiences who felt the awkward tonal shift briefly resembled fan fiction inside a darker war storyline.

Interstellar

Anne Hathaway’s speech about love transcending dimensions struck some viewers as emotionally powerful, while others found it painfully corny inside such a scientifically grounded movie.

The Matrix Reloaded

Neo’s extended Zion rave sequence abruptly pauses the story for a sweaty underground dance party that many audiences still consider strangely self-indulgent.

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones

Anakin and Padmé’s romance became infamous for painfully awkward dialogue, especially the aggressively mocked conversation comparing love to hatred of sand.

Bohemian Rhapsody

The movie’s bizarrely overedited conversation scenes became distracting online memes after viewers noticed how aggressively the camera cuts during ordinary dialogue exchanges.

It Chapter Two

The de-aged flashback sequence looked so visibly artificial that it unintentionally pulled audiences out of otherwise emotional childhood reunion scenes.

The Irishman

Robert De Niro awkwardly “beating up” a shopkeeper while clearly moving like an elderly man became one of the movie’s most unintentionally funny moments.

Wonder Woman 1984

Steve Trevor inhabiting another man’s body without the film seriously addressing the implications left many viewers deeply uncomfortable with the romance storyline.

Jurassic World

Claire outrunning dinosaurs in high heels became one of the sequel’s most mocked moments despite the movie otherwise successfully reviving the franchise commercially.

The Wolverine

The dramatic emotional finale abruptly turns into a giant CGI robot battle, creating a tonal shift many audiences felt belonged in a completely different movie.

No Time to Die

The awkwardly forced scientist catchphrase “I just showed someone your watch. It blew up” instantly became one of the franchise’s most unintentionally goofy action lines.

15 Times a Director Cast Themselves Under Dubious Circumstances

Writers and directors have a difficult task when bringing their vision to life: finding the right actor to portray their characters. Of course, there are times where you don’t need to look far: many directors star in their own movies, being at the center of the story as it’s being built.

This can create problems, since the power you have when casting yourself in a given universe is unparalleled. Here, we’ve compiled the most controversial times a director said “yes, I am better suited to do this than anyone else.” We hope their intention was artistic and nothing else.

Quentin Tarantino, From Dusk till Dawn

Although Robert Rodriguez directed the movie, Tarantino wrote the screenplay and cast himself in a scene where Salma Hayek pours alcohol down her leg into his mouth, creating one of cinema’s most infamous self-indulgent moments.

M. Night Shyamalan, Lady in the Water

Shyamalan cast himself as a writer whose work would supposedly change humanity’s future, leading many critics to mock the role as an unusually self-important creative decision.

Tommy Wiseau, The Room

Wiseau directed himself as a beloved, endlessly victimized romantic hero constantly praised by everyone around him, accidentally turning the movie into a legendary example of cinematic vanity.

Mel Gibson, Braveheart

Gibson cast himself as William Wallace, giving himself multiple heroic speeches, battle victories, and martyrdom scenes that pushed the historical epic firmly into larger-than-life fantasy territory.

Ben Affleck, Live by Night

Affleck directed himself as a stylish gangster effortlessly navigating shootouts, romances, and criminal empires, prompting criticism that the movie leaned heavily into self-serious wish fulfillment.

Kenneth Branagh, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Branagh directed and starred as Victor Frankenstein while delivering intensely theatrical performances that often overshadowed the rest of the cast through sheer dramatic excess.

Kevin Smith, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Smith returned as Silent Bob in a movie built almost entirely around inside jokes, celebrity cameos, and exaggerated wish-fulfillment scenarios involving his longtime fictional alter ego.

Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit

Waititi cast himself as an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler, intentionally creating an absurd comedic performance that kept the director visibly at the center of the film’s satire.

Spike Lee, She’s Gotta Have It

Lee cast himself as one of the men pursuing Nola Darling, placing his own character directly inside the film’s central romantic and sexual conflicts.

Woody Allen, Manhattan

Allen repeatedly cast himself as intellectual romantic leads involved with much younger women, a pattern that became increasingly controversial and uncomfortable in retrospect.

Vincent Gallo, The Brown Bunny

Gallo directed himself opposite Chloë Sevigny in a very explicit scene that instantly overshadowed every other aspect of the film upon release.

Neil Breen, Fateful Findings

Breen consistently casts himself as genius-level figures uncovering conspiracies, exposing corruption, and attracting admiration from nearly every character around him throughout his famously bizarre independent films.

James Cameron, Titanic

Cameron famously provided the sketching hands for Jack’s drawing scene, meaning the director himself technically drew Kate Winslet during one of the movie’s most iconic moments.

Eli Roth, Hostel

Roth gave himself a cameo involving partying and sexual excess within the same exploitative horror world he created, perfectly matching the film’s intentionally sleazy atmosphere.

Tyler Perry, Madea Goes to Jail

Perry repeatedly cast himself as Madea, creating increasingly exaggerated scenarios where the character dominates entire films through chaotic wisdom, outrageous behavior, and endless attention from surrounding characters.

Keanu Reeves Is Voicing a Samurai Because Of Course He Is

Keanu Reeves has done a lot of things over the course of his career. He’s been an action hero, a bullet-dodging computer hacker, an air-headed high schooler, and (arguably most importantly) he’s been his sweet self.

Now, the actor is set to voice the main character in the ambitious stop-motion epic, Hidari, announced yesterday at the Cannes Film Market. If Reeves’ track record with animation is anything to go by, he probably didn’t need much convincing.

The action-packed feature comes from the mind of Masashi Kawamura who was inspired by real accounts of the life of the legendary Edo era craftsman Hidari Jingoro, who Reeves will lend his voice to.

In 2023, Kawamura posted the film’s proof-of-concept video to YouTube. It has since amassed close to 5 million views.

According to the movie’s official synopsis, the story will follow Jingoro after he lost everything; his father figure, fiancée, and to add insult to injury (literally) the samurai also lost his right arm. Not wanting to let despair overtake him, the legendary craftsman turns his grief into a motive for vengeance against those who betrayed him. With his companion, the “Sleeping Cat,” Jingoro faces enemies and flexes his carpentry skills in his tale of revenge and self-discovery.

Now, if you know anything about Keanu Reeves and the work he’s done in the past, some flags might have popped up. A disgruntled widower seeking revenge? A prosthetic arm? It seems like two of Reeves’ most loved characters, John Wick and Johnny Silverhand, performed the Dragon Ball Z Fusion Dance.

But this isn’t to say that the film is unoriginal, it isn’t by any means, only it is clear that Reeves will bring exactly what he needs to bring to the role.

Kawamura himself seems to think so, telling Variety that he’s “super excited to be collaborating with Keanu. When someone with his experience and creative vision watches your proof of concept and says ‘I want to be part of this,’ it’s an incredible feeling. He’s not just lending his voice to Hidari, he’s helping us shape and expand this world, and I can’t wait to see where we take it together.”

Reeves is similarly eager in the article, saying that he’s “thrilled by the vision behind Hidari” and that the movie has “all the makings of an exceptional film—one I’m excited to see and eager to be part of. I believe this project has the potential to bring something very special to audiences worldwide.”

Having lent his voice to various animated projects throughout the years, it’s really no surprise that Reeves would be so on board. His enthusiasm for animation has always been evident, and he’s been known to seek out the people behind projects he loves.

When he met with Secret Level showrunner, Tim Miller, Reeves confessed he was interested in being involved with Miller’s other animated show, Love, Death & Robots. Being a lifelong fan of Reeves, Miller told Gamesradar that he was blown away by the request.

“He’s a huge animation fan,” Miller recalled, noting that Reeves had originally come to discuss an unrelated film entirely but quickly steered the conversation toward his love for animation and how he wanted to know everything about Love, Death & Robots. When Miller pivoted and offered him a spot in Secret Level instead, Reeves reportedly said “fuck yeah.” Hidari is currently in development with no set release date, information and updates can be found on the movie’s official website.

Her Private Hell: Drive Director Goes Greek Myth Noir in Trippy Trailer

This summer, an idiosyncratic filmmaker from overseas who got his start make unique crime movies releases his latest movie, an adaptation of a classic Greek myth. No, I’m not talking about The Odyssey. I’m referring to Her Private Hell, the latest from Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn.

The first trailer for Her Private Hell lacks anything you’d expect from a Greek myth: no gods wearing laurels, no heroes in togas, not a single transformation from human to animal. Instead, it looks a lot like Refn’s other Hollywood films, all attractive young people, glowing lights, and strange music. Yet, the voiceover about a woman who goes missing does at least bring to mind the story of Eurydice and Orpheus, which inspires part of Refn’s movie.

Written by Refn and Esti Giordani, Her Private Hell stars Sophie Thatcher as Elle, a woman looking for her father after a strange mist invades her futuristic city. Along the way, she crosses paths with Private K (Charles Melton), a military man whose daughter has been trapped in the underworld. Rounding out the cast are Havana Rose Liu and Diego Calva as, as far as we can tell from the trailer, incredibly good-looking people, and Dougray Scott playing a guy credited as “Johnny Thunders,” so is maybe the New York Dolls guitarist?

Obviously, we don’t know really what to expect from Her Private Hell, but we do know Winding Refn will be borrowing from the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. According to legend, Orpheus and Eurydice are young lovers whose happiness comes to an abrupt end when a snake bites Eurydice, killing her. To rescue her, a desperate Orpheus travels to the underworld and plays a song for Hades, who agrees to let them go with one condition: he may not turn back and look at her until they’re back in the land of the living. The two almost make it, but when doubt overcomes him at the exit, and he turns around, damning her in hell forever.

Very little of that exact imagery appears in the trailer, but Refn has never done the expected thing. After making his name with the Pusher trilogy in his native Denmark and then catching the attention of English audiences with the biopic Bronson starring Tom Hardy, Refn scored an American hit with Drive in 2011.

Since then, however, Refn’s oddities have made the success of Drive an outlier in his career. He followed it up with Only God Forgives, reteaming with Ryan Gosling for an even more inexplicable film. In 2016, he released his last feature, The Neon Demon, a horror film set in the fashion industry starring Elle Fanning and Keanu Reeves. Since then, Refn’s largely been working in television, teaming with comic book writer Ed Brubaker on the Prime Video series Too Old to Die Young in 2019 and making the Danish-language series Copenhagen Cowboy for Netflix in 2023.

Her Private Hell marks Refn’s return to feature films. And if the trailer is any indication, he’s just as weird as ever, which will make 2026 one mythical summer.

Her Private Hell comes to theaters on July 24, 2026.

Mob Psycho 100 Fans Are Convinced the Reigen OVA Is Coming

Ten years ago, one of Studio Bones’ crown jewels, battle shōnen anime Mob Psycho 100, premiered. And to mark the milestone, a wave of anniversary projects have been announced for fans who have stuck around since the beginning.

Mob Psycho 100 is based on the manga by ONE, who is also known for One-Punch Man. The series follows middle schooler Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed Mob, who possesses extraordinary psychic abilities but has a complicated relationship with them; when his emotions hit ‘100’ his powers erupt. As Mob navigates general teen angst, a lack of social skills, and working his daily job with his con-artist “mentor” Reigen Arataka, the esper learns strength in emotional maturity and communication.

The celebrations kicked off with a 10th-anniversary key visual and logo drawn by anime character designer Yoshimichi Kameda, which was revealed on May 12, Mob’s in-universe birthday. The illustration shows Mob and Reigen leading the charge down a red carpet, with Hanazawa, Dimple, Shou, Serizawa, and Ritsu rounding out the lineup.

🎉#Mobpsycho10th
本日5月12日は、モブこと影山茂夫の誕生日！🎂

そして2026/7/12、アニメ『モブサイコ100」は放送開始から10周年を迎えます！
10周年記念キービジュアルを公開しました✨

ぜひご一緒に、#モブサイコ100 の10周年をお楽しみください🌸

Today, May 12, is Mob’s birthday! 🎂
And on… pic.twitter.com/XB6vH4V1Wn
— モブサイコ100 公式 (@mobpsycho_anime) May 12, 2026

In the background, the series logo is plastered on the wall in a repeating pattern, but fans were quick to point out an outlier: a few Reigen icons sprinkled in as well.

Alone this is simply a nod to the 2018 OVA The Miraculous Unknown Psychic released in 2018 where Reigen narrates a recap of season 1, exaggerating his own importance throughout the season while making claims that he has psychic powers of his own (which he does not, he’s a fraud).

However, ever since the official X account for the anime started a count up to 100 on May 12, fans have been buzzing about the possibility of Reigen: The Man With Max 131 Spiritual Power, Reigen’s single volume spinoff series released in 2018, to get an OVA adaptation.

Along with the key visual reveal, it was also announced that there would be a live event held on July 12, the actual anniversary date for the series, at Fukagawa Mirai Hall in Saitama Prefecture. The reunion event features two performances with the original lead voice cast, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Notably, tickets are lottery-based, and no cameras are allowed. One can’t help but wonder if the event might double as the stage for something bigger.

But the count up doesn’t appear to be building toward the event date. Especially after a user on X did the math and found that the count up would end on August 10, which is Reigen’s in-universe birthday.

This isn’t the first time the account has pulled this move, either. In 2021, a similar count up to 100 ended with a teaser trailer for season 3 which is why many fans aren’t writing this off as a coincidence.

Similarly suspicious, Reigen’s English dub voice actor, Chris Niosi, posted a video on his TikTok account reminding fans of the spinoff series in April. Niosi even teasingly mentioned that the series being short enough to be one volume makes it a “perfect length to adapt into an OVA or a movie perhaps if there were to ever be an animated version.”

For now, this is all speculation. Whether the count up leads to a Reigen OVA announcement or something else entirely, all fans can do is wait and watch the numbers tick up, one number at a time.

Lanterns Trailer Cements Kyle Chandler As the Perfect Green Lantern

To be a member of the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps, you must be without fear. Green Lantern fans, however, have been quite a bit more fearful, especially with most of the marketing of the HBO series Lanterns. Many of the promos and interviews leading into the show have been strangely reluctant to embrace the franchise’s sci-fi roots, describing the show as a grounded mystery in the vein of True Detective and even stripping the color green from the series’ title and marketing.

The latest trailer for Lanterns tries to correct course, giving us glimpses of Aaron Pierre carrying a power battery as John Stewart, brief glimpses of Nathan Fillion reprising his role as Guy Gardner from Superman, Ulrich Thomsen as Sinestro in an Oan Sciencell, and, finally, lots of green.

But the best part of the trailer is something that has never been in doubt, something that has been clear since our first looks at the series: Kyle Chandler is killing it as Hal Jordan. In the latest trailer, Hal uses his ring to make a dollar bill, which he promptly sticks into a jukebox. This after giving John a speech about the great responsibility of knowing when and how to use the ring. When John challenges his hypocrisy, Hal blows it all off, cool as can be.

If you don’t read DC Comics, you may not respect the feat that Chandler’s accomplishing here. Hal Jordan debuted in Showcase Comics #22 (1959), which reimagined Green Lantern not as the Golden Age hero Alan Scott, an engineer with a magic wishing ring and a purple cape, but as a test pilot who joins the Corps after an alien crash lands on his planet. In addition to giving him the single greatest costume in superhero history (you know it’s true), artist Gil Kane gave Hal dashing good looks modeled on Paul Newman and drew him gliding through the air with ease.

In short, Hal Jordan was a young, cocky hot-shot, a great place for a superhero to start, but very difficult to maintain, especially if the character makes mistakes. And, oh boy, does Hal Jordan make mistakes. Even before his most infamous moments, Hal would regularly give up his ring to go find himself, wandering around the country as a trucker or a salesman peddling toys and insurance. When paired with liberal loudmouth Green Arrow in the legendary series by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams, Hal was the wet-blanket conservative, a cop constantly berated for his authoritarianism.

In the ’80s, Hal started dating a 13-year-old. In the ’90s, he went nuts and killed all the other members of the Corps, spending a few years as the villain Parallax. Then, in the 2000s, retcons explained all that away and Hal was back, trying to be as cool as ever. Not every fan has been ready to accept him.

The latest Lanterns trailer gives us glimpses of Hal in his prime, with a smirking (and mask-less?) Hal Jordan appearing on a CRT TV. But Chandler mostly plays an older, more grizzled Hal, a guy who has already done it all and isn’t so thrilled to be training new guy John Stewart. That could be a disaster, positioning Hal as the old dog who still thinks he’s hot stuff, setting up a story where we want to see the cocky old fart get taken down a notch.

But just look at the twinkle in Chandler’s eye when he makes that dollar bill. Look at the confidence he possesses when effortlessly creating a construct to deflect bullets or standing up to the local heavies. Chandler even manages to stay charming when Hal condescends to John, making us believe, if only for a moment, that maybe he should be Green Lantern forever.

We’re still a few months from the Lanterns premiere, so we still don’t know how the series will hand all the weird parts of the Green Lantern mythos. But at least we can look forward to Chandler’s take on Hal Jordan without the slightest hint of fear.

Lanterns debuts on HBO on August 16, 2026.

Don’t Expect Any Gen V Resolution in The Boys Finale

Last month, we heard that Prime Video would not be moving forward with a third season of Gen V, which naturally upset those who had been following the show’s story alongside The Boys on the streamer. Now, we’re hearing more thoughts about Gen V’s cancellation from The Boys creator Eric Kripke, who seems as sad about the spinoff’s demise as its fans.

Saying he’s “bummed” about it, Kripke also warned Gen V fans that The Boys finale won’t be wrapping up the spinoff’s story this week, but will instead find the Godolkin kids going off to have “more adventures”.

“I’m hopeful that’s not the last time you see them, because we don’t end their storyline in The Boys,” Kripke confirmed to TVLine. “Like, that’s all done and they head off to have more adventures. Those characters still have things to work on, and that was very intentional. We still want the opportunity to be able to do that.”

Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), who functions as Gen V’s lead character, had previously popped up in the penultimate episode of The Boys, only for Starlight (Erin Moriarty) to indicate that she was no match for Homelander because she couldn’t control her powers, disappointing fans who had been hoping to see her take on the mothership show’s villain. Kripke indicated that the much-discussed line was meant to set up a third season of Gen V, which won’t now come to fruition.

“She has all of this power, and everyone online is like, ‘Well, why doesn’t she just go take on Homelander?’ I’m like, ‘She’s a 19-year-old kid! She has no idea how to wield any of it in any sort of responsible, controlled way,'” Kripke explained. “Were there to be another season of Gen V, that would be her training-with-Yoda season where she really learns how to take the next step.”

Kripke added, “The fact that she’s super powerful, which she is, does not mean she’s automatically ready for every single conflict, much less one as big as Homelander. It could be quite dangerous and destructive, and it could lead to a lot of collateral damage and casualties if she can’t control it, so she still has a long road to go. That’s what we tried to plant there.”

Although there’s a different Boys spinoff on the way, a prequel focusing on Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) called Vought Rising, Kripke said there’s still more story they want to tell with Gen V’s characters in the future. “Sometimes these things just don’t go your way, but me and all the of other producers really fought hard to try to keep it going. Alas, you know, it didn’t work out, but one of the advantages of having a world like this is we will be able to find opportunities to continue their story. We’re starting to kick around ideas and see how can we bring back those characters.”

The Walking Dead’s Longest Beef Is Finally Coming to an End

Maggie Rhee has been trying and failing to get her revenge on Negan Smith for a long time on The Walking Dead, but it seems that the upcoming third season of Dead City will finally see the pair properly bury the hatchet over the brutal, iconic murder of her husband Glenn.

In a new interview with EW, Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who continue to play Maggie and Negan in AMC’s popular Walking Dead spinoff, have confirmed that the duo’s beef is about to come to an end. Though the first two seasons of the show saw an uneasy alliance form between them, the anger that has consumed Maggie since Negan needlessly killed Glenn has often boiled over into mistrust and violence against her baseball bat-wielding nemesis. Now, the creators of Dead City have sensed that it’s time for Maggie to put the past behind her.

“We needed this relationship to move on between Maggie and Negan,” said Morgan. “And I was desperate for it. Negan kept doing things like saving her, saving her kid, and yet she just hated me. I just think we all were ready to move on. It’s not just gonna be, ‘I’m gonna kill you when I get the chance,’ you know?”

Cohan added, “It’s the biggest turning over of a new leaf for Maggie and Negan that there’s ever been. Because they’re gonna work together. It’s been sort of hinted at, strived for, maybe attempted, and this is the first time it’s legitimately happening.”

Morgan stressed that this would not be a romantic relationship, but a friendship that’s been a long time coming for a relentlessly unhappy Maggie, noting that he was taken aback while filming the season’s premiere when he saw her smiling. “It was the first time that we had a scene that didn’t end with her threatening my life or stabbing me or something. It was a pleasant change.”

“If I’m not gonna kill him, I gotta live with him and I have to see him for who he really is,” Cohan explained. “And that involves a lot of healing for both their relationship and for her personally. The thing that’s different this year is her vulnerability of saying, ‘I need your help.’ And that’s something she’s never tried with him. She’s coerced him and manipulated him into helping her, and he’s done it either knowingly or unknowingly to repay a debt, but this is the first time that she’s led with more openness with him.”

Dead City season 3 will also feature an episode set in an alternate reality, EW reported, with Aimee Garcia (Lucifer) and Jimmi Simpson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) joining the cast in the real timeline as “flip sides” to Maggie and Negan that may give them an idea of how their lives may have turned out had they gone down different paths.

The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 premieres July 26 on AMC and AMC+.

The Most Pointless Director’s Cuts Ever Released

The director’s cut of a movie is, at least in terms of expectation from the audience, the true form of a film when compared to its theatrical release. However, that isn’t often the case, since many of the cut scenes were cut for a reason. Movies don’t have an unlimited amount of time to tell their stories, hence why theatrical cuts exist.

But director’s cuts sell, so they are constantly being made, even if they don’t add much value. There are cases where the original, theatrical cut is lost from circulation, leaving audiences with a much longer cut for no real reason. If you’re planning on seeing the following movies, you know what cut to avoid.

Donnie Darko

The theatrical version became a cult classic partly because of its ambiguity, but the director’s cut added heavy exposition and explanatory text that many fans felt weakened the movie’s mysterious atmosphere.

Dumb and Dumber

The unrated version restores several deleted scenes that mainly make Lloyd and Harry seem meaner and less lovable, damaging the goofy charm that made the original comedy work.

Star Wars Original Trilogy

George Lucas repeatedly altered the original trilogy with CGI additions, dialogue changes, and scene edits that many longtime fans considered unnecessary distractions from the original films.

The Warriors

Walter Hill’s director’s cut inserted comic-book transition effects between scenes, a stylistic addition many viewers found distracting compared to the gritty simplicity of the theatrical release.

Halloween

Rob Zombie’s director’s cut added even more brutality and unpleasant character moments, leading many horror fans to argue it amplified the remake’s worst tendencies without improving the story itself.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

The extended version mostly restores extra political scenes and additional exposition, but many viewers felt the theatrical cut already communicated everything important much more efficiently.

Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola’s Redux version added lengthy sequences that slowed the film’s oppressive momentum, especially the heavily debated French plantation scenes inserted deep into the journey.

Amadeus

The director’s cut restores additional scenes involving Constanze and Salieri, but some fans believe the tighter theatrical version maintained better pacing and emotional focus overall.

Alien

Ridley Scott himself admitted he preferred the original theatrical version, with the director’s cut functioning more as an alternate edition featuring small pacing and scene adjustments.

Tropic Thunder

The extended cut mainly adds more improvisation and changes jokes, but many viewers felt the theatrical release already contained exactly the right amount of chaotic comedy.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

The unrated cut restores extra violence and slightly longer action scenes, though critics and audiences generally agreed the additions changed almost nothing meaningful about the movie.

The Exorcist

The “Version You’ve Never Seen” restored infamous scenes like the spider-walk sequence, but many horror fans felt the original cut’s restraint made the supernatural terror far more effective.

Elektra

The director’s cut attempted to improve the critically disliked superhero film with minor additions and tonal adjustments, but audiences generally viewed the changes as too insignificant to matter.

Cinema Paradiso

The longer director’s cut restores an extended adult romance subplot that many viewers felt weakened the emotional nostalgia and bittersweet simplicity of the beloved theatrical version.

Army of Darkness

The alternate ending and darker tone in the director’s cut fascinated hard fans, but many audiences preferred the theatrical version’s more crowd-pleasing and energetic conclusion.

Star Wars’ Slow Lightsaber Duels Were Elegant Battles For a More Civilized Age

Who da man? If you’re a Star Wars fan of a certain age, there’s only one answer to that question. It comes from a television ad for the DVD release of Attack of the Clones, which began with the lines, “Who da man? Yoda man!” The commercial is built around a scene from the movie, the first to feature a CGI Yoda. No longer bound by the arm of Frank Oz, Yoda hobbles into a cave to face Count Dooku and, in a hyperactive variation of the Drunken Master trope that birthed him, leaps into the air to attack with his lightsaber.

What follows is an aggressive, spectacular, and frankly dizzying sword fight, unique for Yoda, but not, at this point, for Star Wars. Since the release of The Phantom Menace, lightsaber duels have become all about speed and flash, as if the combatants primarily wanted to overwhelm their opponents with slashes rather than land a strategic strike. The evolution makes the contests in the original trilogy look slow and outdated, but something is lost when spectacle becomes the main goal of a fight scene.

Stories and Sabers

Consider perhaps the best lightsaber duel of the original trilogy, the climactic clash of Luke Skywalker against Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. The scene looks incredible, with cinematographer Peter Suschitzky using smoke and colored lights to add texture to the industrial setting. The fighters face off in silhouette, the blue and red of their blades providing simple representations of good and evil.

Luke gets in a few fancy moves during the fight. He employs the occasional spin and flip, and even uses the Force to leap out of a pit. But he just as often stumbles, as when he gets the saber knocked from his hands, and even visibly struggles when climbing up some hoses to escape Vader. When Luke knocks his enemy down, the editing takes its time to show his process of moving in to complete the job. Luke pauses to attach his weapon to his belt, he waits for the hydraulic gate to open. When Vader uses the Force to hurl objects against Luke, he simply stands stoically to the side, letting the flying debris do the work.

The Empire battle leads to one of the most famous twists in cinema history, the reveal that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. But even before that legendary piece of dialogue, the scene is telling a story through its fighting. When the two meet, Luke draws his saber first and points it at Vader, indicating that he wants to fight the man who killed his mentor, not to just attack him. Vader doesn’t immediately strike either, and instead touches his blade to Luke’s, initiating the battle. By doing so, Vader shows respect to Luke that he didn’t have in the previous movie, when Young Skywalker was just a farm boy picked up by Obi-Wan.

All of the attacks in the fight continue the narrative, with each slash and strike adding a new wrinkle. Lukes initial salvo demonstrates how much he’s learned from Obi-Wan; Vader’s one-armed deflections show how little he actually knows. Vader’s stance during the Force indicates his confidence in his overwhelming power; Luke’s frantic attack toward the climax reveals his loss of control.

These story beats are only legible because we viewers aren’t distracted by the mania of the fight. The battle has room to establish the characters, without detracting from their skill as duelists.

First Fight

The same principle is at work in the franchise’s first lightsaber fight, between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader in the original Star Wars. In the memory of most fans, the contest is slow and plodding, a consequence of pitting 63-year-old Alec Guinness against costume-laden David Prowse. Some have even taken to recreating the scene to bring it into line with the more frenetic modern battles.

In fact, Obi-Wan does get in a couple of spins, and Vader does do a little charge while slashing, albeit much less than when Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen face off. But to dismiss the pace of the fight as nothing but old people making a shoddier movie is to miss the drama of the scene.

Like the battle in Empire Strikes Back, the fight in Star Wars comes laden with tension between the two characters. In this case, Vader wants to show his former master what he has learned, to prove that he no longer needs the old man’s teachings. Obi-Wan seeks to show that his pupil has learned nothing at all, which he demonstrates even before sacrificing himself.

Vader thinks that power comes entirely from physical strength, and while he’s mature enough to avoid the onslaught that the excitable Luke unleashes in the next movie, he still wants to win the duel. To that end, Vader maintains his form and keeps to the rules, hoping to defeat his opponent fair and square. Conversely, Obi-Wan knows that he will only become more powerful if Vader strikes him down, and therefore doesn’t need to fight to win. His strikes are sparse and strategic, his stances tend to be defensive, giving him space to teach his protégé one last time.

The Star Wars duel cannot be fast, because it’s not about winning or physical domination. It’s about developing the characters.

Losing the High Ground

It wouldn’t be fair to say that lightsaber battles after the original trilogy have disregarded storytelling. Yes, the Yoda fight in Attack of the Clones is egregious, but others have their beats and memorable moments. The sliding doors in The Phantom Menace give space to show young Obi-Wan’s anger at Darth Maul after Qui-Gon Jinn’s death. “I have the high ground” may be a clanger, but that fight shows just how far Anakin has fallen, and the desperate measures Obi-Wan is willing to take.

The sequel trilogy has notable moments too, especially in The Force Awakens. Finn losing the lightsaber and Rey gaining it may be a lamentable story beat, but it is a story beat. And Kylo Ren’s pounding of his chest to increase blood flow adds a compelling character detail.

But these beats and quirks are minor digressions. Instead, the fundamental point of each modern lightsaber scene is simple and the same: look how cool this guy is. What once began as scenes intended to show that size matters not, have turned into celebrations of power, spectacles designed to answer once and for all, “Who’s the man?”

The Biggest Movie Every Single Year of the 1980s

The 1980s were one of Hollywood’s most explosive decades, turning blockbuster filmmaking into the industry’s dominant force. Sequels got bigger, special effects improved dramatically, and studios realized audiences would return again and again for massive spectacle.

The decade produced some of the most recognizable movies ever made, many of which still dominate pop culture today. We had science fiction epics, action classics and emotional dramas; these films ruled the global box office during their release years, helping define what modern blockbuster entertainment eventually became. Looking back at the decade is basically watching Hollywood learn how to print money.

1980, Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

The second Star Wars movie became the highest-grossing film of 1980 worldwide and is still widely considered one of the greatest sequels ever made. Its darker tone, major plot twist, and expanded universe helped prove blockbuster franchises could become even bigger after the original.

1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas created an instant icon with Indiana Jones. Raiders of the Lost Ark blended old-school adventure serials with modern blockbuster pacing, making Harrison Ford one of the decade’s defining movie stars almost overnight.

1982, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

E.T. became an enormous worldwide phenomenon and briefly held the title of highest-grossing movie ever made. Spielberg’s emotional alien story connected with audiences of every age and turned a simple friendship story into one of cinema’s most beloved family films.

1983, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi

The conclusion of the original Star Wars trilogy dominated the worldwide box office in 1983. Audiences packed theaters to finally see Darth Vader’s fate, the destruction of the second Death Star, and the end of one of cinema’s biggest cultural events.

1984, Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters became one of the defining blockbusters of the entire decade, combining supernatural comedy, quotable dialogue, and groundbreaking effects into a worldwide phenomenon. The movie turned its cast into comedy legends and launched a franchise that remained culturally relevant for generations afterward.

1985, Back to the Future

Robert Zemeckis’ time-travel adventure became one of the defining movies of the decade. Michael J. Fox turned Marty McFly into a cultural icon, while the movie’s mix of comedy, science fiction, and teen drama made it endlessly rewatchable.

1986, Top Gun

Top Gun transformed Tom Cruise into a full-blown global superstar. The fighter jet action, soundtrack, and hyper-stylized visuals made the movie a cultural juggernaut that influenced action films and military recruitment for years afterward.

1987, Fatal Attraction

The psychological thriller shocked audiences and became a massive box office success worldwide. Its story about infidelity spiraling into obsession sparked huge cultural conversations and helped turn adult thrillers into one of Hollywood’s hottest genres during the late 1980s.

1988, Rain Man

Rain Man balanced critical acclaim with enormous commercial success, becoming the year’s top worldwide hit. The road-trip drama earned multiple Academy Awards while also introducing mainstream audiences to one of Dustin Hoffman’s most celebrated performances.

1989, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

The third Indiana Jones movie narrowly became 1989’s biggest worldwide release, beating even Tim Burton’s Batman. Pairing Harrison Ford with Sean Connery helped elevate the sequel into one of the franchise’s most beloved entries.