Leslie Vernon Returns as Directors Announce Behind the Mask Sequel

Twenty years ago, a slasher aficionado invited a camera crew to follow him as he prepared for his killing season. With the infectious glee of a true believer, Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) walks a young journalist named Taylor (Angela Goethals) through his plan to create a legend, choose a survivor girl (Kate Lang Johnson), and go on a killing spree. He’ll follow her to a dilapidated farmhouse she is visiting with her friends, and there he’ll kill them like Freddy, Jason, Michael, and the other great slashers of yore.

What actually happens has long thrilled horror fans, leaving the faithful hungry for more and disappointed that Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon was a standalone effort and not a franchise starter. Until now.

“My three favorite words right now: Leslie Vernon returns,” writer David J. Stieve triumphantly tells Den of Geek.

Directed by Scott Glosserman from a script that he co-wrote with Stieve, 2006’s Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon was a unique take on the meta-slasher. Part mockumentary, in which Vernon explicitly explains tricks like how to disappear when his target Kelly turns around, or how to encourage his victim to choose faulty weapons, and part straightforward slasher, the film both deconstructed and celebrated the tropes that defined Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween.

Despite his high-profile coming out party, Leslie disappeared at the end of Behind the Mask, never to be seen on-screen again—no matter how hard his creators endeavored to change that over the years.

“We tried and tried, we’ve iterated and changed, coming up with stuff that just wasn’t right for the time,” Glosserman admits.

Stieve adds, “We’ve been trying to keep pace with the genre, but the sand kept moving under our feet.”

Apropos of their co-writing relationship, Glosserman picks up on Stieve’s metaphor and continues: “The sand keeps changing, especially with the self-referential part of it all. There have been any number of self-referential films across genres, and it can feel tired going back to the same well, even though the first film wasn’t proceeded by much.

“After us, though, the floodgates really opened because horror-comedy reflects the zeitgeist of its age. It’s not intentional, it’s not as though we had anything to do with it. But there was a moment that we had to ask ourselves ‘how do we come back to self-referential horror-comedy?’ or consider if it is too saturated.”

And yet, despite those fears, the duo knew they couldn’t forget about Leslie; in part because of the demand from fans who love Behind the Mask but also because they kept getting ideas for new scenarios.

“Scott and I started talking about how to continue the story, even when we were back on set in Portland, shooting the first one,” says Stieve. “We’d be beating out scenes in the middle of the night in a hotel room and realize that we just had a good idea for a sequel. And its just evolved throughout the years. It finally feels like everything has coalesced. Leslie returning now feels like it’s taken a long time, but we’ve earned it. The story and the metaphor has presented itself in a way that we can’t ignore.”

What is that story and metaphor? Unlike their main character, the duo aren’t ready to show the press what they’re doing before it happens just yet. But they can say that the original cast and crew are back for the sequel. And they can also tell us that Leslie has had to struggle with the changing times—especially since, these days, he doesn’t have to coerce a camera crew to get on people’s screens like he did in 2006.

“The most challenging thing about the movie isn’t just the mise-en-scène of how to portray the world in the film, but to actually shoot the movie and get that mixed media contrast that we got the first time,” Glosserman admits. “Then we had very simple hard lines when we were one reality and then another.”

Stieve explains, “In the meta version of it, Leslie is certainly aware of shortened attention spans and shock tolerance. All of that will factor into his planning and execution—no pun intended.”

One thing that hasn’t changed is Leslie’s love of the classics, even if the rest of the world has moved on from his favorite subgenre. Behind the Mask was a love letter to the ’80s slasher, and the sequel will be too.

“Throughout the ’00s you had torture porn, found footage, J-horror, and then there were sequels and prequels and remakes,” Glosserman says. “And back in 2007, 2008, 2009, during our first iterations of the Leslie Vernon sequel, we were really trying to keep up with the zeitgeist. But there’s just so much to cover. And this guy, at his core, he’s a slasher. And that raises a question: if you’re someone who’s used to your ways, how do you keep up with what the younger people are doing? Or do you stick with what you know? That alone presents a conflict. And it will be interesting to see where we, as real people, have come over the past 20 years. So the sequel will not only reflect the conventions and archetypes of horror, but also our own lived experience.”

According to Stieve, that lived experience does mean that he and Glosserman have to be honest about the type of horror they love best: “For Scott and I, ’80s horror is our core, that’s the DNA,” he admits. “So for me, it’s been a real process of trying to overcome my resistances to what slasher horror has become. I mean, I respect and admire the work, even when it’s not my taste, and I don’t want to be yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. But there’s part of me that wants to hold onto that feeling of ’80s and ’90s horror. But you can’t, and Leslie as a character can’t either.”

In the first movie, that love of ’80s and ’90s horror led to cameos from legends such as Robert Englund and Kane Hodder. Will more greats show up in the sequel?

“There’s going to be a crowdfunding component to this, because we want the horror community to come along with us and ‘buy’ into what we’re doing. So we’ll have stretch goals, and some of them will be cameo reveals,” teases Glosserman.

Until then, Glosserman and Stieve are just happy that they’ve had such fan support to carry them through 20 years of Behind the Mask.

“Twenty years is a huge landmark, especially for the unbelievable fan support we’ve been shown,” Stieve declares. “We have to give the fans something. If we miss this window, what are we doing out here?”

That’s a fitting sentiment for Stieve and Glosserman to take as they begin production on the Behind the Mask sequel. Because Leslie Vernon may be a psychopathic murderer. But first and foremost, he’s a fan.

The Boys: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan Wishes Countess Crow Got Merked by Homelander

The following contains spoilers for The Boys season 5 episodes 1 and 2.

The Boys has always walked a fine line between reality and fiction. One part satirical send-up of our pop culture’s superhero obsession and one part cynical display of the worst excesses of corporate greed, it’s a series that purposefully refuses to idolize its characters or glamorize the world they live in. Part of the reason its later seasons have often felt so uncomfortable to watch is that their subject matter has been steadily veering closer and closer toward our own reality. Just two episodes into its final season, The Boys has already featured everything from government “freedom” camps and AI hoaxes to the terrifying implementation of full fascism, as evidenced by Homelander’s (Anthony Starr) determination to jail those who have done so much as post a meme criticizing him. 

Perhaps it’s a sign of just how bad everything has gotten in the world of this show that the introduction of a band of teenage TikTokers provides the premiere with its primary source of levity. But here we are. 

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan plays Countess Crow, a young supe with the weirdly specific ability of communicating with corvids. But rather than saving the day, she and her fellow teenage heroes spend most of their time hawking sponcon on TikTok. But while Countess Crow is busy half-heartedly extoling the virtues of Black Noir-branded eyeliner online, the actress who plays her was hoping to experience one of the show’s traditionally violent deaths.

“I knew of The Boys because my friends are huge fans, but I hadn’t personally watched before,” Ramakrishnan tells Den of Geek. “When the audition came through, I was like, okay, let me audition for this, because if I got it, that would be so cool to be a part of, just to show my friends. And I also really wanted my friends to see me die and maybe get merked by Homelander. Of course, I started watching the show and now I can say I am a fan. But… yeah! Kinda sucks that I got away, huh?”

A member of the young superhero group Teenage Kix alongside Jetstreak (Dylan Colton), Rock Hard (Andrew Iles), and Sheline (Emma Elle Paterson), Countess Crow is notable for her dramatic, almost Gothic appearance, which admittedly goes with the whole murder bird theme. 

“Shoutout to the makeup department, because the eye makeup was crazy. And them having to match that perfectly [in every take]… the attention to detail on the show is crazy,” Ramakrishnan says. “The coolest part of working on The Boys was working on The Boys, genuinely, as a production, because I’ve never been on a set that is more obsessed with attention to detail than this show.”

Ramakrishnan cites the show’s immersive dedication to its sets and world-building as a helpful tool for its performers.

“There should be a The Boys museum,” she says. “Every piece of equipment in the gym, for example, was branded with ‘Vought.’ Every poster. Unfortunately, investing in practical effects is dying more and more, but… Rock Hard was real. And goopy. Real and goopy and way too huge. A person goes inside that! That’s crazy!”

Countess Crow’s abilities may be much less… overtly goopy, but they are equally unique. As her name implies, she’s capable of communicating with and possibly even manipulating crows. (Though her personal murder has decreased in size thanks to the cat-like Sheline.) This, in theory, could provide her with everything from physical protection to access to a vast web of information. 

“At first, I thought okay, so, she just talks to just specifically crows, no other birds, alright, I guess that’s fine,” Ramakrishan says. “But then Laz [Alonso, who plays Mother’s Milk] and I were talking about it, and he actually had a lot of knowledge about crows, and was explaining to me that crows are incredibly smart and if you mess with a crow they’ll remember that for life. Then they’ll tell their friends! So crows that you’ve never met now will also hate you. Isn’t that wild? It is a cool power. And to think that Countess Crow once had, you know, a bunch of crows? That’s kinda scary. Also, the crow was real, by the way. Russell was real, and that was honestly so cool.”

Intriguingly, Countess Crow is also the only member of Teenage Kix who seems in any way reluctant about her life as an influencer or her involvement with Vought. 

“I just kind of pieced it together based on everything that we saw in the episode,” Ramakrishnan says when asked to share her thoughts about her character’s personal history. “She’s this young kid who was given a nice little chunk of change to join the Teenage Kix situation and probably got a nice deal. She’s just an innocent, in her earlier days, when she had more crows. Obviously, I think she has realized that she hates this life, but she’s probably stuck in some shitty contract that she can’t get out of, and obviously is very depressed. She’s just a normal kid that would probably like to go back to living her life and going to school, maybe study abroad, and talk to crows around the world and call it a day.”

Everyone who has ever watched The Boys has probably wondered what kind of superhuman ability they might be able to wield in its dark — and often extremely messed-up universe. But while Ramakrishnan herself plays a supe, she’s not sure if she would want an ability like her character’s. Or anyone else’s. 

“I don’t even know if I necessarily would want a power,” she says thoughtfully when asked about what sort of ability she’d like to wield in The Boys universe. “So many of them are bad. Or they have a drawback. That’s what it is. You can’t quickly say, like, A-Train, because look at the pilot episode. Shit goes bad. And also, if it’s a power from The Boys, then there’s a solid chance there were also some crazy drugs. I don’t want some serum. I think I’d actually just like to stay human.”

For Ramakrishnan, The Boys works precisely because its approach to the entire concept of a world where superpowers run rampant is so unique — and so unashamedly bleak. 

“I think that’s why the show does so well, actually, because there are real consequences in this universe. That’s why I love the show, because it’s not just like, ‘Oh, a cool power, wow!’ It comes with a price, so it’s not something that’s been romanticized. I also think something the show does very well is that it takes the power that a person gets and puts it on a personality. So that if the personality was different, we’d have a very different story. And I think all those different factors, all those layered details make the show so much more compelling.”

Whether we’ll see Countess Crow again in The Boys’ final season is a question that only the show itself can answer. But whether we see her onscreen again or not, Ramakrishnan is hopeful her legacy as the corvid queen will live on.

“I can’t say anything, I guess we’ll never know!” she laughs. “I don’t know. But it was really cool to have that ending where she kind of walked away… a little mystery. In the Eric Kripke universe of it all, characters always love to come back. No one’s ever really gone. And you know what, maybe even if I’m not physically back, my legacy will probably be referenced. Countess Crow will be referenced, maybe at another point, you know?”

New episodes of The Boys season 5 premiere Wednesdays on Prime Video.

The Punisher: One Last Kill Trailer Reminds Us That Frank Castle is No Hero

A glance at the cast list for Spider-Man: Brand New Day promises a heap of Marvel Superheroes. There’s Spider-Man, of course, but also Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Sadie Sink (probably) as Jean Grey of the X-Men, and Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, the Punisher. Obviously, one of those things is not like the other. Where even the rampaging Incredible Hulk tries to minimize deaths, Frank Castle believes that anything less than murdering bad guys constitutes a half-measure that only perpetuates evil. Does his Marvel team-up with Spidey suggest that Frank is joining the goodies?

The first trailer for the Marvel Special Presentation The Punisher: One Last Kill shoots holes in that premise. Even beyond shots of Bernthal’s guilt-riddled face or images of Frank engulfed in frames as if immolated in Hell, fellow military man Curtis Hoyle (Jason R. Moore, returning from the Netflix series) intimates that God will not forgive Punisher’s sins. And with good reason: the Punisher is not a hero.

That’s been true since Frank’s first appearance in 1974’s Amazing Spider-Man #129, written by Gerry Conway and penciled by Ross Andru (incorporating a costume designed by John Romita Sr.). Inspired by exploitation flicks like Death Wish, that issue introduced Punisher as a vigilante who believes that society has spun far out of control, beyond what law enforcement can control.

The first story established Frank as a sympathetic killer, but a killer nonetheless, a broken man whose moral failures highlight the heroism of Spider-Man. But he quickly became a favorite among fans and, as mainstream comics grew grittier and meaner in the ’80s and ’90s, Punisher’s popularity only grew, and he soon started headlining his own books. Although he never really stopped killing his enemies (laser guns in the Spider-Man animated series notwithstanding), Marvel presented him as more or less a superhero.

Over the years, writers found ways to excuse Frank’s lethal tendencies while letting him join the side of the angels—including literally making him an angelic figure who killed demons with a magic gun. That last take went over so badly that Marvel recruited comic-dom’s greatest superhero hater to bring Punisher back to basics. Garth Ennis‘s run on the mature-rated series Punisher: MAX reminded viewers that Frank is a bad person, was a bad person even before his family was killed, and continues to be a bad person today, even if he kills people who are worse.

Ennis’ run inspired Bernthal’s version of Frank Castle, as the Netflix series directly adapted moments such as Punisher chaining Daredevil to a gun and forcing him to make a choice. And Frank’s MCU debut in season one of Daredevil: Born Again suggested that Disney hasn’t softened him… at least not until Daredevil forbade him from killing. But seeing him trading quips with Tom Holland’s Spidey in Brand New Day raised worries that maybe we’re seeing Punisher turn good.

Not so, says the trailer. If indeed the special showcases Frank’s final fatality, then One Last Kill promises that the Punisher is going out his way, unheroic and mean.

The Punisher: One Last Kill streams on Disney+ on May 12, 2026.

The Boys’ Kimiko Reveal is the Ultimate Improvement Over the Comics

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 5 episode 1.

“The Female (of the Species).” Those words, presented in a caption block of white text on a black background introduce the world to the one member of the Boys who isn’t a boy. The caption appears in 2006’s The Boys #2, written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Darick Robertson, setting off a scene in which the character knocks on a door, stands silent as the men inside the house mock her, and then lunges inside. A few panels later, a bloody vivisected face slaps against a window.

Our latest look at the same character plays very differently. In the season premiere of final season of Prime Video‘s live-action adaptation of The Boys, “Fifteen Inches of Sheer Dynamite.” Midway through the episode, we find Kimiko Miyashiro (Karen Fukuhara) kindly sharing a family treat with a young boy. She communicates with sign language and a smile. She reverts to her comic book analogue when Butcher appears in her home, all snarls and sneers. But when she reunites with Starlight, Kimiko cannot stop laughing and talking.

Kimiko’s newfound gift for gab is just the latest improvement that Eric Kripke and the live-action show has made over the comics, and it may be the most important.

While the television show The Boys is an R-rated superhero saga that peppers its satire of American power politics with gore and gross-out gags, the comic book The Boys is an exercise in unpleasantness. Ennis, never a fan of superheroes who aren’t Superman, indulges every schoolboy gag about the cape and cowl set, and Robertson brings them to life with grotesque detail.

For that reason, it’s hard to hold the series to any moral expectation. It exists to disgust and offend, and it certainly achieves those base goals. However, even by that low standard, the Female is a particularly odious figure. One of the two major female characters and the only main Asian character, the Female embodies every negative stereotype to the extreme, reducing her to an unthinking, unfeeling hunk of flesh that murders everyone who isn’t Frenchie. The series never grants her agency, outside of maiming those who offend her—and even that tends to happen on someone else’s orders.

By the time of her death in 2012’s The Boys #69, her only character progression involves her being nice to Butcher’s dog, Terror. Not even her origin story did anything to humanize her, as we learn that she was a baby in a lab who fell into a pile of discarded Compound V. In short, the comic feels that the Female has always been trash.

At first, it seemed like the television series would follow suit. Despite Fukuhara’s energetic presence, she still played the Female: brutal, inhuman, unknowable.

But over the past several seasons, the character became the exact opposite of her comic book counterpart. She gained a backstory and a family, including a brother named Kenji who stayed with her after their parents were killed. Her powers are no longer a cosmic accident, but the result of American experimentation, an extension of the imperialism that finds its fullest form in Homelander.

Her inability to speak isn’t just a sign of her lack of humanity. Rather, it’s a response to the loss of Kenji, deep-seated trauma that in fact speaks to increased vulnerability and compassion, not the absence of those feelings. Moreover, she has a name. Even though Butcher never recognizes her as such, her friends come to know her as Kimiko, and her arc across the previous seasons have shown how she finds her identity and humanity once again.

Which makes her ability to speak so important, as Kripke himself acknowledges “It felt like she’s been evolving in terms of letting go of the trauma that caused her mutism in the first place,” he told Hollywood Reporter.” And she’s been working so hard to deal with it, that it felt right to then take her to the next step, which is she does get her physical voice back.”

Kripke’s phrasing here matters. According to him, Kimiko has gotten her voice back, restored something that she once had. The Female of the comics never had a voice, and thus nothing was lost and there’s nothing to restore. That approach fits the entirety of the comic’s ethos. The characters in the comics are, at best, stock figures from the history of Marvel and DC, and therefore any “satire” that Ennis and Robertson attempt can go no further than shots at the industry.

Kripke and his co-creators have turned The Boys into a satire about American politics and the people harmed by it. For that to work, the series must have human beings in it, even if the humans are absurd and even if they sometimes die in horrible ways (see: Love Sausage being strangled by his own member in the season 5 premiere).

By getting a name and agency and a voice, Kimiko represents the humanity of The Boys, which makes the humor that much deeper and the satire that much sharper.

New episodes of The Boys stream every Wednesday on Prime Video.

Animal Farm Trailer: Seth Rogen, Slapstick Jokes, and a Communist Dream Corrupted By Totalitarianism

All kids’ movies are equal, at least in some way. They fundamentally exist to entertain the youngest members of a studio audience, which requires broad jokes, over-the-top visuals, and simplistic morals. But some kids’ movies are more equal than others, as anyone who has seen a great Hayao Miyazaki or Pixar movie can attest. There’s a difference between simple and artless.

Judging by its latest trailer, it’s hard to tell where the big screen adaptation of Animal Farm will fall. The film certainly has the pedigree to be a higher-end kid’s film, as it draws inspiration from the 1945 George Orwell novella and is directed by Andy Serkis, a great motion-capture actor and solid filmmaker in his own right. But the trailer leans hard into jazzy music, obvious gags, and celebrity voices, suggesting that the picture resembles lesser Illumination and not even the 1954 Chuck Jones version of Animal Farm.

As any English teacher worth their tweed can tell you, Animal Farm is an allegory about the Russian Revolution and rise of Joseph Stalin. Set on Manor Farm in England instead of 1917 Russia, the story follows boars Napoleon and Snowball as they overthrow the human Mr. Jones and establish a new regime in which all the animals rule equally. However, when Snowball and Napoleon fall out over plans to build a windmill, the latter chases the former away and establishes himself as supreme leader. As the book goes on, Napoleon asserts more control, turning against his fellow animals and, in an ironic closing, adopts the same posture as the humans he once considered his enemies.

Between its ingenious use of allegory, its political relevance to the 20th century, and its fairly short length (at least compared to Orwell’s towering 1984), Animal Farm has long been a staple of high school English classes. But in the U.S. at least, Animal Farm has joined 1984 as a frequently misunderstood text, with too many readers missing the book’s pointed criticism of Stalin. Instead, they read it as a satire against all forms of communism, ignoring Orwell’s own democratic socialist beliefs (and, it must be said, Orwell’s warnings about misuse of the English language).

Will this latest Animal Farm adaptation avoid those problems? We can’t say one way or the other from the trailer, which promises a wacky adventure instead of a political science lesson. As voiced by Seth Rogen, the trailer presents Napoleon as a lovable goofball and Lucky (Stranger Things‘s Gaten Matarazzo) as his plucky sidekick. While the trailer does show that things will go badly on the former Manor Farm, one has to wonder if plot points like the fate of the horse Boxer (Woody Harrelson) will get the weight it deserves.

Can this glossy Angel Studios release with an all-star cast retain the depth of its source material? If it can, then Animal Farm will be a truly revolutionary kids’ movie.

Animal Farm releases in theaters on May 1, 2026.

Isaac Wright Combines Urban Exploring, Photography in Drift 

It isn’t hard to find an aerial view of the world’s most major metropolises. The Empire State Building, Shanghai Tower, Lakhta Center, and countless other structures boast perfectly safe observation decks that provide birds-eye panoramas of the cities below. It is much more difficult to reach the true apex of those buildings, to climb to the very top with nowhere else to go but into the clouds. Despite the challenge, this is something that Isaac Wright, known under the artist name Drift and the subject of a new documentary with the same name, lives for. 

Wright began coping with his PTSD through self-taught photography after serving in the United States Army. He combined his love of camera-work with urban exploring, specifically seeking the highest points of buildings, bridges, statues, and other institutions, often illegally and always with the intention of capturing unique and heart-stopping images. 

“The first time I saw them, I was like, ‘This is absolutely incredible,’’ Deon Taylor, director of Drift, says. “But then when you realize there’s more excitement to his life than that is when you go, as a filmmaker, ‘Oh, I have to tell this story or I have to be a part of the story.’” 

Taylor’s filmography is dominated by narrative features, boasting credits like Black and Blue (2019), Traffik (2018), and Supremacy (2014). 

“Those features dealt a lot with telling human stories … I know this is a different medium, but I really believe I can tell this story in a documentary fashion,” Taylor says. 

Roxanne Avent Taylor worked on Drift as a producer, a role she has filled on many of Taylor’s other films. The two have been married since 2014, eight years after they co-founded their independent film production company, Hidden Empire Film Group. 

“When it first came to us, we went to his Instagram and these beautiful photos are just so captivating that it’s really overwhelming, and wondering why the hell he’s up there and what he’s doing was my initial reaction,” Avent Taylor says. 

The documentary seeks to answer that very question through footage of Wright’s adventures and interviews with the man behind the camera. 

“The documentary is a lot more than just my artwork,” Wright says. “It has to do with my life and what I feel like my artwork really represents and a full portrait of what I think the goal of life is and coming into who you truly are as a person, so it covers various different things I’ve gone through – which I think are a reflection of things we all go through – and how I found my way through that through my artwork.” 

Among the events Wright experiences during the film are legal ramifications for some of his more illicit exploits. The documentary takes a dramatic turn into what Taylor describes as a “real-life Catch Me If You Can … with consequences and things that can actually kill you” that are unrelated to the danger of the climbs themselves. 

“You realize very quickly that the climbs are more spiritual,” Taylor says. “They’re actually the safest thing that is happening in the film, because someone is playing with someone’s life.” 

These themes take Wright from his position as an untouchable, superhuman figure and bring him back down to Earth for the rest of us to relate to. 

“I had a spiritual connection first, to the human story and to the fact that someone is having to overcome adversity in life for real, and I believe that everyone could connect to the human story based on the fact that we’ve all been through something,” Taylor says. “We’ve all been misrepresented or someone has tried to tear down your character in some way, and I felt like this is a story that I believe people could really connect to.” 

The film premiered in the SXSW Documentary Spotlight category and was met by cheers, tears, and laughs, according to Taylor. The next steps for the documentary and its subject are still unknown, but it’s hard not to predict the boldest and brightest of futures for both. 

“I’m still engaged with the work, but also I’m branching into so many other artistic mediums, and so … I don’t necessarily know (what’s next),” Wright says. “I’m wide open right now, but I feel more creative than I’ve ever felt in my life. I feel the most in tune and aligned with myself that I’ve ever felt, and I believe that art comes out of a person, so I know whatever it is, it will be magic.” 

Drift premiered on March 14 at the SXSW Film & TV Festival.

15 Unsettling Movie Facts That Might Change How We See Them

Rewatching a movie can often give us details that enrich the experience, although sometimes, those same details end up bringing the experience down. Beneath familiar stories and iconic scenes lie details, implications, and logical gaps that can make a film feel far more unsettling in hindsight.

These aren’t always intentional twists or hidden clues, but observations that shift the tone once they click. Whether it’s a troubling ethical implication or a flaw that raises bigger questions, these moments have a way of sticking with viewers long after the credits roll, no matter if you’re watching them for the first or second time.

Jurassic Park

The park’s safety systems rely heavily on automation with minimal oversight, making the disaster feel less like an accident and more like an inevitability waiting to happen.

Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Each child’s fate is left ambiguous, and the film never clearly confirms they fully recover, adding a darker edge to what appears to be a whimsical story.

Toy Story

Toys are fully conscious but forced to remain motionless around humans, implying a lifetime of suppressed autonomy and existential limitation.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

The procedure erases memories without addressing underlying issues, suggesting the characters are likely doomed to repeat the same relationship cycle.

Inception

Even if the ending is ambiguous, Cobb’s willingness to walk away without confirming reality suggests he may no longer care what is real.

The Social Network

The film ends with Zuckerberg alone, repeatedly refreshing a friend request, highlighting the isolation behind massive social connectivity.

Gone Girl

The ending traps both main characters in a toxic relationship, suggesting manipulation and deceit will continue indefinitely.

Nightcrawler

Lou’s success implies that unethical behavior is not only tolerated but rewarded, reinforcing a disturbing view of media culture.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

The story repeatedly removes the protagonist’s agency, forcing players to confront how little control either they or the character truly have.

Passengers

Jim’s decision to wake Aurora is framed romantically, but it effectively removes her agency and condemns her to his fate.

Whiplash

The film blurs the line between mentorship and abuse, leaving it unclear whether the protagonist’s success justifies the trauma endured.

The Prestige

The cloning process implies repeated deaths of the same individual, reframing the magician’s success as a cycle of self-sacrifice.

Cars

The existence of sentient vehicles raises unanswered questions about human absence, creating an unsettling implication about the world’s history.

The Hunger Games

The tributes are meant to be malnourished children from impoverished districts, yet many appear physically strong and well-fed, creating a disconnect that softens the story’s intended brutality.

Signs

The aliens invade a planet covered mostly in water despite it being lethal to them, raising the implication that their plan was fundamentally flawed from the start.

15 Casting Decisions Nobody Trusted Until The Movie Came Out

Casting can make or break a movie, and sometimes the most controversial choices turn out to be the right ones. Over the years, plenty of actors have faced skepticism the moment they were announced, whether due to past roles, public image, or simply not fitting what audiences expected.

In some cases, the backlash was immediate and widespread. But once the movie finally hit theaters, those same performances ended up winning over critics and fans alike. These are the casting decisions that seemed questionable at first, only to prove that the right actor isn’t always the most obvious one.

The Batman, Robert Pattinson

Pattinson’s casting was heavily questioned due to his Twilight image, but his grounded, introspective take on Bruce Wayne was widely praised after release.

Joker, Joaquin Phoenix

Fans doubted another Joker interpretation, but Phoenix’s performance was acclaimed, earning him major awards and redefining the character for a new audience. Too bad the sequel didn’t live up to its promise.

Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.

At the time, Downey’s troubled past made studios hesitant, but his casting became one of the most iconic and successful choices in modern blockbuster cinema. So much so that the actor is outliving the character within the MCU.

The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio

Some doubted DiCaprio’s fit for the role’s excess and comedy, but his performance proved dynamic and was widely acclaimed by both fans and critics.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Johnny Depp

Depp’s eccentric take on Jack Sparrow worried Disney executives, but it became the defining element of the film’s success. Hard to imagine a better fit for the role.

Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks

Casting Hanks in such an unconventional role raised questions, but his performance became central to the film’s enduring appeal. He was able to carry a film with mostly only him to great results.

The Matrix, Keanu Reeves

Reeves was seen as an unlikely philosophical action lead, but his performance became synonymous with the film’s tone and success.

Mad Max: Fury Road, Tom Hardy

Recasting Mel Gibson with anyone was always going to be controversial, even if necessary, but Hardy delivered a performance that fit seamlessly into the franchise’s rebooted tone.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Chris Pratt

Known mainly for comedy, Pratt was an unexpected action lead, but his charisma became a key part of the film’s success. Not to mention his body transformation into the classic action hero.

Twilight, Kristen Stewart

Her casting sparked debate among fans of the books, but she became closely associated with the role. The debate likely rose from the lead of the books being a surrogate for the reader.

Casino Royale, Daniel Craig

Craig faced heavy criticism before release, yet his performance revitalized the James Bond franchise, turning the spy from smooth talker to gritty hero.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Elijah Wood

Casting a relatively young actor as Frodo raised doubts, but Wood’s performance became central to the trilogy’s success. It’s now hard to see him as anything other than Frodo even in other movies.

The Social Network, Jesse Eisenberg

Casting Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg raised eyebrows, but his performance was widely praised for capturing the character’s personality. The main issue was separating the film’s character with the real person.

Drive, Ryan Gosling

Known for romantic roles, Gosling’s casting in a quiet, intense thriller seemed unusual but proved highly effective.

Barbie, Margot Robbie

While initially questioned, Robbie’s performance anchored the film’s tone and helped elevate its cultural impact.

Movies You Didn’t Know Recycled Sets And Locations

Movies are designed to transport audiences to entirely different worlds, even when those worlds are built on the exact same foundations. Behind the scenes, filmmakers often reuse sets and real-world locations, carefully redressing them to look new while saving time and budget.

The result is a kind of cinematic illusion where the same street, building, or interior quietly appears across completely unrelated films. Most viewers never notice, but once you know where to look, it becomes hard to unsee. These reused locations reveal just how much creativity goes into making familiar places feel entirely different on screen.

Back to the Future & Gremlins

Both films use the Universal backlot’s Courthouse Square, transformed from Hill Valley into Kingston Falls with minimal structural changes.

Se7en & Catch Me If You Can

Both feature scenes inside the same Los Angeles diner, the frequently reused Quality Cafe location.

Die Hard & Speed

The iconic Nakatomi Plaza is actually Fox Plaza, reused in Speed, including its recognizable lobby.

Aliens & Batman

The same industrial power station set was repurposed, becoming a space colony in one film and a chemical plant in the other.

X-Men & Billy Madison

The Xavier Institute mansion is the same real location used as a comedic setting in Billy Madison.

The Big Lebowski & There Will Be Blood

Both films use the Greystone Mansion, a frequently reused filming location in Hollywood productions.

Star Trek Into Darkness & The Muppets

The same Greystone Mansion appears again, digitally altered in one case to resemble a futuristic setting.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider & Batman

Hatfield House serves as both Croft’s estate and Wayne Manor, showing how grand locations are reused across genres.

Blade Runner & 500 Days of Summer

Both films feature the Bradbury Building, used to evoke entirely different moods across decades.

Pretty in Pink & A Nightmare on Elm Street

Both films use John Marshall High School, a location repeatedly repurposed across genres.

School of Rock & Pretty in Pink

The same school appears again, demonstrating how common real-world locations become recurring film backdrops.

Ghostbusters & The Mask

The iconic firehouse exterior used by the Ghostbusters also appears in The Mask, reused as a New York location.

Casper & The Cat in the Hat

Both films reuse the Universal backlot town sets, heavily redressed to appear unique.

The Matrix & Dark City

Both films used the same rooftop sets in Australia, contributing to their similarly stylized urban environments.

Airheads & Die Hard

Fox Plaza appears again, reused in a completely different genre and tone.

Movies That Completely Changed Tone Halfway Through Production

Not every movie sticks to its original vision. In fact, some take a sharp turn long before they ever reach theaters. Whether it’s due to director changes, studio intervention, or reactions to early footage, certain films end up shifting tone in major ways during production.

What may have started as a dark drama can become a lighter comedy, or a grounded story might evolve into something far more exaggerated. These changes don’t always happen quietly either, and in many cases, you can feel the shift while watching. They offer a glimpse into how unpredictable the filmmaking process can really be.

Justice League

After Zack Snyder stepped down, Joss Whedon oversaw extensive reshoots that aimed to lighten the tone, shifting it away from Snyder’s darker style.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Major reshoots reworked the third act, changing tone from war-heavy bleakness to a more structured, heroic narrative while still retaining its darker edge.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were replaced by Ron Howard, shifting the film from a comedic style to a safer, traditional tone.

Suicide Squad

After trailers emphasizing humor were well received, reshoots added jokes and a lighter tone, significantly altering the film’s original darker direction.

World War Z

The entire third act was scrapped and rewritten, shifting from a large-scale action finale to a quieter, suspense-driven ending.

The Emperor’s New Groove

Originally conceived as a serious epic titled Kingdom of the Sun, it was reworked into a fast-paced comedy during production after major creative struggles.

Frozen

Elsa was initially written as a villain, but after “Let It Go,” the story was rewritten to make her sympathetic, fundamentally changing the film’s tone.

I Am Legend

The original ending reframed the creatures as intelligent, but the final version changed tone toward a more traditional action-hero conclusion.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Late-stage changes pushed the film toward franchise setup and spectacle, altering its tone from character-focused to heavily serialized.

The Wolfman

Reshoots and editing changes attempted to reshape the tone from atmospheric horror into something more action-oriented.

Payback

The original darker cut was replaced with a more humorous, stylized version after extensive reshoots and studio intervention.

The New Mutants

Initially pitched as a straight horror film, delays and reshoots shifted it toward a more traditional superhero tone.

First Blood

Originally had a much darker ending, but changes during production shifted the tone toward a more heroic and franchise-friendly conclusion.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The ending and character arcs were altered late in production, changing emotional tone and romantic resolution.

Dark Phoenix

The third act was heavily reworked during reshoots, changing tone and scale after comparisons to other superhero films.

20 People Share the Movie They’ll Always Recommend

What’s the difference between a movie you love and a movie you’d recommend? It’s simple really: while something you love might be an acquired taste, what you recommend needs to be tailor made for someone unaware of the subject or genre. Therefore, a movie you recommend can either be a way into a genre, a franchise, or just new conversations.

A certain Reddit post went on the mission of finding just that, the movies people recommend the most. We’ve selected the 20 best examples so you know what to watch next, or what to recommend to your uninitiated friends.

Goodfellas

A fast-paced crime epic that blends narration, style, and character work, making it one of the most engaging and endlessly quotable gangster films ever made.

The Count of Monte Cristo

A satisfying revenge story with clear stakes and strong pacing, delivering emotional payoff while keeping the narrative easy to follow and consistently engaging.

Young Frankenstein

A parody that perfectly captures classic horror aesthetics while delivering sharp, timeless comedy that still lands with modern audiences.

The Truman Show

A unique premise executed with emotional depth, balancing satire and humanity while building toward a memorable and thought-provoking conclusion.

Galaxy Quest

A clever sci-fi comedy that respects its source inspirations, blending humor and sincerity into a story that works for both fans and newcomers.

The Thing

A tense, atmospheric horror film where paranoia drives the narrative, supported by practical effects that still hold up decades later.

Stand by Me

A coming-of-age story that feels grounded and personal, with strong performances and a nostalgic tone that resonates across generations.

Schindler’s List

A powerful historical drama that combines stark realism with emotional storytelling, leaving a lasting impact through its subject matter and performances.

Groundhog Day

A simple premise explored in depth, blending comedy and philosophy while maintaining tight pacing and a satisfying character arc.

Coming to America

A comedy driven by memorable characters and performances, with humor that remains effective thanks to its charm and cultural impact.

Heathers

A dark comedy that pushes boundaries with its tone, offering sharp commentary while maintaining a distinct and memorable style.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

An action sequel that improves on the original with stronger emotional stakes, groundbreaking effects, and a tightly structured story.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

A witty, self-aware crime comedy with rapid-fire dialogue and strong chemistry that keeps the story entertaining throughout.

The Mummy

A fun adventure that balances action, horror, and humor, elevated by strong pacing and charismatic performances.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian

A satirical comedy that remains relevant through its sharp writing, blending absurd humor with pointed social commentary.

Good Will Hunting

A character-driven drama that focuses on personal growth, anchored by strong performances and emotionally resonant dialogue.

Howl’s Moving Castle

A visually rich fantasy that blends imagination with emotional themes, offering a unique and memorable viewing experience.

The Matrix

A genre-defining film that combines action and philosophy, delivering a clear concept with lasting influence on cinema.

The Silence of the Lambs

A psychological thriller driven by performances and tension, maintaining a gripping tone from start to finish.

The Iron Giant

An animated film that blends simplicity with emotional depth, creating a story that resonates strongly with audiences of all ages.

Daredevil: Born Again Adapts One of the Most Interesting Bullseye Stories

This article contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again season 2 episode 4.

“Gloves Off,” the fourth episode of Daredevil: Born Again‘s second season opens with a bang. Dex Pointdexter, the assassin known as Bullseye, walks into an old-timey diner, orders a milkshake, and calls the Anti-Vigilante Police Force. When the cops arrive, Bullseye begins slaughtering them in his inimitable manner, throwing cups, utensils, and anything else he can find with deadly precision. After killing off all of the police, Bullseye turns to a frightened diner, who begs for his life.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Bullseye responds with a smile. “I’m one of the good guys.”

That moment was a longtime coming for Bullseye fans, not just because it finally turns Dex, who started out as a grounded character with a troubled mind, into a full-on supervillain. The moment also recalls a fantastic storyline from the comics, when Bullseye briefly joined the side of the angels—in his own uniquely murderous way.

Unsurprisingly, Bullseye’s face-turn occurred with the Thunderbolts, that team of superheroes masquerading as heroes. Bullseye’s tenure began with a particularly fraught version of the team, one that came to be amidst a period of turmoil in the Marvel Universe. After the superhero Civil War that saw Tony Stark and others turn against their comrades in capes to enforce a superhuman registration act, the government used S.H.I.E.L.D. to take a stronger role in the affairs of heroes and villains.

Businessman and sometime Green Goblin Norman Osborn used the disruption of the Civil War to take control of the Thunderbolts, which had become Marvel’s answer to the Suicide Squad, a team of villains forced to do dangerous missions on behalf of the U.S. government. In that position, Osborn forced Bullseye onto the team and used him as a private assassin.

However, Osborn’s greatest move came at the end of the Secret Invasion, during which Earth’s leaders discovered that shapeshifting Skrulls have been living among us, waiting to launch a hostile takeover of the planet. Thanks to his public actions against the Skrull, including killing their leader on live television, Osborn was promoted to Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., from which he transformed his Thunderbolts into the new Avengers. Venom became the new Spider-Man. The White Widow Yelena Belova, more amoral than her MCU counterpart, became the new Black Widow. And Bullseye took the guise of Hawkeye.

In most Thunderbolts stories, the villain starts to imagine that they can find redemption and become heroes. Not so with Bullseye. Instead, he was simply thrilled to get the chance to kill people and not have to worry about heroes getting in the way.

His attitude is captured in 2009’s Dark Avengers #2, written by Brian Michael Bendis and penciled by Mike Deodato Jr. After the press conference that announces the new version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the team gathers in Avengers Tower to bask in their new glory. “You know, it’s too bad I killed my mother in high school, she would have loved this,” Bullseye says as he pulls off his Hawkeye gear. In the next panel, he turns to his shocked teammates and says, “Just kidding. She wouldn’t a’ cared.”

As much as Bullseye seems to relish his new role, the conflict between his public persona as Hawkeye and his desires as a costumed killer create tension, which gets explored in the five-part miniseries Dark Reign: Hawkeye, written by Andy Diggle and penciled by Tom Raney. After he murders an innocent woman, the same woman he saved as Hawkeye, to keep his secret safe, Bullseye finds himself angry that Hawkeye is getting credit for his kills. He begins to hallucinate another Bullseye, his “true” self who mocks him for losing his identity to a weak Avenger.

Dark Reign: Hawkeye represents one of the few times that Bullseye as a character gets a psychological evaluation. Unlike his TV counterpart, the Bullseye of the comics has almost no backstory, and doesn’t even have a proper name—”Lester” is the closest thing to a secret identity that ever comes up. By giving him a fractured psyche, the Dark Reign: Hawkeye gives Bullseye proper depth.

Before “Gloves Off,” Bullseye suffered from having too much depth and not enough supervillain psychosis. Now that Born Again is letting Bullseye be an unrepentant killer, his Dark Avengers tenure can be a guide, showing how much a bad guy can have when he’s acting like he’s good.

Daredevil: Born Again season streams new episodes every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on Disney+.

Chris Pratt Got Confirmation About a Long-Rumored Super Mario Glitch

Today, anyone having trouble with a video game can just log onto the internet and find countless walkthroughs, guides, and tutorials. But back when Super Mario Bros. first arrived on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, we mostly had to get advice from other kids at school. Unsurprisingly, the playground approach led to an endless mix of truth and legend, where the sequence of the Konami code blended with tall tales about uncles who worked at Nintendo.

But Chris Pratt, who voices Mario in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, assures Den of Geek that one of the most famous playground tales is true. “There was a glitch, and it was confirmed to me the other night as I sat across from Miyamoto-san at dinner,” Pratt reveals, recalling his conversation with game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. “That was a glitch that they did not pick up in level three, where you could jump on a turtle when you’re at the edge of a screen and get a million free lives.”

For the youngsters who don’t know what Pratt’s talking about: in World 3 Level 1 of Super Mario Bros. you can use Mario to kick a green Koopa shell against a staircase. If you time it right, you can make Mario jump on the shell as it ricochets back, which will send Mario back up into the air to land on the shell again and kick it back toward the staircase.

The act creates an infinite loop, with Mario landing on the shell to kick the shell to stop it and kick it back to the staircase. Each time Mario jumps on the shell, the player receives points. Eventually, those points turn into 1-Ups, allowing the player to accumulate infinite lives.

Apparently, Mario designer Miyamoto did not intend for that to happen, but liked to reward players who figured it out, says Pratt’s co-star Charlie Day, a.k.a. Luigi in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. “Miyamoto said that there’s some glitches that they would discover and decide to leave in the game as fun things for people to find,” Day explains. “There were one or two that got past them, and that was one.”

Nice as it is to have the rumor confirmed by the man who gave us Mario, Pratt has fond memories of forming friendships over the NES. “I first played Super Mario Bros. probably in ’89, when I got my first Nintendo. I had played the arcade version of Mario, but also my neighbor Ron Wurst had a Nintendo.

“I was like, ‘That’s the game from the laundromat!’ and we played it, and that was the first time that you controlled it with left and right and up and down buttons instead of a joystick. I was like, ‘Wow, this will never take off.’

“Cut to a maybe a year or so later, my mom somehow tracked down a Nintendo from a pawn shop, meaning we were playing on a stolen Nintendo,” Pratt continues. “It was unreal, because it was the nicest gift we’ve ever gotten.”

“I probably first played it when it came out in 1986,” recalls Day. “My sister and I got a Nintendo, a lot of kids in my neighborhood was getting it, everyone was getting it. Everyone was playing it.

“The thing really coming back to me is finding the hidden levels, knowing that you could get to the top [of underground stages] and run along the bricks at the top of the level. There was no internet, so it was all word-of-mouth. One of our friends had to discover that and tell everybody at school.”

As the people who bring Mario and Luigi to life on the big screen, Pratt and Day no longer have to rely on such primitive techniques. They can get the answers from Miyamoto himself. But there’s still something magical about those early, innocent days of a pre-Internet childhood, a feeling of magic that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hopes to recreate for a new generation.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is in theaters now.

The Boys: Vought Rising Creator Promises to Take an L.A. Confidential Approach to WWII

Superheroes would not exist without World War II. Sure, Superman debuted three years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor prompted the U.S. to join the battle, and was influenced more by economic and immigration concerns than any desire for international combat. But superhero comics became a favorite of G.I.s, so much that the industry suffered a near-fatal collapse when soldiers returned home, and left Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman behind.

That fact alone is enough to justify the series Vought Rising, a prequel to The Boys that looks at the early adventures of Soldier Boy and other heroes from the era. However, The Boys creator Eric Kripke added an additional wrinkle in his conversation with EW when he compared the show to a beloved neo-noir. “I would define [Vought Rising] as L.A. Confidential with superheroes,” he said. “It’s a murder-mystery, and it’s got that noir-ish — not Black Noir, but actual noir — movin’ through the streets and femme fatales and detectives, but also heroin dens and gay bars and pill-popping and famous people.”

L. A. Confidential, of course, is the 1997 Best Picture nominee directed by Curtis Hanson, based on the novel by James Ellroy. Set in the early 1950s, L.A. Confidential follows a group of LAPD officers dealing with crimes related to Hollywood. Guy Pierce and Russell Crowe play Edmund Exley and Bud White, respectively, the former an upright son of a legendary detective and the latter a brute who fancies himself a protector of women. The two investigate crimes related to a business that surgically modifies sex workers to resemble Hollywood actresses (including one played by Kim Basinger, who won Best Supporting Actress for her part), which reveals corruption in the department. Some of that corruption involves Hollywood Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a well-known detective who serves as consultant on the hit procedural Badge of Honor.

As the summary above suggests, L.A. Confidential addresses pop culture’s role in mythologizing police work, a phenomenon we today call “Copaganda.” Badge of Honor is a loose stand-in for Dragnet, the radio show turned hit television series that popularized the police procedural and changed the public’s perception of police as corrupt and fallible (see Keystone Cop comedies, Charlie Chaplin silent shorts, or characters such as Sergeant Heath from S. S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance series for a better reflection of the police’s reputation at the time).

Nowhere is that more clear than in the scene that opens the movie, in which a group of cops, drunk during their holiday party, realize that a group of Latino men are being held in lock-up. Angered by the fact that a Latino man injured a fellow officer, the cops make their way downstairs and bully their way past the objecting Exeter to brutalize the captives.

That scene directly adapts an instance from history, the 1951 Bloody Christmas affair that left seven people with severe injuries. Bloody Christmas happened under the watch of Chief of Police William H. Parker, who, like his predecessor August Vollmer, crusaded against those who would criticize police in the media. To improve the public’s opinion of law enforcement, Parker worked with radio producer and actor Jack Webb to create Dragnet, providing case files for Webb’s stories and, of course, “consulting” on the production.

The connection between Badge of Honor and Dragnet, and the seamy tale of corruption in both the police department and Hollywood allows L.A. Confidential to show how our heroes fall short of their squeaky-clean image. Which is exactly what makes it a good model for The Boys.

The Boys began life as a mean-spirited satire of superheroes by writer Garth Ennis and illustrator Darick Robertson. Kripke’s adaptation managed to find something humane and smart in the material, but that satirical edge remained. In fact, Kripke managed to make the take-down of superheroes into a jaundiced look at American politics, particularly the Right’s obsession with power in its most absurd and grotesque forms.

That obsession did not spring from nowhere. We can trace its roots all through American history, including the World War II era that saw the dawn of superheroes. While it is true that Superman started out a social crusader who took on exploitative landlords and saved people from death row, and it is true that Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston to advocate for men to lovingly submit to women’s rule, all superheroes remain power fantasies, and most stories from the era were about powerful people exerting their will against anyone who would disrupt the status quo.

In short, Kripke will find plenty to work with by looking back at the early days of Soldier Boy and Stormfront (played by a returning Jensen Ackles and Aya Cash). We already know that the series will follow a murder mystery structure and, as Kripke’s comments above reveal, it will play with the tropes of hard-boiled fiction and film noir.

In doing so, Vought Rising can do for Golden Age comics what L.A. Confidential did for early Copaganda, uncovering the unsavory assumptions that go into our moral mythologies, assumptions that continue to this day.

Vought Rising comes to Prime Video in 2027.

Avengers: Doomsday Theory Changes Everything About Tony Stark’s Endgame Death

Have we been thinking about Tony Stark’s tragic Avengers: Endgame death all wrong? A persistent Avengers: Doomsday fan theory suggests that we have, and the reasoning behind the theory is definitely compelling.

Ever since Robert Downey Jr. was revealed as the actor who would bring Marvel’s most beloved villain, Doctor Doom, to life in the MCU, we’ve asked ourselves why Doom would look like Tony Stark, who Downey Jr. portrayed from 2008 until Endgame in 2019. The directors working on Doomsday have stayed fairly tight-lipped about it, with the Russo brothers merely stating that there’s “no one else in the world” who could play the character like Downey Jr. will in the upcoming movie.

Perhaps there’s a good reason that Doom has Stark’s face. To understand the biggest theory about why the casting might make sense (other than money,) we need to go back to the events of Avengers: Infinity War, where Stark and sorcerer Stephen Strange battled Thanos to stop him from acquiring the Infinity Stones.

Before Thanos arrived, Strange looked ahead to 4,000,605 alternative futures to determine the outcome of their effort, and among those scenarios, he told Stark that he had witnessed only one in which the Avengers were successful. Up until the final moments of the battle in Endgame, Strange hadn’t informed Stark of what would have to happen for them to win. Seeing Strange raise a single finger at a pivotal moment, Stark suddenly knew that he would have to sacrifice himself to snap away Thanos and his minions for good. It was a tragic, noble death that had enormous ramifications for the MCU.

But what if Strange wasn’t revealing the whole truth? What if, when he was looking at all those versions of the future, he went beyond their run-in with Thanos and saw Doom wearing the familiar face of Tony Stark? In the blur of 4,000,605 futures, couldn’t Stark still very much stand out as the man in metal armor destroying reality? Wouldn’t he have thought the only way to save reality as we know it was to guide Stark into killing himself instead?

Strange was never the biggest fan of Stark, but he may have felt he needed to do everything in his power to avoid the future Doom is heading toward. Not yet having truly grasped the nuances of the multiverse, Strange may have assumed that at some point, Stark completely loses it and becomes the ultimate version of his worldview in Age of Ultron, but instead of trying to control everything by building a suit of armor around the world, he might attempt to control the multiverse, with catastrophic results. Strange may not have fully understood Doom’s unfamiliar armor, but his best bet may have been to find a way to take Stark out of the equation regardless. These are the kinds of cold decisions Strange has often had to make in the pages of Marvel Comics.

Though there’s plenty to dissuade us from buying into this theory, like assuming Strange wouldn’t have all the time in the world to explore those four million plus futures and establish the real difference between Stark and Doom, there’s also so much we don’t know about how everything comes together in Doomsday, and why Doom looks just like Stark. We didn’t even get to see Doom’s face in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and we still don’t know how Loki’s role as the steward of the multiverse affects the unfolding of events.

Fan theories are just that: theories. Most of them turn out to be nonsense. They’re fun to chat about and poke holes in, but they’re all we’ve got until Marvel unveils more of what Doomsday will bring audiences later this year. What we do know is that Downey Jr. has agreed to play Doom following his long tenure as Iron Man for a very specific reason, and our current set of superheroes looks up to Iron Man as a force for good. That may be their undoing.

TV Premiere Dates: 2026 Calendar

Wondering when your favorite shows are coming back and what new series you can look forward to? We’ve got you covered with the Den of Geek 2026 TV Premiere Dates Calendar, where we keep track of TV series premiere dates, return dates, and more for the year and beyond. 

We’ll continue to update this page weekly as networks and streamers announce dates. A lot of these shows we’ll be watching or covering, so be sure to follow along with us! 

Please note that all times are ET. 

Note: These are U.S. releases. For upcoming British releases, head on over here.

DATESHOWNETWORK
Thursday, April 9Big MistakesNetflix
Thursday, April 9BandiNetflix
Thursday, April 9Hacks Season 5HBO Max
Thursday, April 9The Miniature WifePeacock
Friday, April 10Temptation Island Season 2Netflix
Friday, April 10Turn of the Tides Season 3Netflix
Saturday, April 11Fist of the North StarPrime Video
Sunday, April 12At Home With the Furys Season 2Netflix
Sunday, April 12The Audacity (9:00 p.m.)AMC
Sunday, April 12Euphoria Season 3HBO
Tuesday, April 14CrooksNetflix
Tuesday, April 14The Dark WizardHBO
Tuesday, April 14You Don’t Know Where I’m From, DawgParamount+
Wednesday, April 15Fake Profile Season 3Netflix
Wednesday, April 15Made With LoveNetflix
Wednesday, April 15Million Dollar Secret Season 2Netflix
Wednesday, April 15The Law According to Lidia Poët Season 3Netflix
Wednesday, April 15Margo’s Got Money TroublesApple TV
Wednesday, April 15Love Island: Beyond the Villa Season 2Peacock
Thursday, April 16Beef Season 2Netflix
Thursday, April 16DandelionNetflix
Friday, April 17RoommatesNetflix
Friday, April 17American GladiatorsPrime Video
Saturday, April 18We Are All Trying HereNetflix
Sunday, April 19From Season 4 (9:00 p.m.)MGM+
Monday, April 20Funny AF With Kevin HartNetflix
Monday, April 20KevinPrime Video
Monday, April 20Sullivan’s Crossing (8:00 p.m.)The CW
Tuesday, April 21UnchosenNetflix
Wednesday, April 22This Is a Gardening ShowNetflix
Wednesday, April 22Million Dollar Secret Season 2Netflix
Wednesday, April 22SantitaNetflix
Wednesday, April 22Sold Out on YouNetflix
Wednesday, April 22Criminal Record Season 2Apple TV
Thursday, April 23Stranger Things: Tales from ’85Netflix
Thursday, April 23Running Point Season 2Netflix
Thursday, April 23FlunkedNetflix
Thursday, April 23Half ManHBO
Friday, April 24Naughty Business (Cochinas)Prime Video
Friday, April 24New Bandits Season 2Prime Video
Monday, April 27Straight to HellNetflix
Tuesday, April 28My Killer Father: The Green Hollow MurdersParamount+
Wednesday, April 29The House of the SpiritsPrime Video
Wednesday, April 29Widow’s BayApple TV
Thursday, April 30Man on FireNetflix
Monday, May 4Lord of the FliesNetflix
Thursday, May 7The Chestnut Man: Hide and SeekNetflix
Thursday, May 7M.I.A.Peacock
Friday, May 8UnconditionalApple TV
Monday, May 11Regular Show: The Lost TapesAdult Swim
Tuesday, May 12Devil May Cry Season 2Netflix
Tuesday, May 12U.S. Against the World: Four Years With the Men’s National Soccer Team (9:00 p.m.)HBO
Tuesday, May 12The Punisher: One Last KillDisney+
Wednesday, May 13Off CampusPrime Video
Friday, May 15Berlín and the Lady with an ErmineNetflix
Friday, May 15Rivals Season 2Hulu
Friday, May 15Dutton RanchParamount+
Thursday, May 21The BoroughsNetflix
Sunday, May 24Rick and Morty Season 9 (11:00 p.m.)Adult Swim
Wednesday, May 27Spider-NoirMGM+
Thursday, May 28The Four Seasons Season 2Netflix
Friday, May 29Star CityApple TV
Wednesday, June 3The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4Prime Video
Sunday, June 7The Vampire LestatAMC
Thursday, June 11Sweet Magnolias Season 5Netflix
Friday, June 19Sugar Season 2Apple TV
Thursday, June 25Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2Netflix
Friday, June 26Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Happiness (9:00 p.m.)HBO
Thursday, July 9Little House on the Prairie Season 1Netflix

If we’ve forgotten a show, feel free to drop a reminder in the comment section below!

Want to know what big movies are coming out in 2026? We’ve got you covered here.

From Méliès to Apollo 13: The Best Moon Movies

Humanity’s interest in the moon has never really wavered. This year’s Artemis II mission has proved that we’re still just as fascinated by space travel and exploration as we’ve ever been, and cinema has always been there along the way to help us imagine not just what it’s like to lift off into space, but the weirdness and isolation of actually being there.

Let’s take a look at some of the best moon movies ever made (and some that are so bad they’re good) as we travel to the moon and back.

Moon

Sam Rockwell dominates the screen in Duncan Jones’s directorial debut, Moon. It’s a showcase for the beloved yet still underrated actor, playing several versions of a miner working on the far side of the moon who, after three years of a solitary lunar shift, starts to question his reality. Featuring a haunting score by Clint Mansell, Moon is minimalist but atmospheric, and the answer to the slow-burning mystery surrounding Sam’s true nature lingers long after the credits roll, showing you can still make an enduring sci-fi movie on a low budget.

Apollo 13

Docudrama Apollo 13 features a stacked cast, with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, the late Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlan all on top form. The movie follows the Apollo 13 astronauts, who suffer an explosion on board their ship during a mission to the moon. On the ground, NASA has to find a way to bring the astronauts back safely. Ron Howard’s 1995 flick boasts impressive technical accuracy as it intercuts the action with actual news footage from the incident to recreate a powerful moment from the past in painstaking detail.

Moontrap

Cult movie Moontrap is pure pulp of the best kind, as Star Trek’s Walter Koenig and Bruce “Evil Dead” Campbell team up for a search-and-destroy moon mission to take out some killer cyborg alien…things. The details aren’t important. What’s important is that Moontrap is unapologetic, campy 80s sci-fi with neat practical effects and fun creature designs. It ticks along at a great pace until its 92 minutes are up, at which point you’ll wonder if it has a sequel. It does, and about twelve people have seen it; you could be lucky number 13!

First Man

Long before Project Hail Mary, Ryan Gosling went to space as Neil Armstrong in this thoughtful biopic that charts the years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission. First Man isn’t too interested in flashy sequences, preferring to linger on the isolation and psychological cost of being an astronaut during a dangerous time for space exploration, and Gosling puts in a restrained performance leading up to an unforgettably emotional scene on the surface of the moon. The movie might not have had the impact of Damien Chazelle’s other acclaimed movies, like La La Land and Whiplash, but it’s largely successful in telling Armstrong’s story from a new perspective.

Outland

Peter Hyams had already directed Capricorn One (an almost-moon movie) when he took on Outland, a gritty sci-fi thriller about a federal marshal (Sean Connery) trying to control mining colony chaos on the Jovian moon of Io (why restrict this list to Earth’s moon when there are so many more moons available?!) There’s some strong worldbuilding in this noirish tale, which follows Connery’s marshal as he begins to investigate some strange deaths with the help of the colony’s ballbusting doctor (Frances Sternhagen). It’s High Noon on Jupiter’s moon—what’s not to love?

A Trip to the Moon

A Trip to the Moon, or Le Voyage dans la Lune if you prefer (merci beaucoup) was the original moon movie. Director Georges Méliès was moved to make it after reading Jules Verne’s novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, and in his short, silent film, we track a group of plucky astronomers who fly right into the moon’s eye like a big pizza pie, only to discover a group of underground lunar aliens who don’t take too kindly to the interruption. Boasting innovative early special effects, the film’s whimsical ideas of space travel might seem a bit silly now, but they understood, on some level, that the sci-fi genre was going to be big, even if it took a while to properly catch on.

Avatar

Probably the biggest, most ambitious, and most expensive movie on this list, Avatar is the franchise that just won’t die, and it all started with James Cameron’s first movie about the habitable moon of Pandora and a very human threat to one of its local tribes, the Na’vi. When veteran Jake Sully is recruited to explore Pandora in a Na’vi-human hybrid body (the titular avatar) things go unexpectedly sideways for the human forces who are determined to mine the moon for its rare unobtanium mineral—they simply did not foresee Sully falling in love with a local, and that’s on them.

Destination Moon

It was a long time before cinema began to imagine what a real trip to the moon might be like, but in 1950, with the help of author Robert A. Heinlein and magnificent Technicolor, Destination Moon told the story of a group of American industrialists who had to privately fund and build a rocket to reach the moon, effectively bypassing government hand-wringing and bureaucracy. In the 21st century, the movie feels oddly prescient as private aerospace firms take the lead in developing rockets and space systems, with NASA and the U.S. government increasingly dependent on them.

Fly Me to the Moon

If you’re looking for something a little different, Apple’s historical rom-com Fly Me to the Moon is a pleasant love letter to NASA featuring two bankable, charming stars. In the most recent film on this list, marketing whizz Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) and NASA launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) wrestle with the idea of falsifying an Apollo 11 moon landing just in case the real one goes horribly wrong.

Moonfall

Look, not every sci-fi movie needs to be realistic, or even good! Sometimes you’re just in the mood for some absolute nonsense, and who better positioned to deliver some absolute nonsense than the man behind Independence Day and 2012? In Roland Emmerich’s box office flop Moonfall, two astronauts and a conspiracy theorist discover some weird shenanigans going on with the moon when it drifts out of orbit. To say any more about the plot (such as it is) would spoil some truly ludicrous twists and turns, but this cheesy B-movie is definitely worth a watch if your standards aren’t too high and you just want to watch some good old-fashioned CGI disaster scenes.

Family Movie Turns Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick’s Real Lives into Cinematic Horror

Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick have been on our screens for so long that we almost feel like we know them. And with their daughter Sosie starring in Smile and son Travis composing music for films such as Space Oddity and Carry the Darkness, the entire family is coming to us via screens big and small. So when all four of them work together in a movie—a film titled Family Movie, in fact—audiences cannot help but think they’re getting a glimpse into the real people.

Audiences would be wrong. “We don’t play ourselves in the movie,” Kevin Bacon tells Den of Geek, after Family Movie debuted at SXSW. But he does allow that he and his wife do spend a lot of time filming their experiences. “We are a weird sort of family,” he adds. “We have a lot of home videos, and we’ve worked in all kinds of formats, starting with VHS and VHSC, and then going to miniDV. There are piles and piles of them sitting in our family.”

Despite what movie audiences might think, Family Movie does not take place in that living room. Instead, it takes place during the production of a low-budget slasher created by a filmmaking family. When real people start dying, the family realizes that the line between fact and fiction has become horrifically blurry.

According to Sedgwick, inspiration came not from family experience, but from the needs of the moment. “It was really a matter of practicality,” she explains. “During COVID and the double strikes, we started to think about what we could do that didn’t need a lot of people and didn’t need permission. We thought of a family that makes horror movies together because we thought it was kind of funny.”

“We pitched [screenwriter] Dan Beers the idea of a family making horror movies,” Kevin elaborates. “He did Zoom meetings with all of us individually and not only asked us to talk about ourselves, but also to talk about each other.

“So he gathered all this information, and when we got the first draft of the script, we were like, ‘Holy shit, how did you even know that?’ And it’s not pieces of dirt, but ways of being: language, our ways of relating to each other. He really picked up on something.”

That level of attention to the family interactions allowed the cast to provide input throughout the filming process, as seen in a dance performed by Sosie’s character.

“I spent an embarrassing amount of time choreographing it, and then we spent an embarrassing amount of time rehearsing it,” she says, laughing. “But it’s really fun, and ended up being a cool part of the movie.”

“I think the movie definitely reflects all our personalities individually, and how we relate to each other,” says Travis. “But we’re still acting, we’re playing characters.”

“We’re not playing ourselves,” interjects Sedgwick, more definitively.

And yet, the very fact that they’re making a horror movie reflects a very real fact about the family and its relationship to the genre.

“Travis wanted to get me into horror probably before I was quite ready for it. He’s three years older than me and he was obsessed with it,” says Sosie. “We had some fights about the Halloween mask he would torture me with.

“But as the years went on, I did come around to it. Now, he’s my horror inspiration. He always has me over to his house, and we watch horror movies together.”

“I feel like it’s something that was more pushed toward me,” reveals Travis. “Of course, when I was interested in it, I went to my folks for suggestions, and they were all good suggestions.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t show you Friday the 13th,” Kevin interjects, referring to the 1980 movie that saw him play a teen who gets killed by Jason. “Because they didn’t look at our movies at all. Any of our movies, not just Friday the 13th.”

“We just went right into Freddy vs. Jason,” quips Travis.

And with that playful shot at his dad’s film, Travis reminds us that no matter how much they insist that they’re playing characters, Family Movie absolutely still reflects aspects of the Bacon family.

Family Movie premiered March 13 at the SXSW Film & TV Festival.

20 Nerds Share the Nerdiest Moment of Their Life

What qualifies as a nerd nowadays? It seems the term went from a derogatory description to a near compliment, yet not everyone ‘nerds out’ about everything they like. To actually have a moment of, let’s say, nerditude, you need to not only be knowledgeable about a topic, but so much so that it goes from fun quirk to concern raiser.

This reddit thread shows the nerdiest redditors at their best, and we’ve compiled them up here. Look in awe as the nerds of reddit share the moments where they, too, realize how much of a nerd they truly are.

Nuclear Explosion Tier List

This reddit poster not only knows several nuclear testing sites by heart, he can visually differentiate each mushroom cloud at a glance. Some people have podcasts in the background, this user seems to have nuclear explosions on a loop.

Fresh Prince of Manliana

While the hit TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was memorable for a multitude of reasons, its theme song is one of the most endeering parts. Hence why it’s no wonder a redditor used it as a baseline to recreate Cicero’s oration against Cataline in 63BC.

Star Wars Fan Smacks Someone Over Spoiler

Star Wars fans take their plots very seriously, but no one gets into any kind of physical agression unless the situation is too critical. But if you see someone in full costume, waiting for hours in line to watch the first of the prequels, you shouldn’t spoil the ending to them. You’ll be in danger of getting smacked right across the face.

A Real Rail Gun

Yes, rail guns are real, not just a neat weapon from a videogame. It’s kind of way they all look the same, with the two horizontal metal bars that seem to electrically shoot something. It has more to do with magnets, and a redditor made the real deal just for an electronics degree.

Dota: Dragon's Blood Mirana

Calling Friends By Their Gamer Tag

Gaming can create real relationships, but more often than not, you’ll be calling those friends by the name you met them as. This is why, when a redditor met a lot of his online friends in the flesh (during a DOTA 2 tournament), they decided to just stick to their game names instead. Hopefully, they weren’t too silly.

Intense LARPing Session

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of roleplay, especially when everyone is on board with it. A redditor told the story of how he was introducing a friend to the concept, but were caught by a friend who thought they were doing ‘something else’ behind closed doors. They were so embarassed they were caught, that they might as well have been doing something more ‘intimate.’

A Wild D&D Party

Dungeons & Dragons might not be the nerdiest hobby you can have, but it is certainly one of the most popular ones. Collegue students were enjoying a (quite noisy) D&D session when campus police busted in thinking they would find alcohol and who knows what else, but they only found oddly-shapped dice.

No Flirting Noticed

When trying to flirt with a nerd, the main thing you’ll need is clarity. If you ask them to help you with, say, a programming class final project (as a redditor tells it), they won’t notice your advances as they are too focused explaining the subject to you. This redditor only knows about it due to them being told after the fact.

Dragon Ball Z - Best Battles

Dragon Ball Z Life

One redditor tells the story of how he was spending an amazing afternoon with a friend, playing Dragon Ball Z games and listening to Dragon Ball Z music in the background. Eventually, they check their phones only to realize they both had several missed calls. The phones weren’t silenced, but both of them had some Dragon Ball Z song as a ringtone, and it blended into the background.

Battle Tag Dating

Many of these stories are about dating, a crucial part to realize just how much of a nerd someone is. When a particular redditor was asked for their ‘sc,’ their gamer instinct kicked in and they assumed StarCraft. So they gave that person their Battle Tag. They were asking for their Snapchat.

Gary Gygax Obituary

When Gary Gygax passed in 2008, many D&D nerds wanted to pay homage to the father of their hobby on their own way. Two particular nerds went to the woods, drew a pentagram, proceeded to light a symbolic fire and drink soda from a plastic goblet. That is either someone’s nerdiest moment or the start of a succesful witchcraft career.

Jedi Safe Word

Nerding out about a topic can be overwhelming for people who don’t know the subject. One redditor comments how a friend had them develop a ‘safe word’ for when they were taking their fanatism too far. Too bad they didn’t share what that word was… probably something regarding 66.

No Girlfriends Allowed

When your nerdy boyfriend tells you he has a 16-person Halo LAN party planned, know that it isn’t that kind of party. The redditor says that, although warned, his girlfriend at the time showed up and it ended up why they broke up.

Dog Quest

Contrary to popular belief, dogs don’t know English. But they do pick up certain words, particularly the ones that involve food or going out for a walk. Well, one redditor taught their dog an entire phrase, so when the dog hears “we’re going on a quest,” it knows it means going out for a walk.

Battlefront LARP

A camp counselor organized a Battlefront LARP session with middle schoolers, using pool noddles as light sabers, and got so into it that he organized background music and speeches to go with it. He even joined the action, and considering they were over 30 kids, the main feat was keeping the event in check.

Binary Cake

A redditor was out with his wife looking for birthday candles, and she was turning 32. Not old by any means, but certainly too many candles to put on a cake, unless you find candles shapped like a 3 and a 2. The redditor went with 6 regular candles, and only lit the first. Because 100000 in binary is 32.

Ancient CD

This one is less about being a nerd and more about being old, but one redditor is particularly proud of a scar on their ankle. It was from repeatedly changing CDs from the tray on the computer, which used to be on ankle level back in the stone age.

Steamy Tutorial

After dating for a week, a redditor tells the story of how him and this girl ended up getting real close at his house. Yet before things could escalate, she asks about the Magic the Gathering cards on his shelf. They ended up playing several games before anything else happened, yet somehow that wasn’t the end of the relationship.

Unit of Measurement

Potatoes can be used for a lot of things, and according to a redditor, as a unit of measurement as well! It seems that a lot of nerdy reddit users do this, since many have gathered around this post and shared how they measure things in snails, cats, and even toasts.

Strange Pet

Having an axolotl as a pet is, while weird, not the most nerdy thing in the world. What is nerdy is hosting entire lectures about their physiology, relationship to Aztec myth and culture, Aztec mythology and the Spanish conquest of Mexico. All from the slightest of prompts.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – A Decade Since Fandom Broke

There was a time, not so long ago, when the mere thought of “fandom” filled folks with joy. Or at least amusement. In our modern world, where everything’s oversaturated by fine, algorithm-tuned hater content on YouTube, manosphere misanthropy on X and Reddit, and review-bombing at Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd, it is sometimes hard to remember those early “Wild West” days of the internet. But back then, and even during a good chunk of the 2010s, fan culture was seen as a unifying force by the converted, and a harmless pastime by the agnostic. It was never fully a source for division and despair.

There are many flashpoints that led to this transition from the geek’s golden age to a modern era of acrimony and internecine conflict in which the definition of “true fans” is constantly drawn into question. The first large-scale attempt to drive fan complaints and grievances toward coordinated bigotry (often with heaps of misogynistic harassment baked in) was “Gamergate” in late 2014. And for casual, non-terminally online civilians, it probably became a more recognizable in the aftermath of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a movie which grossed $1.3 billion, earned glowing reviews, and still left online Star Wars fans so frenzied that small portions harassed its female stars until they left social media… and Disney cravenly caved to their demands in the sequel by minimizing the non-white characters and largely undoing everything transgressive about The Last Jedi.

And yet, in lieu of last month’s 10th anniversary milestone for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice coming and going, I think it’s worth acknowledging how this decade of decline started becoming undeniable following this very specific kind of pop culture car wreck. Before the spring of 2016, online nerdiness was generally seen as a form of escapism. Afterward, superhero movies, and soon enough pop culture writ large, became just another battleground in the ceaseless culture wars that plague us to this day.

Unto itself, Batman v Superman, nor the people who made the film, including director Zack Snyder and screenwriter Chris Terrio, can be blamed for this fan reaction (at least in 2016). To their credit, they sought to make a more ambitious epic than what had quickly become the superhero movie boilerplate of the 2010s thanks to the glut of Marvel Studios films. If Marvel movies were uniformly light, colorful (if in costume and not cinematography), and defined by a sense of winking self-effacement that frequently undercut any dramatic heft in favor of nudge-nudge easter eggs, then Snyder sought to make BvS grandiose, operatic, and endlessly dour.

Despite Superman and Batman often being contrasted by their varying sense of light and dark, hope and gloom, in the comics, Snyder’s vision of the DC Universe was uniformly gray, oppressive, and frankly nihilistic. Heroism is treated as a fool’s errand, with no less than the Man of Tomorrow glumly conceding at one point to Lois Lane that “no one stays good in this world.” Batman v Superman wanted to be aggressively “adult,” but that aggression came across more as adolescent angst to many critics at the time (including myself). It certainly suggested a more thoughtful world of realpolitik consequences for superheroes, with Superman at one point being subpoenaed to appear on Capitol Hill before a hostile committee hearing—albeit the way Snyder glibly then blows up that institution in the film’s second ham-fisted attempt to evoke 9/11 comes off less profound than it does desperate.

Indeed, that gap between aspiration and actual achievement is one of the reasons BvS remains so divisive to this day as simply a film. Critics largely loathed it, with the film still sitting at a bleak 28 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and general audiences were not far behind. In spite of opening at a gargantuan $166 million, the film dropped an astounding 69.1 percent in its second weekend, suggesting an unsatisfied audience—and for that matter studio, which in the pre-COVID 2010s expected every major superhero event to be able to cross $1 billion like The Dark Knight Rises did four years earlier. Instead BvS tapped out at $874 million and was perceived as a disappointment by WB. (An irony now since the newest Superman movie is considered a success after crossing $600 million in 2025.) 

To be sure, WB had good reason to fret. As strongly hinted by its unwieldy title, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was intended to be a clumsy shortcut to the studio’s very own Avengers movie, with two such Marvel crossovers in the previous four years already grossing $2.9 billion between them. But the general mainstream audience reaction to BvS was so sour that, sure enough, the following year’s Justice League was received with a shudder of indifference in the marketplace. The film opened to $93.8 million—a disastrous 44 percent down from Batman v Superman—and ultimately grossed only $661.3 million worldwide. This was a year after Marvel’s own nominal “Captain America vs. Iron Man” movie picked up a cool $1.1 billion, and barely six months removed from the next official Avengers movie grossing $2.1 billion in 2018.

Speaking purely in dollars and cents, the “DC Extended Universe,” or whatever else you want to call it, had been a commercial disappointment up to that point.

However, fandom (thankfully) is not defined purely by dollars, cents, or corporate bottom lines. It springs from what people like, and a healthy subset of DC fans liked Batman v Superman, and Snyder’s Man of Steel too. Some even came of age when these movies were in theaters and found nostalgic value in all of the above, and hell, David Ayer’s helter-skelter Suicide Squad too!

So they had reason to be disappointed in the fact that WB effectively “canceled” the DCEU as it was originally conceived by Snyder and screenwriters like Terrio and David Ayer. They perhaps more rightly deserved to be frustrated, too, by 2017’s Justice League being a Frankenstein’s Monster of a production, with Snyder being pressured to leave in post-production during a time of personal tragedy in his life; all so WB could bring in Joss Whedon to rewrite and ghost-direct large portions of the movie into something a little more zippy and tonally discordant with the rest of the picture.

Creatively speaking, fans, and most assuredly Snyder, had good reason to be disappointed with Justice League. The eventual “Snyder Cut” of the production released on HBO Max during the pandemic in 2021 is an assuredly better film (although at an indulgent 242 minutes, hardly the masterpiece his most ardent defenders make it out to be). Still, we’d argue his vision never did connect with a larger audience, and the 2017 cut of Justice League’s bitter opening weekend bears that out. Audiences rejected the movie even before seeing the committee-room compromise that WB had made in a panic.

Beyond the quality of either of these two movies—or three if you count the two cuts of Justice League as effectively separate films—what remains as the greatest legacy of BvS is how it shaped DC fandom, the superhero movie genre, and just fan culture at-large in the decade that followed. The divisive reception to Dawn of Justice wasn’t just a death knell for the DCEU as it then existed, but of any broader sense of online enthusiasm that previously marked the announcement of a new IP-leaning film.

2013’s Man of Steel, also directed by Snyder, was fairly divisive in its own right, but its flaws did not dim the excitement for either BvS or Suicide Squad three years later. Nor was the prequel trilogy of Star Wars films in the 2000s—hardly critical triumphs in their own time—treated as an albatross around the 2010s’ shiny new Star Wars trilogy from Disney. At least not at first.

Admittedly the quality of these 2010s studio tentpole extravaganzas played a big role in the shifting tastes of audiences—personally I cannot think of many worse geek-targeted spectacles than The Rise of Skywalker or Justice League—but it is fair to argue fan culture itself changed for the worse in the aftermath. Not only would Justice League be judged for the sins of BvS and the studio that abandoned its director in its aftermath, but so would every DC film released henceforth.

To this day, a small but vocal contingent of online fans persist in posting daily on X, Reddit, or their neighborhood HoA boards about how much they hate the new James Gunn Superman films because they don’t star Henry Cavill as an Ayn Randian Übermensch. And no Star Wars film, TV show, or lunchbox can be announced or released without preemptive backlash on TikTok. 

In this course of things, fandom has changed from being a refuge for nerds to another exhausting outlet for purveyors of conflict. Indeed, as first teased by the Gamergate episode of 2014/15, bad faith opportunists and political hacks can make entire careers out of gaming YouTube algorithms with content designed to enrage and radicalize, often by perceiving any fan-friendly film or TV show starring a woman or person of color as an attack on (white) culture and therefore “tragic.” And to be sure, this early-20th century, Aryan-coded view of Western culture fits snugly with the Batman/Superman film where the Dark Knight muses, “My parents taught me a different lesson dying in the gutter for no reason at all. They told me the world only makes sense if you force it to.”

Maybe, in the end, it’s a good thing if the fandom wars of the last decade teach the next generation not to invest so much of their personality and interest in products owned by corporate entities who have turned out to be quite susceptible to reactionary political pressures. Increasingly, superheroes, Star Wars, and their ilk are perceived as a Millennials-and-up fantasies, with their multigenerational appeal ebbing for the first time in decades as younger gens opt out of dealing with all that fire. Why would you when there’s anime, K-Pop, Minecraft, and Roblox to play with?

Nonetheless, it’s a shame to see what once was a sanctuary for giddy geekiness dragged down into Martha Wayne’s monochrome gutter.

Movie Details That Only Make Sense After You Know the Twist

Some movies are designed to be experienced twice. The first time, you follow the story as it unfolds. The second time, you start noticing everything that was hiding in plain sight. From subtle dialogue choices to background details and character behavior, certain films quietly lay the groundwork for their biggest reveals long before they happen.

These are carefully placed hints that only click once you know the truth. Looking back, it’s often surprising how obvious they seem. These are the details that reward attentive viewers and make revisiting a film feel like discovering it all over again.

The Sixth Sense

Malcolm is never shown interacting with anyone except Cole, and his wife never acknowledges him, details that feel natural until the twist reframes every scene.

Fight Club

Tyler Durden is never seen interacting independently with others, and subtle continuity errors hint at the shared identity long before the reveal.

Shutter Island

Staff members treat Teddy cautiously and speak in coded language, behavior that only makes sense once his true identity is revealed.

The Others

The house rules about darkness and silence mirror the family’s actual condition, and the “intruders” behave like frightened occupants, not aggressors.

The Prestige

Borden’s behavior, including inconsistent mannerisms and relationships, only aligns once the truth about his identity is revealed.

Parasite

The house’s architecture and layout subtly foreshadow hidden spaces, with early scenes quietly setting up the basement reveal.

The Usual Suspects

Verbal Kint’s story pulls details from objects around him, which only becomes obvious after the final reveal of his identity.

Memento

Leonard’s confidence in his system clashes with small inconsistencies, which gain meaning once his self-deception becomes clear.

Black Swan

Hallucinations and shifting realities appear subtle at first, but later clarify that many interactions may not have happened as shown.

Arrival

Scenes that appear to be flashbacks are actually glimpses of the future, recontextualizing the entire emotional structure of the film.

The Village

The creatures’ limitations and the elders’ behavior only make sense once the true nature of the setting is revealed.

Oldboy

The protagonist’s interactions and emotional reactions take on a disturbing new meaning once the truth behind his imprisonment is revealed.

The Game

Strange coincidences and escalating events feel chaotic until the twist reframes them as orchestrated elements of a controlled experience.

Donnie Darko

Seemingly random events and cryptic dialogue gain coherence once the film’s time loop mechanics are understood.

The Machinist

Trevor’s paranoia and physical decline are filled with clues that point toward his guilt, only fully understood after the reveal.

Hereditary

Background details, symbols, and character behavior quietly foreshadow the film’s outcome, becoming much clearer after the ending.

The Book of Eli

Eli’s behavior and combat style hint at his condition, details that only fully make sense once the twist is revealed.

20 People Share Their “10/10, No Notes” Movie

There is no such thing as a “perfect movie,” since the people that make films are just as human as you and I, and we are all prone to mistakes. We are also prone to like things more than others, so while there might not be an objectively perfect movie, there might be one for you.

At least that’s what the people in r/AskReddit think, since when prompted, they all simply answered what their 10/10 movie was. Below are my picks for best movies from that post, since I’m just as biased as all those redditors are.

Alien

A horror, sci-fi and survival thriller that nails all aspects of those genres and builds upon them. Not only a birth of a franchise, but with no wasted scenes, it is a masterclass of cinema.

Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls

Mean Girls

A constant source of comedy gold, it even had a musical remake/sequel in 2024. Still, nothing holds up like the original, with quotable lines that remain as fetch as ever.

My Cousin Vinny

A courtroom comedy that balances humor and legal accuracy, with sharp dialogue and standout performances that make every scene feel purposeful and endlessly rewatchable.

The Emperor’s New Groove

Fast-paced and relentlessly funny, the film wastes no time, delivering constant jokes, memorable characters, and a tone that never overstays its welcome.

The Incredibles

A rare superhero film that blends family drama with action, maintaining strong pacing and emotional stakes while delivering one of Pixar’s most cohesive stories.

The Princess Bride

A perfect mix of romance, comedy, and adventure, with endlessly quotable dialogue and a story that appeals equally to kids and adults.

Matilda

A charming adaptation that balances dark humor with heartfelt moments, anchored by strong performances and a tone that respects its young audience.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

A sequel that surpasses the original with groundbreaking effects, tight pacing, and a compelling emotional core that elevates its action.

Jurassic Park

Combining practical effects and early CGI, the film delivers awe and suspense, with clean storytelling that keeps tension high throughout.

The Truman Show

A concept-driven story executed with precision, balancing satire and emotion while building toward a satisfying and thought-provoking conclusion.

The Thing

A masterclass in paranoia and practical effects, where atmosphere and distrust drive the tension from beginning to end.

The Shawshank Redemption

A slow-building drama that pays off every setup, delivering emotional resonance and a widely praised, deeply satisfying ending.

The Matrix

Blending philosophy with action, the film introduces a groundbreaking concept and executes it with clarity, style, and lasting influence. Shame it never got a sequel.

Wall-E and Eve Dancing

WALL-E

A largely dialogue-free opening showcases visual storytelling at its best, combining environmental themes with a heartfelt, universally accessible narrative.

Office Space

A sharply observed workplace comedy that resonates through its relatable frustrations, memorable characters, and consistent comedic tone.

Back to the Future

A tightly constructed time travel story where every detail pays off, maintaining momentum and charm from start to finish.

Galaxy Quest

A loving parody that stands on its own, balancing satire and sincerity while delivering a surprisingly heartfelt sci-fi adventure.

The Mummy

A perfect blend of action, horror, and humor, with strong pacing and charismatic leads that make it consistently entertaining.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

A blockbuster that balances spectacle and character work, elevated by a standout performance and a tightly structured adventure.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

A sequel that surprises with emotional depth, striking animation, and a story that resonates beyond its fairy tale premise.

16 Films That Changed Their Whole Ending at the Last Minute

Movies often begin production with a firm ending in mind, yet things can change depending on a variety of factors. Behind the scenes, endings can change due to test screenings, studio pressure, or a shift in creative direction late in production. Making these sorts of changes gets quite costly.

These last-minute decisions can completely reshape a film’s message, tone, and impact. What makes it to theaters isn’t always the first version imagined, and in some cases, it’s not even close.

I Am Legend

Originally ended with Neville surviving and realizing the creatures had intelligence, but test audiences preferred a more heroic sacrifice, leading to a reshot theatrical ending. Neither ending has anything to do with the original book’s ending.

Blade Runner

The original cut had a darker, ambiguous ending, but the studio added narration and a happier conclusion using leftover footage from another film.

Fatal Attraction

Originally ended with Glenn Close’s character taking her own life, but after negative audience reactions, the ending was changed to a more violent confrontation.

Get Out

Director Jordan Peele originally planned a bleak ending where Chris is arrested, but changed it to a more hopeful version following early screenings.

Little Shop of Horrors

The original ending had the plant conquering the world, but test audiences disliked it, leading to a reshot, more upbeat finale.

World War Z

The entire third act was rewritten and reshot, replacing a large-scale battle ending with a more contained, suspense-driven conclusion.

Felicity Jones in Rogue One

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Extensive reshoots altered the final act significantly, changing character fates and restructuring how the ending connects to the larger franchise.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Originally ended with Scott ending up with Knives, but was changed to Ramona after feedback and alignment with the comic’s conclusion.

28 Days Later

Several endings were filmed, including a darker hospital ending, but a more hopeful conclusion was chosen for the theatrical release.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Originally, the protagonists lose the final match, but the ending was changed after audiences rejected the downbeat conclusion.

Paranormal Activity

Multiple endings were tested, including police involvement and different character fates, before settling on the theatrical version.

Titanic

An alternate ending featuring present-day characters reacting to the necklace was filmed but cut in favor of a more emotional, streamlined conclusion.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

A future-set epilogue showing Sarah Connor as an elderly woman was removed to preserve the film’s ambiguity.

Army of Darkness

Different endings exist, including a darker version where Ash oversleeps into a ruined future, replaced by a more upbeat theatrical ending.

Salt

Multiple endings were filmed with different implications about Evelyn Salt’s fate, with the theatrical version chosen late in production.

1408

Several alternate endings exist, ranging from survival to death, with different versions released depending on the format.

The Boys Season 5 Premiere Review: So Close to the Bone It Saws Straight Through It

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 5 episodes 1 and 2.

When we last saw The Boys at the end of season 4, things were a real mess. Hughie, Frenchie, and Mother’s Milk had been marched off to a “Freedom Camp,” Butcher’s health was deteriorating after taking a concoction of Temp-V and Compound-V, and Homelander had taken over the United States. In the opening two episodes of season 5, things are still a real mess.

As the final season kicks off, a light at the end of the tunnel is quickly extinguished. Annie’s resistance manages to hijack one of Homelander’s events to broadcast footage of his botched Flight 37 rescue mission, only for Vought to spin the horrifying scene as an AI-generated hoax. Homelander, humiliated by the attempted smear, insists on stamping out any ill feeling toward him by convincing Sister Sage that posting derogatory memes about him should be a crime.

Scenes from the Freedom Camp are also grim, as some struggle to keep hope alive under the watchful eye of Supe guards (including the OP Cindy,) along with the frequent beatings they dish out.

Luckily, Butcher formulates a plan to rescue them that includes pulling Kimiko out of Manila and using a tunnel-digging Supe to get them into the camp, but former Seven member A-Train, now a trusted ally, meets his maker in the rescue attempt, hunted down by Homelander after saving Hughie from certain death. RIP to a real one. At least he died mocking Homelander and making him feel like a total waste of space, which is pretty much all we can ask for in a situation like this.

Homelander’s ego takes such a knock that he unthaws Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) in a desperate attempt to get some fatherly validation, and a clear softening of the character follows ahead of his upcoming spinoff series, Vought Rising. The camera often lingers on Ackles’s expressive face, showing his inner turmoil rather than focusing solely on his typically crass, dismissive nature.

Homelander then sends him out like a canary in a coal mine to confront Butcher’s Supe-killing virus, which doesn’t work for reasons that will hopefully become clear in the next episode, but also plants a seed of doubt in our minds that it will work on Homelander. Nonetheless, the introduction of Rock Hard during the virus dry run is utterly hilarious, and it’s satisfying to see the lava-jizzing Supe get his comeuppance, even if the virus turns out to be less effective than Butcher hoped.

Since The Boys isn’t setting up a fresh story for the season and is still stitching together season 4 threads as it heads toward its endgame, any new characters will have to make a serious impact. Hamilton star Daveed Diggs is a wise casting choice, adding an immediate presence as Oh-Father, a megachurch preacher in a marriage of political convenience with Vice President Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie). Ashley is now a mindreader after injecting Compound-V to stay in Vought’s circle of trust, with a whole other version of herself trying to reason with her on the back of her head. It certainly adds to the frantic anxiety we usually associate with Ashley. Her inner struggle is now a physical presence onscreen.

Hubby Oh-Father is also a pedophile in the comics that the show is adapting. There’s no sign of that element of the character here (yet) but he spews all-too-familiar rhetoric against Starlight: her followers are Satanic and they eat babies, he says, immediately linking these lies to their support of transgender surgery. It’s painful to watch because we see it every day on TV and across social media, fuelling discrimination and demonizing marginalized groups. Oh-Father selects lines from the Bible out of context to back up his tirades while his congregation swells with misplaced rage. A spiraling Homelander is even triggered by Oh-Father’s performance, seeing a bright light and hearing a motherly voice calling to him.

It all seems to be teasing a distinctly religious aspect to Vought’s machinations this season, going hand in hand with the company’s unflinching fascism and propaganda. The Boys continues to hold a mirror up to American politics, but its satire feels slightly behind in these first two episodes, rather than one step ahead, which is actually fucking terrifying. A moment where an accused Starlighter is hauled off to a camp in front of their distressed child is chilling.

So far, the dark satire of season 5 is pitch black, perhaps too dark at times to elicit the usual chuckles the show gets from us. As absolute power corrupts the already corrupt, absolutely, the show asks us not to look away, but it’s so close to the bone it saws straight through it.

Lingering Thoughts

Dr. Sameer Shah (Omid Abtahi) is helping the boys with their Supe-slaying virus. Though Butcher has blamed his lover’s death on Homelander, it feels like only a matter of time before Sameer discovers the truth and Butcher’s plan goes tits up.

It’s nice to hear Kimiko speak, but after four seasons without hearing her, it’s a little jarring at the moment. No doubt we’ll get used to it. Kimiko and Frenchie’s long-awaited romantic relationship seems utterly doomed, however, as does Hughie and Annie’s.

Annie has come around to Butcher’s way of thinking, and Hughie’s “Polymorph Rimmer,” major leaflet campaign, give-peace-a-chance witterings have become a bit grating. He probably thought Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi peace offering was heartwarming! Get a grip, Hughie, for fuck’s sake.

Chace Crawford really gives everything to his role as The Deep. His toe-curling, bootlicking brand of cringe never fails to bring a little levity to the show, and his combative working relationship with imposter Black Noir is intriguing.

Not enough is said about how great Valorie Curry is as Firecracker. Her desperation to be Homelander’s trusted confidant is increasing by the second, and Curry is so good at playing the super-religious, people-pleaser type we’ve seen embraced by the administration before being publicly punted by them.

New episodes of The Boys season 5 premiere Wednesdays on Prime Video.