Krypto and the Superpets We Want to See in the DCU

In the latest issue of Empire Magazine, Supergirl writer Ana Nogueira identified Krypto as the key to unlocking the movie. Not only does the Krypto’s connection to her own dog help Nogueira find the emotional center for her superhero movie, but an injury dealt in the movie’s first act gives Supergirl a reason to go on her adventure.

In this way, Supergirl follows the lead set by Superman, which also turned Krypto into a household sensation. But really, both movies are just applying the lessons learned by DC Comics, when the company started giving all of its major heroes animal friends, most with incredible powers of their own. Given the popularity of Krypto and DC Studios co-head James Gunn‘s general love of animals and goofy comic book concepts, the time is right for more super-pets to invade the cinematic universe.

To be clear, we’re talking here only about specific pets, not just about animals or animal-themed characters from DC Comics. We realize that we sometimes run into Disney logic here, where Pluto’s a pet and Goofy is not—and Comet’s backstory further complicates things—but you won’t find Detective Chimp, the Green Lantern Ch’p, nor any member of Captain Carrot’s Zoo Crew on this list.

Comet the Super-Horse

Our first entry might also immediately render this list out of date, but we need to start with Supergirl’s pet from the comics. Comet the Super-Horse has not only been part of Supergirl’s story since 1962, when he made his first appearance in Adventure Comics #293, but he’s an integral part of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the comic series that inspired the new film. But so far, we haven’t seen any evidence that Comet will be in the movie.

We can understand why producers would be hesitant to include Comet, because he’s not actually a horse. He’s a centaur from ancient Greece, who fell in love with the sorceress Circe. Due to Greek god shenanigans, Biron was transformed into a horse and given superpowers. In horse form, Biron spent centuries in the cosmos, finally meeting Supergirl, where she adopted him as Comet the Super-Horse—a name she kept even after he briefly took on human form and romanced her.

Ace the Bat-Hound

In 1940, DC Comics scored a massive hit by working Robin Hood into their comics by giving Batman a teen sidekick modeled on Errol Flynn’s laughing swashbuckler. In 1955, Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff tried again, this time pulling from Rin Tin Tin and Ace the Wonder Dog, the stars of adventure serials to introduce Ace the Bat-Hound.

Ace’s first appearance in Batman #92 follows a standard animal adventure plot, in which he helped Batman and Robin find his master. However, after he became Bruce Wayne’s official dog, Ace started assisting in fights against supervillains, wearing a bat-mask the entire time. Ace never was as prominent as he was in the first decade of his existence, but he would be a perfect fit in the DCU’s animal embrace.

Beppo the Super-Monkey

As we saw in Superman, the new DCU’s Jor-El isn’t quite the benevolent paterfamilias we’ve usually seen. Tough as that revelation was for Kal-El, it does open a way for Beppo to enter the cinematic universe.

Introduced in Superboy #76 (1959) by Otto Binder and George Papp, Beppo was a chimp that Jor-El used for scientific experiments. He escaped his cage during the destruction of Krypton and slipped into the rocket that took Kal-El to Earth. Like the humanoid people of Krytpon, Beppo’s cells reacted to Earth’s yellow sun, gaining all of the enhanced abilities of Kal-El, without losing any of his monkey mischievousness.

Flexy the Plastic-Bird

Popular as they were in the 1950s and ’60s, super pets were among the first to go when the Bronze Age of comics took a darker, grittier turn. Some were reinvented as regular pets, and others appeared in imaginary tales, but they were most often handled with embarrassment, a relic of a sillier, less important era.

However, as creators such as Grant Morrison began to bring Silver Age concepts back into the mainstream, a space opened for super-pets. So in 2018’s Super Sons Annual #1 by Peter Tomasi and Paul Pelletier, the Legion of Super-Pets reformed, complete with a brand-new animal: Flexy the Plastic-Bird. Like his human counterpart Plastic Man, Flexy can stretch into any shape or form, a great ability, but one that’s only netted him three appearances so far.

Itty

Now it’s time to get weird. So far, the pets on this list have been superpowered versions of Earth animals, but that’s not the case with Itty, the little friend of Green Lantern Hal Jordan. A starfish-like alien that Hal met on one of his adventures, shown in 1975’s The Flash #238 by Dennis O’Neil and Mike Grell. After helping Hal get out of a trap, Itty became a constant companion, sitting on Hal’s shoulder, even out of costume.

Itty stuck around when Green Lantern reunited with Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow for a second round of more gritty, grounded adventures in the later ’70s, but he eventually changed form, first growing into a strange white thing with tendrils, and later into a gas creature. In this last form, Itty had matured to adulthood and left Earth to go find a mate, a decision that both Hal and Ollie fully supported.

Jumpa

Wonder Woman sometimes gets the short shrift when compared to Batman and Superman. But when it comes to super-pets, Diana beat the guys by more than a decade. In 1942’s Sensation Comics #6 by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter, Wonder Woman got a ride from Jumpa, a Kanga living on Paradise Island. Kanga’s do indeed look like the more familiar kangaroos, but their proximity to the Amazons makes them larger, and gives them the ability to jump incredible distances, perfect for Wonder Woman.

Sadly, Jumpa was a bit before her time, and only had a handful of appearances, until her last story in 1949. Since then, she’s only been mentioned in non-canonical stories and especially kid-focused spin-offs.

Koko the Space-Monkey

Most other pets on this list belong to heroes, but even bad guys need furry friends. Case in point: Koko the Space-Monkey, the original companion of Man of Tomorrow big bad Brainiac. A white, short-haired simian with two antennae sprouting from his head, Koko made his debut with Brainiac in 1958’s Action Comics #242, by Binder and Al Plastino.

In his first appearances, Koko largely functioned as a sounding board for Brainaic, giving the villain someone to whom he could monologue. Brainiac went on, but Koko more or less disappeared from comics, outside of the occasional homage (see: the space-monkey pet of Legion of Super-Heroes member Brainiac 5). But Man of Tomorrow would be a perfect time for Koko to return, perhaps as one of those internet monkeys still running free after Superman.

Proty

Speaking of the Legion of Super-Heroes, meet Proty. As fitting the Legion’s setting in the 30th century, Proty belongs to an alien race called the Proteans, a shapeshifting blob of goo that can form telepathic bonds with its master. Proteans can also shapeshift, which makes Proty a natural choice to pair with Chameleon Boy, the Legion’s resident shapeshifter.

Proty was introduced in 1963’s Adventure Comics #308 by Edmond Hamilton and John Forte, a story that dealt with the death and apparent resurrection of Legion co-fonder Lightning Lad. That story had a goofy, sci-fi tone, but it sets the stage for future Proty adventures, in which the lil’ blob takes the form of Lightning Lad, first to prevent the hero’s death and later to replace him altogether.

Streaky the Super-Cat

As any cat owner can attest, cats do their own thing and don’t care about anyone else, human or otherwise. So it’s somewhat fitting that Supergirl’s cat Streaky, created by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney for 1960’s Action Comics #261, doesn’t follow the model of other superpets. Streaky is not a cat from Krypton. Rather, he’s from Earth, and only got powers after being exposed to an experimental form of Kryptonite.

Streaky had a few adventures alongside Proty and Krypto in the Legion of Super-Pets, and initially disappeared around the time that animal sidekicks fell out of favor with comic book readers. Once again, though, Streaky had to do things his way, reappearing in the form of a regular (if someone haggard-looking) cat that gets adopted by Power Girl (who is also Supergirl, but we don’t have time to get into that here).

Topo

We end with perhaps the biggest cheat on this list, because Topo has in fact appeared in the DCU… sort of. After a cameo in Aquaman, Topo gets a bigger part in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, helping Arthur and Orm complete their mission. But as Jason Momoa‘s recasting as Lobo shows, this version of Aquaman belongs to another universe, making room for Topo once again.

Hopefully, the new DCU will follow in the footsteps of the previous Aquaman movies. Since his first adventure in Adventure Comics #229 (1956) by Ramona Fradon, Topo has been more of a sidekick than a pet, helping Arthur solve difficult puzzles and even getting into the fight. Later incarnations reimagined Topo as a sea monster, but Topo works best when he’s just a friendly octopus. Perhaps he can hang out with one of Lobo’s space dolphins, bringing everything full circle.

Let George Miller Finish His Mad Max Saga

For lovers of cinema, few things are as depressing as a franchise that extends itself into too many sequels or, worse, into a television series. One need not look far into the history of genre cinema to see later entries that devolve into self-parody, and the MCU Disney+ shows have shown that too much of a good thing can dilute the power of the original property.

But such mundane rules don’t apply to George Miller. So if he wants to make one more Mad Max movie and a Mad Max TV show, as Matthew Belloni suggests in his latest rumor newsletter, then he should absolutely get the chance to do it. Because George Miller has always beat the odds, especially where Mad Max is concerned.

The original Mad Max movie from 1979 came out of the Australian New Wave, a renewed period of creativity that also launched the careers of Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. A small, gritty tale about a policeman standing off against a biker gang in the new future, Mad Max was a hit in Australia and gained attention in the United States. That was even more true of the 1981 sequel Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, which was a global hit, despite the inclusion of incredibly weird characters like Lord Humungus and the Feral Kid.

The surest sign that rules don’t apply to George Miller came in 2015, when the then 70-year-old director released Mad Max: Fury Road. Despite being in development for decades, despite the thirty-year-gap between this and the previous installment, despite the recasting of the main character, Fury Road was a sensation. It was both a box office hit at the time and remains in conversations about the greatest action films ever made.

Even outside of those mainline movies, Miller has an untouchable record, creatively if not always financially. He produced and co-wrote Babe and made Happy Feet, both incredibly successful children’s films, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Lorenzo’s Oil. Babe: Pig in the City didn’t win over audiences like its predecessors, but many consider it a weird classic today. Likewise, his Fury Road follow-ups Three Thousand Years of Longing and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga may not have been what people initially wanted, but they’re both interesting in surprising ways, and their reputations will only grow.

Clearly, Miller works on a different level than most filmmakers. That doesn’t mean we don’t have some concerns. Part of Fury Road‘s power comes from its intense pace and massive scale. It feels like something that can only exist on the big screen. Shrinking it and cutting it up for streaming TV feels like a sacrilege. Can Max be just as mad in smaller, bite-size forms?

If anyone can answer that question, it’s George Miller. And his answer will probably be wildly different, and wildly more exciting than anything we had in mind.

We Played Alien: Isolation 2 and It’s Utterly Terrifying

Among the most tantalizing reveals from Summer Game Fest 2026 was a more in-depth look at the upcoming Alien: Isolation 2. First announced in 2024, the sequel to Creative Assembly’s 2014 survival horror hit looks to escalate the tense gameplay and mounting dread as the game’s new protagonist is stalked by an iconic xenomorph. While attending this year’s Summer Game Fest, Den of Geek not only got an extended preview of the eagerly anticipated title but also played an early build of the game.

As a recap, the original Alien: Isolation took place in between the events of the seminal 1979 sci-fi horror movie Alien and its action-packed 1986 sequel Aliens. The 2014 game’s protagonist is Amanda Ripley, the daughter of franchise mainstay Ellen Ripley, who is investigating what happened to her mother on the ill-fated Nostromo. This leads to her own harrowing encounter with the xenomorph aboard Sevastopol Station, an orbital space station which crashes into the nearby planet KG-348 by the game’s ending.

Just as the game’s Summer Game Fest reveal trailer hinted at, the early build of Alien: Isolation 2 that we played featured a mix of the claustrophobic environments from the first game and open-air planetary landscapes. This doesn’t make the game any less suspenseful and, if anything, being out in the open gives the player the unsettling feeling that there may be nowhere to hide compared to interior settings. That said, we didn’t encounter any xenomorphs outside in the preview build that we played, but the threat of the voracious extraterrestrial hung heavily over the proceedings knowing the sort of game that we were playing.

The sequel appears to begin right where the original Alien: Isolation left off, with the wreckage of Sevastopol Station crashing on KG-348, albeit from the perspective of characters on the ground. It’s currently unknown if Amanda Ripley appears at all in Alien: Isolation 2 but she certainly did not resurface in the build of the game that we got our hands on, which makes sense given where the demo picked up. Instead, we controlled a new protagonist named Blake, who is described by the other characters as a recent arrival on the colony, with her colleagues still getting to know her.

As Blake and her team are trying to return to the colony ahead of a massive rainstorm sweeping through the area, they witness the Sevastopol Station crash out in the wilderness. Despite her colleagues’ concerns, Blake descends to investigate the wreckage despite the impending storm poised to completely wash out the surrounding area. It’s in this lead-up to the site that the game’s tutorial takes place, with the familiar gameplay mechanics returning in full, familiar to returning players and accessible to newcomers as they traverse the precarious terrain.

Inside Sevastopol Station, it’s back to the claustrophobic experience that made the first Alien: Isolation such a standout horror game, made more sinister by knowing what’s lurking in the shadows even if Blake doesn’t. With the power initially offline because of the crash, we tensely explored the wreckage, dreading the fact that using our flashlight could inadvertently alert the xenomorph to our position. That we needed to scour debris for spare parts capable of making repairs to proceed deeper into the grounded station heightened the mounting feeling that we were poking our nose in somewhere we shouldn’t.

And then the xenomorph showed up.

This was an inevitability that all we knew was going to happen, it was always just a matter of when and how. Though there was a jump scare or two before this, the xenomorph’s debut is appropriately the most frightening and in-your-face moment of the demo. And much like the first game, the xenomorph wastes no time in prowling the halls of the grounded Sevastopol Station, hunting for the prey it knows intuitively is somewhere in the immediate vicinity.

It’s here where the Alien: Isolation 2 demo excels, showcasing that Creative Assembly hasn’t lost a step in the cat-and-mouse suspense from the first game. Even in this work-in-progress build, the xenomorph is a terrifying force of nature, leaving us cowering in various hiding spots, like darkened corners and ducts under the floor as we tried to escape the wreckage. The sound design is still very much a highlight here as well, holding our breath to hear in our headphones what direction and how close the xenomorph was before even trying to make a move.

We did manage to successfully complete the demo, with the whole experience a taut twist on hide-and-seek with one of sci-fi’s greatest movie monsters. The developers hinted that while our skills in evading the xenomorph in the wreckage served us well this time, we’d have to completely rethink our approach when being stalked by the creature on the planet’s surface. And that distinction captures what Alien: Isolation 2 is gearing up to be – a familiar threat that is no less scary, but in a different environment that makes them more formidable than ever before.

Sign us up.

Alien: Isolation 2 is developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. An official release date has yet to be confirmed, but the game will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

The 15 Most Boring Movie Titles Ever, if Taken Literally

Movie titles don’t often describe what the movie is about, but transmit a feeling or vibe. In Fast and Furious, the title doesn’t immediately translate to illegal racing, but it does transmit the sense of velocity and wild natured rebels that the movie intends. At least if you take that name literally, it can be about wild cats hunting.

Other movie titles, taken literally, are about things that we wouldn’t really want to watch. This is not just an exercise in silly thinking, but it’s also for us to not judge a movie by its title alone; the rest of the promotional material is there for a reason. These are what the plots of these movies would be, should we take the titles literally.

Mission: Impossible

Taken literally, this is the shortest movie ever made. Someone announces the mission is impossible, everyone nods in agreement, and the team heads home instead of spending two hours hanging from airplanes.

The Silence of the Lambs

Viewed literally, the title promises a documentary about unusually quiet farm animals. Audiences expecting suspense instead get several minutes of sheep standing around not making any noise.

The Rock

It’s a rock. Not a prison, not an action movie, just a large geological formation sitting completely still. The most exciting scene would probably involve mild erosion.

Fifty Shades of Grey

A film entirely devoted to comparing paint samples at a hardware store. The central conflict revolves around whether one shade of grey is slightly darker than another.

Meet Joe Black

A title that suggests a brief social introduction. You meet Joe, shake his hand, exchange pleasantries, learn where he works, and then everybody goes home.

Silent Hill

A movie about a hill that doesn’t make much noise. For two hours, viewers watch a completely normal hillside quietly existing without causing any disturbance whatsoever.

Rush Hour

Instead of a high-energy buddy-cop adventure, it’s ninety minutes of people stuck in traffic. The climax is finally getting through a particularly annoying intersection.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

The title already sounds like a joke, but taken literally, it becomes exactly what it says. Several men gather in a field and spend the afternoon looking at goats.

Gone in 60 Seconds

A remarkably short film. The opening credits finish, something disappears, and the movie immediately ends before anyone has time to become emotionally invested.

Law Abiding Citizen

Based solely on the title, this sounds like a man who follows all applicable regulations. He files his taxes correctly, obeys speed limits, and recycles responsibly.

The Green Mile

An entire movie about measuring a mile-long stretch of green-colored pavement. Surveyors arrive, confirm that it is indeed green and roughly a mile long, then leave.

Milk

A feature-length exploration of a dairy product. It begins in a refrigerator, occasionally gets poured into a glass, and offers absolutely no dramatic tension.

A Quiet Place

A family finds a reasonably peaceful location and enjoys the silence. There are no monsters, no danger, and no reason for anyone to whisper dramatically.

Ordinary People

Hollywood usually promises larger-than-life characters. This title promises the exact opposite. The plot consists of average individuals having uneventful days and discussing routine household concerns.

Waiting…

A movie entirely dedicated to waiting. Nobody arrives, nothing happens, and every major plot development is delayed until a sequel that never gets made.

15 Celebrity Deaths That Could Bring Michael Jackson Level Devastation

It’s likely that nothing will compare to the cultural impact Michael Jackson had on the world, both because of how much of an icon he was, and how the world was back then. But there are still people that are known in enough parts of the world that, should they perish, it would certainly be felt.

These are the cultural icons that we know and love today, and it would be devastating to see them go. All that remains is, in each of their cases, if their legacy will remain spotless as they show it, or if we will find some dirty laundry once the casket is closed.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s global fan base spans generations and continents. Between record-breaking tours, chart dominance, and cultural influence, news of her passing would likely trigger one of the largest collective reactions in modern entertainment history.

Beyoncé

Beyoncé has spent decades at the center of popular culture. Her influence extends beyond music into fashion, business, and social issues, making her loss feel significant to millions of people worldwide.

Tom Hanks

Often described as one of Hollywood’s most beloved figures, Tom Hanks enjoys a rare level of public goodwill. His death would likely generate an outpouring of tributes far beyond the film industry.

Paul McCartney

As one of the surviving members of The Beatles, Paul McCartney represents a direct link to one of the most influential acts in music history. The global response would almost certainly be enormous.

Dwayne Johnson

Dwayne Johnson’s popularity crosses multiple audiences, from wrestling fans to moviegoers. His combination of worldwide fame, social-media reach, and generally positive public image would make such news especially impactful.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Few actors have maintained Leonardo DiCaprio’s level of fame for as long. Decades of acclaimed performances and international recognition would ensure widespread media coverage and public mourning.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey’s influence extends far beyond television. Her role in media, publishing, philanthropy, and American culture means her passing would be treated as the loss of a major cultural institution.

Mick Jagger

As the frontman of The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger remains one of rock music’s most recognizable figures. His death would mark the end of an extraordinary chapter in music history.

Rihanna

Rihanna’s impact extends from music to fashion and cosmetics. With millions of devoted fans and immense cultural visibility, any news of her death would dominate headlines worldwide.

George Clooney

George Clooney has remained a major celebrity for decades through acting, directing, and public advocacy. His combination of fame and popularity would likely produce a massive international reaction.

Eminem

Eminem is one of the best-selling artists in music history. His influence on hip-hop and popular culture has been immense, making him one of the few musicians whose death could dominate global news cycles.

Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves has become one of the internet’s most universally admired celebrities. His popularity spans generations, and the public response to his death would likely be both immediate and emotional.

Elton John

Elton John’s decades-long career, countless hit songs, and philanthropic work have made him a beloved global figure. His passing would undoubtedly be treated as a major cultural event.

Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman’s distinctive voice and decades of acclaimed performances have made him one of the most respected actors in the world. His death would resonate far beyond Hollywood, prompting tributes from multiple generations of movie fans.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s influence spans bodybuilding, action movies, and politics. Few public figures have remained culturally relevant across so many decades, making his eventual passing a major global story.

14 Movie Geniuses Who Made Incredibly Dumb Decisions

We don’t want characters in movies to have all the answers; after all, without conflict and mystery, there is no plot. But the problems they face should match their abilities. A character who can fly shouldn’t forget they can just because a chase scene needs them to run.

Well, that’s the feeling we got from these fictional characters and their incredible brains. They are experts in their fields, but don’t manage to foresee outcomes we could’ve told them, all so the show can go on. It’s hard to suspend your disbelief when the actions of the characters are less than believable.

Tony Stark

Tony Stark is one of the smartest people in the Marvel universe, yet he creates Ultron without adequately considering the risks. The resulting disaster nearly destroys humanity and creates problems that haunt multiple films.

Bruce Wayne

Christopher Nolan’s Bruce Wayne prides himself on preparation and strategy. Even so, he willingly gives Lucius Fox the data needed to recreate a citywide surveillance system he previously admitted was dangerously invasive.

Dr. Alan Grant

As a respected paleontologist, Alan Grant immediately recognizes the dangers of Jurassic Park’s cloned dinosaurs. Nevertheless, he repeatedly returns to dinosaur-infested islands despite every prior visit ending in catastrophe.

Peter Venkman

The Ghostbusters are scientists who understand the supernatural better than anyone. Yet Peter Venkman casually agrees to shut down the containment grid, unleashing New York’s trapped ghosts and nearly causing a citywide disaster.

Dr. Ryan Stone

Ryan Stone survives one life-threatening situation after another in Gravity. Still, several crucial moments involve her making risky decisions that seem questionable for a highly trained astronaut and engineer.

Robert Langdon

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is portrayed as exceptionally intelligent. Across multiple films, however, he repeatedly trusts suspicious strangers and walks directly into obvious traps that a more cautious expert might avoid.

Dr. Stephen Strange

Stephen Strange possesses one of the sharpest minds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, he casts a reality-altering spell before fully discussing the consequences with Peter Parker.

Dr. Ellie Arroway

As a brilliant scientist in Contact, Ellie Arroway dedicates her life to careful research and evidence. Yet she boards an alien machine built from mysterious instructions with remarkably little hesitation.

Reed Richards

Reed Richards is often described as Marvel’s smartest human. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, however, he reveals Black Bolt’s powers to a dangerous opponent moments before disaster strikes.

Dr. John Hammond

John Hammond is a visionary entrepreneur who spares no expense creating Jurassic Park. Unfortunately, he repeatedly ignores expert warnings about safety, security, and chaos theory until his entire project collapses.

David Levinson

Jeff Goldblum’s David Levinson helps save Earth in Independence Day. His plan works, but uploading a computer virus into an alien mothership using human technology remains a leap of logic many viewers question.

Professor Xavier

Charles Xavier is one of the world’s greatest telepaths and educators. Despite that, he repeatedly keeps vital information from his students, a habit that often makes already dangerous situations much worse.

Dr. Henry Jones Sr.

Indiana Jones’s father is an accomplished scholar obsessed with the Holy Grail. Yet his lifelong pursuit repeatedly puts himself and others in extreme danger for an artifact whose existence was never guaranteed.

Sherlock Holmes

Even brilliant detectives can make mistakes. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes often rushes into dangerous situations with minimal backup, relying on his intellect to save him from problems that better planning could have avoided.

Disclosure Day Ending Explained with Screenwriter

This article contains massive Disclosure Day spoilers.

It’s a single word with profound implications. On a night where the world feels like it is on the eve of WWIII, and the media breathlessly follows reports of geopolitical turmoil coming out of the Korean peninsula, all of the petty problems of humanity seem suddenly mooted by a sequence that is pure Spielbergian magic.

Driven by—or possessed—by her connection to extraterrestrials that dates back to a childhood abduction, Emily Blunt’s Margaret Fairchild is able to commandeer her local new station in Kansas City, and soon enough the entire planet, and reveal we are not alone: not in this universe, nor in our shared ability to be awed, as indicated by a cornucopia of Steven Spielberg’s patented “gaze up in wonder” shots. Around the globe, families and friends, neighbors and strangers, stop in their tracks to greet the news on their screens in stunned silence. Yet unlike so much of the real-world’s daily news, the ending of Disclosure Days offers glad, if enigmatic, tidings.

The aliens are here. They have always been here, and in the movie’s final moments, a gray, tortured, and aged extraterrestrial is wheeled into the newsroom by a team of true-believers led by Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo). Suddenly, it’s clear how Hugo knew all along about Margaret and Daniel (Josh O’Connor), two adults who were both taken at a young age to be test subjects, or perhaps ambassadors, for what comes next: worldwide first contact.

The details are deliberately vague, but the implications are vast as Blunt translates the beleaguered gray’s first televised comment to the world: “Listen.”

This stunning finale to Disclosure Day is the first scene that Steven Spielberg wrote when he dreamed up the story for the film. However, the final line was an invention of his longtime screenwriter and collaborator, David Koepp, who we spoke with at length about the ending of the movie.

“[The last line is] in my very first draft,” says Koepp. “As I typed and was reaching the end, I knew she was going to face the camera. So I wanted her to say something and I wrote the first word of the line because I thought it represents quite a bit. She’s saying ‘listen,’ because the space boy just told me a bunch of interesting stuff, and she’s saying ‘listen to one another,’ which is the heart of the message.”

Koepp also adds the word has a lot of meaning throughout fiction and human history: “It just so happens to be the first word of one of my favorite books, Slaughterhouse-Five,” notes the screenwriter. “It’s also the first word of numerous Hebrew prayers. So I wrote ‘listen,’ and then I just typed a period, because I think when you have one word that says everything you want to say, you should stop talking.”

This sequence was, again, always the ending, dating back to the 40-plus page script treatment that Spielberg first emailed to Koepp while asking for notes. The rest of the movie was in essence reverse-engineered to reach this point. According to the writer, there was never any doubt it would end at the very moment the world saw a living extraterrestrial with their own eyes.

“We always wanted to stop that night in the control room or in a studio, in part because the movie is called Disclosure Day,” Koepp explains. “In the beginning, we’re told that this information is super important, and it needs to get out, and at the end of the movie, the information gets out. That is your story. If you continued, you could never stop. If the movie was called ‘Disclosure Day and the Subsequent Week,’ then you know you got a lot of explaining to do. But our story was accomplished and it was time to end it.”

The final line is designed to leave the audience wanting and wondering. If you’re interpreting or projecting what comes next after the credits roll, you’re continually involved with the film, which is a win for Koepp and Spielberg.

But it’s more than just the final seconds of Disclosure Day that leaves the mind racing. There’s also the technology and the implications of its effect. In a movie rife with Christian imagery and teases that the aliens in the film have been visiting Earth since the dawn of history, it seems even open to interpretation how much the extraterrestrial influence is responsible for the religious variety. There are especially notes of Christlike empathy and persecution when Blunt’s Margaret, first “awakened” to her otherworldly knowledge, is able to get strangers and even antagonists to repent, at last seeing the redeeming qualities of their fellow man. Eventually, this culminates in the deeply cynical and misanthropic Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) seeing the light. Elsewhere in the movie, Margaret is chilled when one believer makes the sign of the cross after witnessing what could be called one of Margaret’s miracles.

For his part, however, Koepp remains coy on whether the film is suggesting Christ or other religious figures throughout history might have an alien connection in the film’s universe.

“I do think there are references and I do think that there are visitations that occurred for thousands of years throughout human history, and there are references if you choose to interpret it that way in the Bible and other historical works,” Koepp cryptically allows. “But my reading of it is not that human events on Earth were affected, or that they built the Pyramids.”

Still, he ultimately concedes, “I think you can’t talk about outer space and possible extraterrestrial life without talking about God. They just go hand-in-hand because they question our place in the universe.”

There are a lot of ideas in Disclosure Day, a movie its director and writer hope acts as a “unifying theory” for every close encounter and alien abduction story you’ve ever heard. In this film, it’s true. All of it. But it’s the filmmakers’ job to confirm this reality, not to necessarily explain it. This extends all the way down to the bizarre alien contraption that one character compares to a “magic wand” in the film, and which everyone else simply calls the Device. By design, its powers are inexplicable, including to the screenwriter.

“If it had even one more power, it would be too much,” says Koepp. “It becomes the magic wand. So the humans in the film don’t understand how it works, and we’re comfortable that we also don’t understand how it works, except for these two things that it seems able to do.”

It’s a mystery, not necessarily based on any actual alleged UAP sighting or close encounter, but on the filmmakers’ own desire to “make a fun movie.” Still, if that fun leaves you pondering what comes next, either between our relationships with each other or the little green men out there, then it’s done its job of living past Disclosure Day.

Disclosure Day is in theaters now.

The Death of Robin Hood Review: Hugh Jackman Leads a Beautifully Brutal Elegy

The earliest surviving narrative text featuring that rogue we now know as the Prince of Thieves, the Fox of Sherwood, the guy with the bow, is the ballad of “Robin Hood and the Monk.” Our copy is believed to date back to around 1450, although the tale is likely older. But even that long ago, many of the elements we associate with Robin Hood are already in place: the Merry Men, Little John, and an antipathy toward the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Yet if you actually go back to dust off the stanzas and verse of that tale, the details can be disquietingly unique. Robin robs from the rich, yes—or at least the clergy of the title—but it’s not at all clear if this is for his own pocket or anyone else’s. Also when the monk of its title gets Robin Hood arrested, Little John and the Merry Men respond by executing the friar and his page both, beheading them like a farmer culls wheat. It offers an altogether bleaker vision of the Middle Ages; and likely a more honest one too since England really hadn’t left that era by the 15th century.

It’s also a world that the writer-director of Pig, Michael Sarnoski, seeks to capture with unrelenting verisimilitude in his new A24 picture, The Death of Robin Hood. Given its title and Hugh Jackman’s severe gray beard in the marketing, the extreme violence likely will not surprise many. The film’s quiet and even stunning sense of grace, however, could be an outright revelation for those willing to endure the early medieval hack-and-slash carnage.

Pulling loosely from several 16th century ballads about Robin Hood’s death at the hands of a wicked prioress, Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood in many ways resembles the simple, yet often moving, adult dramas of the 1970s (albeit not, ironically, that decade’s own death of Robin Hood movie starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn). It is a straightforward character study told in two parts. The first is about the reality behind the myth of Jackman’s Robin Hood; the second accounts for the absolution of this monster at the hands of a genuine hero: Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer) and her priory on the Irish Sea.

This parable kicks off properly when an old and grizzled Robin is found living alone in the wilderness by his former compatriot, the much younger Little John (Bill Skarsgård). Whether any other Merry Men existed is ambiguous, but based on the fact that John still wears green while Robin is bundled up in blacks, grays, and the red of those he’s killed, it’s clear which of them actually believes the legends that have already begun to spring up along the countryside like dandelions. John romanticizes his past, even as he finds some semblance of peace for the future with a wife and young daughter, Margaret (Faith Delaney). Alas, the past isn’t done with him. Relatives of a nobleman he slew some years back have taken his family hostage, and John wants Robin to go on one last adventure to free them.

The aftermath of that quest is so cataclysmically violent that our wounded folk hero is forced to seek shelter in the aforementioned priory on the sea. There, Comer’s Prioress has built a bucolic Eden separate from the medieval miseries across the waterway. She takes in orphans, loners, and even a leper (an endearingly aloof Murray Bartlett). And now she has taken in Robin, albeit the leper warns the brigand not to reveal his famous identity to the others. So things grow complicated when John’s little girl Margaret also arrives on the island, recognizing Robin as her father’s friend. Meanwhile others likewise approach, searching for the outlaw.

Seeing Hugh Jackman play another legendary hero at sunset after the also quite poignant Logan nearly a decade ago might cause some viewers to suspect this is familiar territory for the Australian star. Yet the tagline “he was no hero” proves to be more than just a marketing gimmick. It is difficult to think of a recent protagonist more challenging or potentially despicable than this Robin Hood. It is, indeed, the first movie I can think of with a scene where the protagonist of your film considers whether they may, or may not, murder a child—depending on if Margaret knows him by the name Robin. Frequent Sarnoski cinematographer Pat Scola even shoots the queasy scene by torchlight, casting ominous red pits in Jackman’s eyes.

There will be some viewers who will simply recoil at the prospect of such a depiction of a classic hero—and others who don’t want to see any feature with a hero (in the loosest sense) who is so broken and flawed. But for those up for the challenge, the emotional resonance of the piece unfurls a profound beauty that’s survived in the most perilous of contexts. It’s like a flower that’s somehow bloomed in the grays of January.

Part of this is obviously Jackman’s undeniable charisma as a performer. A born showman with a penchant for soulfulness, he exudes a humane intelligence hiding behind a beast’s fixed grimace. I do not think this Robin can be redeemed, but he can atone, which is where the real heart of the film comes into focus.

A deeply thoughtful and often understated performer, Jodie Comer’s Sister Brigid proves the true core of the film. Despite Robin not living up to the legends that strangers spin about him, Jackman’s character is in many ways an open book. The Prioress, on the other hand, is warm and empathetic, patient and forgiving. Nonetheless, Comer imbues the woman with just enough mystery to hint at layers and motivations left unseen, and perhaps a journey far grander than even Robin Hood’s. His is a world of gray, hers is awash in natural light, offering the only green in the movie not worn by Little John. Hers is the actual story of redemption for a land, if not a man.

The obvious inversion of the legend, where Robin is the fiend and the Prioress the hero, amounts to a classic kind of revisionism that used to be commonplace in Hollywood. Nowadays, though, it’s faintly heretical to find a film so willing to dwell in deep shadows and wallow in the mess of the human experience instead of sanitizing it. The fact Sarnoski does this with what is essentially intellectual property via Robin Hood is shrewd. By adapting one of the most famous characters in the English language, Sarnoski creates a mythic stage to put on a show every bit as big-hearted, and curiously innocent of guile, as Pig was four years ago.

That it achieves this after the first half hour borders on medieval snuff cinema—with Robin and Little John rolling in the mud of their soon to be murdered attackers—is a kind of tonal magic trick. It also is a credit to the dignity of all the performances.

Together they and their director, perhaps aptly in the 21st century, reject one of the great cinema quotes from a previous one. “When legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The Death of Robin Hood would seem to argue when fact is concealed by legend, tear down the myth before it deludes and poisons the soul. The Death of Robin Hood guards its own soul jealously before finally expressing it with deep equanimity and fellowship.

The Death of Robin Hood opens on Friday, June 19.

How Eraser Director Chuck Russell Challenged Arnold Schwarzenegger

By the time Eraser released on June 21, 1996, Arnold Schwarzenegger ruled Hollywood. It’s not just that he was a giant man, the former Mister Universe. Arnold had already done all-time classics like Predator and Terminator 2. He knew what he was and he got his way. So when he wanted to make a movie about a U.S. Marshal who defends a whistleblower in witness protection from a government conspiracy, most would just follow orders.

Not Chuck Russell. When the script for Eraser hit his desk, Russell—fresh off horror classics A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Blob, as well as The Mask—thought the former Mister Universe could do more.

“I liked the idea of an Arnold film,” Russell recalls to Den of Geek. “But Eraser was a minimalistic Arnold film. That’s a cool movie to make, and he’s made some like that. But I’m not going to step in after True Lies and Terminator and do the same thing. So when Arnold brought me the script, I told him we could do it together if we could jack it up and make it a little wilder, a little hyperreal.”

That’s exactly what Russell and Schwarzenegger did with Eraser. Schwarzenegger plays Marshal John Kruger, a specialist in “erasing” people and putting them in witness protection. Kruger’s latest task involves Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), a weapons company employee who works with the CIA to reveal plans for an illegal rail gun. But when he learns that his superior Robert DeGuerin (James Caan) is involved in a conspiracy to control those plans, Kruger must protect Cullen’s life as much as he must erase her identity.

Working from a script credited to Tony Puryear and Walon Green, Russell punctuates the material with incredible, over-the-top set-pieces. Arnold does battle with rampaging crocodiles, shoots down a jet while dangling from a parachute, and dodges enemies with high-tech weaponry.

“I knew the basic story was really good, but it needed a rewrite to do two things,” explains Russell. “One, we needed more from Arnold’s relationship with Vanessa’s character. And, two, I felt three setpieces were missing from the movie.

“The original script was straight-up handguns and fistfights. And I’m like, ‘Guys! This is two years after True Lies! We’ve got Arnold Schwarzenegger! Come one, we need crocodiles! We need an airplane jump! We need railguns!”

Those aren’t just big demands, they’re expensive demands. And to get the funding for those set-pieces, Russell needed his star on board, which meant convincing Schwarzenegger to deviate from a script he loved.

“I told Arnold this was a great movie, but we had to make it better. I knew what I had in mind, but it wouldn’t happen unless he the one was telling the studio that he wanted it,” says Russell. “Those kinds of things can be tricky, and Arnold and the studio don’t want to make each other uncomfortable. I had to convince him that it would be good for his brand to make these changes, and that I would protect his brand.

“But I wanted to make Eraser crazier and more hyperreal. He liked what I told him, and he’s a man of his word, so he started campaigning with me to take a little more time and spend a little money on some of these scenes.”

He admits that “the studio was slightly uncomfortable,” but he hastens to add, “They were very happy with the film. So everyone was happy in the end. It doesn’t always end that way, but it did with Eraser.”

While some might be intimidated by the prospect of challenging a superstar and a huge movie studio, Russell says it’s all part of the appeal of making movies.

“I liked him,” Russell says of his star. “There’s a reason he’s Arnold in person, and he definitely uses that persona. He’s got the cigars, and he’s very competitive, man to man. But if you respond to Arnold fearlessly and with humor, he’ll love you. So we got along very well.

“He can be intimidating when he cares about something. But like a lot of powerful men, he’s actually a sweetheart. So I enjoyed him, and I enjoyed how much he wanted to make this film. We had each other’s backs in getting the best version of Eraser made.”

Schwarzenegger’s not the only intimidating figure in the Eraser cast, which includes James Caan, former Miss USA Vanessa Williams, and screen legend James Coburn, all of whom Russell picked because “they’re not traditional for an Arnold movie.”

That desire to fill out the cast with interesting people came from his beginnings working with stunt people, which also gave him the confidence to approach people like Schwarzenegger without fear.

He points out, “When I first came to LA, I was sweeping stages and doing gigs, and one of the first things I did was become a sort of mascot with Stunts Unlimited. I ran around with the stunt team with a mentor named Alan Gibbs. These were the people who did all of Roger Corman‘s movies, The Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit—all the top stunt drivers at the time. It was a wonderful education.”

“I love stunts,” he declares, a statement that might seem surprising coming from the man who directed the early CGI triumph The Mask. “I still believe in physical action, because it creates suspense that all the technology in the world can’t duplicate. If an actor in a horror film is coming down a hallway, and they know a door is going to explode out, they’re actually scared. Even though it’s safe, and even though I walk them through it personally, and show them how to do it, there’s a different tension in their performance.

“There’s a different tension when the principal actors are in a stunt fight. When I was making The Scorpion King, I told Dwayne Johnson the he needed to kill his enemy with his heart. ‘Yeah, you’re going to close in with a sword, and I know you can do the physical stuff, but remember why your character’s doing this.’ We would go over that part first.”

For all the talk about dealing with tough guys and doing physical stunts, Russell sums up his role in simplistic terms. “I’m a cheerleader as a director, honestly. It’s a little corny, but it helps. I’ll make a fool of myself sometimes,” he confesses.

Clearly, the cheerleader approach works, especially when working with big-name stars. “I’m grateful for my career,” he reflects. “I’ve had the opportunity to direct Patricia Arquette‘s first movie, Cameron Diaz‘s first movie, Dwayne Johnson’s first leading role,” he points out. “It’s very fun as a director, very satisfying. I’m grateful these films are entertaining beyond the year that they were made.”

And if it took challenging Arnold Schwarzenegger to put more crocodiles in Eraser to give those films such staying power, then it was clearly worth it.

Eraser re-releases in 4K UHD on June 16, 2026.

The Batman 2 Is Taking the Right Approach to The Penguin

Batman‘s always had a villain problem. Not just because they keep getting out of Arkham Asylum every time he puts them in, but also because they keep overshadowing him in movies. Even The Batman, which gave plenty of time to Robert Pattinson‘s emo take on the Dark Knight, also featured the Riddler, Catwoman, Carmine Falcone, a cameo by the Joker, and Colin Farrell as the Penguin. The Batman: Part II seems to be following the same model, with Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson, and Charles Dance playing Two-Face and members of the Dent family.

Yet, in an encouraging report, Farrell has revealed that his character Oz Cobb will have limited screentime in the Matt Reeves-directed sequel. After praising the quality of Reeves’ screenplay, Farrell admitted to ScreenRant, “I’m only in two scenes, which is great because it means I can enjoy the rest of the film.” That’s great not just for him, not just for Batman, but also for the Penguin. Because too much of Farrell’s Penguin can absolutely be a bad thing.

Need proof? Look no further than the HBO series The Penguin, which put Oz Cobb in the center role. The Penguin often wanted to be a gritty, realistic crime drama in the vein of The Sopranos. The Penguin had as its star an actor just as nuanced and multilayered as James Gandolfini. But where Gandolfini made Tony Soprano into a three-dimensional character through his facial expressions and body language, Farrell had to work though not just layers of makeup and prosthetics, but also an over-the-top accent. The series didn’t find its footing until it gave more attention to Cristin Milioti, who had more to work with in Sofia Falcone.

Conversely, Farrell worked great in The Batman, and stole everyone from his scenes. His barking about “Mister Vengeance” or Batman’s ability to “habla español” injected just the right amount of cartoon energy into a film that could sometimes get self-serious. He leveled out the tone of the movie, helping Pattinson craft his human, neophyte detective.

Farrell’s comments promise a sequel just as rich in psychological depth. “I got to read from the first to last page and it’s really magnificent,” he gushed. “I just think Matt Reeves is brilliant and he wrote, not only tonally, a really kind of dark and at times terrifying piece, and not only psychologically weighty and nuanced, but really… full of feeling.”

Certainly, Batman has proven to be the rare superhero who can handle such thematic depth. But Batman stories are fundamentally about a guy who dresses up like a bat to beat up outrageous villains. For that reason, there’s room in even a psychologically weighty Batman movie for a cartoon gangster who waddles and shouts. But only a little, something The Batman: Part II seems to understand.

The Batman: Part II releases in theaters on October 1, 2027.

Gary Vee Follows Jim Henson’s Example With VeeFriends

Ask entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, better known as Gary Vee, about his goals for the more than 200 characters he’s created for his VeeFriends brand, and he won’t just talk about the comics or stickers in which they’ve appeared, nor the newest set of VeeFriends trading cards released by Topps Chrome. No, Gary Vee wants VeeFriends to “bring balance to the world.”

Such a monumental goal requires an even greater guide, and Vee thinks he’s found one in Jim Henson, specifically in Henson’s pitch for the 1983–87 series Fraggle Rock. “Henson gave his creative team a brief when they were trying to figure out Fraggle Rock,” Vee explains to Den of Geek. “Normally, these things are 10 pages, 15 pages, or five pages. This one was literally two words. Jim Henson wrote to his creative team, ‘End War.'”

The 2026 Topps Chrome VeeFriends set releases with a roster of 200 characters and a variety of insert styles, including special cards from internet content creators such as Kam Patterson, Jake Paul, and Livvy Dunne.

Despite the emphasis on YouTube stars, Vee finds his inspiration in his own childhood. He recalls, “I grew up in the ’80s, where we had Transformers, Go-Bots, Thundercats, He-Man, Max Headroom. And I have a brother who’s 11 years younger, and he was very affected by Pokémon. So I grew up at a lucky time when an extraordinary amount of intellectual property was invented from scratch, in video games, cartoons after school, or trading cards like the Garbage Pail Kids.”

Vee turned toward those childhood memories when he wanted to expand his market in 2021 by creating VeeFriends. Citing his own “entrepreneurial ambitions” and looking at “AI and blockchain, and “the trend of collectibility,” Vee saw “an opportunity to build something very meaningful.” But that meant changing his approach.

“My personal brand started getting bigger and I, as Gary Vee, was becoming popular because I was spreading love and accountability, and I talked about stuff that was impactful on me,” he explains.

Vee sees VeeFriends as a way to speak the language of children and families. As evidence that he’s found that language, Vee points to his characters such as Patient Pig, a cartoon swine who advises children, “Patience isn’t complacency… it’s the ultimate ingredient for long term success.”

For Vee, those teachings set VeeFriends apart from other collectible card sets. “At first, I thought I was making something more like Disney or Pokémon,” he admits. “But as I went through my journey, I realized I was building more of a Jim Henson-like business. Yes, I would like to be as commercially successful as The Muppets or Sesame Street. But I do want to have a positive impact and help parents navigate this challenging parenting ecosystem.”

Even conceding that that Pokémon “is the biggest intellectual property in the world” and that he aspires “one day to have people care about VeeFriends even half as much as they care about Pokémon,” Vee thinks that there’s room for another card game next to monster franchise. “I do feel that, over time, it will become obvious that there’s more meaning and deepness to VeeFriends,” he ventures.

As an example, Vee points to his character, Reliable Rat. “As you know, being a rat is not a good thing. That means you’re stabbing someone in the back, you’re doing the wrong thing by them. You also know that ‘reliable’ is one of the most admirable words. With VeeFriends, I’m desperate to change perceptions.

“When a kid falls in love with [VeeFriends character] Authentic Anaconda, that seven-year-old is going to go up to their mom and ask, ‘What’s authentic mean?’ I’m providing emotional value to families, allowing a mother or a father to have a conversation around authenticity and why it’s important.”

Vee’s already seen the fruits of his labor. “I get three to five to 10 messages a day via DM or email from girl dads who thank me,” says Vee. “It’s the same email every time, just written differently: ‘Hey, I’ve got a son and a daughter, I’ve got two sons and a daughter, or I’ve got three daughters and a son, and I’m really into card collecting. Every Saturday, my son and I go to the shows or the card store, and my poor daughter has to get dragged along with us because we’re letting mom do XYZ. Thank you for creating VeeFriends, and especially thank you, Gary, for creating Ambitious Angel and Fearless Fairy. It’s given me something to start collecting with my daughter.’

“It feels good to be part of something like that,” Vee declares.

Jim Henson didn’t quite end war with Fraggle Rock, but he certainly inspired plenty of letters like that one. Gary Vee hopes VeeFriends can do the same.

Topps Chrome’s second VeeFriends card set is available now via Topps and Fanatics, and at retailers Dick’s, Target, and Gamestop.

10 Photos from When Entertainment Involved Real Danger

Articles that talk about how back in the day, the danger was real for the performers on stage, tend to sound like they miss those days. We don’t. We believe we live in an era where safety needs to come first, and where animals aren’t exploited. It isn’t a perfect world, but we’re trying.

Instead, we are focusing on these images to remember the strange things we thought were fun. Dangerous stunts still happen, but with a much more dedicated medical staff. Animals are still used in entertainment, but with far more laws protecting them. These are the windows to a past we won’t be returning to.

Polar Bear Chorus

Training a bear to do something is one thing, training a whole group of them is quite another. These bears had to balance on balls, look cute, and jump over rings of fire just to earn a meal and go back to their cells.

Basketball On Wheels

Perhaps one of the more quaint auditions to the list, here we have some players of basketball with an additional difficulty spike: balancing on monocycles. It’s hard to imagine any dribbling taking place.

Elephant Parade

While the animals here seem to be treated better than the bears (and better than in Dumbo), these poor elephants must have been scared of being around so many people. And believe me, a scared elephant is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

Balancing Without A Net

Yes, seeing acrobats doing their craft without need of a safety net is impressive, but only because you fear for the poor person’s life. Is it really all that less impressive if you know the artist will survive at the end?

Monowheel Confidense

Riding a monocycle is already hard, but it is harder if you also need to balance someone on top of you. Fortunately, the audiences will be focused on the person on top, since the one below will be too focused to be charismatic.

The General

Moving on to films, The General featured one of the most expensive and dangerous stunts of the silent era when a real locomotive was sent crashing through a burning bridge.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur used a massive practical chariot race involving real horses, real collisions, and significant risk to performers and stuntmen.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Man with the Golden Gun included a record-setting corkscrew car jump performed for real, requiring precise calculations and leaving little room for error.

Police Story

Police Story featured Jackie Chan doing many of his own stunts, suffering burns and injuries during one of cinema’s most famous scenes.

Roar

Roar was filmed with dozens of real lions, tigers, and other big cats. More than 70 cast and crew members reportedly suffered injuries during production.

14 Actors Who Looked 40 Their Entire Careers

As actors and performers grow in age, the roles they can play change dramatically. Child actors grow into teen dramas, who later play adults and veterans until only elderly roles are left. But not everyone functions that way, since not all bodies grow in the same manner; some people are eternal children, while others look 40 from before and after they turn that age.

Chalk it up to a receding hairline, a weathered face, or simply an unusually mature screen presence, these actors often found themselves playing authority figures, parents, and grizzled professionals long before their actual age suggested it. Looking back, it’s hard not to wonder whether some of these actors were somehow born looking 40 years old.

Wilford Brimley

Wilford Brimley is the patron saint of this category. He was only 49 when he played a retiree in Cocoon, and generations of moviegoers have joked that he looked 65 for roughly half a century.

Tommy Lee Jones

Even in his younger roles, Tommy Lee Jones carried the weathered face and stern expression of a veteran lawman. Fans often remark that he seemed middle-aged from the very beginning of his film career.

Richard Dreyfuss

Richard Dreyfuss was only 27 when Jaws was released, yet many viewers assume he was at least a decade older. His mature appearance became a frequent topic of discussion among movie fans.

Christopher Lloyd

Christopher Lloyd somehow looked elderly for decades without appearing to age much further. Many viewers remember him as an old man in the Back to the Future era, even though he was much younger than they assumed.

Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson had the receding hairline, grin, and world-weary demeanor of a man well into middle age long before he actually got there. Even his early breakout performances projected a surprisingly mature image.

Michael Shannon

Michael Shannon built a career playing authority figures, hardened criminals, and intimidating professionals. Fans frequently joke that he looked 45 at 25 and has barely changed appearance ever since.

Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman rarely looked youthful, even during his earliest major roles. His rugged features and serious screen presence made him seem like a seasoned veteran long before he reached that age.

Walter Brennan

Walter Brennan made a career out of playing grizzled old-timers and elderly sidekicks. Audiences often assumed he was much older than he really was, even during the height of his popularity.

Paul Giamatti

Paul Giamatti has long looked like somebody’s experienced accountant, coach, or neighbor. Fans frequently joke that he arrived in Hollywood already looking like a dependable forty-something character actor.

Jonathan Banks

Jonathan Banks became famous as tough authority figures and hardened criminals, but his weathered appearance had people assuming he was older than he actually was for much of his career.

George C. Scott

George C. Scott possessed a stern, commanding presence that made him seem older than many of his contemporaries. Even in earlier films, he projected the authority of someone decades older.

Abe Vigoda

Abe Vigoda became so associated with elderly characters that many viewers are surprised to learn how long his career lasted. He looked old, played old, and somehow stayed looking old for decades.

Edward Asner

Ed Asner’s balding head, deep voice, and serious demeanor gave him the appearance of a much older man early in his career. As a result, he slid naturally into elder statesman roles.

Donald Sutherland

Even in films from the early 1970s, Donald Sutherland carried himself like a seasoned professional rather than a young leading man. His distinctive look often made audiences assume he was older than reality.

Actors Who Were Somehow Cast as Teenagers for Way Too Long

Some actors seem to maintain the face and physicality of youth for longer than other people, letting them play young adults or even teens well into their thirties. Emphasis on some, since there are other actors that simply don’t look the part. Adults act better than teens, but they need to fit the bill.

We’ve gathered here a few actors that played teens for a bit too long, traversing high school halls looking more like teachers than students. Some of them were able to trick us for years, but not forever; at some point, it’s time to pass the torch to the new generations.

Bianca Lawson

Bianca Lawson is the gold standard for this topic. She played high school students in Saved by the Bell: The New Class, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, Pretty Little Liars, and Teen Wolf well into her thirties.

Nicholle Tom

Nicholle Tom was in her twenties for part of her run on The Nanny, yet Maggie Sheffield remained a teenager for much of the series. Her youthful appearance helped extend the illusion longer than most actors could manage.

Stacey Dash

Stacey Dash spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s playing teenagers. She was 28 in Clueless and continued portraying high school-aged characters long after most actors had moved on.

Gabrielle Carteris

Gabrielle Carteris was nearly 30 when she started playing Andrea Zuckerman. She remained a high school student for multiple seasons despite being significantly older than the rest of the teenage cast.

Jason Earles

Jason Earles was almost 30 when Hannah Montana began and continued playing teenager Jackson Stewart throughout the series. He may be one of Disney Channel’s oldest “teen” stars ever.

Michael J. Fox

Michael J. Fox spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s playing characters significantly younger than himself. Between Family Ties and the Back to the Future films, he remained Hollywood’s go-to teenager well into adulthood.

Rachel McAdams

Rachel McAdams wasn’t alone in being older than her character, but she became one of the most famous examples. At 26, she played Regina George so effectively that few questioned it.

Charisma Carpenter

Charisma Carpenter was 27 when she began playing Cordelia Chase on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even after graduating the character, she spent years playing someone who had only recently left high school.

Ben McKenzie

Ben McKenzie was 25 when he starred in The O.C., joining a long tradition of twenty-somethings portraying troubled teenagers. The role helped define an entire era of teen television.

Trevor Donovan

Trevor Donovan joined 90210 at age 30 while playing high school student Teddy Montgomery. Few actors have stretched the definition of “teenager” quite so far.

Tom Welling

Tom Welling was 24 when Smallville began, and the series spent years depicting Clark Kent’s adolescence. By later seasons, viewers were watching a man in his thirties play a very recent high school graduate.

James Van Der Beek

James Van Der Beek was 21 when Dawson’s Creek began and spent six seasons playing a high school student and recent graduate. Like many teen drama stars, he stayed younger on screen than in reality.

Chad Michael Murray

Chad Michael Murray was in his early twenties when he started playing Lucas Scott. After previous teen roles in Gilmore Girls and Freaky Friday, he became one of television’s most recognizable perpetual teenagers.

Sara Rue

Sara Rue was 20 when Popular premiered and spent multiple seasons playing a high school student. While not as extreme as some examples, she became part of the late-’90s tradition of adult actors filling teen roles.

Keiko Agena

Keiko Agena played Lane Kim throughout Gilmore Girls, beginning the series at age 27. She spent years portraying a high school student and later a young adult while remaining far older than the character.

14 Most Cursed TV Shows

What does it mean that something is cursed? Well, in the way the term is used now, it doesn’t mean that something (or someone) is being altered supernaturally, rather, it refers to events or circumstances that are so weird or tragic, they feel like a curse was cast.

No one actually thinks these shows were cursed, but people do agree that parts of their plots, productions or scripts feel that way. These are the TV shows that generate a lot of online discussions, not due to their plots or characters, but due to how they look and feel in the real world.

The Partridge Family

The wholesome family sitcom had a surprisingly troubled legacy. Several cast members faced personal struggles, health problems, financial difficulties, or addiction issues, giving the show’s history a much darker tone than its cheerful premise suggested.

Glee

Few shows have accumulated as many real-life tragedies as Glee. The deaths of Cory Monteith, Mark Salling, and Naya Rivera, combined with numerous controversies involving cast members, fueled its reputation as a cursed production.

8 Simple Rules

The sitcom was forced to radically reinvent itself after the sudden death of star John Ritter during production. Losing its lead actor in the middle of a successful run remains one of television’s most shocking tragedies.

The Young and the Restless

Long-running soap operas naturally experience losses, but The Young and the Restless has seen an unusually large number of cast deaths over the decades, leading some fans to jokingly label it cursed.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

The original Power Rangers cast experienced a remarkable number of tragedies, legal troubles, and untimely deaths. Those incidents have contributed to a long-running belief among fans that the franchise is unusually unlucky.

The Curse of Oak Island

A show about misfortune almost seems destined to attract more of it. Over the years, accidents, injuries, equipment failures, and endless setbacks have become part of the series’ identity.

Diff’rent Strokes

The lives of several young stars from Diff’rent Strokes were marked by personal struggles, legal problems, addiction issues, and early deaths. The show’s behind-the-scenes history remains one of television’s saddest.

ALF

The sitcom was successful on screen but notoriously difficult behind the scenes. Cast members frequently described the production as miserable, with technical limitations and stressful working conditions creating constant tension.

The X-Files

Production delays, demanding shooting schedules, injuries, and frequent reports of difficult filming conditions followed The X-Files throughout much of its run. Even the cast has spoken openly about the challenges.

Bonanza

Several cast members died relatively young, including Dan Blocker and Michael Landon. Combined with other tragedies connected to the show’s extended family of actors, Bonanza developed a reputation for bad luck.

The Royle Family

British sitcom The Royle Family became associated with sadness after the deaths of multiple beloved cast members, including Liz Smith, Geoffrey Hughes, and Caroline Aherne, all within a relatively short period.

Deadliest Catch

A show about commercial fishing in dangerous waters almost qualifies automatically. Numerous crew members featured on the series have died over the years, both on and off the job.

The Jerry Springer Show

The show became infamous for the chaos surrounding it. Multiple guests later faced arrests, scandals, or violent incidents that kept adding to its notoriety.

The Simpsons

No major television show has generated more “curse” theories. Fans have spent years pointing to the uncanny number of real-world events seemingly predicted by episodes, giving the series a bizarre reputation online.

Overwatch’s Newest Hero Continues the Game’s Character Design Missteps

Shion’s debut as Overwatch’s 52nd hero could have been a momentous occasion. Instead, the hype for the damage-class Hashimoto mob boss fizzled quickly as online chatter about her appearance dominated her post-announcement discussion.

Shion would look cool in most other contexts. Her clean white business suit complements the bright red neon lights that run through the mechanical parts of her body. Her scarlet motorcycle adds a level of stylishness that anyone would be jealous of. The combination of robotic augments and human features combined with a badass moveset would work well in any first-person hero shooter, or even most other video games in general.

In Overwatch, however, she represents a large problem the game’s developers have had with character creation. Shion is an Omnic, a race of sentient robotic beings with features that distinguish them from humans; they lack human faces and are clearly mechanical in nature. They were built in Omniums, self-sustaining megafactories owned by the Omnica Corporation, and are capable of independent thought while also being stronger and smarter than humans.

Shion is the first playable feminine-presenting Omnic. Instead of marking her introduction into the lineup with a more traditional Omnic design, Shion’s creators included far more human features seemingly for no reason other than to sexualize her. She has an attractive face, a human shaped butt and breasts, and even a tongue (as seen in her announcement trailer). Nothing about her makes viewers think she’s entirely robotic until she talks and her mouth doesn’t move.

Blizzard developers will most certainly bend over backwards when explaining her lore to justify Shion’s physical humanization instead of admitting they are copy-and-pasting the same formula for each new female character they release. The most recent women added to Overwatch’s lineup frequently share similar characteristics; symmetrical faces, athletic builds, and hyper-feminine features, with some of these characters getting slapped with common East Asian cultural motifs without much thought.

Anran, the 22-year-old graduate of Wuxing University’s Fire College, uses a flaming fan to scorch her enemies. Kiriko, the 21-year-old medic from Japan, is defined visually by her guardian fox spirit. Sierra, a 25-year-old soldier from Colorado and the most recent hero before Shion, bursts onto the battlefield with heavy winged eyeliner, lipgloss, and various technological tools of war (a big gun, a drone, etc.).

Fans are not blind to this formula, either. Posters on Reddit summarize this trend succinctly. As one user puts it: “The character sheet at blizzard: Woman, attractive, young, Japanese, cyberpunk, anime. Yeah, that sounds like money right here.”

These are just a few examples of the epidemic of Overwatch’s women being limited to a very specific niche, one that falls far short of the original Overwatch lineup’s ingenuity. Shion, as a female-presenting robotic character with a clear reason to split from these features, could have been the Overwatch developer’s chance to hit a female design out of the park after a series of swings-and-misses, but is instead another disappointing addition.

Other Omnic characters have managed to stand out visually without adopting human features. Ramattra, the most recent Omnic addition to Overwatch’s lineup, has a menacing appearance with cohesive, lore-appropriate features and aesthetic. The difference between Ramattra and Shion that allowed him to not fall into the formulaic character design Overwatch is now infamous for is that fact that he is a man.

By adding yet another standardly sexy woman character to the roster, Overwatch developers are telling their fans they care about creating conventionally attractive women over thoughtful characterization. Shion is just another unfortunate victim in their long-running war against creative experimentation when it comes to female characters.

Toy Story 5 Is Already Proving Doubters Wrong

The impending release of Toy Story 5 had the generations of fans raised by Woody, Buzz, and friends worried. After the financial success of Toy Story 4, another sequel — needed or not — was bound to happen, despite a myriad of complaints about the direction of the series. A new addition to the canon of stories about our favorite talking toys, even if trailers hinted at taking on timely themes, was not exactly wanted.

However, film journalists got their first look at the newest Toy Story, and the reactions have been rapturously positive. So good to the point that some major critics and publications are even predicting it will be in talks for this year’s Oscars, even beyond the Animated Feature category. Taylor Swift’s end credits song “I Knew It, I Knew You” has also gotten a number of shoutouts.

Almost anything released after Toy Story 3 is, without a doubt, completely unnecessary. The Toy Story shorts, holiday specials, and various spinoffs have been cute, but not anything groundbreaking. Toy Story 4, for all its visual grandeur, offered nothing but convoluted characterization and undermined the perfection that was the final minutes of Toy Story 3.

Doing something completely new without forgetting the ethos of the Toy Story franchise is a tight requirement for the fifth installment to have a modicum of success. The first Toy Story came out in 1995 and immediately asserted itself as a classic. The next two, which each brought in new characters, storylines, and themes without forgetting that most of the characters are toys, are also highly regarded. Toy Story 4 lost the idea that its characters are, in fact, toys; a pseudo-Frankenstein narrative between elementary schooler Bonnie and the plastic utensil craft Forkie underlie a plot about self exploration more akin to a Chloe Zhao film than a Pixar outing.

The trailers, which set up the parallel storylines of Woody aging and the obsolescence of toys as a whole, hinted at this desperately needed novelty. Although full reviews of the film are embargoed until June 16, it is not a stretch to say the creators behind the newest Toy Story likely hit gold.

It’s important to note that Toy Story 4 also had positive reviews from critics before its release. Vanity Fair called it a “forking good time,” while The Guardian claimed the franchise was still “very much alive.” Both the critics and audience scores for the film on Rotten Tomatoes are in the 90s. Although the film itself is far from being truly bad, it struggles in comparison to the original three movies, and few reviews have been able to capture the fact that it is by far the worst in show for Pixar’s flagship series.

Fan discourse about Toy Story 4 has been what has ultimately defined its legacy within the series. Popular film social media platform Letterboxd, which bases scores off the cumulative reviews given by its users, gives the film a 3.3 out of 5 (a below-average score for the franchise).

Right now, it’s too early to tell if Toy Story 5 will fall into the same trap. To avoid it, the film will have to give its doubters a clear reason as to why it should exist after the litmus test created by Toy Story 3’s ending. It will also likely have to shed the ham-handed existentialism and complex, often contradictory morality of Toy Story 4.

Instead of focusing on a talking fork and erasing Woody’s character arc and main motivation of making kids happy, Toy Story 5 needs to remind fans why they started thinking of their toys’ feelings after seeing the first movie.

George Clooney Has an Unprompted (and Solid) Pick for the Next James Bond

Amazon MGM can rest easy on its hunt for a new 007 because George Clooney’s been on the case and he’s cracked it. According to Clooney, there’s a “perfect” James Bond out there already, and it’s Callum Turner.

The London-born Turner, who recently wed pop star Dua Lipa, is best known for playing Newt Scamander’s brother Theseus in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, but has also snagged plum roles in Apple TV’s Masters of the Air and last year’s well-received romantic comedy Eternity.

The 36-year-old actor might be slightly on the older side for MGM, which is reportedly looking for a younger actor for its new incarnation of the iconic British spy. Still, Clooney has thrown Turner’s hat into the ring for him.

“I hope Callum ends up being the next Bond. I think he would be a great Bond,” Clooney told The Hollywood Reporter unprompted. “He’s tall and handsome and charming and British, so he’s the perfect guy to do it.”

Clooney also cites Turner’s comparative lack of “easy paychecks” over the years, in contrast to his more interesting roles, as a good reason to believe he’s proper leading man material. “Somehow Callum has weaved his way through all of the noise and found a place where people look at him and go, ‘There’s something with this young man.’ It’s exciting to watch people saying, ‘That guy — that’s a guy I want to follow and pay attention to.’“

When asked directly about the James Bond speculation swirling around him, Turner said, “I’m not going to comment on that,” later adding, “I’ll tell you what’s so funny about the Bond thing: Even your best friends ask you, people text you that you haven’t spoken to for 10 years — and you know nothing! It’s such a weird thing of something happening and nothing happening at all. I genuinely know nothing. I just find it quite amusing.”

Realistically, Turner is a solid choice for the new Bond. He’s young enough, but also looks like he could already be a bit experienced in espionage, given that he’s also the same age as actor Jack Lowden, the spy in Apple TV’s terrific Slow Horses. Callum is charismatic but has proved he can handle more serious roles, and also has the right physicality for Bond. More importantly, perhaps, people don’t immediately associate him with another iconic role, which might prove less of a distraction than someone like the hotly tipped Jacob Elordi, who many still think of as the manipulative and abusive Nate Jacobs in Euphoria.

Are you with Clooney on this one? Let us know in the comments!

The Death of Robin Hood: Exclusive Look at Hugh Jackman’s Unmasking of a Legend

Most folks do not like it when their heroes die. A quick glance at online discourse about franchise movies that ended with icons perishing will remind you of this. But the resistance to fictional mortality dates back far longer. There are dozens upon dozens of Robin Hood movies, for example, yet only one previously has made a serious attempt at adapting Robin’s death. Even fewer have genuinely sought to examine the events of “A Gest of Robyn Hode,” a ballad dating back to at least the 16th century that is our oldest surviving account of Robin’s demise.

Yet for Michael Sarnoski, the writer-director of Pig, A Quiet Place: Day One, and this month’s A24 release of The Death of Robin Hood, it was always the story of brave Robin’s end that most intrigued, beginning with when the headmaster of his school handed him a collection of ballads written down in a previous century.

“I was fascinated by it and I was confused by it,” Sarnoski muses about his reaction to Robin Hood dying. “As a kid, you’re like, wait a minute, he’s this heroic, folkloric immortal character that has persisted through the ages, yet he also has a very human, quiet, simple death? The seeming paradox of that really fascinated me as a child, and it was all kind of happening right around the time that I lost my own dad.”

Raised previously by his parents to think of Robin Hood as a swaggering talking fox, courtesy of the 1973 animated Disney movie, Sarnoski suddenly found himself confronting the very real prospect of mortality—and all at the same time he was introduced to a Robin fading away in a bed, watched over perhaps too eagerly by the Prioress of a nearby nunnery.

“I’m 10 years old and realizing these iconic symbolic characters are human beings, I’m talking about parents in this situation, and they can fail and die just like any other person can,” he continues. “They can suffer. It’s when you’re coming to terms with what mortality is and what growing up is, and I think it all just sort of hit me right around the same time.”

The impact of that hit lingered in Sarnoski’s mind for decades, seemingly expressing itself in strange ways. The filmmaker swears he wasn’t thinking about Robin Hood when he named Nicolas Cage’s vaguely outlawish chef living in the self-exile of a forest “Robin” on Pig, but he won’t deny the similarities between that story and the Robin Hood movie he would begin writing soon afterward—or even his A Quiet Place prequel. It was in fact the prospect of tackling the latter, which led to him finally returning to that elegiac ballad about Robin and the Prioress.

“I was getting ready to write A Quiet Place, and it was just like this moment of ‘screw it.’ I’m about to go do a studio movie, so let’s just write this thing that’s always lived inside me and that I’ve always wanted to get out on paper. I know it could be a dumb idea to make another Robin Hood movie, who needs that? But I gotta get this thing out of me to see if it’s something that I wanted to put aside and leave behind, or if it’s something I wanted to pursue someday.”

What came from Sarnoski’s pen is, in some ways, a faithful adaptation of the earliest, bloodiest medieval ballads of Robin Hood, before daring exploits in the Holy Lands or Locksley lands and titles were later granted to the character’s name. In other ways, however, it’s a total inversion in which the violence is extreme, and so is the spiritual penance Robin unconsciously receives when he ends up on an island with a true holy woman.

Hugh Jackman in the Death of Robin Hood 2 with Bill Skarsgard

At a glance, it could be perceived by audiences as another hero at sunset movie like Logan or the last Indiana Jones movie. It indeed stars the Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. But right down to the way the film ruthlessly deconstructs that romantic image from its opening scene, where Jackman’s titular highwayman is introduced more like the monster in the woods than a gruff hero, there is something darkly subversive to the material. Hence its appeal for the Wolverine actor.

“Early on in my first meeting with Hugh, we [acknowledged] there are similarities to Logan that people are going to see about this aging hero,” says Sarnoski, “but I think he got that this performance was going to go in a totally different direction. You can start with an aging man of violence. That’s a classic character trope. But there are so many ways you can go with it, and I was excited to dive into that and show people we can take it in a completely different direction, and emotionally it’s going to feel vastly different…. You’re not going to be seeing Wolverine with a bow.”

The first sequence is shockingly violent as an unexpected monster-slayer seeks out Robin in his aged isolation in order to extract a debt. But then, much of the film’s first half hour is by design relentlessly brutal, even if it barely scratches the surface of the earliest ballads Sarnoski researched.

“The world was rough and scary back then, so even children’s stories needed to be pretty rough and scary,” Sarnoski observes. “Like it’s supposed to be funny [in one story] when Robin cuts off people’s heads and wears them into town as like a little head-mask. Just pretty grotesque, horrible stuff.” While nothing that extreme happens in Sarnoski’s movie, there was a desire to remove as many of the flourishes that writers and filmmakers introduced centuries later, from Sir Walter Scott to Michael Curtiz—right down to the choice of setting The Death of Robin Hood in 1247, more than 50 years after the backdrop of most Robin Hood movies.

Explains Sarnoski, “My feeling was let’s go back to those earliest sources and try to create what the character might have looked like from those and get rid of the later additions… So the Crusades? They weren’t part of the earliest Robin legends. All of the Richard the Lionheart Crusades [elements], that was something added on. Robin Hood is not a real character. At best he’s probably an amalgamation of a few maybe real people, but [due to] the earliest versions, 1247 is a theorized date that some people have thrown around for when maybe his death might have taken place.”

While certain elements from the legend remain—Jackman’s Robin is scarily good with a bow—others were intentionally omitted or shrewdly shifted.

“The only characters in the movie that wear green are Little John and his family,” notes the director, “as if he’s the only one that sort of maintained that romantic idea of Robin and what they were, embracing it in some strange way. Whereas Robin is always in browns and grays, and then we introduced blue to the palette when they get to the priory, and suddenly there’s color and life that kind of comes into all of the costumes.”

Indeed, the first half hour is savage, with Sarnoski suggesting he wanted to give viewers everything they’d expect in a Robin Hood movie—robbery, adventure, sword and arrow play—but for it to “feel almost like a horror movie or a war movie, so that by the end of it, you’re like, this is unpleasant.” Only then does Robin and the movie’s world turn upside down as Little John (Bill Skarsgård) takes the antihero to rest at a priory on an island out in the Irish Sea. The film becomes about a haunted folk hero (in the loosest sense), but also something more elusive and ephemeral. It’s where Robin at last meets the woman who will give him grace, and whom is played by the infinitely graceful Jodie Comer.

“So I had met Jodie right after Pig, and we sort of immediately had this feeling of ‘it’s not going to be right now, we don’t have something yet, but we’re gonna work together,’” says Sarnoski. “There was some sort of creative soul connection going on there. And then when the Prioress popped up, I never really write for a specific actor, but it was just really obvious early on that this is the one for Jodie.”

With her full name of Sister Brigid, the Prioress lives in a pastoral oasis drenched in sunlight and inviting greens. She brings an air of mystery to the film, but also a sense of intense empathy and humanism as she collects broken folks like Robin and an even more enigmatic leper played by The White Lotus’ Murray Bartlett.

“[Robin] sees her and he’s like ‘who is this person?’” Sarnoski explains. “‘She is sharper and more observant than anyone I’ve ever met. She rivals me with her keenness, but then there’s also some sort of mystery and some sort of paradox to her.’” She brings out a core theme in the film, which goes beyond mere redemption.

Hugh Jackman in the Death of Robin Hood 3

Says the director, “It would be sort of simple to say this is a story about redemption. It’s more complicated than that, and it’s not simple redemption. It’s coming to terms with many disparate understandings of who you are as a human being and how those things can integrate and live together.”

The core connecting tissue is humanity, the humanity of a man as broken as Robin, and as delicately rebuilt as the woman who will give him absolution. In many respects, it is still in dialogue with the sorrows of Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One, as well as their triumphs.

“I learned what I had to from Pig and Quiet Place, as far as making a big and small movie,” Sarnoski says. “So I was excited to be like, ‘Okay, I have the tools to make this sort of Robin Hood at this sort of scale where it’s going to be a grown-up adult drama, but at a price that makes sense.” It is a Robin Hood movie that no one else would make, which might be why it aims so true.

The Death of Robin Hood opens only in theaters on Friday, June 19.

The Social Reckoning Trailer Has Already Failed to Live Up to The Social Network

The Social Network had no business being the perfect movie it is. Pairing the verbose and optimistic Aaron Sorkin with the frigid and controlled David Fincher? Making a movie about Facebook, an obvious fad only a few years into its popularity? Focusing a lot of attention on nerdy computer guys coding a website? And yet, as a montage of Facebook posts played over a choral version of Radiohead’s “Creep” in the first 30 seconds of the trailer, we knew that The Social Network would be something special.

The Social Reckoning offers no such reassurance. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the clip, which does exactly what a good trailer should do. It introduces us to Mikey Madison as Frances Haugen, the whistleblower who leaked thousands of internal Facebook documents to journalist Jeff Horwitz, played by Jeremy Allen White. It also debuts Jeremy Strong as a more aggressive, more powerful Mark Zuckerberg, who once again finds himself on trial, being examined by Wunmi Mosaku, coached by Bill Burr, and smugly mocked by Billy Magnussen.

It all looks like a competent legal thriller, and that’s not at all a bad thing. In the 15-plus years since The Social Network debuted, the types of legal thrillers that used to hit theaters on a monthly basis have all dried up. Since superheroes took over, John Grisham and his ilk have stayed on bookshelves and moviegoers have had to accept Juror #2 as a reasonable facsimile of the middlebrow flicks we used to love.

Moreover, Facebook has only grown more dominant, with AI bots created by foreign governments to make your grandparents nuts replacing the goofy status updates featured in the trailer for The Social Network. We now know Facebook to be a genuinely dangerous part of modern society, not a fun, harmless thing created by a weird misogynist.

Perhaps most importantly, The Social Reckoning arrives in the shadow of The Social Network, a film now fully canonized as one of the greatest movies of the 21st century. The new movie’s trailer couldn’t just grab a different Radiohead song and have its own montage. It had to go in its own direction.

But is this the right direction? Aaron Sorkin’s decision to write and direct the film, without the involvement of Fincher, already puts it under great scrutiny. When he’s on, Sorkin can write some of the most brilliant, sparkling dialogue in all of media. When he’s off—and he’s usually off when he’s directing himself—he’s overbearing, self-congratulatory, and all together exhausting. Throw in Strong’s very literal take on Zuckerberg, a far cry from Jesse Eisenberg‘s more human interpretation, and we have good reason to doubt The Social Reckoning.

Still, this is only one trailer, and not the whole film. And one trailer isn’t enough to judge an entire movie… unless it’s the trailer for The Social Network.

Summer Game Fest 2026: What We Learned About Resident Evil Veronica

One of the biggest announcements at Summer Game Fest 2026 was its very first, with Capcom unveiling a cinematic trailer not only confirming it was developing a Resident Evil – Code: Veronica remake, but that it was expected to release in 2027. Simply titled Resident Evil Veronica, the announcement trailer retains the 2000 game’s story of Resident Evil 2 protagonist Claire Redfield searching for her missing brother Chris in Europe. In an invite-only presentation at the Summer Game Fest Play Days private campus in Los Angeles attended by Den of Geek, Capcom revealed more details about the upcoming game.

To be clear, the presentation did not include any additional footage from Resident Evil Veronica, including the continued omission of any gameplay sequences from the remake. Instead, the presentation began with a story so far style recap, recontextualizing that Veronica takes place three months after the events of Resident Evil 2 and the destruction of its setting of Raccoon City. This aligns with the announcement trailer, which opened with Claire visiting her brother’s abandoned apartment in Paris only to be captured by an elite soldier looking and sounding an awful lot like Umbrella Corporation specialist HUNK.

As the presentation pivoted to a Q&A session, project producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi noted that one of the most common questions he’s received is why the remake dropped “Code” from its title. While pointing out that he and the development team respect and appreciate the original title, the simplified rebranding matched the Resident Evil franchise’s current titling patterns. Ever since 2017’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the series had kept its mainline entries to a single word, a trend echoed by 2021’s Resident Evil Village and this year’s Resident Evil Requiem.

More than staying in line with recent mainline releases, the retitling underscores Hirabayashi’s stance that he, the development team, and Capcom consider Code: Veronica and its remake as being just as important to the franchise as any numbered Resident Evil game. This distinction is one that’s repeated several times during the presentation, with Hirabayashi observing that the prominent inclusion of so many franchise main characters makes the game’s importance all the more clear. The other repeated detail from the presentation is that Resident Evil Veronica is a reimagining of Code: Veronica, revamped for modern audiences, though details about any planned changes were not elaborated on at this time.

What is elaborated on is that Resident Evil Veronica features the same development team from the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2 and 2023 remake of Resident Evil 4, including Hirabayashi himself, who was a producer on both titles and a franchise mainstay for decades. Not only is the team using the latest version of the RE Engine, Capcom’s proprietary video game engine introduced with 2017’s Resident Evil 7, but Veronica will be a third-person game like the team’s prior projects. This comes as the announcement trailer primarily featured a first-person perspective from Claire’s point-of-view, with only a handful of shots actually showing her face.

We asked Hirabayashi how Resident Evil Veronica plans to reimagine Rockfort Island, the primary setting of Code: Veronica, which was glimpsed throughout the remake’s announcement trailer. Hirabayashi noted that there would be a greater emphasis on examining the people who inhabited Rockfort Island before they were overwhelmed by and transformed into zombies. In Code: Veronica, the remote European island had been the location of a large prison, which was also briefly seen in the trailer, but more varied environments, including the palatial estate of Ashford family, though none of the familiar characters beyond Claire and, potentially, HUNK were seen.

But beyond these details, Capcom is currently keeping details surrounding Resident Evil Veronica very close to the chest. This time last year, Capcom had unveiled early gameplay footage and a solid release date for Resident Evil Requiem at Summer Game Fest 2025 in its private presentation for the game. This year, neither element has been revealed just yet, with Hirabayashi even coy in confirming if Code: Veronica supporting character Steve Burnside would make an appearance in the remake when asked (though the character’s signature guns can be seen in the announcement trailer).

With Resident Evil Veronica announced in the wake of Resident Evil Requiem becoming the franchise’s fastest-selling title of all time and more DLC on the way, it’s clear that the quintessential survival horror video game series is still a prominent property in Capcom’s catalog. Moreover, fans have been clamoring for a Code: Veronica remake for years and the upcoming project finally realizes that widespread wish while reaffirming the 2000 game’s vital place in the franchise. We haven’t seen anything more than the general public regarding the already eagerly anticipated game but, in hearing directly from Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, it sounds like the project is in the right hands, ready to honor the legacy of Code: Veronica while making the whole experience feel fresh again.

Developed and published by Capcom, Resident Evil Veronica will be released in 2027 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Doctor Who Christmas Special Canceled by BBC as Russell T Davies Sets Record Straight

Doctor Who is set to regenerate again, but this time in a rather different and sudden capacity. The BBC has confirmed today that it is putting the show out to competitive tender and that showrunner Russell T Davies and producer Bad Wolf have officially left the beloved British sci-fi series, with a planned Christmas special also canceled.

“Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who, ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come,” the Beeb said in a statement. “This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one-off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.”

Davies took to Instagram to set the record straight on his departure and the status of the Christmas special, which he suggests never really got off the ground in the first place, with no script written and no actor set to play the new Time Lord following Ncuti Gatwa, who portrayed the Fifteenth Doctor until 2025.

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“And so GOODBYE from me to Doctor Who but HELLO to a big new future for the show, as the BBC announces it’s putting the show out to tender. As a result, there won’t be a Christmas Special — we only cooked that up to guarantee a future when no one knew what would happen, but now we do know, there’s no need for it.

“You’ll have to wait a bit longer for new Doctor Who… but you’ll be waiting for MORE Doctor Who than a one-off. So it’s worth it! For the record: there was no script, I never wrote it, and no actor was ever approached to play the next Doctor. You may disagree; fine, sit in that chair and wait to be proved right. You’ll wait a lonnng time. Now I’m as excited as anyone to see what comes next! Will they keep the theme tune? Will they lose the blue box? Will they bring back the Drahvin?! It’s all up for grabs, which is so Doctor Who, exciting and unpredictable and new! Here comes the future, vworp vworp.”

Comments under Davies’ post were predictably mixed, with Doctor Who’s passionate fan base weighing in with both positive and negative views about the showrunner’s time on the series. Nevertheless, there will hopefully be a fresh start ahead for further live-action Doctor Who adventures.

In the meantime, fans can look forward to some family fun with the Doctor, as an animated series is currently in production for CBeebies.

15 Once-Common TV Tropes You Just Can’t Do Anymore

TV Tropes are elements of television shows that get repeated constantly, working as plot threads that audiences know and recognize. They might seem repetitive, but it’s a way to suspend our disbelief and accept that this is the reality the show works with. The show must go on.

But as people’s sensitivities change, so too do the things they’ll accept in their shows. Therefore, certain Tropes are no longer usable, since you’ll lose audience, money, and likely get ‘cancelled.’ It should be said, for good reason, since these added sensitivities are here to stay, letting us accept people of all backgrounds and not making jokes at their expense.

The Airport Love Confession

For years, romantic comedies and TV dramas loved scenes where a character raced through an airport to stop a departing lover. Modern airport security makes these grand gestures far less plausible than they once seemed.

The Magical Amnesia Plot

A simple bump on the head used to trigger instant amnesia in countless television shows. Modern audiences are much more aware of traumatic brain injuries, making these convenient memory-loss storylines feel dated.

The Panic-Attack Slap

Classic westerns, noir films, and television dramas often portrayed slapping a distressed woman as a legitimate way to calm her down. The trope was common for decades but has largely disappeared from modern storytelling.

The Very Special Episode

Many sitcoms paused their usual comedy for a “very special episode” about serious topics like drugs, teen pregnancy, or gun violence. By the following week, everything was usually back to normal.

The Clip Show

Clip-show episodes once saved money by reusing footage from earlier seasons. As television shifted toward shorter seasons and serialized storytelling, audiences became far less tolerant of episodes built mostly from old scenes.

Persistence Equals Romance

Older television frequently suggested that relentless pursuit would eventually win someone’s affection. Characters who ignored rejection and kept showing up were often rewarded, a message that tends to be viewed very differently today.

The Gay Panic Joke

Many sitcoms built jokes around male characters being mistaken for gay or appearing too feminine. Shows like Friends used the trope regularly, but changing social attitudes have made it far less common.

Peeping Tom Shenanigans

Teen characters spying on women changing clothes was often treated as harmless comedy. What was once framed as a rite of passage is now far more likely to be recognized as invasive behavior.

Domestic Violence as a Punchline

Television once featured casual jokes about spouses hitting one another, usually for comedic effect. Modern audiences are generally less accepting of treating domestic abuse as a harmless source of laughs.

Cartoon Suicide Gags

Older cartoons frequently used exaggerated suicide jokes to show despair. Characters might dramatically threaten themselves after a setback, a style of humor that has largely vanished from contemporary family entertainment.

The Teacher-Student Romance

Television once portrayed relationships between teachers and students as forbidden but exciting romances. Today, such storylines are far more likely to emphasize the ethical and legal problems involved.

The Lovable Town Drunk

Characters like Otis from The Andy Griffith Show turned public intoxication into a recurring joke. Modern television is generally less likely to treat alcoholism as a charming personality trait.

The Sitcom Dating Pest

Many sitcoms featured characters whose entire personality revolved around relentlessly pursuing women. Figures like Fez or early Howard Wolowitz were common archetypes, but audiences have grown less receptive to that behavior.

Smoking Everywhere

Characters once smoked almost anywhere without comment, from airplanes to offices and even around children. Modern restrictions and public health awareness have made these scenes feel like relics of another era.

The Permanently Unlocked Door

Television characters in New York or Los Angeles routinely left their front doors unlocked, allowing friends to wander in unannounced. Modern viewers often find the practice far less believable than earlier audiences did.

15 Classic Onscreen Couples With the Wildest Age Gaps

Actors often aren’t the same age as their characters, something mostly seen when adults play teenagers. But if you take into account their real ages, it is a bit wild when you consider the age differences between certain on-screen couples. Granted, they often aren’t real couples, but it feels wild all the same.

Some might say that there is no age for love, and for starters, that’s a dangerous statement in a general sense. But with consenting adults, age gaps of 15 or 20 years mean a world of life experience that one side has over the other. These are the wildest age gaps we could fand in classic movies.

Casablanca

Humphrey Bogart was 44 while Ingrid Bergman was 27 during the production of Casablanca. Their chemistry is legendary, but the 17-year age gap is much larger than many viewers realize when revisiting the classic romance.

To Have and Have Not

In To Have and Have Not, Humphrey Bogart was 44 and Lauren Bacall was just 19. Their 25-year age gap raised eyebrows even then, though the pair famously fell in love and later married.

Charade

Cary Grant was 59 when he starred opposite 33-year-old Audrey Hepburn in Charade. Despite a 26-year difference, their chemistry helped make the film one of the most beloved romantic thrillers ever made.

North by Northwest

In North by Northwest, Cary Grant was 54 while Eva Marie Saint was 34. The 20-year gap is often overlooked because both performers brought so much charm and confidence to their roles.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

James Stewart was 50 when he appeared opposite 22-year-old Vera Miles in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The nearly three-decade difference is striking when viewed through modern eyes.

McLintock!

John Wayne was 56 when McLintock! was released, while Maureen O’Hara was 43. The 13-year gap is smaller than some others on this list, but it paired two classic stars whose screen chemistry often made audiences overlook their age difference.

Sabrina

In Sabrina, Humphrey Bogart was 54 while Audrey Hepburn was 24. The 30-year age difference became a frequent topic among critics, especially since the film revolves around a romantic relationship.

Never Say Never Again

Sean Connery was 53 when he starred opposite 24-year-old Kim Basinger in Never Say Never Again. The unofficial Bond film featured a 29-year gap between its romantic leads.

But Not for Me

Clark Gable was 59 while Carroll Baker was 29 in But Not for Me. The 30-year age difference reflected a common Hollywood trend of pairing aging male stars with much younger women.

Love in the Afternoon

Gary Cooper was 59 when he starred opposite 27-year-old Audrey Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon. Even Hepburn later admitted the 32-year age gap made the romance difficult to fully sell.

Funny Face

In Funny Face, Fred Astaire was 58 and Audrey Hepburn was 28. The musical remains beloved, but its 30-year age gap is one of the first things many modern viewers notice.

The Searchers

John Wayne was 46 while Natalie Wood was only 16 in The Searchers. Although the film’s romance is limited, the attempted pairing remains one of the more uncomfortable age differences in a classic western.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Spencer Tracy was 67 when he starred opposite 39-year-old Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Their 28-year age difference was overshadowed by the film’s larger social themes.

Man’s Favorite Sport?

Rock Hudson was 41 while Paula Prentiss was 25 in Man’s Favorite Sport? The 16-year gap was hardly unusual by Hollywood standards, though it stands out more today.

Fedora

William Holden was 53 when he starred opposite 22-year-old Marthe Keller in Fedora. The 31-year difference fit a long-running pattern in classic Hollywood casting that audiences largely accepted at the time.