Vought Rising Trailer: The Greatest Generation Gets The Boys’ Treatment

The disappointing fifth and final season of The Boys suffered from a myriad of problems. According to creator Eric Kripke, one issue was that the series was just too darn timely. How could he have guessed that the absolutely absurd moment when Homelander has a gaudy vision that convinces him he is God would be trumped by the President sharing an AI image of himself as the divine?

The first trailer for The Boys prequel series Vought Rising seems to promise a series devoid of such issues. The show goes all the way back to 1950, and seems to present a younger, more earnest Soldier Boy (still played by a 48-year-old Jensen Ackles), who truly wants to serve the flag instead of himself. Injected with Compound V, Soldier Boy joins Bombsight (Mason Dye), Torpedo (Will Hochman), and Private Angel (Elizabeth Posey). But as anyone who has seen The Boys knows that Soldier Boy’s real partner is Clara Vought, played by a returning Aya Cash.

The Vought Rising trailer mostly concerns itself with superheroes, blood-splatter, and ironic needle-drops, the sort of thing you’d expect from a spinoff of The Boys. But the trailer hints at the show’s plans to turn the franchise’s satirical eye toward the greatest generation.

The current president was only a four-year-old at the time, but the odious worldview that drove his administration and has been mocked on The Boys was certainly present at the time—and not just among the Nazis. Racism, eugenic theories, and work camps for those deemed lesser are all part of American policies.

The Boys has previously gestured at the similarities between American idealism and Nazism, most obviously in the reveal that Clara Vought was Klara Risinger, wife of Nazi geneticist and inventor of Compound V, Frederick Vought. Frederick gave his wife the compound, and when they immigrated to the U.S. as part of Operation Paperclip, Clara became the patriotic superhero Liberty. After her racist crimes were exposed, Liberty went into hiding, only to reemerge decades later as Stormfront, using a codename derived from white supremacist jargon.

By looking at the Eisenhower Era, Vought Rising allows The Boys to remind viewers that the problems of the present day aren’t new, that even in its best moments, the U.S. flirts with fascism and authoritarianism.

The trailer hints at another way Vought Rising will critique America’s past, by following the perspective of Black characters. Although we don’t get much about KiKi Layne’s character, other than her connection to Soldier Boy, we do see a character played by Jorden Myrie getting injected with Compound V and gaining superpowers.

Surely, Myrie’s character will be involved in this universe’s version of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and other forms of medical apartheid in the United States, in which American scientists performed experiments on Black people. Not only will this plot point allow the series to draw stronger connections between the United States and Nazi Germany, but also explore a different side of the American superhero myth.

Unless some historian releases a new book that totally changes the way we think about the 1950s, Kripke won’t have to worry about the news one-upping the stories in Vought Rising. Instead, he’ll just have to worry about the greatest threat with any Boys series: people who don’t get the joke, and refuse to learn the lessons of the satires.

Vought Rising streams on Prime Video in 2027.

Mandalorian and Grogu: Star Wars Forgot Why the Cantina Scene Matters

This article contains minor spoilers for The Mandalorian and Grogu.

At the climax of The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s first act, the odds stack up against Din Djarin. A horde of monsters floods into the gladiatorial arena to which he’s been sent, forcing Mando and Rotta the Hutt, the shockingly ripped son of Jabba the Hutt, to fight against a giant lizard in a leather vest, some unsettling worm thing, a gloopy dude with giant eyes, and other beasties.

At first, the fight scene just sucks, one of many indifferently-shot action sequences in The Mandalorian and Grogu. The monsters have neat shapes and move around in a way that could be compelling, but they’re all the color of old dishwater, various shades of green and brown and grey. But then you notice that the floor of the arena has a checkered pattern. And then you see the giant lizard guy smash its opponent on the ground, and you realize that these are the monsters from Dejarik, the holochess game that R2-D2 and Chewbecca play in the first Star Wars.

And you wonder, how did a franchise that once had incredible creature effects sink to this level?

If it’s been a while, or if you just watched Mando & Grogu and you have forgotten what good monsters look like, go back and watch the Dejarik part of Star Wars. The beasties are only on screen for a couple of seconds, but they’re immediately distinctive. The Kintan strider (the club-wielding neckless dude) is bright yellow. The Mantellian Savrip (leather-vest lizard) has rich green skin, which didn’t blend into the brown of his clothes. The molator (think Squidward, but melting from toxic waste, like that hoodlum in Robocop) seems to glow neon blue.

In Star Wars, we only see the Dejarik pieces clearly for one insert shot. The rest of the time, they’re just small pieces sitting in front of R2 and Chewie, part of the scenery. And yet, despite their small size and their lack of opacity (they are holographic, after all), the monsters stand out and stick in your memory. Animator Phil Tippett and his team made the creatures so amazing that despite being on screen for less than a minute, and only being the focus of the screen for mere seconds, the Dejarik pieces have become favorites, leading to their inclusion in Mando & Grogu.

Even more impressive is the fact that the Dejarik scene isn’t even the best creature feature moment in Star Wars. The Cantina scene is the stuff of legend, and with good reason. It begins with some Y-headed thing popping into the frame, his glowing yellow bug eyes offsetting the shadow. The camera cuts around to show us the other inhabitants: a yeti with the head of a spider, a couple of astronauts, a bat guy demanding his drink, the freaking Devil is there, just hanging out.

Like so many of the best parts of Star Wars, the denizens of the Cantina were assembled by accident and necessity. Reshoots and budget constraints forced make-up artist Rick Baker to just grab what he had lying around his shop to met George Lucas‘ demands for more odd aliens. Thus we get a ton of interesting-looking guys who show up without names or backstory. They are just there to look cool, build atmosphere, and flesh out the world.

The scene plays like a grab bag of random weirdos, and it plays perfectly. There’s a reason that everything from the Halloween town in The Nightmare Before Christmas to the spa from Spirited Away to the Troll Market in Hellboy II to even Star Trek (remember the bar that Bones visits in The Search for Spock?) all follow the Cantina model.

Yet, despite being chock-full of aliens, The Mandalorian and Grogu never comes close to the Cantina scene. To be sure, a couple of the creatures look cool. The puppeteering of Grogu and the Babus Frik remains incredible, and the climax prominently features a giant white snake that is genuinely impressive. But almost all of the creatures are like the Dejarik pieces seen in the gladiator arena: dull and forgettable.

Part of the problem stems from the movie’s color-grading. Mando & Grogu may have graduated from Disney+ to the big screen, but it still looks made for streaming, with the colors all flattened the same shade of grade, better to account for TVs and phones. As a result, the Dejarik monsters, the monkey played by Martin Scorsese, the Hutts, the ‘droids, and everyone else has a pallete of grey, green, and brown.

The other part is that Star Wars is rarely about anything but Star Wars anymore, which is why the Dejarik monsters are there in the first place. Lucas’ demands and Baker’s desparation to fill out the world left plenty of space for surprise and imagination, heightened by the fact that Kenner produced toys of guys like Hammerhead, the slug-like guy in the Cantina. But now, Hammerhead has a proper name (Momaw Nadon) and a backstory and a Wookieepedia entry, so that his next appearance won’t be a surprise, but rather a callback to make everyone who knows about Momaw feel very smart.

Star Wars used to be filled with wonder and surprise. The Mandalorian and Grogu proves that the franchise is now about trotting out creatures you already know and understand, made as bland and ugly as possible.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is now playing in theaters.

Directive 8020 Isn’t Living up to The Dark Picture Anthology’s Hype

Supermassive Games’ Dark Pictures Anthology series takes on heavy themes about the darker aspects of humanity, free will, and morality. Players learn to make decisions for survival on the fly and deal with the outcomes of those decisions, sometimes impacted by choices of characters centuries before them.

The first game of the franchise, Man of Medan, was released in 2019, and the world has since expanded across five games of pure terror, with fan-favorite narrator, The Curator, walking players through numerous puzzles and questions in hopes of finding out the central mystery that connects back to the mysterious narrator himself.

The recently-released fifth installment of the series, Directive 8020, takes place into a new outer space setting. In a mission to save a dying Earth, the colony ship Cassiopeia travels 12 lightyears away to Tau Ceti f, a planet that offers humanity hope. When the ship crashes on the planet, leaving the crew stranded, they come to the horrifying realization that they are not alone. Faced with their dire reality, the crew must escape a shape-shifting alien life form that turns them against each other.

Now, some players are voicing their concerns about the direction of the franchise with the creative decisions in Directive 8020, which differ from the usual beloved action-driven format.

The Dark Pictures Anthology series has provided a unique action-based player choice game format that invites players to play as some of the protagonists of compelling horror stories, allowing them to live through their biggest horror movie fantasies. A shared multiplayer decision-making experience, the franchise tailors its player experience around community, sharing the controller, and making decisions that affect your friends. The experience at times invokes the same rage as “Draw 4” in UNO, when your friend puts you in a do-or-die scenario that could have been avoided with a choice to react calmly, not with distrust.

The execution of this concept, along with some unique storytelling mechanics, has led to the franchise’s increase in popularity with many fans regarding its third game, House of Ashes, as the creative peak.

However, that leads to concern that the franchise may have hit a minor speedbump. Directive 8020 currently has mixed reviews on Steam, with 874 positive and 504 negative reports. The overall consensus has rated it as a good game, but lacking in the continuous tension that made the franchise so notable.

“Instead of ‘The Thing – In Space,’ it’s more of a stealth game with few good ideas,” a user wrote on Steam. “The only part I really liked was the setting itself and contacting the crew members and [seeing] how they respond. Sadly, it’s another horror game ruined by bad gameplay and a mediocre story.”

The lack of action-based choices, especially in a crew of physically fit astronauts, isn’t the best choice for the game. With most of the options being sneaking and running, there is a distinct lack of offensive gameplay that isn’t typical of Dark Pictures.

There are further complaints about the frequency of the stealth scenes, which players say took away from the player experience. Character interactions and relationships feel weaker than in past games, especially in a storyline that prioritizes character relationships. Reddit users on r/DarkPicturesAnthology commented on the lack of depth of the characters, who feel bland and display little development, despite the trait development system that affects choices.

The emphasis on building character relationships is lost with the weak conversation choices among characters. The paranoia that should be involved in an Alien meets Body Snatchers-like scenario is missing from the gameplay.

Directive 8020 marks the start of season two of the Dark Pictures Anthology. While it feels like Supermassive Games decided on a safe beginning, there is still plenty room for adventure.

Hopefully, the next installment has enough action to make Lara Croft look like an amateur.

Directive 8020 is now available on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Ranking Every Season of The Boys

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 5.

The future of The Boys is in the past. Now that the show is over, we can look forward to a prequel series called Vought Rising that will explore the adventures of Soldier Boy, Bombsight, Liberty, and a host of other new characters in the 1950s, but until then, we can also look back at The Boys itself, as season 5 has marked the end of the mothership show on Prime Video.

Butcher and the gang gave us five seasons of absolute chaos to treasure forever, along with endless memes and edits to suit any mood. And although it will remain a travesty that Antony Starr didn’t scoop up every Emmy for his performance as Homelander, he sure did give it 1000% playing one of the most maniacal TV villains of all time.

Right, never mind the bollocks, let’s look back at every season of The Boys and crown a champion…

5. Season 5

Arguably, the final season of The Boys was its weakest. Fans generally weren’t happy with the pacing, which spent too much time setting up the franchise’s next spinoff and too little trying to capture the razor-sharp satire of previous seasons. Unfortunately, by the time season 5 emerged, our reality had become far too stupid to effectively satirize and, as a result, The Boys was running on fumes.

This season set up a final showdown between Butcher and Homelander, one that had been promised for years. After being unable to use the long-in-gestation Supe virus against him, Butcher looked to Kimiko to take on Soldier Boy’s chest blast powers in an effort to suck Homelander’s away and leave him a vulnerable human they could easily beat.

There were happy endings aplenty for many of the show’s characters, including Hughie and Annie, but sadly, a few of the core “good guys” lost their lives by the time the series wrapped, including Butcher’s sweet old dog, Terror. Ultimately, the finale was a good enough sendoff for the show, but there was an overarching sense that seasons 4 and 5 were stretching out a single season of storytelling.

4. Season 4

The wheels came off a bit during this season. Though The Boys was still must-watch weekly viewing, the show was starting to feel like it was running out of compelling ideas, despite a worthy exploration of an America on the brink of societal and political collapse. There was also some uneven pacing as season 4 set up a final showdown between Homelander and The Boys, rather than embracing a more satisfyingly contained arc.

Still, there was a lot to love in season 4. Butcher had been living on the edge for a while, but finally had to face his own mortality. Alt-right Supe Firecracker was recruited at TruthCon, and actress Valorie Curry would go on to become a fantastic addition to the cast. A killer episode also had Homelander return to the Vought lab where he was once experimented on, producing some of the most tense and upsetting scenes of the entire series.

The Gen V virus crossover was a little shaky, and Joe Kessler being a figment of Billy Butcher’s imagination led to a fairly underwhelming guest-starring role for Jeffrey Dean Morgan, but season 4 was basically fine overall, just not as good as previous seasons.

3. Season 1

The first season of The Boys was a fresh breath of diabolical air. It arrived with spectacular timing, as we were meeting Butcher and the gang and getting drawn into the razor-sharp satire of the show just after Avengers: Endgame had practically sewn up the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It felt like it was destined to happen this way. The Boys was a spoonful of medicine, forcing the MCU sugar not just down, but all the way out. A much-needed meta commentary on superhero worship, it deconstructed the myths of costumed saviours and stuck a middle finger up at anyone who thought that absolute power wouldn’t corrupt absolutely in a way that even Zack Snyder wouldn’t dare to explore.

Season 1 was also packed with iconic moments that would drive the show’s narrative all the way into the final season. Hughie’s rage and heartbreak after A-Train kills his girlfriend, Robin. Starlight realizing that being a superhero under Vought’s thumb is a poisoned chalice. The plane crash sequence, where Homelander abandons passengers to their deaths. Homelander lasering Madelyn Stillwell and then showing Butcher that his wife Becca is not only alive but is raising Homelander’s son.

All fantastic stuff, and a strong start to an irreverent series that would capture the imagination of an audience who didn’t know it yet, but were about to experience something called “superhero fatigue.”

2. Season 3

Season 3 is battling with season 2 for the top spot here, as The Boys was on fire across both seasons! This one started off with a bang when that unforgettable Termite penis explosion sequence unfolded. It also brought along some fascinating new ideas with the introduction of the Compound V variant, V24. Temporary superpowers changed the game for Butcher and Hughie, but the risks were soon revealed to be huge.

The revival of Soldier Boy, along with the revelations about his brutal history, also added some serious punch. Jensen Ackles’s toxic, frozen-in-time Captain America knock-off gave us a disturbing glimpse into Vought’s past, and the fights between him, Butcher, and Homelander in the present were fantastic. The fact that Soldier Boy and Butcher nearly beat Homelander together was thrilling, but Ryan’s attempts to build a relationship with his dad really threw a spanner in the works. Of course, there was also “Herogasm,” one of the most bonkers episodes of television ever made!

Exploring drug addiction and America’s alternate history during the Cold War, all while completing Maeve’s redemption arc and teasing a powerful Supe in the White House, The Boys was firing on all cylinders in season 3.

1. Season 2

Arguably, Aya Cash’s villainous Stormfront, a.k.a. Liberty, a.k.a. Clara Vought, was the joint-best addition to The Boys cast along with Soldier Boy, which is probably why she’ll be reprising the character in the franchise’s Vought Rising prequel series. The Nazi Supe was truly abominable, and her romance with Homelander was so cringe-inducing, especially as some predicted she would eventually be revealed as his biological mother. Ryan taking her down was so close to being a celebratory moment, until it was clear he’d accidentally killed his own mother in the process.

There were a bunch of terrific episodes in season 2, but ultimately, it really walked a steady road to its payoff like no other season. Of course, it still had its brilliant moments: Homelander pushing Ryan off the roof like a confident mother bird, only for him to hit the ground with a sickening sound. Kimiko, Starlight, and Maeve teaming up to take the piss out of Endgame‘s forced “girl power” scene. The sudden courtroom head-popping sequence, followed by the reveal of Victoria Neuman as a Supe. Homelander having a sexual encounter with himself via a shapeshifter. The Deep’s gill hallucinations. But nearly all of them served the story. They weren’t just there for shock value.

The pacing was tight, and the satire exploring the insidious creep of fascism fully landed, setting the stage for a bombastic season 3 that could take bigger swings.

Disagree with this ranking? As always, let us know in the comments!

14 Actors Who Chose Quality Over Quantity

Actors, like any other person, need to work to pay the bills. Sure, a lot of them have a lot more money than the average person, but that isn’t true for all performers, much less at the start of their careers. And yet, there are a few actors that, once they gained some renown, decided to be more picky on the films they starred in.

Not all of the films they chose were instant classics, but that’s not why they chose them. These are actors clearly working their craft to the best of their ability, searching for roles that challenge them. They may not have starred in plenty of films, but the filmography they are in was worth it.

Daniel Day-Lewis

Day-Lewis famously disappears for years between projects, carefully selecting demanding roles instead of maintaining constant output, yet still became one of cinema’s most acclaimed actors.

Leonardo DiCaprio

DiCaprio gradually shifted toward fewer, prestige-focused collaborations with directors like Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan rather than chasing nonstop commercial releases.

Tom Hanks

Although extremely successful commercially, Hanks carefully avoided oversaturating audiences and consistently balanced mainstream popularity with respected dramatic performances throughout his long career.

Jodie Foster

Foster frequently stepped away from acting for years at a time, preferring selective projects and directing work over constantly appearing in major studio films.

Denzel Washington

Washington built a career around carefully chosen dramatic roles and character-driven stories, maintaining prestige across decades without appearing in an overwhelming number of films annually.

Frances McDormand

McDormand has long prioritized unusual scripts and acclaimed filmmakers over blockbuster visibility, resulting in a smaller but consistently respected body of work.

Gene Hackman

Hackman avoided excessive franchise work and eventually retired entirely, leaving behind a filmography filled mostly with critically respected performances instead of endless studio output.

Michelle Pfeiffer

Pfeiffer often turned down projects and took lengthy breaks from Hollywood, maintaining a carefully curated career rather than maximizing sheer screen appearances.

Cate Blanchett

Blanchett balanced prestige dramas, stage work, and occasional franchise appearances while maintaining an unusually consistent reputation for high-quality performances across genres.

Cillian Murphy

Murphy spent years avoiding traditional celebrity culture and carefully selecting projects, eventually becoming a major leading man without flooding theaters with constant releases.

Amy Adams

Adams built her reputation through selective dramatic and character-focused performances rather than appearing in as many commercial projects as possible.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Hoffman consistently gravitated toward challenging material and respected directors, creating one of modern cinema’s most admired filmographies despite relatively limited mainstream blockbuster presence.

Tilda Swinton

Swinton frequently chooses eccentric independent films, art-house projects, and unusual collaborations instead of pursuing maximum commercial exposure or conventional Hollywood stardom.

Viggo Mortensen

After The Lord of the Rings massively raised his profile, Mortensen deliberately focused on smaller, respected projects rather than aggressively chasing blockbuster franchise fame.

15 Movies, Shows & Games With Excessive Extra Lore Study Required

Entertainment products having deep lore is always a good thing, since there is a lot for audiences to enjoy. The problem comes when these pieces of media become so big, so convoluted, that you need long study sessions just to understand the basics.

This isn’t limited to any piece of media: movies, TV shows and even Video Games do this, with their narratives expanded to unexpected lengths. Here, we have just a few of the most egregious examples, so prepare yourself if you want to get into any of them.

Halo 5: Guardians

Halo 5 drops players into a universe already packed with expanded lore from earlier games, novels, and character arcs, making parts of its conflict harder to fully appreciate without prior franchise knowledge.

The Book of Boba Fett

The series works better if you already know Boba Fett from the original Star Wars films, then also follow major setup and overlapping character arcs from The Mandalorian.

Dark Souls III

Its story heavily references earlier Souls titles through cryptic dialogue, repeated locations, and symbolic callbacks, leaving players to connect major lore threads with minimal direct explanation.

Avengers: Endgame

Endgame pays off years of MCU storytelling, but its emotional weight depends heavily on understanding earlier Marvel films, recurring characters, and long-running Infinity Saga relationships.

Scary Movie

Even parody works better with homework here. The franchise always leaned on viewers recognizing horror and pop-culture references, so the upcoming revival will likely carry baggage from both prior Scary Movie films and newer genre targets.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit films stand alone, but much of their larger context is clearer if viewers already know Tolkien lore and how the trilogy connects backward into The Lord of the Rings.

World of Warcraft

Warcraft lore stretches across strategy games, novels, expansions, and major events that are not always fully explained inside one campaign or questline, particularly when game patches outright remove content.

Elden Ring

Its lore is deliberately fragmented across item descriptions, NPC dialogue, and environmental clues, pushing players to reconstruct major history from scattered details. Most players seek the aid of YouTubers in order to grasp the lore.

Daredevil: Born Again

The show exists inside broader Marvel continuity while also reviving characters from Netflix’s Daredevil, making outside context especially useful for relationships, history, and returning conflicts.

Deadpool & Wolverine

The film pulls heavily from Fox-era X-Men history, prior Deadpool movies, and multiverse-heavy Marvel storytelling, making many jokes and emotional beats more rewarding with franchise knowledge.

Once Upon a Time

Its layered mythology mixes fairy tales, Disney-adjacent expectations, and constantly expanding crossover logic that becomes increasingly dense as more realms and histories overlap.

Hannibal

The show can stand alone, but familiarity with earlier Hannibal Lecter films and Thomas Harris stories helps explain character expectations, reversals, and why certain narrative choices feel deliberate.

Kingdom Hearts

Understanding Kingdom Hearts often means juggling Disney worlds, Square Enix influences, side games, prequels, and famously tangled lore spread across multiple platforms.

Baldur’s Gate 3

You can follow its main story alone, but deeper context comes from Forgotten Realms history, Dungeons & Dragons rules, and older Baldur’s Gate connections.

The Batman

Ironically, part of the homework is knowing what it is not. The Batman exists outside the main DC cinematic continuity, so understanding its standalone approach matters more than tracking shared-universe lore.

Movies Everyone Quotes Without Having Actually Seen Them

Movies become instant classics by covering deep themes, being incredibly entertaining, or having quotable lines. That last batch of movies have a tendency of becoming memes, catchphrases and joke enders, to the point that the quote is far more memorable than the film itself.

This has the unfortunate effect of audiences quoting movies they’ve never seen, with the phrases exploding in popularity through other media. There are people that don’t even know the quote is from a movie, since the quote has morphed so much. We hope that this article makes you watch the movies with the immortal quotes.

The Godfather

People quote “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse” constantly, even if they have never sat through the full nearly three-hour mafia classic.

The Terminator

“I’ll be back” became such a universal pop-culture shorthand that plenty of people know the line long before ever actually watching the movie it came from.

Jaws

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat” escaped the film so completely that many people quote it without ever having seen Spielberg’s shark thriller from beginning to end.

Forrest Gump

“Life is like a box of chocolates” became a cultural catchphrase repeated far beyond the movie itself, often by people who know the quote more than the plot.

Jerry Maguire

“Show me the money!” became bigger than the movie in everyday conversation, sports talk, and comedy references, even among people who skipped the actual film.

A Few Good Men

“You can’t handle the truth!” became one of cinema’s most quoted outbursts, often repeated by people who only know the courtroom moment in isolation.

Casablanca

Lines like “Here’s looking at you, kid” remain deeply embedded in pop culture, even though many quoters have never actually watched the wartime romance itself.

Gone with the Wind

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” is one of the most famous final lines in movie history, often recognized by people who never sat through the epic runtime.

The Wizard of Oz

“There’s no place like home” became a cultural shorthand so completely that its movie origins sometimes feel secondary to the quote itself.

Star Wars

“May the Force be with you” turned into a universal phrase repeated across generations, including by plenty of people who never actually watched the original film.

Dirty Harry

“Do you feel lucky?” remains iconic tough-guy dialogue, even for audiences who know the quote mainly through parodies and impressions instead of the movie.

Taxi Driver

“You talkin’ to me?” became one of cinema’s most endlessly referenced moments, often quoted by people who have never seen the unsettling character study around it.

Field of Dreams

“If you build it, he will come” became a motivational shorthand in everyday language, far beyond people who have actually watched the baseball fantasy.

Apollo 13

“Houston, we have a problem” became such a common shorthand for disaster that many people forget it comes from a specific movie scene.

Sudden Impact

“Go ahead, make my day” became a political and pop-culture catchphrase so famous that its original Dirty Harry sequel is often less remembered than the line itself.

14 Actors Who’ve Been in Everything, But You Might Not Recognize

Depending on the decade, the entertainment industry tends to use the same actors across plenty of films, mainly due to their popularity. This is something we’re used to, but the characters behind the big leads also get reused often, something we tend to overlook since, well, they’re in the background.

Still, their performances have merit, since someone needs to play all those roles. Once you see them, though, you can’t unsee them, so be prepared to recognize them everywhere. It’s incredible how prolific these actors are, leaving a legacy of their own by being in so many memorable movies.

William Fichtner

Fichtner has spent decades popping up in major films like Heat, Armageddon, Black Hawk Down, and The Dark Knight, often as stern military figures, criminals, or authority characters.

Clancy Brown

Even if people know the voice, many forget Brown’s huge live-action résumé, including Highlander, Starship Troopers, The Shawshank Redemption, and countless villain or heavy roles.

Zeljko Ivanek

Ivanek became one of Hollywood’s most reliable intense supporting actors, appearing across major films and prestige television while frequently playing lawyers, officials, and morally gray professionals.

David Dastmalchian

From The Dark Knight to Blade Runner 2049, Dune, and multiple superhero projects, Dastmalchian repeatedly appears in memorable supporting roles despite remaining less instantly recognizable than many co-stars.

M. C. Gainey

Gainey built a long career as intimidating bikers, convicts, and rough-edged authority figures, showing up in Con Air, Sideways, Django Unchained, and many television dramas.

Titus Welliver

Before Bosch made him more visible, Welliver had quietly appeared in films like The Town, Gone Baby Gone, Argo, and Transformers: Age of Extinction.

J. T. Walsh

Walsh became one of the most dependable character actors of the 1980s and 1990s, often playing corrupt officials, executives, and antagonists in major studio films.

Xander Berkeley

Berkeley repeatedly turned up in thrillers, action films, and genre projects, often portraying military officers, investigators, or quietly sinister authority figures.

James Rebhorn

Rebhorn quietly became one of Hollywood’s most utilized supporting presences, appearing in everything from Independence Day to Meet the Parents and Scent of a Woman.

Miguel Sandoval

Sandoval appeared steadily in crime dramas, thrillers, and action-heavy projects, often playing detectives, commanders, or morally complicated authority figures.

Al Leong

Leong became a staple of 1980s and 1990s action movies, frequently appearing as henchmen or silent villains in films like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Tommy Flanagan

Flanagan regularly appeared in gritty supporting roles across action films, crime stories, and historical epics, often recognizable more by his scarred look than his name.

Kevin Dunn

Dunn spent decades playing politicians, fathers, executives, and authority figures across major films, becoming one of those actors we recognize instantly but rarely name.

Peter Stormare

Stormare built a huge career through eccentric villains, criminals, priests, and oddball supporting characters in films like Fargo, Constantine, and Armageddon

15 Movies We Don’t Believe Anyone Actually Watched All the Way Through

Watching movies is meant to be a joyful experience, even if you’re watching a tense thriller. The point is to have a good time, hence why films are part of the entertainment business. But what happens when a movie isn’t something enjoyable, but something you have to endure?

This is the topic for today: movies that are so hard to get through, people have walked out of cinemas out of sheer frustration. And not because they’re controversial; they’re just plain bad. If you’re planning a movie night, these are the movies to avoid. Or, if you’re brave, these are the movies to endure.

Cats

Cats became infamous less for its story than for its uncanny visual effects, erratic tone, and baffling adaptation choices that left viewers treating it more like a curiosity than a full sit-down watch.

Movie 43

Its anthology format, wildly uneven sketches, and intentionally gross-out humor gave Movie 43 a reputation as something often talked about more than actually finished.

Battlefield Earth

Critics and audiences alike mocked its Dutch angles, awkward performances, and bloated runtime, helping Battlefield Earth become shorthand for movies people abandoned out of frustration.

The Last Airbender

The heavily criticized adaptation quickly became known for awkward exposition, stiff performances, and disappointed fans who struggled with how far it drifted from beloved source material.

Dragonball Evolution

Long criticized by fans of the original manga and anime, the movie became notorious for flattening major characters and delivering a product that no one liked, even if you knew nothing about the source material.

The Emoji Movie

Its corporate premise and critical backlash made The Emoji Movie a common punchline, with many remembering the concept more vividly than the actual full viewing experience.

Son of the Mask

As a follow-up to a hugely recognizable comedy, Son of the Mask became infamous for chaotic CGI, strange humor, and poor reception, making it one of those sequels many people know by reputation more than by finishing it.

Gigli

Production gossip and brutal reviews often overshadowed the film itself, turning Gigli into one of Hollywood’s most famous flops that many know by reputation alone.

Foodfight!

Technical problems, unfinished-looking animation, and years of troubled production made Foodfight! notorious as a bizarre disaster many sampled more than fully consumed.

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

Even as a family sequel, it gained little cultural footprint and often gets cited as one of those studio follow-ups most people forgot existed at all.

The Love Guru

The Mike Myers comedy drew criticism for repetitive humor and uncomfortable jokes, quickly becoming better known for backlash than for lasting audience affection.

Batman & Robin

Its toyetic excess, puns, and exaggerated camp eventually made it a cult curiosity, but for years it represented blockbuster overload at its most exhausting.

Norbit

Its heavy prosthetic comedy and divisive humor helped make Norbit one of those hits many people remember existing, while fewer passionately defend revisiting it.

After Earth

The sci-fi survival story is a case of stiff pacing and flat emotional impact, leaving it remembered more as a disappointment than a must-finish experience.

Transformers: The Last Knight

Even within a huge franchise, The Last Knight became especially criticized for chaotic plotting, mythology overload, and a runtime many viewers found exhausting to sit through.

David Suchet Is Still the One True Poirot

To be a television fan in the year of our Lord 2026 means forcing yourself to accept the fact that we live in an era of reboots, revivals, and remakes. And with new takes on everything from Scrubs and Malcom in the Middle to Little House on the Prairie and The Forsytes hitting screens this year, it’s pretty much only a matter of time before it’s your beloved favorite’s turn. But sometimes, the idea of a reboot is so egregious that it seems worth it to wonder: What on Earth are we doing here?

Case in point: The BBC is reportedly set on bringing back Agatha Christie’s famous detective, Hercule Poirot, for a new “major television series.” No casting has been announced just yet, but it’s incredibly difficult to imagine anyone being able to match David Suchet, the award-winning actor who played the self-proclaimed “greatest detective in the world” for 24 years on ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot. No shade intended at whoever tries to follow in his footsteps, but it’s difficult not to wonder how they’ll ever possibly be able to measure up.

Plenty of excellent actors have played Hercule Poirot, including Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Alfred Molina, John Malkovich, and Kenneth Branagh. But although all have their appeal (I’ll keep my eyerolls about Branagh’s version mostly to myself), none of them is the equal of Suchet’s. Granted, he got great material: Agatha Christie’s Poirot was remarkably faithful to both the author’s text and her titular hero’s character. But Suchet also put in the work to make sure his performance lived up to expectations. (He even wrote a memoir about his journey alongside the character, which chronicles the extensive preparation he did to play Poirot.)

It’s true that, at this point, the original Agatha Christie’s Poirot can feel a little dated in terms of film and production values. But it’s also a tremendous achievement, a series which saw Suchet star in every single Poirot novel and short story, including the 2013 finale Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case. His performance is widely regarded as the definitive take on the role. Any new adaptation is automatically going to start from a difficult place. But that doesn’t sound like it’ll stop the BBC from trying.

According to Deadline, the new reimagining will hail from Mammoth Screen, a frequent BBC production partner that has a long track record with both remakes (Poldark) and Christie adaptations (And Then There Were None, Murder Is Easy). The company’s founder, Damien Timmer, even executive-produced many episodes of Suchet’s Poirot. To be fair, their stuff looks great and almost always has a killer cast. (That Murder Is Easy is particularly underrated, but certainly rough on Christie purists.)

In our current TV landscape, Christie’s work is as popular as it’s ever been: Netflix recently released a (surprisingly good) adaptation of Seven Dials, and BritBox has a new take on Tommy and Tuppence coming later this year. It makes a lot of sense that the BBC would want in on this trend, especially since Suchet’s Poirot was such a success for a rival network. But in their eagerness to prove they can make another Poirot, it certainly doesn’t seem clear if anyone considered whether ot not they should.

All The Young Dudes: The 500K-Word, Million Dollar Story That Reshaped Fanfiction

Harry Potter is a pioneer of internet fanfiction. With over 600,000 stories written by contributors on Archive of Our Own (AO3), nearly 200,000 on Wattpad, and close to 75,000 posts under the #HarryPotterFanfic hashtag on TikTok, fans have created a unique storytelling subculture that extends the Wizarding World narrative far beyond J.K. Rowling’s original novels.

Recently, publishers have recognized the commercial potential of this enterprise and have churned out repackaged Harry Potter fanfiction novels such as Alchemised, Rose in Chains, and The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy – all Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy romance stories featuring rebranded characters (similar to how Twilight beget the fanfiction that became 50 Shades of Grey). Now, one fanfiction that reshaped the modern Harry Potter fandom is in the works to become its own published series and the saga of its publishing is almost as striking as the story of the Boy Who Lived himself.

Wolfboy, a reimagining of Harry Potter fanfiction All The Young Dudes, was recently auctioned at the London Book Fair and acquired by PMJ (Penguin Michael Joseph) for a rumored seven-figure price tag. The novel trilogy will be set at “Hatherlea Experimental School” and will follow a young werewolf and a telepath-in-training as they struggle “with the trials and tribulations of adolescence, and the fact they might just be falling in love.”

All The Young Dudes was first posted to AO3 in March 2017 by anonymous author MsKingBean89. The story is based on The Marauders, Harry Potter’s father James’ friend group at Hogwarts that includes the rebellious Sirius Black, studious secret werewolf Remus Lupin, and future traitor Peter Pettigrew. MsKingBean89 continued to upload chapters until November 2018, resulting in a story of 188 chapters and 526,969 words. The series is not only one of the most popular Harry Potter fanfictions ever posted to AO3 with over 19 million hits, but it also became a staple in the Harry Potter fandom, with many viewing it as a true prequel to the official novels.

The popularity of All The Young Dudes, which features a romantic relationship blossoming between Sirius and Remus, is partially the result of younger Harry Potter fans’ rebellion towards author J.K. Rowling controversial views regarding the LGBTQ spectrum, specifically transgender community. Segments of the fandom worked to separate the franchise from her entirely and fanfiction provided a way for them to spend time with beloved characters without the author’s involvement. Some online fans go so far as to describe All The Young Dudes as a “rewrite” of the HP fandom, and that “this [All The Young Dudes] is their canon.”

Naturally, bringing the Harry Potter canon outside the gaze of its original creator has led to a number of quirks that only the creative, insular world of fanfiction can provide. For instance, the interpretation of All The Young Dudes as an “official” prequel arose among newer fans that joined the fandom during the popularity of #DracoTok, a trend that flooded the TikTok algorithm with skits and edits mainly centered around romanticizing Harry Potter’s infamous nemesis Draco Malfoy.

That particular trend also sparked some fans to coin the word “shifting,” a method they believed would send them to a reality of their own creation, in this case, Hogwarts. These trends of #DracoTok and “shifting” introduced the Harry Potter world to a new audience of younger readers, prompting some to further indulge themselves in fanfiction like All The Young Dudes. Fans of the franchise before All The Young Dudes and before Rowling’s move into politics are not as inclined to view All The Young Dudes as anything other than a “Marauders era” Fanfic.

The fans have even begun casting for an imagined film adaptation of the book and have created clever edits of the cast’s previous movies to create a visual edit for All The Young Dudes. Majority of fan-casts include Ben Barnes (Shadow and Bone) as Sirius Black, Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man) as Remus Lupin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (28 Years Later) as James Potter, and Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) as Peter Pettigrew.

Another bizarre trend that arose from the All The Young Dudes fandom is its readers’ dogged pursuit of the author’s true identity. While MsKingBean89 has given no hint to their identity even in self-published physical copies, a common theory (that now is a running inside joke) is that the author is famous singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The number 89 in the author’s username is theorized to be a reference to Swift’s album and birth year, 1989. Fans, like @italianwitchbooks, also point out that many of the stories’ plot points and prose parallel Swift’s songwriting like in her song “Cardigan.” Swift’s lyric “You drew stars around my scars” can be tied to Remus Lupin’s scars that he gains during full moons as a werewolf that Sirius Black helped heal, leaving behind “a constellation of his touch.” Indeed All The Young Dudes references music many times throughout the story and in the title itself, which is a reference to Davide Bowie’s “All The Young Dudes.” Remus Lupin is a huge fan of David Bowie in All The Young Dudes and he and Sirius Black bond over the Thin White Duke and his music.

Copyright law makes it challenging for fanfiction to ever be published in its truest original form, especially with a franchise as strict as Harry Potter. In 2008, Rowling sued a fan, Steve Vander Ark, barring him from publishing his Harry Potter encyclopedia, Harry Potter Lexicon. Rowling, like any author, has the right to protect her copyrighted material from monetization that may affect her original story’s value. But modern fans (unaccustomed to the intricacies of copyright law) struggle with her claiming the rights because they no longer view these characters as hers and don’t want her associated with the franchise.

Still, the rebellious nature of All The Young Dudes is a part of what made the fanfiction transformative for the fandom in the first place. The association with the fanfiction will also likely set Wolfboy, which is being written by BN King (likely MsKingBean89 writing under a new publishing pseudonym, though that has not been confirmed), up for success. Fans will be eager to get their hands on a copy of the officially published All the Young Dudes, even if comes along with a new name, setting, and characters.

New Lifestyle Sim Paralives Is Answering Sims Fans’ Prayers

Paralives has released the first look at its gameplay, providing a new world for life simulator players to exercise their god complexes on. The game, created by Paralives Studios, started as a solo passion project by creator Alex Massé. With the help of his team of 10, they are now set to launch one of 2026’s most anticipated life simulation games.

The indie title’s early access gameplay looks promising for the launch, garnering excitement for a fresh take on the genre.

The Sims players, in particular, are excited about the game’s promise of creative freedom, transparency, and features that fans have long lobbied Electronic Arts (EA) for. Seven years in the making, Paralives showcases a gameplay style that many life sim players feel they have been missing.

The Sims franchise has dominated the “life sim” genre since The Sims first released in 2000. The original was followed by three additional games, and a recently cancelled fifth. The Sims 4, which launched in 2014, has left long-time fans with more frustration than joy.

On May 12,The Sims 4 developers implemented a 150+ bug-fix update. Despite this, players are still experiencing untold damage to their games, to the point where their save files are virtually broken. Players reported missing uploads to the Sims Gallery, the database that allows players to share Sims and builds, even those saved before the update. A subsequent bug-fix-to-the-bug-fix was scheduled for May 21.

In 2022, EA updated the modding policy for The Sims 4, which cracked down on modders who were charging high prices for players to access custom content (CC) and niche mods. This policy update threatened legal action against modders who blocked their content behind a paywall, along with content regulations for mods.

In March, EA announced the release of The Sims Marketplace, an in-house gallery for players to buy mods made by their team of modders called “Makers.” This garnered backlash from fans, as the move seemed counterproductive to the reason for the initial policy change; some cited the price of the games, their refusal to pay for what was previously free, and the constant issues with modding.

Paralives is already solving basic-level issues that players had with The Sims 4, including the lack of customizability, player-world interaction, and character personality. Paralives gives players the ability to create real protagonists who navigate the world of Melino, and the introduction of personalized narrators who navigate the story in which you play through.

Building tools include the ability to make curved walls, and its terrain paint tools allow for 3D grass and flower elements, without having to be added as an object. You can also resize objects, add clutter to tables and shelves, use a color wheel to recolor objects, and resize furniture without the needed addition of mods. Simple choices like the addition of pre-teens, babies, and breastfeeding show the small details that add to the realistic aspects that players want in life-sim games.

Players can even choose their character’s work schedule, adding features like increased skill boosts when participating in town events. Personality level-ups increase character-specific choices, reminiscent of how choice-based games like Telltale games are impacted by the personality traits that characters gain along the way.

Modding is also encouraged by the game developers, with community mods being accessed from the Paralives Steam community page.

Paralives gives life sim players hope for a gameplay not riddled with bugs, viruses, and limited choices; players can hope to experience a gameplay full of fun narration that revives the genre in a way that The Sims 4 has failed to deliver.

Paralives releases on Steam and PC on May 25.

That A Court of Thorns and Roses Adaptation May Still See the Light of Day

It appears that all hope may not be quite lost for fans of Sarah J. Maas’ blockbuster romantasy series A Court of Thorns and Roses who’ve been hoping to see the genre-defining saga adapted for TV. The series may yet find its way to another streamer, as Maas has reclaimed the rights to her works and, per Puck News, is “reportedly shopping the project elsewhere”.

Fans have been waiting an awfully long time to see the world of Prythian come to life. Tempo optioned the film rights to the series all the way back in 2015 – before the romantasy boom even started — and the project progressed to the point where Maas herself teased an early look at the script. But, for unknown reasons, it sputtered out soon thereafter. A TV version of ACOTAR was in the works at Hulu with Outlander’s Ronald D. Moore attached, but was ultimately scrapped.

Yes, this is the tiniest possible crumb of news for a fandom that’s been starving for a proper update on whether they’ll ever see a live-action version of Feyre and Rhysand onscreen. But, hope springs eternal, and any movement on this front is good news. But Maas herself is notoriously protective of her work and has a very clear vision of what she wants any adaptation to look like.

“Any TV movie adaptation is kind of like another facet of the worlds that I’ve created, and it’s something that I want to be in charge of—I want to be figuring out,” Maas said during an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast earlier this year. “I want to be learning everything that I can. I’m a type A, like, control freak a little bit. I want to know everything about how it gets made—not because of that control but just because I love movies. I love TV. I want to be a part of that, and I want to see everything adapted the way I envision it and the way I know fans want it.”

Maas’s story of a young woman who is taken to the magical world of Prythian after accidentally killing a fairy wolf to feed her family features everything from magic and royal fae courts to bonded mates and ancient curses. It’s currently sitting at six books, with at least three more on the way. It has an enormous and extremely passionate fanbase. In industry terms, this is what most networks would undoubtedly call a sure thing.

But although virtually every streamer has been chasing their own high-end fantasy franchise since Game of Thrones ended, few have found success. And almost none have figured out how to balance the hefty commitments inherently involved in bringing the biggest romantasy titles to the screen. (Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, for example, was canceled after just two seasons, and its rumored Six of Crows spinoff never even got off the ground.)

But that’s not stopping streamers from trying. Prime Video has committed to a series adaptation of Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing saga, as well as a movie version of Elise Kova’s Dragon Cursed. Netflix is working on a film adaptation of Callie Hart’s popular dark romantasy Quicksilver. A half dozen more big titles have had their development rights acquired by various studios (Stephanie Garber’s Alchemy of Secrets, Rebecca Ross’ Divine Rivals, Jennifer L. Armentrout’s From Blood and Ash). But, so far, we’re still waiting for the defining romantasy adaptation of this era, which means that there’s still plenty of time for ACOTAR to find its place among them.

The Odyssey and Troy Debate Reveals Surface Level Understanding of Homer Online

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. This timeless bit of wisdom doesn’t technically come down to us from Homer—a version of the phrase first appeared in Virgil’s The Aeneid, a quasi-retelling/sequel to the Trojan War and its aftermath written by a Roman more than 700 years after The Iliad and The Odyssey were committed to paper—but its potency remains. When you have reasons to doubt the kindness or intentions of others, maybe keep your perspective when those same folks offer a proverbial wooden horse to worship.

That should’ve gone for old King Priam of Troy 3,000 years ago, and it definitely applies to anyone taking the bait of online grifters and their ceaseless culture wars today. Enter Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

It’s strange days when an epic from not only one of the most popular mainstream directors of the 21st century is considered radical, but also the guy who gave modern film bros touchstones like Inception, Interstellar, and The Dark Knight. Yet here we are. And as with everything from Latina actress Rachel Zegler’s casting in Snow White to the simple fact Marvel made a superhero movie starring a woman after 10 years and more than a dozen male-led flicks, online exploiters of resentment have made The Odyssey the punching bag of the season.

I’ve largely ignored this newest “controversy” over the last few weeks in this newsletter and with general Den of Geek editorial, but after a Time magazine cover story with Nolan discussing The Odyssey published Tuesday, the discourse around the movie has gone supernova within the most annoying corners of the internet. The reason? The article confirmed that Oscar-winner, and undeniably gorgeous, Lupita Nyong’o has been cast as Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships in Greek mythology. She also, for the record, is playing Helen’s sister Clytemnestra in the film.

A Black woman being cast in what Greek myth tells us is the most beautiful woman in the world, as well as still unconfirmed rumors about the possible casting of Elliot Page as Achilles, the Breaker of Men, has set the usual suspects into an uproar on social media. That includes Twitter-acquirer, and Trump Administration washout, Elon Musk.

On the rebranded X, Musk has posted over a dozen times this week about his disdain for Nolan’s The Odyssey, Nyong’o’s casting, and seemingly Page in general, sharing images and clips of Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy, a 2004 adaptation of The Iliad. “Troy is an epic movie,” Musk posted once under a user who promised they would only rewatch the Petersen film in July instead of The Odyssey. “Christopher Nolan [is stomping] on Homer’s grave,” another user wrote in a post Musk shared with millions via X’s manipulated algorithm.

The irony of all this noise—besides the fact that no one has yet seen Nolan’s Odyssey and is able to judge the filmmaker’s approach—is that all these supposed defenders of Western civilization reveal a complete lack of understanding of those foundational Western texts.

Again, we have not seen Nolan’s The Odyssey and therefore cannot judge any choice he’s made, but for anyone who is a student of Homer and the epic poems credited to that name, there is a lot to be intrigued about, not least of which is that, unlike Troy, Nolan seems to actually be turning to the classics for this story of longing, loss, and delayed homecoming.

For those too young to remember, Troy was welcomed with an arched eyebrow if not outright waves of revulsion from every antiquities, literary, and classics professor in the world circa 2004. Sure, Brad Pitt looked strapping in his (also historically inaccurate) armor, and Diane Kruger made a lovely Helen in her Hollywood debut. But they did so in a film where Achilles is not graced with near invulnerability after being dipped by his ankles in the River Styx, nor is Helen cursed by her beauty because of the fickle whims of gods, including Aphrodite, who according to Greek tradition compels Helen to go with the Trojan Prince Paris as a prize for picking Aphrodite in a contest with other immortals.

Frankly, that aspect of Helen being an unwilling Trojan bride never sat well with me, but giving Helen slightly more agency in her choice is the most minute of sacrileges and heresies in Troy, a film that removed the presence of the Greek gods entirely, reduced the infamously epic 10-year Trojan war to a couple of weeks, and committed to baffling decisions like allowing Paris (Orlando Bloom in that movie) to survive the sacking of Troy and his own cowardice; or Achilles awarded some unearned movie star redemption for his awfulness when he comes back to save his one-time slave girl Briseis (Rose Byrne) from fellow Greeks after Troy is put to the torch.

In actual Greek tradition—which extends far beyond The Iliad’s ending on the night Achilles slays Hector—Achilles did not save Briseis from Troy’s fall because Achilles was himself already dead, and Briseis was passed from the Greek hero to one of his comrades-in-arms as another piece of property. The spoils of war. This gets to that aforementioned unseemly side about Greeks and their gifts. And wait until you learn what happened to Helen, Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Ajax.

Troy was not an adaptation of Homer (who very likely was many people with a multitude of “graves” dug across decades). Rather the film was a Hollywood product trying to cash in on the renewed interest in sword and sandals epics following the success of Gladiator four years prior.

Conversely, Nolan is not trying to jump on a bandwagon with The Odyssey. He, in fact, seems to be chasing his own muses, which the same Time article hints are deeply thought out and researched. We still do not know the full extent of the gods and deities in the film, although we know they’re present, including with Zendaya cast as Athena. Furthermore, trailers have hinted at iconic fantasy elements like the Cyclops. Meanwhile in Time, we’re teased that not only will Matt Damon’s Odysseus be tied to the mast of his ship as it passes by the sirens, but that they will torture him with mind games through song.

Whether the film succeeds or fails, it is clearly drilling down to the primal reasons The Odyssey has endured in the popular imagination for thousands of years: it’s a story of loss and reclamation, and of a broken family made whole. That’s a concept we can trace from Homer to Leonardo DiCaprio trying to get back to his kids in Inception. Or Matthew McConaughey trying to get back to his kids in Interstellar. Or Batman trying to get back to Catwoman so he can have kids in The Dark Knight Rises… You know, I might be sensing a pattern?

The point is: Nolan’s The Odyssey promises to at least attempt a more faithful and thoughtful modernization of Homer than Troy. And if in the process it makes the material more accessible to a modern world, much like Virgil adding proto-Romans in The Aeneid centuries later, then there’s ancient precedent for that too.

Spider-Man: Make Jake Johnson Live-Action Middle-Aged Peter Parker Already

You know who Spider-Man is, right? Peter Parker, bit by a radioactive arachnid, gained the ability to do whatever a spider can. He lost his beloved Uncle Ben when he refused to act to stop a burglar, but he gained an important lesson: with great power comes great responsibility.

If you’ve only watched the movies, you might think that description is missing a key element. Spider-Man is in high school, right? Even if it’s Miles Morales under the mask, Spidey has to learn to balance his family obligations and his superheroing with his job. Yet, for most of the 60-plus years that Spider-Man has been around, Peter Parker has been a grown-up, sometimes even dealing with a wife and child while web-slinging.

Fans of the movies have only seen Peter Parker as a proper grown up once. Fortunately, it was a perfect portrayal. For that reason, Sony or Marvel or whoever just needs to do it, and let Jake Johnson play Spider-Man in live action already.

Peter Parker’s Personal Punishment

Beyond his age or civilian identity, Spider-Man has one defining feature. He is a loser. Peter Parker is an anti-power fantasy. Sure, he’s an orphaned nerd raised by his loving aunt and uncle, but his life gets worse when a radioactive spider-bite gives him the ability to do whatever a spider can. His uncle dies because he treated other people like they treat him, he cannot balance his responsibility as a superhero with his other obligations, and his greatest victories come with demoralizing defeats.

Nothing illustrates the dynamic better than the moment that he thought he had rescued his girlfriend Gwen Stacy from the Green Goblin’s attack. Not only did the mental break that drove Norman Osborn to become the Goblin and kidnap Gwen stem from Peter’s desire to be a good friend to Harry Osborn, but it was the web that Spider-Man shot at Gwen to stop her fall that actually broke her neck.

Spider-Man has suffered similar setbacks since that story in 1973. He has been buried alive and betrayed by friends. He’s lost his marriage to ~~editors~~ the devil, and gets dismissed by other heroes. He had his greatest enemy take over his body and straighten out his life, and he went through clone debacles more than once. And yet, at the end, Spider-Man always does the right thing.

That’s what makes him a hero.

To be sure, every live-action Spider-Man has played elements of that tragic status. The wide-eyed innocent played by Tobey Maguire, the brooding teen played by Andrew Garfield, and the energetic kid played by Tom Holland have all suffered their tragedies, and each of their movies end with their Parkers suiting up to save the day once more.

But in each of their cases, that resilience can be explained away as the optimism of youth. The ability to keep doing the right thing in the face of hardship means a lot more when it’s being done by a man in his 30s or 40s. And that’s where Jake Johnson excels.

When Peter Met Nick

In New Girl season one episode “Jess & Julia,” the fussy Schmidt discovers that his roommate Nick has been using his towel. Adding to his consternation is the revelation that Nick has never washed a towel, as doing so runs contrary to his logic.

“I don’t wash the towel, the towel washes me,” he reasons. “What’s next, am I gonna wash the shower? Wash a bar of soap?”

Nick’s rant is funny enough on the page, but it’s perfected by Johnson’s delivery. Nick Miller has confidence and aptitude, ranging from skills as a plumber to the ability to write a novel. But his idiosyncrasies, a sort of code to which only he understands or adheres, keeps complicating his life.

If there’s anyone who can understand the need to keep a code no matter what the personal cost, it’s Peter Parker. And that’s why we loved Johnson’s portrayal as a sad, defeated grown-up Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Johnson perfectly captured not just the pathos of a divorced guy in his r/malelivingspace apartment, eating pizza in his underwear. He also captured Peter’s absurd commitment, an attitude that could be misinterpreted as swagger or confidence but is actually just making a decision and holding to it, no matter the cost.

With Nick Miller, such undertakings are absurd to a comedic degree. With Peter Parker, it’s heroic. But it’s the same impulse in both cases.

With Great, Grown-Up Power

We’ve seen Maguire, Garfield, and Holland play Peter Parkers who have such excessive principles. But again, they’re all younger men, and young men have made worse decisions and had terrible outcomes and still manage to bounce back. These Peters have much lower stakes.

It’s much different for a grown man to be constantly late for his family and unable to hold down a steady job. To anyone who doesn’t realize that he can’t get it together because of his great responsibility as Spider-Man, Peter looks like an absolute loser. Even those who know why he slips out of a meeting to put on his costume think that he’s gone too far, even if he saves the day in the end.

We need to see more of this grown Peter Parker in action, a guy whose heroism extends past the impulses of youth and matures into a steady conviction, no matter what the cost. That type of guy could be utterly unbearable, which is why Jake Johnson needs to take the part, making Peter’s refusal to get rich by selling his webbing formula seem like a charming, if misguided, choice, and making his insistence on helping others seem inspiring.

The Boroughs Ending Explained: Sam, Mother, and That Final Moment

This article contains spoilers for The Boroughs, including the finale.

There’s a new Duffer Brothers-produced show in town, and it’s a rather more wholesome affair than the last horrifying Netflix show they oversaw, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen. Instead, The Boroughs is a sci-fi mystery wrapped in an enigma that follows a group of retirees living in a picturesque community, completely unaware that they’ll soon have to find the heroes within themselves to take down a group of vampires who need to keep drinking the blood of a mysterious creature to stay alive.

Luckily, this plucky gang of retirees are helped in their endeavors by a new old kid on the block called Sam (Alfred Molina). He immediately causes the right kind of trouble by questioning the serene town and its workings. Still, he initially struggles to get his friends in the community on board with his conspiracy theories, and he’s plagued by visions of his dead wife, who seems to be trying to tell him something important.

Let’s break down the ending of The Boroughs and what its final moment might mean for the future of the series.

The History of The Boroughs

In episode 5 of the series, Anneliese (Alice Kremelberg) explains to Art (Clarke Peters) that there are wonders in The Boroughs that are hidden, buried and tucked away. The retirement community has been built on land that seems to produce fascinating, otherworldly things.

Back in the spring of 1949, a local miner named Marcus Shaw (Seth Numrich) discovered an egg buried deep in the ground at the site. This hatched a creature they called Mother, and he discovered that drinking its blood holds you in time. You no longer age or get sick. Marcus eventually changed his name to Blaine, and he and his no longer sickly lover, Annaliese, bought the town to control their treasure when the copper mine dried up.

They soon realized they needed human brain fluid to keep Mother fed. When it produced children, he and Annalise founded The Boroughs, building tunnels underground so that they could secretly release Mother’s children upon the residents to suck out their cerebrospinal fluid, regurgitating it to Mother and keeping her alive.

Though Blaine and Annaliese found eternal life, they also discovered they had been fundamentally changed by drinking Mother’s blood. They began to exhibit physical traits of the creature under extreme circumstances, such as sudden injury or when it had been a while since they had consumed its nectar.

Sam finds a way to expose these physical traits within the rulers of The Boroughs by using old cathode-ray TV sets that mess with their blood.

Mother and Her Children

Imprisoned by Blaine and Annaliese, Mother is still able to communicate a cry for help to some of The Boroughs’ residents. She is reaching out to them because she is dying, but Blaine and Annaliese are determined to revitalize her so that they can continue to drink her blood. They convince Wally (Denis O’Hare) to help them, and he believes that giving her a transfusion of her children’s blood will do the trick. However, he doesn’t believe that Blaine and Annaliese should continue to monopolize Mother and her blood.

Mother is running out of time and has already tried to psychically communicate with a couple of different residents when the series gets underway, including Edward (Ed Begley Jr.). She can reach out to people lost in time, like Edward, who are experiencing mental decline, but they can’t do anything to help. However, Sam’s mind has only been “split” by the sudden loss of his wife, Lilly (Jane Kaczmarek). He is still reliving the day she died, and because Mother doesn’t experience time in a linear way, she is able to effectively use an avatar of Lilly and his memories of the night she died to attract his attention.

Mother eventually tells Sam that she wants to die, and that she must do so in a cave next to the tree where her egg originally hatched. She tells him that her children have been preparing the cave for her arrival. Art is already familiar with the exact location, having plucked a rare peach from it that renewed his health and vitality.

The Boroughs Ending Explained

During the final episode of The Boroughs, the residents team up to free Mother and get her to the mysterious cave, but it is not an easy feat. Blaine and Annaliese mortally wound Judy (Alfre Woodard) and Mother brings her back to life. Meanwhile, Paz (Carlos Miranda) and Renee (Geena Davis) have to convince Hank (Eric Edelstein) to set Mother’s children free.

Sam and his daughter Claire (Jena Malone) also reinforce his cathode-ray trap, which kills the frail Annaliese but doesn’t quite finish off Blaine. When Mother tells Sam that he has to take her to the cave alone, a furious and grieving Blaine pursues them and tries to kill Sam. However, when Mother lets go and finally dies surrounded by her children, the explosion exterminates Blaine.

Yet, when the explosion hits Sam, he is once again transported to the night his wife died. On this occasion, he gets to spend a little more time with the real Lilly. He is told that it’s Mother’s way of saying thank you, and Lilly tells Sam that “time is a gift.” Sam dances with Lilly one final time, hoping they will be together again one day. Lilly says they’re together, always. At that point, Sam suddenly wakes up in the cave and sees Mother’s skeletal remains, remarking that she’s finally at peace.

Sam’s Reflection in the Mirror

Following Mother’s death, everyone gathers for a party in The Boroughs, where the wound Sam sustained from the explosion in the cave is still bleeding. As he goes to tend to it in the bathroom, we see Sam’s reflection glitching in the mirror. Mother may be dead, but Sam still seems to be connected to the magic that remains in The Boroughs, and it may just be keeping an eye on him, too.

Should there be a second season of The Boroughs, we’d imagine the show will explore what happens to Sam next, and what else awaits the gang as the location’s strange energy takes on a different form. Only time will tell how that might manifest, but it’s likely that Sam will stay caught between the two worlds that exist there.

If there’s no second season, this cheeky mirror moment might just remain as a little hint that The Boroughs hasn’t given up all its secrets yet.

All episodes of The Boroughs are now streaming on Netflix.

15 Movies That Were Way Too Adult to Be Marketed to Kids

Movies aimed at kids should be made with care and attention, something that rarely happens due to the constant cash grabs Hollywood loves to make. However, that care and attention needs to also be aimed at the theming of the film, since the audience’s young age means not all topics under the sun should be covered.

But, either through deceiving marketing tactics or animated style, there are movies that slip under the cracks. While marketed to children, these few titles don’t hold up under careful examination: they shouldn’t have been marketed to kids in the first place.

Watership Down

Marketed partly through its animated style, Watership Down traumatized generations of children with graphic animal violence, death, and surprisingly bleak themes about survival and authoritarianism.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

The cartoon characters attracted younger audiences, but the movie contains heavy drinking, plenty of innuendo, disturbing violence, and nightmare fuel like Judge Doom’s final transformation.

Gremlins

Despite cute merchandise-friendly creatures, Gremlins includes gruesome deaths, dark humor, and the infamous monologue about discovering Santa Claus was not real.

The Brave Little Toaster

The family animation unexpectedly dives into abandonment anxiety, existential dread, suicidal imagery, and genuinely disturbing scenes involving destruction and death.

Coraline

The stop-motion fantasy was promoted toward families, yet its themes of manipulation, imprisonment, and body horror made it deeply unsettling for many younger viewers.

Return to Oz

Disney marketed Return to Oz as a family fantasy, but the movie contains psychiatric horror imagery, screaming wheelers, and terrifying scenes involving detachable heads.

The Secret of NIMH

The animated adventure includes violent deaths, dark experimentation themes, and intense emotional trauma far heavier than most parents expected from a cartoon movie.

Howard the Duck

The duck mascot and comic-book branding disguised a movie packed with adult jokes, disturbing imagery, and dark humor awkwardly aimed at younger audiences.

Cool World

Its animated characters and marketing suggested another Roger Rabbit-style comedy, but the actual movie focused heavily on adult intimacy and bizarre live-action cartoon horror.

Small Soldiers

Toy-based marketing attracted children even though the movie features violent destruction, militaristic themes, and genuinely aggressive action sequences involving murderous action figures.

The Black Cauldron

Disney’s dark fantasy terrified many younger viewers with undead armies, demonic imagery, and a noticeably grim tone compared to the studio’s usual animated films.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The adventure sequel pushed family entertainment surprisingly far with human sacrifice, heart-ripping scenes, child slavery, and graphic horror imagery that helped inspire the PG-13 rating.

All Dogs Go to Heaven

Beyond its title and animation style, the movie deals heavily with death, gambling, murder, and existential questions about the afterlife.

Labyrinth

Although remembered as whimsical fantasy today, Labyrinth contains strange adult undertones, psychological manipulation, and nightmare creature designs that unsettled plenty of younger viewers.

The Witches

Based on the Roald Dahl novel, the movie terrified children with grotesque practical effects, child endangerment, and surprisingly cruel transformations that remain disturbing decades later.

15 ‘Fun’ Fictional Worlds You Don’t Actually Want to Live In

We all yearn for an escape of the mundane, where instead of getting up every morning for work, we travel to fantastical lands and save entire realms. Well, while there are plenty of stories that offer that kind of escapism, there is an inescapable reality: you don’t want to live in those worlds. Not really.

Dreaming is all well and good, but being in those worlds for real would be far too dangerous. At least you wouldn’t be in them for long; you’d meet your demise almost instantly. These are just a few of ‘fun’ fictional lands that, all in all, are better to just hear about rather than experience.

The Hunger Games

Panem looks visually fascinating from the outside, but living there means surviving extreme class inequality and the constant possibility of children being forced into televised death matches.

The Wizarding World

Hogwarts seems magical until you remember the school regularly exposes children to deadly monsters, cursed objects, dangerous sports injuries, and teachers with surprisingly weak safety standards.

Toy Story

The idea of living alongside sentient toys sounds comforting until you realize they secretly observe human lives constantly while hiding an entire parallel emotional society from their owners.

Jurassic Park

A dinosaur theme park sounds incredible right up until genetically engineered predators inevitably escape containment and begin hunting visitors across the island.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Toontown looks colorful and chaotic, but sharing reality with immortal cartoon beings capable of surviving almost anything would quickly become psychologically exhausting for ordinary humans.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The candy paradise loses appeal once you realize the factory’s owner casually conducts dangerous moral experiments on children while workers remain mysteriously isolated from society.

Ready Player One

The OASIS offers endless escapism, but the real world surrounding it has become economically devastated enough that most people desperately avoid reality entirely.

The Lego Movie

Everything looks cheerful and creative until you remember the entire society is rigidly controlled by corporate conformity and authoritarian rule beneath the colorful surface.

The Matrix

The simulated world initially feels identical to normal life, but discovering humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a machine-controlled illusion makes existence instantly horrifying.

Monsters, Inc.

The monster world feels charming until you realize its entire energy system originally depended on terrifying children nightly for industrial power generation.

Zootopia

Zootopia presents itself as progressive and inclusive, yet the movie repeatedly shows deep social prejudice, systemic mistrust, and species-based discrimination beneath the polished city image.

The Purge

Living in a society where nearly all crime becomes legal for one night every year would make basic trust and public safety practically impossible.

Alice in Wonderland

Wonderland looks imaginative and bizarre, but nearly every interaction involves hostile nonsense, arbitrary rules, or characters who seem emotionally unstable and potentially dangerous.

Ghostbusters

New York in Ghostbusters apparently experiences frequent supernatural disasters involving ghosts, demons, and interdimensional threats capable of destroying entire city blocks.

Back to the Future Part II

The futuristic 2015 looks fun initially, but widespread surveillance technology, unsafe consumer gadgets, and timeline instability make everyday life surprisingly stressful beneath the novelty.

15 Actors Who Allegedly Didn’t Get Along On Set

Hollywood loves selling the illusion of perfect chemistry, even if behind the scenes, plenty of famous co-stars reportedly could barely stand each other. Sometimes it was personality clashes, creative disagreements, or simply spending too many exhausting months trapped together during difficult productions. In other cases, the tension became so obvious that audiences eventually noticed it onscreen.

Legendary old-school feuds and modern blockbuster drama make up these conflicts, which became part of entertainment history almost as much as the movies and shows themselves. Some rivalries cooled off with time, while others stayed bitter for decades. Either way, these productions prove that great performances do not always come from friendly working relationships.

Bill Murray and Lucy Liu on Charlie’s Angels

Reports from production claimed Murray and Liu clashed during filming, with tensions allegedly escalating into a heated argument that later contributed to Murray not returning for the sequel.

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams on The Notebook

Director Nick Cassavetes later claimed Gosling and McAdams struggled personally during production despite eventually becoming a real-life couple afterward.

Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron on Mad Max: Fury Road

Both actors later acknowledged serious tension during the difficult desert shoot, with Theron describing parts of the experience as emotionally exhausting.

Wesley Snipes and Ryan Reynolds on Blade: Trinity

Stories from production described Snipes and Reynolds having dramatically different personalities and approaches, contributing to a notoriously chaotic filming environment.

Richard Gere and Debra Winger on An Officer and a Gentleman

Winger openly criticized both the movie and Gere during production, later admitting she found parts of the filming process deeply unpleasant.

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Their feud became legendary in Hollywood history, with both actresses reportedly sabotaging and antagonizing each other throughout production.

Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson on The Fate of the Furious

Public social media comments and separate filming schedules fueled reports of major behind-the-scenes tension between the two action stars.

Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth on Beverly Hills, 90210

Years of rumors surrounded alleged conflict between the co-stars, with both later acknowledging their relationship became tense during the show’s original run.

Chevy Chase and Bill Murray on Caddyshack

Production stories claim the comedians nearly got into a physical fight backstage after years of lingering tension dating back to Saturday Night Live.

Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte on I Love Trouble

The two reportedly disliked each other so intensely that some scenes allegedly required stand-ins because they refused to film together directly.

Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey on Dirty Dancing

Although their chemistry became iconic onscreen, Swayze later admitted he sometimes found Grey difficult during production because of differing working styles.

Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic on Castle

Long-running rumors claimed the leads experienced serious behind-the-scenes friction, with reports suggesting they occasionally avoided each other off-camera entirely.

Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe on Some Like It Hot

Curtis later described filming with Monroe as frustrating because of repeated delays and production difficulties during the classic comedy’s shoot.

Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio on Romeo + Juliet

Reports suggested Danes sometimes found DiCaprio immature during production, while he reportedly thought she was too reserved and serious.

Isaiah Washington and Patrick Dempsey on Grey’s Anatomy

Behind-the-scenes conflicts reportedly escalated during production, eventually becoming part of the larger controversies surrounding Washington’s departure from the series.

15 Actors That Were Older Than You Thought They Were

Good child actors are hard to come by, and when you find the ideal performer, in just a few years they’ll stop being a child. For roles about teenagers, however, finding ideal candidates is far easier, since a lot of adults can play them convincingly.

So convincingly, in fact, that audiences might not realize the actors were adults at all. Of course, there are films where the entire high school is populated by adults, but in well made productions, we can suspend our disbelief. These are the actors that, when their movies happened, seemed eternally young.

Stockard Channing in Grease

Channing was 33 while playing high-school student Rizzo, making her significantly older than nearly everyone else portraying teenagers in the movie.

Alan Ruck in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Ruck was 29 when playing anxious teenager Cameron Frye, something audiences often forget because he convincingly fit alongside the younger cast.

Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls

McAdams was 25 during filming, older than many viewers assume for someone so strongly associated with one of cinema’s definitive high-school movies.

Jason Earles in Hannah Montana

Earles was already around 30 years old while playing Miley Stewart’s teenage brother Jackson on the Disney Channel sitcom.

Keiko Agena in Gilmore Girls

Agena was 27 when Gilmore Girls began, despite convincingly portraying teenage student Lane Kim throughout much of the series.

Bianca Lawson in Pretty Little Liars

Lawson became famous for repeatedly playing teenagers well into adulthood, including during Pretty Little Liars when she was already in her early thirties.

Gabrielle Carteris in Beverly Hills, 90210

Carteris was 29 when she started playing high-school student Andrea Zuckerman, making her one of television’s most famous older “teenagers.”

Shirley Henderson in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Henderson was 37 while playing ghostly Hogwarts student Moaning Myrtle, surprising many fans who assumed the actor was far younger.

Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man

Garfield was 28 during filming, older than many audiences realize for an actor portraying awkward teenage Peter Parker.

Stacey Dash in Clueless

Dash was 28 while playing high-school student Dionne Davenport, making her nearly a decade older than several younger cast members.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster in The Queen’s Gambit

Brodie-Sangster was 30 during production, yet still looked youthful enough that many viewers assumed he was much younger.

Ben McKenzie in The O.C.

McKenzie was 25 when The O.C. premiered, despite playing troubled teenager Ryan Atwood throughout the massively popular teen drama.

Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club

Nelson was 25 during filming and noticeably older than several co-stars, though audiences still accepted him as rebellious high-school student John Bender.

Charisma Carpenter in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Carpenter was already 27 when Buffy premiered, making her considerably older than the high-school cheerleader character she played on the series.

Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer

Rudd was already 32 while playing a teenage camp counselor, yet his youthful appearance made many viewers assume he was far closer to the character’s actual age.

Supergirl Will Have a Bigger Role in the DCU Than First Thought

By this point, everyone knows that in addition to Big Blue, the Man of Steel, and the Last Son of Krypton, one of Superman’s nicknames is the Man of Tomorrow, thanks to the title James Gunn has chosen for his Superman sequel. Even though the appellation could also refer to co-lead Lex Luthor, the term usually applies to Clark Kent, thanks to the sci-fi elements of his origin story, with its exploding planets and babies in rockets.

But with some modifications, the term can also be applied to his cousin Kara Zor-El, especially in the new DCU. Variety has revealed that Milly Alcock will be reprising her role as Supergirl for Man of Tomorrow. “She’s a major part of what we’re doing,” said DC Studios co-head Peter Safran, referring not just to the next movie but the shared universe in general.

It may defy conventional logic to put Supergirl at the center of a universe, especially when Superman is already there. Why do you need two people with similar backstories and power sets, especially when those powers are exactly the same?

The answer is clear to anyone who has seen the marketing for Supergirl. Where Gunn used “Look Up” as the tagline for Superman, Supergirl‘s tagline is “Look Out.” The former speaks to the sense of hope and awe inspired by Kal-El, an alien who came to this planet as a baby and devotes his life to making things better for everyone.

As we saw in the final scenes of that film, Supergirl is a little more messy, someone perfectly happy to leave her dog with her cousin so she can go on an interplanetary drinking binge. Trailers for the film have further established that Kara grew up on Argo City, a portion of Krypton initially shielded from the planet’s collapse, and was nearly grown when she lost her parents and everyone she knew. Worse, she arrived on Earth to discover that she had incredible powers, but that her cousin was already established as a beloved hero, putting her forever in his shadow.

Thanks to that background, Supergirl isn’t so much a copy of Superman as she is a twist on the main concept, which means that there’s room for both in the center of the DCU. Gunn has a clear model for this approach to the two Kryptonians in the comics. Although the first version of Supergirl, who debuted in Action Comics #252 (1959) was largely similar to her cousin and thus a redundancy on the Justice League, later variations allowed her to do things that Kal-El couldn’t.

The Matrix Supergirl, a shapeshifting alien in the form of Kara Zor-El brought a new sci-fi twist and more complicated morality to the character, as did the Earthborn Angel version, which used magic to bond the Matrix alien to a normal teenager. Even the original Kara Zor-El has found her own place in the universe, either palling around with teens Batgirl and Robin, going to the future to be the Superman stand-in for a more cynical lineup of the Legion of Super-Heroes, becoming a member of the rage-filled Red Lantern Corps, or having more lighthearted adventures, as in the current run by Sophie Campbell.

Simply put, Supergirl has proven to be a more elastic, mutable character than Superman (even when she’s not a literal shapeshifter). Putting her alongside Superman isn’t a redundancy—it’s an expansion, giving Gunn and Safran more storytelling possibilities for their universe, today and tomorrow.

Supergirl comes to theaters on June 26, 2026.

Damon Lindelof Reflects on Being Fired From Star Wars

As Lucasfilm rolls out its first Star Wars movie for seven years, The Mandalorian and Grogu, all eyes are on the struggling Disney franchise to see if this new outing from a galaxy far, far away can make a splash at the box office.

Various Star Wars movies have been in the works since the release of The Rise of Skywalker back in 2019, but most have lingered in development hell before being nixed. Only the aforementioned theatrical debut of the franchise’s live-action TV series and a forthcoming Ryan Gosling movie called Starfighter have entered production to date, and the writer behind one of Lucasfilm’s nixed projects has been giving fans a peek behind the scenes while discussing the reasons that his own take didn’t make the grade.

Lost and Watchmen scribe Damon Lindelof recently stopped by The Ringer-Verse’s House of R podcast to chat about all things Star Wars, where he opened up about being fired from a proposed Rey-centric “Protestant Reformation” project that would have explored the iconic fantasy universe beyond Rise of Skywalker.

“They asked me, ‘What do you think a Star Wars movie should be?’ And I said, ‘Here’s what it should be.’ And they said, ‘Great, you’re hired.’ And then two years later, I was fired,” Lindelof told the pod. “And so I was wrong. At least through that prism. What we were attempting to do, my partner Justin Britt-Gibson, Rayna McClendon and I, was to have this conversation in the movie, which is to say there is a force of nostalgia and there is a force of revision, and they are at odds with one another, and let’s do the Protestant Reformation inside Star Wars, and it didn’t work. The conversation that the fandom is having without winking and looking at the audience… that didn’t feel necessarily that risky.”

Lindelof went on to say that Lucasfilm had seemed to like the premise of the movie, but described the writing process as “really hard,” adding, “It was slow. Like the tone, getting it right, where it was inside of the canon, what its relationship was with to episode nine. Is it starting a new trilogy? Is it like all of those things? They’re so massive. They’re so big. It’s sort of the tanker equation which is you turn the wheel and it takes 5 minutes before it turns a little bit like this.”

Ultimately, the writing team couldn’t find “the center of Star Wars” because it just wasn’t clear where the franchise wanted to go next. “When Episode VII came out, we all knew what it was. It was Rey and it was Finn and it was Poe and then we were migrating back in and Luke and Leia and Han and Chewy and all those guys. But we got the sense that, when this new trilogy was over, we were going to be launching with these new characters, and that was the center of Star Wars. The new question is are Mando and Grogu the center of Star Wars now?”

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is currently sitting at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, but Disney is eyeing a $160M global box office opening. With Starfighter being the only movie lined up for release at the time of writing, it’s still unclear whether the franchise will go next.

Fans React to The Boys Series Finale

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 5 finale

The Boys has finally come to an end. The series finale is now streaming on Prime Video, and no matter how you feel about the journey the show has taken us on, it’s certainly been one hell of a ride.

In the last ever episode of Eric Kripke’s violent, irreverent superhero satire, Butcher and the gang stormed the Oval Office and took down Homelander while he was in the middle of threatening America as the country’s new god. Unfortunately, killing Homelander wasn’t quite enough resolution for Butcher, who had never made a secret of his desire to see all of the world’s Supes eradicated once and for all. Sneaking out with his Supe-killing virus and loading it into the sprinkler system at Vought headquarters, Butcher decided it was his way or the highway.

Hughie wasn’t about to let Starlight, Kimiko, or any more Supes die for Butcher’s cause. He tracked him down at Vought and said he’d kill Butcher if he unleashed the virus. As he got ready to do just that, Butcher looked at Hughie’s earnest face and, for a moment, saw that of his brother, Lenny. His brief hesitation allowed Hughie to shoot him, stopping him in his tracks. Butcher died forgiving Hughie for taking him out.

Aside from Homelander, some other lingering bad guys were also killed in the finale, including The Deep and Oh-Father, but Ashley rebelled, and Soldier Boy was kept on ice. Hughie, Annie, and Mother’s Milk got happy endings, while Kimiko traveled to France after Frenchie’s tragic death.

There were a lot of threads to tie up in the series finale, and The Boys largely seemed to get the job done. However, the final installment has received a mixed reaction online so far.

Here’s what fans are saying about the last ever episode of The Boys…

Regardless of how mixed this season of The Boys has been for me, a little piece of me dies whenever a show I love ends after a long run. Man was it a diabolical fuckin run.

That finale put the spotlight on Karl Urban & Antony Starr. Homelander & Butcher.

Take a bow fellas 🔥 pic.twitter.com/EJ7tHGet68
— Sammy J Jonah Jameson (@SammyJReacts) May 20, 2026

Antony Starr should rightfully go down as one of the best performances in television as Homelander in The Boys. He was one of the greatest villains ever from Season 1-4. I don’t know what happened with the writing in Season 5 or the finale, but Antony’s acting was always perfect! pic.twitter.com/ptERjcrFih
— BLURAYANGEL 🦇 (@blurayangel) May 20, 2026

The boys has finally come to an end after 7 years. Homelander was stripped of his powers, what other satisfying ending would have wished for? pic.twitter.com/51IpaEqb7T
— Aeon🇬🇧 (@mynameisAeon) May 20, 2026

The Boys finale fell flat for me in many ways. Where do you even begin? None of it was satisfying, the deaths were predictable & the final “fights” were exactly how you thought they would go down.

Every character that survives ends up how you think it would. The Gen V… pic.twitter.com/5dTys1e5xj
— Endymion (@EndymionYT) May 20, 2026

No Cate Dunlap, Homelander Dies 40 mins In, Marie LITERALLY didn't do shit, Ryan is moving on, Butcher dies by a gunshot and This is The End Of THE BOYS? Mid Finale as expected #TheBoys pic.twitter.com/NqcvgQX1Kv
— Phys 🕸🖤 (@PhysCores) May 20, 2026

NOW WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY NAMED THEIR BABY AFTER HUGHIE’S EX ????? AND THEY ARENT MARRIED OKAY BYE IM SO SORRY ANNIE #theboys pic.twitter.com/8MsGj1kq7E
— s | the boys spoilers ! (@sickaqua) May 20, 2026

Lowkey the biggest disappointment of The Boys Season 5 is how many matchups they teased but never fully delivered on 👀
No proper Homelander vs Soldier Boy rematch.
No real Deep vs Noir payoff.
Ryan barely pushing Homelander.
The potential was insane 😭 pic.twitter.com/meG8JnaYKW
— Realsinare (@manafsinare) May 19, 2026

I feel like it was actually really simple to make the boys series finale good and that’s by making it look how it did on the posters and yet
— tea 🌈 (@horrifichymns) May 20, 2026

Most annoying part of The Boys S5 is that the Homelander god plot went nowhere. There wasn't a moment where society stood up against him, or shockingly embraced him, he didn't even finish the speech. It was the only subplot with any motion and it ended with zero payoff.
— Lasher guy (@90sXtremist) May 20, 2026

The Boys finale was exactly how it should be. If you were expecting more, thats on you. 9/10 satisfied with a few nitpicks
— ☆ §am ☆ (@Samus2k21) May 20, 2026

the boys ending was unfortunately ass and I don’t feel bad for saying it because they just don’t gaf about half of their cast
— hex (@hexxuality) May 20, 2026

nice reference to the comics for the boys finale. not because of the crowbar kill, but because it was complete utter dogshit
— 『Beni』 (@Cr1zzzle) May 20, 2026

I've been seeing a lot of people saying the same thing about the final of the boys, “it's dog shit” or “terrible,” and no one goes into detail or explains. I've even seen someone call it ChatGPT writing, like, woah, it's not stranger things lol, but seriously…
— JADEN || Realistic Doja Cat Fan idk🩸 (@JadenWhoops) May 20, 2026

Homelander losing his powers was the most cliché ending The Boys finale could've gone for.

What happened to the sheer destruction expected from a villain that's apparently immortal?

Even if he lost his powers in the end, was it supposed to be this easy? pic.twitter.com/scavh6DYi6
— GODFATHER (@Godfather0fX) May 20, 2026

Just saw The Boys finale in 4DX. I don’t care what anyone says, this was a near perfect finale and a great season. It did have its missteps but this fan base is just atrocious.
— URBNBrosPR (@URBNBrosPR) May 20, 2026

Well the finale of The Boys totally worked for me. I thought it was a satisfying conclusion. pic.twitter.com/BDP6BJ84u7
— Comic Tropes (@CTropes) May 20, 2026

Good ending to a bad season of The Boys all things considered. It was a fun time, but it was time.
— Pranav Sriraman (@PranavSriraman) May 20, 2026

As always, feel free to air your thoughts about the finale in the comments!

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

The Mandalorian Could Have Been the Savior of Star Wars but Lost The Way

In the very first scene of The Mandalorian, a silent stranger follows a homing beacon into some remote saloon. He goes straight to the bar, ignoring the chattering and boasting of the toughs around him. Finally, the stranger reaches a breaking point, dispatching the heretofore intimidating customers with relative ease before revealing the purpose of his visit. He’s come for a sniveling blue guy and to collect the bounty on the criminal’s head. When the blue guy tries to barter his way out of it, the stranger speaks his first lines. “I can bring you in warm,” he declares, pulling back his cloak to reveal a blaster, “Or I can bring you in cold.”

The scene comes directly from a spaghetti Western, one of many nods to Sergio Leone films in the episode. For most viewers watching that first episode in November of 2019, however, The Mandalorian felt like pure Star Wars, a sci-fi spin on pulp tropes. But by the end of season 2, The Mandalorian had abandoned those first principles, turning from the very thing that made Star Wars special and embracing everything that has made Star Wars such a mess.

A Long Time Ago

When Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, it contained only the barest promise of the massive franchise it has become today. Obviously, George Lucas knew it could become more than just a sci-fi flick, as demonstrated by his savvy handling of merchandising rights. Yet, the impressive thing about Star Wars isn’t how it predicted the future; rather, it’s how it synthesized the past.

The first film remixed elements from pop culture’s past, combining classical mythology with movies about samurai, gunslingers, and fighter pilots. Lucas puts his love of adventure serials front and center, as evident by the wipe transitions, the opening title crawl (written by Brian De Palma), and John Williams‘ score.

One need not have read Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces to understand why this approach worked. Star Wars distilled primal elements of pop culture and put them in a package that felt shiny and new, even if the rusty spaceships of this world were not. The film took well-worn archetypes and placed them in a different context, one that could excite young viewers with the promise of a new adventure while letting older viewers relive their favorite moments.

Nothing demonstrates this principle better than the trench run at the climax of the first film, perhaps the most enduring part of the movie. On the surface level, the scene shows how Luke Skywalker finally learns to trust the Force, which allows him to exploit a design flaw in the mighty Death Star, winning the battle for the rebels. However, one need not look much deeper to find obvious antecedents, including the war movies Dam Busters (1955)and 633 Squadron (1964), both of which Lucas screened for his special effects team, and a student recalling his wise master, as in Akira Kurosawa films.

Star Wars became a hit not because of its vast mythology, but because it made the familiar feel fresh.

The Fall of Star Wars

Just a month before The Mandalorian debuted on 2019, Star Wars once again tried to repackage the familiar—in the worst possible way. By the end of The Rise of Skywalker, new hero Rey had defeated Emperor Palpatine, somehow returned, and has gone to Tatooine to pay homage to her predecessor, Luke. When a wanderer asks for her name, Rey answers. Unsatisfied, the wanderer demands more detail, to which Rey responds, “Rey Skywalker.”

Of course, Rey says this because the film wants to establish her as the next in a line of heroes that extends from Anikan through Luke and now her. Within the world of the film, however, the answer makes no sense. At best, the Tatooine citizens know “Skywalker” as that family of moisture farmers who got turned into charred skeletons. At worst, they respond to “Skywalker” the same way we respond to surnames “Hitler” or “Mussolini,” inextricable from the horrible things done by one member of the family. Most likely, the name Skywalker means nothing at all to Rey’s interlocutor.

The conversation exists because the name Skywalker means something to fans, which implies that Rise of Skywalker is doing what Star Wars did, revisiting and reframing something from the past. But where Star Wars cast a wide net and found more diversity, Rise of Skywalker only looked at itself, just at Star Wars. As a result, it felt worse than a copy of a copy; it felt like an ouroboros of pop culture, a Star Wars story interested in only being about Star Wars.

Having The Mandalorian run on Disney+ while Rise of Skywalker played in theaters only hurt the movie. It seemed like the era of Star Wars movies had come to an end, making way for Star Wars television to become the norm. And then season 2 happened.

The Clone Wars Strikes Back

The first season of The Mandalorian had a simple premise, one borrowed from another classic pop culture trope, that of Lone Wolf and Cub. The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) decided to betray his code as a bounty hunter and go on the run with the Child (aka Baby Yoda, aka Grogu). The decision put Mando at odds with his client (Werner Herzog) and with Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito), and forced him to join forces with friends such as Cara Dune (Gina Carano) and enemies like IG-11 (Taika Waititi). Certainly, the story had elements of Star Wars lore, including the Ugnaught Kuiil and everything around the Mandalorian’s armor. But the salient parts were deeper, including riffs on spaghetti Westerns, right down to Ludwig Göransson’s score, indebted to the work of Ennio Morricone.

At the end of the season 2 premiere, Boba Fett appears in a cameo, once again played by Temuera Morrison. Two episodes later, Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) arrives and Mando meets Ahsoka, now grown and played by Rosario Dawson. These characters will repeat throughout the season, building to a finale that involves Luke Skywalker and ends with Boba Fett killing Bib Fortuna and setting up his own show, the reviled Book of Boba Fett.

By the time the third season unfolds, The Mandalorian isn’t about that guy who entered the saloon in episode one. It’s about Bo-Katan and all the business she left unfinished at the end of The Clone Wars. Mando and Grogu are still around, but the show is more interested in the search for the Darksaber and the plots of Grand Admiral Thrawn. These concepts certainly excited those who loved The Clone Wars and want to know how the storylines wrap up. But they lack the mythic power of the cowboy, samurai, and fighter pilot tropes that gave birth to Star Wars.

For a moment, it seemed like The Mandalorian was going to bring Star Wars back to first principles. It would take simple concepts from genre entertainment and put them in a cool sci-fi world. Instead, it reinforced the franchise’s worst tendencies, limiting its scope with narrow references, providing trivia instead of development of its characters, and only telling stories about more Star Wars.

The Mandalorian started out as something incredible, but this? This isn’t the way.

The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in theaters on May 22, 2026.