There’d never been a manga (and later anime) quite like Death Note. A psychological thriller mixed with the supernatural, the series followed high schooler Light Yagami, who’s given a notebook with the ability to kill anyone whose name is written in it. The premise alone is incredibly enticing but it was the way Death Note evolved that made it a beloved and still talked about series to this day. The funny yet dark interplay between Light and the Shinigami who gave him the notebook, Ryuk....

But in recent months, it felt like the game had fallen off the cultural radar. Whenever you looked at Twitch, it seemed like most of the service’s most popular streamers had moved on to Call of Duty: Warzone, Valorant, and a legion of viral games like Fall Guys, Among Us, and Genshin Impact. Fortnite rarely felt like the game to watch anymore. Even as the spread of Covid-19 forced most people into quarantine and boosted the success of games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Fortnite struggled to work its way back into the narrative the same way that it had in the past....

It might be that producers have taken note of popular actors or elements in previous films and want to expand on them; it might be that years have passed and tastes have changed; or it might be that new directors want to put their stamp on a story, but either way, the fifth or sixth movie in a series is usually pretty different from the first one. And the thing that a franchise becomes known for might be something that wasn’t particularly important in the first movie....

Love is a force greater than hate. That simple yet enduring message is at the heart of Thor: Love and Thunder—and to the movie’s credit, the meaning comes through in a way no one expected. Going into the theater for the fourth adventure of Chris Hemsworth’s Thor Odinson, most audiences likely anticipated the new film to be a sweet romantic comedy between Thor and Natalie Portman’s returned Dr. Jane Foster, aka the Mighty Thor....

Shortly after George Lazenby attended a screening of No Time to Die last week, the Australian actor and one-time 007 jumped on Twitter to write, “I got to see the new Bond here in LA. Interesting choice of music, I must say.” Having seen the latest James Bond movie ourselves, it’s easy to guess why the star of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) would be so flattered with Daniel Craig’s swan song....

Much will be said about what should and shouldn’t be tweaked about BioWare’s seminal RPG for a modern re-telling — in fact, we have some thoughts ourselves. But the remake raises other questions, too. For example, will the remake finally make this beloved era of Star Wars an official part of the Disney canon? You likely know the history by now, but a refresher in case you don’t: when Disney bought the rights to Star Wars in 2012, it proceeded to carve out a new future for the galaxy far, far away, one that didn’t necessarily have to adhere to the continuity already established through movies, books, comics, video games, and TV series released before the buyout....

The Clone Wars has had a long life. From its debut in 2008 to its conclusion in 2020, the animated series expanded the Star Wars Prequel era with fewer jokes and more of the titular war. And while the final season just bowed on Disney+ earlier this year, it won’t be the last time we see of some of the show’s characters. Disney has greenlit a spin-off series starring Clone Force 99, the squad of genetically enhanced clone troopers that was first introduced in season seven....

Most recently, reports of poor working conditions at the developer shed light on the dark side of a studio that originally promised it would not rely on development crunch and mandatory overtime to finish the game. Then another delay came, pushing the game from its November launch date to December. The most toxic members of the game’s “fanbase” immediately responded by sending death threats to several of the studio’s employees....

Early in Star Trek: The Original Series, it wasn’t exactly clear which nefarious alien species was truly the biggest threat to the Federation. While it’s easy to say the Klingon Empire was always the default antagonist of Starfleet in the Classic Trek era, sleeping on the Romulans would be a mistake. In fact, one of the most nuanced, thrilling episodes of TOS is the season 1 banger “Balance of Terror,” which first introduced this alien race....

Into the Badlands Season 3 Episode 15 I walked past a billboard the other day that said “If you want to change your future, change your now”. That phrase sums up this entire season of Into the Badlands for me. Instead of delivering a gloomy funeral procession hinted at by its name, “Requiem for the Fallen” looks to the future. It reminds us that the one thing all of its characters want the most right now is change — just a little bit of change to make the future better for the next generation....

Author George R.R. Martin draws on lots of different things for inspiration when he writes his A Song of Ice and Fire series, which was adapted into Game of Thrones and now House of the Dragon. The influence of the medieval era on the history of Westeros is well known, from Henry I making his barons swear loyalty to his daughter Matilda just as Viserys I makes his lords swear loyalty to his daughter Rhaenyra in Fire & Blood (adapted into House of the Dragon), to the conflict between the Starks and the Lannisters in A Song of Ice and Fire that partly mirrors the conflict between the real life houses of York and Lancaster in the 1400s....

The short answer to this question is: no. Squid Game has no source material other than its stellar script. However, writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk (previously best known for features like 2017 historical epic The Fortress) has cited the initial inspiration for Squid Game as a comic book. According to Soompi, the creator has been working on the concept for Squid Game since 2008, when he read a comic book about a group of people who fell into a deadly game....

Five-part 1980s-set AIDS drama It’s a Sin would have been three hours longer if creator Russell T Davies had his way. Speaking at Damian Barr’s Literary Salon, as reported by the Huffington Post, the screenwriter confirmed that there were originally plans for eight instalments, another housemate with their own story, and a final episode that would have revisited the characters in the present day. Given the opportunity, Davies says he would have shown Lydia West’s Jill in her mid-50s going to visit an elderly Valerie Tozer (Keeley Hawes), the mother to Olly Alexander’s lead Ritchie....

Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira), directed by Ishirō Honda, is a horror landmark and a science fiction legend. Its atomic-powered star, the enormous, atomically mutated dinosaur we call Godzilla, is the embodiment of a country’s fears and a beloved icon of destruction. Produced and distributed by Japan’s premiere monster factory Toho Co. Ltd, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, Honda’s 1954 film created the kaiju (big monster) genre, reinventing the motion picture industry by miniaturizing more than budgets for maximum payloads, and spawning almost 30 sequels....

The COVID-19 pandemic caused 2020’s Wrestlemania 36 to be unlike any Show of Shows that preceded it. For the first time ever, fans were not in attendance, the event was split across two nights, and cinematic matches, like The Undertaker’s farewell match against A.J. Styles, presented the WWE in a different light, stealing the show. The other cinematic match featured Cena against supernatural heel Bray Wyatt in a Firefly Funhouse Match....

It seems pretty odd to have survived a serious accident only to proclaim, “I cannot wait to do a superhero show,” but stranger still is the fact that that’s exactly what actor David Julian Hirsch is now doing as Richard Conrad/Blue-Bolt on Jupiter’s Legacy. Born in Canada on October 26, 1973, Hirsch had every intention of becoming a lawyer, having studied criminology at the University of Toronto. Then he “foolishly” decided to perform in a New York summer acting workshop and found himself hooked....

Yes, Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron movie is currently slated for a Dec. 2023 release but rumored production delays due to creative differences behind the scenes will likely mean the film has to be pushed back — if it isn’t just quietly removed from Disney’s release calendar altogether just like Rian Johnson’s long-awaited Star Wars trilogy. Fortunately, there are other Star Wars movies in the works at Lucasfilm, including a film directed by MCU veteran Taika Waititi, who is also writing the script with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917)....

Issues of diversity and representation have been at the forefront of our cultural conversations for years now. The rise in Asian hate crimes – nearly a 150% increase in 2020 – has made #StopAsianHate a frequent trending topic on social media. For The CW to launch a show with a Chinese leading actress and a largely Asian cast right now makes a bold statement for inclusivity that lives up to the network’s longstanding slogan “Dare to Defy....

Legends of Tomorrow Season 7 Episode 1 Legends of Tomorrow remains one of the most delightful, unexpected shows on TV. Despite its official title as DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, the show has strayed so far from its comic book roots as to be almost unrecognizable as a superhero show in most episodes. That isn’t a bad thing, by the way. Legends of Tomorrow is more workplace comedy than superhero show, full of compassionate, quirky weirdos who just happen to have superheroes…and one of the coolest space/timeships in TV history....

Line of Duty requires attentive viewing. Try to watch it while doing the ironing and it’ll be burnt shirt collars and confusion for you, son. Every sly look, slight frown and worried swallow by the characters needs to be absorbed by fans if we’re to construct our usual baroque theories week by week. (A bold, early suggestion: DCI Davidson is the first innocent copper AC-12 has ever investigated; she simply has the ability to see things happen in slow-motion, like a housefly, and is a keen collector of high-end door locks....