Monthly Archives: September 2019
Shane Gillis Fired from SNL After Racist Slurs Surface Online
Comedian Shane Gillis will no longer be joining the cast of Saturday Night Live in the show's upcoming 45th season.
Gillis was among three new "featured players" announced earlier in September, alongside Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman. Gillis' casting quickly drew heavy criticism stemming from several podcast clips featuring Gillis making racially insensitive jokes and using racial and homophobic slurs.
Gillis' hiring was also criticized for coming at the same time Yang is making SNL history as the show's first Chinese-American cast member.
A spokesperson for SNL producer Lorne Michaels released the following statement online:
“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL. We want SNL to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as comedian and his impressive audition for SNL. We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”
First Details for Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers’ Nier Automata Raid Revealed
Square Enix has revealed the first details about Patch 5.1. The upcoming patch will include the release of the first Shadowbringers 24-Player Alliance Raid based on Nier: Automata.
In a new Letter from the Producer livestream, Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida revealed the first details about the upcoming Patch 5.1 update, Titled Vows of Virtue, Deeds of Cruelty. The update will include the YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse alliance raid, which is a collaboration beween Final Fantasy 14 and the Nier series and guest directors Yosuke Saito and Yoko Taro.
Updates coming to Final Fantasy 14 Patch 5.1:
- New Main Scenario Quests – New quests continuing the Shadowbringers storyline.
6 Things to Look For at the Dark Arts at Hogwarts Castle Experience
Universal Orlando Resort is bringing on the bad guys for its newest Harry Potter light projection experience.
Dark Arts at Hogwarts Castle, which just debuted at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade at Islands of Adventure in Orlando (after its spring debut at Universal Hollywood), puts the spotlight on the villainous forces of J.K. Rowling’s magical universe. The new production is nearly nine minutes long and the blend of imagery, fog and music is mesmerizing. It also includes the use of light-equipped drones for the big finale (as long as the weather cooperates). From the early whispers of Parseltongue to the flames at the climax, fans will find this new addition to the park’s Potterville a great thrill.
GameStop’s Store Redesign Leaked
IGN can confirm the accuracy of a recent Facebook video, which appears to show what one of the redesigned GameStop stores could look like under the company's GameStop Reboot plan.
A GameStop store in Pryor, Oklahoma posted a video tour of what looks like a new layout for the store. A source familiar with GameStop’s operation, who’s requested anonymity, has confirmed that the store matches the blueprint layout of the redesigns shown at GameStop’s annual conference.
IGN’s sources say there’s a test store in Oklahoma, the same state from which this video is from. A second source familiar with GameStop's future reboot plans said that not all stores will look like the one in the video, with some stores redesigned to focus more on esports, retro games (as shown here), or a more traditional design similar to existing stores. Other features, like the wall-mounted tablet, are more universal features that corporate will implement across all stores.
Gears 5 Has Biggest First-Party Launch for Xbox Since Halo 4
With over 3 million players since it was released, Gears 5 had the biggest first-party launch for Xbox since Halo 4, in terms of player count.
Gears 5 "easily doubled the first week’s debut of Gears of War 4," according to Xbox Wire, making it the "biggest launch week of any Xbox Game Studios title this generation." The 3 million-player count was tracked from the early access launch on September 6 through this past weekend.
The shooter also set first-party records on PC, becoming the biggest Xbox Game Pass launch on the platform and Microsoft’s "best-ever" first-party launch on Steam. It also tripled the "performance" of Gears of War 4 on PC, though specific numbers weren't revealed.
Seinfeld Coming to Netflix After Losing Friends and the Office
Seinfeld, the massively influential sitcom that ran from 1989 to 1998, is coming to Netflix, the streaming giant announced Monday.
Seinfeld will be coming to the service starting in 2021 and will run for five years. All 180 episodes of the show will be made available globally. Hulu currently holds the exclusive streaming rights to Seinfeld, and the comedy will move to Netflix when that deal expires in 2021.
“‘Seinfeld’ is a one-of-a-kind, iconic, culture-defining show,” Sony Pictures Television Chairman Mike Hopkins said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “Now, 30 years after its premiere, ‘Seinfeld’ remains center stage. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Netflix to bring this beloved series to current fans and new audiences around the globe.”
Kojima: Death Stranding Sequels May Be Needed to Start New Genre
Kojima has made no secret of the fact he wants to invent a new "strand" genre with Death Stranding, and as a result he believes one game might not be enough for his ideas to catch on.
Speaking to Gamespot, Kojima explained that he believes without sequels, Death Stranding will not establish Strand as a continuing genre. "When you create something new, you have to create a sequel and then a third version or it
not remain as a genre," he said. "When this game comes out there will be a lot of pros and cons, and
, but I think it's better that I keep it going in a sequel.
Netflix’s Daybreak is Completely Insane
If you combine the post-apocalyptic landscape of Mad Max, the fourth-wall-breaking wit of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the mindless, flesh-eating hordes of The Walking Dead, and the satirical high school cliques of Mean Girls (or, more recently, Netflix's Sex Education), and toss them into a blender with a dash of Hunger Games, you might get something approaching the utterly bats**t, disarmingly hilarious Daybreak, which will be released on Netflix on October 24.
Check out the first official teaser trailer for Netflix's Daybreak below:
Self-referential meta-humor isn't the only thing Daybreak has in common with Ferris Bueller; the series also features Matthew Broderick as Glendale High School’s endlessly amiable principal - a stroke of genius casting should hint at the level this delightfully weird series is operating at.
Apple’s For All Mankind Explores a Very Different Space Race
All September long, IGN is highlighting the best TV coming your way in the 2019-2020 season. Today we're spotlighting For All Mankind, one of several high-profile Apple TV+ shows that will be available when the new streaming platform launches on November 1. Executive produced by Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore, For All Mankind "imagines what would have happened if the global space race never ended and the space program remained the cultural centerpiece of America’s hopes and dreams." Featuring an ensemble cast - led by Joel Kinnaman as astronaut Ed Baldwin, Shantel VanSanten as his wife, Karen, Michael Dorman as Ed's copilot, Gordo Stevens, and Sarah Jones as Gordo's wife, Tracy - the series presents an alternate history in which Russia beats the US to the moon, exploring the historical, technological, and political implications that follow.
Joaquin Phoenix on Finding Joker’s ‘Painful’ Laugh
One of the Joker’s most iconic traits is his maniacal laugh, and it proved to be one of the most challenging aspects of the character for actor Joaquin Phoenix to master in the forthcoming standalone DC movie.
At a recent post-screening Q&A for press in L.A., Phoenix and Joker director Todd Phillips recounted how the actor invited Phillips over to his house so he could try out the laugh for him. “Because I didn't think I could do it,” Phoenix revealed.
Phillips detailed how there are actually three different, distinct Joker laughs in the film, but the one he said was the most difficult for Phoenix to find was the one Phillips came to call “the affliction laugh.” Phillips showed Phoenix videos of people who suffered from pathological laughter as a result of medical conditions like head trauma.