Monthly Archives: February 2022
Crazy Rich Asians Inspired Indiana Jones’ Ke Huy Quan to Return to Acting
If you grew up in the '80s you may remember Ke Huy Quan, or Jonathan Ke Quan. He starred in such classics as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies. After two decades in Hollywood Quan went behind the scenes, but Crazy Rich Asians finally got him to consider returning to acting – and he makes his latest bow in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Speaking during IGN Fan Fest, Quan shared that, as he got older, “opportunities for an Asian actor at that time were not that many and that’s just the truth of it.” While waiting for a new role, Quan enrolled in film school to continue his craft.
However, Quan had to wait another 20 years before being inspired to return to acting. “It wasn’t until 2018, a little movie from Warner Bros. came out called Crazy Rich Asians. I saw that movie and it hit me on so many levels and I was really emotional about and the idea of returning to acting started percolating in my head.”
This led Quan to ask an acting agent friend to represent him and, two weeks after finally getting an agent after decades without one, Quan got a call about Everything Everywhere All At Once. After two auditions and weeks without hearing anything, Quan got the role for his big-screen return.
The excitingly bizarre-looking Everything Everywhere All At Once stars Michelle Yeoh, a laundromat owner in one universe, who travels the multiverse and encounters different versions of herself, and characters played by Quan, Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis, all of whom spoke with IGN about the movie.
“The thing is, in short, how do I explain this movie? I did it and I still don’t know what it’s about” Yeoh tells IGN. Ultimately Yeoh describes the movie as doing taxes and keeping a family together but folks will have to watch the movie to figure things out. Family is optimal here according to Hsu, as this tether is one of the few constants across the multiverse.
The multiverse it turns out is a big topic for filmmakers in 2022. Alongside Everything Everywhere All At Once, Marvel is venturing into the multiverse themselves having done so in Spider-Man: No Way Home and the upcoming Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
For more multiverse goodness, check out IGN Fan Fest and our full schedule of events.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
Vikings: Valhalla’s Brutal Action Scenes Resulted in a Number of Cast Injuries
Vikings are not known for being chill, peaceful, non-violent folks, so it stands to reason that Vikings: Valhalla is full of big, violent, action scenes. Between that and the cast doing most of their own fighting and stunts (though not all), it's not shocking that the actors got banged up a bit during filming – though the extent is rather surprising.
During a panel at IGN Fan Fest, actor Sam Corlett (Leif Erikson) described taking a sword to the eye while filming the Battle of Kent – resulting in a black eye. They didn't cover the black eye with makeup for later shoots, but as it healed the crew actually had to add a black eye with makeup for continuity reasons. Corlett later mentioned having blood across his knuckles after filming one scene in the Great Hall, which showrunner Jeb Stuart suggested may have been from getting a hatchet handle to his wrist.
Frida Gustavsson (Freydís Eiríksdóttir) also had quite a few bruises from the filming:
"I still have scars on my hands just from wrapping and this is months ago. I went to the emergency room, I had my arm in a sling, I had bruises everywhere, I scarred my face, yeah."
Obviously, though, the crew had medics on hand to support them and make sure things didn't get out of hand, as Corlett describes in another anecdote.
"Also some of the fight scenes where we're in water, especially shooting night shoots at like 11pm, in water, in Ireland where it's maybe 5 degrees [C, 41 degrees F) in the water, and you're doing this fight sequence. There's the medic watching you like a hawk and if you shiver, you have to get out and get warm and the whole thing has to stop, wait for you to get warm, and you have to jump back in again.
"We're trying to get ten takes of this fight scene done and dusted so hopefully amongst that ten we have something to put together."
Vikings: Valhalla is set to premiere on February 25 on Netflix, and we got a first look at the opening scenes from the historical drama during the full panel at IGN FanFest.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Vikings: Valhalla’s Brutal Action Scenes Resulted in a Number of Cast Injuries
Vikings are not known for being chill, peaceful, non-violent folks, so it stands to reason that Vikings: Valhalla is full of big, violent, action scenes. Between that and the cast doing most of their own fighting and stunts (though not all), it's not shocking that the actors got banged up a bit during filming – though the extent is rather surprising.
During a panel at IGN Fan Fest, actor Sam Corlett (Leif Erikson) described taking a sword to the eye while filming the Battle of Kent – resulting in a black eye. They didn't cover the black eye with makeup for later shoots, but as it healed the crew actually had to add a black eye with makeup for continuity reasons. Corlett later mentioned having blood across his knuckles after filming one scene in the Great Hall, which showrunner Jeb Stuart suggested may have been from getting a hatchet handle to his wrist.
Frida Gustavsson (Freydís Eiríksdóttir) also had quite a few bruises from the filming:
"I still have scars on my hands just from wrapping and this is months ago. I went to the emergency room, I had my arm in a sling, I had bruises everywhere, I scarred my face, yeah."
Obviously, though, the crew had medics on hand to support them and make sure things didn't get out of hand, as Corlett describes in another anecdote.
"Also some of the fight scenes where we're in water, especially shooting night shoots at like 11pm, in water, in Ireland where it's maybe 5 degrees [C, 41 degrees F) in the water, and you're doing this fight sequence. There's the medic watching you like a hawk and if you shiver, you have to get out and get warm and the whole thing has to stop, wait for you to get warm, and you have to jump back in again.
"We're trying to get ten takes of this fight scene done and dusted so hopefully amongst that ten we have something to put together."
Vikings: Valhalla is set to premiere on February 25 on Netflix, and we got a first look at the opening scenes from the historical drama during the full panel at IGN FanFest.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Vikings: Valhalla Has the Largest Flotilla of Viking Ships in the World
Vikings: Valhalla is a massive technical undertaking, from recreating Viking weaponry and battles to costumes to, yes, the boats. Fortunately, the crew making the show is working with what's apparently the largest fleet of Viking ships in the world at the moment.
At IGN Fan Fest, actor Sam Corlett -- who plays Leif Erikson in the upcoming show -- talked about getting to film scenes on the giant boats.
"I was unaware that we actually have the largest flotilla of Viking ships in the world," he said. "And to be able to see the craftsmanship there and to be able to play on that as actors, but also it almost suspended you from having to act. Because some of the practical effects where we'd be in a massive tank in the back lot with a crane holding two sides of the boat, pulling us up and over things, wind coming through, a crane causing waves, there was a lot of colliding of many different people creating this moment."
The boats aren't the only major setpiece the actors got to work with. Frida Gustavsson, who plays Freydís Eiríksdóttir, talked about "Viking team building" exercises the actors had to go through including crash courses in axes, saying they did most, though not all, the action themselves. And later on, showrunner Jeb Stuart described a massive London Bridge set piece for season 1.
"[The London Bridge Piece] took 18 months of planning from start to finish. We had to build multiple parts of the bridge, we had to shoot it over many many days and weeks, it's just a very exciting to see how the action components come to play in the actual telling of a story."
Vikings: Valhalla is set to premiere on February 25 on Netflix, and we got a first look at the opening scenes from the historical drama during the full panel at IGN FanFest.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Vikings: Valhalla Has the Largest Flotilla of Viking Ships in the World
Vikings: Valhalla is a massive technical undertaking, from recreating Viking weaponry and battles to costumes to, yes, the boats. Fortunately, the crew making the show is working with what's apparently the largest fleet of Viking ships in the world at the moment.
At IGN Fan Fest, actor Sam Corlett -- who plays Leif Erikson in the upcoming show -- talked about getting to film scenes on the giant boats.
"I was unaware that we actually have the largest flotilla of Viking ships in the world," he said. "And to be able to see the craftsmanship there and to be able to play on that as actors, but also it almost suspended you from having to act. Because some of the practical effects where we'd be in a massive tank in the back lot with a crane holding two sides of the boat, pulling us up and over things, wind coming through, a crane causing waves, there was a lot of colliding of many different people creating this moment."
The boats aren't the only major setpiece the actors got to work with. Frida Gustavsson, who plays Freydís Eiríksdóttir, talked about "Viking team building" exercises the actors had to go through including crash courses in axes, saying they did most, though not all, the action themselves. And later on, showrunner Jeb Stuart described a massive London Bridge set piece for season 1.
"[The London Bridge Piece] took 18 months of planning from start to finish. We had to build multiple parts of the bridge, we had to shoot it over many many days and weeks, it's just a very exciting to see how the action components come to play in the actual telling of a story."
Vikings: Valhalla is set to premiere on February 25 on Netflix, and we got a first look at the opening scenes from the historical drama during the full panel at IGN FanFest.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Nightingale Will Let Players Explore a ‘Seemingly Endless’ Number of Fae-Inhabited Realms
Nightingale, the upcoming survival game from Improbable studio Inflexion, is a magical realm-hopping adventure full of bizarre fae creatures and worlds inspired by Victorian themes and fairytales. Just how many mysterious worlds will players get to explore in Nightingale? Inflexion isn't telling, but in an interview for IGN Fan Fest, art and audio director Neil Thompson suggests they will be at least "seemingly endless."
Thompson joined CEO Aaryn Flynn at Fan Fest to talk about the different worlds of Nightingale, which Thompson says Inflexion thinks of as parallel universes inhabited by creatures, monsters, and wildlife. Players travel between the worlds via portals, Flynn says, which appear after they have explored a particular realm sufficiently. Once a portal is found, players can decide whether they want to move on or remain where they are. Flynn adds that while they aren't discussing the details yet, there will be some checks in place to ensure players have the correct gear and other resources to be able to survive what's on the other side.
The creatures and worlds connected via the portals come from a number of different inspirations, including Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Dutch and other classical art, and of course, the Victorian era which Thompson calls "incredibly visually evocative." And it's all deeply rooted in myth.
"From a creature perspective we wanted to delve into this idea of folklore and fairytale," he says. "The Bandersnatch, in our world, is a pretty vicious cross between a raptor and a batlike creature. They're pretty lively in the realms, not necessarily something you'd want to meet on a dark night, that's for sure."
He's more coy when asked if we might run across a Jabberwocky, but is willing to spill some details on other creatures. Thompson goes on to detail The Bound, a faction created by the adversarial Fae as a "mimicry of humanity" to combat the player RealmWalkers. The Bound come in many forms, including minion creatures, long-range attackers, magic users, tank-like creatures, and a bruiser seen in the trailer with a wheel for a head, "just cuz it was kind of cool," according to Thompson.
He also details the Harpies, flying creatures that can steal things from the player's encampment and even disguise themselves as old women wrapped in cloaks to lure players into a false sense of security until they can get close.
We spoke earlier this year with Flynn about the BioWare roots of Nightingale and more about how it will handle things like player choice and worldbuilding, as well as its optimistic tone. Nightingale is preparing for an early access beta sometime later this year.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Nightingale Will Let Players Explore a ‘Seemingly Endless’ Number of Fae-Inhabited Realms
Nightingale, the upcoming survival game from Improbable studio Inflexion, is a magical realm-hopping adventure full of bizarre fae creatures and worlds inspired by Victorian themes and fairytales. Just how many mysterious worlds will players get to explore in Nightingale? Inflexion isn't telling, but in an interview for IGN Fan Fest, art and audio director Neil Thompson suggests they will be at least "seemingly endless."
Thompson joined CEO Aaryn Flynn at Fan Fest to talk about the different worlds of Nightingale, which Thompson says Inflexion thinks of as parallel universes inhabited by creatures, monsters, and wildlife. Players travel between the worlds via portals, Flynn says, which appear after they have explored a particular realm sufficiently. Once a portal is found, players can decide whether they want to move on or remain where they are. Flynn adds that while they aren't discussing the details yet, there will be some checks in place to ensure players have the correct gear and other resources to be able to survive what's on the other side.
The creatures and worlds connected via the portals come from a number of different inspirations, including Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Dutch and other classical art, and of course, the Victorian era which Thompson calls "incredibly visually evocative." And it's all deeply rooted in myth.
"From a creature perspective we wanted to delve into this idea of folklore and fairytale," he says. "The Bandersnatch, in our world, is a pretty vicious cross between a raptor and a batlike creature. They're pretty lively in the realms, not necessarily something you'd want to meet on a dark night, that's for sure."
He's more coy when asked if we might run across a Jabberwocky, but is willing to spill some details on other creatures. Thompson goes on to detail The Bound, a faction created by the adversarial Fae as a "mimicry of humanity" to combat the player RealmWalkers. The Bound come in many forms, including minion creatures, long-range attackers, magic users, tank-like creatures, and a bruiser seen in the trailer with a wheel for a head, "just cuz it was kind of cool," according to Thompson.
He also details the Harpies, flying creatures that can steal things from the player's encampment and even disguise themselves as old women wrapped in cloaks to lure players into a false sense of security until they can get close.
We spoke earlier this year with Flynn about the BioWare roots of Nightingale and more about how it will handle things like player choice and worldbuilding, as well as its optimistic tone. Nightingale is preparing for an early access beta sometime later this year.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Developers Made New Creatures From Existing Model Kits
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the first time developer Traveller's Tales has portrayed every movie in the mainline Star Wars series. As such, there are plenty of classic creatures the studio had to adapt for the first time, including ones that have never been made by Lego as physical kits. To keep things as authentic as possible, the artists used parts from existing kits as reference for these new creatures, and ‘built’ them from a mixture of existing and original parts.
In a new developer diary debuted during IGN Fan Fest, Neil Crofts, Head of Character Art on Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, said: “What we would do is we’d look at the film reference, and we’d take existing Lego creatures and characters that are similar, and then what we end up with is something that is as accurate as we could make it.”
“Take the bantha, for example,” he said. “It’s really true to lego IP and it’s really true to the film IP.”
Concept art in the video also shows how the Rathar, the squid-like creatures from The Force Awakens, was designed using a mix of brand new parts and items from existing kits. The Rathar’s body is a new two-piece component, but it is based on the Lego GyroSphere from the Lego Jurassic World kit. Attached to this body are newly-designed tentacles, but also the Lego dragon kit’s tail and tusks. Finally, the Rathar’s mouth is made up from classic 3794 Lego pieces, perhaps better known as the flat plates with one stud on. This means a minifig character can be easily clipped onto the mouth for any eating scenes.
While other creatures may not use exact pieces from other kits, they’re closely modelled to match any close references in order to maintain authenticity.
For more from Lego Star Wars, check out what comes in each edition of The Skywalker Saga, and an overview of what you can expect from this noticeably different Lego game.
Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Developers Made New Creatures From Existing Model Kits
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the first time developer Traveller's Tales has portrayed every movie in the mainline Star Wars series. As such, there are plenty of classic creatures the studio had to adapt for the first time, including ones that have never been made by Lego as physical kits. To keep things as authentic as possible, the artists used parts from existing kits as reference for these new creatures, and ‘built’ them from a mixture of existing and original parts.
In a new developer diary debuted during IGN Fan Fest, Neil Crofts, Head of Character Art on Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, said: “What we would do is we’d look at the film reference, and we’d take existing Lego creatures and characters that are similar, and then what we end up with is something that is as accurate as we could make it.”
“Take the bantha, for example,” he said. “It’s really true to lego IP and it’s really true to the film IP.”
Concept art in the video also shows how the Rathar, the squid-like creatures from The Force Awakens, was designed using a mix of brand new parts and items from existing kits. The Rathar’s body is a new two-piece component, but it is based on the Lego GyroSphere from the Lego Jurassic World kit. Attached to this body are newly-designed tentacles, but also the Lego dragon kit’s tail and tusks. Finally, the Rathar’s mouth is made up from classic 3794 Lego pieces, perhaps better known as the flat plates with one stud on. This means a minifig character can be easily clipped onto the mouth for any eating scenes.
While other creatures may not use exact pieces from other kits, they’re closely modelled to match any close references in order to maintain authenticity.
For more from Lego Star Wars, check out what comes in each edition of The Skywalker Saga, and an overview of what you can expect from this noticeably different Lego game.
Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.
Halo TV Show’s Timeline Is Still ‘Rooted In Canon’
The upcoming Halo TV show will not take place in the timeline of the video games, and instead uses a newly formed “Silver Timeline”. Despite this, the show is still “rooted in canon” and will feature everything you’d expect from the story of Master Chief’s fight against the Covenant. It just comes from a “different perspective”.
As part of IGN Fan Fest 2022, Halo’s executive producer and 343 Industries’ Studio Head of Transmedia, Kiki Wolfkill, said: “The Halo Silver Timeline is about giving the show and the core canon room to grow, evolve, and be what they need to be. Really think of the Halo Silver Timeline as being rooted in canon, so events and characters and certainly all of the things you see in canon are all part of the show, but sometimes you will see those events from a different perspective.”
“There are times and places where we’ve had to pull events closer together than they may be in the [original] chronology, and that’s a good example of where the context will maybe shift a little bit, but it should feel very Halo,” she elaborated. “At the end of the day the core of Halo are those pillars of heroism and humanity and the wonder of sci-fi and hope. All of those things are core to what we’re doing. It’s a case of when people watch the show it will feel Halo and there will be a lot that they recognise verbatim, and a lot that will feel a little bit different just so the narrative has a chance to go where it needs to go without colliding with some of the core canon.”
One of the things that will diverge from the game’s original canon is that we will actually see Master Chief’s face. In the games, the SPARTAN never publicly removes his helmet.
While the Silver Timeline means the Halo TV show is free to take its own approach for some aspects, plenty of nods to the games will be included.
“There are a lot of Easter eggs in there, and it was a lot of fun putting them in,” said director Otto Bathurst. “We had an incredible team, particularly in production design and the graphic designer, who has absolutely taken it to the n-th level. So I’m going to put my neck on the line and challenge you to freeze frame and zoom in.”
The Halo TV show will premiere on March 24, 2022 on Paramount+ in the US. For more, check out our extensive trailer breakdown and the entire cast revealed so far.
Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.