Monthly Archives: October 2022
Ezra Miller Returns for ‘The Flash’ Reshoots in Another Sign WB Is Sticking With the Actor
Ezra Miller has reportedly returned for The Flash reshoots. According to The Wrap, the troubled Justice League star has returned to the set of The Flash following an apology for their recent behavior.
“Miller and their agent met with Warner Bros.’ film heads back in August,” revealed The Wrap. It’s claimed that this meeting was “very positive” about the future of DC’s upcoming superhero flick, The Flash.
It looks as though it went so well, Miller has already been back on set.
Additionally, it’s claimed that the film has been testing positively, giving Warner Bros. a compelling reason to smooth things over with Miller and carry on.
Over the past few months, Miller has seen a number of troubling claims made about his conduct, which have even resulted in arrests and police involvement. They have been charged with burglary in Vermont, as well as other legal issues in Hawaii, Massachusetts, and North Dakota.
Additionally, Miller has been accused of throwing a chair at a woman, grooming minors, and other serious misconduct.
The actor drew nationwide attention when they abruptly deleted their Instagram account and seemingly vanished. However, in August, Miller confirmed that they are suffering from “mental health” issues and delivered an apology.
“Having recently gone through a time of intense crisis, I now understand that I am suffering complex mental health issues and have begun ongoing treatment,” said Miller. “I want to apologize to everyone that I have alarmed and upset with my past behavior. I am committed to doing the necessary work to get back to a healthy, safe and productive stage in my life.”
Now, it looks as though Miller has at least done enough to appease the folks at Warner Bros. Discovery and hasn’t been kicked off his own DC solo movie.
At least, if he has indeed been back for reshoots and pickups.
Despite Miller’s recent issues, Warner Bros. Discovery is yet to deviate from its earlier plans, with a release date of June 23, 2023, still set for The Flash.
Want to read more about The Flash? Check out the films and TV shows affected by the Warner Bros Discovery merger and read more about Flashpoint which inspired the upcoming film.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
HBO Max’s Velma Reveals Full Scooby Gang Voice Cast
The rest of the cast for Mindy Kaling's Velma HBO Max series is no longer a mystery, as THR has reported the entire cast, including the actors that will play the rest of Mystery Incorporated.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Glenn Howerton is on board to play Fred, Veep's Sam Richardson will play Shaggy, and Crazy Rich Asians' Constance Wu is Daphne.
In addition to the gang, other cast members include Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, Weird Al Yankovic, Debby Ryan, Karl-Anthony Towns, Russell Peters, Melissa Fumero, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, Ken Leung, Cherry Jones, Frank Welker, Fortune Feimster, Yvonne Orji, Sarayu Blue, Nicole Byer, Ming-Na Wen, Shay Mitchell, and Kulap Vilaysack.
HBO Max's new animated series #Velma will feature the voices of Mindy Kaling as Velma, Glenn Howerton as Fred , Constance Wu as Daphne and Sam Richardson as Norville aka Shaggy. pic.twitter.com/JkFaeUtaHf
— Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) October 6, 2022
We got our first look at Velma back in May, where Kaling said she didn't care if people freaked out about Velma being South Asian. At the time, Kaling said, "I just couldn't understand how people couldn't imagine a really smart, nerdy girl with terrible eyesight, and who loved to solve mysteries, could be Indian." The show is also aimed at more of an adult audience than traditional Scooby-Doo, with a gruesome shot of a character with their head cut open marking the first look we got at the show.
HBO Max first announced this Velma Dinkley origin series last year, where we learned Kaling, Charlie Grandy, Howard Klein, and Sam Register were on board as executive producers.
You can read a synopsis of the New York Comic Con preview here.
In other Velma news, the character is finally gay in the new movie, Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, two years after we learned James Gunn tried to make Velma canonically gay in his live action Scooby-Doo movie from 2002.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Photo by: Tyler Golden/Peacock/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images; Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images; Michael Kovac/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images
First Look at HBO Max’s Velma Is Full of Gore, Butts
HBO Max is teaming up with Mindy Kaling on a mature origin story for Velma and Scooby gang and we got our first look at the series at New York Comic Con.
In a panel, HBO Max shared a sneak peek of the first episode which establishes Velma as an origin story set before the gang officially teamed up to solve mysteries. The preview was full of a grizzly murder, profanity, and some butts.
While HBO Max hasn't shared the preview online, IGN was in attendance and got a glimpse of the first episode preview which begins with a voiceover from Velma Dinkley (played by Mindy Kaling) telling the audience about the bone-chilling events that lead up to the greatest mystery-solving team-up ever.
A full voice cast has also been revealed including Glenn Howerton, Constance Wu, and Sam Richardson.
HBO Max's new animated series #Velma will feature the voices of Mindy Kaling as Velma, Glenn Howerton as Fred , Constance Wu as Daphne and Sam Richardson as Norville aka Shaggy. pic.twitter.com/JkFaeUtaHf
— Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) October 6, 2022
The preview begins in the girl's locker room ("Sex sells," according to Velma in the preview) where Daphne (Constance Wu) and Velma are there together when a body falls out of one of the lockers. The corpse turns out to be another student named Brenda who is missing her brain.
The mystery to find Brenda's killer will unite crime-loving Velma with Daphne, who was Brenda's ex-best friend. Daphne's parents, who are cops, interrogate the two girls and give Velma 24 hours to solve the murder.
Fred (Glenn Howerton) is also introduced as a vain individual who has a disease where he can't recognize people who aren't hot. He is apparently dating Daphne, but Brenda was his "plan B in case she was too clingy."
Shaggy (Sam Richardson) appears last as a friend with a crush on Velma and later joins the investigation to help clear Velma's name. And yes, Shaggy does appear to be a bit of a stoner in this version.
While the gang's quest to find Brenda's killer leads to sketchy drug dealers, dismembered body parts, and forbidden romances this certainly appears to be a mature take on the Scooby gang, leaning towards adult animated comedies than the original cartoons.
During a panel following the preview the moderator says definitively that this show is "not for kids," and that it is closer to the shows Kaling and showrunner Charlie Grandy love like Rick and Morty and Harley Quinn.
This is just the latest reinvention of Velma in recent times, following the character coming out as a lesbian in a recent movie, unrelated to the HBO Max series.
For more on the show and other news from New York Comic Con, follow IGN.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie Trailer: Chris Pratt’s Mario Voice Finally Revealed
We've gotten the first trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and heard Chris Pratt's new take on the iconic plumber's voice.
Revealed in a Nintendo Direct (and New York Comic-Con panel) today, the trailer begins with a look at a floating Bowser island making its way to a penguin kingdom, before Kamek introduces Jack Black's Bowser. The penguins attempt to fight by throwing snowballs at the Koopas and Bowser, before the King Koopa destroys the gate to the city to find one of the franchise's iconic Super Stars.
We then cut to Mario, who gets shot out of a warp pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom, where he's greeted by Keegan-Michael Key's Toad. Pratt's Mario doesn't say much, besides "What is this place?" and "Mushroom Kingdom here we come!", but those two lines do mark our first time hearing Pratt's take on Mario. The trailer ends with a quick shot of Luigi getting chased by a group of Dry Bones.
It's the first time we've heard the "updated" voice Chris Pratt adopted for the movie. The voice has been a source of much conversation since the movie was announced, with producer Chris Meledandri saying that "criticism will evaporate" when people hear it – although he did caveat that by saying, "maybe not entirely — people love to voice opinions, as they should.”
Originally announced back in 2018, Super Mario: The Movie is being produced by Nintendo and Illumination. The film would resurface again during the September 2021 Nintendo Direct, where Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto announced the film's cast.
Joining Chris Pratt, the cast also includes Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong. It'll be a while until we see this all-star cast take their best shot at Nintendo's iconic characters, as Illumination and Nintendo delayed the movie to April 2023.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Batman Becomes Doctor Fate in DC’s Lazarus Planet Crossover | New York Comic-Con 2022
DC Comics kicked off New York Comic-Con with a first look at Lazarus Planet, a new crossover spinning out of Mark Waid and Mahmud Asrar's Batman vs. Robin series.
Announced at the "Exploring the DC Multiverse" panel, Lazarus Planet explores the aftermath of a massive volcanic eruption, with the Lazarus Volcano blanketing Earth's atmosphere in the same dangerous chemicals that have kept Ra's al Ghul alive all these centuries. A number of DC's heroes will be exposed to this airborne Lazarus, resulting in them gaining new or enhanced powers. The tagline for the crossover is "Heroes Transformed. Secrets Revealed. Powers Unleashed."
For example, Batman will bond with the Helmet of Fate and become the new Doctor Fate. Because, as we all know, Batman isn't powerful enough. Jon Kent will go through his own version of his father's infamous Electric Blue Superman phase. And Martian Manhunter will be mentally bonded to a nest of Doomsdays, transforming him into a rampaging beast.
Waid is serving as showrunner of the crossover, overseeing a rotating lineup of creators that includes Riccardo Federici, Gene Luen Yang, Billy Tan, Skylar Patridge, Francis Manapul, Dan Watters, Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Josie Campbell. Even Supergirl actress Nicole Maines is coming back to DC following her contribution to Superman: Son of Kal-El, signifying the importance her character Dreamer will play in the story. Monkey Prince fans should also look to this new DC hero having a critical role in the crossover.
After Batman vs. Robin #4 tees up the crossover, Lazarus Planet will unfold in a series of one-shot specials published weekly in January and February 2023. Here's the full list of books involved:
- Lazarus Planet: Alpha (1/10)
- Lazarus Planet: Assault on Krypton (1/17)
- Lazarus Planet: We Once Were Gods (1/24)
- Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn (1/31)
- Lazarus Planet: Next Evolution (2/7)
- Lazarus Planet: Dark Fate (2/14)
- Lazarus Planet: Omega (2/21)
Be sure to check out IGN's NYCC hub page for all the big news out of this year's convention.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Avatar 4: First Act Already Completed
Avatar 4 won't hit theaters until December 18, 2026, but apparently, the film's first act is already in the can.
During the Busan International Film Festival (via Variety), Avatar series producer Jon Landau explained where production is at for the distant sequel.
“We’ve completed most of the first act of Avatar 4 and there were logistical reasons why we needed to do that,” Landau said. “We’ve designed most of the whole movie for Avatar 4 but we haven’t actually filmed all of it – just the first act.”
The producer also teased minor details about the upcoming Avatar sequels, saying that each movie will introduce a new culture while also revisiting the cultures from the previous movies.
We've known for a while that Avatar 2, 3, and 4 were all being developed simultaneously, and Avatar 3 was close to finishing shooting when Avatar 2 wrapped up.
With 2026 still a long way away, we don't know much about the details of Avatar 4, apart from the fact that it will cost a ton of money to produce. This past summer, we learned that James Cameron might not direct Avatar 4 and 5, because the filmmaker has some other projects he'd like to focus on.
The crowd in attendance at the film festival also got to see 15 minutes of footage for the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water, which is coming to theaters on December 14. The movie will follow Jake Sully and his newfound family on Pandora.
If you're doubting the return of Avatar fever, the first teaser for the movie arrived this year, and it had an absolutely enormous first 24 hours online.
To help pass the long wait for more information on Avatar 4, check out our history and future of the Avatar sequels. Or, check out our interview with James Cameron about the remaster of the original Avatar.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Eiza Gonzalez Asks MCU Fans to Stop Harassing Her Over Daredevil Role She Doesn’t Have
For months, fans have speculated that Eiza Gonzalez had been cast as Elektra in Daredevil: Born Again. Yesterday, however, Gonzalez put an end to these rumors and addressed the hate she had received over the suspected casting decision.
In a few Tweets yesterday, Gonzalez clarified that she's not playing Elektra in Daredevil. She also asked fans to stop harassing her over the role, saying she'd like to "live free of negative ill-intended messages about me playing/stealing? a role I don't even know about."
I feel like I’m just gonna get it out of the way because, One I’m confused as for the amount of hate over this and two I feel like it saves people energy. No I’m not cast as Elektra in Daredevil I have already a on going series exclusivity contract to 3 Body Problem. Ur welcome
— Eiza Gonzalez Reyna (@eizamusica) October 5, 2022
Id appreciate if I could live free of negative ill intended messages about me playing/stealing? a role that I don’t even know about. Thank you and wishing you all the best ❤️
— Eiza Gonzalez Reyna (@eizamusica) October 5, 2022
As pointed out by Variety, Gonzalez had been rumored to have the role since before July's San Diego Comic-Con. Some fans complained about the rumored casting decision — in the comic books, Elektra is Greek, but Gonzalez is Latina, which led some fans to accuse her of "stealing" the role.
Gonzalez mentioned that she's instead starring in Netflix's upcoming The Three-Body Problem with an exclusivity contract, which makes the rumored Daredevil casting impossible.
Despite the hate she received, Gonzalez ended her string of Tweets by sending the actual cast of Daredevil some kind words.
Daredevil: Born Again is slated to release in 2024. While not much else is known about the Disney+ Marvel series, during D23, star Charlie Cox revealed that it won't continue where the Daredevil Netflix series left off. The show will start filming next year and will have 18 episodes.
Daredevil also made his costumed debut in this week's episode of She-Hulk.
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they've contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
Photo by Theo Wargo/WireImage
Steam Deck Docking Station Price Revealed, and You Can Order Now
Valve has officially opened up orders for its official Steam Deck docking station.
The Steam page for the official docking station lists the accessory for $89 with an estimated delivery date of 1-2 weeks. The official Steam Deck docking station features three USB 3.1 ports, one HDMI 2.0 port, a DisplayPort 1.4, and a Gigabit Ethernet jack.
This is not the only docking station available for the Steam Deck, as third-party makers like JSAUX and iVoler released similar accessories for Valve's portable gaming PC at a retail price cheaper than what Valve is asking for.
The docking station was originally supposed to release back earlier this year. But in June, Valve delayed the release of the docking station to an undisclosed release window, citing a shortage of parts along with COVID-related closures at its manufacturing facilities as reasons.
Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
PlatinumGames ‘Extremely Sorry’ About Closing Babylon’s Fall, But Isn’t Changing Live Service Plans
PlatinumGames says that it is sorry about the impending shutdown of Babylon's Fall’s servers, but also notes that it will not impact any future live-service plans.
In an interview with VGC, PlatinumGames CEO Atsushi Inaba said, “The only thing we can comment on here in terms of the closure of Babylon’s Fall service itself, is that this unfortunate conclusion might have been something that had triggered some disappointment, perhaps maybe even anger, to our dedicated fans and players.”
He continued, “And any disappointment that we might have caused for our fan base is something we feel extremely sorry about, the fact that we led our dedicated fans to feel that way as a developer. Providing any sentiment other than enjoyment and fun in our creations to players is something that we’re not very happy about at all as a developer.”
Inaba, unfortunately, was unable to go into any specifics about Babylon's Fall’s shutdown, noting that it was up to Square Enix to divulge any further details about it.
However, despite the game's failure, PlatinumGames still wants to invest in live-service games. “There’s a lot that we learned from this experience, and it’s not changed our future plans or outlook moving forward regarding doing live service games at all. Live service games are definitely something we do want to do and put our effort in moving forward,” Inaba explains.
He further explains that live service games have two pillars: the fun gameplay mechanics and the live service elements. Both need to be strongly aligned in order to create a good experience.
He concludes, “Otherwise, if one of these is valued over the other or if they’re not connected, things usually don’t turn out the way we would have wanted them to. We want to focus on keeping that connection and that balance between those two pillars moving forward.”
Babylon’s Fall was released earlier this year in February to negative reviews, and the studio recently announced that the online servers would close a year later on February 28, 2023.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey
PlatinumGames ‘Extremely Sorry’ About Closing Babylon’s Fall, But Isn’t Changing Live Service Plans
PlatinumGames says that it is sorry about the impending shutdown of Babylon's Fall’s servers, but also notes that it will not impact any future live-service plans.
In an interview with VGC, PlatinumGames CEO Atsushi Inaba said, “The only thing we can comment on here in terms of the closure of Babylon’s Fall service itself, is that this unfortunate conclusion might have been something that had triggered some disappointment, perhaps maybe even anger, to our dedicated fans and players.”
He continued, “And any disappointment that we might have caused for our fan base is something we feel extremely sorry about, the fact that we led our dedicated fans to feel that way as a developer. Providing any sentiment other than enjoyment and fun in our creations to players is something that we’re not very happy about at all as a developer.”
Inaba, unfortunately, was unable to go into any specifics about Babylon's Fall’s shutdown, noting that it was up to Square Enix to divulge any further details about it.
However, despite the game's failure, PlatinumGames still wants to invest in live-service games. “There’s a lot that we learned from this experience, and it’s not changed our future plans or outlook moving forward regarding doing live service games at all. Live service games are definitely something we do want to do and put our effort in moving forward,” Inaba explains.
He further explains that live service games have two pillars: the fun gameplay mechanics and the live service elements. Both need to be strongly aligned in order to create a good experience.
He concludes, “Otherwise, if one of these is valued over the other or if they’re not connected, things usually don’t turn out the way we would have wanted them to. We want to focus on keeping that connection and that balance between those two pillars moving forward.”
Babylon’s Fall was released earlier this year in February to negative reviews, and the studio recently announced that the online servers would close a year later on February 28, 2023.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey