Upcoming animated series Batman: Caped Crusader won’t be coming to HBO Max. According to TV Line, the show from Bruce Timm, Matt Reeves, and J.J. Abrams is one of six animated titles that have been pulled from HBO Max’s upcoming slate and will no longer be produced by the company.

However, all six will continue production with the intention of shopping them to other studios.

Announced last year, Batman: Caped Crusader is an interesting project – seemingly taking inspiration from Timm’s earlier work on the hugely popular Batman: The Animated Series.

“We are beyond excited to be working together to bring this character back, to tell engrossing new stories in Gotham City,” said the three producers in a joint statement. “The series will be thrilling, cinematic, and evocative of Batman’s noir roots while diving deeper into the psychology of these iconic characters. We cannot wait to share this new world.”

Considering Batman: The Animated Series appeared on HBO Max back in January, it felt like a slam dunk for the Warner Bros-owned online streaming service. After all, fans have been clamouring for more episodes of The Animated Series for as long as I can remember.

However, it looks as though HBO Max parent company Warner Bros. Discovery is continuing its cost-cutting mission as it prunes projects across the board.

A side effect of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, the company has been cancelling projects left, right, and centre since the high-profile cancelation of Batgirl. We’ve seen 36 shows recently removed from the service as well as over 200 episodes of Sesame Street taken down.

Thought to be a cost-cutting measure, the cancelation and removal of shows is paving the way for the merger of HBO Max and Discovery+, the company’s two streaming services which are now set to become one.

Want to read more about Batman’s animated projects? Check out how The Batman adapts the Batmobile from The Animated Series, as well as which DC shows and movies could be affected by the recent Batgirl cancelation.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan says he likes Walter White less and less as time goes on, and fans should actually have more sympathy for Skyler.

Speaking to The New Yorker, the 55-year-old writer and director explained that, over the course of the series and the years following its conclusion, his respect and patience for White has lessened to the point where he can't see any appeal at all.

“The further away I get from Breaking Bad, the less sympathy I have for Walter,” Gilligan said. “He got thrown a lifeline early on. And, if he had been a better human being, he would’ve swallowed his pride and taken the opportunity to treat his cancer with the money his former friends offered him. He goes out on his own terms, but he leaves a trail of destruction behind him. I focus on that more than I used to.”

One of Gilligan’s main complaints is that the “spell” of Walter White soon wears off and you’re left wondering why you liked him in the first place.

“Like, wait a minute, why was this guy so great?” Gilligan asked. “He was really sanctimonious, and he was really full of himself. He had an ego the size of California. And he always saw himself as a victim. He was constantly griping about how the world short-changed him, how his brilliance was never given its due. When you take all of that into consideration, you wind up saying, ‘Why was I rooting for this guy?'”

While that's half the show's charm for a lot of Breaking Bad viewers, Gilligan thinks some of the fanbase reacted poorly to Skyler, without having much reason to.

“Back when the show first aired, Skyler was roundly disliked,” he said. “I think that always troubled Anna Gunn [who played Skyler]. And I can tell you it always troubled me, because Skyler, the character, did nothing to deserve that. And Anna certainly did nothing to deserve that. She played the part beautifully.”

The actress herself published an editorial about this reaction in The New York Times, and now Gilligan says he feels that the story was always rigged against her.

“I realize in hindsight that the show was rigged, in the sense that the storytelling was solely through Walt’s eyes, even in scenes he wasn’t present for,” he said. “Even Gus [played by Giancarlo Esposito], his archenemy, didn’t suffer the animosity Skyler received. It’s a weird thing. I’m still thinking about it all these years later.”

Want to read more about Breaking Bad? Check out what new project Vince Gilligan is working on as well as his pitch for a Breaking bad video game.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel Paprika is getting a live-action adaptation, with Birds of Prey director Cathy Yan helming the project for Amazon Studios and Hivemind.

According to Deadline, the mind-bending 1993 techno-thriller novel will be turned into a live-action series, telling the story of Atsuko Chiba (aka Paprika), a gifted researcher in the developing field of dream monitoring and intervention as a form of psychotherapy.

The novel has already been adapted several times, appearing as a manga by Reiji Hagiwara in 1994 and again by Eri Sakai in 2007. Paprika was also turned into an anime by Satoshi Kon in 2006 with the novel’s original author providing the voice of a bartender.

Yan rose to fame in 2020 after directing Birds of Prey – the Suicide Squad spin-off starring Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Rosie Perez. This also made Yan the first female Asian director to helm a superhero movie.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” she told NME. “I did not think I was the likely or safe choice by any means. I did not just want to make a superhero movie, I was interested in making a movie about female rage in a way to hit back at the patriarchy, ironically, within a patriarchal system.”

Yan and Ash Sarohia are on board as executive producers under their Rewild banner, alongside Masi Oka as well as Hivemind’s Jason F. Brown.

As for the director’s next project, Yan will both write and direct The Freshening, an upcoming sci-fi love story from author Rachel Khong.

“The Freshening is exactly the type of daring and timely film that excites me as a writer and director, and that Ash and I started Rewild to produce,” Yan told Variety.

Want to read more about anime? Check out our top 25 anime shows of all time, as well as our list of the best anime you’ll find on Netflix right now.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon is HBO Max’s biggest premiere ever. The show’s debut episode was watched by 9.986 million viewers across HBO and HBO Max – the largest audience for any new show in HBO’s history.

“It was wonderful to see millions of Game of Thrones fans return with us to Westeros last night,” said HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys. “House of the Dragon features an incredibly talented cast and crew who poured their heart and soul into the production, and we’re ecstatic with viewers’ positive response. We look forward to sharing with audiences what else George, Ryan, and Miguel have in store for them this season.”

The highly anticipated debut was also a huge hit on social media, trending in the top spot on Twitter for a staggering 14 hours straight as fans awaited the new show.

The House of the Dragon premiere was the best series launch to date on HBO Max in the United States, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

HBO also saw the largest single-night audience since the Game of Thrones series finale brought in 19.3 million viewers in May 2019. As far as series debuts go, it’s incredibly strong and shows solid support from Game of Thrones fans so far.

House of the Dragon seemingly enjoyed the fanbase built by its predecessor, totally blowing away the Game of Thrones debut which saw just 2.22 million same-day viewers back in 2011. Of course, the original show had no pre-existing fanbase, at least in the TV realm, and House of the Dragon builds upon what HBO has done over the course of the last decade.

The influx of viewers also caused the HBO Max app to crash for many users, with outages stopping some Game of Thrones fans from watching the show’s debut.

IGN’s review of the debut episode called it “a strong, well-cast start to the Game Of Thrones spin-off. This feels very close to its predecessor in tone and content, but immediately establishes a struggle for power around an amiable, weak-willed king, and vivid new characters to fight those battles. We also have dragons, inbreeding, and resentment. It’s good to be back in backstabbing Westeros.”

Want to read more about House of the Dragon? Check out everything we know about House of the Dragon so far, and find out what we know about the Gold Cloaks.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Magic: The Gathering is celebrating its 30th anniversary next year, and the venerable card game is leading into the milestone with Dominaria United, the first set in a new story arc. It will see the game return to Dominaria, its original setting and one of the most storied planes in Magic history, where a cast of familiar races and characters will face a whole new assault from one of the great threats to the multiverse - the Phyrexians.

IGN has a brand new card to reveal for Dominaria United, and it very much ties into the 30-odd years of worldbuilding that makes Dominaria so special for Magic fans. Introducing, Serra Paragon:

This card references some key Dominarian history. “Serra was a powerful Planeswalker who came to Dominaria thousands of years before the events of Dominaria United,” explains Roy Graham, Game Designer: Story. “At the time, the power of Planeswalkers was almost unlimited so she was able to create a host of angels (ones similar to Serra Paragon!). While Serra then moved on from Dominaria, a church was created in her honour and she became revered.

“She ties in with the new story as her angels still populate the plane and she’s intrinsically linked with the Phyrexians: her own home plane was invaded by them years ago and was eventually collapsed to prevent a total Phyrexian takeover. So while Serra is now dead, there’s a definite Phyrexian vendetta in there!”

“The immediately obvious utility with Serra Paragon,” says Ethan Fleischer, Sr. Game Designer: Play & Design, in response to my question about which decks and strategies Serra Paragon might best be suited to, “would be to pair her with fetch lands: lands that sacrifice themselves to search your library for another land to put into play. These fetch lands are easy to get into the graveyard and can ensure you have a steady stream of lands once the Paragon hits play. It also lets you immediately cash them in for that little life total bump!

“Other applications would be in decks with creatures that have powerful enter the battlefield effects such as Elite Spellbinder: being able to recur those effects can become such a headache for opponents who basically have to deal with them twice.

“Lastly, I can see Serra Paragon being fun with smaller artifacts that sacrifice themselves for some sort of effect. Doubling down on those while gaining life would be a lot of fun!”

Opening a Karn of Whoop-Ass

I’ve already alluded to the broad brush strokes of Dominaria United's story, but given how important it is, I also asked Ethan Fleischer and Roy Graham to help set the scene. “Dominaria is in a time of renewal across the plane—with the demon Belzenlok dispatched and no major planar crises, the inhabitants of the world have a moment to breathe easy,” says Graham. “Of course, that’s just in time for the Phyrexians to arrive.”

The Phyrexians are going to be central to the events that unfold. They are “artificial and biomechanical beings hellbent on overtaking the multiverse one plane at a time,” continues Graham. “One of the key Praetors or leaders of New Phyrexia is Sheoldred who is slowly spreading her influence across the plane of Dominaria… Sheoldred’s plan of attack involves a lot of infiltration and subtlety before she shows her full strength, and we’ll see a lot of sleeper agents and betrayals throughout Dominaria United.

“Up against Sheoldred and her steadily increasing Phyrexian army stand a cast of familiar faces. Most prominent is Karn, a metallic Planeswalker who has fought the Phyrexians many times across many years and planes. Jodah, an immortal archmage from Dominaria’s past, will join Karn in his efforts to defeat the Phyrexians, along with the Planeswalkers Jaya and Teferi.”

These are big names for Magic players, and Wizards has already hinted at some pretty significant twists for a number of them. And of course, the story very much ties into the game design, too. Several mechanics “express what’s happening in the story currently,” says Fleischer. “The people of Dominaria must put aside their differences and unite in the face of a common foe. Kicker cards where the kicker cost is a different color from the card’s casting cost represent two (or more!) nations combining their powers. Domain encourages you to play with all five colors in your deck, uniting all of Dominaria!

“The new Enlist mechanic also represent the creatures of Dominaria teaming up," he continues. "When a creature with Enlist attacks, you can tap another creature you control without summoning sickness to add its power to the attacking creature’s. This will allow players to build up massive attackers while keeping their other creature relatively safe!”

Other mechanics tie into the plane’s rich lore and many epoch-shifting events. “Legends represent characters with roots in the past; there is one legendary creature in each booster pack,” explains Fleischer. “Sagas tell the stories of events from previous sets, particularly stories that are likely to be relevant to future stories. Each Saga in Dominaria United has the new Read Ahead mechanic, which allows players to skip past the early chapters of a Saga.”

It’s clear how tight the integration between storytelling and gameplay will be with Dominaria United, and this speaks to the team having the benefit of Magic's almost 30 years of existence. I ask Ethan Fleischer how all that experience informed how the team approached this set. “Dominaria was the setting of over 25 Magic sets, many of them from very early in the game’s history,” he says. “Since that time, our worldbuilding philosophy has evolved; each plane now needs a distinctive identity. Dominaria’s sprawling history and geography defied a unifying identity until the 2018 Dominaria set, where we established that Dominaria’s identity was its history.

“Having established that identity so strongly, we were now free, in Dominaria United, to focus more on concepts that resonated more with what’s going on in the current storyline. Who are the characters who would be most appropriate to fight in a second Phyrexian Invasion? What are mechanics that emphasize alliances being formed, and call back to the original Invasion set? How can we prime the audience to best enjoy the storyline over the next year of Magic?”

Early indications are that this freedom is paying off, but we’ll know for sure when Dominaria United launches on MTGA on September 2 and for tabletop on September 9. You can see the full range of products coming with the set - as well as all the cards as they’re revealed - by visiting Magic's Dominaria United homepage.

Cam Shea has worked at IGN since before the before times, and has played more Breath of the Wild than just about any other game. He also loves CCGs and when he's not playing games he's mixing records.

Andrew Garfield has planted his flag in the method acting debate, saying people who criticize the process don't truly understand it.

Appearing on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast (via Variety), Garfield explained that method acting isn't about mistreating other members of a production.

“[There've] been a lot of misconceptions about what method acting is, I think,” Garfield said. “It’s not about being an a**hole to everyone on set. It’s actually just about living truthfully under imagined circumstances, and being really nice to the crew simultaneously, and being a normal human being, and being able to drop it when you need to and staying in it when you want to stay in it.”

The actor also said critics of method acting may not have a full understanding of what goes into it, saying "I don’t think you know what method acting is if you’re calling it bullsh*t, or you've just worked with someone who claims to be a method actor that isn’t actually acting the method at all."

Garfield himself also detailed his approach to method acting for 2016's Silence, where he played a 17th-century Jesuit priest. He prepared for the role by researching Catholicism, undergoing spiritual training, and going celibate and fasting ahead of filming, saying he "had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food”.

There are plenty of examples of method acting, from tame implementations like Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst not speaking to each other while filming The Power of the Dog, to more extreme examples like Jared Leto requiring crutches for his bathroom breaks while on the set of Morbius.

Earlier this year, some actors began speaking out against method acting. Mads Mikkelsen called the practice "pretentious", Will Poulter said method acting is used as an excuse for inappropriate behavior, and Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Pattinson, and Martin Freeman have also weighed in. Stranger Things actor David Harbour also recently criticized method acting, calling the practice "dangerous" and "silly".

Garfield also recently decided to take a break from acting after a busy stretch where he appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tick, Tick... Boom!, Under the Banner of Heaven, and more. When he does eventually return to our screens, there are a ton of fans that would love to see him in The Amazing Spider-Man 3.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Andrew Garfield has planted his flag in the method acting debate, saying people who criticize the process don't truly understand it.

Appearing on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast (via Variety), Garfield explained that method acting isn't about mistreating other members of a production.

“[There've] been a lot of misconceptions about what method acting is, I think,” Garfield said. “It’s not about being an a**hole to everyone on set. It’s actually just about living truthfully under imagined circumstances, and being really nice to the crew simultaneously, and being a normal human being, and being able to drop it when you need to and staying in it when you want to stay in it.”

The actor also said critics of method acting may not have a full understanding of what goes into it, saying "I don’t think you know what method acting is if you’re calling it bullsh*t, or you've just worked with someone who claims to be a method actor that isn’t actually acting the method at all."

Garfield himself also detailed his approach to method acting for 2016's Silence, where he played a 17th-century Jesuit priest. He prepared for the role by researching Catholicism, undergoing spiritual training, and going celibate and fasting ahead of filming, saying he "had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food”.

There are plenty of examples of method acting, from tame implementations like Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst not speaking to each other while filming The Power of the Dog, to more extreme examples like Jared Leto requiring crutches for his bathroom breaks while on the set of Morbius.

Earlier this year, some actors began speaking out against method acting. Mads Mikkelsen called the practice "pretentious", Will Poulter said method acting is used as an excuse for inappropriate behavior, and Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Pattinson, and Martin Freeman have also weighed in. Stranger Things actor David Harbour also recently criticized method acting, calling the practice "dangerous" and "silly".

Garfield also recently decided to take a break from acting after a busy stretch where he appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tick, Tick... Boom!, Under the Banner of Heaven, and more. When he does eventually return to our screens, there are a ton of fans that would love to see him in The Amazing Spider-Man 3.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Many people invest in mesh wireless networking solutions to get rid of dead spots caused by walls and other barriers. However, what if you could effectively eliminate the walls as an obstacle?

Originally reported in Newsweek, Austrian scientists at the Vienna University of Technology and Rennes University detail a method of removing reflections caused by dense materials. The scientists revealed their findings in a paper entitled "Anti-reflection structure for perfect ransmission through complex media."

The scientists liken their solution to how the anti-reflective coating on glasses work. The coating allows light to traverse more freely through the lenses and thus prevent the light from bouncing off the lenses causing reflections. Similarly, the scientists use a special coating to allow Wi-Fi radio waves to travel easily through solid material.

"You first have to simply send certain waves through the medium and measure exactly how these waves are reflected by the material," said Michael Horodynski, one of the co-authors. "We were able to show that, with this information, a corresponding compensating medium can be calculated for any medium that scatters waves in a complex way, so that the combination of both media allows the wave to pass completely."

In laymen's terms, the scientists were able to mathematically calculate how radio waves move through a material and then use that information to create a substance that allows it to avoid reflections.

They first experimented with microwaves, sending it through a "metallic waveguide" that was filled with small metal and teflon objects. Only half of the microwaves made it through while the rest was reflected. The behavior of the microwaves through the waveguide was measured and an anti-reflective region was created. A subsequent test saw 100 percent of the microwaves get through.

Not only could this technique be used to enable better Wi-Fi reception, but other radio waves such as cellular and even telescopes that use radio waves to discover distant objects in the universe.

Obviously, we're probably far away from any practical applications, but the future implications are indeed interesting. While you wait for better Wi-Fi, check out our deals for OLED gaming TVs and a new Dell XPS desktop.

David Matthews is a Freelance Writer for IGN.

Many people invest in mesh wireless networking solutions to get rid of dead spots caused by walls and other barriers. However, what if you could effectively eliminate the walls as an obstacle?

Originally reported in Newsweek, Austrian scientists at the Vienna University of Technology and Rennes University detail a method of removing reflections caused by dense materials. The scientists revealed their findings in a paper entitled "Anti-reflection structure for perfect ransmission through complex media."

The scientists liken their solution to how the anti-reflective coating on glasses work. The coating allows light to traverse more freely through the lenses and thus prevent the light from bouncing off the lenses causing reflections. Similarly, the scientists use a special coating to allow Wi-Fi radio waves to travel easily through solid material.

"You first have to simply send certain waves through the medium and measure exactly how these waves are reflected by the material," said Michael Horodynski, one of the co-authors. "We were able to show that, with this information, a corresponding compensating medium can be calculated for any medium that scatters waves in a complex way, so that the combination of both media allows the wave to pass completely."

In laymen's terms, the scientists were able to mathematically calculate how radio waves move through a material and then use that information to create a substance that allows it to avoid reflections.

They first experimented with microwaves, sending it through a "metallic waveguide" that was filled with small metal and teflon objects. Only half of the microwaves made it through while the rest was reflected. The behavior of the microwaves through the waveguide was measured and an anti-reflective region was created. A subsequent test saw 100 percent of the microwaves get through.

Not only could this technique be used to enable better Wi-Fi reception, but other radio waves such as cellular and even telescopes that use radio waves to discover distant objects in the universe.

Obviously, we're probably far away from any practical applications, but the future implications are indeed interesting. While you wait for better Wi-Fi, check out our deals for OLED gaming TVs and a new Dell XPS desktop.

David Matthews is a Freelance Writer for IGN.

PSVR 2, PlayStation's next-gen VR headset, will be coming sometime in early 2023.

According to multiple PlayStation social media sites across Twitter and Instagram, the next-gen PlayStation VR headset has locked in a release window sometime in the early months of next year.

The window was confirmed on PlayStation's official Instagram account as well as numerous PlayStation regional Twitter accounts from France and Brazil.

PSVR 2 is Sony's next virtual reality headset. According to Sony, PSVR 2 will feature an OLED display with 2000x2040 pixels per eye and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. It utilizes inside out eye tracking and will have 110 degree field of view.

Sony also announced that PSVR 2 will have over 20 games at launch. The company is also developing exclusive VR games for the headset including Horizon: Call of the Mountain, based on the popular Horizon series.

While the specs of the PSVR 2 can rival that of the Oculus Quest 2 and Valve Index, it is still a wired headset and requires a PlayStation 5 to operate. These factors could become hurdles when compared to the wireless Meta headsets, though those did receive a price bump earlier this year.

Will you be picking up Sony's next-gen PSVR 2 headset? Let us know in the comments.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.