The Duffer Brothers have started up a new production company called Upside Down Pictures which will help create more film and television projects with Netlfix.

Despite the name, Upside Down Pictures will create more than just Stranger Things shows and movies, and in fact, has already laid out a slate of projects the company will begin working on, including a new live-action adaptation of Death Note.

If you recall, Netflix previously released a live-action Death Note movie in 2017 directed by Adam Wingard and starring Nat Wolff. The live-action film took the Japanese manga and translated it to Seattle, Washington, but kept the premise of a teenager discovering a book that kills anyone whose name is written in it.

Details of the Duffer Brother’s version are sparse but it will be a live-action TV adaptation of the manga and anime. It is also likely a completely separate series, unrelated to the movie.

Other projects include:

• An original series from the creators of Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
• An adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman in partnership with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Paramount TV.
• A new stage play set in the world of Stranger Things.
• A live-action Stranger Things spin-off series based on an original idea by The Duffer Brothers.

Leading the new production company is Hilary Leavitt who has worked on shows like Orphan Black and Ozark.

While Netflix has had some turbulent times recently, Stranger Things remains a bonafide hit. And while the exact returns are unknown, live-action anime is something Netflix is investing heavily in.

While the company canceled its live-action Cowboy Bebop series after one season, it is still developing a live-action One Piece, a live-action Yu Yu Hakusho, and live-action Gundam movie.

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

San Diego Comic-Con is back in-person at the San Diego Convention Center for the first time since 2019, and it promises to be an exciting show that will reveal a ton of new details on upcoming movies and TV shows, including Marvel Studios to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, and more.

IGN will be at the show providing up-to-the-minute coverage of the biggest trailers, reveals, and exclusives, as well as hosting our own live show from SDCC this week on July 22 and 23. This watch guide will provide you with everything you need to know to watch all the biggest moments of San Diego Comic-Con 2022, including how long the show is, a list of places you can watch the panels and live coverage with us, and what you can expect to see at the convention.

How to Watch San Diego Comic-Con Online 2022

San Diego Comic-Con 2022 will take place from July 21 - 24 with IGN’s live show on July 22 and 23, which will be broadcast here and across the many channels we have on a variety of platforms. Here’s the full list of places you can watch IGN’s live show at San Diego Comic-Con:

• IGN.com (homepage)
• IGN's Facebook Channel
• IGN’s Twitter
• IGN's Twitch Channel
• IGN’s Youtube Channel
• IGN’s TikTok Channel
• IGN's iOS App
• IGN's Android App
• IGN's PlayStation 4 App
• IGN's Xbox One App
• Roku
• IGN App for Android TV
• IGN for Amazon Fire TV
• Apple TV
• IGN 1 on Samsung TV Plus
• Pluto TV
• Plex Live TV

On Wednesday, July 20, IGN will be hosting a TikTok Live at the Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Tavern Experience. We will be giving viewers a first look at the experience, as well as talking to some of the cast/crew from the film. This will be streaming exclusively on IGN’s TikTok starting at 5pm PT.

IGN Live Show Lineup at San Diego Comic-Con 2022

As mentioned above, IGN’s live show will take place Friday, July 22, and Saturday, July 23, 2022 in San Diego. You can check out a list below of everyone to expect to see on our live show!

Friday, July 22

• Prey
• William Shatner
• Gotham Knights
• Moriarty: The Devil’s Game
• Primal
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
• Vampire Academy
• Dragon Ball Super
• Superman & Lois
• Clerks III
• Paper Girls
• BODIES BODIES BODIES
• Dark Crisis
• Avatar: Braving the Elements
• Harley Quinn
• Archer
• MultiVersus
• Resident Evil Village
• The Riddler: Year One
• AEW Wrestling
• Saints Row

Saturday, July 23

• Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
• Reginald the Vampire
• The Sandman
• The Dragon Prince
• David Dastmalchian
• The Walking Dead
• Star Trek: Picard
• What We Do in the Shadows
• Mythic Quest
• Tales of the Walking Dead
• Barbarian
• Bill Nye
• For All Mankind
• Tuca and Bertie
• The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country
• Teen Titans Go!
• The Callisto Protocol
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
• Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Along with the above, we will have various exclusive reveals throughout our live show, such as the following below:

Kitbash Creatures: The Callisto Protocol

This year at San Diego Comic-Con, Max Scoville takes his cosplay to the next level by teaming up with Hollywood FX House, Ojala Productions, in building a terrifying mutated creature from The Callisto Protocol, an upcoming survival horror action game that challenge players to escape the maximum security prison set on Jupiter’s moon Callisto. Presented by The Callisto Protocol, watch from the beginning as we sculpt, mold and paint one of the mutated creatures from the game, giving Max the perfect costume to terrorize the floor of Comic-Con.

Reservation Dogs

Skoden! Tune into IGN Live at San Diego Comic-Con to catch FX’s Reservation Dogs trailer, and see behind-the-scenes footage of the all-new season returning August 3rd. Only on Hulu. Presented by Reservation Dogs.

San Diego Comic-Con 2022 Full Panel Schedule

The full programming schedule at San Diego Comic-Con has been released and can be viewed here for Wednesday, July 20 - Sunday, July 24. As mentioned above, IGN will be covering all of the biggest panels out of SDCC 2022.

What to Expect at San Diego Comic-Con 2022

Some of the biggest names in entertainment have confirmed they will be in attendance at the show, along with others released in the SDCC program lineup.

Perhaps most exciting is the news that Marvel will be returning to San Diego Comic-Con for the first in-person SDCC since 2019. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige revealed the news during a press conference for Thor: Love and Thunder in June, but gave no hints as to what fans can expect to see at the show.

In 2019, Marvel Studios revealed its initial plans for Phase 4 at San Diego Comic-Con and some of the projects featured were Eternals, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s premiere date, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, WandaVision, Loki, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and many more. If that show is any indication, Marvel fans should have a lot to look forward to.

We do know a decent bit about the future of Marvel, so we very well may learn more about She-Hulk, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and/or the Holiday Special, Fantastic Four, and, who knows, maybe X-Men! Hey, we can dream!

Warner Bros. Discovery revealed that the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, Sandman, and Harley Quinn will all be present at San Diego Comic-Con alongside Gotham Knights and MultiVersus on the games side of things.

Fans of Middle-earth will be treated to an “exclusive early look” at The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and Apple has shared it will be hosting panels for Severance, For All Mankind, Mythic Quest, and more.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

A streamer has leaked that She-Hulk is officially coming to Marvel's Avengers – while live on Xbox's Twitch channel with a Crystal Dynamics developer.

TechniqTV was guest streaming on the channel with Avengers' lead designer Brian Waggoner for less than an hour before he let slip that She-Hulk was coming to the game, with the clip later being shared by Miller on Twitter (below).

Despite there being no official word the character was coming to Avengers, Techniq asked if fans wanted a fun fact about She-Hulk. "I don't know if I can say this. I think it was public knowledge," he said. "I'll just say this. I don't like the face that Brian is making."

He went on to explain that his own acting coach is the voice of She-Hulk, though Techniq caught on neglected to mention the actresses name in case it wasn't public.

Whoops! This happened on the official Xbox Twitch channel today. pic.twitter.com/yDPqb0kKW0

— Miller (@mmmmmmmmiller) July 5, 2022

"Nope. No. We have never announced She-Hulk," Waggoner clarified as the stream grew painfully awkward. The full conversation can still be seen on Xbox's channel (at around 52 minutes) where Techniq grew sheepish and claimed he doesn't know if it's true or not. "We're working on our next hero," Waggoner added. "We haven't said who it's going to be yet."

Jane Foster became playable in Avengers last week - just in time for her reappearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Thor: Love and Thunder - so the timing would line up for She-Hulk to appear in the game close to her MCU debut on August 17.

We'll have to wait for official word from Crystal Dynamics to learn when (and officially if) She-Hulk is arriving in the game, but it would certainly make sense to see her next month.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Amazon's Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has seen a new sneak peek, showing off many of its characters, locations, and even a glimpse at the show's Ents.

At time of writing, the teaser is currently available only on the Prime Video service itself. It begins by showing off Middle-earth's landscapes, before we see Lenny Henry's Sadoc Burrows announce, "The skies are strange." What follows is a montage of the show's characters watching a comet on its way down through the atmosphere.

Perhaps most notably for fans, we see our first glimpse at Ents, Middle-earth's beloved race of tree people (you can see them in the first image of the slideshow below). As pointed out on Reddit, the shot in question actually previously appeared in the show's Super Bowl teaser, but the Ents have since been added to it.

This sneak peek is in fact a trailer for a trailer – we'll be getting a new teaser for the show on July 14. Whether it will build on this minute-long peek, or offer a totally different approach is unknown right now. That teaser will be followed by a first look at the show as part of its appearance at San Diego Comic-Con.

This sneak peek follows IGN's exclusive reveal of the show's Orcs, who will be shown as a race taken almost to the point of extinction and scattered across the lands.

We're slowly learning more about the Lord of the Rings prequel ahead of its September 2 release. In development since 2017, The Rings of Power will focus on the Second Age, and it's shaping up to be one of the most expensive shows ever made, with just one season reportedly costing $465 million.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Stranger Things season 4 is the first English language series to hit over a billion hours of viewing time.

According to Netflix and Hollywood Reporter, with Stranger Things season 4's final two episodes out, the latest season of The Duffer Brothers' popular horror series has surpassed the billion-hour viewing mark.

Why is the show's viewership recorded in hours? That's because it's Netflix's preferred viewership metric.

Stranger Things' newest season recorded 1.15 billion hours of viewing in its first 28 days. The only show on Netflix with a bigger viewing time is Squid Game which recorded 1.65 billion hours of viewing time in the same period. As Squid Game is a South Korean language production, the distinction of being the first English language series to hit a similar milestone goes to Stranger Things season 4.

Viewing hours in the first 28 days isn't a typical metric shows track versus more conventional metrics like viewership. But this is Netflix's preferred metric and the one it regularly shares with the public. So while it's not an exact viewership estimate, it does showcase that Stranger Things is still a hugely popular series and one that is devoured by subscribers when a new season premieres.

This is especially impressive given that the final two episodes of Stranger Things season 4 were released only days ago. Though, we should note that each episode is an hour-plus in length, making Squid Game's achievements stand out even more given their episodes were half the length at times.

Still, with Stranger Things still going strong it's no wonder Netflix and the Duffer Brothers are exploring spinoffs. For more, check out IGN's Stranger Things season 4 review for our take on the latest trip to the Upside Down.

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

Videos of a world-record speedrun of the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance DLC has been taken down by GDQ after it was revealed the speedrunner misrepresented their run.

Summer Games Done Quick is an annual video game speedrunning event where participants speedrun through games while raising money for charity. One game showcased was the DLC for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Speedrunner Mekarazium set a new world record for the Blade Wolf DLC during the event. However, a video replay of the run was later removed from the official GDQ YouTube channel and it was confirmed that it was due to forgery.

“Yesterday, we were made aware that Mekarzarium played a segmented video for his DLC run at Summer Games Done Quick 2022. Mekazarium has since admitted to this, both to some members of the community as well as directly to GDQ staff.”

Typically SGDQ is an in-person event hosted in Minneapolis. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the event switched to a remote format. This year there was a hybrid format where the event returned in-person, but still played remote runs from players who were not able to fly out.

Mekazarium was one such runner who participated remotely. But while runners are expected to perform live, Mekazarium instead ran a pre-recorded gameplay video of Metal Gear Rising and pretended to play the game during his stream as if it were in real-time.

According to GDQ, Mekazarium contacted the staff “with a document detailing that he had planned this over a month, demonstrating this was planned and intentional. This was made possible because of the remote nature of this particular run in the marathon.”

GDQ announced that Mekazarium will not be permitted to run for the event in the future.

While this is an unfortunate event that undermines the talent that is typically showcased during SGDQ, the organization once again hosted a fairly successful event, raising $3 million for Doctors Without Borders.

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

The next Avatar film, Avatar: The Way Of Water, is only a few months away and its follow up is set for 2024, and director James Cameron already has big plans for the next two. Unfortunately, he might not be the one who directs them.

Speaking to Empire, Cameron says, “The Avatar films themselves are kind of all-consuming. I’ve got some other things I’m developing as well that are exciting. I think eventually over time – I don’t know if that’s after three or after four – I’ll want to pass the baton to a director that I trust to take over, so I can go do some other stuff that I’m also interested in. Or maybe not. I don’t know.”

Cameron’s passion for the films and the worlds he has created is undeniable. “Everything I need to say about family, about sustainability, about climate, about the natural world, the themes that are important to me in real life and in my cinematic life, I can say on this canvas,” Cameron continues. “I got more excited as I went along. Movie four is a corker. It’s a motherf**ker. I actually hope I get to make it.”

Only time will tell if Cameron will dedicate even more of his time to the world he’s so lovingly crafted. His dedication has been felt through both the story and on the technical side of things where he’s mastered the challenge of underwater motion capture.

Despite the length of time that’s passed since the first movie was released, fans seem eager for part two. The trailer that was released in May had more views in 24 hours than all the most recent Star Wars films.

Avatar: The Way Of Water releases 13 years after the original on December 16, 2022. It follows Jake Sully and Ney'tiri who have formed a family they’ll do anything to keep together. Gamers also have Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, a first-person open-world action-adventure video game adaptation from Ubisoft, to look forward to.

Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.

On July 8, Thor: Love and Thunder will become the 29th MCU film and the fourth Thor solo movie – a record for Marvel’s heroes. Clearly, working together across both the Thor movies, Marvel’s team-up films, and other projects has led to Thor’s stars becoming very close, and they tell IGN it's their real-life friendships that will make this story even stronger.

Natalie Portman’s return as Jane Foster is one of the most exciting parts of Thor: Love and Thunder as she is set to wield Mjolnir and become Mighty Thor before our eyes. While Portman wasn’t a part of Thor: Ragnarok, she did star as Foster in the first two Thor films. Furthermore, her legendary career has led her to cross paths with Valkryie actor Tessa Thompson in Annihilation and Gorr the God Butcher actor Christian Bale in Knight of Cups.

“It was so incredible getting to work again with so many of the actors that I had previously worked with,” Portman said. “I really appreciated getting another opportunity with Chris and with Tessa, who is also a great friend. It was just really fun to get to play again and also to come on set feeling comfortable already.”

“Also, it’s been wonderful to get to work with Tessa in this way and explore our friendship a little bit in the film. It's been nice to have a variety of female characters that I think kids can relate to and see different possibilities for women, personalities and superpowers and all that. Whenever I've had the opportunity to work with other actresses, it's always much more fun and much more powerful and meaningful I think.”

Thompson echoed Portman’s words and talked about how working with her friend meant so much more than simply making it easier to get into character together. It was, as she puts it, inspiring.

“Natalie is such an incredible actor who has been working for a long time now. And I feel really inspired when I see someone that has been doing it for a long time and they're still trying to reach new heights and do things that challenge them,” Thompson said. “It's very seldom, especially as a woman, that you're asked to actually expand yourself, to get bigger, to get as big as you can get. Typically, you're asked to get smaller in all sorts of ways. So watching her do that and take up that challenge was wonderful.

“And then she and I, outside of Annihilation, have also just had the opportunity to work together as colleagues in thinking about how to make this business more equitable and safer for women and girls. And so to me, she's actually just a real-life superhero in a lot of ways. And so to get to play with her in this space as one is also just fun.”

Hemsworth also spoke of playing alongside Portman’s Jane Foster once more and how their reuniting after being in such different places made this new story even more fun.

“I think so much of the change of who Thor was has a lot to do with the people he's interacting with. And so to interact again with Jane Foster after they were both in very different places made it so much fun,” Hemsworth said. “I started this journey with Natalie Portman 10 years ago, so to sort of reunite this many years later was just really exciting. When we had the prospect of doing this film in front of us, we were both talking about it a lot prior to shooting and throwing around ideas of how we'd interact or how the characters would interact and how it would be familiar, but also different to what we'd seen before.”

Thor: Love and Thunder will be released in theaters on July 8, 2022. In our review, we said that it "is held back by a cookie-cutter plot and a mishandling of supporting characters, but it succeeds as the MCU's first romantic comedy thanks to Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman's chemistry."

For more, read on as to why Chris Hemsworth calls Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher one of his favorite Marvel villains and as these stars talk about acting in the MCU and the mighty return of Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster.

Francesca Rivera is Video Producer at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @fbrivera.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

A Stranger Things spinoff might be coming down the line, but it won’t come from the Duffer Brothers.

In an interview with the duo on the Happy Sad Podcast Matt Duffer says, "The idea, ultimately, is to pass the baton to someone else, someone who's hopefully really talented and passionate. Even the idea of Ross and I, say, doing a pilot and leaving it, it just feels silly to me. You really need to be there from the beginning to end. I think we need to find a partner to help us with that."

Stranger Things' fourth season just concluded, and while there are many established characters the show could follow in the spinoff, the Duffer Brothers say to expect something a bit different.

“I’ve read these rumors that there’s gonna be an Eleven spinoff, that there’s gonna be a Steve and Dustin spinoff or that it’s another number. That’s not interesting to me because we’ve done all that. We’ve spent I don’t know how many hours exploring all of that. So it’s very different.”

While the creators are tight-lipped, they did tease that the spinoff, hinted at last September by Netflix's co-CEO Ted Sarandos, will feature some “connective tissue” with their signature “storytelling sensibility.”

If you don’t wanna leave the Upside Down just yet, be sure to check out our ode to one of the best characters from season 4 and why the Duffer Brothers think Season 5 will be shorter than Season 4. If you’re all caught up, be sure to check out our review of Season 4 Part 2 which we called Stranger Things at its “most emotional, action-packed, and tension-filled.”

Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.

A group of more than 1,400 singers have come together to sing Final Fantasy 14's iconic Close in the Distance track, with video game cover artist Alex Moukala at the helm of the project.

Shared on his Twitter, the song's arrangement is also by Moukala alongside fellow cover artist Husky by the Geek, while the singers include a number of special guests including Final Fantasy vocal artists Susan Calloway, Amanda Achen, and Paolo Andrea di Pietro.

YouTubers (and musicians) Studio Nicktendo, Enochian Tori, and Lollia Rose also take part, alongside a handful of others. The truly impressive part comes towards the end of the song, however, as 1,400 more members of the Final Fantasy 14 community appear on screen, all singing along too.

FINAL FANTASY XIV - Close In The Distance
(with 1000 singers from the FFXIV community) pic.twitter.com/mw0dHhYMn0

— Alex Moukala (@alex_moukala) July 5, 2022

"I can't stress enough how much of a difference you all made here," Moukala said In follow-up tweets. "The 1,000 of you who sent us beautiful submissions and the superb soloists who lent us their voices for this love letter."

Upon thanking each other contributor, Moukala added: "It's safe to say this game has changed so many lives. It wouldn't have been possible without you all.

While he's most known online for the legendary 30-person Wii jam session, Moukala is an orchestral composer whose music has appeared in several film trailers including Avengers: Endgame. He recently covered the Elden Ring main theme in 15 different styles, from Spanish guitar to trap and traditional Japanese.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.