It seems like there is always some great sale or bundle on Steam filled with great games. The ubiquitous PC games storefront is best known for its seasonal sales that offer some of the biggest games at huge discounts.
It seems like there is always some great sale or bundle on Steam filled with great games. The ubiquitous PC games storefront is best known for its seasonal sales that offer some of the biggest games at huge discounts.
Hack the planet! Oh, wait, that’s a different movie about hackers. Never mind. After scaring the daylights out of horror fans in A24‘s Talk to Me – which recently won the Best Horror category at the 22nd Golden Schmoe Awards – Sophie Wilde is lining up her next project with New Regency’s adaptation of the UbiSoft video game Watch Dogs. With over 50 million players since the franchise began in 2014 with the release of Watch Dogs and Watch Dogs: Bad Blood, the film adaptation finds French genre filmmaker Mathieu Turi (The Deep Dark, Meander, Hostile) in the director’s chair. Turi directs Watch Dogs from a script by Christie LeBlanc, who wrote the Alexandre Aja-directed Netflix film Oxygen.
UbiSoft’s Watch Dogs franchise includes the games Watch Dogs, Watch Dogs: Bad Blood, Watch Dogs 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Watch Dogs: Legion – Bloodline. The franchise plot varies from game to game, though Watch Dogs generally revolves around different hacker protagonists stirring up trouble in fictionalized versions of real-life cities. Someway or another, these individuals find themselves pulled into criminal underworlds, where lawlessness reigns, and savvy computer skills could turn the tide in their quest to topple evil corporations and stick it to the man.
As you traverse the city and establish yourself as a hacker not to be f*cked with, everything from corrupt companies to crime bosses and rival hackers try to stand in your way. Your adversaries use the ctOS (central Operating System). This fictional computing network connects every electronic device in a city into a single system and stores personal information on most citizens. (via Deadline) Your job is to hack the ctOS and use it to control the city’s devices, boundaries, and security systems.
Sophie Wilde recently wrapped production on Halina Reijn’s upcoming thriller Babygirl. In the film, a successful CEO begins an illicit affair with her much younger intern, and calamity ensues. Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, Jean Reno, John Cenatiempo, and Vaughan Reilly join Wilde as primary cast members.
Are you a fan of UbiSoft’s Watch Dogs franchise? Which installments of the series have you played? Are you interested in what Turi’s adaptation can mean for the game’s future? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Although Phoebe Tonkin was in the 2012 shark thriller Bait and the high profile 2022 flop Babylon, most viewers probably know her from her work in television: she has been on multiple episodes H2O: Just Add Water, Home and Away, The Secret Circle, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Westworld, Safe Harbour, and more. I just finished watching a Netflix series she was in, Boy Swallows Universe, which I thought was pretty great. Now Tonkin has the lead role in a thriller called Night Shift, which just received a VOD and limited theatrical release today, courtesy of Quiver Distribution. To help you figure out whether or not Night Shift is a movie you’d like to see, we have a clip and the film’s trailer embedded above.
Written and directed by Paul China and Benjamin China, a.k.a. The China Brothers, Night Shift has the following synopsis: While working her first night shift at a remote motel, a young woman, Gwen Taylor (Phoebe Tonkin), begins to suspect that she is being followed by a dangerous character from her past. As the night progresses, Gwen’s isolation and safety, however, are made all the more worse when she starts to realize that the motel might also be haunted.
Tonkin is joined in the cast by Lamorne Morris (New Girl), Madison Hu (The Brothers Sun), Patrick Fischler (Happy!), Lauren Bowles (Veep), Christopher Denham (Billions), Connor Price (X Company), Jess Varley (Take Back the Night), and Tom Dang (The Sympathizer).
Night Shift was produced by Eric B. Fleischman, Maurice Fadida, John Hodges, Bradley Pilz, and Dennis Rainaldi.
I was impressed by Phoebe Tonkin’s performance in Boy Swallows Universe and I’m always looking for a good thriller to watch, so I’m totally on board to check out Night Shift.
What did you think of the Night Shift clip and trailer? Will you be watching the movie this weekend? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
For those in the L.A. area: the Lumiere Cinema in Beverly Hills is holding a special screening of Night Shift tonight at 8:45pm, with The China Brothers, Phoebe Tonkin, and Lamorne Morris in attendance for a post-screening Q&A. Tickets are available HERE.
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A new patch hit Helldivers 2 on March 6 that unfortunately didn’t go over well with the game’s community. In Discord servers and Reddit posts, folks argued with Arrowhead Game Studios staff over the changes that were made to the third-person live-service shooter and the comments some developers gave back to the…
A new patch hit Helldivers 2 on March 6 that unfortunately didn’t go over well with the game’s community. In Discord servers and Reddit posts, folks argued with Arrowhead Game Studios staff over the changes that were made to the third-person live-service shooter and the comments some developers gave back to the…
Bond portrayers in the past have bounced around the globe a bit, beginning with Scot Sean Connery before moving on to Brit Roger Moore, Aussie George Lazenby, Wales’ own Timothy Dalton, then off to Ireland with Pierce Brosnan, before landing on five-timer Daniel Craig, yet another Brit. But for the next James Bond, Brosnan thinks it’s time to return to Ireland, albeit much farther south. So who does Brosnan think could be the next 007? The name’s Murphy, Cillian Murphy.
Speaking with BBC at the Oscar Wilde Awards – so named after the Irish wit – Pierce Brosnan said, “Cillian would do a magnificent job as James Bond on His Majesty’s Secret Service.” This even sounds like Brosnan might be calling for a redo on that 1969 entry, which featured Lazenby’s one-off shot at 007. This wouldn’t be too surprising considering Brosnan has less been enthusiastic about Lazenby compared to other portrayers, saying, “George Lazenby, with mighty flair and a valiant heart, had given it his best.” And we all know how that “best” turned out…
Cillian Murphy was also in attendance at the event, which took place just ahead of the 96th Academy Awards, where he is the odds-on favorite to win Best Actor. With that, if Cillian Murphy were to ever take the role of James Bond – and does win on Sunday – he would be the only person to play the character to already have an Oscar. (Connery won Best Supporting Actor for The Untouchables years after handing over his Aston Martin keys.)
Speaking of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan has discussed the possibilities of directing a James Bond movie before, saying, in part, “The influence of those movies in my filmography is embarrassingly apparent. It would be an amazing privilege to do one.” It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Nolan to want to cast Murphy, either, seeing as they’ve worked together six times already. Then again, while Brosnan may be genuinely pulling for Murphy or just tossing out his name as the man of the hour, at 47, he has very likely aged out.
What do you think of the idea of Cillian Murphy taking on James Bond? Would he be a good fit or is he simply too old to give it a go? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below!
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You didn’t really think Halloween Ends would be the end of the Halloween franchise, did you? That movie may have brought an end to one version of Michael Myers, but the filmmakers can always go back to an earlier iteration – or create a whole new one. Last October, we learned that Halloween will continue with a TV series that Miramax is developing with the company they share the rights to the franchise with, Malek Akkad’s Trancas International Films. Now Miramax’s Marc Helwig has given Deadline an update on the project, revealing that it’s a “creative reset” that takes the franchise back to the original film, John Carpenter’s 1978 classic.
Helwig said the Halloween TV series is “on a fast track, it’s a big priority for us. We’ve had lots of exciting conversations in recent months with a number of really talented people, and I think we’ll have a pretty good idea of what we’re going to be doing very soon. We’re hoping to lock down the creative team very soon. The foundation of (the show) is the original film, the John Carpenter movie, the characters of that film, and perhaps a group of characters that we haven’t really focused on that much in recent film versions or even in a number of them. It’s a creative reset completely and going back to the original film, as opposed to spinning out of any of the more recent film adaptations.“
Judging by that quote, it sounds like we’re going to be seeing the story of Michael Myers, Doctor Loomis, and Laurie Strode and her friends play out all over again, this time on the small screen.
Miramax and Trancas are looking to build a new Halloween universe with this TV series, so it could run for multiple seasons while also branching out into movies.
Are you interested in seeing how the Halloween TV series is going to turn out? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
Halloween (and A24’s upcoming Friday the 13th series Crystal Lake) follow in the footsteps of Bates Motel, Hannibal, and Chucky, which have brought iconic horror characters to the small screen for multiple seasons. While there was a Friday the 13th TV series in the ’80s, it didn’t have anything to do with Jason Voorhees or his mother… but Freddy Krueger did host an anthology series called Freddy’s Nightmares for a couple seasons.
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Cancel humanity, folks. You can all go home. The tech firm Soul Machines is resurrecting screen legend Marilyn Monroe as a “hyper-real” AI-generated digital Chatbot that lets you engage in conversations with the blonde bombshell in real-time. John Connor is seething somewhere, and Skynet is laughing at the thought of not lifting a finger to doom the human race through smart-learning technology. In addition to participating in conversations, the Marilyn Monroe avatar can answer questions “in Marilyn’s signature voice and style.” Look out, Alexa, the late star of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Seven Year Itch, is gunning for your job!
The company behind the Digital Marilyn interactive experience says the AI-generated icon “shares anecdotes and even delivers personalized greetings, creating an unforgettable experience for Marilyn fans.” Do you want Marilyn to sing “Happy Birthday” to you like she did for John F. Kennedy? You can make that happen with Digital Marilyn! According to Soul Machines, you can speak with Digital Marilyn “in real-time using advanced natural language processing, deep learning and GPT 3.5.”
Want to hear the scariest part? Digital Marilyn can read your emotions and respond to you accordingly using Soul Machine’s proprietary camera and microphone technology. “Every interaction is unique. Digital Marilyn analyzes your preferences and tailors her responses accordingly, fostering a genuine connection that resonates with you on an individual level,” a representative of Soul Machines said. Conversations with Digital Marilyn can last up to 20 minutes and cover many day-to-day examples of “weather talk” to more meaningful topics.
If you’re concerned about the conversations becoming stiff and predictable, don’t be. Soul Machine’s tech “enables her to engage in natural, fluid dialogue, adapting to your questions and interests in real-time… Mimicking the human nervous system, this technology allows Digital Marilyn to respond with realistic emotions and nuanced expressions, creating a deeply personal and memorable experience.”
“Marilyn Monroe remains a timeless icon, inspiring generations with her talent, charisma, and enduring legacy,” Dana Carpenter, EVP of entertainment at Authentic, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to partner with Soul Machines, whose cutting-edge technology is the perfect match to bring Marilyn to life in the AI age. While Marilyn Monroe can never be replaced or duplicated, Digital Marilyn opens exciting possibilities for multiple generations of fans to engage with her in a whole new way, fostering a deeper connection and appreciation for her enduring spirit and the mark she left on the world.”
All joking aside, what are we doing here, folks? Who’s next in the AI-generated Chatbot lineup? Elvis? Michael Jackson? John Lennon? David Bowie? Who would you want to talk to in a Chatbot-style conversation? Let us know in the comments section below.
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The Core Four is no more. Although Scream (2022) and Scream VI set up the characters of Samantha Carpenter, Tara Carpenter, Mindy Meeks-Martin, and Chad Meeks-Martin as the new leads of the Scream franchise, that group is not going to end up being in Scream 7, whenever that film goes into production. Jenna Ortega allegedly wanted a substantial pay raise to reprise the role of Tara… and as we saw when Neve Campbell dropped out of Scream VI due to a pay dispute, these pay issues don’t tend to work out. So Ortega was out, but Melissa Barrera was on board to come back as Tara’s sister Samantha. Until she was fired from the project after comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war didn’t go over well with executives at Spyglass. Mindy may or not be in the movie; we can’t be sure yet, because Jasmin Savoy Brown hasn’t gotten a call about reprising the role. During an interview with Variety, Mason Gooding, who played Mindy’s brother Chad, said that he’s not being kept in the loop on the development of Scream 7, either. But he is quite confident the movie is going to be made.
Gooding said, “If it could make money, I guarantee you, they’ll make it. It’s one of those things where you wait to hear from the people that make the big decisions. It’s all about keeping up with what feels like is the best movie for the fans. Scream doesn’t exist without the people who enjoy it as much as they do… If people want it, they will certainly try their best to see it happen.“
Gooding also doesn’t seem to be too bummed over the idea of at least half of the Core Four being left out of the new movie, because the actors who played the characters are still “a family beyond the work.”
As Gooding suspects, Spyglass Media and Paramount Pictures are still eager to get a Scream 7 out into the world. Returning writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick working on the script, and last we heard they were hoping to get Neve Campbell back in the lead as franchise heroine Sidney Prescott. Patrick Dempsey, who played LAPD homicide detective – and Sidney’s love interest – Mark Kincaid in Scream 3, might also be part of the new plan for the seventh film. Scream (2022) and Scream VI directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett will not be at the helm of the new film. Freaky and Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon had been hired to direct it, but he left when the original version of the film crumbled out from under him. Alone and Sick director John Hyams may be in the running to direct Scream 7 now, along with an unspecified female director.
Even if Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera are out, do you hope to see Mason Gooding and/or Jasmin Savoy Brown in Scream 7? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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