Back in 2002, Computer Artworks and Black Label Games brought the world a video game called The Thing, which served as a sequel John Carpenter’s classic 1982 sci-fi horror film also titled The Thing (watch it HERE). More than twenty years later, that game is being revived by Nightdive Studios, which has teamed up with Universal Products & Experiences to give the The Thing video game a remaster that is set to receive a digital release on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and the Nintendo Switch sometime later this year. The new release of the game is going by the appropriate title of The Thing: Remastered. A trailer can be seen at the bottom of this article.

Our friends at Bloody Disgusting let us know, “Nightdive has upgraded the game for the modern era through its proprietary KEX Engine for play on current-generation gaming devices, including 4K resolution at 120FPS. The Thing: Remastered will also sport updated character models, textures, and animations, with the implementation of advanced 3D rendering for updated lighting and atmospheric effects.”

Larry Kuperman, Nightdive Studios’ Director of Business Development, provided the following statement: “Many of us at Nightdive Studios are ardent fans of the horror genre, so it’s been an incredible honor to work within the world of the iconic The Thing. The 1982 film is a masterpiece and truly one of the most impactful pieces of art in the horror genre. With The Thing: Remastered, we’re honoring that legacy and Computer Artworks’ incredible game inspired by the story that further expanded the lore.“

The The Thing video game has the following synopsis: In the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, a mysterious, shape-shifting alien life form has wiped out an American scientific outpost. You’re the leader of a military rescue team sent to investigate the carnage. Trapped by the elements and infected by a horrific enemy, you must keep your squad together.

This is one of the rare games that I have actually played, and I really enjoyed it… up until I reached a boss I couldn’t figure out how to beat. I was never able to finish the game because of that one douchebag monster. Maybe I’ll have better luck if I have a The Thing: Remastered rematch. It’s great to see this video game getting a comeback, especially since I currently have my fingers crossed for a revival of Friday the 13th: The Game.

Will you be playing The Thing: Remastered? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post The Thing: Remastered revives the 2002 video game later this year appeared first on JoBlo.

We all know the rules for having a mogwai: no sunlight, no water and don’t feed it after midnight (whenever that is…). But there’s actually one more that thankfully the team behind Gremlins discovered early on: no monkeys! The puppetry in Gremlins remains some of the most iconic of its time, but at one point director Joe Dante thought it would be a good idea to have simians play the titular creatures.

In a new oral history of Gremlins marking the 40th anniversary of the beloved horror-comedy, some of the key members behind the scenes remembered just how different the gremlins themselves could have turned out. As creature supervisor Chris Walas remembered, “It wasn’t just designing the characters, it was figuring out how we were going to do them all.” Dante, for his part, wanted to do everything in stop-motion, which would have been an incredibly daunting task for the team. And so: monkeys.

A trainer specifically meant for the rhesus monkeys was brought in, much to the dismay of Walas, who said, “No way am I going to be able to put a Gremlin’s costume on this thing.” Not only did Walas recognize just how insane the idea was, but one monkey was even causing a crappy situation for the team. As Dante put it, “We got a rhesus monkey and put a Gremlin’s head on him, and he bounced around the editing room and sh*t all over everything. And it became quite apparent that this was not the way we were going to do it.” From there, it was pretty clear that puppets would be the way to go. After all, a monkey running around with a gremlin head is just about as terrifying as finding Santa dead in your chimney.

After an initial run that nabbed it nearly $150 million and a spot as the third highest-grossing movie of 1984, a sequel was inevitable. But it was a bit too late once The New Batch was released six years later, unable to capitalize on the success of the original. Even still, the property is hot nowadays, with some chatter of a third installment amid the success of the animated series, which has a second season slated for the fall.

Do you prefer Gremlins or The New Batch? What are your memories watching the movies as a youth?

The post Joe Dante wanted to use monkeys instead of puppets for Gremlins appeared first on JoBlo.

One of the many amazing games shown off during the 2024 Xbox Showcase on June 9 was the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 3 remake. Officially titled Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the new trailer gave us a fresh look at the gorgeous updated graphics for the 20-year-old game. In tandem, Konami also updated the game’s…

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One of the many amazing games shown off during the 2024 Xbox Showcase on June 9 was the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 3 remake. Officially titled Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the new trailer gave us a fresh look at the gorgeous updated graphics for the 20-year-old game. In tandem, Konami also updated the game’s…

Read more…

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was one of the biggest box office bombs of 2023 – but maybe the iconic character will have more luck in the video game world, as publisher Bethesda Softworks and developer MachineGames will be sending the game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle out in the world by the end of 2024. To start building the hype, they unveiled an extended trailer for the game as part of Xbox Games Showcase 2024, and you can check it out in the embed above.

Bethesda Softworks also provided the following information (via Gematsu): Uncover one of history’s greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a first-person, single-player adventure set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. The year is 1937, sinister forces are scouring the globe for the secret to an ancient power connected to the Great Circle, and only one person can stop them—Indiana Jones. You’ll become the legendary archaeologist in this cinematic action-adventure game from MachineGames, the award-winning studio behind the recent Wolfenstein series, and executive produced by Hall of Fame game designer Todd Howard.

Live the adventure as Indy in a thrilling story full of exploration, immersive action, and intriguing puzzles. As the brilliant archaeologist—famed for his keen intellect, cunning resourcefulness, and trademark humor—you will travel the world in a race against enemy forces to discover the secrets to one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Travel from the halls of Marshall College to the heart of the Vatican, the pyramids of Egypt, the sunken temples of Sukhothai, and beyond. When a break-in in the dead of night ends in a confrontation with a mysterious colossal man, you must set out to discover the world-shattering secret behind the theft of a seemingly unimportant artifact. Forging new alliances and facing familiar enemies, you’ll engage with intriguing characters, use guile and wits to solve ancient riddles, and survive intense set-pieces.

Indiana’s trademark whip remains at the heart of his gear and can be used to distract, disarm, and attack enemies. But the whip isn’t just a weapon, it’s Indy’s most valuable tool for navigating the environment. Swing over unsuspecting patrols and scale walls as you make your way through a striking world. Combine stealth infiltration, melee combat, and gunplay to combat the enemy threat and unravel the mystery. Venture through a dynamic mix of linear, narrative-driven gameplay and open-area maps. Indulge your inner explorer and unearth a world of fascinating secrets, deadly traps and fiendish puzzles, where anything could potentially hide the next piece of the mystery—or snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

Troy Baker, who is best known for providing the voice of Joel in the The Last of Us video game, provides the voice of Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be available for Xbox Series and PC via Steam and Microsoft Store. Will you be playing this video game? Take a look at the trailer, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Indiana Jones and the Great Circle video game unveils an extended trailer appeared first on JoBlo.

Netflix has just released the teaser trailer for the upcoming dark comedy The Decameron. The show is a limited series that is set to run for eight episodes and is slated to hit the streamer on July 25. The cast includes an ensemble of actors, which features names like Amar Chadha-Patel, Leila Farzad, Lou Gala, Karan Gill, Tony Hale, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Zosia Mamet, Douggie McMeekin, Jessica Plummer and Tanya Reynolds. The teaser cheekily calls the subject of the show “The Party of the 14th Century” with New Order’s “Blue Monday” providing background for the madness.

The official synopsis reads,
“You are cordially invited to a wine-soaked sex romp set in the Italian countryside. The Decameron is a soapy dark comedy that examines the all-too-timely theme of class struggles in the season of a pandemic. In the year 1348, the Black Death strikes hard in the city of Florence, and a handful of nobles retreat with their servants to a grand villa to wait out the plague with a lavish holiday. But as social rules wear thin, a scramble for survival ensues, brought to life by a cast of characters both cunning and outrageous.

Created by Kathleen Jordan, who was very loosely inspired by the 14-century story collection The Decameron, the eight-episode series is through Jenji Kohan’s Tilted Productions. Kohan serves as an executive producer, alongside Jordan, director Michael Uppendahl, and Tilted’s Blake McCormick and Tara Herrmann.”

Tony Hale explained to Tudum what intrigues him about the project, “When something like a plague comes along, the ground goes even. It doesn’t matter. So what am I investing in? What relationships am I investing in? How am I treating people? That’s the stuff that matters.” Executive Producer Jenji Kohan boasted the show’s creator and showrunner, “Kathleen Jordan is the real freakin’ deal. I am so excited and grateful that I get to work with her and we get to make this awesome, funny, timely, weird show together for Netflix.” And Jordan also spoke about working with the creative team on the show, “I’m absolutely thrilled that I get to work with Jenji, Tara, Blake, and Netflix again. I can’t wait for people to meet this ridiculous group of characters. I’m sure Giovanni Boccaccio would be … confused?”

The post The Decameron Official Teaser cordially invites you to the party of the 14th Century appeared first on JoBlo.

John Hawkes has been one of my favorite character actors since he first came to my attention back in the ’90s with roles in films like Roadracers, Night of the Scarecrow, From Dusk Till Dawn, and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, so it’s cool to hear (from Deadline) that he’s going directly from a multi-episode role in the latest season of True Detective to landing a recurring role in the Prime Video series adaptation of Criminal, the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel series written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Sean Phillips. Hawkes, along with Pat Healy (Better Call Saul), Taylor Selé (BMF), and Logan Browning (Dear White People), join previously announced cast members Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), Adria Arjona (Hit Man), Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water), and Kadeem Hardison (A Different World).

Criminal tells “the interweaving saga of several generations of families tied together by the crimes and murders of the past.” The official logline for the series says it will show viewers an interlocking universe of crime stories.

Hunnam will be playing the lead character, “Leo, a brilliant master thief who sees all the angles, and specializes in plans with no guns and no violence. Like a chess player, Leo thinks three moves ahead. Other crooks think he’s a coward, especially compared to his father Tommy, who went to jail for murdering the most feared man in the city, Teeg Lawless.” Arjona is taking on the role of Greta, “a sharp-tongued top-level car thief and driver and the widowed mother of Angie. Ever since her husband died in a bank job gone bad, Greta has been battling with herself about how to escape the only life she’s ever known – and the only place she’s ever thrived. The problem is, she’s good at this. She’s looking for a big score, a lump of money she can use like a gun to shoot her and Angie out of this life and into another one.” Jenkins’ character is Ivan, “Leo’s dad’s best friend, and has always been an uncle figure to him. He used to be a robber and criminal, but is now currently suffering from dementia. Leo is trying to care for him but realizes he’s more work than he can handle.” Hardison is playing Gnarly, “an old friend of Leo and Ivan. Gnarly was his nickname as a boxer back in the 1970s and it’s all anyone calls him. He walks with a limp, an old one. Gnarly’s a local legend, and he can go from warm to fierce in a heartbeat. He commands respect, partly because he can inflict massive physical damage, even at his advanced age — and partly because he has the authority and gravitas to stop other men in their tracks.”

Hawkes is set to play Sebastian Hyde, “a hard man who is six months out from a stroke, and now walks with a cane. Once the biggest shark in the shark tank, Hyde is now showing his humanity a bit — maybe a bit too much. The owner of a gambling club, the kind of man whose name is accompanied by fear, Hyde can be both amused by someone one minute, and a ruthless enforcer the next.” Healy’s character is Seymour, “a veteran thief and one-time part of Leo’s dad’s crew. Seymour does what he has to stay alive and get rich while trying to survive in the criminal world.” Selé has been cast as Royal, “the manager of Sebastian Hyde’s gambling club, and he is sharp-dressed and menacing. Royal is ruthless and will do whatever he needs to protect himself and move forward in the underworld.” And Browning is playing Jenny, “an Internal Affairs detective with a dry sense of humor and an absurdly calm demeanor. She presents as an even-tempered woman who appears to be without a care in the world. Jenny is very smart; her father was a criminal and she loves her job — which gives her the right to question, harass, terrify and imprison cops all day long. Jenny was raised with Leo as her playmate/buddy/blood brother for life.”

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the filmmaking duo behind Half Nelson, Sugar, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Mississippi Grind, Captain Marvel, and Freaky Tales, will be directing the first four episodes of Criminal. Brubaker has written the script for the pilot and will serve as showrunner of the series alongside Jordan Harper (Hightown). Brubaker and Harper are also executive producing with Sean Phillips, Sarah Carbiener, Phillip Barnett, and Legendary Television.

What do you think of the cast that’s being assembled for Criminal? Share your thoughts on the additions of John Hawkes, Pat Healy, Taylor Selé, and Logan Browning by leaving a comment below.

The post Criminal: John Hawkes, Pat Healy, & more join Charlie Hunnam in Prime Video’s Ed Brubaker adaptation appeared first on JoBlo.

Apparently it’s 2012 all over again, and publishers are once more attempting the move of requiring always-on internet connections to play single-player games. That’s been revealed to be the case for Call of Duty: Black Op 6’s single-player campaign, not just on PC as it has been for years, but now on consoles too.

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Apparently it’s 2012 all over again, and publishers are once more attempting the move of requiring always-on internet connections to play single-player games. That’s been revealed to be the case for Call of Duty: Black Op 6’s single-player campaign, not just on PC as it has been for years, but now on consoles too.

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Shea Whigham is a character actor that many may have seen in a number of different projects. He is a low-key recurring character in the Fast & Furious series as a former FBI peer of Paul Walker’s character. He’s one of David O’Russell’s collaborators who can be seen in films like Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. He’s also done a number of TV projects like Fargo and the latest incarnation of Perry Mason. Recently, Whigham was seen chasing down Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and The Hollywood Reporter sat down with him and his co-star of his upcoming film, Lake George, for an interview where he revealed a bit about the upcoming conclusion to the Mission: Impossible two-parter, which he filmed back-to-back.

Whigham states that he had wrapped on his role in the movie, but before completing his part in the project, he wanted to make a request to the writer/director Christopher McQuarrie. He tells THR,

I said to Christopher McQuarrie on [Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning]: ‘I don’t want a bigger trailer. I don’t want more money. I don’t want better catering. I just want one scene between Tom and I, where you, McQ, write it like The Usual Suspects, and we get a chance to get in there.’ And he delivered.”

He continued, “We did this scene between Tom and myself, and then Tom said, ‘We’re going to go out to dinner.’ So we went out to dinner when I was done, and then Tom said, ‘Do you realize that we come out one year from today? And it’s going to be a sprint to finish the fucking thing.’”

Whigham revealed that at the time of the interview, he’d wrapped his part ten days ago, but Cruise is still filming. He continued, “And I was like, ‘What!?’ Because we’re gone. The rest of the cast is all scattered, and he went, ‘Yeah, it’s going to be a sprint. I go all summer.’ I can’t even explain how he does the stuff that he does. What he’s doing now, people are going to be floored. He wants to make this one like an adventure film, and he and McQuarrie have an idea of what they want to do with it. So it’s going to be amazing.”

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