The Dragon Age series has long allowed players to import choices between games to maintain a consistent world state. Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be no different, but it sounds like it will change up its approach, which previously required either directly importing a save file or using a tool Bioware created in…
The Dragon Age series has long allowed players to import choices between games to maintain a consistent world state. Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be no different, but it sounds like it will change up its approach, which previously required either directly importing a save file or using a tool Bioware created in…
About fourteen months ago, we heard that AMC was developing a third TV series based on the works of Anne Rice, adding to the franchise they’ve been building out of the Vampire Chronicles novels and the Mayfair Witch books written by Rice. Now Variety reports that the show – which is going by the working title of Anne Rice’s The Talamasca – has officially been ordered to series. Episodes are expected to start airing sometime in 2025.
This entry in the franchise that AMC is calling the Anne Rice Immortal Universe will follow a secretive society called the Talamasca that’s responsible for tracking and containing witches, vampires, werewolves and other creatures. Members of the Talamasca have already been introduced in the AMC shows Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire and Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.
John Lee Hancock, whose credits include The Blind Side and the Stephen King adaptation Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, is writing the Talamasca series and will be serving as showrunner alongside Mark Lafferty of The Right Stuff and Halt and Catch Fire. Hancock will also be directing the first episode.
All of AMC’s Anne Rice projects are produced by AMC Studios and executive produced by Mark Johnson.
Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks, provided the following statement: “This is a story we’ve been developing and wanting to tell from the earliest moments of this franchise, focused on a fascinating and compelling secret society that has already appeared in both of our existing Anne Rice series, the Talamasca. As with all of these shows, we are thrilled to have such a high level of talent involved, represented here by John Lee Hancock and Mark Lafferty, and of course working closely with producer Mark Johnson as the creative head of our Anne Rice Immortal Universe.“
Hancock added: “This all started for me with a call from Mark Johnson, who asked if I’d ever heard of the Talamasca. I was intrigued by the idea of an organization that, to me, had more than a passing resemblance to the CIA or MI6, which are necessary but not always necessarily transparent. An organization with its own secrets. Thankfully, Dan McDermott liked the take and so did Mark Lafferty, who is so talented and accomplished in the world of television. Many thanks to everyone from Gran Via to Mark Lafferty, to our talented writers and everyone at AMC, who have been supporters, advocates and cheerleaders from day one. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be involved and look forward to presenting a third series in the Anne Rice Immortal Universe.“
Are you a fan of Interview with the Vampire (you can read our review of the first season HERE and the second HERE) and/or Mayfair Witches (our review of that show’s first season is HERE), and are you interested in seeing what John Lee Hancock and AMC do with Anne Rice’s The Talamasca? Share your thoughts on this series by leaving a comment below.
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SPOILER WARNING!
The Boys is easily one of the most popular shows on the air. Each season is anticipated with bated breath as the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg-produced comic book adaptation keeps raising the bar on showing the most shocking visuals of any television program ever. Prime Video gave the series an early season four renewal, which audiences have been waiting for. The wait is over, as the eight-episode fourth season is set to premiere this week.
Season four of The Boys picks up after Victoria Neuman becomes the Vice Presidential candidate to the chagrin Huey (Jack Quaid), Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), and the rest of The Boys. With Homelander (Antony Starr) on trial for a very public murder, the world is divided between those who support the leader of The Seven and those who side with Annie “Starlight” January (Erin Moriarty). This season furthers the divide between the factions as the world takes sides and risks an implosion of society. We have new heroes and villains with unique powers who will do anything, including murder, to become famous.
I got to speak with many of the cast of the new season of The Boys about what is in store this season. Keep in mind that there are (minor) spoilers in these interviews, so proceed with caution. Chace Crawford and Antony Starr discussed where we find The Deep and Homelander this season, including The Deep’s romantic subplot and Homelander’s follicle kryptonite. Claudia Doumit talked about playing a character we love to despise, and Erin Moriarty talked about Annie January and getting to play against type this season. Karen Fukuhara talked about Kimiko’s violent ends this year. Colby Minifie talked about what she must do as Ashley Barrett this season and what may be in store next. Valorie Curry talked about alt-right inspirations in playing Firecracker, while Susan Heyward talked about playing the smartest woman in the world. I also talked with Eric Kripke about who he would love to have joined the series in the future and the potential ending point for the series. Check out the full interviews in the embed above.
The Boys premieres with three episodes on June 13th on Prime Video.
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The Conjuring 4 – which, last we heard, was going by the title The Conjuring: Last Rites – is expected to be the final installment of the series at the heart of the Conjuring Universe… but it’s only the ending when it comes to big screen feature films. Fourteen months ago, it was announced that a The Conjuring TV series is in the works at the Max streaming service, and now Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, has confirmed that the show is still in development.
When asked what’s in the HBO and Max pipeline, Bloys told Variety, “One of the advantages that I think we have as a company, putting aside HBO for a second, is all the Warner Bros. IP. So after House of the Dragon, the next big tentpole series that we have coming up will be The Penguin with Colin Farrell. That is coming out of Matt Reeves’ The Batman and it’s fantastic. Just like Peacemaker came out of James Gunn’s Suicide Squad, it’s a really good example of what you can do. That’ll be in September. And then after that, I don’t know if we landed on a date yet, but later in the fall we’ll have the Dune prequel series that is about the origins of the Bene Gesserit. And then going into ’25, we will have Stephen King’s It. Warner Bros. has done two films — we’ve got a prequel series of that planned as well. And then obviously, the Harry Potter series, further down the line. We’re still in the process of working with writers on their takes. … There are other properties like The Conjuring, which is a big movie franchise that we’re developing into a series, as well as Crazy Rich Asians. We’re developing in DC, the Green Lantern property, as a series as well.”
Plot details are being kept under wraps, so we don’t know what sort of approach is being taken to bring the Conjuring Universe to the small screen. All Max was willing to say is that the series will “continue the story established in the feature films.” And there are plenty of story options for them to pursue. You have the case files of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga and have been at the center of The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It; there are the horrific adventures of demon-associated doll Annabelle, who has carried three films on her shoulders (Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, and Annabelle Comes Home); there’s the evil nun of The Nun and the upcoming The Nun 2. They could even go further into the mythology of the Conjuring Universe-adjacent The Curse of La Llorona, or bring the scrapped spin-off idea The Crooked Man to the screen.
If The Conjuring 4 is the end for Ed and Lorraine Warren on the big screen, I would like to see their story continue in the TV series, with Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga at least showing up for an episode here and there. We’ll probably find out more once The Conjuring 4 / The Conjuring: Last Rites is released. Michael Chaves will be directing that film from a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.
Are you interested in seeing a TV series continuation of The Conjuring? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
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If you go back and watch the original Rocky trailer from 1976, the narrator (some of whom would give poetic-like voice-overs in older trailers) would say, “His name is Sylvester Stallone. But you will always know him as Rocky.” There couldn’t have been a more prophetic statement as although Stallone would go on to have an iconic career with many classics as many characters, he is forever referred to as Rocky. While the recent Netflix documentary Sly gave audiences an insight into the career and personal recollections of Sylvester Stallone, the action legend will be releasing his memoir, which is due for publication in 2025.
Deadline has revealed that the memoir, The Steps, was the subject of a heated auction and the bidding war crowned William Morrow – a Harper Collin imprint — as the winner. Sources say that while it wasn’t revealed what the final price came down to, negotiations concluded around a seven-figure sum. Stallone’s The Steps was naturally one of the biggest titles at the London Book Fair. Deadline also reveals that Sly settled on less money because of William Morrow’s enthusiasm on the project.
The Steps would reference the famous Philadelphia Art Museum’s stairs leading up to the entrance that symbolized Rocky Balboa’s climb to the top of the world. Byrd Leavell, co-head of UTA Publishing, said, “The title was all Sly. He came back to us with that thinking about the double meaning of Philly and running up the steps. But he also wanted to write a book that could help people.” Leavell adds, “The documentary came out but even that only just grazed the surface. As much as Sly has been in the public eye for a very long time he is also deeply private.”
He continues, “This book will show that Sly is a man to whom nothing has come easily. He earned everything. He just knew to bet on himself because he believed in himself. And that’s the message within many of his movies, personal triumph overcoming adversity. This book is going to further tap into that and allow people to truly understand why they loved all of his movies so much.”
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MaXXXine, the sequel to director Ti West‘s films Pearl and X, is swiftly approaching its July 5th theatrical release date. Last week, we got to see a new trailer for the film, and now distributor A24 has unveiled a batch of character posters that give us a look at the characters played by Mia Goth, singer Halsey, Kevin Bacon, and more! You can check them out at the bottom of this article.
MaXXXine is written and directed by West. Mia Goth reprises the role of X survivor Maxine Minx, a burlesque performer and adult film actress with the goal of being a star. The film has the following synopsis: In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past. As you can see in both the most recent trailer and the previous trailer, the Hollywood setting even allows for a visit to the Bates Motel.
Goth and Halsey are joined in the cast by Kevin Bacon (Tremors), Elizabeth Debicki (Tenet), singer Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Bobby Cannavale (Netflix’s The Watcher), Lily Collins (Emily in Paris), and Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad. The Hollywood Reporter noted that Esposito is playing an agent for adult film and Z-list movie actors, Debicki’s character is a film director, Monaghan and Cannavale play LAPD detectives, and Bacon plays a private detective.
MaXXXine is being produced by A24, Ti West, Jacob Jaffke, Kevin Turen, and Harrison Kreiss. Mia Goth serves as executive producer.
If you want to see a preview of MaXXXine before July, A24 will be bringing franchise starter X back to theatres for one night only, on June 18th, and movie-goers who attend those June 18th screenings (tickets are available at THIS LINK) will get to see a preview of MaXXXine after the end credits roll.
Are you looking forward to MaXXXine, and will you be catching it on the big screen next month? Take a look at the character posters, then let us know by leaving a comment below.
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The Tim Burton and Johnny Depp collaborations are certainly prolific. While Depp was a teen star on the Fox series 21 Jump Street, he had a weird creative force inside of him that a high school cop series didn’t fulfill. Then came a new movie called Edward Scissorhands that paired Depp with his long-time director friend. Deadline reports that Depp is being featured in a new docu-series that’s a retrospective on the career of Tim Burton, and the actor reveals who he beat out for the part of Edward.
According to People, Depp said the competition was stiff for the titular character and names like Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and even the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, were being considered for the role. Depp explained that Cruise “was not far away from actually playing Edward Scissorhands — true story.” Depp admitted to thinking, “He’s never going to cast me when everyone in Hollywood is after the part.” He continued, “Tim’s really juggling because he’s getting hit by his agent, the studio, everybody. So I called my agent after reading the script and said, ‘Please cancel the meeting, I’m not going.’ She said, ‘Are you f***ing nuts?’”
Depp really wanted the role after reading the script. He said Burton and Caroline Thompson’s screenplay “passed through everything, anything, solid and went to the very core of whatever I am. The writing was beautiful. The character was beautiful. What I suppose [attracted] me emotionally was that Edward was me. It’s exactly what I should be doing.”
The documentary, which is currently untitled, will be a four-part series directed by Tara Wood. Wood had previously made two other documentaries about famous filmmakers with a Richard Linklater feature called 21 Years: Richard Linklater and a doc on Quentin Tarantino titled QT8: The First Eight. The Tim Burton documentary features interviews and participation from his regulars which include Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, composer Danny Elfman, Christopher Walken, and Danny DeVito. It will include newer talents he has worked with as well, like Jenna Ortega, Mia Wasikowska, and Christoph Waltz.
The series is being described as “an otherworldly, dream journey into the mind of the man behind Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, the Netflix series Wednesday, and many other indelible projects.” A release about the doc reads, “Tim continues to build his aesthetic, the Burton-esque style, derived from a wealth of art, cinematic and literary genres. The documentary explores how Burton brings his vision to life through his own joyous idiosyncrasy and his ability to meld the ominous and the frightful with a sense of whimsy. Tim’s films are just the tip of the iceberg.”
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James Bond: a franchise known for its complex web of deceit, high-stakes power struggles, and bitter rivalries. In a world where alliances are easily forged and broken, the players are always looking for an angle to gain the upper hand. A realm where secrets are currency and the truth is only revealed to those who hold power. A landscape marked by twists and turns, where loyalties are tested, and betrayals are commonplace.
And I’m not even talking about the seminal spy’s escapades! Behind the martini-sipping, globe-trotting, and high-octane action, an arguably more intriguing drama has unfolded for decades. Welcome to the battle over James Bond film intellectual rights, where real-life drama might be more thrilling than any fictional plot. Where producers and studios engage in a game of cat and mouse, and the prize is control over the most iconic spy franchise in history.
One of the most fascinating chapters in this saga is the story of Warhead, a James Bond film that almost was, then wasn’t, then kinda was, then almost was again a couple of times, then never was. Developed in the 1970s by Kevin McClory, Len Deighton, and the O.G. Bond Sean Connery, Warhead was meant to be a grittier take on the Bond franchise, with some truly crazy elements thrown in for good measure. It became a casualty of war between conflicting creative forces, leaving us to wonder what could have been and just how and why this movie went unmade.
Our story actually dates back to 1958, when James Bond novel author Ian Fleming met filmmaker Kevin McClory and christened him the man to bring the character to the screen. Rather than adapting an existing novel, they recruited playwright Jack Whittingham and penned the script eventually named Thunderball. Richard Burton, who would go on to act in a different British Spy novel adaptation, was considered to play the lead, and the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, was considered to direct. Rather than continue the pitch, Fleming absconded with the story and turned it into a novel. This upset McClory, who sued Fleming and won, maintaining screen rights.
Danjaq and Eon Productions, who’ve been behind nearly every Bond film production, were interested in adapting the Thunderball story as the first James Bond film, but the legal situation obviously complicated that. They’d instead go forward with Dr. No in 1962, From Russia with Love in 1963, and Goldfinger in 1964. The success of these films proved James Bond to be a valuable cinema property. They returned to the Thunderball story in 1965, and it became arguably the most successful Bond film of all time, grossing nearly $1.4 billion when adjusted for inflation. The story and film’s underwater elements were inspired by McClory’s own passion for scuba diving. McClory’s efforts were rewarded with a producer and writer credit. As part of the arrangement, McClory retained future film rights to the story but agreed not to produce another Thunderball film for 10 years following. Audiences would be over the whole Bond thing by then, anyway, right?
You can probably see where this is going. Audiences are, to this day, not over the whole Bond thing, and exactly 10 years later, in 1975, Kevin McClory began to work on his own Thunderball adaptation. It was initially titled James Bond of the Secret Service, and McClory brought on two new writers. One was Len Deighton, author of the spy novels centered on Harry Palmer, who Michael Caine portrayed on screen, starting with The Ipcress File in 1965. Deighton has since downplayed his contributions. The other was the first man to play James Bond on the silver screen, Thomas Sean Connery. Connery, though he had claimed to be done with his Bond involvement after 1971’s Diamonds are Forever, lent legitimacy to the McClory production that earned it backing from Paramount under the name Warhead.
The two versions of the Warhead script that have made it into the hands of the public, one from 1976 and the other from 1978, don’t exactly read as a movie that could have ever been made in 1975. The script suffers from a bit too much absurdity and ambition. It places the blame for the mysterious losses in the Bermuda Triangle on the shoulders of the villainous SPECTRE organization. Their massive underwater base hosts every abducted airplane and vessel. It’s dubbed “Aquapolis” (say that five times fast), and the entire city-sized base combs the ocean floor, mining for gold and minerals. At the helm is Bond’s ofttimes nemesis Ernst Blofeld, a role Orson Welles was tapped for, and who’s written as cartoonishly callous, killing four of his own men for minor infractions within the first act. His main heavy, which in this case is literal, was Bomba in early drafts and Genghis in the latest. There’s direction in the first script that compares his overwhelming physical dominance favorably to legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, though in terms that would get the writer canceled today.
Speaking of ambition, the villain Blofeld’s ambition is a world where water takes up even more of the global surface and the downfall of the world’s major financial institutions. SPECTRE steals three nukes: two to detonate underneath Antarctica to flood the world and one to use against the institutions responsible for the polluted state of the world. The third location is a mystery for Bond to solve before it’s too late. There’s a jab at Americans in the form of Q using the concentration of fecal matter collected by Aquapolis to narrow down the location to New York City.
NYC begins reporting rampant shark attacks, but these are no ordinary sharks. These are mechanical sharks escorting a mechanical hammerhead hosting the nuclear bomb aimed at Wall Street by way of the New York City tunnels. The jabs at Americans continue as the script repeatedly mentions how full the sewer path is with human waste. Blofeld looks on from his command center in the head of the Statue of Liberty. Connery himself climbed to the top to scout the location, which takes ascending 162 steep steps. In the script, Bond battles the sharks and is pursued by Bomba/Genghis, who falls victim to a particularly indiscriminate shark. What happens next could appear in the dictionary next to “Deus Ex Machina.” Bond latches onto the nuke-toting mechanical hammerhead and struggles until he happens to swim near Q, who can easily and instantly disable the bomb’s timer.
The heavy is dispatched, and the plan is foiled, but Blofeld is still at large atop the Statue of Liberty, which, in the script, has a tear of blood seeping from its eye. Bond skis over and then paraglides into the eye to pursue the villain. Blofeld rappels down the 300-foot/90-meter length of the statue into the Aquapolis. Bond chases and manages to end the SPECTRE boss once and for all—or at least for now.
Bond romances no less than three Bond girls throughout the course of the script. One introduces herself as “Justine Lovesit,” prompting Bond’s playful response, “Does she?”. Another SPECTRE agent, Fatima Blush, has a dalliance with Bond in a hot tub, during which she tells him, “I can read you like a book.” After she follows that up with some intimate touching, the spy responds with “This must be the Braille system you’re using.” They also get together on a hotel bed with another SPECTRE agent, this one posing as a hotel maid, underneath the bed the entire time, before the whole place explodes. After dispatching Blofeld and narrowly escaping as Aquapolis crashes into a cliff, Bond makes off and makes out with Domino, Blush’s identical twin, in Blofeld’s private submarine.
Bond adherents may notice the similarities to Eon’s 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me. There’s the large underwater installation operated by a madman bent on destroying society to save the environment. There’s the outsized henchman who combats a shark. There are the stolen nukes aimed at New York City. There’s the final escape aboard the private submarine. Even if you didn’t notice, Warhead producer Kevin McClory and Eon producer Cubby Broccoli certainly did, and they were locked in legal battles for over 5 years, with the originator of those shared elements being at issue. Eon alleged that McClory was straying too far from the Thunderball story, which he maintained the rights to. McClory alleged that Eon stole elements of his story to undermine his production. Regardless of who was right, the legal complications and the ballooning proposed budget were enough to scare Connery and Paramount away, and the Warfield project was effectively halted. At the same time, The Spy Who Loved Me moved forward by renaming their Blofeld character to Karl Stromberg.
A shell of Warhead would go on to become Never Say Never Again in 1983, which is more of a straight Thunderball remake. Producer Jack Schwartzman brought on his brother-in-law Francis Ford Coppola to help write and Irvin Kershner, fresh off the success of The Empire Strikes Back, to direct. Sean Connery was lured back to play the lead with promises of creative control and profit sharing, along with a $3 million run-of-the-picture deal, about $9.5 million, in 2024 money. Never Say Never Again competed almost directly with Eon’s Octopussy, released earlier that same year. Despite a troubled production, the McClory/Schwartzman/Connery vehicle actually had a better opening weekend. It went on to gross nearly the same at the box office as the mainline entry.
Kevin McClory wasn’t yet done with attempts to bring Bond to the screen. He began developing a cartoon series titled James Bond vs. S.P.E.C.T.R.E., but Eon beat him to the punch, perhaps intentionally, with the non-canonical James Bond, Jr. in 1991. He renamed his Warhead script “Warhead 8”, then “Warhead 2000”, and moved Orson Welles to the director’s chair. McClory got support from Sony Pictures and pitched with Liam Neeson and Timothy Dalton to play the lead. Sony funded a lawsuit against MGM in pursuit of royalties owed to McClory for EVERY prior Bond film, alleging he was the originator of the character on the screen. The lawsuit was unsuccessful. The movie was effectively dead after Sony traded Bond to MGM for Spider-Man in 1995 before buying MGM outright in 2005. MGM bought the rights to Never Say Never Again in 1997. Kevin McClory passed away in 2006, and with him passed the potential of a rival Bond film. His heirs settled with Eon in 2013 over the film rights to the Thunderball story, the SPECTRE organization, and the Blofeld character, opening the door to their inclusion in 2015’s Spectre.
The story of the unmade Bond film Warhead serves as a reminder of the high stakes and bitter rivalries that shape the film industry, especially the Bond franchise. Despite the best efforts of Kevin McClory, his vision for a grittier, more ambitious Bond film was ultimately thwarted by legal battles and creative differences. The legacy of the unmade script persists in the form of elements that formed uncanny coincidences with its contemporary, The Spy Who Loved Me, and the foundations of Never Say Never Again. With rumors swirling about who will take up the Bond mantle after Daniel Craig, we’re left to wonder what could have been and what’s still to come.
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After nearly ten years of waiting, we finally have the first (officially sanctioned) gameplay footage of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. BioWare has released 20minutes of the game in motion, showing new protagonist Rook and their crew exploring the magical city of Minrathous, fighting demons, and working to stop Inquisitio…