Praise the Objects of Power, and don’t forget to grab fresh batteries for your flashlight because Remedy’s Control and Alan Wake are getting film and television adaptations! Remedy Entertainment is teaming up with Annapurna to bring both video game properties to screens, with plans to develop and produce film, TV, and audiovisual presentations based on both fan-favorite game franchises. News about the Control and Alan Wake adaptations comes after Annapurna announced they’re co-producing and co-financing Control 2, the next game revolving around the mysterious happenings of the franchise’s main character, Jesse Faden.

“At Remedy, our primary focus continues to be what we do best — crafting industry-defining video games that have earned us global recognition. Now, the time is right to expand the reach of Remedy’s beloved franchises to an even broader global audience through film, television, and more. In Annapurna, we have found an outstanding partner who shares our ambition and passion for immersive storytelling. We are excited to see them bring the universes and characters we have created to life in new mediums, thanks to this unique deal.” commented Tero Virtala, CEO of Remedy Entertainment.

Control (2019) is an action-adventure video game set in the labyrinthine offices of the Federal Bureau of Control, an agency investigating paranormal phenomena that threaten to breach the walls of shapeshifting buildings and alter our reality. Jesse Faden uses her unique psychic abilities to explore the FBC while searching for her missing brother. Control is part of Remedy’s shared universe, which includes the nightmarish world of Alan Wake.

Meanwhile, Alan Wake is a horror-action-adventure video game set in a twisted world somewhere between darkness and light. The series follows Alan Wake, who becomes trapped in a nightmare world of his own making. Alan fights cult members and hostile shadow monsters while navigating a bizarre, Twin Peaks-inspired world populated with strange and wonderful characters. Alan Wake 2 was nominated for game of the year at the 2023 Video Game Awards and won for best game direction, narrative, and art direction.

“This deal with Remedy isn’t just about adapting great games—-it’s about breaking new ground in how companies can collaborate. By backing Remedy’s move toward self-publishing, we’re putting our faith in their vision,” said Hector Sanchez, Annapurna’s President of Interactive and New Media. “We know from experience that Remedy is a first-class games development partner, and we’re excited to share their work with an even wider audience by bringing the Control and Alan Wake universes to film, television and beyond.”

Unapologetically, I am a Remedy Entertainment fanboy! I’ve been a fan of the studio since 2010’s Alan Wake. Control is JoBlo’s Unmade Movie narrator Bronwyn Kelly-Seigh’s (my wife) favorite game, alongside Diablo 4 and Stardew Valley. We’re both overjoyed by Annapurna joining forces with Remedy to bring more of this brilliant studio’s games and other projects to the grand stage. How about you? Are you a Control or Alan Wake fan? Please keep the original cast members from the games for whatever adaptation you pursue, though I’m probably barking up the wrong tree. Either way, let’s f**cking go!

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Reports of a game set in the universe of Matt Reeves’ The Batman are, apparently, greatly exaggerated. The internet was swirling with rumors of such a game’s existence on the morning of August 30, with many hoping that such a project was real. However, none other than James Gunn, the head of DC films, weighed in to…

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Reports of a game set in the universe of Matt Reeves’ The Batman are, apparently, greatly exaggerated. The internet was swirling with rumors of such a game’s existence on the morning of August 30, with many hoping that such a project was real. However, none other than James Gunn, the head of DC films, weighed in to…

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George R.R. Martin, your favorite character slayer and Elden Ring lore creator is taking time away from not finishing The Winds of Winter to air his grievances concerning HBO’s House of the Dragon. In a new blog post on his official website, Martin said he’d reveal “everything that’s gone wrong” with House of the Dragon, the latest live-action series set in the Game of Thrones universe. Martin co-created the show and is an executive producer, with the series based on his novel Fire and Blood.

Martin is taking umbrage with House of the Dragon’s latest season, particularly the Season 2 finale. Teasing a collection of critical posts on his blog, Martin wrote, “Do not look forward to other posts I need to write, about everything that’s gone wrong with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON…but I need to do that too, and I will. Not today, though.”

Martin adds, “This has not been a good year for anyone, with war everywhere and fascism on the rise… and on a more personal level, I have had a pretty wretched year as well, one full of stress, anger, conflict, and defeat. I need to talk about some of that, and I will, I will…”

Instead of rushing his upcoming posts out the door and giving his audience the wrong impression, Martin explained that he’s taking his time because he’s been traveling and wants to choose his comments carefully. It’s not all bad, though. Martin noted a “great” dragon battle in House of the Dragon Season 2, saying the team at HBO “knocked this one out of the castle.”

In contrast, Martin says House of the Dragon uses an incorrect sigil for the House Targaryen, using a four-legged dragon instead of the two-legged creature featured in the book. “They went with the bad sigil rather than the good one,” Martin wrote. “That sound you heard was me screaming, ‘No, no, no.’ Those damned extra legs have even wormed their way onto the covers of my books, over my strenuous objections.”

After reading Martin’s initial complaint about what HBO got wrong with House of the Dragon, fans are curious to learn about Martin’s other qualms with the adaptation. While extra legs on a dragon could feel like small potatoes to us, Martin is clearly affronted by his creation getting misrepresented. Woof. I wonder what he thinks of the final season of Game of Thrones, an event that almost tarnished the GOT brand in one fell swoop.

Did you watch the Season 2 finale for House of the Dragon? What other problems do you suspect Martin has with the show? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post George R.R. Martin vows to reveal “everything that’s gone wrong” with House of the Dragon after a dismal Season 2 finale appeared first on JoBlo.

Ubisoft’s big Call of Duty-like FPS, XDefiant, might only have until Season 3 to turn things around, increase its player count, and start making more money or the publisher could end post-launch updates and effectively kill the FPS.

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Ubisoft’s big Call of Duty-like FPS, XDefiant, might only have until Season 3 to turn things around, increase its player count, and start making more money or the publisher could end post-launch updates and effectively kill the FPS.

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Don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the third entry in Paramount’s live-action adaptation of the life and times of Sega’s speedy mascot. Don’t ask me if I just watched it again after typing that sentence. While the wait was excruciating, fans’ reactions to the first…

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Don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the third entry in Paramount’s live-action adaptation of the life and times of Sega’s speedy mascot. Don’t ask me if I just watched it again after typing that sentence. While the wait was excruciating, fans’ reactions to the first…

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Plot: “Napoleon: The Director’s Cut” stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor and military leader. The film is a fresh and personal look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine, played by Vanessa Kirby. The director’s cut delves deeper into Josephine’s origin story and features more extravagant costumes, new larger-than-life sets, and the previously unreleased Battle of Marengo scene. The audience is also given more details about Napoleon’s demise, from his attempted assassination to his failed invasion of Russia.

Review: When Ridley Scott’s Napoleon debuted in 2023, it received a less than enthusiastic welcome. While our own Chris Bumbray gave the film a positive score, he was the exception to the rule. The majority of critics and audiences found the film to be ambitious. Solid performances led by Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. Still, the running time and a lack of anything distinguishing the film from countless other historical biopics left Napoleon exiled when awards season came around. Ridley Scott consistently stated that he had a significantly longer cut of the film that would see the light of day on AppleTV+, but we heard nothing until now. AppleTV+ surprised everyone with the release of Napoleon: The Director’s Cut this week, complete with almost an hour of additional footage. Having seen the extended cut, I can say that while it makes some improvements with added focus on Vanessa Kirby’s Josephine, the rest of the added footage does little to alter the original reception the film received.

Ridley Scott is no stranger to director’s cuts with the new version of Napoleon, his eighth revision of one of his films, three of which were on Blade Runner alone. While his extended cut of Kingdom of Heaven has been proclaimed one of the definitive director’s cuts of all time, his cut of Napoleon does not fundamentally change the movie’s path, tone, or narrative. Most of Napoleon‘s budget was spent on the vast battle sequences, which remained unchanged. The footage added predominantly includes quieter moments. Few of the changes are entirely new scenes, but a minute or two here and there, which continue scenes in the theatrical cut. Watching the film, I had the theatrical cut running simultaneously to spot the changes, and almost none of them represented wholly new sequences we had not seen before. This gives the perception that the cuts were made to help with the pacing rather than their relevance to the overall narrative of Napoleon.

The biggest change over the first hour and a half of the film is an earlier introduction for Josephine, showing how the death of her first husband and subsequent imprisonment lead to her willingness to be courted by Napoleon. These added moments are intercut with Napoleon’s rise to prominence and offer a better glimpse at how Josephine’s fall allowed her to cross paths with the future Emperor. The official synopsis calls out the addition of the Battle of Marengo, which amounts to thirty seconds, but it is a pretty brutal thirty seconds. Multiple scenes expand upon the Russians and their perception of the French emperor, additional time spent with Napoleon marching back from Moscow in freezing conditions, and the shocking losses he experiences on that journey, directly leading to his first exile. The film’s final act remains relatively intact, with only a few minutes of added footage from Napoleon’s conversation with Wellesley (Rupert Everett) and some moments in his second exile.

Looking at the two cuts of Napoleon, the Director’s Cut proves Vanessa Kirby’s talents as an actress. By giving additional insight into Josephine’s personality, her control over Napoleon makes more sense. Kirby explains that Ridley Scott should have centered the film on her character and made Napoleon a supporting player in his own story. As good of an actor as Joaquin Phoenix is, his portrayal of Napoleon has an aloof and boring quality that does not work in this film. One additional scene shows Napoleon grieving the death of Josephine by crawling into her bed and covering himself with her blanket. This quiet moment shows the depths of Napoleon’s love for Josephine. But this scene feels offset by an added moment of the Emperor using the toilet and finding it full of blood. One scene feels pertinent to the character’s pathos, while the other is unnecessary. A more perfect analysis of this film may not be possible

David Scarpa, who began researching Napoleon with a cursory knowledge of the man he was writing about, aimed to emulate Ridley Scott’s feature film debut, The Duellists, and Milos Forman’s Oscar-winning Amadeus. There are certainly parallels between the brash and childish Mozart performance from Tom Hulce and Joaquin Phoenix’s spoiled brat take on Napoleon. Still, where Mozart’s portrayal fits in the tone of Amadeus, Phoenix feels incongruous in this film. Ridley Scott is a master filmmaker, and the epic battle sequences in Napoleon remain as striking as his work in Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator. Both films have a distinctiveness that makes them memorable films on their own, while Napoleon feels no different than countless movies that came before it. I had hoped there was excised footage from the battles to energize this film and give Ridley Scott a reason to justify turning this into a four-hour movie, but I am disappointed. There is no doubt about the quality of the production values or the cinematic scale of Napoleon, but that is no different than all of Ridley Scott’s aforementioned films.

While Ridley Scott initially said his director’s cut would run 250 minutes, the version released to AppleTV+ clocks in at 206 minutes. Whether that means there is another version of the film that could see the light of day or if this is the acclaimed filmmaker’s definitive vision, it is clear that Napoleon struggles with a weak screenplay that no amount of additional footage can rectify. My original take on the theatrical cut was a 6 out of 10, and this new cut bumps that score up just a single point thanks to the added layers to Vanessa Kirby’s performance. It does not redeem Joaquin Phoenix’s borderline-comedic performance or Ridley Scott’s overall lack of distinct vision for this film. Napoleon is a film that should have been a triumph thanks to the talent involved, but it is far too formulaic to make any lasting impression, something forty-eight additional minutes cannot alter.

Napoleon: The Director’s Cut

GOOD

7

The post Napoleon: The Director’s Cut Review appeared first on JoBlo.

Charli xcx is crawling out from under a mountain of underwear to follow up her sixth studio album with a role in Gregg Araki‘s (Kaboom, White Bird in a Blizzard) new thriller I Want Your Sex. The Grammy-nominated and Billboard Music Award-winning pop artist joins Olivia Wilde (Tron: Legacy, Don’t Worry Darling) and Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza, Saturday Night) for the forthcoming thriller coming from Black Bear.

Gregg Araki directs I Want Your Sex, a thriller exploring carnal desires, domination, and fantasy for a boundary-breaking, scantily clad slice of cinema. I Want Your Sex will mark Charli xcx’s second live-action role after starring alongside Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, and Barbie Ferreira in the Daniel Goldhaber-directed Faces of Death, a remake of John Alan Schwartz’s splatter horror documentary featuring a collection of death scenes, ranging from TV material to homemade Super 8 movies.

Gregg Araki directs I Want Your Sex from a script he wrote with Karley Sciortino. The film aims to ask the question: How far is too far? “When fresh-faced Elliot (Hoffman) lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon, and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse,” Deadline writes. “But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal, and murder.” Production for I Want Your Sex heats up in October in Los Angeles.

After dropping the albums Crash, How I’m Feeling Now, Charli, Sucker, True Romance, and 14, Charli xcx hit fans with 2024’s BRAT. The term BRAT quickly became a viral sensation, working its way into the Gen Alpha lexicon in record time. The term “BRAT” refers to women who unapologetically speak their minds. When Vice President Kamala Harris announced her intention to run against Donald Trump in this year’s election, Charli xcx and others swiftly coined the phrase “Kamala is BRAT,” a reference to the candidate’s “take no sh*t” attitude.

We know little about Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, though it sounds like a steamy, sassy, and potentially orgasmic time at the cinema. Please keep your hands where we can see them, folks.

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