Slingshot star Laurence Fishburne is taking a look back at his extensive movie resume to call out the films he's the most proud of. Pop culture is filled with movies starring Fishburne, from the original Matrix trilogy to Man of Steel and the John Wick franchise, but his next role comes as an astronaut in the psychological space thriller Slingshot. When your filmography is that wide, it can be hard to narrow down the projects that really resonate with you. However, Fishburne was recently up to the task, and the movies he's proud of may surprise you.

ComicBook spoke to Laurence Fishburne ahead of the theatrical release of Slingshot, where we asked him to name the performance he's most proud of that might have flown under the radar, and that he'd like audiences to go back and revisit if they missed it. You can find an exert from the interview in the player above.

"There's a thing I did for HBO called Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, which was based on a Walter Mosely novella of the same title," Fishburned revealed. "There's another little gem of a movie that I did, that I'm not sure many people saw. I also did another movie for HBO called Miss Evers' Boys, which was about the U.S. government's secret experiments on African American men back in the '30s about dealing with syphyllus and penicilin."

He added, "We were fortunate enough to be singled out by President [Bill] Clinton, who was the President at the time. The U.S. government actually made a formal apology to the victims of that experiment."

What is Slingshot about?

A psychological thriller starring Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne, Slingshot follows an elite trio of astronauts aboard a years-long, possibly compromised mission to Saturn's moon Titan. As the team gears up for a highly dangerous slingshot maneuver that will either catapult them to Titan or into deep space, it becomes increasingly difficult for one astronaut to maintain his grip on reality.

Directed by Mikael H?fstr?m, Slingshot stars Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, Emily Beecham, Tomer Capon, and David Morrissey. The movie opens in theaters on August 30th.

Bruce Campbell is an iconic actor known best for playing Ash in the Evil Dead franchise, but he's also got many other big projects under his belt. The star recently appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as Pizza Poppa, and he's known for projects such as Burn Notice, Sky High, Bubba Ho-Tep, and much more. Campbell also has a new project called Hysteria!, a "satanic panic" series that will premiere on Peacock next month. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Campbell at San Diego Comic-Con, and he teased what fans can expect from the new series.

"I'll get yelled at if I say too much, but I'll say just the right amount," Campbell teased. "It's a cool horror with a twist. Meaning, it's pretty interesting, psychological horror as well as demonic/satanic horror ... It's a small town in rural Michigan, my home state, set in the late '80s and I play the chief of police, Chief Dandridge. And what I like about it, the words are what got me. These days, if someone says, 'Hey Bruce, here's a new horror show you could be part of.' I'm like, 'Okay, let's see how good the words are.' Because it could be a piece of el crappo. So, the words were very good. They created a very rich character and a rich environment in this town."

"If this happened in a big city, no one would care," he continued. "But this is a small town, these people are not ready for this. And they don't know where it's gonna go and the audience will not know where it's gonna go or how it's going to end or how bad it's gonna get because you don't even know if this sh*t real or not. So, this is my favorite kind of horror where you go, 'Did I just see that?' Because they'll do stuff in the show, you go, 'What was that?' And then they'll cut to another scene. So, it's a cool show."

"And I couldn't even get myself in trouble by telling you too much, because I don't even know the twists and turns," Campbell explained. "I like the setting because what's also cool is nobody's texting. This is like '88. You're picking up the phone, you make phone calls. If nobody's there, it just keeps ringing. You can't even leave a message in '88. And if they're on the phone, you're not getting through. There's no call waiting in the '80s. There's ashtrays on tables, there's pencils and pens and pieces of paper in the police station. It's all just paper and telephones."

You can watch our interview with Campbell at the top of the page. Hysteria! premieres on Peacock on October 13th.

Everdell's charming cast of characters and stellar gameplay has made it one of tabletop's brightest gems, and thankfully the franchise shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Now Tabletop Tycoon has expanded the franchise once more with Welcome to Everdell, and as the name suggests, this entry is the perfect way to introduce new fans to the franchise. That said, Welcome to Everdell's all-ages approach to the series will also appeal to longtime fans as well, as it streamlines the beloved game into a more compact and less time consuming experience. ComicBook had the chance to speak to Tabletop Tycoon Founder Dan Yarrington and Welcome to Everdell Co-Designer James Wilson all about the game and what new fans and longtime fans will love once they jump in and give the game a try.

A Perfect Starting Point

Welcome to Everdell is designed as a one-stop-shop for those looking to jump into the Everdell world, and takes both scale and price into consideration. The other major element it considers is new fans who can grow with the game, so a younger player can make the experience more complex as they get older. "It's standalone. You don't have to worry about a bunch of expansions and stuff, very much like what you'll see at Monopoly or Jenga or something like that. There could be other versions of it, but it's not like, Hey, here's the 27 expansions, the Jenga that you have to learn and add on," Yarrington said.

"So the simplicity of it in a lot of ways is what makes that great, and then as the kids age, my kids were, my youngest was four, he's now eight. When we started working on this project, he was four. So now he's grown to the point where, okay, now you can play real, right? So now we can still play Welcome to Everdell, and we can just enjoy that, and that's any age. Like I said, there are people that are in their fifties and they're like, I like Welcome to Everdell more than Everdell," Yarrington said.

"It's also a lower price point so people can get into it. Everdell the regular game, standard edition, $75. So this is a third of that cost to be able to get that core Everdell experience as a full fledged complete game. It's not dumbed down, it's not stripped or anything like that. There's a lot of really cool stuff in there," Yarrington said.

Not Just a Kids Game

Welcome to Everdell was inspired by Wilson's kids, as one day the couple noticed they were playing with all of the pieces from the core Everdell game and having a wonderful time without actually playing the game. "They were happy and they just would do that for a long time. And my wife, who co-designed Welcome to Everdell with me and I were talking like, that's almost enough of a game for the younger kids to do that, and so we just started brainstorming, what if there was a way to play Everdell that still felt like Everdell, but that our really young kids could grasp as well and that we could enjoy," Wilson said. "The pieces were there and our kids were showing us what they wanted to do. We just let them guide us on how much they needed it to be or wanted it to be."

"We on purpose didn't want this to be a kids' game. We wanted this to be a game you can play with your kids. And that's a pretty big difference actually, because a lot of times the kids' game, the adults don't really get involved. They're not engaged," Wilson said. "And so we were so glad to get it to what we feel. It's at that spot where just like you've both been saying, and Dan in particular in the office, there's 50-year-old adults that say, I enjoy this game. And then there's kids that say, I love this game, I want to play it back to back. And that's what we wanted it to be, that it wasn't only for kids or something like that."

What The Future Holds

Welcome to Everdell is a wonderful entryway into the Everdell universe, and Yarrington teased that the franchise has all sorts of plans moving into the future, so those who jump in will have plenty to look forward to. "This is the first time that we've had something this accessible and this broadly available through Walmart now through this launch that people can get it at that low a price point and jump into the game," Yarrington said. "And so we're hoping that it expands beyond the tons of people who have already played Everdell as a line. And yes, we do have plans for, like I said, we're in year six, we just had the five year anniversary last year, so we've got to plan out to at least year 10 and we'll keep going as long as people want to keep buying stuff. That's the plan."

Welcome to Everdell is designed as a complete experience for a wide age range, and part of what makes it so great is the fact that it's so self-contained. That said, that doesn't mean there aren't ways to bring some of the expansion content into that corner of the world. "Now, does it mean that there could never be a Far Shore themed welcome to Everdell? No, of course not. That's possible. But welcome to Everdelll is designed as like, Hey, I come in, I play this game," Yarrington said.

"I am so excited that it's able to be widely accessible and we hope that people at Walmart will pick it up not knowing what it is, and be really surprised to discover a little bit deeper level of game than they thought was out there and something that everybody, literally, everybody at the table can go, this is really engaging," Wilson said. "I'm having a really fun time with this and this world is exciting, and if that's where they stay and they never go beyond it, that's still great that we were able to give that. But if it wets their appetite for something a little more and they go towards something like Everdell later, then that's exciting for them because the world has really opened up because it's a huge world as we know who's in the industry. There's so many great games to explore out there, but there are a lot of people still who haven't found that and discovered that game that gets them in there. So if Welcome to Everdell can be that, I mean that would be really cool."

Welcome to Everdell is available at Walmart, and you can order the game right here.

Have you tried Welcome to Everdell yet? You can talk all things gaming with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb!

Last year, The Toxic Avenger reboot had its festival premiere at Fantastic Fest, and the movie was met with lots of praise. After its debut, the film ended up on Rotten Tomatoes with a 92% critics score after 25 reviews. After years in development, the film finally found its star in Game of Thrones alum, Peter Dinklage. Unfortunately, it's been nearly a year since the movie premiered, and there's still no word on a release date. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Dinklage about his new western/thriller, The Thicket. During the interview, Dinklage provided a disappointing update about The Toxic Avenger's release.

"No, I'm not a producer on it. I don't know," Dinklage replied when asked if he knew anything about The Toxic Avenger's release date. "I do want it to get out there into the world because it was a really big hit at Fantastic Fest in Austin, and Macon Blair, the writer/director who is also in The Thicket ... He's incredible. He's one of my favorite people and favorite artists. So hopefully it will have its day in the toxic sun."

You can watch our interview with Dinklage, which also includes his The Thicket co-star, Juliette Lewis, at the top of the page.

What Is The Toxic Avenger About?

The Toxic Avenger is based on the long-running franchise created by legendary schlock film studio Troma. You can read a description of the film below:

"While the original film (which premiered in 1984 -- almost 40 years ago!) followed the fate of Melvin Ferd Junko III (Mitch Cohen), who goes from zero to toxic hero in a case of bullying gone awry, Macon Blair's contemporary take follows a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength all his own. Peter Dinklage stars as downtrodden janitor Winston Gooze who, after falling into a vat of toxic waste, becomes none other than The Toxic Avenger. This timely reimagining is up to its eyeballs in environmental themes as Winston goes up against the evil forces of greed and corruption to save his son, his friends, and his community.

Even as this story exists on its own terms, the spirit undoubtedly remains connected to the original. Troma fans old and new will be pleased to know that the film has been rated R for violence and gore -- as per Troma tradition."

"It's not a remake. I just like guerrilla filmmaking," Dinklage previously told Empire. "Those movies - they just made them, no matter what. They just did it because they love doing it. Some of them are not the best, but some are so much fun. When you make movies too clean, it can distance the audience. They want to feel the dirt under their fingernails. I think those Troma films definitely dipped the audience in toxic waste."

Stay tuned for more updates about The Toxic Avenger. The Thicket hits theaters on September 6th,

Deadpool & Wolverine made its way into theaters almost a month ago, putting Marvel fans through a wild journey across the Marvel multiverse. Among the list of irreverent characters who did not factor into Deadpool & Wolverine's universe-hopping frenzy was Pizza Poppa, portrayed by Bruce Campbell in 2022's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. While speaking to ComicBook at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 to promote his upcoming series Hysteria!, Campbell offered a frank explanation for why Pizza Poppa doesn't make any sort of appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine.

"He's not in that timeline. He's in a different timeline," Campbell revealed, before adding, "Well, here's what I say to Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. Get a room. What's with the bromance? We get it. Thank you. Next. Go back to your soccer team, Ryan."

Will Deadpool and Wolverine Return in the MCU?

Given Deadpool & Wolverine's multiversal bent and massive box office sucess, and the looming threat of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars in the coming years, fans have naturally wondered if Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman will reprise their roles in the future. In an interview with Variety prior to the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, the duo were tight-lipped about what their onscreen futures might hold.

"I don't know," Reynolds answered. "Yeah, we'll see. Yeah."

"Clearly, this is our first major interview of this press tour," Jackman added. "I'm not sure how to answer."

What Is Deadpool & Wolverine About?

In Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) will change the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). The film also stars Matthew Macfadyen as Paradox, and Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, with the return of Deadpool alums Morena Baccarin as Vanessa Carlysle, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Stefan Kapi?i? as Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Rob Delaney as Peter, and Lewis Tan as Shatterstar. Aaron Stanford is returning as Pyro from the X-Men film series, with Jennifer Garner rumored to return as Elektra Natchios.

Kevin Feige, Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy and Lauren Shuler Donner produce with Louis D'Esposito, Wendy Jacobson, Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, George Dewey and Simon Kinberg serving as executive producers. Deadpool & Wolverine is written by Ryan Reynolds & Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick & Zeb Wells & Shawn Levy. Deadpool & Wolverine was released exclusively in theaters on July 26th.

John Woo remade one of his iconic films, and it dropped on Peackcock today. Woo's The Killer was released back in 1989, and it starred Chow Yun-Fat as a hitman. Now, Game of Thrones and Fast Saga star Nathalie Emmanuel is taking on the role. The new cast also includes Omar Sy (Lupin) as Sey, Eric Cantona (The Fragile Colossus, Elizabeth) as Gobert, Tch?ky Karyo (Le Femme Nikita, GoldenEye) as Tessier, and Gr?gory Montel (Call My Agent!, Transatlantic) as Jax. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Emmanuel and Sy, and they revealed a real motorcycle on fire jumped over them during an action-packed scene.

"No," Sy replied with a laugh when asked if he ever imagined he'd get to shoot guns at a motorcycle going over his head. "Actually that's why it's amazing to do what we do and having the opportunity with this movie ... Shooting a John Woo movie in Paris ... just beyond the dream ... I've personally never thought about it, but we are so grateful and happy to have that experience. And to see the movie at the end is just amazing, and we're so proud."

"Yeah, we did," Emmanuel confirmed when asked if a real motorcycle went over their heads. "We did, actually," Sy added.

"That stunt performer, I'm sad to say, I don't know his name, but he really did something that I hadn't seen before with my own eyes of jumping over like a whole set whilst on fire," Emmanuel added. "So he's doing that blind..."

"In the situation, after the jump there is ... I think like four or five meters before another wall," Sy explained. "So he has to land and break ... you have like 5 meters to break. He's an amazing performer."

You can watch our interview with Emmanuel and Sy at the top of the page.

What Is The Killer About?

You can read the movie's synopsis here: "The Killer stars The Fast Saga's Nathalie Emmanuel as Zee, a mysterious and infamous assassin known, and feared, in the Parisian underworld as the Queen of the Dead. But when, during an assignment from her shadowy mentor and handler Finn (Sam Worthington), Zee refuses to kill a blinded young woman, Jenn (Diana Silvers), in a Paris nightclub, the decision will disintegrate Zee's alliances, attract the attention of a savvy police investigator Sy (Omar Sy), and plunge her into a sinister criminal conspiracy that will set her on a collision course with her own past."

The screenplay for The Killer hails from Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River), and is produced by Oscar winner Charles Roven (Oppenheimer, American Hustle) and Alex Gartner (Uncharted, Warcraft) for Atlas Entertainment, and by John Woo and Lori Tilkin deFelice (Silent Night) for Better Tomorrow Films. The film's executive producers are Terence Chang and Robin Fisichella.

The Killer is now streaming on Peacock.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is returning for its second season on Prime Video this month, and ComicBook recently talked to some of the show's cast and showrunners about what fans can expect from the new episodes. There will be many returning characters this season, including Benjamin Walker's Gil-galad, the elf and the last high king of the Noldor. Naturally, Walker has had to speak some Elvish along the way, but now he's taking things a step further by singing in Quenya. The actor explained to ComicBook that it was a "humbling" experience.

"I mean, those moments in a career come along once, twice where you get to do all the things that you love and get the kind of support that I had," Walker explained. "I mean, it's Bear McCreary's music, Leith McPherson is helping me not sound like a dope. And I'm on the set of Rings of Power doing one of the most quintessentially Elvish things that Tolkien created ... You just have to pinch yourself. It was humbling, is the best word for it."

You can watch our interview with Walker, which also features some fun moments from Ismael Cruz C?rdova (Arondir), at the top of the page.

What Is The Rings of Power Season 2 About?

"What I know and what I can say for a fact is that it's going to be darker, and it's going to be edgier and more character-driven," Season 2 director Charlotte Br?ndstr?m shared with MovieZine earlier this year. "I still think that we have some very interesting episodes coming up. I watched all of them over Christmas, just the cuts. I think it's going to be a very good season. We tried to make it more gritty, a little bit more dirty I guess. And not in the image, but to make it as authentic as possible. We have some very surprising twists and turns in it as well."

The Rings of Power cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz C?rdova, Charles Edwards, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani.

Stay tuned for updates on Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is expected to premiere on Prime Video on August 29th.

The Boys' star Erin Moriarty's latest film Catching Dust opens in select theaters -- as well as arrives on Apple TV, Prime Video and more, on Friday, August 23rd and while fans are used to seeing Moriarty as the superpowered Starlight, the new film sees her in a very different role as Geena, whose life with her criminal husband Clyde (Jai Courtney) in their isolated Texas hideout takes a turn when a couple from New York arrives. The film is part drama, part thriller and has a rather unique title, one that filmmaker Stuart Gatt explained in an interview with ComicBook comes from a slang term used in the South.

"It's like a slang term that you here in the South when people say something hasn't been used for a while, 'sat catching dust'... 'that been there catching dust.' So, when we were, the producer and I, were in Big Bend, the guy was like 'my thing sat there catching dust.' They'd say stuff like that in terms of something that's not being utilized and it was meant to be."

In addition to Moriarty and Courtney, Catching Dust stars Dina Shihabi and Ryan Corr. The film is produced by Gatt, Mark David, Jon Katz, and Edward R. Pressman. The film is Gatt's feature film debut with Gatt being perhaps best known for his short film, My Beautiful White Skin which starred Red Notice and The Umbrella Academy's Ritu Arya.

Moriarty Reveals Which Supe Starlight Should Kill in The Boys' Final Season

While fans will be excited to see Moriarty in Catching Dust, they also eagerly anticipate the fifth and final season of Prime Video's The Boys. With that series coming to an end -- and with Season 4 making it clear that no one is safe -- many are wondering who will survive. ComicBook asked Moriarty which member of The Seven she thinks Starlight should get to kill in the final episodes and she had a surprising answer.

"Listen, I personally, I think that as of this past season, all bets are off. I think that we had certain predictions. I think she should kill Homelander. I don't think that want or desire will or can be met. Who knows? But she's got to at least get The Deep, let me kill the fish guy at least, bare minimum for God's sake...But it needs to be under circumstances where she's provoked at first because that's her. She can't just go and kill someone. They need to attack her and it's self-defense because she's Annie, but she's got to get someone and I feel like people weren't rooting for that as much until this past season. But that concept of a cathartic karma. I think we really need it. So, all of the above, all of them."

She also noted a team-up she'd like to see.

"I want Ashley and whoever she becomes and I have to team up to take them all down. How about that?" she said.

Catching Dust opens in select theaters as well as debuts on Apple TV, Prime Video, and more on Friday, August 23rd.

Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is debuting on Prime Video this month, and the creatives behind the show have teased a lot of excitement in the new episodes. However, it was revealed earlier this summer that the show will be continuing without a major character. Nazanin Boniadi will not be returning as Bronwyn for Season 2, and it's been confirmed that the character will not be recast. Ismael Cruz C?rdova, who plays Arondir, the elf who falls in love with Bronwyn, recently spoke with ComicBook and explained how Bronwyn's absence changes Season 2.

"It's funny to talk about love in this way because it alters it entirely and at the same, not at all. Because it is just a continuation of the depth of the love that they have for each other," C?rdova explained. "This love story is always filled with a pull, you know, a push and a pull and it's just another stage of that. So, whether she is on screen or not on screen, her character, her energy, the love, the romance, the trust, the promises are in every single frame of the entirety of our story."

"This is a minefield," he admitted. "But people will feel it. I'm just gonna say that. If you've ever been in love, you'll know what the hell is going on."

You can watch our interview with C?rdova at the top of the page.

Why Did Nazanin Boniadi Leave The Rings of Power?

It was reported that Boniadi was leaving the series due to her hiatus from acting as she advocates for Women in Iran. However, Boniadi took to Instagram in June to break her silence on the news and clarify why she won't be returning to the show.

"I made the choice not to return for season two of 'Rings of Power.' This was unrelated to my subsequent decision to prioritize my advocacy. Throughout my career, the values I have held most dear are honesty, empathy, and integrity. My character Bronwyn was committed to these same ideals in striving for a fairer world, which is why I connected so deeply with her. I look forward to sharing my latest projects with you soon," Boniadi wrote.

What Is The Rings of Power Season 2 About?

"What I know and what I can say for a fact is that it's going to be darker, and it's going to be edgier and more character-driven," Season 2 director Charlotte Br?ndstr?m shared with MovieZine earlier this year. "I still think that we have some very interesting episodes coming up. I watched all of them over Christmas, just the cuts. I think it's going to be a very good season. We tried to make it more gritty, a little bit more dirty I guess. And not in the image, but to make it as authentic as possible. We have some very surprising twists and turns in it as well."

The Rings of Power cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz C?rdova, Charles Edwards, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani.

Stay tuned for updates on Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is expected to premiere on Prime Video on August 29th.

The cast of Star Trek: Lower Decks are giving their take on what their favorite moments and cameos are before the series wraps up. The Paramount+ original animated series is a spinoff of the popular Star Trek franchise and focuses on the crew of the lesser known Cerritos in the 24th century. After four seasons on the streaming service, Star Trek: Lower Decks is ending its run with Season 5, though there is some time before fans have to say their goodbyes. The show's cast and showrunner recently shared the episodes they're looking forward to the most, and looked back at which episodes were their favorites.

ComicBook spoke to Star Trek: Lower Decks' creator/showrunner Mike McMahan and actors Jerry O'Connell, Tawny Newsome, and No?l Wells at San Diego Comic-Con, where we asked them to look back at the animated comedy and share the things that they will remember. When asked what episode they're looking forward to the audience seeing, Jerry O'Connell replied, "Probably the finale. I found it to be very emotional." When asked what his character Jack Ransom is doing, he teased, "You'll have to see," with Newsome and McMahan also chiming in with positive Jack Ransom feedback.

"I really love the Jennifer episode... I love the stuff [D'Vana] Tendi gets to do this season," Newsome said. "It really warms my heart the way this show... this 22-minute nonsense show... is the one that has advanced Orion canon so much. As a rabid fan, no other show has given as much to the Orion culture, so it's wild that we've expanded that."

Wells added, "I think the premiere sets up the season so well. From there, it's really going to take off."

Star Trek: Lower Decks showrunner teases final season cameos

Showrunner Mike McMahan revealed that the final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks will include some special cameos that even he wasn't sure they'd be able to pull off.

"There's also some classic legacy cameos this season that are pretty bonkers," he said. "They're sort of sprinkled throughout, but since we had a head's up that this would be our last, we started going to the wish list and everyone wanted to be on. It was pretty wild. I was sure we weren't going to get everyone, but you'll see some familiar faces this season."

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power ended Season 1 with the big reveal that (SPOILERS) Sauron had been lurking in our heroes' midst all along, impersonating the fallen Southlands king, Halbrand (Charlie Vickers). By the time that Elven warrior Galadriel (Morfyyd Clark) figured out that her trusted comrade was the dark lord Sauron, it was too late: Sauron had already manipulated the Elves and their smiths (including the famous Celebrimbor) into creating the first three Rings of Power, which he "gifted" to the Elves.

Even though Galadriel now knows that Halbrand is Sauron, she still doesn't realize the full danger that the Rings of Power represent. As Rings of Power Season 2 begins, Galadriel will also begin her connection to the ring Nenya (the Ring of Water), the object that will shape Galadriel's fate.

"She's about to have a life-changing thing happen to her. She's about to become acquainted with Nenya, her ring," Clark said at a Rings of Power promotional event last year. "It's really exciting to see how the magic creeps in."

When ComicBook recently sat down with the cast and creators of The Rings of Power, we asked series star Morfyyd Clark to describe how Nenya's presence will affect Galadriel in Season 2:

"So the rings are these new kinds of art and science and magic, and their power is unknown to anyone in Middle-earth. And they won't reveal their power simply," Clark explained. "They're quite complex, and they're beings in themselves... but also... they don't give themselves away quickly if that makes sense: You're not going to put a ring on and be like 'Oh and it does this!' It's a journey and it's a magic that's kind of whirling and changing - and changing with Middle-earth. The darkness of Sauron coming back is affecting everything in Middle-earth, and the rings are part of Middle-earth."

Indeed, the established lore of J.R.R. Tolkien is dense on the subject of the Rings of Power - particularly the Elven rings - and their path through Middle-earth's history. Galadriel is the only Elf to be the sole holder of her ring throughout the centuries - all the way up to the Third Age of Lord of the Rings, where the power of Nenya has extended her lifetime and given her the power of light to establish the woodland realm of Lothl?rien, as a save haven from Sauron's evil. Those films hinted at the precarious balance of power that comes with rings - a relationship The Rings of Power Season 2 will get to delve much deeper into.

The Rings of Power Season 2 stars Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz C?rdova, Charles Edwards, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani. Season 1 star Nazanin Boniadi will not be returning as the healer Bronwyn, having moved on from acting. It will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on August 29th.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1 ended on the big twist of revealing that one of the "heroes" of Middle-earth that we'd come to trust - the former 'King of the Southlands' known as "Halbrand" - was actually the dark lord Sauron in disguise. Actor Charlie Vickers was a standout of the season in his dual role as Halbrand and Sauron - and in The Rings of Power Season 2, Vickers will literally and figuratively take on a new face, as Sauron slips into the guise of "Annatar, the Lord of Gifts," an Elven figure supposedly sent by the Valar (the 'gods' of Middle-earth).

While talking with ComicBook about The Rings of Power Season 2, Charlie Vickers broke down how he's changing his performance to play the Annatar version of Sauron in Rings of Power Season 2:

"I think that internally, the characters are one in the same, but the way that internal world manifests is externally is very different," Vickers explained. "They [Halbrand and Annatar] both seek the same thing; I guess Halbrand made a breakthrough at the end of the first season, which then gave him the inspiration for Annatar. But everything with Annatar is, is for Celebrimbor."

In the lore of Lord of the Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien, Sauron takes on the visage of Annatar in order befriend Celebrimbor, the Elven master smith who resided in Eregion. Through Annatar's influence, Celebrimbor and the Elves created the first three Eleven Rings of Power - Vilya, Narya, and Nenya - and started the process of bending all of Middle-earth to his will, through the One Ring.

Charlie Vickers continued to explain how the 'external manifestation' of Sauron's identity as Annatar required him to change the entire mannerisms of his performance:

"I had to develop a different way of moving and a different way of speaking, which was really, really, rewarding and fun as a performer, to delve into that. And it was a slow process of developing it, which we changed some things along the way, but it was really, really, rewarding."

The Rings of Power Season 2 Explained

Synopsis: In Season Two of The Rings of Power, Sauron has returned. Cast out by Galadriel, without army or ally, the rising Dark Lord must now rely on his own cunning to rebuild his strength and oversee the creation of the Rings of Power, which will allow him to bind all the peoples of Middle-earth to his sinister will. Building on Season One's epic scope and ambition, the new season plunges even its most beloved and vulnerable characters into a rising tide of darkness, challenging each to find their place in a world that is increasingly on the brink of calamity. Elves and dwarves, orcs and men, wizards and Harfoots... as friendships are strained and kingdoms begin to fracture, the forces of good will struggle ever more valiantly to hold on to what matters to them most of all... each other.

The Rings of Power Season 2 cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz C?rdova, Charles Edwards, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani. Season 1 star Nazanin Boniadi will not be returning as the healer Bronwyn, having moved on from acting.

The Rings of Power Season 1 will stream for free on Samsung TV Plus for a two-week window starting on today, Thursday, August 15th. Season 2 will start streaming on August 29th on Prime Video.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is going to be giving Oppenheimer vibes, according to showrunner Patrick McKay. ComicBook got a chance to speak with the cast and crew of The Rings of Power Season 2, and one of the big focuses of that discussion was the show actually getting to its titular subject: the Rings of Power. Mainstream viewers probably remember the One Ring of Sauron, which was the major MacGuffin of director Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy; however, Rings of Power Season 2 will be getting so much deeper into the lore of J.R.R. Tolkien, explore the creation of the rings and exploring how their ill-fated power works.

When asked about how The Rings of Power Season 2 creative team approached the depiction of the rings' power, Patrick McKay pointed to the example of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer as a thematic blueprint:

"Part of the fun of Season 2 is you're in the room where the decisions are made and the rings are being built," McKay explained. "However, you're also in the room with the people who put them on for the first time and don't know exactly what's going to happen. We've sort of been likening it to Oppenheimer: You're dealing with this world-changing power and nobody knows exactly whether it's going to be for good or ill. Maybe a little bit of both. And a big part of the season is watching how rings change the way elves see themselves; how it affects their world, and discovering new powers and abilities along the way. But also the dwarves, who are dealing with rings that Sauron was directly involved in their creation, and how does that affects people. So I think... what is potentially... a stumbling block is that the rings do a lot of different things. But this season, for fans and non-fans alike, you get to see for the first time - along with the characters - what they do. So hopefully it's a great entry point for people who maybe didn't understand the lore before."

In case the reference needs further explanation: Nolan's Oppenheimer looked at the pivotal life of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and all the cutting-edge theories of quantum physics that led him and his eventual team of collaborators to create the first atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, helping to end WWII. At the same time, Oppenheimer's work helped usher in the entire Atomic Age of humanity, and with it also ushered in the threat of total nuclear annihilation, which still hangs over our world today, almost a century after Oppenheimer began working out his theories. The correlation to Sauron secretly influencing the creation of the Rings of Power and their distribution across Middle-earth is, therefore, an apt one.

The Rings of Power Season 2 stars Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz C?rdova, Charles Edwards, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani. Season 1 star Nazanin Boniadi will not be returning as the healer Bronwyn, having moved on from acting. It will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on August 29th.

Actor Scott Eastwood is known for his action-hero roles in films like Suicide Squad, Pacific Rim Uprising, and the Fast Saga franchise, but he's taking on a darker kind of role in the new film 1992 (2024). The movie stars Tyrese Gibson as a man from inner-city Los Angeles, who sees things go from bad to worse on the night of the LA Riots, following the Rodney King verdict. As the city descends into anarchy, a crew of thieves (led by the late Ray Liotta) tries to pull off an ambitious heist - only to find Tyrese's character and his son stumbling into their midst.

Scott Eastwood plays Riggin Bigby, the top lieutenant in the crew of thieves led by "Lowell" (Liotta). While sitting down to talk with ComicBook, Eastwood made it clear that filming 1992 wasn't just another action-thriller experience: it was a crash course in reconsidering a dark part of American history:

"I was around for that [the LA Riots], but I was... eight? So I do remember it; I remember my parents watching it; I remember it being a big, big, deal, and everyone's eyes were glued to the TV. So, I think recreating it... I was connected in some way and learning more about really what happened and out in Simi Valley, [California] I wasn't really aware that the verdict... how that had sort of gone down, and then it started the snowball effect of it all. So I thought it was... You learn something new every day, right? So I thought that was interesting to recreate."

1992 Movie Cast, Synopsis & Release Date

Synopsis: In 1992, Mercer (Tyrese Gibson) is desperately trying to rebuild his life and his relationship with his son (Christopher A'mmanuel) amidst the turbulent 1992 LA uprising following the Rodney King verdict. Across town, another father and son (Ray Liotta and Scott Eastwood) put their own strained relationship to the test as they plot a dangerous heist to steal catalytic converters, which contain valuable platinum, from the factory where Mercer works. As tensions rise in Los Angeles and chaos erupts, both families reach their boiling points when they collide in this tense crime-thriller.

1992 (2024) stars Tyrese Gibson, Cl? Bennett, Dylan Arnold, Christopher A'mmanuel, Michael Beasley, Ori Pfeffer, Tosin Morohunfola, Oleg Taktarov, with Scott Eastwood, and Ray Liotta in one of his final film roles, It is directed by Ariel Vromen from a screenplay by Sascha Penn and Ariel Vromen and a story by Sascha Penn. Producers inlcude Ariel Vromen, Andreas Rommel, Maurice Fadida, Sascha Penn, and Adam Kolbrenner.

1992 will be released in theaters on August 30th. Check out more of interviews with the cast HERE.

Claudio Castagnoli is seeking his first piece of championship gold in All Elite Wrestling. The Swiss Superman joined AEW in June 2022, debuting as a member of the Blackpool Combat Club and defeating Zack Sabre Jr. in the process. Weeks later, Castagnoli captured the Ring of Honor World Championship and established himself as a cornerstone of the recently relaunched brand while simultaneously competing in multi-man matches alongside his BCC stablemates on AEW TV. After losing the ROH Title to Eddie Kingston last September, Castagnoli directed all of his attention to AEW, and that has led him to a showdown with The Rainmaker.

Claudio Castagnoli Hypes Kazuchika Okada Match

Castagnoli is set to challenge Kazuchika Okada for the AEW Continental Championship tonight on AEW Dynamite. This marks the third time that the two men have shared a ring together but the first time it is happening in a singles capacity.

"The question is how does Okada prepare for me? I feel I'm always preparing for the very best every day," Castagnoli told ComicBook. "I guess we'll find out tonight how that really works out because I don't really adjust my training for one single person. I push myself to be better and I like to measure myself up against the best. I hope I'm going to face The Rainmaker. We all know the real Rainmaker, not the one we've been seeing over the last couple of months."

Those last couple of months have seen Okada embrace villainy, as he has aligned himself with The Elite and has regularly taken shortcuts to retain his title.

"I've known Okada for over 15 years," Castagnoli continued. "I've known him since before he became The Rainmaker. I've known him since before I went to WWE, I think maybe even before I went to Ring of Honor. I've known him for a very long time. It was amazing to see his transformation into The Rainmaker and to see what he has achieved, and I've always tried to keep up with what's going on in the wrestling world. I was always curious to see how we would match up."

The opponent may be new to Castagnoli, but the location is all too familiar. Castagnoli vs. Okada goes down on AEW Dynamite's Welsh debut, as it is set to emanate from the Utilita Arena in Cardiff, Wales. Castagnoli last wrestled there in 2019 when he defeated Ilja Dragunov at NXT UK Takeover: Cardiff.

"It's always been amazing in Europe in general," Castagnoli reflected on competing in front of European crowds. "I have some very fond memories of live events there. I have really, really fond memories of my match with Ilja at that NXT Takeover. That match was very special to me and it was cool to get in the ring with him and see how good he is firsthand."

As of this writing, neither Castagnoli nor Okada is scheduled for AEW ALL IN: London, AEW's biggest pay-per-view event of the year, which goes down in just four days. When asked if a victory tonight would mean a defense at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, Castagnoli stayed quiet, but teased that something is in the works.

"I guess we have to wait and see," Castagnoli teased. "Right after my match, I'm going to go to Mexico City for the Grand Prix and then I'll come back for Wembley, so [I have a] full schedule. I'm super excited and I'm glad that the fans are still excited to see me wrestle. There's some good stuff in store."

Castagnoli challenges Okada for the AEW Continental Championship tonight on AEW Dynamite, which airs at 8 PM ET on TBS.

DC's Watchmen has made its way into a new medium, with the first installment in a two-part animated movie making its debut on multiple platforms this month. The iconic comic storyline is brought to life with the help of an all-star ensemble cast, including Titus Welliver, who voices the shady private eye Rorschach. Welliver is no stranger to embodying hard-boiled detectives, having starred on the Bosch television franchise for the past decade. While speaking to ComicBook about his involvement with Watchmen: Chapter 1, Welliver made the connection between his onscreen portrayals of both Rorschach and Bosch's Harry Bosch.

"I think the similarity is that Rorschach is relentless in the same way that Harry Bosch is," Welliver explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "I mean, there's a kind of obsessive nature to the character. Even his attire is a throwback to the gumshoes -- the fedora and the raincoat and all that. And Harry Bosch obviously is not as dark as Rorschach, but there's a weird similarity coming from a really bad and traumatic childhood. There are some similarities there. That's what made it kind of fun, was doing that. I've always said, I don't know why somebody doesn't do an animated series of Bosch. It would be really cool if they could pull that off. But I'd be a purist, man. I'd say, 'Well, it's gotta be cell animation.'"

What Is the Watchmen Animated Movie About?

In Watchmen: Chapter 1, in an alternate world history set in 1985, the murder of a government sponsored superhero draws his outlawed colleagues out of retirement and into a mystery that threatens to upend their personal lives and the world itself.

The cast of the Watchmen animated movie includes Titus Welliver as Rorschach, Matthew Rhys as Nite Owl, Katee Sackhoff as Silk Spectre, Michael Cerveris as Doctor Manhattan, and Troy Baker as Ozymandias.

Will Bosch: Legacy Return for Season 3?

In the same interview with ComicBook, Welliver provided a long-awaited update on the latest chapter of the Bosch saga, the forthcoming third season of Bosch: Legacy.

"We don't have a date yet. I have to imagine that it will come sometime in 2025, hopefully early in 2025. They're shooting the spinoff Ballard with Maggie Q and we introduced her character, Renee Ballard, in our tenth episode of Bosch: Legacy in this season three that's yet to come out so I imagine they'd want to kind of try to release those within some proximity of each other," Welliver said. "I'm actually shooting this week on the first episode. I'm contracted to do three episodes for this first season of Ballard so, yeah, I hope we get some sense of a release date, but that would be my suspicion. It would be somewhere around there, fingers crossed. But all I can say in advance is that our producers every year just seem to raise the bar on themselves and so I'm excited for this third season to come out because I think it's truly one of the best and I mean, including Bosch, in the ten years that I've been doing this. It's a really, really substantive season for us."

Watchmen: Chapter 1 is available exclusively on Digital as August 13, followed by an arrival on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on August 27. Watchmen: Chapter 2 is set to debut later in 2024.

AEW's Willow Nightingale has been in an intense feud with her TBS Champion and best friend Kris Statlander for quite a few months. Things got sour between them after Stokely Hathaway began meddling in their friendship, eventually leading to him attacking her at Double or Nothing in May. Statlander consoled her friend but it turns out it was all a ruse. She ended up kicking her down, soldifying her heel turn and allowing Mercedes Mon? to win the TBS title.

At this year's San Diego Comic-Con, ComicBook sat down with Nightingale to discuss her boiling personal feud with Stat and where she foresees it going from here. "You know, I think there are so many things that people can think when they hear wrestling," she said. "They think of the rage, the anger, the highs and the lows, but like heartbreak is a hard one. That's a hard one to move on from and Kris Statlander is somebody I was friends with for so long, like even before there was an AEW.

To be backstabbed by her, to have a big moment and have it kind of like interfered with and like her muddle it, it hurts. So, you know, I could be a mature adult and move on and try and find another friend, but this is professional wrestling. I'm channeling the heartbreak into rage and I want to beat her up. Obviously, I'm not the one who calls the shots. I can't just be like, 'give me a match!' But I'm hoping my boss will schedule something that is particularly violent because that is the mood I'm in when I see Kris Statlander."

Nightingale will get that opportunity this weekend at AEW All In London live from Wembley Stadium. Teaming with Tomohiro Ishii against Stokely and Statlander, the two will finally meet in the ring after months of building. Statlander previously cheated to earn a CMLL World Women's Championship opportunity against Nightingale. AEW All In takes place live on pay-per-view starting Sunday, August 25 at 12 p.m. ET for those in the United States. This will be the second time AEW has held a stadium show in the United Kingdom, the first being last year's inaugural AEW All In show. That will change next year when they go to Texas instead, but AEW President Tony Khan has reassured fans they will be back in the U.K. soon.

Stay tuned to ComicBook for news and updates on AEW.

If there's something that The Boys fans should have picked up on in season 4 it's that no one is safe, especially as major characters like Victoria Neuman and were killed off. With season 5 of The Boys approaching though, and the clock ticking for certain supes, people are wondering who will survive and what will be left of them. Speaking with ComicBook in an interview for the movie Catching Dust, we asked The Boys star Erin Moriarty the big question, which member of The Seven should Starlight get the honor of killing in the final episodes? Moriarty's initial response was a simple one, "You know, which one, come on," but the actress took it deeper:

"Listen, I personally, I think that as of this past season, all bets are off. I think that we had certain predictions. I think she should kill Homeander. I don't think that want or desire will or can be met. Who knows? But she's got to at least get The Deep, let me kill the fish guy at least, bare minimum for God's sake...But it needs to be under circumstances where she's provoked at first because that's her. She can't just go and kill someone. They need to attack her and it's self defense because she's Annie, but she's got to get someone and I feel like people weren't rooting for that as much until this past season. But that concept of a cathartic karma. I think we really need it. So all of the above, all of them."

One character that Moriarty noted as perhaps being safe from her wrath is the new Black Noir, who is a supe that didn't ask for any of this and is in fact a replacement by Vought. Moriarty went on to note that there's a team-up that she would like to see in The Boys season 5, adding: "I want Ashley and whoever she becomes and I had to team up to take them all down. How about that?"

Moriarty can next be seen in Catching Dust, premiering in select theaters and available on Apple TV, Prime Video, and more on August 23rd. The Boys season 5 is currently without a release date, but all four seasons are currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

In The Boys season 4, Karl Urban stars once again as Billy Butcher, leader of The Boys, which also includes Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, Laz Alonso as M.M., Tomer Capone as Frenchie, and Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko Miyashiro. Some of the "supes" featured in the series include Antony Starr as Homelander, Jessie T. Usher as A-Train, and Chace Crawford as The Deep. Other stars of The Boys include Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett, CEO of Vought International, and Claudia Doumit as Victoria Neuman.

Earlier this month, Prime Video premiered Jackpot!, a Paul Feig-directed action-comedy that effectively merges the worlds of Grand Theft Auto and The Purge. As the story goes, the state of California hosts a regular lottery with a high-figure cash prize. Whoever wins that day's lottery has to survive until sundown to claim their prize, as lottery rules allow fellow Los Angeleans to kill the lottery winner and take hold of their prize. Katie (Awkwafina) accidentally enrolls and wins, leading her to enlist the freelance protection services of Noel (John Cena) to keep her safe until sundown.

Paul Feig Reveals Jackpot! Sequel Plans

Prime Video may have a new film franchise on its hands.

Speaking to ComicBook, Jackpot! director Paul Feig revealed that the creative team on his latest flick have envisioned franchise expansion plans from the jump.

"We from the very beginning have thought this could be an international franchise," Feig said. "It would be fun to see what other countries do with their own lottery."

Jackpot! topped Prime Video's charts within its first week of release. Much of that success can be attributed to the leading pair of Awkwafina and John Cena, two stars who have had their action-comedy stocks rise significantly in recent years. In the past half-decade, Awkwafina has had starring roles in franchises like Jumanji, Kung Fu Panda, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the form of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Cena embraced a full-time acting career in the mid-2010s and has credits in blockbuster franchises like Fast & Furious, Transformers, and the DC Universe through both The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, the latter of which he has been filming the second season.

Feig is aware of the level of talent he has in the Jackpot! ensemble, as he noted that the hopeful Jackpot! sequel picks up with Cena and Awkwafina's characters.

"That said, I really would like to do a few more with John and Nora (Awkwafina) because I already know what I would want the second movie to be," Feig teased. "I think it'd be really fun to watch them now that Katie's used to it, how she's going to use her smarts and skills to help protect somebody else and then who that person would be so. It could be a whole franchise."

Jackpot! is now streaming on Prime Video.

Dominik Mysterio is bent on getting a victory over his deadbeat dad. Back at WWE Clash at the Castle 2022, the second-generation wrestler turned on his father, Rey Mysterio, attacking him in front of the Welsh crowd and joining The Judgment Day in the process. This began an eight-month long feud between the two, which culminated at WWE WrestleMania 39. Despite Rey's insistence that he would not fight his son, he was pushed beyond his breaking point weeks before the Showcase of the Immortals and agreed to a match, which he won. This past July, Rey defeated Dominik once again in singles competition on WWE Monday Night Raw.

Rey Mysterio Pitches Mask vs. Mullet and Mustache Match

When that third bout between father and son comes, the legendary luchador wants some substantial stakes.

Speaking to ComicBook at Fanatics Fest in New York City, Rey Mysterio revealed that he is willing to put his mask on the line in a third bout against Dominik Mysterio.

"If that trilogy does happen, and when it does, I am willing to put my mask on the line," Rey said. "And he loves his mullet so much, so I would be expecting for him to put his mullet on the line. That or his Dirty Sanchez (mustache)."

Rey responded enthusiastically when ComicBook's Liam Crowley suggested both Dominik's mullet and mustache are put up for grabs in this hypothetical threequel.

Dominik is currently entangled in inter-faction warfare within The Judgment Day. Earlier this month at WWE SummerSlam, Dominik turned on longtime partner Rhea Ripley and officially aligned with WWE Women's World Champion Liv Morgan. Hours later, Finn Balor cost Damian Priest the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. This led to a new-look Judgment Day forming, that being the unit of Dominik, Morgan, Balor, Carlito, and JD McDonagh while Ripley and Priest have broken off into their own two-man power trip known as The Terror Twins.

Rey has often stood opposite The Judgment Day during the past couple of months but has not been involved in a substantial premium live event feud since WWE WrestleMania 40, when he and Andrade teamed to defeat Santos Escobar and Dominik. At 49 years old, Rey's career is beginning to wind down, and he nearly considered hanging up his mask in 2019, but Dominik ultimately convinced him to stay in the ring. Rey has had over 250 matches since and has spent limited time on the shelf.

Tyrese Gibson has an interesting story for how he talked Scott Eastwood into joining 1992. The film directed by Ariel Vromen is set during the turbulent time in Los Angeles when the Rodney King verdict dropped, sending the city into chaos with riots. With Gibson originally being from Los Angeles, 1992 is the perfect starring vehicle for the Fast & Furious star. Eastwood joined the Fast & Furious franchise in 2017's The Fate of the Furious, and recently starred alongside Gibson in Fast X. But as far as Eastwood's involment in 1992, Gibson revealed the Fast & Furious movies had nothing to do with it.

ComicBook spoke to Tyrese Gibson ahead of the release of 1992, where we asked how he and Scott Eastwood came together to work on the project, and if it happened while they were filming Fast X. "No, Scott was actually sleeping at my house in Atlanta while working on another film, and he was literally in front of me eating a breakfast burrito when I finally got a call from Ariel Vromen to have a conversation about 1992," Gibson revealed. When he asked Eastwood if he had heard of Ariel Vromen, Eastwood began to gush about the filmmaker, which eventually led to conversations about Eastwood joining 1992. You can watch the interview in the player above.

How Tyrese Gibson brought real-world experiences to 1992

Another aspect of 1992 that Tyrese Gibson addressed was being a Black father from Los Angeles, and how there are some differences in how Black men parent compared to White men. "I don't want to say being a Black father is different than being a father, but there's just certain ways to argue, there's certain ways to go about that dynamic," he said. "So if you're a deadbeat, you're still going to demand that respect. If you just met your son at 15, you're going to still demand your respect. We're not about to be doing all this back-and-forth. There was a lot of energy that I couldn't relate to. So we just talked through that, fixed it all."

What is 1992 movie about?

In 1992, Mercer (Tyrese Gibson) is desperately trying to rebuild his life and his relationship with his son (Christopher A'mmanuel) amidst the turbulent 1992 LA uprising following the Rodney King verdict. Across town, another father and son (Ray Liotta and Scott Eastwood) put their own strained relationship to the test as they plot a dangerous heist to steal catalytic converters, which contain valuable platinum, from the factory where Mercer works. As tensions rise in Los Angeles and chaos erupts, both families reach their boiling points when they collide in this tense crime-thriller.

Starring Tyrese Gibson, Cl? Bennett, Dylan Arnold, Christopher A'mmanuel, Michael Beasley, Ori Pfeffer, Tosin Morohunfola, Oleg Taktarov, with Scott Eastwood, and Ray Liotta in one of his final film roles, 1992 is directed by Ariel Vromen from a screenplay by Sascha Penn and Ariel Vromen and a story by Sascha Penn. It is produced by Ariel Vromen, Andreas Rommel, Maurice Fadida, Sascha Penn, and Adam Kolbrenner.

1992 premieres in theaters August 30th.

One of the more talked-about titles out of last year's Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas was writer/director JT Mollner's Strange Darling, which is finally being released in theaters. Despite nearly a year having passed since its initial screening, fans have been so committed to supporting the feature that they've kept a tight lid on all of the film's twists and turns, and Strange Darling has even earned praise from Stephen King, who called it "really terrific" and a "clever masterpiece." Strange Darling is finally set to land in theaters nationwide on Friday, August 23rd.

The film opens by stating that the experience is based on the true events of a serial killer who was apprehended in Oregon. Mollner recently explained to ComicBook how he landed on this specific setting, as the Pacific Northwest has become a go-to destination for tales of terror.

"Oregon became the perfect place because we knew that the aesthetic, there was a very specific aesthetic that was in the script from the very beginning as far as locations go. Twin Peaks was baked into me as I was writing this. I'd just gotten done the year before with the new season, and I really liked how it felt," Mollner expressed. "I was thinking about forest movies and movies that took place in green, and the movies that I liked, a lot of them inspired the narrative here. Movies like the neo-noirs of the '90s, like Red Rock West and U-Turn and all those movies, a lot of those were done in the desert. So I thought, what a cool thing, to do this kind of movie in the forest. We knew we wanted to find that thing, and we looked a little bit in California, and then my producing partner, Chris [Ivan Cevic] said, he talked to the studio and he said, 'I've heard that they're really film-friendly in Oregon.' I'd never been there, so we went up there and scouted for about a week."

He continued, "So we went up to Oregon and looked and the ecosystem there is just incredible. As you go towards the coast and things get more jungly and overgrown and things look so exotic, you can get that look from the forest or you can go towards Mount Hood and get a more traditional large trunk, a little dryer, and just an alpine look. We were really looking for a specific type of forest and we ended up finding it there, and we found our farmhouse there. It ended up being just the perfect place creatively to shoot the film. And instead of trying to make it be Maine or some other place, we just leaned into it. I said, 'This area in Oregon is so intriguing, let's just make the movie take place here.'"

In Strange Darling, nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer's vicious murder spree. Written and directed by JT Mollner (Outlaws & Angels), Strange Darling stars Willa Fitzgerald (The Goldfinch, Reacher), Kyle Gallner (Smile, Dinner in America), Ed Begley Jr. (Better Call Saul, A Mighty Wind), and Barbara Hershey (Black Swan, Insidious).

Actor Giovanni Ribisi both produced the film and stepped behind the camera to serve as the director of photography. Much like the film opening with a preamble about the setting of the story, it confirms how it was shot on 35mm.

"When you have celluloid, it has that latitude and that breadth to allow that saturation," Ribisi shared of the importance of shooting on film stock. "This was very important for us in making this. We have so much content shot digitally now, and it is just not the same, but that's part of it. You can't push the colors, and so it was really a creative choice that always goes back to character and the journey that they go on."

Speaking of things going back to the characters, the entire experience hinges on the performances of Fitzgerald and Gallner, and while horror fans know Gallner from The Haunting in Connecticut, Smile, and Scream, it's Fitzgerald who goes to frantic and frightening places in her performance.

"I'd seen her in a movie that I really liked called The Goldfinch, and I remembered her from that film, but it didn't make me want to put her in this film because the characters were totally different," Mollner recalled of casting Fitzgerald. "We were looking to see who was going to play those roles, and one of the things I did that I always do is call Christy Hall. She's an agent at Paradigm who I really get along with and trust, and she recommended a number of people, and we were talking about a number of people. Then one day on the phone, she said, 'Listen, are you familiar with Willa Fitzgerald? She'd be perfect for this.'"

He continued, "I said, 'Oh, I remember her from The Goldfinch,' but I wasn't really familiar with much else. She was on the number one show on Amazon at the time. So everybody else in my family, everybody knew her quite well from Reacher. Roy Lee, our producer, was a big fan of hers from Reacher. Steve Bellamy, our friend at Kodak, was obsessed with Reacher. I said, 'Okay, I better watch this.' I started watching her in that, and I didn't want to audition her. She had so much work available for me to look at, but I got to the point where I thought maybe I would read her if she was willing because I couldn't really see it yet. I could see that she had this great ability, but I didn't know if she had all the pieces. Then my editor called me one day and said, 'Have you ever heard of Willa Fitzgerald?' And I was like, 'It's weird. We're actually looking at her for this role right now.' And he said, 'Well, I'm cutting a movie right now, and she's just lighting up the screen.'"

Not only was Fitzgerald's casting a case of serendipitous timing, but also a case of convenient locations.

"He lives four houses down from me, so I walked down to his place ... I ran down to his place because he said I had to get over there fast. I went inside and I watched the footage and she was so good in it that I decided in that moment that she was right for the role," the filmmaker pointed out. "But, of course, we had to meet, and when we met, she was so devoted to the character already, and she loved The Lady so much, and she related to The Lady and found things that she could feel empathy for and connect with, and I just knew she was it."

Mollner continued, "Giovanni was on board, and then Roy Lee was already on board with her, he already liked her. And then Steven Schneider got on board, our producers, and we all went to Bill Block at Miramax and said, 'Can you approve this actor?' We cast her and it was great. Then we found Kyle in a similar way, but he'd done things a little closer to what we wanted him to do here in this explosive and aggressive role. And so I saw Dinner in America and was sold. It's really good. The two of them were cast and they are the pillars of the film. I think no matter how great the cinematography is or how good the script ends up being or anything, if those two roles don't work, the movie does not work. So I'm really, really grateful that we found them."

Strange Darling lands in theaters on August 23rd.

Are you looking forward to the movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Alien: Romulus director Fede ?lvarez wanted to make sure that viewers not only felt the terror of a xenomorph Facehugger attack - they could practically taste it. Alien: Romulus has several horrific scenes of would-be victims fighting for their lives against the Facehuggers - even when the grotesque parasite creatures are shoving a phallic tendril down their throats. ?lvarez has gone on at length about using practical effects for Alien: Romulus, including some high-end animatronic puppets to create Fachuggers that had multiple point of articulation. That means that when you watch the cast members of Alien: Romulus fighting off a Facehugger, there's an actual physical object (not CGI effect) they are wrestling with.

Fede ?lvarez and the cast of Alien: Romulus stopped by ComicBook's suite at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, and even though it was somewhat crass to ask, we had to:

What does it taste like to have a Facehugger in your mouth?

In a word: Lube.

"Silicone? Jesus Christ... This is the end..." explained Archie Renaux, who plays "Tyler" in the film. "Yeah this is really not glamorous at all but there was a lot of lubrication on it to make it look disgusting... Yeah it was a very invasive experience."

Fede ?lvarez has indeed confirmed that Alien: Romulus may have used the most lube ever for a single movie production - so there's some nightmare fuel for any of you aspiring actors. As the conversation with the cast continued, ?lvarezr revealed that not only did the cast have to deal with the creepiness of the animatronic Facehuggers - they also had to deal with their director being the one who was on the controls, terrorizing them:

"I was puppeteering that shot [with Archie Renaux]. There's a shot... Archie gets a 'close encounter' where he was asking for an intimacy coordinator while we were doing it. But yeah I had the privilege to puppeteer the Facehugger in that one."

Synopsis: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

Alien: Romulus is now in theaters and IMAX. It stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla, Civil War) and features David Jonsson (Industry), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (Transformers 5, Madame Web), Spike Fearn (The Batman) and Aileen Wu. The film earned $108.2 million, worldwide, in its opening weekend.

On Tuesday, August 20th, Overwatch 2 will launch Season 12, New Frontiers, delivering a slew of new content for the game as well as their 41st hero, Juno. Ahead of Juno's actual arrival in Overwatch 2, Blizzard has debuted an origin story for the character in the form of a new motion comic. Narrated by voice actress Xanthe Huynh, the comic reveals that Juno's family was part of a secret mission from the in-game company Lucheng Interstellar to settle Mars, Project Red Promise, and that her return to Earth is specifically to get help for her family still living on the red planet. ComicBook was able to speak with members of the Overwatch 2 team to find out more about the development of Juno as a hero, as well as her place in the game's roster.

Initially revealed to the world as BlizzCon last year under the codename Space Ranger, Juno's official debut in Overwatch 2 brings not only a new support character to the game but delivers a first for the game: their first "Martian." Juno arriving on Earth after traveling from Mars must be like the moment in Community when Donald Glover enters the room holding the stack of pizzas, only to find the party is on fire. She thought she would show up to get help for her family back on Mars, but has been confronted by a world with Omnic extremists and a new Overwatch team. Having grown up on an isolated piece of Mars with only a handful of adults around her, the experience of landing on Earth will be a lot for her.

"She's probably super overwhelmed," said Joshi Zhang, narrative designer for Overwatch 2. "Whatever's going on in our universe right now that players might be thinking of, she probably is taking it all in at the same time with the same level of security, because there's just so much... she doesn't even know what a school bus is."

That sense of feeling overwhelmed but still managing to carry on and complete the task at hand became a major focal point for defining who Juno is as a character for the Overwatch 2 team. For Zhang, this was not only a personal connection, but something that feels especially prescient for players.

"Something I thought about a lot while I was developing her voice and writing her lines was this idea of, she's pushing through it because it's all that she's got," Zhang added. "She's doing her best all the time. And if you relate to that, and you're also pushing through things and doing the best with what you've got, and there's so many things that are new to you...well, Juno's a hero, so maybe you are one, too."

In terms of the character's voice, Zhang opened up about the unique way of speaking that Juno has in the game. Many players were quick to notice that she almost never uses contractions in her voice lines, saying "I am" rather than "I'm" or "You are" instead of "You're." Part of this came from just being a character born and raised on another planet, but also her surroundings on the Mars base, namely, the twenty or thirty adult scientists that live there and spoke to her like an equal.

"We do want her to have this sort of different feeling," Zhang said of Juno's speaking style. "I don't know if it's a conscious choice, but it comes from her. The way that I think about it is she's surrounded by a bunch of people that are scientists. She's surrounded by a lot of older people. She wasn't really exposed to that much media growing up. I think maybe she watched a couple of cowboy movies. But other than that, she's not talking to kids, she's not getting familiar with the lingo. She's just surrounded with a lot of people who are going to be speaking professionally to each other."

The birth of Juno as a character for the Overwatch 2 roster came from someone on the game design team thinking about a specific archetype, testing out ideas of a fighter pilot-like character that had lock-on missiles. According to Overwatch 2 art director Dion Rogers, the initial designs for a character with that specific type of ability was not only a flying character like Pharah and Echo but also someone in a mech suit. Things took a major step toward the Juno that players know now, however, when a simple question was posed, "Could there be aliens in Overwatch?" After some consideration, the answer ultimately was no, but Rogers kept thinking about it.

"I was curious by the question," Rogers added. "I was like, 'Okay, but if we did, what does that look like?' It shows that connection of the team, how each team member contributes to the final look of a hero. Once we had this idea that maybe she's from Mars, because that works in the Overwatch universe; you'd imagine we've colonized Mars since we've colonized the moon, maybe we've reached there, right? (Concept artist Daryl Tan) did an iteration where the character started to look like an astronaut a little bit, or someone who had a space suit on. That's how the character evolved."

Considering the many teams that it takes to bring an Overwatch 2 hero to life, game design, art design, and narrative just to name a few, it feels like a chicken-or-the-egg question to ponder how all the elements come together to create what players end up seeing in game. Even though the development life for a character is long, the collaboration always ends up delivering.

"it's super organic," Zhang said. "We have such a diverse team with so many incredible talents that people just have great ideas. And so it's really about this culture of people on our team saying 'yes' and 'let's do that.' It's not like retrofitting into something else, I wouldn't say that at all. It's really more like people have great ideas and we inspire each other constantly, and great things happen when that happens."

Rogers added that the development of Juno reminded him of how they created tank hero Winston. The design for that character started as an illustration labeled "Orangutank," with the design team liking the idea but not quite sure how it would fit into the larger game itself. A back and forth ensued between the game design and art team about how it could work.

"This back and forth happens with most characters, and then the narrative team wrote a story, 'Okay, what if he's intelligent? This Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde-style ape,' then that refined the drawing even more. So Juno went through a similar experience throughout each team member contributing to the final version of her."

When players pick up Juno in Overwatch 2, they may be wondering one major thing about the character's kit: what is going on with her Ultimate ability? Unlike every other hero, where you can see their Ultimate physically happen either from their weapon or around them, Juno's falls from the sky. Orbital Ray delivers a giant beam from the heavens down onto Earth that provides healing to Juno's allies and also increases their damage. But where does that come from?

The in-universe logic behind this is that when Juno's family on Mars pieced together a ship to send her back to Earth, it had two components. There's the piece that flew her through space, and there's the element that kept her alive and later landed her on the surface. Though her pod is now nestled in the attack spawn on Dorado, most of her ship remains in orbit, which is where Orbital Ray originates from. Even though you can't see Juno's ship when the Ultimate happens, art exists of what it looks like floating in orbit about Earth.

"We made a ship that looked a little too resource heavy at first," Rogers said. "And so we said, 'Hey, let's imagine they had to take parts from a habitat and things like that to create this two pronged ship... the thrusters that get her there and the habitat that keeps her alive as she travels to Earth. And so that Ultimate comes from when she reaches Earth, a part of the pod breaks off, and that's what lands on Earth, and part of the ship remains in the sky, following her."

"This ship is hodgepodge'd together by her family," Zhang added. "It's almost like a village raised her. So they put a lot of love into designing (it). How do we make sure she's safe wherever she goes? And so they put this satellite on the ship, so that once she ejects out of the ship and she's got that pod on Earth, she can still call up to them. She might not be able to contact them, but there's a piece of them keeping her safe."

When players learn about Juno's origins and her backstory, they may assume that the name for the character just came from the fact that she was born on Mars, tying back to the Roman mythology that named the planet to begin with (Juno being Mars' mother). But it goes deeper than that, much deeper. Joshi Zhang revealed she pitched the idea of naming the hero "Juno," unpacking the many layers that went into deciding that specific name.

"So she's born on Mars, right? And one of her parents, Jiayi, is from Singapore, and in Singapore they speak Mandarin... so they kind of are naming her after Project Red Promise. If you actually look at the Chinese characters of 'Ju-no,' that means 'vermilion promise,' loosely. So the person who's granting this name to the person, what's going through their head? To Jiayi and to Kim, this is like, she's the embodiment of a red promise. The project is called Red Promise, and then Mars is red, and then vermillion is a really auspicious color, so it all came together."

"We don't take it lightly when we name the hero," Rogers added with a laugh.

When Overwatch 2 players got a first look at Juno's kit during an early playtest, there was some worry that her kit overlapped too much with some other characters. For the entire life cycle of Overwatch as a game, support hero Lucio has been the only one with a regular speed boost ability, but Juno arrives with her own variant of that as well. Dion Rogers addressed this, adding that in the end the plan is always to make each character's kit feel personal to playing them in the game:

"Generally, when we make a hero, we're trying to deliver a fantasy about playing this character. She's kind of this flying astronaut character from Mars, and so her abilities and her design and everything represent this fantasy of the hero. It also allows a bit of player choice. So she can speed up heroes similar to Lucio... and now (players) have a hero that can do a similar thing as he does, but obviously he does it slightly better than her, but is a bit of choice for the players when it comes to some of the overlapping abilities. We definitely have no shortage of crazy abilities, but this one was about the fantasy of this fighter pilot-type astronaut hero."

Players should also expect fun skins for Juno as well, with Rogers noting one thing that won't be a hindrance on designing them: the space helmet Juno wears won't be a requirement for all of her skins in the future.

A major point of confusion for some Overwatch 2 players is how the larger narrative of the series will continue to be told. After it was reported that plans for the PVE missions in the game had been scrapped entirely, the future of the "story" of the game has been a major question mark.

"We definitely want to continue to tell stories in Overwatch," Rogers said. "You can see how much went in, and we're still exploring and trying new things with where we are with the game currently. But you can see with Juno, we're trying to share her connection to the world of Overwatch, the connection to people on Overwatch, with Mei and family, and then how she develops when she's on on the planet."

Overwatch 2's Season 12 New Frontiers launches on August 12.

The Union hit Netflix this weekend and the new action flick features a star-studded cast led by Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg. In the film, Berry plays Roxanne, a member of a secret underground organization called The Union that takes on dangerous jobs the CIA can't handle. The organization tends to recruit blue-collar workers, which leads Roxanne to seek out her high school boyfriend (Wahlberg) to help with a dangerous intelligence mission in Europe. ComicBook recently attended the movie's premiere in Los Angeles and talked to the cast about Berry and Wahlberg's onscreen chemistry. Some of the actors also shared their thoughts on the film and its titular organization.

"I thought it was kind of clever," Jackie Earle Haley shared. "So you've got normally like the CIA and the NSA and the MI-6 and all of these things. And here's J.K. [Simmons] and he's like, 'Well, I'm going to create this secret spy agency and I'm just going to go get that foreman from that factory there. I'm going to get this fighter from...' You know what I mean? It's just all these people and he kind of puts them together."

"I think at one point before the start of the movie, each one of us was the Mark Wahlberg character that came in, total fish out of water, had to get trained, and then became experts, and then now we're too recognizable for this mission," he continued. "We need somebody that isn't recognizable. So Halle must have told J.K. that, 'This guy's got some skillset,' her old flame from high school."

"It was great," Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje added. "First of all, the cast that they had as part of that Union, one of the guys I got a chance to have a reunion with was J.K. Simmons, who I hadn't worked with in 20 years since Oz. We did the groundbreaker show back then, so it was great to actually meet and see him, and us get to play again."

"Look, it's not a new concept, we've seen it, but it's great because of the chemistry of the actors," he added. "So that's really what attracted me. It's a stellar cast. And it's mixed, it's diverse. You got somebody from every nationality there, and gender. And I think it was representative of where we are today without getting too deep."

"Well, I just think people have to realize that this is a popcorn flick where people can sit back and relax," Mike Colter explained. "It's a thrill ride. We're going fast. Things are happening quickly. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of comedy. It's a lot of action. It's a little bit of romance, and the set pieces, the locations are phenomenal. So I think they're going to be stimulated from start to finish."

The Union is now streaming on Netflix.

The Union hit Netflix today and the new action flick features a star-studded cast. The film stars Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg, who have been friends for 30 years but have never made a film together. In their new movie, Roxanne (Berry) recruits her high school boyfriend (Wahlberg) to help her secret organization complete a dangerous intelligence mission in Europe. At the film's premiere in Los Angeles, ComicBook had the chance to chat with the duo, and we brought up their onscreen chemistry and wondered what it was like to finally work together after all these years.

"Well, that chemistry would translate onto the screen because, look, we have a great script, we have a great backstory, but the thing that wins the day is that people want to see us together," Wahlberg explained. "And that chemistry, you can't create that. You either have it or you don't. She's fantastic. Everything she appears to be on screen, she is in real life. She's wonderful, talented, super approachable, super accessible. She's amazing."

"I've known the guy for 30 years," Berry added. This is the thing I didn't know I needed."

The Union Cast Talks Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg:

We also talked to Berry and Wahlberg's castmates, who spoke about watching them work together.

"It's great," Mike Colter said of watching their chemistry unfold onscreen. "It's funny because I think when it was cast, you have characters that you think, 'Oh, they must've worked together,' but they haven't, and they're [playing] old high school sweethearts. So that kind of fits. It's like, 'Did we know each other? A version of ourselves at some point? Time has passed now we're different people.' So that kind of works. It's like, 'I know you, but I don't know you. I knew you, but now you're not the same person.' So I think that casting really works for that element."

"Man, they were both just super down to earth, super cool, super friendly, really talented," Jackie Earle Haley shared. "I'm a big fan of both of them ... For me, I'm just like everybody else. If I go into a streaming thing and there's all these buttons, if I see one that's got Mark Wahlberg, 'Wow, I'm going to watch that.' ... And same thing with Halle. I love them both. And it was just a great experience to get to be there to help support but also to watch. And I think that part was really written well, and they've got a great chemistry together, Mark and Halle. I think they were kind of perfectly cast. So knowing those two names and reading the script, it's like, 'Oh, this is going to be good.'"

"I was very pleasantly surprised how grounded and relatable they were," Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje added. "They were very tight, like best of friends. And also the chemistry in the scenes. It was great. They looked like they had worked together before, so they fooled me."

"Their chemistry is insane," Alice Lee shared. "The first scene that I shot ... I didn't have any words, honestly. So I just think it was so funny meeting Mark and Halle being like, 'Oh my God, it's nice to meet you. I can't wait to work with you.' And then I don't have any lines, but they were so generous and so sweet and they were really taking care of me because something happened where something hit my hand ... They were just so chill. They were like, 'Are you okay?' And I was like, 'Oh my God. Yeah, I'm okay.'"

"I mean, you can see it. You can see it on screen," Jessica De Gouw added of Berry and Wahlberg's chemistry. "There's such a playfulness to them and they're riffing with each other and it just makes it so easy, standing off the side and watching them or being in this scene with them, there are so many options that they offer because it's all pretty organic. You could tell they're having fun and I think that really comes across in the film."

The Union is now streaming on Netflix.

In the wake of the release of Wes Craven's Scream 4, the concept pivoted to the small screen for Scream: The TV Series, which served as both a reboot and reimagination of the Ghostface narrative. The first two seasons starred Willa Fitzgerald as Emma Duval, and while it's been eight years since she last appeared in the series, some fans are still holding out hope that she and other cast members could make the jump to the big screen in the Scream films. The actor recently expressed how, while she doesn't know of any plans for the franchise to bring those characters back, she wouldn't rule out the opportunity. Fans can next see Fitzgerald in Strange Darling, which hits theaters on August 23rd.

"I think a lot of people love the show, and it was obviously very important to my entering this world in my career, and I have a lot of fond memories of it. And never say never," Fitzgerald shared with ComicBook about returning to the franchise. "It's definitely not something that I know is on the horizon, but who knows?"

While the Scream films have seen various figures take on the mantle of Ghostface and largely focus their deadly instincts on Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott, as well as those closest to her, Scream: The TV Series was an all-new narrative. The series did feature a masked killer stalking teens in a small town, while also embracing metatextual references to horror films and razor-sharp dialogue, with Craven himself having served as a producer on the first season. Season 3 of the series started an all-new storyline that incorporated the familiar Ghostface mask.

Back in 2021, Fitzgerald's costar Carlson Young expressed her desire to return to the franchise in some capacity, if only to get an iconic death scene.

"Nobody talked to us about doing anything like that. Of course, I am still open to just get killed on-screen, I still think that's a good idea," Young shared with ComicBook about the big-screen series being revived. "But no, I was very excited to just sit back and watch the development of the films, because the show and the films were so separate."

She joked, "I just want to get slashed by Ghostface, is that too much to ask?"

In Strange Darling, nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer's vicious murder spree. Written and directed by JT Mollner (Outlaws & Angels), Strange Darling stars Willa Fitzgerald (The Goldfinch, Reacher), Kyle Gallner (Smile, Dinner in America), Ed Begley Jr. (Better Call Saul, A Mighty Wind), and Barbara Hershey (Black Swan, Insidious).

Stay tuned for updates on the Scream franchise. Strange Darling lands in theaters on August 23rd.

Would you like Fitzgerald to return to the franchise? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Projects like Scream: The TV Series, The Goldfinch, and Prime Video's Reacher have showcased Willa Fitzgerald's acting abilities, and while all those projects run the genre gamut, the actor has brought to life characters that require nuanced and subtle performances. With her new film Strange Darling, Fitzgerald delivers a performance that is much more layered, as she has to balance mania, charm, and fear in a variety of ways that keep audiences on their toes throughout the film's run time. Much like how her character is seemingly thrown into shocking situations, Fitzgerald feels one of the benefits of the movie's shooting schedule is she didn't have the luxury of the time to second-guess her choices. Strange Darling lands in theaters on August 23rd.

"Definitely when I read the script for the first time, I was so excited by it and wanted to do it so badly, and also was nervous because, obviously, there's a lot there, and I think that that's the role of prep. I think that I showed up on the day being like, 'Okay, let's go,'" Fitzgerald shared with ComicBook of preparing to take on the intense role. "You always get nervous. I always get nervous before something that feels scary in some sense, but I think that shooting the movie ... It was a very packed schedule and we were moving pretty fast, all things considered, and there is just a momentum when you're in that mode where you're like, 'Got to go.' And sometimes that serves you well, I think."

In Strange Darling, nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer's vicious murder spree. Written and directed by JT Mollner (Outlaws & Angels), Strange Darling stars Willa Fitzgerald (The Goldfinch, Reacher), Kyle Gallner (Smile, Dinner in America), Ed Begley Jr. (Better Call Saul, A Mighty Wind), and Barbara Hershey (Black Swan, Insidious).

The film itself has a fractured narrative that jumps to different points in time, with not only the nonlinear narrative keeping audiences guessing, but also allowing for shocking reveals. Fitzgerald addressed what her experience was like first reading the script.

"I was definitely totally surprised. I didn't see it coming and I didn't totally know what I was seeing yet," the actor expressed. "I remember I was like, 'What?' And then it was really exciting as I was working on prepping the movie and as we were shooting it to just understand from a character perspective and a plot perspective where we were and how we were getting there, and making all of that as truthful as possible."

Strange Darling lands in theaters on August 23rd.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Watchmen: Chapter 1 arrives on Digital this weekend, adapting the world of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' iconic graphic novel for a new medium. The two-part animated movie is the second cinematic take on the franchise's mythos, after Zack Snyder's polarizing live-action adaptation in 2009. While speaking to ComicBook about her work on Watchmen: Chapter 1, Laurie Juspeczyk / Silk Spectre II voice actress Katee Sackhoff revealed that her appreciation for Snyder's adaptation ultimately led her to join this project.

"Zack Snyder's was a phenomenal interpretation," Sackhoff explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "I loved it. I loved it. It's part of why I wanted to do this, because it inspired me and it made me start to... my imagination starts to... the wheels start to go. I think that for fans of the book, this, this feels important, this feels true to the storytelling. That's what, I think, people will love about it. I think they'll really enjoy this."

What Is the Watchmen Animated Movie About?

In Watchmen: Chapter 1, in an alternate world history set in 1985, the murder of a government sponsored superhero draws his outlawed colleagues out of retirement and into a mystery that threatens to upend their personal lives and the world itself. The cast of the Watchmen animated movie includes Titus Welliver as Rorschach, Matthew Rhys as Nite Owl, Katee Sackhoff as Silk Spectre, Michael Cerveris as Doctor Manhattan, and Troy Baker as Ozymandias.

"I think, you know, one of the things that I try to do with these characters, these women -- Poison Ivy [in Batman: The Long Halloween], for me, was misunderstood," Sackhoff told ComicBook of her role in the film. "There's so much vulnerability in her, so much pain, so much anger. Those are really important things for me to bring to life with her. Laurie, I think, has a lot of self doubt, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of pain. I think that that was something that I really wanted to sort of hold on to for her, and make that her through line. I have been in a situation where I loved somebody with all my heart and didn't feel like I was enough, and that's an awful feeling. It's a terrible, terrible feeling. And, and so I held on to that, that was my thing with her. That was the thing that I kept coming home to. And I think that you hear it in her voice a lot."

Watchmen: Chapter 1 is available exclusively on Digital on August 13. 4K UHD and Blu-ray arriving on August 27. Watchmen: Chapter 2 is set to debut later in 2024.

Echo was released on Disney+ and Hulu earlier this year, and the Marvel Studios show was just nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Sci-Fi Costumes. In honor of the show's nomination, ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with costume designer Stacy Caballero. During the interview, Caballero spoke about creating looks that honor the Choctaw Nation and working on other Marvel Studios projects before taking on Echo. Echo follows Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) after she shoots Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) in the Hawkeye finale. Considering Echo is a continuation of that story, we asked Caballero about following in the footsteps of Hawkeye costume designer, Michael Crow. It's no secret fans had mixed feelings about Fisk's look in Hawkeye, and we wondered if Caballero considered that when designing new looks for the villain.

"That was intentional," Caballero said of changing Fisk's look again in Echo. "And Michael Crow, he is a costume designer and friend who designed Hawkeye ... I respect him so much, and I did pick his brain about things because I wanted to know. And I was already in that Marvel universe for so long on Wakanda Forever."

"As soon as you say, 'Oh, I want to start seeing episodes from the previous series,' they will give you all of that ... So you're continuing from one series to the next," she explained. "Especially since Echo started basically a day later because she had just shot Kingpin and she's on the run."

Naturally, Hawkeye wasn't the only resource Caballero used when creating looks for Echo. We asked the Emmy-nominated costume designer about pulling from the Echo comics.

"It was a huge resource," she explained. "And what I always say, in a very movie-making world, it's all about the script. The script that we're given, I want to tell the story, I'm a storyteller, so we start with the scripts. But always, I felt like anytime I got stuck and wanted a little bit more inspo, I went back to the comic books, especially on Kingpin, but on Echo as well."

"There were things I took from Echo. If you see a consistency of those mock necks, whether they're sleeveless or short sleeve or long sleeve, I kept that silhouette," Caballero continued. "So there was stuff there that I did keep and with Kingpin, it was intentional to bring back the vest. I was so excited about that and I couldn't wait to do that."

"I always dive back into the comic books," she added. "That's the OG research. And then I start the process ... It felt so similar to the features that I had done with Marvel. I just felt like I was home."

We also asked Caballero about Maya's motorcycle jacket, which has become an important part of the character's look and vibe.

"All of that was very thoughtful and designed," she shared. "It's also coming from Hawkeye. I really studied what Michael had done in Hawkeye and just what they put on the screen. And I knew she had her black motorcycle jacket and then later she had the stripes, the Kingpin stripes of the tracksuit guys, and then she adds her Echo. There's an evolution of that black jacket."

"At the beginning of Echo, we have to think, she doesn't have anything with her, because she's on the run. So she has to pick up a new jacket along the way, and she's being resourceful and she's thrifting. She does have cash because she's very smart, so the thought is, she stopped at a motorcycle store, she bought it, but she did get it on her way out."

"And then she puts her Echo stamp on it because that's a very powerful symbol throughout. And it was intentional to use the copper and put the Echo sun in copper. And everything about it, you see in the back, the Choctaw diamonds are there. And then also, it protects her."

"It's a really well-built jacket," Caballero explained. "I had worked with Boda Skins to design and manufacture it, and there were elements we ended up losing. We had something on the side arm that we ended up losing completely. It was cleaner and better for the evolution of her character's look through the series because, in the end of the series, her ceremonial vest and fight costume had so many beads, embroidery, and leather embossing work. Making the beginning looks a bit simpler helps the viewer see the evolution clearer as she prepares for fight mode."

Echo is now available to stream on Disney+.

The fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy was released on Netflix last week and revealed how things ended for the Hargreeves family. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! The Hargreeves family realizes that the only way to save the world once and for all is to be erased from history. The family embraces their fate together, and the series ends with "just a normal day" in a park. The scene features many characters from the show's history ranging from Kate Walsh as The Handler, The Swedes, Cameron Britton's Hazel, and more. At the final season's premiere, ComicBook had the chance to chat with Patrice Goodman (Dot), Ken Hall (Herb), and Jordan Claire Robbins (Grace), who also reprised their roles in the final moment. We also spoke with Tom Hopper (Luther Hargreeves) and David Casta?eda (Diego Hargreeves) about the "bittersweet" ending.

"We didn't even read the final script," Goodman revealed when asked about her initial reaction to the show's ending. "It was so secretive that we didn't even get a chance to read the script. I knew that I had to show up on a day at an undisclosed location, and then I didn't even see people in the makeup trailer. But then Ken and I were brought out and somebody explained to me what was happening, we were both really touched."

"We always felt like we had a particular space in the show and sort of belonged at the heart of it and I was just honored to be included on that day," she added.

"I just thought it was so lovely," Hall added. "It's such a thoughtful way, I think to end four incredible seasons and a real testament to give the fans ... I think, real closure and a homage to everyone who's populated it. And it's very touching to be invited back and to have the moments that we do, it's very touching for me."

"I love the serendipitous nature of it, that it sort of came together last minute," he added

"It felt like bittersweet. Really beautiful," Robbins added when asked her opinion on the show's ending. "I think it's exactly what you hoped for with an ending. Something that really ties it up in a way that feels very beautiful."

"I feel extremely full about the ending," Casta?eda shared. "I feel a little sad that we're not coming back, but it hasn't really hit me yet, but I feel excited to go to see it."

"Tied up the loose ends doesn't it?" Hopper added.

What Is The Umbrella Academy Season 4 About?

You can read Netflix's description of the final season of The Umbrella Academy here: "The Hargreeves siblings have scattered after the climactic showdown at the Hotel Oblivion led to a complete reset of their timeline. Stripped of their powers, each is left to fend for themselves and find a new normal - with wildly varying degrees of success. Yet the trappings of their uncanny new world prove too hard to ignore for very long. Their father Reginald, alive and well, has stepped out of the shadows and into the public eye, overseeing a powerful and nefarious business empire. A mysterious association known as The Keepers holds clandestine meetings believing the reality they're living in is a lie and a great reckoning is coming. As these strange new forces conspire around them, the Umbrella Academy must come together one last time - and risk upsetting the shaky peace they've all endured so much to secure - to finally set things right."

The final season of The Umbrella Academy is now streaming on Netflix.

The superhero drama of Watchmen is headed into a new medium, as a new two-part animated adaptation of the DC comic begins to arrive this week. One of the most pivotal characters in the entire story of Watchmen is Laurie Juspeczyk / Silk Spectre II, a former legacy superhero with a unique relationship to her fellow vigilantes. Bringing Laurie to life in Watchmen: Chapter 1 is Katee Sackhoff, whose work includes everything from Battlestar Galactica to the Star Wars franchise as Bo-Katan Kryze. While speaking to ComicBook about her performance in Watchmen: Chapter 1, Sackhoff specifically highlighted the vulnerability and self doubt regarding Laurie's relationship with Doctor Manhattan that infused her portrayal of the character.

"I think, you know, one of the things that I try to do with these characters, these women -- Poison Ivy [in Batman: The Long Halloween], for me, was misunderstood," Sackhoff explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "There's so much vulnerability in her, so much pain, so much anger. Those are really important things for me to bring to life with her. Laurie, I think, has a lot of self doubt, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of pain. I think that that was something that I really wanted to sort of hold on to for her, and make that her through line. I have been in a situation where I loved somebody with all my heart and didn't feel like I was enough, and that's an awful feeling. It's a terrible, terrible feeling. And, and so I held on to that, that was my thing with her. That was the thing that I kept coming home to. And I think that you hear it in her voice a lot."

What Is the Watchmen Animated Movie About?

In Watchmen: Chapter 1, in an alternate world history set in 1985, the murder of a government sponsored superhero draws his outlawed colleagues out of retirement and into a mystery that threatens to upend their personal lives and the world itself.

The cast of the Watchmen animated movie includes Titus Welliver as Rorschach, Matthew Rhys as Nite Owl, Katee Sackhoff as Silk Spectre, Michael Cerveris as Doctor Manhattan, and Troy Baker as Ozymandias.

Watchmen: Chapter 1 is available exclusively on Digital on August 13. 4K UHD and Blu-ray arriving on August 27. Watchmen: Chapter 2 is set to debut later in 2024.

The world of Watchmen will soon be brought to life in a new medium, with the first of a two-part animated movie adaptation arriving this week. Beyond Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' original text in the 1985 miniseries, Watchmen has grown into a bit of a franchise, earning the recent comic sequel series Doomsday Clock, as well as an award-winning Watchmen television show in 2019. While speaking to ComicBook about his work on Watchmen: Chapter 1, director Brandon Vietti threw his hat into the ring for the film's team to potentially adapt Doomsday Clock, or potentially any of the Before Watchmen spinoff miniseries from the 2000s.

"I'm game for it," Vietti revealed in our interview, which you can check out above. "I'm a big DC fan. So, yeah, I'd be game for doing something like that. It would be great, because we've already built so many of the designs, we've built this world, and Dave Gibbons' art was such an inspiration for us in building this world. It's always sad for us, as the artists, to have done all this work, to build this amazing world, especially everything that Dave Gibbons designed, and then just walk away from it and never go back. So, yeah, a lot of us, I think Doomsday Clock was on our mind. There's been some other spinoffs from Watchmen. We would love to, if Warner Brothers is game for it, then I think anybody on the art team would sign up immediately because we had a blast translating this book."

What Is the Watchmen Animated Movie About?

In Watchmen: Chapter 1, in an alternate world history set in 1985, the murder of a government sponsored superhero draws his outlawed colleagues out of retirement and into a mystery that threatens to upend their personal lives and the world itself.

The cast of the Watchmen animated movie includes Titus Welliver as Rorschach, Matthew Rhys as Nite Owl, Katee Sackhoff as Silk Spectre, Michael Cerveris as Doctor Manhattan, and Troy Baker as Ozymandias.

Will Watchmen Get a Season 2?

The Watchmen movie marks the latest attempt to adapt the events of the maxiseries, following Zack Snyder's 2009 movie, and later HBO's award-winning television series in 2019. According to previous comments from HBO executive Casey Bloys, there are no current plans to continue the Watchmen series in any way, and it would ultimately be up to series creator Damon Lindelof to return to the project.

"Watchmen was so much his creation," Bloys previously told Variety. "If he doesn't think there's a story that he wants to put his heart and soul into, it's hard for me to think that it would be worth doing. It was a very special limited series for us. I would put it in the pantheon of HBO greats. If Damon ever wants to revisit it, he knows that it's an open door. But it is hard for me to imagine doing one without him."

Watchmen: Chapter 1 is available exclusively on Digital on August 13. 4K UHD and Blu-ray arriving on August 27. Watchmen: Chapter 2 is set to debut later in 2024.

The fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy was released on Netflix last week, and it sees the Hargreeves family setting off on their latest adventure. The entire main cast returned for the fourth season, and they were joined by some newcomers, including Millie Davis, who plays Allison Hargreeves' (Emmy Raver-Lampman) daughter. The character was previously portrayed by Coco Assad, but Davis stepped in now that Claire is older. At the final season's premiere in Los Angeles, ComicBook had the chance to chat with Davis who spoke about studying Raver-Lampman and doing stunts.

"It was definitely bittersweet for me, but the cast was so gracious towards me and really welcomed me into their family, which I'm so grateful for," Davis said when asked what it was like to join the show in its final season. "I think I'm just so excited to see how everything turned out."

"I went back and I watched through some [of the series] just to see how Allison sort of talked about Claire because I know that Claire was a name that was constantly brought up through the seasons as something she wanted to go back to," Davis explained. "So I watched to sort of see how their relationship was."

"And I studied the actress who played Claire, the younger version as well, to sort of see her facial movements and her mannerisms," Davis added. "So I hope that that sort of showed through in the scenes. Emmy's amazing and just working with her is such an honor for me."

Millie Davis on Doing a Stunt in The Umbrella Academy:

There's a moment in the new season of The Umbrella Academy that sees Claire knocking out a would-be-attacker.

"We did tons of rehearsals for that," Davis shared with ComicBook. "I was really nervous because I've never really done any sort of stunt or anything like that before. And while it was very small, there was still a lot of coordination that had to go into it to make sure nobody got hurt."

"But my favorite moment was when we were on set, they gave me a soft bat to work with, so I wasn't hitting him with full metal," she added. "And the actor who played that character was a very big stunt person. He was like, 'You know what? Let's just swap it out for a real bat. It'll make it look more natural.' And I was like, 'Are you sure?' And he was like, 'Yeah, yeah. Just whack me as hard as you can with it. Make it look really real.' So I was just standing there with a real metal bat, whacking him with it."

What Is The Umbrella Academy Season 4 About?

You can read Netflix's description of the final season of The Umbrella Academy here: "The Hargreeves siblings have scattered after the climactic showdown at the Hotel Oblivion led to a complete reset of their timeline. Stripped of their powers, each is left to fend for themselves and find a new normal - with wildly varying degrees of success. Yet the trappings of their uncanny new world prove too hard to ignore for very long. Their father Reginald, alive and well, has stepped out of the shadows and into the public eye, overseeing a powerful and nefarious business empire. A mysterious association known as The Keepers holds clandestine meetings believing the reality they're living in is a lie and a great reckoning is coming. As these strange new forces conspire around them, the Umbrella Academy must come together one last time - and risk upsetting the shaky peace they've all endured so much to secure - to finally set things right."

Stay tuned for more from our The Umbrella Academy red carpet interviews. The show's final season is now available to watch on Netflix.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians has new life on Disney+. The house of mouse produced a serialized reboot of Rick Riordan's best-selling novels in December 2023, chronicling the events of the first installment in the Percy Jackson pentalogy, The Lightning Thief. This was the second crack at telling The Lightning Thief story in live-action, as 20th Century Fox previously produced Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief in 2010. Logan Lerman suited up as the titular demigod and was joined by Alexandria Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Jake Abel, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson and more in the supporting ensemble.

Joe Pantoliano Reflects on Percy Jackson (2010)

Within that supporting ensemble was Joe Pantoliano, a veteran actor of Bad Boys fame, who played Percy's step-father Gabe Ugliano. Speaking to ComicBook in celebration of Bad Boys: Ride or Die's home media release, Pantoliano reflected on his experience shooting Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, noting he was most honored to work alongside director Chris Columbus.

"I just was so happy to be able [to do it]," Pantoliano said. "Chris Columbus asked me to come on the film. Chris wrote the Goonies, and so to be able to work with him and to be able to be directed by him, it became like a full circle. I just remember having such a good time with him."

Pantoliano's role has since been taken on by Timm Sharp, as the M3GAN 2.0 star portrayed Gabe Ugliano in four episodes of Percy Jackson Season 1 on Disney+. The streaming series was more of a 1:1 adaptation to The Lightning Thief than the theatrical release was, and that meant an enhanced role for Sharp's Gabe.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Liam Crowley (@liamtcrowley)

"They did something that I've never had done to me on this show, where they put me in this chamber with all of these cameras to do these 3D renderings of my entire body," Sharp explained when asked about delivering Percy Jackson Season 1's prophecy. "I had to do all these different facial expressions for that scene so I could come out of the oracle's mouth. Then, on set that day, I was actually there doing it."

Pantoliano can be seen in Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which is available on home media now. Percy Jackson Season 2 is currently in production and is set to stream in 2025.

Borderlands was released in theaters over the weekend, and Eli Roth's video game adaptation isn't faring well with audiences. Not only is the movie currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with an incredibly low critics score of 9% and an audience score of 52%, but the movie had a rough opening weekend at the box office. Before the movie was released, ComicBook had the chance to chat with Florian Munteanu, who plays Krieg in the new film. At the time, we mentioned how a prequel about his character could be a cool next step for the franchise considering he has an interesting backstory in the games. Based on the reception of the movie, a prequel now seems unlikely, but Munteanu was into the idea.

"100%," Munteanu said when asked if he'd be interested in making a Borderlands prequel film. "The prequel would be something that I would really, really love to do, just because there's so much to tell in that story, right? Me, as a fan personally, I would like to know why he is the way he is, what kind of stuff he went through?"

"And if you know the games, then you're familiar with the split personality and everything that comes with that, and that's really something I would like to explore," he added.

You can watch out interview with Munteanu at the top of the page.

What Is Borderlands About?

You can read the official synopsis for Borderlands here: "Lilith (Blanchett), an infamous bounty hunter with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home, Pandora, the most chaotic planet in the galaxy. Her mission is to find the missing daughter of Atlas (Ram?rez), the universe's most powerful S.O.B. Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits - Roland (Hart), a seasoned mercenary on a mission; Tiny Tina (Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Munteanu), Tina's musclebound protector; Tannis (Curtis), the oddball scientist who's seen it all; and Claptrap (Black), a wiseass robot. Together, these unlikely heroes must battle an alien species and dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora's most explosive secrets. The fate of the universe could be in their hands - but they'll be fighting for something more: each other. Based on one of the best-selling videogame franchises of all time, welcome to BORDERLANDS."

Borderlands is now playing in theaters.

Paul Feig is putting his own comedic twist on The Purge. The Bridesmaids director helms Jackpot!, a new action-comedy from Prime Video that stars Awkwafina (Katie) and John Cena (Noel). Like how The Purge gives American citizens freedom to commit any crime on one day per year, Jackpot! allows Californians to murder Los Angeles's daily lottery winner in order to claim their multi-million dollar prize. Katie accidentally enrolls in the lottery and ends up winning the prize, and consequently is forced to evade money-hungry and bloodthirsty Los Angeleans. Noel, a freelance lottery protection agent, enlists himself to keep Katie safe in exchange for a percentage of her winnings.

Paul Feig Details Jackpot!'s Action-Comedy Inspiration

Jackpot! had been in development since March 2023, originally under the title Grand Theft Lotto. Even though the original title is inspired by Grand Theft Auto, Feig told ComicBook that he was not influenced by that iconic video game franchise when designing Jackpot!'s action setpieces.

"To me, it was much more inspired by Jackie Chan movies, and Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton silent comedies, The Three Stooges and all those kinds of things. Warner Brothers cartoons," Feig explained. "I just wanted it to have this madness about it, but at the same time wanted it to be grounded in as much reality as you can have in an insane situation, so it's not like people suddenly have the gift of flight or anything. This is down and dirty, like Hong Kong kind of action."

The comedy side of Jackpot! emerges thanks to Awkwafina and Cena's dynamic. Despite her fortune awaiting her, Katie wants no part of the lottery, and Noel similarly is not interested in bloodshed.

"The main character doesn't want to be in the fight. That's where the comedy for me comes from. That panic of like, 'Just let me out of here! Let me out! I'll defend myself any way I can to let this end,'" Feig continued. "Then yet on top of that there's John Cena, who isn't coming in like Rambo, but he's coming in like a nice guy who wants to protect her but doesn't want to hurt anybody at the same time. It just makes it really fun and good spirited in a way that I always want my movies to be, good-natured at the end of the day."

Jackpot! arrives on Prime Video on Thursday, August 15th.

McDonald's has launched a blast from the past. This week, the fast food giant unveiled the Collector's Meal, a new limited time package that features McDonald's signature Happy Meal accompanied by a collector's cup inspired by "iconic collectibles" of yesteryear.

"We just thought we'd like to share the brands over the time with our fans,"McDonald's Corporation archivist Mike Bullington told ComicBook in an interview conducted at McDonald's 8th Avenue location in New York City. "We've got pieces from the '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s. These are some of the great pieces that we have in the archives that we thought we'd share with the Collector's Meal."

Those archived pieces take form in the Collector's Meal cups, as Bullington and the McDonald's team pulled from famed franchises like Barbie, Hot Wheels, Beanie Babies, Coca-Cola, Hello Kitty, Peanuts, Shrek, Jurassic Park, Minions, and the McDonald's brand itself.

"There are over 53 items and artifacts featured in the cups," Bullington explained. "Our marketing team and the social media team looked out and determine which were our most popular collectibles over a period of time.

"We meet what our fans like, what's popular in culture. They become a key element," Bullington continued. "You're going to see all these and others in the future. Just look how they've all evolved. They're going to continue to evolve."

At the top of that list is Beanie Babies. The storied stuffed animal was shrunk down to "teenie" form for a McDonald's Happy Meal in 1997.

"The Teenie Beanie Babies were so popular in fact that McDonald's had an ad, 'Harder to get than Chicago Bulls playoff tickets.' That's how difficult they were [to collect]," Bullington shared. "I remember going to restaurants with my young daughters trying to get the Teenie Beanie Babies, and we had a heck of a time but I eventually scored a couple of them. I was a proud dad at that moment."

Beanie Babies occupy just one of the six different cups that consumers will have the chance to collect, which Bullington teases will be "tough" to secure the full collection.

"There are six different cups available. They're going to be available in blue plastic bags. Go to McDonald's, get the McDonald's Collector's Meal, and bring a friend. You may have to trade," Bullington said. "It's going to be tough [to collect them all], but people are going to do it."

The Collector's Meal is available at McDonald's now.

Deadpool & Wolverine brought back a lot of familiar faces from 20th Century Fox's Marvel Universe movies of the 2000s - including actor Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce, the flame-bending mutant known as "Pyro," who was featured in the films X2 (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). Pyro was a fan-favorite of the X-Men films - a '90s-era bad boy who broke from Xavier's school to join Magneto's militant mutant group. However, like so many X-Men Trilogy actors, Stanford was let go as the franchise did a soft reboot with X-Men: First Class, and missed out as the entire comic book movie genre became the new rage in Hollywood, following the launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

(SPOILERS) In Deadpool & Wolverine, Pyro is one of the main lieutenants of Cassandra Nova (Emma Corin), the evil twin sister of Charles Xavier who is a warlord of the Void working with the Time Variance Authority (TVA). In one of the film's twists, it's revealed that Pyro is actually a double agent, working for rogue TVA agent Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) to keep tabs on Nova - and make sure she's taken out when the time is right. Unfortunately, that plan backfires big time, and Pyro ends up getting the harshest kind of end for his treachery, by having his neck broken by Cassandra Nova's telekinetic powers.

When ComicBook's Phase Zero sat down with Aaron Stanford to talk Deadpool & Wolverine, the question of how he reacted to first learning about Pyro's death scene came up,

"I mean I wasn't surprised," Stanford said. "You know he's the heel in this movie... Pyro is the heel. He's the guy that you want to get body slammed. He's the guy that you want to see him get hurt. So no, I was not surprised at all when his neck got snapped... [and] thrown away like so much trash."

To his credit, Aaron Stanford got more of an arc in Deadpool & Wolverine than most of the cameo actors involved did - arguably more than bigger icons like Wesley Snipes' Blade, or Chris Evans' Johnny Storm/Human Torch. Granted, Stanford (a consistent character actor, still waiting on a big break) was probably more open to shooting a bigger role in Deadpool 3 than most of the returning vets, and he certainly made a worthwhile effort with his opportunity.

Deadpool & Wolverine is now in theaters.

Fans grew to love the New Girl sitcom thanks to the charming dynamics between the characters, and many of those dynamics extend beyond the screen, such as the friendship between stars Lamorne Morris and Jake Johnson. Despite the relationships the cast maintains together, Johnson has shot down the idea of getting the gang together for a reunion or a revival, while having previously taunted costar Morris for his seemingly placating comments. Morris, however, thinks it's time New Girl fans call out Johnson for being the holdout of the bunch, as Morris himself wants to give the people what they want. Morris recently announced a partnership with Mike's Hard Lemonade for the "Mike's Jobstacle Course" activation, which will be held on August 20th. You can RSVP at mikesjobstaclecourse.eventbrite.com.

"I'll say this: a lot of times, politicians, they overpromise, but me as a politician, I want to promise the right amount, and I want to let all the folks know that I will do anything for a New Girl reunion. Personally, that's me," Morris joked to ComicBook. "Now, Jake Johnson, who's my rival, who's my political opponent, Jake says that he's down, but Jake is not. Jake is not, folks. I am Lamorne for the people. Jake Johnson, not so much. I want everyone to call Jake out. Call Jake Johnson out, let him know that his career began the moment he stepped on that New Girl set, and he should never abandon his roots. Never. Not like me. That's why I always come home to New Girl land, always."

Earlier this year, Johnson responded to fan hopes for a new season of the series with the original stars or a reunion that sees the cast reflecting on the sitcom while speaking with ComicBook, "I will say, I hate both of those things. So I don't like the idea of all of us sitting on a couch and hugging in front of cameras and then getting sincere and being like, 'What Max Greenfield means to me...' with him right there." He added, "All that feels really bizarre to me, as well as the idea of doing a, 'Let's get the gang back together.' And now it's like, 'Nick Miller's definitely fatter.' I'm thinking that we're all with our fake kids. I don't know."

In regards to Morris being willing to do anything for fans, Johnson had teased, ""Well, look ... I call that Lamorne 'Politician Lamorne.' For the people, Lamorne will do anything. Sign the contract, Big Daddy, I'm putting your digits on the streets, Lamorne."

The actor's upcoming partnership with Mike's Hard Lemonade is described, "Mike's is partnering with hard-working actor Lamorne Morris to host an interactive pop-up event, Mike's Jobstacle Course. This immersive experience will prove that every job has its hard days. And a hard day deserves a refreshing-tasting Mike's Hard Lemonade. Just ahead of Labor Day on August 20th in New York City, a city renowned for its hustle and work ethic, the Mike's Jobstacle Course is giving you the opportunity to experience what different 'easy' jobs might be like. Think reporting the weather looks pretty chill? Try your hand at being a weatherperson. Think you've got the right stuff to be a bookseller? Try organizing the stacks yourself. Does 'candy taste-tester' sound like a sweet gig? See if you've got the stomach for a job as a food taster. Participants (21+ only) will experience these deceptively challenging 'easy' jobs, proving that every job has its own laughably hard moments."

Stay tuned for updates on the possible future of New Girl. The Mike's Jobstacle Course will be located at 477 Broadway in New York City from 2 - 8 p.m. ET on August 20th. RSVP at mikesjobstaclecourse.eventbrite.com.

What do you think of the actor's comments? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

The animated adventure Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse delivered a number of obscure Spider-Man characters to the big screen in 2018, with one of the breakout figures being "Spider-Noir," who was voiced by Nicolas Cage. This Peter Parker proved so compelling that he's earning the live-action series Spider-Noir on Prime Video, with Cage set to reprise the role and also featuring Fargo and New Girl star Lamorne Morris as Robbie Robertson. With the series yet to start filming, Morris is remaining coy about what fans can expect from his take on the character, though promised the upcoming spinoff is "insane." Morris recently announced a partnership with Mike's Hard Lemonade for the "Mike's Jobstacle Course" activation, which will be held on August 20th. You can RSVP at mikesjobstaclecourse.eventbrite.com.

"Well, I can't say too much. I've been sworn to secrecy," Morris shared with ComicBook of the upcoming project. "However, I will say it will be an experience unlike anything anyone's ever seen on television. What they're doing is insane. It really is insane, and I'm just grateful to have the opportunity to bring this version of Robbie Robertson to life. Folks who know me, you can assume that there'll be a level of Lamorne in there, which is why they gave me the job. Like I said, I can't tease too much, but I think fans will be overjoyed with what they see."

The actor previously expressed his excitement at joining the project, noting it was a "bucket-list" opportunity.

"To play a character in a world that is not necessarily real, opposite actors who are veteran OGs that can teach you a thing or two, that you could be on set learning while performing," Morris shared with Deadline. "When you grow up on comics and even animation, you want to be a part of that world, and this combines those worlds. It's the comic, it's live-action, it's Nick Cage, Brendan Gleeson. So, being a part of that group is a bucket list thing for sure."

The actor's upcoming partnership with Mike's Hard Lemonade is described, "Mike's is partnering with hard-working actor Lamorne Morris to host an interactive pop-up event, Mike's Jobstacle Course. This immersive experience will prove that every job has its hard days. And a hard day deserves a refreshing-tasting Mike's Hard Lemonade. Just ahead of Labor Day on August 20th in New York City, a city renowned for its hustle and work ethic, the Mike's Jobstacle Course is giving you the opportunity to experience what different 'easy' jobs might be like. Think reporting the weather looks pretty chill? Try your hand at being a weatherperson. Think you've got the right stuff to be a bookseller? Try organizing the stacks yourself. Does 'candy taste-tester' sound like a sweet gig? See if you've got the stomach for a job as a food taster. Participants (21+ only) will experience these deceptively challenging 'easy' jobs, proving that every job has its own laughably hard moments."

Stay tuned for updates on Spider-Noir. The Mike's Jobstacle Course will be located at 477 Broadway in New York City from 2 - 8 p.m. ET on August 20th. RSVP at mikesjobstaclecourse.eventbrite.com.

Are you looking forward to the spinoff? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Having grown up in the Chicago area, it wasn't a direct path to Hollywood for actor Lamorne Morris, who took on a variety of careers before making the jump to Los Angeles. Even his most beloved role as Winston on the FOX sitcom New Girl was an opportunity he scored in an unconventional manner, as he joined the series in Episode 2 in the wake of Damon Wayans Jr. having to exit the project, though his comedic talents cemented him as an integral component of the ensemble. In honor of persisting through a number of professional ups and downs, Morris has partnered with Mike's Hard Lemonade to deliver the "Mike's Jobstacle Course" event in New York City, which puts fans through the gauntlet of diverse jobs to see just how challenging they really are. The Mike's Jobstacle Course will be located at 477 Broadway from 2 - 8 p.m. ET on August 20th. RSVP at mikesjobstaclecourse.eventbrite.com.

The event is described, "Mike's is partnering with hard-working actor Lamorne Morris to host an interactive pop-up event, Mike's Jobstacle Course. This immersive experience will prove that every job has its hard days. And a hard day deserves a refreshing-tasting Mike's Hard Lemonade. Just ahead of Labor Day on August 20th in New York City, a city renowned for its hustle and work ethic, the Mike's Jobstacle Course is giving you the opportunity to experience what different 'easy' jobs might be like. Think reporting the weather looks pretty chill? Try your hand at being a weatherperson. Think you've got the right stuff to be a bookseller? Try organizing the stacks yourself. Does 'candy taste-tester' sound like a sweet gig? See if you've got the stomach for a job as a food taster. Participants (21+ only) will experience these deceptively challenging 'easy' jobs, proving that every job has its own laughably hard moments."

ComicBook caught up with Morris to talk the new partnership, the odds of a New Girl reunion, the Spider-Man spinoff series Spider-Noir, and more.

ComicBook: I don't want to skirt around the issue, I want to get right into it. This could be an easy question, could be a controversial question, but as a Chicago native, what's your go-to Chicago pizza?

Lamorne Morris: Well, I would say, lately, it's been Giordano's just because it's down the street from where I live in Chicago. I'd probably say Giordano's. Lou Malnati's gets sent over to L.A. every once in a while, so I thoroughly enjoy that.

But I have a funny story. My friend Alex, when we were growing up in Chicago, has this reputation for being the guy with pizza. So we would always go to his house and people are like, "Oh, I heard you guys had pizza. It was a pizza party. It was a pizza thing." Everything is always pizza-related with Alex, in particular. What people didn't realize is that Alex was just throwing frozen pizzas into the damn oven, and it was just like, we knew it because he always burnt it, but other people would be like, "Yeah, we heard about your little pizza party."

I love pizza so much, but Alex always had the sh-ttiest of pizza. I'm like, "We're in Chicago eating this BS. This doesn't make sense."

I appreciate that you're proving to be a standout from the stereotype, because so many people are like, "Well, I'm from Chicago. I don't actually like Chicago pizza." No, you can be from Chicago and actually like Chicago pizza.

Oh, absolutely. It feels like a meal to me. People talk about New York-style pizza. Eck, what is it? You just fold a slice you got off the street? Who cares? It's not a style.

You have this collaboration with Mike's Hard Lemonade and it's about various jobs, various career paths, and I know you have had so many different jobs throughout your career. Looking back, is there a job that you, at the time, thought, "This is the most difficult job on Earth," and looking back it's now, "Oh no, that was actually the easiest thing,"? Then also, along those lines, what do you think actually was the most difficult job you've had throughout your career?

There's a few that I would say, whether it be working at a medical facility or whether it be waiting tables, but I'm going to go with the entertainment space in this one and name specific jobs.

I originally thought New Girl was going to be the most difficult thing ever because it was my first time being a lead on a nationally syndicated television series. To start out, it felt rough. It did feel rough developing a character and wondering if you're going to get fired every day and things like that. Now that I'm so far removed from it, it was the easiest job in the world, because all you had to do was just be loose and use your instincts and trust your instincts and all the characters. I give Jake [Johnson] a hard time, but Jake might be the greatest improviser in the world and it's easy when someone is setting you up for jokes all the time.

One of the more difficult ones, Fargo was pretty difficult. Fargo, it was a fun job for sure, but shooting in cold weather like that, it's literally bone-chilling and you have to perform, you have to use it, they say, and stay in the moment, stay in the pocket, but deal with the fact that it's minus-30 degrees outside and your moisture is dried up and frozen on your face and your beard is white with ice. That's brutal.

Coming back to Mike's Hard Lemonade and this "Jobstacle Course" event, how did this whole collaboration come about? How did it come on your radar and what got you so excited to get involved with it?

Well, it just made sense for me in particular. You get a lot of opportunities to work with different brands, and sometimes they don't necessarily align, so you have to sometimes say no to certain things that might seem cool. This one made sense because it mirrored my life. It's like, "Hey, you've worked hard. Sit down, reward yourself, Mike's Hard Lemonade, great flavors." You go, "Oh, that makes sense, because that's how I typically live my life."

Like you said, I've had a ton of jobs in my past and whenever, and I'm sure you can attest to this and most people can attest to this, what do you normally want to do? You want to, after work, you sit down, you want to have a drink. Mike's Hard Lemonade, in particular, the lemonade being my favorite flavor, it feels like vacationing to me, you know what I mean? And so you want to have a little mini vacation before you've got to get up and go back to work the next day.

It's very necessary for the human body to relax. You don't want to get burned out. You want to keep enjoying this job, so don't get stressed and burned out. And that's how I've always lived, and I firmly stand by that. So when they brought this to me, I just thought, "Oh, well, these are my core beliefs," and I think it's going to be really fun at the Jobstacle Course for folks to test some jobs, what they think is easy, see if they can do it. Being a weather person seems like an easy job, but we're going to see, we're going to have people try it out and see if they can live up to what the other weather people do. Booksellers, taste testers, it doesn't matter. I'm going to add a few jobs myself in there. Best prankster, I don't know. We'll see.

I will admit that in my former career of giving talks about sharks at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, I typically would unwind with Lou Malnati's or Pequod's. Pequod's was another go-to.

Oh, wow. Really? Okay, all right, very nice.

There's Lou Malnati's locations downtown, so it was a little bit easier to go from the Museum Campus to Michigan Avenue or whatever.

I remember one time a buddy was talking about Giordano's and I forget what he was saying, but I told him, I was like, "No, maybe I went to a different location," because he didn't like it very much, and I was like, "Oh, well we were in the Oak Brook location. That's why. We didn't go to the Loop location. We went to the wrong one, maybe."

Not only just in your past before you got acting opportunities, but even since becoming an actor, you've done a sitcom, done with Fargo, been a podcast host, hosted Jimmy Kimmel, you've gotten to do so many awesome things. Is there an avenue of the entertainment industry that you are still holding out hope for, "If I can get that opportunity, that's going to be another thing to cross off the list,"?

I've directed before, but I want to dive more into it, directing and producing. So having my sense of humor and my style on something, but not necessarily being on camera. I want to do that just for a little bit because I love performing, I love acting, but that'd be really nice to be on set and to guide actors the way some of the great directors that I've worked with have done for me and maybe add a little gem to their toolbox if I could. That's something that I definitely want to dive into because, also, wearing makeup every day isn't for me every day. Every day? Oh, boy. So as a director, I could just show up in sweats and flip-flops and I'm great, so that would be nice.

Unfortunately, I do have to bring it back to your former costar Jake. I spoke with him earlier this year, and I was saying, "Lamorne is up for a New Girl reunion, a New Girl revival. He's open to it because he wants to give the fans what they want." When I told Jake this, his response was, and I quote, "I call that politician Lamorne. For the people, Lamorne will do anything. Sign the contract, big daddy. I'm putting your digits on the streets." And I would just like to afford you the opportunity to respond not only to Jake, but also to what the chances are of a New Girl revival.

I'll say this: a lot of times, politicians, they overpromise, but me as a politician, I want to promise the right amount, and I want to let all the folks know that I will do anything for a New Girl reunion. Personally, that's me.

Now, Jake Johnson, who's my rival, who's my political opponent, Jake says that he's down, but Jake is not. Jake is not, folks. I am Lamorne for the people. Jake Johnson, not so much. I want everyone to call Jake out. Call Jake Johnson out, let him know that his career began the moment he stepped on that New Girl set, and he should never abandon his roots. Never. Not like me. That's why I always come home to New Girl land, always.

I'm about to start the grassroots foundation of "White Dudes for Lamorne for New Girl" and hope that I don't get suspended from Twitter or X or whatever the hell people are calling it these days.

Yeah, I know, I know. Don't get in trouble, man. We need you.

I am here with ComicBook and Lamorne, I know you previously mentioned Spider-Noir as being a bit of a bucket-list opportunity for you. I know it hasn't started shooting yet. It's early stages, you can't talk about it much, but since this is a new spin on what people might know of Spider-Man, is there anything you can tease about what fans might be able to expect as far as what your Robbie Robertson is going to be like, or how it might be different from what audience expectations are?

Well, I can't say too much. I've been sworn to secrecy. However, I will say it will be an experience unlike anything anyone's ever seen on television. What they're doing is insane. It really is insane, and I'm just grateful to have the opportunity to bring this version of Robbie Robertson to life. Folks who know me, you can assume that there'll be a level of Lamorne in there, which is why they gave me the job. Like I said, I can't tease too much, but I think fans will be overjoyed with what they see.

The Mike's Jobstacle Course will be located at 477 Broadway from 2 - 8 p.m. ET on August 20th. RSVP at mikesjobstaclecourse.eventbrite.com.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.

Pyro actor Aaron Stanford addressed his character's narrative arc through the X-Men trilogy. ComicBook's Phase Zero podcast addressed his appearances after X2: X-Men United. Remember that Pyro popped up again before Deadpool & Wolverine. It seems like Stanford really enjoyed that character development in X2. But, When he came back for X-Men: The Last Stand, a lot of the progress that had been made was washed away. It's clearly stuck with this actor for a while now. This MCU appearance allowed him to appraise Pyro's journey again with a fresh set of eyes.

"I do think, like Pyro through all these movies, they're all very different right? so, the portrait that was drawn and X2, in my opinion, is the most interesting, the most complicated and complete picture," Stanford began. "They really took a lot of pains to sort of interweave these little moments of him. Him at Bobby's house, staring at a picture of someone else's happy family. And, there's complicated emotions happening there."

"So that hints at a backstory to Pyro. What happened to his family? What is the deal here? And then, the moment between him and Magneto. For the very first time, this person is making him feel good about himself," the Pryo actor observed. "You're not a freak, you're not an outcast, you're a God among insects. you're special. So there was all that kind of stuff going on and quite honestly, in the next X-Men movie that stuff just kind of vanished. It really wasn't there."

"It became a more simplified portrait and he was just kind of a bad guy. He was just sort of a villain and he was ready to get it done and ready to kill Professor X," Stanford clarified. "So, it became a very different portrait and then obviously in Deadpool it's a completely different thing, because Deadpool is a totally different universe. So I really had to be much bigger, much more broad, more tuned into the fact that this is a satire of Pyro. Imagining him and what Pyro would be like after he's been ripped out of his universe and thrown into this limbo."

X-2's Most-Remembered Scene

Stanford What also told us about his iconic scene as Pyro in X-Men 2. A lot of fans have fond memories of the fire mutant in those first movies. The big action set piece outside of Bobby's parents house lives rent free in most X-Men fans' brains. When it came time for Stanford to deliver those intense lines in front of those police officers, he really had to juggle the gravity of the moment and the tone this movie was shooting for.

"No, I never thought about it in that sense. I never thought about it as being like, 'This will be in an iconic moment,'" Stanford explained. "I just tried to look, I just try to do the best job you can. And X2, it was really important for them for everything to be grounded and for everything to feel real. That's what they were looking for in this, in this comic book film. They really wanted to take a different angle on this movie and really sort of hit people where they live, you know? So, they wanted the characters to feel real. With that line, what I was looking for was a way to make it not feel like an Arnold Schwarzenegger one-liner."

He would continue, "I wanted it to. And, I remember one of the writers, Mike Doherty who wrote that line, after I said it he came up and was like, ' I love that, because you delivered the line like a kid who just found his dad's gun.' You know? He feels the power of it. But, he's a little afraid of it too... He clearly wants to be the bad mutant that y'all heard about. But, it's a bunch of adult, grown, armed cops in front of them. He's never done anything like this before. So, it's scary, but he puts up the bravado."

Do you like Pyro's arc in these movies? Catch all of our pop culture discussion at @ComicBook on social media!

Marvel star Aaron Stanford talked to ComicBook about his iconic Pyro scene from X-2: X-Men United. The Phase Zero podcast sat down with the Deadpool & Wolverine actor to talk about his journey through the Fox Marvel Universe. Longtime fans will remember the moment in X-2 when Pyro took on an entire precinct's worth of police officers to help the mutants escape. It's one of the big, effects heavy flourishes that that first movie trilogy is really known for. Stanford told us that he had quite a tightrope to walk in delivering his lines before setting some of those cars ablaze. Check out what he had to say about the experience down below.

"No, I never thought about it in that sense. I never thought about it as being like, 'This will be in an iconic moment,'" Stanford told us. "I just tried to look, I just try to do the best job you can. And X-2, it was really important for them for everything to be grounded and for everything to feel real. That's what they were looking for in this, in this comic book film. They really wanted to take a different angle on this movie and really sort of hit people where they live, you know? So, they wanted the characters to feel real. With that line, what I was looking for was a way to make it not feel like an Arnold Schwarzenegger one-liner."

"I wanted it to. And, I remember one of the writers, Mike Dougherty who wrote that line, after I said it he came up and was like, ' I love that, because you delivered the line like a kid who just found his dad's gun.' You know? He feels the power of it," the actor added. "But, he's a little afraid of it too... He clearly wants to be the bad mutant that y'all heard about. But, it's a bunch of adult, grown, armed cops in front of them. He's never done anything like this before. So, it's scary, but he puts up the bravado."

Continuing The Work From X-2

Later in our conversation, Stanford talked more about his time as Pyro in X-Men 2. When the first trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine dropped online, The actor was one of the first familiar faces that fans pointed out as a returning member of the Fox Universe. Immediately, questions began to swirl about whether or not this version of Pyro was the same one from those movies that everyone seems to love. Stanford would tell us that he played this variant as though it was the same one from X-2. In fact, there is reason to believe that his character would be all too happy to sign up for Cassandra Nova's weird protection racket down in The Void.

"I just took it as a continuation but again, with an adjustment for tone. Basically what I did was reach back and think this was the Pyro from X-Men 2," Stanford told ComicBook's Phase Zero podcast. "The idea behind that character was that he was a young, disaffected, and outcast kid who becomes radicalized. He becomes a radicalized terrorist and we see that journey. I took that interesting, complete portrait and then adjusted it for the Deadpool universe and the given circumstances of that world."

Were you happy to see him back? Catch all of our pop culture discussion at @ComicBook on social media!

Deadpool & Wolverine star Aaron Stanford addresses his future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The box office success that is Deadpool & Wolverine was filled with surprising cameos that delivered much-needed fan service, with one of those guest stars being Aaron Stanford. The actor reprised his role as the fire-controlling mutant Pyro from 2003's X2: X-Men United and 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, which was something he wasn't sure would ever happen again. With the MCU currently in its Multiverse Saga and Avengers: Secret Wars looming on the horizon, fans will be curious to know if Marvel Studios has any plans on using Stanford's Pyro again, even though he had his neck snapped by Emma Corrin's Cassandra Nova.

ComicBook's Phase Zero podcast spoke with Pyro actor Aaron Stanford at San Diego Comic-Con, where he was asked if Deadpool & Wolverine was the end of the road for his character in the MCU. "I honestly have no idea," Stanford said. "There's no good answer to that question, it could very well be the end, it could also very easily not be the end. It's the multiverse, so there could be several iterations of Pyro to come. Who knows? I love the character, I've been living with him for a very long time. It was great to start my career with him and be at this point with him. I'd obviously love to see him live on, but who knows?"

You can watch the interview in the video player above.

Dafne Keen comments on reunion with Hugh Jackman in Deadpool & Wolverine

Dafne Keen joined Aaron Stanford as former X-Men movie stars officially joining the MCU in Deadpool & Wolverine. Keen returned as X-23 / Laura Kinney, a clone of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, though the X-Man in Deadpool & Wolverine is different from the one who gave his life to save her in 2017's Logan. She recently discussed how their "heartbreaking" reunion happened.

"There's something so wonderfully tragic... she never got to say she loved him or that she's grateful to him, and she's getting this opportunity now but it's not really him," Dafne Keen told ComicBook's Phase Zero. "So it's working with the tragedy that it's so close, yet so far. The closest she'll get is telling this man she essentially just met, but she loves because he's Logan, how much she cares about him. She can't say too much because he doesn't know her, but she knows him. It's so heartbreaking and so genius for them." You can watch the interview in the player above.

What is Deadpool & Wolverine about?

In Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) will change the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). The film also stars Matthew Macfadyen as Paradox, and Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, with the return of Deadpool alums Morena Baccarin as Vanessa Carlysle, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Stefan Kapi?i? as Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Rob Delaney as Peter, and Lewis Tan as Shatterstar. Aaron Stanford is returning as Pyro from the X-Men film series, with Jennifer Garner rumored to return as Elektra Natchios.

Kevin Feige, Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy and Lauren Shuler Donner produce with Louis D'Esposito, Wendy Jacobson, Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, George Dewey and Simon Kinberg serving as executive producers. Deadpool & Wolverine is written by Ryan Reynolds & Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick & Zeb Wells & Shawn Levy. Deadpool & Wolverine was released exclusively in theaters on July 26th.

Deadpool & Wolverine has been out into the world for several weeks now, and its high-octane action and number of surprising Marvel cameos have definitely gone beyond the expectations of fans. One theory that popped up in the months leading up to Deadpool & Wolverine was that Halle Berry would return as Ororo Munroe / Storm from the original X-Men trilogy of movies, given the fact that her onscreen teammate, Logan Howlett / Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), co-leads the film. On top of that speculation, the Oscar-winning actress posted a photo of herself with a shorter version of Storm's iconic white hair in 2023, leading some to theorize she was filming something new as the character. While we now know that Berry's Storm isn't a part of Deadpool & Wolverine, she is revealing some interesting insight into why that didn't happen. While speaking with ComicBook at the red carpet premiere for Netflix's The Union, Berry revealed that she was approached to reprise her role as Storm in the Deadpool movies -- but not actually by franchise star and producer Ryan Reynolds.

"No," Berry said, when asked if there had ever been talks about her returning for the movie. "Blake [Lively] asked me one time, I ran into her at a Marc Jacobs fashion show, and she said, 'Would you ever be in my husband's movie as Storm?' I said, 'Yeah, if he asked me,' but he never asked me."

What Is Deadpool & Wolverine About?

In Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) will change the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). The film also stars Matthew Macfadyen as Paradox, and Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, with the return of Deadpool alums Morena Baccarin as Vanessa Carlysle, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Stefan Kapi?i? as Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Rob Delaney as Peter, and Lewis Tan as Shatterstar. Aaron Stanford is returning as Pyro from the X-Men film series, with Jennifer Garner rumored to return as Elektra Natchios.

Kevin Feige, Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy and Lauren Shuler Donner produce with Louis D'Esposito, Wendy Jacobson, Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, George Dewey and Simon Kinberg serving as executive producers. Deadpool & Wolverine is written by Ryan Reynolds & Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick & Zeb Wells & Shawn Levy. Deadpool & Wolverine was released exclusively in theaters on July 26th.

From the Doctor Strange and Venom franchises to award-nominated fare like 12 Years a Slave and Children of Men, Chiwetel Ejiofor has accumulated a pretty unique filmography. Later this week, the actor can be seen directing, adapting, and starring in the upcoming movie Rob Peace, and it sounds like it will be the latest unique display of his talents. While speaking to ComicBook about his work on Rob Peace, Ejiofor shared a bit of insight into how he approaches one part of performing -- his accent work.

"I don't know," Ejiofor explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "I have a dialect coach who I've worked with for a very long time, Jerome Butler. Basically, I work with him on every project that I do, that isn't in a way very close to my own natural accent. And because he's so thorough and we've worked together for so long, we're in a kind of pattern of how we approach accents and wanting to be as authentic as possible. To go and find people that I wanna sort of sound like, and talk to people and engage with people and try to get as authentic an experience as possible. So I find that process, actually, really really fun. I think it's changed over time, but only in the sense that as I've worked with him more closely, I've found that I've just been able to structure that work in a slightly different way. I found it was more challenging when I was trying to do it myself and just sort of trying to sort of corner people and get them to speak into a microphone. I love that process."

What Is Rob Peace About?

Rob Peace follows the true story of a brilliant young man (Jay Will) torn between his father's shadowed past and his own promising future. Raised by his devoted mother (Mary J. Blige), Rob risks everything he has worked for to free his imprisoned father (Ejiofor). Rob Peace also stars Camila Cabello, and is based on the New York Times bestseller by Jeff Hobbs.

"I think I didn't wanna make a film about code-switching because I actually find the term code-switching and what it evokes actually to be quite limiting, especially when it's applied to the experiences of Black people," Ejiofor explained in a recent interview with Yahoo! "It's become a term that has been used to describe in a shorthand way some sort of racialized dynamic, which I just think is minimizing. So I wasn't interested in that. Rob never represented that as far as I could see, so yeah, some people sort of jumped on that. He went to Yale, but he was from this impoverished kind of area. Consequently, it's a story about these two, and to me that never rang true to me."

Rob Peace arrives in theaters on Friday, August 16th.