Future Stories

Photo: Katie Yu/HBO Max If you count how many nice things British actor Freddie Stroma says about his Peacemaker co-star John Cena and the show’s creator/director/writer James Gunn in this interview, you will realize “Hey, this Stroma fellow’s a really nice guy” far before you reach the end. His gratefulness for Peacemaker is so sincere it borders on innocent—which is arguably why he’s so perfect as Vigilante . Despite Adrain Chase’s utter lack of remorse about killing people he considers bad guys, there’s a sort of naïve innocence that pervades the lovable psychopath. It makes Vigilante the show’s weirdest and most fascinating character, so io9 had to talk to Strona about the role. Rob Bricken, io9: You were recast in the role when the show was midway through filming. Did you feel any pressure, since you were at the heart of five episodes of reshoots? Freddie Stroma: It was it was a little scary at first because, you know, everyone’s been shooting for a few months together ...

I had an interview with legendary Tesla investor Emmet Peppers. Emmet made nearly $100 million out of $1 million in 2020 when he made major Tesla options investments. I spoke with Emmet Peppers and Matt Smith about my research that China battery companies are making loads of iron LFP batteries. I have written about this ... Read more

Photo: Joel Cunningham/Gizmodo At a climactic point in the interactive narrative that unfolds onboard the Halcyon —the hotel-cum-spaceship that is home to Disney World’s incredibly expensive, soon-to-open two-day theme park/Live Action Role Play Star Wars experience —an invasion of First Order stormtroopers overtakes the ship, adorning it with blood red banners featuring their hexagonal insignia. It’s a moment that is supposed to strike fear (you know, pretend fear) into the hearts of the paying customers play-acting as part of the Resistance, but it didn’t do much for me, because I never found the First Order the least bit scary. Perhaps that’s unfair to Kylo Ren , General Hux , Captain Phasma , and co., but I grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy. The new, slightly off-model fascist galactic government is never going to hit me in the same way. The Death Star will always be scarier than Starkiller Base, and Darth Vader a more potent menace than his poofy-haired grand...

No skull-king about, Indy. Image: Lucasfilm David Rysdahl wants to make a new take on Rapunzel with Zazie Beetz. Renfield sinks its teeth into a new release date. Chucky plans a return this year. Plus, new looks at Our Flag Means Death , Netflix nabs an unconventional  Transformers show, and more. Spoilers now! Meg 2: The Trench Variety reports Li Bingbing has exited Meg 2: The Trench . However, Wu Jing, “the highest-grossing male actor of all time in China” has joined the cast in a currently undisclosed role. Rapunzel In a recent interview with Screen Rant , David Rysdahl revealed he and Zazie Beetz are collaborating on a new version of Rapunzel with “a huge afro.” There’s something I can’t talk about but it’s going to be exciting. But Zazie and I write a lot. I have a couple of scripts. We have a production company and we write a lot. Like I just said twice. Did I mention we write a lot? (laughs). So we are making a Rapunzel story, kind of what happens after, f...

A crop of James Jean’s poster for Everything Everywhere All at Once Image: A24/James Jean If you thought the trailer for the upcoming Michelle Yeoh multiverse film Everything Everywhere All at Once was awesome, wait until you see the movie’s poster. And io9 has the exclusive debut. A24, which will release the film on March 25, commissioned popular artist James Jean to do a special poster for the film and it’s... incredible. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this poster is worth about 30,000 words, because it’s chock full of gorgeous, colorful, evocative images. Check it out. Image: A24/James Jean “Capturing Everything Everywhere All at Onc e in a poster was an immense undertaking, sort of like trying to collapse the entire imagination of the Daniels into a single ultra-dense sheet of paper,” Jean told io9 via email. “The insanity of the film still resonates in my hands, as they tremble from the hundreds of hours it took to render each character and prop from the story...

Tesla is testing FSD in Canada on 60 cars and will be expanding to more testers this weekend. We’ve had about 60 or so cars testing internally in Canada. Hoping to go wider this weekend. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2022 Tesla makes their own C compiler for maximum efficiency and a higher frame ... Read more

The main updates for the Ukraine War is the West has kicked Russia out of the SWIFT financial system and Ukrainian forces have been successfully resisting so far. Drones sent from NATO Ally, Turkey have been used to coordinate laser targeted strikes on Russian armor. Russia has not integrated night vision goggles. They only advance ... Read more

Photo: Josh Stringer/AMC The first Governor was a madman. The people of Terminus were cannibals. Negan and the Saviors murdered the show’s most beloved character. The Whisperers were a cult of killers. And yet, of all of The Walking Dead ’s many villains, has there been an antagonist you’ve wanted to feed to zombies more than Sebastian Milton , the impossibly entitled, douchebag son of Commonwealth leader Pam Milton? I can answer for you: No . Sebastian (Teo Rapp-Olsson)—whose real name, as we all know, is Kingsley St. Buffingsworth of the Cape Cod Buffingsworths—causes me such emotional agony that I can only watch his reprehensible bullshit for about 15 seconds at a time, then I have to pause the show. It’s more gut-churning to watch his nonsense than the most graphic on-screen death, and yet “New Haunts” is still a great episode of The Walking Dead that may presage some fascinating storytelling through the rest of its final season. That’s all thanks to the Commonwealth, wh...

Image: Studio Ufotable It’s the end of the month , folks, and that means it’s time to tell us about some of the shows or films you watched and the games you played. (And things you’ve read or listened to, if those are things you partake in.) Played:   Since I own a PlayStation 5, that meant I was legally required to buy Horizon Forbidden West . While other things did end up briefly taking up my time not long after it came out, I have been enjoying what I played so far, even if it’s a bit out of step with how developers have been attempting open world games since 2017. The world simply feels big for the sake of being big, and while its core stealth/arrow sniping loop is still very good, it feels like Guerrilla just didn’t address much of Zero Dawn’s issues, like its underwhelming melee and traversal mechanics or having to screech to a halt every time you ride a mount and want to gather resources. Last month, I said that I could see myself enjoying Cyberpunk 2077, but its va...

Image: Toei Animation Kids in the 90s had plenty of anime to grab their attention growing up, usually from the likes of Toonami or KidsWB. The last few months have had some heavy doses of nostalgia hit for anime fans, and this weekend saw two more announcements that’s sure to please old school anime and manga fans. During Saturday’s late night Digimon Convention, the news broke that the 2020 reboot of Toei’s Digimon Adventure would receive an English dub sometime in the near future. When it first released, the reboot was taking some interesting swings at updating the original anime with modern technology and its own history in mind, and the reception overall was fairly mixed. The English dub will be bringing in new voice actors, with only two cast members of the Digidestined currently revealed: Zeno Robinson ( The Owl House, My Hero Academia ) will voice team gogglehead Tai Kamiya, and Ben Diskin ( Beastars, Codename: Kids Next Door ) will voice his fiery pal, Agumon. As a fan ...

Image: Lenil Francis Yu/Marvel Comics Both DC and Marvel Comics have been among the many corporations to plop their characters over to Fortnite in recent years. If the latter publisher’s ridiculous, in-canon 2020 crossover didn’t satisfy you, then you’ll be pleased to hear that they’re teaming up again for a second crossover this summer. Fortnite x Marvel: Zero War will see Spider-Man, Shuri, and Wolverine team up with “fan favorite” characters from the battle royale who’ve traveled to the Marvel world to track down a crystal shard from the Zero Point event in Season 8 of Chapter 2 that’s wound up in the Marvel Universe. (It’s not clear if the Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point comic from last year is also canon to this?) The so-called “Zero Shard” is could possibly turn the tide of the neverending war that Fortnite’s characters have been locked into for years now, and the story will have “enormous ramifications” for both universes. Penning the comic is writer Christos Gage, with...

Image: Baldemar Rivas/DC Comics DC Comics loves itself some silly genre AUs. If recent stories like “ Batman, but death metal  ” or the upcoming “ Justice League, but dinosaurs  ” pitch didn’t sound kick ass enough for you, then maybe this will: DC Mech, a miniseries that can best be described as “ Get in the mech , Justice League.”  Revealed at the ComicsPro retailer convention, DC Mech is an upcoming miniseries set in a universe where Darkseid and his forces from Apokolips are set to invade Earth. As the tagline says, “Justice gets an upgrade,” and the only way to stop the invasion is for earth’s mightiest heroes to get their Pacific Rim on. Writer Kenny Porter ( Superman: Man of Tomorrow ) and artist Baldemar Rivas ( Unearth, Robins ) will bring the story to life, with Porter admitting straight up that he wrote this story because he is a massive nerd, particularly for mech stories like Evangelion and Robotech . “I grew up reading DC Comics and watching any ani...

Image: Game Freak/Nintendo It’s only been about a month since Pokémon Legends Arceus hit the Nintendo Switch, but it’s been extremely clear both critically (mostly) and commercially that Game Freak’s evolution of their iconic monster fighting franchise is something fans want to see more of. While you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that there could’ve been a chance for DLC, something recent entries have dug into, Nintendo has other plans and is already looking to the immediate future. During their Pokémon Day livestream earlier this morning, Nintendo ended with a look at Gen 9 of the main series, titled Pokémon Scarlet and Violet . Watching the trailer and seeing the scope of this brand new region really throws into perspective how much Legends Arceus was a bit of a (well received!) beta test for the next pair of mainline games. Seeing Pokémon look just a little more lively in the world counts for a lot, even in these brief glimpses, and it looks like human NPCs may be able to g...

Screenshot: Bungie With each new expansion, Destiny 2 brings new weapons for player Guardians to strive towards and adventures for them to go on. These expansions are generally pretty good, but sometimes, Bungie’s shared world shooter will put a bigger emphasis on the former, since that’s the main draw of the series. There will still be a solid story told with each expansion, but it can often feel like these tales take a back seat to focus on what you’ll use to vanquish wave after wave of enemies. (See: a grenade launcher that shoots worms .) While the newest Witch Queen expansion does offer plenty of impressive guns and armor, it also spends a suitable amount of time on building a campaign that actually feels worth the price of admission. Leading up to Witch Queen’s release, the biggest selling point of the whole expansion (outside that aforementioned worm launcher) was the Hive Guardians. They’re a blast to fight, and the expansion does a good job of making them feel like a f...

Image: Jorge Jiménez/DC Comics The main Batman book lives and dies based on the creative team behind it. Some runs have been pretty damn good , and others haven’t entirely lived up to the potential that they seemed to have. DC’s Dark Knight gets new teams fairly frequently, and the publisher has announced the next duo to take over their most popular hero after current team Joshua Williamson and Jorge Molina end their six-issue stint. Starting in the summer, writer Chip Zdarsky of recent Daredevil fame (and also Star-Lord ) will be heading up the lead Bat-book alongside artist Jorge Jiménez, who you likely remember from James Tynion’s fairly recent Batman run, and colorist Tomeu Morey. The debut arc will be the six-issue story “Failsafe,” where Batman will start receiving nightmares of “a future he can’t stop,” as an enemy from his past wants to end Batman completely. Speaking to Comic Book , Zdarsky said that this arc would be Batman’s “Doomsday,” which is a pretty loaded word...

Afterlife: Wandering Souls cover detail. Image: Lorena Lammer As the independent TTRPG scene has exploded over the recent years, so has the creativity that comes along with an ever-expanding and innovative customer base. While wandering the afterlife (or wandering around as an undead creature) are well-trod storytelling tropes, game designers across the globe have taken folklore and fantasy and merged them to create some incredibly fun and exciting games. There are two sections to this list, the first dealing with games that take place explicitly in the afterlife , the bardo, the places between life and death. The second gives you games where you play undead creatures of various stripes. Let’s dig in. Playing in the Bardo Afterlife: Wandering Souls (Angry Hamster Publishing) is a dreamy, atmospheric game where characters take on the roles of Wanderers who have moved on from the world of the living and are searching for their final resting place. The catch is that you have ...

A crop of the poster for In Search of Tomorrow done by Graham Humphreys. Image: Graham Humphreys Sometimes the only thing better than watching your favorite movie is watching someone talk about it. That might sound counterintuitive, but no matter how many times you’ve seen The Empire Strikes Back , RoboCop, Aliens , Flash Gordon , or The Last Starfighter , you’ve definitely seen the people involved talk about it less. And getting a new perspective on your favorite films is always worth doing. Those films and many, many, many more are part of a new documentary called In Search of Tomorrow from director David Weiner (r ead our interview with him here! ), who previously did In Search of Darkness . That film studied 1980s horror films—and now he’s blasted into an even more robust genre: 1980s sci-fi. Think about it. There are so many movies that came out in the 1980s that were sci-fi and this documentary, over the course of five hours, seems like it basically covers them all. Don’t ...

Screenshot: STARZ The upcoming season of Outlander will mark the beginning of a new era for the fan-favorite Starz show with the announcement that a new prequel series is in the works. Get ready for a new realm of time-travel romance; as Variety   reports, the yet to be titled series is in development and assembling a writer’s room. Matthew B. Roberts will lead the writer’s room, serving as both writer and executive producer of the prequel. Ronald D. Moore , who originally developed the show, will return as an executive producer with Maril Davis on behalf of Tall Ship Productions with Sony Pictures Television. Recently Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander book series, revealed in a Facebook post that she’s working on a prequel novel series concurrently to this now-announced new show. It remains to be seen if the new books, which center on Jamie Fraser’s parents, will serve as the basis of the upcoming series. Maril Davis told Den of Geek that the show’s relations...

Bloomberg reported that Kanye West has a net worth of $6.6 billion but Forbes believes his wealth is about $1.8 billion. Other reports have his net worth around $3 billion. Kanye West is 44 and has very high earnings as a performer and has made several very good business deals. He seems destined to get ... Read more

Gif: Hasbro Were I to look really closely at my hands, I’m sure I could find a lingering scar or two from a childhood spent painstakingly transforming robots into vehicles and back again—a process fraught with occasional pinched fingers. To my generation, Transformers toys were a challenge on par with those metal ring puzzles, but today’s kids need to do nothing more than smash their toys to get the job done. This is Hasbro’s new Transformers: Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures Dinobots Unite Smash Changer Optimus Prime figure, which only bears a passing resemblance to the heroic bot leader that was introduced to the world in the original ‘80s animated series . Since then there have been countless Transformers cartoons and movies , and to keep them all unique and marketable, the character’s appearances and vehicle modes have changed considerably over the years. What’s always stayed the same is the multi-step process of going from a robot, to a vehicle, and back again, which was e...

Tesla Model S Plaid Motors have vastly superior power and torque using revolutionary innovations in the electric engine. The only thing that is still the same compared to other electric motors is the shaft. Sandy Munro expects the Model S Plaid engine will go into the Cybertruck to provide insane levels of power and torque. ... Read more

A soon-to-be-familiar pair of shiny black gloves appear in a scene from 1970's The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Screenshot: Arrow Video/YouTube Italian horror legend Dario Argento ’s 20th movie, Dark Glasses —his first feature in 10 years—will be arriving on Shudder this fall. While we wait (and feverishly hope it’s a return to form after 2012's regrettable Dracula 3D ), we’re looking back at 10 films that have defined his career so far. Fans of Argento—who also wrote, co-wrote, or adapted the films he directed that are on this list—are already well familiar with the joys of his giallo thrillers and horror epics. Their trademarks are unmistakable: eerie soundtracks (his early giallos feature Ennio Morricone, while his horror films favor Goblin, members of Goblin, Keith Emerson, and others, with the occasional heavy metal tune tossed in for extra impact); POV shots that inevitably offer a glimpse of murderous black leather gloves; and colorfully striking visuals and pro...