Future Stories

Get ready for some of the funnest boldly going Star Trek’ s done in a while. Image: Paramount Star Trek ’s grand return, first with Discovery , and now with what feels like a whole flotilla of series , transformed the franchise into a series of heavily serialized adventures for the most part—a distinct break from the style that had largely guided the franchise for half a century prior. With Strange New Worlds , it re-embraces that format once more: and in doing so, stands apart among its contemporaries as some of the best Trek around. On the surface Strange New Worlds , set to premiere May 5 on Paramount+, sits at a peculiar crossroads. It is, technically, a spinoff-prequel-sequel to the second season of Star Trek: Discovery —a show now waiting for its fifth season on the horizon—which introduced the main trio of Enterprise officers Strange New Worlds returns to: Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Ethan Peck as a younger Lieutenant Spock, and Rebecca Romijn as “The Cage”...

Image: Marvel Studios If there’s one thing that the MCU has become known for during Phase 4, it’s shifting around its release schedule . We just saw that yesterday when Marvel swapped the 2023 dates for Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels, and it happened a couple times last year as well, when sequels for Thor and Black Panther were moved around. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has been a repeat victim of all the schedule shuffling, originally set for May 2021 before getting bumped back a few more times to account for other MCU films and shows, plus COVID and director Sam Raimi taking over after Scott Derrickson departed. Now that Multiverse is set to hit theaters next weekend, Raimi was asked by Rolling Stone about how moving around Stephen Strange’s sequel so much affected the film’s development. Again, this movie was meant to come out last year, but is now coming relatively hot off the heels of WandaVision and Spider-Man: No Way Home, both ...

Screenshot: Disney Parks/YouTube It’s six months away from spooky season, but there are already Halloween rumblings in the air. Disney Parks has revealed the comeback of an East Coast fan favorite event as well as more fall happenings on Disney cruises, and Universal Studios is keeping things tightly locked in its crypt regarding Halloween Horror Nights . Elsewhere in the theme park sphere, Six Flags Magic Mountain has unveiled its first look at an expanded DC Universe area, and Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness bursts through dimensions to land at Avengers Campus. Here’s the latest news from theme parks and other fan-tastical destinations ! Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party | Walt Disney World Hocus Pocus ’ witchy Sanderson Sisters will be back for the annual Magic Kingdom Halloween event! Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party runs August 12-October 31. Hocus Pocus -Themed Makeovers for Minnie and the Gals on Disney Cruises This is just too ...

Inset of Neal Adams’ cover for Batman by Neal Adams: Book One . Image: DC Comics It’s only been a few hours since news broke that legendary comic book artist Neal Adams passed away yesterday at the age of 80, but the comic book industry has not marked his death quietly. Writers, artists, and more have flocked to Twitter to praise Adams, his work, his immense influence, and his tireless work on behalf of comic creators, all of which had a giant, indelible impact on the industry forever. Here are just some of those creators, along with notable fans like James Gunn and Guillermo del Toro , eulogizing Adams by remembering their interactions, thanking him for his work, and noting how significant he was and always will be. Marvel Comics: DC Comics: Guillermo del Toro: James Gunn: Joe Quesada, former Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics: “There was a time in the world of comics when giants walked among us. A small handful still do, but today we lost one of the greatest. Our heart...

Indio,CA Coachella Music Festival Main Stage Screenshot: Coachella/YouTube The music scene’s big festival return has come to a close as Coachella wrapped up last weekend. io9 was able to attend through a media pass to catch all the sights and sounds (read our Danny Elfman report here )—which included not only music but also creative sets and installations. Through technology and physical sets, performers really brought out a taste of their worlds, in particular Brazilian singer Anitta, who collaborated with Disney Imagineering legend Joe Rohde to build a hometown realm in the middle of the desert to drive her propulsive setlist. In an interview with Nylon magazine , Anitta, a Latin Grammy-nominated and MTV Europe Music Award-winning artist, explained how she connected with the Pandora: The World of Avatar creative executive. “I was watching this documentary of Disney World and I saw this guy Joe [Rohde], he built the Animal Kingdom park,” she said. “There is so much fantasy—nat...

Photo: Emma McIntyre/Getty (Getty Images) Jon Watts ( Spider-Man: No Way Home ) has departed from Fantastic Four , the next film he was attached to direct for Marvel Studios , as reported by Deadline . Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: No Way Home made $1.89 billion at the box office, and the Watts-helmed picture is now the sixth-highest grossing film of all time. It’s sort of surprising he has parted ways with the franchise world as many are expecting to see if Marvel’s new take on Reed Richards will appear as part of the Illuminati in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness , which is out next week. “Making three Spider-Man films was an incredible and life changing experience for me,” Watts said in a statement. “I’m eternally grateful to have been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for seven years. I’m hopeful we’ll work together again and I can’t wait to see the amazing vision for Fantastic Four brought to life.” Watts is currently attached to shift gea...

The last weekend of May will be a day long remembered. Several days, even. Image: Lucasfilm You’ve felt it. A great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out... in excitement? Because, thank the maker, after the pandemic pushed it back for two years, Star Wars Celebration is preparing to descend on Anaheim, California in little over a month! As details and Star Wars stars start to trickle in, here’s what you need to know about what to expect. What Is Star Wars Celebration? The official Lucasfilm/ReedPop convention for the Star Wars movies, TV shows, games, books, and the zillion other Star Wars things that exist, Celebration has been running since 1999. A largely bi-annual gathering across the U.S. and Europe, the convention has been home to major announcements and trailers for upcoming films and TV projects, as well as publishing and gaming news for the galaxy far, far away. Expect cosplay, ridiculous merchandise, signings, panels, and, of...

Screenshot: Tequila Gang/Warner Bros. This April, I was lucky enough to partner with both my local movie theater (shout out to Story Screen Beacon ) and a good friend ( Alana Sawchuck ) to host a talkback series featuring five of Guillermo del Toro ’s monster flicks (stylized as MONSTER FLICKS ... get it?). Over the course of the month, Alana and I showed the following films:  Hellboy and Hellboy 2 : The Golden Army (in a double feature that lasted until nearly 1 am); Pacific Rim ; Blade 2 ; and Pan’s Labyrinth . Before you say “What about Shape of Water ?!”, my response is simply that film studios suck and they wouldn’t give it to us without an inordinate amount of money. So we showed Blade 2 instead. If you want to ask why we didn’t pick Cronos or Devil’s Backbone the answer is that we only had four Wednesdays to work with and we wanted to make Story Screen some money. It worked like this: after the usual trailers (some hand-picked; we showed the Constantine trailer ...

Science-Fantasy isn’t a new genre, per se, but it is one that is starting to get some clearer definitions within publishing, making it a buzzy place to read. Combining tropes and conventions of both science-fiction and fantasy , magic and time-space travel often go hand in hand. There are often unexplainable forces are at work alongside high tech machines and gadgets. Jumping off from the Spelljammer media list (which included a couple great science-fantasy books), I’ve conspired to get even more science-fantasy books on io9! Check out some of my favorites. This Is How You Lose the Time War Image: Simon & Schuster/Saga Press I love This is How You Lose the Time War —it’s genuinely one of my favorite books. Two rival time agents leave messages for each other across worlds and universes, attempting to win the never ending Time War... and avoid falling in love. The twist at the end is so tone-perfect that it’ll make you want to read it again immediately. How Rory Thorne De...

Same, Strange. Screenshot: YouTube A new glimpse of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has dropped, perhaps by accident. Although we’ve already seen plenty of the movie, this new 10-second trailer still has something new to show us. Check out the new spot, published by Marvel Studios Canada, below, but if you’re trying to keep yourself free of spoilers before next week... If you didn’t catch those two cameos, we’ve got them screenshot for you below. Amid the many multiverses that Strange seems to have broken into, he’s managed to find Peggy Carter as Captain Carter and the already teased Charles Xavier , in at least one of their many iterations. Granted, the clip is only 10 seconds long and fairly fast, so this first screenshot is a little blurry. Screenshot: Marvel Studios That’s definitely Captain Carter’s shield. In a few universes, Peggy Carter picked up the shield during World War II instead of Steve Rogers, first in the Marvel Puzzle Quest games and th...

Boba checks out his new digs. Gif: Gizmodo The Book of Boba Fett might be well and truly in the landspeeder’s rear-view mirror now, as the galaxy far, far away turns its eyes towards the impending arrival of Obi-Wan Kenobi . But Boba Fett has proven before that you can’t keep a good bounty hunter turned crime lord down, and now he’s already staked a claim on his next empire: Manhattan? This week Boba himself took to Times Square in New York City as part of a new 3D billboard installation created by ILM and LG, working with Tippett Studio. The massive billboard is designed to create a 3D depth effect so it looks like Boba has flown all the way from Tatooine with his throne in tow, just so he can chill out and people-watch at one of the world’s biggest intersections. It’s a nifty trick, and it’s fun to watch Boba just occasionally tilting his head down like he’s people watching (and probably side-eying all those superhero costumed performers hanging around below). Check out our l...