Future Stories

Screenshot: Netflix Just like their murderous stars, you can’t keep a venerable horror franchise dead for long. In fact, it’s only been five years since chainsaw-enthusiast Leatherface appeared on screen in 2017's Leatherface , which served as a prequel to the original 1974 film. Now he’s back , and ready to slaughter the real enemy: social media influencers. I’m not sure pitting a serial killer against Tiktokers is the greatest idea for a Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel , but when I read the official synopsis—“Influencers looking to breathe new life into a Texas ghost town encounter Leatherface, an infamous killer who wears a mask of human skin”—I definitely wanted somebody to die. And, as per the movie’s first trailer, they most certainly do. As you can tell, this new Texas Chainsaw Massacre is going the route of the 2018 Halloween movie, which serves as a sequel to the very first film, while ignoring all the other movies in the franchise that were made over the last h...

Hey, down in front! Screenshot: Universal Another familiar face signs up for the Disney+ Santa Clause revival . Get a creepy glimpse at the new adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos . Star Trek: Picard ’s showrunner teases the futures not told in season two’s time travel twists . Plus, what’s coming on Resident Alien and more. Spoilers, away! Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness The Direct has a new synopsis for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness confirming the returns of Michael Stühlbarg as Dr. Nicodemus West, and the already-glimpsed-in-the trailer Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer. In Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness , the MCU unlocks the Multiverse and pushes its boundaries further than ever before. Journey into the unknown with Doctor Strange, who, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary. Doctor St...

Image: Paramount Since the original Halo released in 2001, Microsoft has been trying for a long time to get Bungie and 343 Industries’ sci-fi shooter into live action beyond excellent commercials and webseries tie-ins. After several aborted attempts at making a movie, Halo is now finally a TV show for Paramount+ (with some speed bumps along the way) that winds back the clock to the days when Master Chief’s life and the Human/Covenant War was much more simpler . One of the interesting things about Halo the show is that it’s not actually in the same continuity as the 20-year gaming franchise. Instead, it’s in own separate continuity dubbed “the Silver Timeline,” named so because Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) will have a new team of Spartans by his side rather than his fairly well established Blue Team members Linda, Fred, and Kelly from the expanded media. That said, the members of Silver Team—which consists of Riz-028 (Natasha Culzac), Vannak-134 (Bentley Kalu), and Kai-125 ...

Image: Square Enix It’s the end of the month, gang, and what an eventful month it’s been. Like the beginning of every year, there were some solid releases throughout January, but there’s a chance that much of the things you watched or read for the first month of the year were catchups from during the holidays. Now we want to know about some of the many things   that caught your attention for January. For a lot of it, I found myself revisiting old favorites to prepare for what’s to come. I didn’t have much old stuff in the way of film, but had real good luck when it came to TV. I rewound the clock to watch the old 2004 cartoon The Batman, along with some old Star Wars: The Clone Wars, both of which are still very good.   My biggest rewatch came in the form of the pretty excellent Dimension 20 —before its newest season A Starstruck Odyssey hit, I managed to finish both seasons of The Unsleeping City, along with The Seven (a spinoff of Fantasy High ). All three seasons...

Image: Tomer Hanuka/Feiwel & Friends Film adaptations of popular YA books were all the rage during the early and mid-2010s, but with few exceptions and a jump to television , have largely fallen to the wayside for the 2020s. That makes it all the more interesting that Marissa Meyer’s beloved YA sci-fi series The Lunar Chronicles is not only being adapted for film, but is going to be animated rather than live action. The news broke earlier in the week, with the CG studio Locksmith Animation optioning the film for adaptation. Locksmith was one of the companies behind the kids flick Ron’s Gone Wrong from late last year, which was apparently considered to be pretty good!). In a statement, Locksmith CEO Natalie Fischer described the London-based studio as “huge fans” of Meyer’s work, and are ready to do the series justice. “We could not be more thrilled about collaborating with Marissa on bringing her vision to life through animation...we are determined to give this material t...

Image: Studio Ghibli Studio Ghibli is one of the most beloved animation studios around, and their whimsical, resonant worlds are often worth revisiting every now and again just to feel something . For years, we’ve wondered what it would be like to have a theme park based around the studio’s various films, and later this year we’ll finally get our wish. Announced way back in 2017, Japan’s Studio Ghibli theme park will finally open to the public on November 1. The park will have five lands overall, but a staggered opening, so the first to be unveiled is naturally themed around our favorite neighbor Totoro. According to Variety , locals in the area have learned that one future area is based on Princess Mononoke, with another being split between Kiki’s Delivery Service and Howl’s Moving Castle . Those two lands are expected to release sometime in 2023, while the currently unrevealed final two lands are expected for March 2024. While Ghibli’s theme park will have rides, there won’...

Image: Warner Bros. As The Batman gets ever closer to release, some of the conversation surrounding Matt Reeves’ upcoming film is what the movie almost ended up being. Namely, that it was originally meant to star and be directed by Ben Affleck , the Dark Knight of the DCEU prior to Robert Pattinson’s casting . In an interview with Esquire Middle East , Reeves spoke about how he was initially approached by Warner Bros. to direct Affleck’s version of the film when the actor could no longer commit to directorial duties. Seeing the script, Reeves called it “totally valid” and “almost James Bond-ian,” with deep connections to the DCEU and characters from other films and comics making an appearance. (At least one of them we know would’ve ended up being Joe Mangianello’s Deathstroke .) Reeves enjoyed the script, but he also knew that it wasn’t the take on the character that he wanted to make. Fully prepared to turn Warner Bros. down, Reeves later explained how he wanted his approach to...

Image: Hasbro, Pillow Pets, and Medicom Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the latest and coolest toy news on the internet. This week, Hasbro goes ‘90s with a trio of animated X-Men icons, MAFEX swings between the worlds of DC Comics and the Terminator, and Hot Toys returns to The Mandalorian for a few more Nite Owls. Check it out! Image: Hasbro Hasbro Marvel Legends Series X-Men ‘90s Animated Series Collection The first three additions to Hasbro’s Marvel Legends Series X-Men ‘90s Animated Series Collection have been revealed:  Wolverine in his yellow costume that includes a portrait of Scott and Jean for him to emotionally blubber over,  Jubilee with plasma blast effects that can be attached to her hands, and Mr. Sinister . All three figs are available for pre-order now on Hasbro Pulse for $27 each with delivery expected in June, and each also ships in a VHS-style sleeve that you’ll definitely want to collect and display as more figures from this...

Dina Shihabi as Melody Pendras, holding her ever-present camera, in Archive 81. Image: Courtesy of Netflix An apartment building with ties to the occult. A person obsessed with a mystery they uncover in found footage . The blurring of media and reality. Surveillance and paranoia. The possibility of other dimensions! Netflix’s spooky series Archive 81 combines all of these elements, and it does it so well it’s no shocker it’s become a huge hit for the streamer . But Archive 81 is only eight episodes. What are you going to watch once you’ve binge-watched all of Melody (Dina Shihabi) and Dan (Mamoudou Athie)’s bizarre adventures? While there’s nothing out there exactly like it—don’t worry, we won’t be spoiling any Archive 81 plot twists if it’s still on your watchlist—we’ve come up with eight films that share enough similar themes to act as sort of companion pieces. Broadcast Signal Intrusion Image: Dark Sky Films Haunted by the loss of his wife, a Chicago video archivist ...

Image: Courtesy of Sundance Institute In 2017, io9 wrote about a short film titled Brian and Charles , dubbing it “ beautifully shot and equal parts poignant and wryly hilarious .” So we were thrilled to see that director Jim Archer made a feature film based on his short It just made its debut at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival , and is an early contender for feel-good movie of the year. Like the short, the feature is filmed documentary-style. We’re introduced to eccentric inventor Brian (David Earl, who co-wrote with Charles Hayward, who plays Charles). He takes on odd jobs around his rural English village when he’s not puttering around his cluttered workshop (“My infamous inventions pantry! It’s actually a cow shed”) building whimsical and generally useless creations, like a belt that holds eggs and an elaborate “flying cuckoo clock” contraption. Despite his frequent failures, Brian is an optimist—when the flying clock catches fire, he shrugs and says brightly “on to the next on...