Month: March 2019

It’s no secret the Game of Thrones universe will continue despite the fantasy drama’s final season approaching. While the current show will end after Season 8, a prequel is in the works. There are some big names already attached to the project, and the cast has now grown one name larger.

According to Entertainment Weekly, English actress Miranda Richardson (Harry Potter’s Rita Skeeter, Belle, Testament of Youth) is reported to join the cast in what’s said to be a series regular role. No other information regarding her character has been revealed.

In addition to Richardson, the Game of Thrones prequel will star Denise Gough (Juliet, Naked, Robin Hood), Jamie Campbell Bower (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, The Twilight Saga), Ivanno Jeremiah (Black Mirror, Doctor Who), Naomi Ackie (Doctor Who, Lady Macbeth), Naomi Watts (The Divergent Series, Vice), Sheila Atim (Harlots, Twelfth Night), and more. Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, Kingsman) is spearheading the project in collaboration with series author George R.R. Martin.

The prequel is rumored to be titled The Long Night, based on previous comments made by Martin, but that has not been officially announced. The synopsis for the show reads, “Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.”

Apart from this, very little’s known about the prequel. Martin did say it would be different from the main series. “Westeros is a very different place. There’s no King’s Landing. There’s no Iron Throne. There are no Targaryens,” he told EW. “Valyria has hardly begun to rise yet with its dragons and the great empire that it built. We’re dealing with a different and older world and hopefully that will be part of the fun of the series.”

Apex Legends‘ Wild Frontier Battle Pass arrives on March 19, marking the start of the game’s first season. Just as in Fortnite, the Battle Pass costs 950 Apex Coins–roughly $10–and allows you to unlock a wide range of skins, cosmetics, and other rewards as you level it up throughout the season. Even if you don’t want to shell out money for it, however, you’ll be able to unlock some items for free.

As EA confirmed on the Apex Legends website, all players will be able to earn a handful of free rewards during Season 1. These include one Wild Frontier Legend skin, five Apex Packs, and 18 Wild Frontier stat trackers. If you do decide to spring for a Battle Pass partway through the season, you’ll also retroactively unlock any items you would have earned, so you won’t need to worry about missing out on the rewards.

Of course, those who do purchase the Battle Pass will have access to even more goodies. Respawn is offering 100 tiers of rewards to unlock throughout the season, ranging from character and weapon skins to XP boosts, banner frames, and other cosmetic items. You’ll also earn up to 1,000 Apex Coins through the Battle Pass, which would allow you to get Season 2’s pass for free.

If you want to get a head start on the rewards, EA is also selling a Battle Pass bundle for 2,800 Apex Coins, which will automatically unlock the first 25 tiers. You can also get some free Apex Coins by signing up for EA/Origin Access, effectively giving you a discount on the Battle Pass. You can read more about how the Apex Legends Battle Pass works here.

Alongside the Season 1 Battle Pass, Respawn is releasing Apex Legends’ newest playable character, Octane, on March 19. However, he’s not included as part of the Battle Pass, but rather needs to be purchased separately from Legends’ in-game store. Like Mirage and Caustic, he can be unlocked for 12,000 Legend Tokens or 750 Apex Coins.

The mission to get Showtime’s Halo TV show made is as epic a quest as anything seen in the Halo video games. After Showtime formally announced it was ordering the project to series in the summer of 2018, the series is slowly inching closer and closer to becoming a reality.

First, it was announced that Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt would helm multiple episodes, while Kyle Killen (Awake) served as showrunner. Then Wyatt dropped out before production got underway, citing scheduling issues. In his place, Showtime announced in February that Black Mirror alum Otto Bathurst would step in as director and executive producer of the series.

Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the project has added a co-showrunner. Steve Kane (The Last Ship) will reportedly work with Killen to bring the show to life. While Killen is believed to be spearheading writing and producing the series in the United States, it’s believed Kane will spend a fair amount of the production on-set in Budapest, where Halo will film.

At this point, casting and a start date for production have not been announced. However, we do know some things about the Halo series. Most importantly–for fans of the video game franchise, anyway–Master Chief will be a key figure in the series. However, it’s yet to be revealed if viewers will ever see his face.

In the games, Chief is never seen without his helmet, leaving his true identity a mystery. When asked last August, Showtime’s president of programming Gary Levine told GameSpot, “It is a key question and an important part of our series is all I’ll say.”

There is no premiere date set for Showtime’s Halo series.

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Remember the J-horror craze of the early 2000s? When American remakes of The Grudge and The Ring terrorized the world? Well, one of those franchises is coming back–but not in the way you might think.

The Grudge, or Ju-On as it is known in Japan, is a franchise that started in 2000 and spawned eight Japanese sequels, an American remake series, short films, a video game, and more.

Hollywood’s relationship with the franchise started in 2004’s The Grudge, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. The film was a remake of the Japanese supernatural horror film Ju-On: The Grudge, the third installment in the franchise. Gellar plays an exchange student in Japan who finds herself the victim of a curse. The Japanese films deal with a curse created in a house in Tokyo, where a woman who was murdered by a jealous husband is turned into a ghost because she died with a deep rage, so she haunts the location, killing anyone who encounters the curse.

A new English-language movie was announced with writer Jeff Buhler penning the script around 2014. During an interview at SXSW promoting his newest film, Pet Sematary, GameSpot spoke with Buhler on his approach to the famous Japanese ghost story.

“My original pitch to Sam Raimi was to forget about the original story and not revisit the same old ghosts,” Buhler said. “We have seen the story of Kayako and Toshio being told so many times over [in] so many films both in Japan and the US, as well as the short films.”

He went on to explain exactly what he would change from the mythology, and GameSpot can exclusively reveal that Buhler’s script moved the story away from Japan into more familiar territory.

“The phenomenon of a grudge, which happens when someone dies in a violent rage, could happen anywhere,” Buhler told GameSpot. “It could happen again, and it’s probably happening somewhere right now. So the idea was to take what we’ve seen happening in Japan, and ask what would happen if that cycle were to happen in our own backyard? We wanted to start a new cycle of ghosts in a completely new setting.”

This certainly makes sense considering the largely non-Asian cast, which includes star Lin Shaye, as well as Andrea Riseborough, Demian Bichir, Betty Gilpin, William Sadler, Jacki Weaver, Frankie Faison, and John Cho. The only issue is that we don’t exactly know how much of that script is in the movie, as Buhler told us that the film’s director, Nicolas Pesce (The Eyes of My Mother), did some writing of his own.

“I pitched my idea to Sam Raimi, and then Nicolas Pesce came in and did a huge amount of work on his own script and directed the movie,” Buhler said. While Buhler wouldn’t say whether Pesce completely discarded his script or just added to it, he said he’s seen the film. And we sure are excited for the possibility of a new mythology in the franchise.

The Grudge is slated to hit theaters January 3, 2020.