Month: May 2019

Director Ari Aster’s Hereditary was one of the scariest horror movies 2018, and its mix of dark family drama and wild supernatural thrills made it a critical and commercial success. Expectations are high for Aster’s follow-up Midsommar, which releases in July. A seriously creepy new trailer has been released.

Unlike March’s first teaser, which was more concerned with setting a spooky mood than revealing many plot details, this latest promo is heavier on story. Florence Pugh (Fighting with my Family) plays a troubled young woman who is invited to mysterious festival in Sweden by her estranged boyfriend. But things don’t get any better when she gets there, as the festival is being run by some sort of weird cult who have scary plans for the American travellers. Check it out below.

Midsommar also stars Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction), William Jackson Harper (The Good Place), and Will Poulter (Black Mirror). It releases on July 3.

In a recent interview with Vulture, Aster explained how Midsommar differs from Hereditary. “It’s a breakup movie, in the same way that Hereditary is a family tragedy,” he said. “It’s less overtly a horror movie, but it’s still working in that same space. It’s very macabre. But people shouldn’t go in expecting Hereditary.”

For more on upcoming horror releases, check out our list of the biggest horror movies of 2019 to look forward to.

Game of Thrones ends on May 19, but it’ll be followed up a week later with a two-hour Game of Thrones documentary called The Last Watch. HBO has now released a trailer for the documentary, and it begins by showing the cast doing a table read for what appears to the series finale. The video includes a dramatic cut of Jon Snow actor Kit Harington becoming overwhelmed with emotion at the words on the page.

Sansa Stark actress Sophie Turner looks on with a smile, as The Hound actor Rory McCann has a wide smile on his face. This could be the moment Harington reads something particularly dramatic about what happens in the final episode, but we don’t know for sure.

The documentary will shine a light on the extensive production work that went into Game of Thrones Season 8. There is also a nice moment in the trailer where showrunner D.B. Weiss embraces Daenerys actress Emilia Clarke on her final day of filming. Check out the trailer:

The Last Watch releases May 26 on HBO.

In addition to the documentary, HBO is working on multiple prequel spinoffs, one of which stars Naomi Watts and will begin filming later this year. According to author George R.R. Martin, three of the five prequel series are coming along well.

For more on Game of Thrones, you can check out GameSpot’s review of Episode 5, “The Bells.”

Read next: Game Of Thrones Episode 5, Season 8: 15 Easter Eggs And References You Might Have Missed

The upcoming Mortal Kombat movie will be filmed and produced in Australia. It was announced today that the action movie will be the largest ever film production for South Australia.

According to reporter Claire Campbell, the production is expected to create 580 jobs and see $70 million AUD get poured into the local economy. In terms of a timeline, pre-production is tipped to begin later this month. SA premier Steven Marshall said the film will be shot in Adelaide. Post-production will be handled by VFX studios in the region.

More specifically, the Mortal Kombat movie will be filmed at Adelaide Studios in Glenside, according to AdelaideNow. “Mortal Kombat will be the largest film production in South Australia’s history and highlights the importance of engaging with the world’s major production houses,” Premier Steven Marshall said at a news conference. “The State Government’s investment in Mortal Kombat will enhance the scope and reach of our production and post production capabilities, bringing the promise of fantastic new jobs for the local film industry.”

The new Mortal Kombat film, which has been in development for a long time, will be directed by Australian commercials director Simon McQuoid who is making his directorial debut with the project. Aquaman director James Wan is producing.

The Mortal Kombat movie is just the latest high-profile production to announce plans to film in Australia. Earlier this year, Marvel announced it would film an upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movie in Sydney.

The first Mortal Kombat movie, released in 1995, was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson who would go on to make the Resident Evil series. The movie made more than $120 million worldwide, but its 1997 sequel, Annihilation, was a disappointment by comparison with only $51 million.

An internet video series called Mortal Kombat Legacy ran from 2011-2013.

As for the Mortal Kombat video game franchise, the newest instalment, Mortal Kombat 11, was released in April behind mostly positive review scores. For more, check out GameSpot’s new feature, “Mortal Kombat 11’s Kano Can Teach You A Lot About Australia.”

Disney is rebooting the classic Rick Moranis comedy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with Josh Gad in the lead role, according to a new report. SlashFilm reports that the film is a reboot that takes place in the same universe; it’s being billed as a “legecyequel.”

The new film, which will apparently be called “Shrunk,” will take place 30 years after the 1989 original in which Rick Moranis plays a scientist who creates a shrink-ray that accidentally zaps his children, Nick and Amy Szalinski, and family friends down to the size of ants. Gad, who is known for his role as the voice of Olaf in Frozen, will play an adult Nick Szalinski who shrinks his own children.

Shrunk was apparently at one time considered as a movie for Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+, but now SlashFilm reports that it’s going to be a theatrical release. The film was director Joe Johnston’s first movie; he would go on to direct Jurassic Park III, October Sky, Hidalgo, and Captain America: The First Avenger.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was followed up in 1992 by Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, in which the kid gets blow up to a massive size. A straight-to-video movie, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves was released in 1997, which was also the same year a TV show called Honey, I Shrunk Kids premiered.

In other Disney news, a new trailer for the Malicent sequel, Mistress of Evil, has been released–check it out the new Mistress of Evil trailer.

Superstar NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers had a cameo role in Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5, “The Bells,” but it isn’t exactly clear where he showed up. People think they saw him in different parts. Now, more information has come to light about where to find the Green Bay Packers QB in the episode.

Speaking in a behind-the-scenes video feature, showrunner D.B. Weiss said Rodgers appears as a background actor in the assault on King’s Landing. “There are a lot of people lurking in the background; see if you can find Aaron Rodgers,” Weiss said.

Rodgers himself confirms in the mini-documentary that you can see him helping a woman who is injured on the streets. But then he decides, “The hell with her, I’m getting out of there.”

You can skip to around 17:14 in the video to hear from Weiss and Rodgers about the cameo. Rodgers posted a picture of himself in costume on Instagram, and in the caption he says he appears for “a few seconds.”

Rodgers is just the latest celebrity to have a cameo in Game of Thrones Season 8. Country music star Chris Stapleton and his bandmates played White Walkers in Episode 3. Showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff appeared in Episode 4 during the dinner scene.

Previous seasons of Game of Thrones have included cameos by musicians like Sigur Ros, members of Mastodon, and Ed Sheeran.

Game of Thrones comes to an end with next week’s series finale–check out a trailer for Episode 6 here. You can also check out GameSpot’s review of Episode 5, “The Bells.”

Read next: Game Of Thrones Episode 5: Everyone Missed This Massive Hint At How Dany Might Die

The Borderlands franchise has reached new sales heights ahead of the release of Borderlands 3 later this year. Parent publisher Take-Two Interactive announced today that entire shoot-and-loot series has now hit 43 million copies shipped across all titles.

Take-Two, which owns Borderlands publisher 2K Games, added that Borderlands 2 alone has shipped around 20 million copies. Management added that the game is still played by more than 1 million monthly unique users, which is impressive given the game released all the way back in 2012.

With Borderlands 2 shipping 20 million copies by itself, that leaves a further 23 million across the other the other releases. The figure was announced as covering the entire Borderlands franchise, so this presumably includes Borderlands 1 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, though it’s not clear if it also counts sales of spinoffs like Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands or the iOS game Borderlands Legends. The latest Borderlands release is the Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, which launched in April.

Borderlands 3 comes out in September for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and Take-Two expects it to be yet another hit. CFO Lainie Goldstein declined to share a specific unit sales projection figure for the title, but she did mention that Take-Two expects all of its new games to perform better than the previous release, and this is no different for Borderlands 3.

“For Borderlands 3 we have really high expectations, and we’re really excited for the title,” she said.

Goldstein also fielded a question regarding the margin profile of Borderlands 3, which is developed by Gearbox, a studio that it does not own. She confirmed that margins–that is, how much Take-Two will make on the game–are “in line” with games that Take-Two’s own studios develop internally.

For more from Take-Two’s earnings report today, you can check out the stories below:

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a huge hit, though sales appear to be slowing. Take-Two Interactive, which owns developer Rockstar Games, announced today that the open-world western has now shipped 24 million copies.

That’s up from the 23 million figure that Take-Two announced in November. Growth for the title seems to be slowing. Red Dead Redemption 2 shipped 17 million copies right at launch, with a further six million coming by November. One million copies shipped since then is impressive but it’s on a slower pace than before.

Red Dead Redemption 2 also makes money from Red Dead Online’s microtransactions. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed on an earnings call that Red Dead Online will exit beta during the current quarter, so it should happen soon. Red Dead Online launched in November as a beta, and it has remained in beta since then with Rockstar supporting it with new content regularly.

The signs are looking good for Red Dead Online to continue to be a huge success, as Zelnick said Red Dead Online is performing better than GTA Online over similar periods of time after release. “We have very high expectations for that title going forward,” Zelnick said. This is specifically related to various engagement metrics that Zelnick did not expand on. He did add that Rockstar learned a lot from the release of GTA Online, lessons that were applied to RDR Online.

A PC edition of Red Dead Redemption 2 is rumored, but nothing is confirmed at this stage. Whatever the case, launching on PC would presumably help improve sales, which might be what Take-Two is looking for given sales of the game on PS4 and Xbox One are slowing.

Take-Two also announced in its earnings report today that Rockstar’s previous game, Grand Theft Auto V, has now shipped an astonishing 110 million copies sold. It was also confirmed that NBA 2K19 has now shipped 9 million copies.