Month: August 2019

The Simpsons is one of the longest running and most popular shows in the history of television, and it could get even bigger with a second movie and/or a spin-off.

There was one very popular movie, The Simpsons Movie that was released in 2007, but it never got a sequel. Not only that, but The Simpsons has spawned no spin-off series (though creator Matt Groening went on to make the Netflix animated series Disenchantment). That could change in the future, however, as key talent from the show spoke at D23 Expo this weekend about how a second movie or a TV series spin-off haven’t been ruled out.

According to Variety, executive producer Al Jean told an audience that the producers “have talked about” making a second Simpsons movie or a spin-off in their discussions with new owners Disney. The House of Mouse acquired The Simpsons when it purchased the majority of Fox’s entertainment assets.

“I think Disney would be supportive of anything we wanted to do, maybe a crazy limited series with a side character or a movie that we surprised you with; they’ve been really creatively supportive and this is going to afford so many new ways to do the show than just the traditional format,” another executive producer, Matt Selman, said.

Disney’s buyout of Fox, which was one of the biggest deals in the history of the entertainment industry at $71 billion, also gives the House of Mouse franchises like Family Guy and Deadpool. In the wake of the buyout, Disney announced layoffs that reportedly impact “thousands” of people.

2007’s The Simpsons Movie made a gargantuan $527 million against a reported budget of $75 million. One of the reasons why there never was a sequel was because the same team behind the show also made the movie–while still working on the show. It was an enormous challenge that the producers were not pushing too quickly to jump back into.

But now, some 12 years later, Simpsons creator Matt Groening says the team is almost back to a place where they might consider making another movie.

“We’re almost recovered. No doubt there will be another Simpsons movie one of these days. Disney wants something for its money,” Groening said.

A Simpsons short, Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, was released in 2012; it was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the Academy Awards, but it didn’t win.

As for a potential Simpsons spin-off TV show, there are no details about what this might look like or what characters it could focus on. Another property that Disney got from the Fox buyout, Family Guy, released a spin-off show called The Cleveland Show. It ran for four seasons from 2009-2013.

World of Warcraft Classic is officially launching very soon on August 27, and ahead of that, developer Blizzard has announced some important changes and updates.

Starting off, Blizzard will eliminate the previous character limit of three per account. At launch, players can make up to 10 characters per realm; that works out to 50 across all Classic realms.

On top of that, Blizzard announced it will open four more Classic servers to help what are expected to be potentially lengthy queues at launch. The four new servers can be seen below. All the names are pretty good, but “Bigglesworth” probably takes the cake.

New WoW Classic Servers

For those lucky enough to be playing WoW Classic early, Blizzard said if players see servers marked with “Full” or “High” population, they should try to play on any of the new realms.

“We urge players on realms marked Full or High to plan to play on one of these new realms to avoid the longest queues, and to help spread the player population as evenly as possible and provide the best play experience for everyone,” Blizzard said.

WoW Classic bills itself as “Azeroth as it was.” Blizzard says players can expect a “faithful recreation of the original World of Warcraft,” featuring character models, combat mechanics, and skill trees that are as they were more than 10 years ago. Access to WoW Classic is included with the standard WoW subscription fee.

The sequel to Suicide Squad that’s being directed by Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn has landed another big-name actor. Deadline reports that Nathan Fillion is joining The Suicide Squad in an unspecified role. It would be just the latest time Gunn has cast Fillion in one of his movies, as Fillion also had parts in Guardians of the Galaxy, Slither, and Super.

He has some experience with superhero movies, too, as he voiced Green Lantern in the animated movie Justice League: Doom and others. Fillion is perhaps best known for his roles in Castle, Firefly, and Serenity. He also plays Edward Buck in the Halo video game series and Cayde-6 in Destiny. Fillion also appeared as Nathan Drake in an Uncharted fan film.

The new Suicide Squad movie is a “total reboot,” and not a sequel to David Ayer’s 2016 film. Gunn wrote the script and will direct the movie. He reportedly signed on to the movie in the midst of his fallout with Disney, though Gunn has since been re-instated to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

The 2016 Suicide Squad received mixed reviews, but it was a massive commercial success. It made more than $746 million worldwide, and it won an Oscar for Makeup and Hairstyling.

The Suicide Squad enters production in September and is slated to hit theatres in August 2021. It stars a number of actors from the original, including Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, in addition to newcomers like Idris Elda, David Dastmalchian, and Steve Agee.

Normally, New Releases highlights five of the biggest games launching on a given week, but there’s just too much on the horizon to limit ourselves this time. We’ve got new games from respected developers like Patrice Désilets’ Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey and Remedy’s Control. We’ve got horror games like Blair Witch and The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan. Nintendo is bringing the Switch-exclusive Astral Chain and a new mobile adventure with Pokemon Masters. On top of all that, the MMO crowd can relive the glory days with World of Warcraft Classic.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey — August 27

Available on: PC

Ancestors comes from Patrice Désilets, known for his work on the Assassin’s Creed series, and you’ll definitely be doing plenty of climbing and leaping since this game puts you in control of an ape clan in Africa. Your goal is eat, drink, sleep, and just survive in a dangerous world full of predators until you evolve. To do this, you’ll have to level up, procreate, and pass traits onto new generations of your clan.

More Coverage:

Control — August 27

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

The latest game from Alan Wake and Quantum Break developer Remedy gets its name from the Federal Bureau of Control, a fictional government agency that handles cases where the laws of physics and conventional science just don’t add up. Enter protagonist Jesse Faden, who can fling bad guys and float around using her psychic powers. She’s infiltrated the FBC to find her missing brother, and she’ll have to shoot her way through a few men in black to find him.

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World of Warcraft Classic — August 27

Available on: PC

If you’ve been yearning to return to an older version of WoW, Classic is exactly what you’ve been waiting for. Classic looks and plays the way WoW did during version 1.12 (the Drums of War update), a time before The Burning Crusade even launched. WoW subscribers get access to Classic at no additional cost.

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Pokemon Masters — August 29

Available on: iOS, Android

It may be a Pokemon game, but Masters won’t ask you to catch ’em all like Sword & Shield. Masters is set on the island region of Pasio, where trainers battle alongside a single Pokemon, and these duos are known as Sync Pairs. You can recruit Sync Pairs to your side and engage in 3v3 battles as you seek to become champion.

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Astral Chain — August 30

Available on: Switch

If you know Platinum Games’ portfolio of titles like Bayonetta and Vanquish, then you know what to expect from Astral Chain. Your police offer protagonist is chained to a living weapon known as a Legion, and the two of you can swing around the battlefield to battle monsters in stylish combat. As you might be able to guess from the name, you can even travel to the Astral Plane to discover where the monsters originate.

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Blair Witch — August 30

Available on: Xbox One, PC

Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team is revisiting the cult classic movie franchise with this canonical video game entry, featuring the studio’s signature psychological horror flavor. You play as a cop looking for a missing boy in the famously haunted Black Hills Forest. At least you have your canine companion Bullet to help sniff out any witches.

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The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan — August 30

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Blair Witch isn’t the only horror game dropping this week. Man of Medan is the first entry in The Dark Pictures, a new anthology series from Until Dawn developer Supermassive Games. Like with Until Dawn, your choices in Man of Medan can completely change the outcome of the story, a tale which involves teens on a ghost ship in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. You can experience the spooky story in singe-player, pass the controller around for local co-op, or try online multiplayer, where the story actually splits into different characters’ perspectives.

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August is at its end, so the next episode of New Releases will take a look at what the new month is bringing to the table. September has big-name shooters like Gears 5 and Borderlands 3, plus reimagined classics like The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on Switch.

The Persona video game franchise has set a new sales record. Developer Atlus announced in a blog post (translated by VentureBeat) that the entire series has now surpassed 10 million copies sold.

This figure counts copies sold in the mainline series, which has so far spanned five entries, as well as the spin-offs. Atlus did not provide a breakdown of sales by title, but it was already announced that Persona 5 alone had shifted 2.7 million copies.

The new 10 million figure comes after Persona publisher Sega announced in its 2018 financial report that the series had reached 9.3 million copies shipped as of October 2018. The release of certain Persona games in Japan and Persona Q2 worldwide since then surely helped the figure grow to 10 million.

Also in the blog post, Atlus said fans can look forward to an upcoming news event for Persona 5 Royal in the near future. Royal is an updated version of the Persona 5 that is slated for release in October on PS4. The game is expected to be a hit, in turn boosting the series sales even higher.

Royal launches in Japan in October, with a release scheduled for the west in Spring 2020. For more on P5R, be sure to read (or watch) our analysis of the first full reveal trailer, breakdown of all the new information that followed, or details on the new playable character Kasumi Yoshizawa.