Cyborg actor Ray Fisher was onstage alongside his fellow Justice League cast members at San Diego Comic-Con 2017 to promote Joss Whedon’s reshot, reedited version of the DC movie that Zack Snyder had originally been hired to make. Fisher said at the time, “Joss is a great guy and Zack picked a good person to come in and clean up, finish up for him.”
That was then.
On Monday, Fisher tweeted a video of him saying those very words at SDCC 2017 with this caption: “I’d like to take a moment to forcefully retract every bit of this statement.”
Fisher, a theater actor who made his big-screen debut in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice before segueing to Justice League, did not provide any further context for retracting his past praise of Whedon. It’s unclear whether Fisher’s slam is a personal beef with Whedon or simply about not liking the theatrical version of Justice League that Whedon shepherded.
It’s also worth noting Jason Momoa’s stone-faced expression and seemingly half-hearted nod reacting to Fisher’s praise.
Fisher has long been a supporter of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut on his social media. Given that Snyder gave Fisher, whose sole credit since 2017’s Justice League was a recurring role in Season 3 on HBO’s True Detective, his start as a screen actor perhaps it’s a matter of loyalty for him.
“Well, the stuff that I had to do were just really small little bits and pieces, nothing necessarily having to do with tone. I know that with Ray [Fisher], the young man who plays Victor, there were some adjustments that they made in terms of the tone of that character,” according to Morton.
“I think what I heard was that there was a need from the studio to lighten up the film in a way, that the film felt too dark. I don’t know what that meant in terms of how it actually got translated in terms of the reshoots but that’s what I heard. That’s what I thought some of the reshoots were about.”
When Disney+ launched on November 12, 2019, many fans noticed content missing from the service. Some Marvel and Star Wars movies weren’t included, and even though Disney purchased many of Fox’s assets, those highly-beloved films like the X-Men franchise haven’t been included either. However, this summer, Disney+ has announced some of those films are about to arrive to the streaming service.
Alongside a promotional video, Disney released information about some of the high-profile movie releases on Disney+ between July and September. It all kicks off on Friday, July 3 with the release of Hamilton, which was originally going to release in theaters in October 2021, but because of the pandemic, Disney has decided to push it to the streaming service more than a year early. Check out the sizzle reel of the upcoming movies below.
The most notable of the releases are three X-Men movies–four if you count 2013’s The Wolverine. Sadly, we’re not getting all three of the original X-Men movies from the early 2000s. On July 10, X-Men: Days of Future Past arrives; on July 17, X-Men: Apocalypse; and on August 7, the first X-Men film. To date, there have been no X-Men movies on the streaming service, and the only Fox Marvel movie is 2015’s Fantastic Four.
Additionally, Solo: A Star Wars Story hits the service on July 10, and finally, all of the Star Wars movies will be on Disney+. Another notable arrival is on July 31, when Pixar’s Incredibles 2, as it’s one of the few Pixar movies not on the streaming service. For more upcoming streaming info, make sure to check out what’s coming to Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, Shudder, and Disney+ for July.
World of Warcraft Classic is bringing back another old-school event next month. The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj will unlock on July 28 when the weekly raid reset occurs, opening a new quest chain.
The date comes from a community mangaer on the Blizzard forums. The note said that version 1.13.5 will go live in July, which will unlock a quest to craft the Scepter of Shifting Sands. Players will also be able to contribute resources to the Ahn’Qiraj war, and once both activities have been completed on a realm, it will open the gates.
The original event took place in 2006, and opened raids in the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj and the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj. It also consisted of elite quest chains and a lengthy war sequence. The gates were permanently opened in a subsequent update in 2009, but then the quests were closed in the Cataclysm expansion.
World of Warcraft Classic is kept separate from the main ongoing World of Warcraft game, letting players experience (or re-experience) the MMO as it used to be. That means a lot of the streamlining and quality-of-life changes that took root in later updates are missing, but it’s also not as complex in other ways. We found it an engaging throwback that’s more than mere nostalgia.
Warning! We’re going to be talking about some late-game developments in The Last of Us Part 2, as well as an element that’s only revealed once you’ve finished the game. Read on at your own risk!
When you finally finish the game and the meaning of the boat becomes clear, something changes. Save a completed game file so you can start a New Game Plus playthrough or use the chapter selection menu, and you’ll find a new image adorning the main menu screen. This one doesn’t show the boat shrouded in fog; instead, it shows the same boat on a brighter beach, with sunlight breaking through stormclouds dissipating in the distance.
The metaphorical implications of the switch are pretty obvious; The Last of Us Part 2 is about a dark journey for Ellie and Abby, especially as Ellie finds herself doing awful things in pursuit of her vengeance for Joel. The boat sits in a foggy darkness, with the horizon obscured, and that’s a pretty good comparison to what’s going on internally with the characters, too. After finishing the game, when Ellie and Abby have come out the other side of that inner storm, the menu switches to a brighter, more hopeful image.
The menu screen shown after you complete The Last of Us Part 2 shows the boat from Ellie and Abby’s final confrontation, and a Catalina landmark in the distance.
But that last image is also a very literal indication that things might be better, at least for Abby and Lev. The menu screen shows Catalina Island, a real place off the coast of southern California, with the boat on its shore. The big round building in the image is a real place: Catalina Casino. The shot suggests that after the fight with Ellie, Abby and Lev reached their goal of making it to Catalina Island to find the Fireflies there.
So that makes the menu screen something of a post-credits scene, indicating both a thematic shift for the characters, and hinting at the outcome of the game’s story. What happens to Abby and Lev after their arrival on Catalina is something we don’t know–but judging from that image, we can at least intuit something of a happy ending for The Last of Us Part 2.
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IGN Prime has partnered with Nimble Giant Entertainment to bring you early access to Quantum League.
Quantum League is a revolutionary time-paradox shooter, a competitive online FPS. In Quantum League, you battle within a time loop and tactically team up with your past and future selves in mind-blowing 1v1 and 2v2 matches.
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It’s an alternate universe where time travel has changed the face of professional sports as we know it. Quantum League, a heavily weaponized, team-based shooting sport, dominates the globe. As a Quantum athlete, compete in specially designed arenas where agility, speed, and skill are not enough to rise to the top; the ability to tactically play with your past and future selves is also a must.
Click here to redeem your early access key to Quantum League on PC. Keys are available on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Every month, IGN provides members an opportunity to grab great games and goodies picked by the Prime team.
In a recently published interview with Discussing Film, Chad Stahelski–director of the John Wick films–added his voice to those who demand the Academy Awards add a category for stunt work.
“If wardrobe, hair, and makeup, certainly all the creative departments here are considered for Oscars, then yes, it makes perfect sense that the stunt department would be considered for an Oscar,” Stahelski said in the interview, which also touched on productivity during the shut down and whether he wants to work on more superhero films.
The award issue is important to Stahelski, not only due to the impressive stunt feats of his John Wick films, but likely because stunt work was how Stahelski established himself in the film industry and subsequently moved into directing. He was Keanu Reeves’ stunt double in the Matrix films and later coordinated stunts for the Matrix franchise before co-directing the first John Wick movie with fellow stunt coordinator David Leitch.
Stahelski also designed action sequences for DC’s Birds of Prey, so if the Academy Awards announced a change soon, it would potentially put him up as a contender.
Stunt coordinators have long called for a stunt work Oscar category. In 2016, 100 stunt performers demonstrated in front of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ offices in Beverly Hills and collected a petition with more than 50,000 signatures. At the time, the number of stunt performers active in the industry fell beneath 100 members, and the Academy said that was a prerequisite for consideration.
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Like previous DLC characters, Min Min will come with her own unique stage, Spring Stadium, as well as 18 music tracks taken from Arms, Nintendo’s 2017 stretchy-arm fighting game. Fittingly, Min Min excels at long-range battling, using her retractable arms to attack opponents from a distance, and she can swap between three different Arms on the fly with her down special.
Min Min is the first character to arrive as part of the Fighters Pass Vol. 2, which costs $30 USD and grants holders access to all six upcoming DLC fighters as they release. Players also have the option to pick up the Min Min character pack individually for $6 USD.
In addition to Min Min, five new Mii Fighter costumes are also arriving today: Ninjara (Arms), Callie and Marie (Splatoon), Heihachi (Tekken), and Vault Boy (Fallout). Each outfit costs 75 cents and is not included in the aforementioned Fighters Pass.
Finally, the 8.0 update introduces a rematch feature to Spirits mode. From your Spirit List, you can initiate a rematch with a Spirt you’ve already unlocked and aim to earn a higher score. You’ll also win additional Spirit Points based on your score.
That’s not all that’s new for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; Nintendo is also giving away another freebie for the game. Nintendo Switch Online subscribers can claim another free Spirit Board Challenge Pack, which includes a handful of helpful items for Spirit Board mode.
GameSpot’s Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming–is ongoing. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
The Last of Us Part 2 takes a lot of design cues and lessons from developer Naughty Dog’s recent games, including its direct predecessor and the Uncharted series. The final result is a linearly focused adventure, but one that often opens up into the studio’s biggest environments and levels. And at one point, it could have been an even greater departure from past games.
Speaking to IGN ahead of The Last of Us Part 2’s release, director Neil Druckmann discussed how early ideas of the game had taken on an open-world design.
Warning: Major spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 follow. Turn back if you haven’t finished!
“The game initially was this open world thing. And you spent all this time in Jackson,” Druckmann, who also spoke to us about The Last of Us Part 2’s ambitious story, explained.
Jackson, Wyoming is the first major location for the sequel, which spends most of its time in the Pacific Northwest. In Jackson, though, we see where Ellie and Joel have been living in the ensuing years since the end of The Last of Us. There’s a full community here, and in the final release of the sequel, we meet other citizens like Dina, Jesse, Maria, and Seth, while hearing stories about others like Eugene.
The more time players would have spent in Jackson also altered the way Abby, the main second playable protagonist, was introduced.
“Abby joined the community and you were playing as this new character until she betrayed Joel later on,” Druckmann explained. “And it just didn’t work because Joel dying is the inciting incident, and you want to get to the inciting incident as quickly as you can.”
And so Abby’s introduction and quick playable levels comes early on, before Joel’s death sends Ellie on her revenge quest to Seattle.
Druckmann explained how Abby’s role actually shrank from earlier iterations of the sequel’s story, but that ultimately the team settled on a playable portion that felt long enough to convey what was necessary.
“Abby was the concept that made us want to make this game about empathy, interactivity; knowing we could use Joel and Ellie to create that feeling right at the beginning,” he said. “Her role actually kept shrinking and shrinking until we thought this is the right amount for what we need you to feel about Abby.”
Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior News Editor, Host of Podcast Beyond!, and can’t stop hearing Pearl Jam in his head now. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
Even with the plethora of phone controllers in the world, gaming on your smartphone can still be a crapshoot. For one thing, most mobile controllers connect over Bluetooth, which introduces a bit of lag. Secondly, all these standalone controllers aren’t particularly portable and often require an extra mount to attach your phone to your gamepad of choice.
Razer has something a little different in mind with its Kishi controller. This little accessory is designed to split apart, wrap itself any Android phone, and connect directly through the USB-C charging port. For $80, it’s the most universally compatible controller we’ve ever used to play mobile games, but the Razer Kishi still has a few kinks to work out.
When you pull the Razer Kishi out of the box it looks just like a pair of Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons attached to a Joy-Con grip. But as we mentioned before, the controller splits apart after you pull at the two tabs on the back of the peripheral.
Once separated, the two halves are connected by an elastic band, which also houses wires to transfer all the inputs from the left-side analog stick and D-pad over to the right-hand portion of the controller that features the face buttons, second analog stick, and the USB-C connector.
On the inside edge of both sides of the controller, you’ll find a pair of rubberized pockets that’ll keep a grip on your phone while tension from the elastic band prevents it from slipping out. There’s also a plastic panel in the center of the elastic band with four nubs that lock the controller together when collapsed. When expanded these nubs serve to gingerly support your phone from the center, but I wish the tips were made of soft rubber to prevent any potential scratches.
One other neat engineering trick is it has a pair of slits to channel the sound from your phone’s bottom-fighting speaker. I wished they would have done something similar for the left side as most front-firing speakers get covered up by the ribbed rubber pocket.
You also get a USB-C charging port pass through, but sadly this controller doesn’t add a headphone jack, so you’ll have to resort to using a pair of Wireless headphones or Bluetooth earbuds.
If you’ve ever used a GameVice controller before, you’ll probably find the Razer Kishi to be very similar. I’m not saying that Razer has ripped off the design – rather it’s because the company teamed up with GameVice to develop the Kishi.
The Razer Kishi can handle even the gargantuan Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra
The Kishi is certified to work with any Razer Phone, Google Pixel 2, Samsung Galaxy 8, Samsung Galaxy Note 8, and any newer phones from either Google or Samsung. Beyond those confirmed devices, I found the Kishi was able to work with a variety of devices including the LG G8X ThinQ, Red Magic 5G, Red Magic 3S, Sony Xperia 1, and OnePlus 8 Pro.
Thanks to that USB-C connection, any phone you plug into this controller will just recognize it. All that’s required of your phone is to have a center-mounted USB-C Port, be smaller than 78.1 x 163.7 x 8.8mm, and run Android 8.0 Oreo or a newer version of the mobile OS. As for iOS devices, Razer plans on releasing an iPhone-compatible version of the Kishi later this summer.
Razer Kishi – Gaming
Once your phone is strapped in between either side of this controller, the whole setup feels surprisingly solid.
The two halves of the Razer Kishi also split along an interesting S-shaped curve and this serves as a natural place for your fingers to grip onto. It’s a good thing you can because the Kishi’s flat, disk-like shape isn’t terribly ergonomic – though it helps with its portability.
Overall the controls here feel mostly fine with the exception of the thumbsticks that could use slightly larger tops. The buttons press consistently and you get a large D-pad that feels just a touch on the mushy side. Meanwhile, the bumpers are great and while you can hear plastic scrape while pulling triggers, there is a nice bit of resistance.
As for gaming, the Razer Kishi is fully compatible with all three major game streaming services currently available including GeForce Now, Microsoft xCloud, and Google Stadia. This is particularly great because having the controller plugged directly into the phone helps remove a few milliseconds of lag I would typically experience with a Bluetooth controller.
When it comes to mobile gaming, the Razer Kishi’s compatibility is surprisingly spotty. Shadowrun Legends, Fortnite, and Asphalt 9: Legends work perfectly with the controller and the experience definitely adds the tactile feel of buttons and triggers I’ve been missing on a touchscreen device.
Oddly, Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG Mobile, the two other biggest games on smartphones just don’t work with the Kishi. According to Razer, this is because it’s still working on implementing mapping support, wherein you can map your physical buttons to virtual buttons on your screen. Razer hasn’t released a timeline on when the feature will roll out, but I’m hoping it’s soon.
Razer Kishi – Software
The Razer Kishi has a companion app and it’s pretty much just an app launcher. It’s most helpful feature is it can help you discover new games designed to work with the controller. Otherwise, when updates roll out for this peripheral, you’ll be able to download them and install them through the app.
The month of July was going to see two major releases during the month: Mulan and Tenet. However, last week both films were delayed once again. Mulan was pushed back to August 21 and Tenet moved to August 12. Because of this, AMC Theaters is pushing back its opening date now to July 30, according to Deadline.
“We continue to devote extraordinary resources into our plan to operate our theaters with a hyper commitment to the safety and health of our guests and associates, notably in the United States through our new AMC Safe & Clean initiative,” AMC CEO and president Adam Aron said in a statement. “Our theater general managers across the U.S. started working full time again today and are back in their theaters gearing up to get their buildings fully ready just a few weeks from now for moviegoers. That happy day, when we can welcome guests back into most of our U.S. theaters, will be Thursday, July 30.”
AMC was already preparing to get back into the swing of things, reopening 450 multiplexes around the country with strict guidelines both patrons and employees in order to minimize the risk of spreading the coronavirus. However, Aron received some criticism recently for saying, “We thought it might be counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary.” However, within hours, AMC changed its stance, and all guests will now have to wear masks when the theater chain reopens its doors.
Additionally, the latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die also got its release date moved around again. Now, the film will arrive five days sooner on November 20 in the US and on November 12 in the UK.
