Among the new cast members for James Cameron’s Avatar sequels is Harry Potter actor David Thewlis. He’s now confirmed more details about his role in the sequels, clarifying that he’s not in Avatar 2, but he will definitely be in Avatar 3 and possibly Avatar 4 and 5 if they are made.
Speaking to Collider, Thewlis said there has been some misconception that he’s in Avatar 2. “I’m not in Avatar 2. I’m going to be in Avatar 3, which was shot at the same time as Avatar 2, and the plan is that I will be in Avatar 4 and 5, as well,” he said. “I just wanted to clear that up because somebody got that wrong recently.”
As announced previously, Avatar 2 and 3 are filming back-to-back, but whether or not Avatar 4 and 5 are produced will depend on the success of the first of the sequels.
Also in the interview, Thewlis said he was initially hesitant about working with Cameron–who he heard could be difficult to work with–but that wasn’t his experience on set.
“I loved working with Jim Cameron. I was a bit nervous ’cause I’d heard stories that he’s quite a hard task master,” Thewlis said. “I’d heard stories about the filming of Titanic, and that he could be quite difficult. He wasn’t difficult, at all. He was nothing but an absolute pleasure, and I had a great laugh with him. He’s something of a genius. He does everything. He’s an engineer, an artist, a filmmaker, and a writer. He’s just an extraordinary character.”
Thewlis also spoke about the unique nature of the Avatar sequels being very CG-focused films that required him to wear a motion-capture suit. “I didn’t really know what I was doing because I’d never shot in that way before,” he said.
“It’s not really like making a film, at all. It doesn’t resemble it, in any way,” Thewlis added. “Everything was completely new to me. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. There were lots of younger actors on set, who had to tell me what to do next because I felt like an old man. It was a great challenge, and I look forward to doing more of it.”
Avatar 2 is scheduled to come to theatres in December 2021, with Avatar 3 following in 2023. Should those movies succeed at the box office, Avatar 4 will follow in 2025 and Avatar 5 in 2027.
Calling all those who are fans of both Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Tiger King. Yes, that’s not a typo. There’s a new Star Wars Battlefront 2 Mod that reskins Han Solo as the infamous Joe Exotic from Netflix’s hit show.
Tiger King made our list of the biggest Netflix exclusives in 2020 and Joe Exotic’s popularity has skyrocketed accordingly. While a controversial figure amongst viewers, there’s no doubt that he’s made it into this year’s pop culture lexicon, so this Star Wars Battlefront 2 mod doesn’t come completely out of left field.
This mod is currently available on Nexus Mods, and it reskins the in-game Han Solo model to look just like Joe Exotic. We’re talking hairstyle changes, fashion faux pas, and more. Users who have downloaded the mod have been leaving comments requesting a Carol Baskin skin for another Star Wars Battlefront 2 character, but it doesn’t look like the original creator has delivered on that particular front.
The most popular mods for Star Wars Battlefront 2 now appear to be related to lightsabers and clone variations, but this Tiger King reskin has recently jumped to eighth place on the popularity list for now. It remains to be seen if Joe Exotic’s appeal will have any longevity for those wanting to do battle on Tatooine but for now, it’s a light-hearted addition to EA’s multiplayer space opera action shooter.
For those who haven’t kept up with the title in a while, the latest set of updates to Star Wars Battlefront 2 have been the original trilogy updates, adding new locations from the same set of movies as well Palpatine and Chewbecca as playable heroes in select game modes.
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Days of Thunder, the 1990 Tom Cruise film, received a spin-off game on NES back in 1990–but a different game based on the movie that was in development was scrapped, and never saw the light of day. Now, 30 years later, this alternate version of Days of Thunder has been reconstructed into a playable title by video game historians.
Chris Oberth was working as a programmer at Mindscape in 1990, and thanks to The Video Game History Foundation a never-before-seen game by him has been reborn. Oberth passed away in 2012, and the VGHF was later approached by a friend of Oberth’s family asking if its members could “make sense” of some of the materials Oberth left behind. In early 2020, the foundation was granted access to Oberth’s materials, in which they discovered a disc labelled “NINTENDO HOT ROD TAXI FINAL”.
Oberth was known to have worked on an unreleased Days of Thunder game, thanks to a three-part interview with The Retrogaming Times, and after some investigation and sorting through materials the team found close to 40 floppy disks, containing multiple encrypted and split files that would need to be reconstructed to get the game properly running.
The full read is fascinating, but the long-story-short version is that they got the game up and running–you can check out footage from it below.
While the game’s source code will eventually be published, and you’ll likely eventually be able to play a ROM of the title, the game also received a short publishing run with the permission of Oberth’s family; those copies sold out very quickly.
If you want to support game preservation and history, The Video Game History Foundation has a Patreon and a donation page.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. 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.
Borderlands developer Gearbox Software has joined the chorus in supporting Black Lives Matter and pushing back some of its scheduled plans for Borderlands 3 in solidarity with the movement. In a statement on Twitter, the developer said it’s delaying the release of the Takedown at the Guardian Breach update.
Additionally, the studio is muting its Twitter channel–with the exception of this announcement–out of respect for “what’s going on in the world right now.”
2K Games, which publishes the Borderlands series, said it’s adding another $1 million USD to the 2K Foundations Program and expanding its scope to include fighting racial injustice and inequalities in black communities around the world.
“Black lives matter,” the statement says.
Gearbox also confirmed that the ongoing Revenge of the Cartels event in Borderlands 3 will be extended until the Takedown at the Guardian Breach update arrives.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. 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.
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Star Wars’ John Boyega delivered an impassioned speech Wednesday in London during a Black Lives Matter protest over the recent killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. During his speech, Boyega noted that his activism might hurt his career but that it’s a price he’s willing to pay. However, Lucasfilm has since come out in support of their Star Wars lead, declaring him a “hero” that they stand with.
“Look, I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but f*** that,” Boyega shouted to a crowd of fellow protestors assembled in London’s Hyde Park.
Hoarse and deeply moved, Boyega declared, “I need you to understand how painful it is to be reminded every day that your race means nothing — and that isn’t the case anymore, that was never the case anymore. We are a physical representation of our support for George Floyd.”
John Boyega isn’t the only Star Wars actor to take to the streets and join the protestors. The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal participated in a march in Los Angeles this past weekend, documenting it on his social media accounts.
Path of Exile‘s latest expansion, Harvest, has been announced. It will be available to PC players from June 19, and Xbox and PlayStation players from June 24. This expansion will introduce a new challenge league, feature extensive balance changes to the existing game, and also visual improvements on top of other additions.
In Path of Exile: Harvest, Oshabi is cultivating the Sacred Grove, an ancient garden of mysterious power. You must plant seeds that grow into dangerous enemies and use their Lifeforce to craft powerful items. The Harvest begins on June 19.https://t.co/Olxfcs1d0Spic.twitter.com/R0F0Yumaod
Harvest will revolve around an area called the Sacred Grove, which will provide players with both rare items and formidable foes to face down. Exploring new areas will grant you with items called Seed Caches, and their contents will have to be planted by players within the Sacred Grove. Planting rare seeds will grant you with rarer monsters to fight or harvest, and each will have specific rewards. Players will be able to use the Grove to their advantage to customize their builds and to obtain beneficial items that suit their individual needs.
This June expansion for Path of Exile will also introduce changes to the current crafting system. The Sacred Grove will allow players to have more control over directed crafting in the game by allowing you powerful crafting options upon defeating any monster in the area. Players will also have to tend to the Grove in order for it to dispense rewards to its fullest potential; think building pipes, systems, and other things to keep your harvest healthy.
The official splash page for the Harvest expansion on the Path of Exile website has more information about other changes that are being made to the game, including but not limited to a redo of the two-handed weapon system and improvements for game performance related to frame rate issues.
For those who are looking to the future, Path of Exile 2 is still in development, and will reportedly address all the “deficiencies” of the current title. However, there has not been any word on a release date yet.
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HBO has released a trailer for Lovecraft Country, the new series from Misha Green (Underground). The trailer shows the show’s main character, Atticus Black (Jonathan Majors, a story-loving young man who goes looking for his “birthright”–a seemingly haunted house in Lovecraft Country.
The show, which is set in Jim Crow-era 1950s America, is executive produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out).
The trailer below shows off the spooky tone of the show, as well as its stellar cast, which includes Abbey Lee, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Courtney B. Vance, Michael K. Williams, and Wunmi Mosaku. This is the show’s second trailer–here’s the first.
It also shows that the show will mix imagined demons with realistic portrayals of racism and police violence. You can watch the full trailer below.
The show is scheduled to debut in August, although an exact date has not been set. It’s definitely on our to-watch list.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. 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.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga doesn’t have a specific release date (though there’s been some confusion on the subject), but it will be available sometime this year for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The game is already available for preorder at number of retailers, and it comes with a bonus at one of them. Read on for the goods.
No universal preorder bonuses come with the game, but if you purchase it at Best Buy, you’ll get an exclusive steelbook case for free. It’s designed to look like a LEGO Han Solo encased in carbonite, which it pretty neat.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the biggest game yet in the sub-series. It lets you play through the stories of all nine main films, with overhauled levels from the previous games. You don’t have to play them in order, either. The whole thing is laid out in an open-world format, and you can hop around from planet to planet at will, dropping into whatever scene you feel like playing from any of the films.
You take control of characters like Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rey and Finn, as well as villains like Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. Combat has been upgraded with a combo system, as well as enemy health bars replacing the old one-hit-kill fights.
Since LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the last game in the series, The Skywalker Saga represents the first time The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker have appeared in playable LEGO format. Check out our LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga preview for more details.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is one of the highest-paid executives not only in video games, but across the entire entertainment media industry. He made more than $30 million in 2019. One of the company’s shareholders, The CtW Investment Group, is now calling on other stakeholders to vote against a measure that gives the company freedom to pay Kotick high rates.
In a filing with the United States government, The CtW Investment Groups’ director Dieter Waizenegger called on other stakeholders to vote against the “Say-On-Pay” proposal during Activision Blizzard’s upcoming annual meeting scheduled for June 11, 2020.
“Despite repeated low approval votes from shareholders, Activision Blizzard maintains multiple, overlapping opportunities for its CEO to earn outsize equity awards, even when performance-related vesting thresholds have not been met,” the note says. “Despite failing to disclose pertinent information on performance targets for its Short Term Incentive Plan, Activision Blizzard’s proxy statement reveals significant human capital management challenges.”
Waizenegger said in his statement that Activision Blizzard continually finds “multiple ways to unnecessarily enrich its CEO.” The statement mentions that Kotick has received $20 million USD each year over the past four years for stock/option equity alone, before his base salary.
Kotick’s stock/option pay alone is “consistently” larger than the total pay–combining base salary, bonuses, and equity–of Kotick’s CEO counterparts in the games publishing business, Waizenegger said. He added that this level of pay would raise concerns in most circumstances, but it’s especially controversial now after Activision Blizzard laid off more than 800 people in 2019 despite record performance for the company.
“Specifically, over the past four years, Kotick has received $96.5 million cumulatively in combined stock/option awards alone,” he said. “In just 2019, he received over $28 million in combined equity, primarily consisting of options (over $20 million) that are substantially ‘in the money.’ While equity grants that exceed the total pay of peer companies would be objectionable in most circumstances, it is of special concern in this case because Activision Blizzard employees face job insecurity following layoffs of 800 employees in 2019, and typically earn less than 1/3 of 1% of the CEO’s earnings, with some employees, such as Junior Developers, making less than $40,000 a year while living in high-cost areas such as southern California.”
Kotick also has a remuneration deal with Activision Blizzard–the “Shareholder Value Creation Incentive”–that pays him more more when Activision’s stock price does exceptionally well. Increasing stock price is a “laudable goal,” but the compensation level is out of whack, Waizenegger said.
Also in the statement, Waizenegger said Kotick’s “Transformative Transaction” payment scheme is also problematic. This pays Kotick more money when Activision Blizzard’s total market capitalization is increased for a sustained period of time.
“Such incentives should be unnecessary: executives are already well compensated in the event of a merger or other strategic transaction without additional incentives because they typically hold large amounts of vested equity,” Waizenegger said. “Moreover, it is one of the CEO’s core responsibilities to pursue transactions that would be favorable and in the best interest of the company. There is no justification for providing an executive with additional incentives to pursue a merger or similar strategic transaction when that executive has already accumulated substantial holdings through equity grants.”
Waizenegger went on to say that Activision Blizzard’s total annual cash incentive plan is “problematic.” That’s because, he argues, Activision Blizzard has failed to fully disclose the specific strategic objectives that Kotick needs to achieve to claim the bonuses.
“Disclosure surrounding the strategic objectives portion is severely lacking and merely cites ‘attracting, retaining, and motivating top talent; cultivating new business opportunities and expanding existing ones; delivering production and development milestones; and increasing productivity,'” Waizenegger said. “We note that three of these objectives are clearly related to human capital management, and that Kotick’s apparent failure to achieve more than half of the targeted performance strongly suggests that Activision Blizzard’s skewed approach to human capital management–lavishing multi-million dollar rewards on the CEO as employees face layoffs–needs to be addressed before it manifests in deeper operational problems.”
Activision Blizzard’s shareholder meeting is scheduled for June 11, 2020. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Activision Blizzard will conduct the meeting virtually.
GameSpot has contacted Activision Blizzard in an attempt to get more information about The CtW Investment Group’s statement.
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