Month: July 2021

Seven years after it was announced, Space Jam: A New Legacy is finally releasing in theaters on July 16. But you won’t have to head to your local theater to watch A New Legacy on release day. The film will also be available to stream on HBO Max as part of HBO’s commitment to offer Warner Bros. movies to subscribers the same day they hit theaters this year.

How to watch Space Jam: A New Legacy on HBO Max

Space Jam: A New Legacy will be available to all HBO Max subscribers. HBO Max now has two different subscription tiers: standard and ad-supported. The standard HBO Max subscription costs $15 per month or $150 per year ($30 savings overall). The ads-supported subscription plan is only $10 per month or $100 per year ($20 savings overall).

HBO Max does not have a free trial, so you won’t be able to subscribe to the service simply to watch Space Jam: A New Legacy and then cancel before you’re charged. You’ll have to commit to at least one month of the service, but chances are it will cost you less than a ticket to see the film at your local theater.

If you plan on seeing Space Jam: A New Legacy in theaters, presale tickets are available now at Fandango and Atom Tickets.

Space Jam: A New Legacy release date

Space Jam: A New Legacy releases July 16 in theaters and on HBO Max. As part of HBO’s release structure for Warner Bros. movies, Space Jam: A New Legacy will only be available to stream on the service until August 16, so make sure you watch it while you can.

What’s Space Jam: A New Legacy about?

Like its predecessor, Space Jam: A New Legacy sees an NBA superstar joining up with Looney Tunes characters to take on a group of villains in basketball. While the first movie featured Michael Jordan, A New Legacy stars LeBron James.

LeBron and his son Dom get trapped inside the Warner 3000, a virtual entertainment server ruled by a rogue AI played by Don Cheadle. In order to save him, LeBron and the Looney Tunes characters must take on the Goon Squad, super-powered digital avatars led by Cheadle’s character.

How to watch the original Space Jam

Though Space Jam: A New Legacy is a standalone sequel, you still may want to revisit the 1996 original before it releases. Space Jam is streaming on HBO Max right now, so you have a couple of weeks to watch it on the service before A New Legacy arrives. Alternatively, you can rent it from Amazon Prime Video for $4.

Actor James Franco has agreed to pay more than $2 million to settle a sexual misconduct lawsuit filed by several former students of his acting school, NBC News reports.

Franco will pay $2.2 million, while the settlement will release claims by all parties, though Franco and other defendants involved continue to deny the allegations. A Los Angeles judge must now approve the settlement.

The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by two former students of Franco’s Studio 4 acting school, which ran from 2014 to 2017. The two former students alleged that Franco and his business partners coerced actors into filming sexual acts.

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The lawsuit alleged that Franco and business partners attempted to “sexualize their power and fame by dangling the opportunity to aspiring actors of employment in film and television in exchange for explicit nudity, sex,” and as Franco put it, the “pushing of boundaries.’”

A joint statement made on behalf of the students and Franco was released on Wednesday.

“While Defendants continue to deny the allegations in the complaint, they acknowledge that Plaintiffs have raised important issues; and all parties strongly believe that now is a critical time to focus on address the mistreatment of women in Hollywood,” the statement reads. “All agree on the need to make sure that no one in the entertainment industry — regardless of sex, race, religion, disability, ethnicity, background, gender or sexual orientation — faces discrimination, harassment or prejudice of any kind.”

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One million dollars from the settlement will go to the two named plaintiffs, while slightly more than $1 million will go to a fund meant for settling additional claims made by members of the class action lawsuit.

Franco has been accused of sexual misconduct in the past. He was alleged to have propositioned a 17-year-old girl on Instagram in 2014, an action he said was a case of “bad judgement.” In 2018, five women accused Franco of sexually inappropriate or sexually exploitative behavior.

The allegations resulted in the fraying of his relationship with longtime collaborator Seth Rogen, who said this year that he no longer plans on working with Franco.

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Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN.

PC peripherals brand Glorious has been around for a while, launching numerous great mice, keyboards, wrist rests, and more. But none of its products have been as eye-catching as its GMMK Pro keyboard–a new product that aims to make getting your hands on a custom keyboard kit easier while also opening the hobby to a much larger audience.

Custom keyboards have been an expensive and relatively small hobby for a while, but recently the scene has seen an explosion of interest. This doesn’t mean many of the components you need to make your own board are easy to get. Many kits, like the one Glorious is selling with the GMMK Pro, can usually only be purchased through extended group buys or in limited-quantity sales, meaning you’re either going to need to get lucky or have a lot of patience to get one.

The GMMK Pro aims to change that while also being a compelling option at its price point. Glorious ran its own pre-sale period for this keyboard earlier this year, but starting July 6 you’ll be able to get it from its website without needing to register for a chance to purchase it. Glorious says that stock will likely be limited from the outset, but that it plans to always have the GMMK Pro as a standard item on sale, eventually allowing you to grab one whenever you want.

Starts at $170

If you’re new to custom keyboards, it might come as a shock that the GMMK Pro isn’t useable out of the box. This is a barebones custom kit, meaning you’ll need your own mechanical switches and keycaps to use it. You do get everything else, including a 5-pin hot swappable PCB (meaning you can swap switches with no need to solder), a gasket-mount design, and an all-aluminum body with tasteful diffused RBG strips on the sides.

If building your own keyboard sounds like too much work, there’s still plenty of great options that you can get going with right out of the box. Check out our guide for the best gaming keyboards on the market right now.

Warning! Spoilers below for what we saw at the Sony Pictures special footage Q&A event. Don’t Breathe 2 will be released exclusively in theaters nationwide on August 13, 2021.

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Sony Pictures held a special footage Q&A event in Century City for Don’t Breathe 2, the anticipated sequel to the 2016 horror-thriller film about three friends breaking into the home of an elderly blind man, who turns out to be the intruders’ worst nightmare. In the new film, directed by Don’t Breathe co-creator Rodo Sayagues, Norman Nordstrom (Stephen Lang) returns eight years after the first film’s events and seems to have found the family he’s been longing to recreate through his guardianship of 11-year-old, Phoenix (Madelyn Grace). As shown in the trailer, Norman is shown to be truly happy as he trains Phoenix on survivalist skills until they are threatened by new intruders who are clearly after the girl. The evil within Norman is unleashed as he will do whatever it takes to save her.

Don’t Breathe creators and executive producers Fede Alvarez and Sayagues revealed three clips from the upcoming movie. The first clip that was shown, which Alvarez sets up in Norman’s home, was shot in the first week of filming. Norman is preparing to feed his beloved dog, Shadow. As he grabs the kibbles to take outside, he feels the bowl still has food in it and begins to search for Shadow in the woods. Criminals Jim Bob (Adam Young), Jared (Bobby Schofield), and Duke (Rocci Williams) have a sense of Norman’s abilities and invade the home while Norman is out in an attempt to kidnap Phoenix, who uses her survivalist skills to evade capture. The scene is tense as the sound is only filled with creaks and footsteps as the criminals search throughout the home for the child. After finding his dog killed under suspicious circumstances, Norman returns home and goes into fight mode against the invaders, causing a jump scare that left the audience gasping. The footage contrast shown was really dark, which Alvarez assured will be lighter when the film actually releases.

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Sayagues credits the director of photography, Pedro Luque, who is a regular collaborator with Alvarez and Sayagues, for the scene’s structure. Sayagues shares, “Pedro and I [are] just having fun and exploring that. In pre-production, the house is already built and we’ve just been formulating what we would like to do and what we would like to see, how would you like to tell this scene, and then when we got there, how we [would] do it. He has a big camera and there’s always a way and he just figures it out. It’s funny [and] interesting. Sometimes it feels like it’s impossible and never going to happen – you’re never gonna be able to pull that on camera or whatever, but then somehow, it does happen. There’s so many talented people around you. It’s a common goal. As a director, your job is to make it clear what we all want to achieve. Once that is there, [the] magic happens.”

The second clip shown involved super glue. In the garage, Norman is tending to his wounds, sustained from the previous scene, using super glue, but is interrupted by Jared, who is searching for Norman. Norman is able to subdue Jared with the latter being found to with his nose and mouth covered with glue. Jim Bob saves his fellow criminal by doing a disturbing, but smart, type of surgical procedure with a screwdriver that left many in the audience shocked.

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“The most fun with this movie is just figuring how Norman is going to defend himself against these guys, which in this movie, are deadlier and more dangerous than the guys in the first [film],” Sayagues explains before showing the clip. “It’s just figuring out how [this] guy can defend himself and, also, in a fun way that has never been done before.”

The final clip shown during the event has Duke, played by MMA fighter Rocci Williams, taking on Norman in the basement of his home. Alvarez noted that Norman fought against kids who didn’t know what they were doing in the first film. In this film, they wanted Norman to take on a well-trained big guy and see what he could do. In the scene, Duke attempts to lure Phoenix out of her safe box, but is alerted by his colleagues that Norman is present in the basement with him. Duke and Norman battle it out with impressive hand-to-hand combat which showed a lot of ingenuity that hasn’t been seen before in horror-based films. The sound design was highlighted in the scene to add some consequential depth to the fight. Alvarez and Sayagues credit composer Roque Baños for the score for the film, especially for this fight. 

“It makes you way more present when you just hear the sound design everything,” says Alvarez. “I think it’s important just to understand how the alignment operates and how [Baños] works. Otherwise, you won’t understand how he did certain things. He just puts you more in tune with every assignment.”

“Usually when you read in the script, you’re not thinking about some sound that much,” Sayagues adds. “But, in this case, you have to. So [it] becomes a narrative element in the story, and that translates into the sound design. [We] understand that it’s in the DNA of the story. So, [the sound] becomes a character [and is] a very important element. [It] allows you to play a lot with it. It’s huge. The sound in this story is huge.”

Don’t Breathe 2 stars Stephen Lang (Avatar, Tombstone), Madelyn Grace (Grey’s Anatomy), and Brendan Sexton III (El Camino, Black Hawk Down). It will be released exclusively in theaters nationwide on August 13, 2021.

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2021 marks the 10th anniversary of BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, and the developer is marking the occasion with a big new expansion and more.

The new expansion is called Legacy of the Sith, and it’s slated for release this holiday. The expansion marks the start of the MMO’s 10th anniversary festivities that will include special events and new content throughout 2022.

In Legacy of the Sith, players take part in a military campaign and are trying to take control of a planet, Manaan, as they unravel the true plans of Darth Malgus. A new feature, Combat Styles, comes to The Old Republic in the expansion as well, while the level cap is rising from 75 to 80. New co-op missions, which are billed as the most challenging to date in the game, are coming as well.

One of these is a new Flashpoint that takes place in a tomb on top of a mountain on the planet Elom. A new Operation, set on a deep space research station, is included with Legacy of the Sith as well.

Combat Styles, the new feature, allow players to independently select a class story and mesh it with ability sets from tech- or force-wielding classes. A “refactored” character creation system is included with Legacy of the Sith as well, while items and loadout menus are now streamlined, according to BioWare.

The Old Republic originally released in December 2011. In the time since, the game has brought in nearly $1 billion in revenue for EA.

This was the big news that BioWare teased on Thursday as part of its announcement that the next Mass Effect and Dragon Age games would not show up at EA Play Live on July 22.

It’s been a while since the last major expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic dropped, but now we know what’s coming next. Star Wars: The Old Republic – Legacy of the Sith has been revealed, and will be launching later this year. It adds a new story chapter, quality of life improvements, and is designed as a welcoming point for new players.

Announced in a press release from BioWare Austin, the latest expansion continues the story of The Old Republic, as players seek to hunt down the renegade Sith, Darth Malagus. Players will explore a variety of new planets, including the aquatic planet of Manaan, and a mysterious world with a mountaintop tomb called Elom. There will also be further Operations in remains of a deep space research station.

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The expansion also comes with a suite of enhancements for the game, including Combat Styles, which will “expand player options” alongside a variety of quality-of-life upgrades. Combat Styles will allow players to choose a specific class story and combine it with ability sets from other classes. This flexibility should allow players more options for customising exactly how they want to play. And with level caps will also increasing by 5, up to the cap of level 80, it looks like there will be plenty more content for Star Wars fans to dive into.

BioWare seems to be treating this expansion as a great jumping in point for new players, as the developer is also revamping the character creator to provide more options and to entice new players to jump in. The aim is to streamline the experience through improving the process for itemisation and selecting loadouts, which should make the game easier to control and more enjoyable to play as a result

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The expansion comes as Star Wars: The Old Republic celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, but the celebrations will go beyond just 2021, as BioWare has also teased some future content, including events and updates that will tie in with the anniversary festivities.

Star Wars: The Old Republic – Legacy of the Sith is scheduled to launch this Holiday season, though we don’t have a more specific release date just yet. Are you looking forward to returning to Star Wars: The Old Republic? Or will this expansion sway you to jump in for the first time? Let us know in the comments below.

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Liam Wiseman is a Freelance News Writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @liamthewiseman

After multiple looks at Dying Light 2: Stay Human centered around the upcoming game’s story, world, and characters, today’s Dying 2 Know stream focused on the infected monsters they’ll be fighting. A number of new enemies were introduced during the stream, including Sleeping Beauties, Revenants, and Banshees.

The gameplay trailer shows Dying Light 2’s protagonist, Aiden, exploring an abandoned hospital for a biomarker, which shows how infected someone is. During this mission, players will have to sneak through the hospital, around groups of sleeping infected that Aiden calls “Sleeping Beauties.”

Along the way, other special infected are shown, including a hulking creature with massive arms, called Demolishers, and another that vomits acid, called Banshees. Dying Light 2’s version of Volatiles, the threatening special infected enemies present in the first game, also made a terrifying appearance.

Today’s gameplay trailer ended with Aiden running to escape the building after finding that he was about to turn into a zombie. Sunlight and other UV rays slow or stop the process of infection, but it’s not clear how having the virus will impact players as they run through the game’s city as Aiden.

Prior to the gameplay trailer, Dying Light 2 lead game designer Tymon Smektała revealed another infected called the Revenant. Easily recognized by the strange wing-like growths coming out of its back and its eerily human appearance, Revenants are “smart and intelligent,” according to Smektała.

Along with a number of new monsters, Techland announced a prequel comic series to Dying Light 2: Stay Human titled “Banshee: I Am The Cure.” Created in a partnership with Dynamite Entertainment, the comic will be available at retail later this year or for free on Techland’s website.

Another Dying 2 Know episode is planned to air later this year and will include details on combat and parkour, including the combat styles players will be able to use and the weapons they can craft.

Dying Light 2: Stay Human is set to release on December 7 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Blizzard will be testing out same-faction matchmaking for Battlegrounds this weekend in World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic, in an effort to reduce lengthy matchmaking times for Horde players.

Since the launch of Burning Crusade Classic, Horde players looking to queue for Battlegrounds against the Alliance have been forced to wait in queues of up to an hour or more, making gaining Honor, a currency used to purchase PvP weapons and gear, almost impossible.

Why the long queue times? That’s because there are far more Horde players than Alliance, as Horde is perceived to be the better pick for PvP thanks to the powerful racial bonuses for Horde races like Orcs, Blood Elves, and Undead. Ironically, being better suited for PvP meant Horde players had to wait much longer to get into battlegrounds than their Alliance counterparts.

Blizzard will be enabling same-faction battlegrounds from July 2-6 to see its effect on the game. Battlegrounds will still prioritize matching teams of opposing factions, but if a team can’t be found in a timely fashion, the matchmaking system will pair up teams of the same-faction, albeit with the team playing out of the enemy faction’s base sporting masks and tabards representing the faction they find themselves fighting for.

“As soon as we saw Battleground queue times go way up a few weeks ago, we got to work on our options for addressing the situation,” Blizzard wrote in a post on the game’s official forums. “They’ve all been discussed here and elsewhere, as you know, and in addition to following your discussions closely, we looked at game history and data. What was most evident from all of your feedback was: players want to continue to play on their chosen side of the faction conflict, players don’t want to wait in long queues for BGs, and players don’t want a highly convoluted mechanism for getting into a BG.”

Same-faction teams won’t work on Alterac Valley, given the nature of the Battleground sees players battling various NPCs of the opposing faction. During the game’s weekly reset on July 6, same-faction matchmaking will be disabled while Blizzard analyzes data from the weekend and decides how to move forward.

It’s just the latest example of Blizzard showing it is willing to make various changes to Burning Crusade Classic not seen in the original landmark expansion, after following a strict “no changes” policy in regards to WoW Classic. Some of those changes, such as changes to Arena as well as rolling the game’s endgame content out in phases, have been met with general positivity. Others, like the introduction of a paid character boost and mount not seen in the original game, have been received less warmly.

The release date for Edgar Wright’s new psychological horror movie, Last Night in Soho, has been pushed back by one week.

Originally set to hit theaters on October 22, Last Night in Soho will now release on October 29, just two days before Halloween, as reported by BloodyDisgusting. Although an official reason for the release date bump was not announced, a glance at a movie release schedule likely reveals the reason why: Dune.

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Denis Villeneuve’s Dune was delayed last year to 2021 and soon after, it was revealed that the movie would hit theaters and subscription streaming service, HBO Max, at the same time. Dune director, Villeneuve, was quite outspoken about the Warner Bros. deal that would see his sci-fi movie released on HBO Max the same day as its theatrical release.

Then, last week, Warner Bros. announced that Dune’s release date had been pushed back from October 1 to October 22, and therein lies a great guess as to why Last Night to Soho might have been delayed by a week: to avoid Dune.

Of course, without official reasoning, that’s pure speculation, but pushing a release date to avoid another big release is not unheard of in this medium.

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Last Night in Soho is a psychological horror film directed by Edgar Wright, the director behind movies like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Shaun of the Dead, about “a young girl, passionate in fashion design, who is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters her idol, a dazzling wannabe singer.”

However, “1960s London is not what it appears, and time seems to fall apart with shady consequences,” the official description continues. Thomasin McKenzie plays Eloise, the girl who can enter the 1960s, while Anya Taylor-Joy plays Sandy, the idol of Eloise.

While waiting for Last Night in Soho, be sure to check out the official teaser trailer for the film and then read more about what to expect in the movie here.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

The Tomorrow War debuts on Amazon Prime Video on July 2.

It’s been a wild ride from Parks and Recreation to Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World. In a rare feat, Chris Pratt made the leap from character actor to action star, and he did it with an enticing swagger and a gleefully goofy sense of humor. He’d forged a comfy niche where audiences enjoyed watching him boldly swing into action and whip out witticisms. So, what possessed him to sign onto The Tomorrow War, a profoundly insipid and unsatisfying sci-fi action-flick that shows off only what he is not. 

Pratt is at his best playing knuckleheads, who are lovable even when arrogant. One crooked grin and we might forgive him all of his trespasses (even when they turn our favorite superheroes to dust). However, in The Tomorrow War, Pratt goes against type, shedding his wise-cracks and cockiness to play a sulking scientist with daddy issues and thwarted ambitions. You see, Dan Forester (Pratt) feels his biology skills are wasted teaching high school science. He dreams of working in a groundbreaking laboratory. But while lamenting to his tall wife (an underused Betty Gilpin) and young daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), the world as he knows it changes forever. A squadron of soldiers from the future trudge through a wormhole and onto a global broadcast to drop a bombshell: 29 years from now, mankind is losing a battle with a ravenous and mysterious alien force called the “white spikes.” Naturally, Dan will be pulled out of his miserable life (with his loving family, steady job, and spacious home) to tromp into a high-stakes battle not only for his daughter’s future but for the future of all mankind. 

The original screenplay by Zach Dean is sure to mention that Dan has a history in the military. So, of course, he’s a no-nonsense, born-to-lead hero even when the world is falling apart around him. Couple this with the smarts suggested by his scientist aspirations, and Dan should be a real force in this film. However, Pratt just doesn’t have the range to make it work. 

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This is the kind of part you might imagine Tom Cruise playing three decades back: a self-assured but slightly sad man-of-action. Chris Pratt is no Tom Cruise. Without the wise-cracking and cheeky grins, he seems at a loss as to what to do with his face. A resting furrowed brow might be meant to express incredulity, determination, consternation, maybe even constipation. The point is, it’s Pratt’s only move. Whether he’s facing an alien onslaught, confronting his estranged father, or having a heart-to-heart with his heartbroken daughter, Dan furrows that brow. And just like that, the dazzling screen presence that’s launched Pratt into multiple tentpole franchises is extinguished. It’s as if smirks were the source of his star power, and now he’s Samson, shaved bald and unremarkable. By the time a telegraphed plot twist calls on him for pathos, he’s long lost the thread. 

Throughout the film, Pratt is outshone by a sprinkling of supporting players who all deserve better. Gilpin, who was riveting in GLOW and The Hunt, brings a welcomed intensity to the thankless role of Dan’s wife, a stock character defined chiefly by her support of her hero husband. Yvonne Strahovski, Edwin Hodge, and Mary Lynn Rajskub play varying degrees of steely to snarky in future battlefields that ache for character. Rocking a burly bod and a grizzled beard, J.K. Simmons delivers spark in a small but potent part as an off-the-grid rogue. But even this paragon of character acting struggles to make Dean’s stale script work, choking on a “metrosexual” joke that is old enough to buy a stiff drink. 

The comic relief is chiefly shouldered by VEEP’s Sam Richardson, in a role that could have been Pratt’s not so long ago. Playing an affable everyman who rambles when he’s nervous, Richardson wedges levity into every moment he’s able: before wildly reckless military maneuvers, in between brutal battle scenes, and amid mind-numbing exposition dumps. While his manic energy is welcomed, the bits he’s given are uninspired. Sure, in the moment, it’s funny watching him flee while hollering expletives. But none of the so-called jokes stick long enough to be remembered. 

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Which is to say, maybe even a true Cruise couldn’t have saved The Tomorrow War. Dean’s script is overstuffed with lazy jokes, sappy speeches, and clunky proclamations like, “We are literally living on borrowed time.” Yet none of this is as bad as the main plot, which is just inexplicably dumb. 

In The Tomorrow War, mankind has invented time travel. Specifically, it’s a form of time travel that allows people from 2051 to come back to 2022 or vice-versa. They cannot go anytime else. Why not? This very good question is waved away with a nonsense explanation involving a bunch of mixed metaphors about chicken wire, chewing gum, and rivers. Okay. So, what do the people of the future decide to do with this time-shuttle power? 

If you’ve ever seen any other time travel movie or TV show ever, you’d think they’d use it to pass along information or tools to help change the intervening 30 years and give humans an advantage against the vicious white spikes. But apparently, the people in The Tomorrow War have totally different pop culture touchstones than we do, because this idea isn’t even suggested before every nation in the world marches their military forces through a glowing blue portal. And when that’s insufficient, conscripted civilians are chucked into the future war without training or even any idea what the aliens look like. 

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That is a mighty big ask to accept on an Act Two setup. Yet, The Tomorrow War seems totally unaware, barreling into a plotline that makes less and less sense as it spirals to an unimaginative climax of explosions, glossed over casualties, and a final showdown that is mind-numbingly trite. 

Maybe you’re not worried about plot and character and are just seeking some cool action sequences and creepy creatures? Here too The Tomorrow War disappoints, seemingly plucking inspiration from everything from Skyline and Independence Day to Cloverfield and Gremlins but pulling away all the wrong lessons. The action sequences are sprawling, full of CG carnage and creatures. Some of these are gross and gloppy in a way that owes a debt to Joe Dante. Others turn a tidal wave of civilian deaths into a grim spectacle. Yet, there’s little art to the pacing or plotting of such sequences, so it all just feels plodding. Even the white spikes that should be ferocious look increasingly silly the longer the camera leers at them. They are a pasty jumble of limbs, tentacles, and mouths that look like a sloppy rip-off from Stranger Things.