NFL star Tom Brady is partnering with the directors of The Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame for a new Hollywood production label that will create movies, TV shows, and documentaries.
Brady is launching 199 Productions, and so far it has already signed “a slate of development projects” covering stories about sports, entertainment, and health and wellness.
The first project from 199 Productions is a documentary called Unseen Football, which will be produced by Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors of some of the biggest movies in box office history. Deadline reports that the film is Brady’s “love letter” to football, and it will tackle multiple levels of the game, including high school, college, and the NFL.
Unseen Football will be directed by Gotham Chopra, who previously directed Brady’s Facebook documentary series, Tom vs. Time. The series tallied 100 million views on Facebook.
The Russo brothers are big fans of Tom Brady and are excited to work with him. “We want to bring his story, and the story of the game he loves, to the big screen in a way that gives audiences an experience of football that they’ve never had before,” they said to Deadline.
As for Brady, he said about Unseen Football, “I believe in the essence of teamwork, and I have no doubt, our team will create the most magical experience for people to enjoy.”
Brady said in a post on Instagram that the name 199 Productions comes from how he was drafted 199th in the 2000 NFL Draft. Brady would of course go on to become one of the most successful and celebrated QBs in the history of the game.
The New England Patriots superstar is entering free agency for the first time in his career later this month, meaning he is free to sign with any team he wants. Whether or not he stays at New England is one of the most discussed topics in football right now. Brady offered a tease in his Instagram post, saying, “Stay tuned.. exciting times are ahead, both on and off the field.”
Brady is not the first sports megastar to set up a Hollywood production company. NBA icon LeBron James launched SpringHill Entertainment, which has produced numerous TV shows and movies, and it’s also behind the upcoming Space Jam reboot that will star James in the lead role.
Randy Orton is a preternaturally gifted in-ring WWE performer, and thanks to him, the most hyped match headed into Wrestlemania 36 is between Edge and Orton–two aging guys from the Ruthless Aggression Era.
What Orton does–and what very few performers do consistently–is allow his character to inform every aspect of his performance. So many wrestlers rely on their mic work to define their allegiance. Meanwhile, their physical, non-verbal actions are decidedly neutral; you can’t tell whether the person is a good guy or a bad guy by the way he or she moves. But with Orton, the performance is seamless and all-encompassing. It’s in everything he does, from the way he walks to the way he hits the ropes to the way he pauses before launching into a signature move.
He has spent the majority of his career as a heel; traditionally, it’s the more difficult role to play, but it’s also the character type Orton is most comfortable with. He elaborated on his reasoning during a 2008 interview with the Herald Sun:
“Being a babyface sucks, unless you’re 300 pounds like Batista, or a character everybody wants to see live, like The Undertaker, or Hulk Hogan, who has charisma… It’s easy for me to go out there and be a pr*ck on the show because it’s me times 10. And even though you probably don’t like me anyway, give me five minutes, and I’ll make you not like me more. Being a heel is fun. It comes so natural[ly].”
Orton has brought these considerable, natural talents to bear on his current angle with Edge, which began on the January 27 episode of Raw. The day prior at the Royal Rumble, Edge, who entered at #21 in the men’s battle royal, wrestled for the first time in nine years. His entrance and the subsequent emotional reaction of the crowd will go down as one of the greatest moments in WWE history.
It’s important to note that no one, least of all Edge, expected this to happen; at the time he was diagnosed in 2009, the message was dire: one errant bump, and Edge could end up in a wheelchair. Clearly, a convergence of modern medicine and luck have defied those odds. Still, we were told about the impossibility of this return so many times, that one couldn’t help but think of the warnings against it.
So when Orton came out on Raw to congratulate Edge on his return, and then proceeded to bash him about the head, first with an RKO, and then with a hellacious Con-Chair-To, it was the sort of meta storyline that WWE excels at. They’re giving voice to those nagging questions in the back of many fans’ minds: Is this a good idea? At what cost is he coming back? What if his opponent doesn’t protect him as carefully as he should?
WWE is addressing the elephant in the room by smashing it with a folding chair, and Orton is the perfect messenger to convey that discomfort. He has a longstanding, in-storyline history with Edge as the Rated-RKO tag team. He ascended to the top of the card around the same time Edge retired. And his heelish demeanor has been menacing, self-serious, and consistent over a 15-year period.
It’s difficult to think of another wrestler who could have destroyed Edge and gotten the kind of reaction that Orton did. The man knew to take his time. Horror–good horror–is about the buildup to the violence, rather than the violence itself. By standing around admiring his handiwork, Orton prolonged the feeling of helpless dread. Everyone knew exactly what was coming and was powerless to stop it.
On the March 2 episode of Raw, Orton explained his actions to Beth Phoenix, who was on the show to give us a medical update on her husband’s condition. Orton said he loves Edge like a brother–that by injuring him in the short term, he was saving him from a longer career where he would cripple himself, permanently this time. He suggested that Phoenix should be thankful to him–for sending her husband back into retirement, where he could be with his wife and kids again. He then blamed Phoenix for being an “enabler” before giving her an RKO for good measure.
The best characters are those with a basis in reality. And perhaps that’s why Orton is so effective in his current persona. His prior “Apex Predator” persona was an antisocial loner and psychopath who didn’t trust or care for anyone. But his current character is a more intimate, creepy type of crazy that’s rooted in who Orton really is: a husband and father of two who’s friends with Edge off-camera. In his character’s mind, his only flaw is that he “loves” his friend too much–so much that he’ll try to cripple him to save him.
It’s deeply unsettling, contradictory logic, but it’s also a contradiction that most wrestling fans struggle to reconcile. We pay money and invest emotion in watching these people beat each other, injure each other, and do long-term damage to each other. We care about these performers, but we also encourage them to bleed and throw themselves off ladders for our entertainment. And then, we also demand they do it “safely.”
Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to take a piledriver. But the safest way to take a piledriver is to not take one in the first place. The fans are mad at Orton, but he gave them what they were paying for. Are they not entertained? In accusing Phoenix of complicity, Orton interrogates the audience’s complicity as well.
Edge will appear on the March 9 episode of Raw, where he will respond to Orton for the first time. It’s a fascinating, precarious contradiction; he needs to reassure a jittery audience that he’s healthy enough for a match at Wrestlemania, But he also needs to promise that he will beat Orton into the ground, which will expose him to the very things that injured him the last time.
It’s a balancing act, for sure. But it’s a balancing act that he, Orton, and every WWE Superstar have been doing, implicitly, for their entire careers. That they’re doing it explicitly is what makes us uncomfortable, but we’ve been an accomplice to it for years.
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The Guardians of the Galaxy might be joining the fourth Thor movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, according to Groot voice actor Vin Diesel.
“I am waiting and excited for my friend James Gunn to knock this next one out of the park,” Diesel told Comicbook.com in a recent interview. “He took The Suicide Squad so he’s about to embark on it. Thor will also, the director talked to me about Thor will incorporate some of the Guardians of the Galaxy.”
The last we saw of Thor, it seemed that his next departure would be by way of the Guardians of the Galaxy, with speculation that he would appear in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Guardian star Chris Pratt said there’s no definitive yes or no to that speculation during IGN’s red carpet event for Pixar’s Onward, but it would seem that this Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy team-up might be happening in Love and Thunder.
Diesel seemingly recognized that this information wasn’t yet known during the interview.
“That’ll be very interesting, nobody knows, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” Diesel said, as neither Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi nor Guardians director James Gunn have yet to confirm this information.
Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy interacting on screen in an upcoming MCU movie wouldn’t be surprising considering where we last saw these characters, but we do wonder how the two will interact under the direction of Waititi. We do, however, know that Love and Thunder will be “bigger and louder and more bombastic,” according to Waititi.
Devs focuses on software engineer Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno), who works at a Silicon Valley quantum computing company called Amaya, which she believes is behind the murder of her boyfriend. Devs also stars Nick Offerman as Forest, the CEO of Amaya, and Alison Pill as Katie, Forest’s second in command. This sci-fi thriller is created, written, and directed by Alex Garland, who also wrote and directed the films Annihilation and Ex Machina, and wrote the screenplays for 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Dredd, among others.
In episode 1, we meet Lily and Sergei. Sergei also works for Amaya, in the AI division. Forest promotes Sergei to the mysterious Devs division at Amaya. But on his first day in Devs, he disappears. Lily feels that something is wrong and tries to find answers.
In Devs episode 2, we learn about Forest’s tragic past involving his daughter, who he named his company Amaya after. Lily seeks help from her ex, Jamie (Jin Ha) to find answers after the mystery of Sergei’s death. With his help, Lily learns a secret about Sergei.
Dominique “SonicFox” McLean won first prize at the Mortal Kombat Final Kombat 2020 tournament and managed to get out an endorsement to democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders.
SonicFox really just won the Mortal Kombat world championship, came out in fursuit wrapped in the trans flag, grabbed the mic and said “Vote Bernie”
McLean wore their SonicFox fursuit and a transgender pride flag during their trophy acceptance, which came with a large commemorative hammer because this is Mortal Kombat. While they were unable to offer a full acceptance speech, McLean was able to get the mic briefly to tell the audience at home to ‘Vote Bernie.’
The 2020 Final Kombat tournament was not held in front of a live audience due to coronavirus concerns. The open qualifiers meant to be held a week before Final Kombat was also canceled, with the spot being awarded to Zoulfikar ‘Kombat’ Dayekh.
SonicFox was able to win using their Injustice 2 and Mortal Kombat 11 main, Joker, and earned a $40,000 prize.
McLean, who identifies as non-binary, is a proud proponent of LGBTQ+ rights and has used their platform to show support for the community. During the 2018 Game Awards after winning Esports Player of the Year, McLean said on stage, “I’m gay, black, a furry — pretty much everything a Republican hates.”
They’re also now world champion of both NetherRealm’s fighting games, Mortal Kombat 11 and Injustice 2. Meanwhile, Mortal Kombat 11 finally revealed its latest guest character, Spawn, which you can check out here.
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Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him on Twitter.
Call of Duty: Warzone is a standalone, upgraded version of Black Ops 4‘s Blackout mode. Its Battle Royale mode is very similar, where players compete to be the last person standing, but this version supports 150 players in squads or solos. Warzone also features Plunder, where the goal is to earn the most money via looting, eliminating other players, and completing new objectives called Contracts.
Warzone is free-to-play, and you can download it even if you don’t already own Modern Warfare. However, if you do own the most recent Call of Duty game, your Battle Pass items, Operators, and progression will transfer over to Warzone. The inverse is also possible: if you download Warzone and decide to pick up Modern Warfare later, your progress will transfer too.
Call of Duty: Warzone’s release date is March 10 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Activision will be setting the game live at 12 PM PDT. Modern Warfare owners can jump in earlier by downloading the Warzone update; that will go live at 8 AM PDT.
Season 4 of Netflix’s Stranger Things will be bigger than its previous seasons, according to Netflix Vice President of Physical Production Momita SenGupta (via Deadline).
SenGupta and another Netflix physical production vice president, Patty Whitcher, sat down for a fireside chat with Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr., and SenGupta teased some of what Stranger Things fans can expect in the upcoming season.
“Season 4 is bigger, bolder and more intricate than ever,” SenGupta said. “So this is the first time the show will be traveling beyond Atlanta.”
The first three seasons of Stranger Things were shot in Atlanta, but portions of Season 4 were shot in New Mexico, Deadline reports. According to Deadline, Netflix purchased Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico in 2018, committing to spend more than $1 billion on production on Netflix movies and shows there over the next decade. The company has already spent over $150 million, Deadline reports, and has employed 2000 vendors alongside 1600 cast and crew members.
She did share, however, that Netflix’s new facilities in New Mexico “lent themselves to the story” being told in Season 4. A release date for Season 4 of Stranger Things is currently unknown, but we have some theories on when the show will return.
There are a number of reasons why A Quiet Place became such a huge hit in 2018. It was extremely tense and scary, anchored by great performances, and released during a time when critically acclaimed horror movies can break through and become major blockbusters. But just as importantly, it had a simple gimmick that both supported the story and characters and helped deliver some quality scares
A Quiet Place’s main concept is that the world is now overrun with big and terrifying alien creatures, which are blind but use their incredible hearing abilities to locate their prey. In other words–make a sound and you might die. It worked brilliantly, but the film is just the latest in a long line of horror movies that use similar concepts to generate scares.
At their worst, these gimmicks can seem silly and end up undermining the filmmaker’s attempts to make their movies scary. In recent years, terrible films such as Bye Bye Man (don’t say his name!), Countdown (don’t download the app!), and Make A Wish (don’t make a wish!) have tried to use gimmicks to make up for the lack of scares and tension, and have failed badly. A good horror movie needs more than just a gimmick, especially if it’s just recycling it from other, better movies.
Luckily, there are many great examples too. Like A Quiet Place, these concepts allow the filmmakers do something interesting with the story, whether it’s play with perceptions of reality, presents moral dilemmas, or create a sense of claustrophobia. And sometimes, when put in the hands of a great horror filmmaker, it can simply make for terrifying viewing. So with A Quiet Place: Part 2 hitting theaters later this month, here are some of the best horror movie gimmicks ever devised.
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11. Don’t Turn the Light Off
Movie: Lights Out (2016)
As the title suggests, the monster in Lights Out only appears when the lights are turned off. Director David Sandberg first used the idea in a terrifying viral video, and subsequently expanded it to feature-length. Like many horror gimmicks, the novelty wears off after a while, but there are some highly effective scenes as the creature slowly advances under a flickering light towards its prey.
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10. Don’t Take Your Blindfold Off
Movie: Bird Box (2018)
Bird Box got some criticism when it was first released for the similarity of its plot with that of A Quiet Place, but in fact it was based on a 2014 novel that predates John Krasinski’s film. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world where people are driven insane when they look at the strange supernatural entities that roam the earth and take the form of your worst fears. The key is to keep yourself blindfolded, which is obviously easier said than done if you want to go anywhere, as Sandra Bullock and two children discover as they attempt to find a group of survivors.
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9. Don’t Make A Sound
Movie: Don’t Breathe (2016)
Don’t Breathe has the same basic concept as A Quiet Place, except it’s not terrifying monsters that will kill you if they hear you. The movie centers on a trio of young criminals who break into a blind old man’s house to rob him. Unfortunately for them, he’s a mean and dangerous Gulf War veteran, scarily played by Avatar’s Stephen Lang, who knows every inch of his home. With the doors locked and the house plunged into darkness, he sets about picking off the unlucky intruders.
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8. Don’t Push A Button On A Box
Movie: The Box (2009)
Based on the story from Twilight Zone writer Richard Matheson and directed by Donnie Darko’s Richard Kelly, The Box has a wonderfully weird concept. A man (Frank Langella) arrives on the doorstep of a married couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) carrying a box. He tells them that if they press the button on the top of the box, they will receive a million dollars–but someone they have never met will die. The button is pressed. A million dollars is handed over. Bad things happen.
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7. Don’t Speak In English
Movie: Pontypool (2009)
This gripping Canadian film puts an ingenious spin on the zombie movie. The virus that creates Pontypool’s ravenous creatures is manifested by the English language, with certain words turning ordinary people into terrifying zombie-like aggressors. The first sign of the infection is the loss of the ability to communicate properly, with the virus spread by repeating specific words and phrases. The film’s main character is a DJ trapped at the radio station, who is torn between wanting to help his terrified listeners and knowing that doing so might kill them.
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6. Don’t Find Yourself Near A Horrendous Mass Accident
Movie: Final Destination series (2000-2011)
The gimmick of the Final Destination movies is so good that it was repeated in four sequels. Each film starts in the same way: a group of people avoids a huge disaster that should’ve claimed their lives, and then spend the rest of the movie trying to escape death. The fun of these films is seeing what accident kicks off the chain of death (in order: plane crash, car pile-up, roller coaster derailment, speedway accident, bridge collapse), as well as the increasingly ludicrous ways that the survivors are picked off.
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5. Don’t Take Possession Of A Cursed Parchment
Movie: Night of the Demon (1957)
This classic British movie was hugely influential and set the template for some of the more recent films on this list. The story involves the investigations of a skeptical doctor into a devil worshipping cult, and features a cursed parchment that causes impending death to anyone it is passed to–a curse that can only be lifted by passing it to someone else in time. It’s still an incredibly effective and eerie movie, stunningly directed by Jacques Tourneur.
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4. Don’t Fall Asleep
Movie: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Wes Craven’s classic 1984 horror hit introduced the world to one of the genre’s great villains: Freddy Kruegger. The blade-fingered demon stalks the dreams of the kids of Elm Street, killing them in a variety of gruesome and inventive ways while they sleep. The key is to stay awake, but that’s easier said than done, night after night. Craven has great fun playing with different layers of consciousness, ensuring that it’s often unclear if Freddy’s potential victims are actually awake, or just dreaming about being awake.
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3. Don’t Watch A Sinister Cable Show
Movie: Videodrome (1982)
David Cronenberg’s film is a media satire, conspiracy thriller, and masterpiece of body horror all in one. The plot focuses on a sleazy cable TV boss Max Renn (James Woods) who stumbles upon a sinister and mysterious channel that broadcasts footage of seemingly real rape, torture, and murder, and attempts to track down its producers. Unfortunately for Max, there is a signal hidden within the broadcast that induces a tumor in his brain and triggers terrifying weird and gloopy hallucinations.
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2. Don’t Say “Candyman” Five Times Into A Mirror
Movie: Candyman (1992)
Candyman has such a simple gimmick that anyone can easily and safely do it, but hardly anyone who has seen the movie would dare to. Simply stand in front of a mirror and say “Candyman” five times. Not hard, right? Unless you’re scared of a vengeful ghost with a hook for a hand and an interest in bees appearing behind you, that is…
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1. Don’t Watch A Cursed Video Tape
Movie: Ring (1998)
The Japanese horror wave of the early 2000s featured a number of movies with creepy gimmicks, but the film that started it remains the most effective. Ring’s concept is simple and effective: if you watch a cursed video tape, you will die within seven days. That’s it. The scares come from not knowing how and when this death will occur–it could be a heart attack, a traffic accident, or a terrifying ghost girl crawling out of your TV. In all cases, it’s not good.
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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company
The following ending explained contains full spoilers for The Outsider finale.
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HBO’s The Outsider has come to an end, drawing the story to a conclusion that saw tormented cop Jack Hoskins (Marc Menchaca) kill off a number of the core characters before taking his own life. The show ended with Ralph (Ben Mendelsohn) and Holly (Cynthia Erivo) confronting the cave-dwelling “El Cuco” and taking him/it out.
Or so it seemed. Ralph certainly bashed the creature’s face in with a rock after the shotgun blasts and knife to the chest didn’t do the trick. So are we sure El Cuco is dead? Well, not really. The splatter produced with the rock impact certainly felt fatal, but the back half of the season featured many characters wondering whether or not the beast could even be killed.
Which leads us to the final scene. The one that, if taken at horror movie face value, strongly implies El Cuco survived and that Holly is its next target of duplication.
You can read IGN’s Outsider finale review here, but for the purposes of this piece we’re just focusing on the post-credits scene, and where the show might be able to go for a Season 2.
Holly’s Vision of Jack
Back home in Chicago, Holly catches a brief glimpse of Jack standing behind her while she’s looking at herself in a bathroom mirror. Very quickly, because she’s all about the rules of the beast, she checks her neck for bubbles and scarring. She needs to know if she’s been poisoned and made El Cuco’s next “Renfield.”
She’s all clear and clean, but what was that vision about? One of the major themes of The Outsider is trauma – from the death of Ralph’s son to the counselor he has to see after firing his weapon to the way El Cuco feeds off the sorrow in the aftermath of the tragedies it causes. So Holly’s quick ghost may have come from her still being shaken up – and, of course, mourning the death of Andy.
Jack’s face is un-scarred though. This was the Jack before El Cuco had him beaten up by a phantom (in the form of his late mother). What does it mean that Jack isn’t the Jack she spent the most time with (though she did get picked up by Jack and taken to a diner before his face was bashed in)? Is this a sign that he’s a vision brought about by El Cuco? If true, that means El Cuco survived.
Is she seeing Jack because she’s scratched, or is this just run-of-the-mill El Cuco nonsense?
Holly’s Scratch
It’s hard to catch but, as you can see above, Holly’s arm has a scratch. The same type of scratch that El Cuco dishes out.
We see it while she’s listening to “Washington Square” by The Village Stompers, which is the song from Ralph’s anecdote about his mother. It’s rarely played on the radio, but here it is, being broadcast for Holly. Is that a sign that something supernatural is taking place? That’s what Ralph thought when he heard it for a second time, years after his mom passed. Is it a signal to the viewer that the scratch is real, or is all of this just the show being a bit playful during its final seconds?
For this scratch to be real, meaning from El Cuco, we’d have to believe that the entity somehow got close enough to Holly to do it (which it didn’t in the episode) and that Holly also wouldn’t have noticed it (which she totally would have).
Therefore, odds are good that it’s a wound she suffered from the cave collapse.
What Could The Outsider Season 2 Be About?
The Outsider has been billed as a limited series from the get-go. Naturally, that’s never stopped anyone, especially HBO, from taking things further, even beyond a book (see: Big Little Lies).
One Season 2 option here is to adapt the sequel novella to The Outsider that Stephen King has coming out as part of his new collection, If It Bleeds, which is due in May. In it, Ralph Anderson receives a flash drive containing two folders: One has photos and audio spectrograms and the other is a spoken-word diary from Holly. Very little else is known about the story right now.
Another option, and perhaps the most obvious tale to tell, would be the continuing terror of El Cuco, crafting a story away from Stephen King’s pages and taking the characters off in a new direction. It’s still alive, it’s still feeding and — if you buy into the literal meaning of the final scene — Holly’s about to have a very rotten time. This time around though, she’d have four people to turn to immediately.
And speaking of “true believers.” Ralph is now one of the open-minded. His experience with El Cuco has actually made him more optimistic about his son’s fate as he now knows the world, and beyond, is filled with more things than he ever imagined. He asks Holly, as she’s about to leave, what else is out there that he doesn’t know about.
Boom, that’s the series (if it was going to continue). Ralph and Holly could easily tackle a new case featuring a new type of creature. The doppelgänger in this series wasn’t called “The Outsider.” Holly basically explained what the title of the series meant in her last scene with Ralph, and created the possibility of new stories. An “Outsider” is anyone, or anything, that’s not explainable through conventional logic or methods. So the branding is already in place for a new case where Holly and Ralph chase down a new bogeyman.
So would you like to see The Outsider continue for Season 2? If so, do you want them to keep tracking El Cuco or would you like to see a new type of threat? Let us know below!
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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
