Author: Trafficblast

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Justice League director Zack Snyder’s new Netflix movie Army of the Dead has a surprising and unexpected connection to another Netflix property, Tiger King. The streaming company said on Twitter that the CGI zombie tiger you might have seen in the Army of the Dead trailer was modeled after a real tiger from Carole Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue sanctuary in Florida.

Netflix didn’t provide any more details on why this was the case. It’s an interesting piece of trivia, at the very least. Here’s the CGI zombie tiger from Army of the Dead:

In Army of the Dead, Dave Bautista plays a former soldier who is hired to steal from a Las Vegas casino in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. You can check out the over-the-top trailer below; the movie hits Netflix on May 21.

Netflix is hoping to create an Army of the Dead universe and has already announced a spin-off titled Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas on the way. The voice cast for that includes Christian Slater, Joe Manganiello, Vanessa Hudgens, and Jena Malone.

The Tiger King series continues as well, as NBC Universal just announced who will play Joe Exotic in its upcoming series.

The Suicide Squad director James Gunn posted the Japanese poster for the upcoming DC movie and, as is usually the case, it heavily differs from the United States design.

In the Japanese version, Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag is front and center, being flanked by John Cena’s Peacemaker and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. Idris Elba as Bloodsport is at the top with Ratcatcher and Polka-Dot Man on the bottom right and left, played by Daniela Melchior and David Dastmalchian respectively.

Compared to the American version, there’s no real logline. At the top, it mentions it’s by James Gunn, and underneath the title, it roughly translates to “rally of the rogues.” Aside from the composition, it uses the same featured characters and actors, even with Robbie’s Harley holding a bazooka in both of them.

In the replies to the poster, Gunn commented that the movie has wrapped filming, and he is currently shooting the Peacemaker television show that will premiere on HBO Max in January 2022. After that, he’ll start pre-production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3.

The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6th, but Japan will get it a week later.

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WarnerMedia revealed during a AT&T investor call that the company’s streaming service, HBO Max–along with HBO–has grown domestically to 44.2 million subscribers over the first quarter of 2021.

Throughout the quarter, the service added 2.7 million subscribers domestically. Globally, HBO Max and HBO have reached 64 million subscribers. Keep in mind that HBO Max hasn’t even existed for a year yet, as it launched May 2020.

“HBO Max continued to deliver strong subscriber and revenue growth in advance of our international and AVOD launches planned for June,” said John Stankey, AT&T CEO.

HBO Max’s changes in June involve a new ad-supported tier. The tier will be cheaper than the current $15 a month cost; however, at this time, it’s still unknown how much this new tier will cost and how many ads will play over the course of each piece of content.

Warner will most likely continue to see a bump in subscribers for the remainder of 2021, as many Warner Bros. movies that were headed to theaters will also debut on the HBO Max streaming service simultaneously.

In 2021, HBO Max has seen some landmark releases including Zack Snyder’s Justice League and Godzilla vs. Kong. Debuting on April 23 is Mortal Kombat, and later in the year, HBO Max will release Suicide Squad, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and plenty more highly-anticipated movies, which will surely see more people flock to the streaming service.

The Epic Games Store is further expanding its non-gaming offerings, as several PC apps have popped up. They’ve all been organized into a new section of the store, and let you do everything from digital painting to listening to your favorite music.

Joining Spotify, which launched last year, the new apps include the art apps KenShape and Krita, web browser Brave, music streaming app iHeartRadio (only in North America), and the indie games store Itch.io. Itch.io is DRM-free, letting users pay creators for games that may not be available on other stores, and in some cases, games are released for free. You can use a simple browser-based version of the store already, but it will be helpful to play browser games offline.

Additionally, today begins a partnership between Epic Games and Spotify, giving Fortnite Crew subscribers three months of Spotify Premium for free. This deal only applies to new Spotify subscribers, however, so those who already pay for a membership will not receive the deal.

Earlier this month, we learned that Epic Games has been spending much more on exclusive games than it has been receiving in third-party sales via the Epic Games Store, with the company making a big push to cut into Steam’s market share. It also gives out free games every week, and this week’s batch includes Alien: Isolation.

Because of Fortnite’s continued success, however, this isn’t a huge revenue loss for Epic Games, and CEO Tim Sweeney views it as a big investment into its growing business. It could still be several years before the store is profitable, but it remains just one facet of the company’s operations, which also include developing the Unreal Engine for other studios to use.

Firewalk Studios, a AAA development team founded by former Halo and Destiny veterans, has announced a deal with Sony for its first game, a multiplayer title set in a new universe.

Firewalk Studios was founded in 2018 and its leadership includes Tony Hsu (Activision’s former Destiny boss), Ryan Ellis (former Bungie creative director), and Elena Siegman (formerly of Bungie, Irrational Games, and Harmonix). Firewalk’s developers have worked on franchises like Destiny, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, Mass Effect, and Halo.

Sony Interactive Entertainment will be the “exclusive publishing partner” for the first title from Firewalk. All we know is that the game is a multiplayer title that is an original IP.

Hsu said on the PlayStation Blog that Firewalk’s new game is already playable. He teased that the game is aiming to create watercooler-type moments.

“There’s a moment that happens almost every day in our multiplayer playtests–where someone jolts out of their seat, laughs, and says to no one in particular, ‘Did you just see that happen?’ These amazing and unpredictable moments in gaming are the sparks that occur when playing with others; future memories ready to be replayed and retold,” Hsu said.

Firewalk is a subsidiary of ProbablyMonsters, a company founded by former Bungie CEO Harold Ryan. ProbablyMonsters also owns Cauldron Studios, which is working on a narrative-driven AAA game, and another team making a next-gen co-op RPG. More details on ProbablyMonsters’ new studios and games will be announced in the coming months.

Sony’s partnership with Firewalk is just the latest from the gaming company, as it previously inked a deal with Jade Raymond’s new studio Haven for an original game. More recently, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said the PS5 may have more exclusives than PS4, and these deals with Firewalk and Haven appear to be part of that.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Former PlayStation exclusives like Horizon Zero Dawn and Death Stranding later made their way to PC, and Sony’s own MLB The Show franchise even debuted on Xbox this week. However, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan says the PS5 will actually have more exclusives than any of Sony’s previous systems.

In a statement to the Japanese publication Nikkei that was translated by VGC, Ryan seemed to downplay concerns that Sony was branching out to other platforms too much.

“We have been quietly but steadily investing in high-qualify games for PlayStation, and we will make sure that the PS5 generation will have more dedicated software than ever before,” he said.

Some of Sony’s PS5 games have also released on PS4 so far, including Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Two that won’t are Returnal, which is out in just about a week, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Both make heavy use of the PS5’s NVMe SSD for quickly loading areas, potentially making it more difficult for the games to release on older systems. They also make use of the DualSense controller, both for enhancing immersion and for gameplay mechanics, such as the shotgun weapon in Rift Apart.

But there are still first-party PS5 games that will also release on PS4, including Horizon Forbidden West. It remains to be seen when Sony will make a clean break from the older system, but given its massive success, that could take a while. Still, it’s similar to what Microsoft is doing with the Xbox Series X|S, releasing all first-party games on the Xbox One as well for at least the first year, complete with Smart Delivery support.