Author: Trafficblast

A mod for the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077 allows male V players to romance Judy, who can only be romanced by V with a female body and female voice in the unmodified version of the game.

As reported by Eurogamer, modders recently discovered a way to unlock Judy’s romance scene using V with a male body type and male voice. The modded scenes with Judy include full voice work for male V, which had some fans thinking Judy was initially supposed to be romanceable by both male and female protagonists.

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However, a CD Projekt Red representative told Eurogamer Judy was always intended to be a romance option just for female V, saying they still recorded the male V dialogue, “so we could avoid missing something by mistake that would require future recordings.” The rep said the team recorded all lines with both voices, just to be safe. And, CDPR confirmed there was no male romance option cut from Cyberpunk 2077.

If you want to see how to access the scene in Cyberpunk 2077, you can check out an NSFW video from YouTuber FrederickFlower.

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There are four romanceable characters in Cyberpunk 2077, and each one has different requirements for V’s voice and body type. You can check out our Cyberpunk romance guide to see how to progress with each character. Besides romance, you’ll also want to find out how to improve your relationship with Johnny Silverhand.

This isn’t the first big mod we’ve seen in Cyberpunk. Modders have also created a way to play Cyberpunk 2077 in third-person.

Cyberpunk 2077 is out now, check out our separate reviews for Cyberpunk 2077 on PC, and on PlayStation and Xbox consoles. For more, you can read why some think Cyberpunk 2077 deserved better.

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Logan Plant is a news writer for IGN, and the Production Assistant for Nintendo Voice Chat, IGN’s weekly Nintendo show. You can find him on Twitter at @LoganJPlant.

Pokemon Masters, the mobile spin-off game from DeNA, has gotten a New Year’s update packed with new sync pairs, limited-time special events, and more in-game rewards.

To start, the game is offering special New Years versions of two sync pairs, Lillie & Ribombee and Lance & Gyarados. Both of the sync pairs can reach the 6-Star EX rating, which was introduced in a recent update that unlocked the EX ratings for some other existing sync pairs. Plus they’re sporting new outfits.

An in-game story called Season’s Greetings is now available. It features Lillie and Lance and will grant you some rewards as you make your way through the story. Both of the new sync pairs and the Season’s Greetings story are available through January 13 at 9:59 PM PT.

Login rewards have gotten a boost as well. Some special timed missions available through January 13 can net you 1,200 gems, and simply logging in by January 31 gets you an additional 3,000. Daily login bonuses can net you a total of 3,000 more, for a grand total of 7,200 gems. That’s enough to scout for 26 sync pairs in total, or more if you take advantage of bundles.

Meanwhile, a number of other in-game events are ongoing as well. The Champion Stadium is currently featuring the Johto Elite Four, presenting an ultra-hard challenge for experienced trainers. An Electric- and Steel-type Egg event starting January 6 will grant new species like Pichu, Elekid, and Magnemite from eggs. And finally, a legendary event called Pure Hearts and Rainbow Wings will let you form a sync pair with the legendary Ho-Oh.

DeNA changed the name to Pokemon Masters EX in August, when it issued the update that added the 6-Star EX sync pairs. That came alongside a new sync pair, as the studio has been adding them regularly. Unlike many Pokemon games, Pokemon Masters features “sync pairs”–famous trainers from the series with their associated Pokemon partners, along with a player-created character that can pair off with multiple monsters.

Minari is scheduled to open in wide theatrical release Feb. 12.

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The Golden Globes’ recent decision to classify Minari as a “foreign language” film feels ironic given its subject matter. Korean has been spoken on American shores, by American citizens, since the 1800s — it’s as foreign to the United States as English is — and the Korean-American community has been evolving and growing exponentially since the 1970s when director Lee Isaac Chung’s family first immigrated. Generally, it can be difficult to extrapolate from the life of a filmmaker in order to decipher their work, but Minari is an uncannily autobiographical piece about Chung’s childhood in rural Arkansas, and it lends itself directly to real-world comparisons.

While not shown in the film, Chung’s childhood photos were part of a brief introductory video that played before digital press screeners, and he appears to have re-created everything from the costumes to his mobile home in striking detail. The film feels like walking through his memories. Of course, any story based on real events is bound to use fictional elements too; Minari has several, and they’re all deployed to tremendous dramatic effect. But the result is a film that, regardless of its veracity, glows with a poetic honesty — with what Werner Herzog calls “ecstatic truth” — mining unspoken corners of immigrant and first-gen experience to create something that feels intimate and familiar.

The story of a South Korean couple and their two children adjusting to life in rural America, Minari lives and breathes through its performances. Chung’s touch as a visual artist is light and precise, but his biggest strength as a filmmaker might be the way he photographs and directs his actors, letting them dictate the rhythm of his scenes while capturing their differing relationships to their new environment. To western eyes, the most recognizable cast member is Steven Yeun of The Walking Dead, a mainstay of American television, though his film success includes Bong Joon-ho’s South Korean-American co-production Okja (2017) and South Korea’s first Oscar-nominated film, Lee Chang-dong’s Burning (2018). Yeun plays Jacob Yi, a diligent immigrant father who balances a utilitarian outlook with unapologetic dreams of starting a farm for Korean produce. He moves from California to Arkansas with his headstrong wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) and their bilingual pre-teens, the older, more responsible Anne (Noel Kate Cho) and the younger David (Alan Kim), a demure boy who needs constant supervision owing to his heart murmur. When the move proves difficult for Monica, and her job keeps her away from home too many hours (and away from David), she asks her mother Soon-ja to fly over and assist her with the children. The foul-mouthed Soon-ja is played by screen legend Youn Yuh-jung — likely the film’s most recognizable actor to South Korean viewers — who lights up the screen and brings a mischievous glimmer to the household.

Jacob and Monica work as chicken sexers in the 1980s, navigating their workplace with broken English while sorting newly hatched chicks by gender so that the females can be sent to poultry farms and the males can be “discarded” — which is to say, burned as waste material. When explaining this to his son, Jacob cheekily expresses his fears about feeling useless as a man, in the hopes that David will inherit his tireless work ethic. Though what Jacob doesn’t seem to recognize is that the female chicks don’t really have a say in the matter either. The chicken sexing job paid Jacob and Monica well in California, and it pays them a decent wage in Arkansas, but they’ve moved here to make a living on their own terms — or at least, Jacob has. Monica, on the other hand, is willing to put her own dreams and comforts on hold if it means supporting her husband. After striking water on his plot and hiring local farmhand Paul (Will Patton), who fought in the Korean War, Jacob seems poised to achieve his “American Dream” of hard work and self-sufficiency — even at the cost of his family’s well-being, though he certainly believes he’s doing it for their benefit.

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The most striking change for the Yi family, upon moving from the city to the farmland, is their immediate sense of isolation. Their house may technically be on wheels, but they feel tethered to this plot of land with no one else around for miles, and certainly no other Koreans or a Korean church. Instead, they join the local, mostly white Evangelical congregation, where they’re welcomed, but treated as exotic outsiders. The children who Anne and David come across seem to vocalize whatever overtly racist sentiments their parents keep to themselves. These kids aren’t malicious, they just don’t know any better. Anne and David even make friends with a few of them and begin to rely on their company more and more as their parents get busier with the factory and the farm.

When their grandmother enters the picture, life becomes topsy turvy for young David, who’s never met her or been to South Korea. She brings minari seeds (a zesty herb) to plant by the nearby creek, along with other local goodies and recipes from home, which brings Monica to tears. The film intrinsically understands the power of familiar aromas and the nostalgia they trigger, even though audiences can’t be made privy to smell. David, however, is reticent. Already in a new environment, he rejects these unfamiliar smells, like Soon-ja’s teas and other delicacies, defaulting instead to Mountain Dew.

In his first on-screen role, young Alan Kim impressively captures David’s impatience with his new hometown, and with his shrewd and sharp-witted grandma. She doesn’t fit his perception of a typical American “granny” (an image he likely learned from TV), who bakes cookies, and doesn’t swear, and dresses in matronly ways. Soon-ja has no intentions of fitting that image. She prefers American wrestling to soap operas, and the veteran Youn Yuh-jung plays her as a carefree soul, but one whose immediate affection for her impish grandson fills the screen with warmth, despite his stubbornness (the way she teases him in return is delightful).

Anne is the quickest of the five to acclimate to the new church and her new surroundings, a home where the water sometimes runs out and her parents don’t return until nightfall. Noel Kate Cho plays Anne with withheld resignation — a silent acceptance of her predicament, as she plays compassionate older sister to David, and unwitting caretaker of a household barely kept together. She feels not unlike Asian immigrants I’ve known, some in my own family, who moved to the United States as children and had to immediately grow into new identities and new responsibilities to help their hardworking parents. Child actors are rarely able to embody this sort of realism, let alone with this much complexity. There isn’t a false note to be found in either Cho’s or Kim’s performances. They’re both remarkable to watch.

The story’s anchors, however, are Yeun and Han, who imbue Jacob and Monica with silent tensions that shift beneath their feet like quicksand. Theirs is a relationship where casting feels key; Yeun, though he doesn’t set a foot out of line as a recent Korean immigrant, has lived in the U.S. since he was five, and he feels much more in tune with his surroundings in the film (he grew up largely in Michigan). Meanwhile, Minari is Han’s first time filming in America, and she seems to draw on a sense of outsidership. Where Jacob, Anne, and David gradually begin to relax, Monica never seems quite comfortable with her surroundings. Han uses a gesture as simple as hands folded in front of her, with interlocked fingers, to make even her sense of poise feel stilted and forced. You can practically feel the tension building in her hands as she attempts to stay centered — for her children, if not for herself — though Monica isn’t afraid to challenge her husband when her kids’ happiness is at stake.

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On the more operatic end of the spectrum is Will Patton’s performance as Paul, a former soldier seemingly plagued by some past slights or actions, whose every present moment feels like penance. He’s religious and superstitious and brings frenzied, spiritual energy to his interactions with the grounded Jacob. Their dynamic on the farm makes for an intriguing contrast. Through Jacob’s eyes, Paul is fanatical and impractical, a stereotype of a religious man and a “stupid American” who seems consumed by baseless belief. Jacob’s self-image, meanwhile, is that of a thinker who follows reason and knowledge in his pursuit of success. Though what he doesn’t recognize is that his belief in a single-minded financial pursuit can be just as fanatical. At the end of the day, Jacob’s “American Dream” of immigrant success, through some unwritten outdated rule of work-for-reward in Reagan’s USA, is no less a superstition than any of Paul’s little rituals. His belief in himself — both at the cost of his family’s happiness and in service of it — is no less religious.

Chung and cinematographer Lachlan Milne film each character’s uncertainty in a two-fold manner. In private, they capture their frustrations as sweat falls from their brows (the sweltering heat, both inside and outside their home, practically radiates off the screen). Meanwhile, in moments where the family shares the frame, the filmmakers present us with characters attempting to balance frustration with façade, navigating the expectations of fitting some pristine image of an archetypal “all-American” nuclear family, each with their own designated roles. They hide and release these frustrations to varying degrees, like steam from a pressure cooker. As this pressure builds, we grow to know each family member as intimately as they know each other. The camera begins to navigate each narrow hallway with more familiarity — as the film goes on, it uses fewer establishing shots of the house or of specific rooms — resulting in a unique visual paradox that reflects the family’s predicament. The more they settle into the space, the more constricted they feel.

If Minari falters at all, it’s in the way the film is packaged, rather than the way it’s made (so it’s likely no fault of the filmmakers). In their private conversations, Jacob and Monica refer to each other by their Korean names and other honorifics, but the subtitles still have them addressing each other as “Jacob” and “Monica,” the western names they probably chose when they immigrated. It brings to mind the subtitling in Lost, which ignored the cultural specifies of how Korean characters Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun (Yunjin Kim) addressed one another; Sun would often refer to Jin as “Jin-soo shi” (Jin’s given name followed by a respectful honorific) or she would use a term of endearment (eg. “Yeobo”) — but the subtitles would simply say “Jin.” The issue is a minor one, but in Minari, this simplification runs counter to the nuances and the sense of duality Chung sets out to portray. “Jacob” and “Monica” aren’t translations of how they address each other, but rather, they’re the characters’ public-facing personas, adopted for assimilation and American comfort. When addressing each other in Korean, they inhabit a private world of sorts, as a matter of familiarity, or intimacy, or even serious conflict when discussing doubts about their family’s future.

Still, Chung portrays the characters’ cultural duality in a number of other ways, deftly capturing the internal doubts plaguing each of them as they question their place in the world. Their identities aren’t under immediate threat from some outside force, and they seem plenty comfortable switching between Korean and English when necessary. But the less they feel like they belong in this mobile home, on this plot in rural Arkansas, the less it seems they feel American at all. In David’s case, in particular, being told the multitude of ways he is or isn’t Korean — he has even less of a connection to Korea than his parents — seems only to frustrate him, at an age where he can barely comprehend ideas of cultural duality. The film doesn’t make it clear whether Anne was born in Korea or simply visited as a child, but regardless, she has memories of a “homeland” David doesn’t truly know, except as cultural remnants passed down to him by his parents.

To David, “Korean-ness” is a kind of phantom, which takes physical form when his grandmother arrives, while “American-ness” is an idea his father attempts to plant and nurture. David’s grandmother doesn’t always make sense to him. His father’s farm doesn’t always succeed. And so, David is caught in a spiritual struggle for identity — one that will likely last for years — but ultimately, it’s the love and care of his parents, even when they disagree on how best to love him, that makes him feel like he belongs, even for a few brief moments.

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Mojang Studios has announced that it is shutting down its augmented reality mobile game Minecraft Earth, which lets players interact with a Minecraft game superimposed onto real-world GPS data.

In a new blog post, the Minecraft Earth team confirmed that it is winding down its game with plans to end support on June 30, 2021. Although never explicitly mentioned, the devs cite the complications of managing an AR game during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of its decision to shut down Minecraft Earth.

“Minecraft Earth was designed around free movement and collaborative play — two things that have become near impossible in the current global situation,” the staff writes in a blog post. Other AR games, like Pokemon Go, faced similar COVID-related obstacles during the pandemic.

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Still, the developers will support Minecraft Earth until June 2021 and are releasing one more update before the end that will let players enjoy the game before the shutdown.

As part of the update, Minecraft Earth will remove real-money transactions, drastically reduce ruby costs, add all content — complete and unreleased, reduce time requirements for crafting and smelting, replace unused crafting and smelting boosts with radius boosts, and grant a set of Character Creator items to anyone who signs in between January 5 and June 30.

Then, on June 30, Mojang will discontinue all content and service support for Minecraft Earth. This will also mean people will no longer be able to download or play Minecraft Earth. On July 1, Mojang will delete any Minecraft Earth player data unrelated to Character Creator

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As another bonus, anyone who has paid for the in-game currency will receive Minecoins which can be used in the Minecraft Marketplace, and anyone who has made a purchase in Minecraft Earth will receive a free copy of the Minecraft Bedrock Edition.

IGN has a brief overview of Minecraft Earth here if you’re interested in checking out the AR game before it sunsets for good on June 30.

EA Sports appears to be teasing some kind of crossover between Madden and SpongeBob, and it’s not actually as random as you might think.

A teaser from the Madden NFL Twitter account today asks fans, “Are you ready?” Attached to the tweet is an image of SpongeBob’s face and the date: January 7. This is presumably when all will be revealed about this strange Madden 21 campaign.

It was previously announced that CBS Sports and Nickelodeon–which are owned by the same company–are teaming up for a special NFL Playoff broadcast. This Sunday’s Wild Card game between the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints will be broadcast on Nickelodeon, and the televised event will include a variety of Nickelodeon-themed elements.

Nickelodeon star Gabrielle Nevaeh Green (All That) will be in the booth alongside the play-callers to give her insight, while another All That actor, Lex Lumpkin, will be a sideline reporter. The broadcast kicks off with a SpongeBob SportsPants Countdown Special, too, with NFL star Von Miller recounting some of SpongeBob’s most famous sports moments.

Here is a glimpse at what the broadcast this weekend may look like on TV–it’s pretty wild stuff. Bear in mind, however, that a more traditional broadcast will also be available on CBS.

During halftime, Nickelodeon will air a special teaser for the new SpongeBob TV show, Kamp Koral, which premieres in 2021 on the streaming platform Paramount+ and later on regular TV.

It’s not exactly clear, however, what role EA Sports and the Madden series may play in all of this, but it seems something is in the works and will be revealed very soon. Keep checking back with GameSpot for more.

What a year that wasn’t, right?

With dozens of movies and TV shows finding their productions halted and their releases delayed due to COVID-19, 2020 became an unprecedented year for entertainment. So much so that this big rundown of the biggest movies coming in 2021 looks a hell of a lot like the preview we did for 2020 – with Wonder Woman 1984 being one of the few films to sneak in under the wire and make a 2020 release date (as it hits both theaters and HBO Max on Christmas Day).

So then, next verse same as the first, as they say.

As we head into 2021, with higher hopes for the overall cinematic landscape, we once again stare down the barrel of Daniel Craig’s final Bond film, No Time to Die, along with Marvel’s Black Widow and Eternals, Fast 9, and many others that were originally slated for 2020. And if it’s Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon or Warner Bros.’ entire 2021 slate — like Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat, and Dune — then expect to see it hit theaters AND streaming on the same day.

Here’s a closer look at Venom 2, Morbius, Jungle Cruise, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, four MCU: Phase 4 films, and more movies set for 2021!

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Tom & Jerry

Release Date: Feb. 26 (US), March 5 (UK), Jan. 9 (AU)
Chloë Grace Moretz, Michael Peña, Rob Delaney, Colin Jost, and Ken Jeong star alongside computer-animated versions of legendary rivals Tom and Jerry for a new adventure that finds the cat and mouse’s feud reignited when Jerry moves into New York City’s finest hotel on the eve of “the wedding of the century,” forcing the event’s desperate planner to hire Tom to get rid of him. Both Tom and Jerry are voiced by creator William Hanna, the pair’s long-time voice actor, as well as Mel Blanc and June Foray via archival recordings.

Tom & Jerry is scheduled to hit theaters on February 26, 2021, while also getting a month-long simultaneous release on HBO Max.

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Raya and the Last Dragon

Release Date: March 5 (US), March 12 (UK), March 25 (AU)
Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon, from Carlos López Estrada and Moana’s Don Hall, will hit both theaters and Disney+ on March 5, 2021. Featuring the voices of Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina, the film follows a fearless and passionate warrior princess and a water dragon who can transform into a human — and is the last dragon in existence.

Disney also announced the animated musical fantasy Encanto for November 24, 2021, about a Colombian girl who lacks powers despite coming from a magical family, and Pixar’s Luca, about sea monsters who take a vacation on the Italian Riviera, for June 18, 2021.

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The King’s Man

Release Date: March 12 (US), March 12 (UK), March TBA (AU)
Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man, which began as a different movie not set in the Kingsman universe, is a prequel to the franchise and stars Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, and Matthew Goode in the story of one man (Fiennes) and his protégé (Harris Dickinson) who race against time to stop history’s worst tyrants from enacting an evil plot to kill millions.

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Morbius

Release Date: March 19 (US), March 19 (UK)
The next big headliner to join the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters is Jared Leto’s Morbius the Living Vampire. Directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House, Life), Morbius stars Leto as genius scientist, Dr. Michael Morbius — a character who battled Spider-Man in Marvel Comics — who accidentally becomes a monster while trying to create a cure for his rare blood disease.

Morbius, releasing March 19, also stars Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, Tyrese Gibson, and Michael Keaton.

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League

Release Date: March (US)
With about 150 minutes of unseen footage included, and about four or five minutes of additional photography inserted (including Jared Leto as Joker), along with new designs for major characters, Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be released in four parts on HBO Max.

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No Time to Die

Release Date: April 2 (US), April 2 (UK), April 12 (AU)
One of the first big tentpole films to get bumped out of theaters due to COVID was Daniel Craig’s final Bond film, No Time to Die. It is now scheduled to finally hit theaters a year after its originally intended release, on April 2, 2021.

Directed by True Detective’s Cary Fukunaga (with a script punch-up by Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge), No Time to Die takes place five years after the events of Spectre and follows James Bond as he comes out of retirement to face down a new villain, Rami Malik’s Safin, a hyper-intelligent terrorist out for revenge. Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, and Jeffrey Wright return as Bond’s support while Léa Seydoux reprises her role as Madeleine Swann. Lashana Lynch joins the franchise as a new “OO” agent, while Ana de Armas plays CIA agent Paloma.

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Mortal Kombat

Release Date: April 16 (US)
Warner Bros. will release the new James Wan-produced live-action adaptation of Mortal Kombat in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously, as new actors step into the roles of Liu Kang, Raiden, Shang Tsung, Sonya Blade, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, and more.

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A Quiet Place: Part II

Release Date: April 23 (US), April 23 (UK), April 22 (AU)
Along with No Time to Die, A Quiet Place: Part II was one of the first big theatrical releases to get yanked from theaters at the outset of the pandemic. And like the aforementioned Bond film, it’s also going to try to land in theaters in April 2021. A follow up to John Krasinski’s smash hit horror flick from 2018, Part II follows the remnants of the Abbott family who face the terrors of the outside world as they continue their fight for survival in silence — while also discovering new threats in the form of other humans scrambling, and killing, to exist. Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou also star.

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Black Widow

Release Date: May 7 (US), May 7 (UK)
After getting kicked down the road a few times during the pandemic, Marvel’s Black Widow, the first movie of the MCU’s Phase 4 (which will be preceded now by two Phase 4 TV shows on Disney+) is finally landing in theaters a year after it was supposed to on May 7, 2021. Taking place after Captain America: Civil War, Black Widow will follow Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff back to her Russian assassin-school roots as she reunites with old family members — including Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova — to dismantle a new Black Widow “Red Room” training facility run by The Taskmaster. Rachel Weisz and Stranger Things’ David Harbour also star.

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Spiral: From the Book of Saw

Release Date: May 21 (US), May 20 (AU)
Saw franchise director Darren Lynn Bousman returns to the series to helm a new sequel/reboot of the Saw saga based on a story by Chris Rock, starring Rock as a police detective in charge of an investigation into grisly murders that are eerily reminiscent of the city’s gruesome past. Samuel L. Jackson and Max Minghella also star.

Spiral is scheduled to open May 21, 2021.

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Godzilla vs. Kong

Release Date: May 21 (US), May 21 (UK)
This highly-anticipated culmination/showdown within Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary’s cinematic Monsterverse, directed by Blair Witch and You’re Next’s Adam Wingard, sets Godzilla and Kong on a collision course that will see the two most powerful forces of nature on the planet collide in a spectacular battle for the ages. Starring Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Kyle Chandler, and Rebecca Hall, Godzilla vs. Kong is among Warner Bros.’ 2021 movies that will be released the same day on HBO Max domestically and in theaters internationally.

The film will be available in theaters and on HBO Max on May 21, 2021.

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Fast 9

Release Date: May 28 (US)
WWE Superstar John Cena joins the Fast and Furious franchise as Jakob, the evil assassin brother of Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto, who works for Charlize Theron’s criminal mastermind, Cipher. Fast 9 not only brings back Lucas Black, Bow Wow, and Jason Tobin from Tokyo Drift but also Sung Kang’s Han, who fans have longed to see return to the series since the character’s “death” in that film (though Han was featured in three films after that since those installments took place before Tokyo Drift in the Fast & Furious timeline). Fast 9 was pushed out of 2020 due to the pandemic, but only once as Universal smartly chose to delay the film an entire year. It’s now set to release May 28, 2021.

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Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Release Date: June 25 (US)
Mo-Cap King Andy Serkis directs the Venom sequel, which pits Tom Hardy’s symbiote-smothered Eddie Brock against Woody Harrelson’s psycho killer Cletus Kasady, who becomes even more powerful when he merges with his own alien goo and goes on a rampage as Carnage. Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which also stars Michelle Williams and Naomie Harris, will land in theaters on June 25.

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Top Gun: Maverick

Release Date: July 2 (US), July 8 (UK), July 1 (AU)
Tron: Legacy and Oblivion’s Joseph Kosinski directs this decades-later sequel, which stars Tom Cruise reprising his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Now a flight instructor, Maverick must confront his past while training a new squad of graduates for a dangerous mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice. Val Kilmer returns as Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky while Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Ed Harris, and Jon Hamm join the franchise.

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Release Date: July 9 (US), July 9 (UK), July 9 (AU)
The second movie in the MCU’s Phase 4, opening less than two months after Black Widow, is Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which will finally — after the character was teased in Iron Man and faked in Iron Man 3 (and said to be real in the Marvel One-Shot All Hail the King) — put the real Mandarin up on screen, played by Tony Leung. When Simu Liu’s expert martial artist Shang-Chi is drawn into the clandestine Ten Rings organization, he is forced to confront a past he thought he left behind. Awkwafina, Ronny Chieng, and Michelle Yeoh co-star. Just Mercy’s Destin Daniel Cretton directs.

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Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Release Date: June 11 (US), June TBA (UK)
This decades-later sequel to Ghostbusters I & II, from Jason Reitman (son of original director Ivan Reitman), follows a family that moves to a small town where they discover their connection to the original Ghostbusters, an event many have somehow forgotten called the “Manhattan Crossrip of 1984,” and their grandfather’s secret legacy. O.G. Ghostbusters stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and Annie Potts reprise their roles while new cast Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, and Paul Rudd arrive as the “DNA of the first two movies” passes directly to the new generation, by introducing a fresh team of paranormal investigators.

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Uncharted

Release Date: July 16 (US)
Tom Holland plays a younger version of Nathan Drake in the long-delayed Uncharted movie, which finally got off the ground this year after a turbulent series of setbacks that have stretched well over the course of a decade. Mark Wahlberg co-stars as Victor “Sully” Sullivan (complete with Sully mustache) while Sophia Taylor Ali plays video game character, and fellow fortune hunter, Chloe Frazer. Antonio Banderas is also on board with Venom’s Ruben Fleischer directing.

Uncharted is scheduled to release theatrically in the U.S. on July 16, 2021.

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Jungle Cruise

Release Date: July 30 (US), July 30 (UK), July 29 (AU)
Inspired by the famous Disneyland theme park ride, Disney’s Jungle Cruise stars Dwayne Johnson, who’s been the world’s highest-paid actor for two years running, as a charismatic riverboat captain and Emily Blunt as a determined explorer on a research mission to find the Tree of Life, which is believed to possess healing powers.

Orphan’s Jaume Collet-Serra switches gears for this adventure comedy that also stars Jesse Plemons, Paul Giamatti, and Édgar Ramírez. Jungle Cruise is due out July 30, 2021.

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Old

Release Date: July TBA (US)
Inspired by the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film is slated for a July 2021 release. Not much is known about the story, except that the material it’s based on is about a group of people stranded on a haunted beach. The cast includes Gael García Bernal, Rufus Sewell, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Aaron Pierre, Alex Wolff, Vicky Krieps, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Embeth Davidtz and Emun Elliott.

The Suicide Squad

Release Date: Aug. 6 (US), Aug. 6 (UK)
James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, for the DCEU, is one of many big Warner Bros. movies that will be released in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously in 2021. With “carte blanche” to kill off any Suicide Squad members he wanted to (even Harley Quinn), Gunn loaded up this sequel with cannon fodder obscurities like Blackguard, Javelin, Polka-Dot Man, Savant, and more. Meanwhile, John Cena’s Peacemaker has already landed himself an HBO Max spinoff series.

Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, and Jai Courtney return to the fold as the series adds Cena, Idris Elba, Pete Davidson, Michael Rooker, Peter Capaldi, Alice Braga, and more!

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Dune

Release Date: Oct. 1 (US), Oct. 1 (UK), Oct. 1 (AU)
Another part of Warner Bros’ 2021 movie slate that’s being released, the same day, on HBO Max domestically and in theaters internationally, is Denis Villeneuve’s highly-anticipated adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel Dune (which was previously brought to the big screen in 1984 by David Lynch). With an all-star cast featuring the likes of Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem, Dune takes us to the future, into a galactic conflict over a desert planet called Arrakis, which is the only source of the most valuable substance in the universe — “the Spice.”

Villeneuve, along with Christopher Nolan, has spoken out against the Warners’ decision to stream its 2021 movies on HBO Max, saying “with this decision, AT&T has hijacked one of the most respectable and important studios in film history.”

Dune is due out on October 1, 2021.

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Halloween Kills

Release Date: Oct. 15 (US), Oct. 15 (UK)
As a movie that can really only be released during one month of the year, if you want to keep it on brand, Halloween Kills, the sequel to David Gordon Green 2018 Halloween (which itself was a new timeline sequel to 1978’s Halloween) really had no choice but to bump its release a whole year.

Set on the same night as the 2018 film, Halloween Kills stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, as she works with new and old allies to form a mob against Michael Myers who is still loose in Haddonfield.

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Eternals

Release Date: Nov. 5 (US)
Marvel’s Eternals, the third film in the MCU’s Phase 4, features a stellar cast including Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Kit Harington. Kumail Nanjiani, Lauren Ridloff, Brian Tyree Henry, and Salma Hayek. Reportedly the most “sci-fi” movie of the MCU, Eternals follows the exploits of an immortal alien race created by the Celestials — who have secretly lived on Earth for over 7000 years — as they reunite to protect humanity from their evil counterparts, the Deviants.

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Mission: Impossible 7

Release Date: Nov. 19 (US)
Mission: Impossible 7 may be making headlines right now for leaked audio of star/producer Tom Cruise harshly admonishing his crew for not following COVID safety protocols, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the upcoming entry in Paramount’s highest-grossing franchise, which has been around for 25 years, has fans all over the world the excited. And when you take into consideration that director Christopher McQuarrie said “Any character, dead or alive, is fair game to return” — including the return of former IMF head Eugene Kittridge (once again played by Henry Czerny) from the original 1996 film — then you’ve probably got a surefire hit on your hands.

Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, and Esai Morales (who replaced Nicholas Hoult as the villain in 7 and 8) join the franchise while Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Vanessa Kirby all return.

Spider-Man 3

Release Date: Dec. 17 (US)
The third Tom Holland Spider-Man film, due out next December, is going full multiverse as Marvel Studios and Sony prep for what could be Spidey’s farewell to the MCU-proper (perhaps to join the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters) as reports and rumors buzz about past Spider-flick stars Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and Andrew Garfield appearing in the movie, along with villainous counterparts Doc Ock and Electro, reprised by Alfred Molina and Jamie Foxx. Plus, with Doctor Strange also appearing in the film, it’s assumed Spidey 3 will help lead the MCU into 2022’s Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

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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.