Author: Trafficblast

Godzilla is one of the most famous movie monsters of all time, but after the critical and commercial failure of the 1998 movie, it took another 16 years for him to return to the big screen in the US. Thankfully Gareth Edward’s 2014 movie Godzilla was a big hit and the follow up–Godzilla: King of the Monsters–hits theaters next month. The final trailer has now been released.

This trailer sets up the movie’s big conflict, between Godzilla and his terrifying nemesis–the three-headed King Ghidorah. Ghidorah is one of several monsters who have emerged from the depths of the Earth to wreak havoc, and only the Big G can stop him. The movie looks set to deliver action on an incredible scale–check the trailer out below.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters stars Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring), Kyle Chandler (Game Night), and Millie Bobbie Brown (Stranger Things), plus Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), Ken Watanabe (Inception), and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton). It hits theaters on May 31. For more check out everything we know about Godzilla: King of the Monsters, plus this recent trailer.

In a recent interview with Collider, director Michael Dougherty spoke about how his movie will differ from its predecessor. “I hesitate to say it, but I would call it the Aliens to Gareth’s Alien,” he said. “So it’s a bit more on an ensemble film. The first movie was really about Brody’s character kind of weaving his way through that adventure and Monarch kind of was the backdrop for that. Here Monarch is the focus, because I find that concept really fascinating. The idea that there is a secret agency that tracks giant monsters–that is a dream come true for me too. I think if the government said to me, ‘Tomorrow you have to fake your own death and abandon everyone you know to go hunt the paranormal,’ I would be gone in a heartbeat.”

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the latest entry in Legendary Pictures’ so-called MonsterVerse, following Godzilla and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. The fourth movie in the series will be Godzilla vs Kong, which is now in production and scheduled for a May 2020 release.

Epic began teasing a Fortnite crossover event with the upcoming blockbuster Avengers: Endgame, releasing an image that showed a character donning Captain America’s iconic shield. Now another piece of famed superhero equipment has been shown off: Thor’s enchanted axe, Stormbreaker.

Like the first teaser, this one quotes the “Whatever it takes” tagline from Endgame and gives a release date of April 25, along with the #FortniteXAvengers hashtag. We see less of the figure this time around, instead just barely seeing the hand clutching the axe. It stands to reason, though, that the event will let players use equipment like Cap’s shield and Stormbreaker, likely in a special limited-time mode.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor’s hammer was broken during the events of Thor: Ragnarok. He needed a new weapon to channel his power against Thanos, so he made a special trip to a star forge and helped to craft Stormbreaker. But when it finally came time to use the powerful new weapon, he struck Thanos in the chest, leaving the villain conscious enough to fulfill his plan to decimate half the population of the universe. Whoops!

This will be the second Fortnite crossover event with the MCU. The first introduced a limited-time mode that allowed you to equip the fabled Infinity Gauntlet (which would crash into the map early in a match) and turn into Thanos. But it was so strong that it got nerfed almost immediately.

Avengers: Endgame is releasing on April 26, though some screenings will take place the evening of April 25. Spoilers have started to leak on the Internet, so be sure to follow our very practical advice on how to avoid spoilers in the meantime. Meanwhile, Fortnite is also teasing its next seasonal changeover in-game, with several runes that have begun to slot into a vault at the bottom of Loot Lake.

The hugely anticipated superhero movie Avengers: Endgame had its premiere in Hollywood tonight, and before reviews come in, people who saw the film have posted their reactions.

Here in this post we’re rounding up opinions of the film from movie critics and other people. We’ve attempted to keep the reactions to the ones that were mostly spoiler-free, but as always, especially if you’re searching Twitter with the Avengers hashtag, be careful out there.

Endgame opens in Australia on April 24 before coming to the US and other parts of the world on April 26. The movie is expected to have a massive start at the box office; it’s potentially tracking to have the best start in movie history in the US.

In other news, Fortnite has teased a new Avengers-themed crossover event–get all the details here.

Avengers: Endgame First Reactions:

The next episode of Game of Thrones will be the longest ever for the acclaimed HBO series. Season 8, Episode 3 has a run time of 82 minutes, which is 2 minutes longer than the Season 7 finale, “The Dragon and the Wolf,” which was the previous record-holder for length.

The new episode, which doesn’t have a title yet, airs Sunday, April 28. It’ll be followed up by three further episodes that are all within four minutes of the record for longest-ever. Episode 4 is 78 minutes long; Episode 5 is 80 minutes in duration; and the series final Episode 6 runs for 80 minutes. The episode runtimes were announced by HBO back in March.

Given the way things ended in Episode 2 and the first teaser for Episode 3, this new episode could be the one that shows some or all of the epic battle scene that’s been hinted at since the show started back in 2011. The Night King and his army are lined up to do battle against Jon Snow, Dany, and other fighters at Winterfell in what could be the show’s defining moment.

Episode 3 is directed by Miguel Sapochnik, who previously directed the Battle of the Bastards episode. According to a report, the upcoming Battle of Winterfell scene “longest consecutive battle sequence ever committed to film.” At 40 minutes, the Helm’s Deep battle from The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers is said to be the longest battle sequence from cinema history.

Co-executive producer Bryan Cogman spoke about the epic battle scene, calling it unprecedented for TV or film.

“What we have asked the production team and crew to do this year truly has never been done in television or in a movie,” he explained. “This final face-off between the Army of the Dead and the army of the living is completely unprecedented and relentless and a mixture of genres even within the battle. There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences. [Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss wrote] an amazing puzzle and Miguel came in and took it apart and put it together again. It’s been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away.”

Filming the episode took 11 weeks of night shoots. According to the report, up to 750 people worked all night for almost three months in sub-freezing temperatures and enduring cold rain, mud, and heavy wind.

The actor who plays Ser Jorah Mormont, Iain Glen, said filming the battle was the “most unpleasant experience I’ve had on Thrones.”

“A real test, really miserable. You get to sleep at seven in the morning and when you wake in the midday you’re still so spent you can’t really do anything, and then you’re back,” he added. “You have no life outside it. You have an absolute f**ked bunch of actors. But without getting too method [acting] about it, on screen it bleeds through to the reality of the Thrones world.”

For lots more on this week’s episode of Game of Thrones, check out the stories below:

Will the Halo franchise follow the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield into the battle royale space? It doesn’t seem like it.

Halo franchise boss Frank O’Connor said recently that the multiplayer modes for Halo Infinite available at launch are not 100 percent locked in yet, but what he can say for sure is that battle royale will not be among them. Writing on ResetEra, O’Connor’s statement came in response to a video from noted Microsoft insider Brad Sams who said 343 was in the early development stages of a battle royale mode for Halo Infinite.

“We will not talk about the launch content of Halo Infinite until we’re ready,” O’Connor said. “I haven’t watched the video so if I am misinterpreting the headline as ‘Halo Infinite is launching with/as a Halo Battle Royale mode’ that is still not the case,” he said. “You can probably make your own Battle Royale mode in Forge even right now though. It’s a mode not a genre. And all the variants out there now are in my opinion quite radically different from my perspective. Apex vs Fortnite is chalk and cheese–one focuses on movement and map traversal and the other on building and budgeting. Like CTF. BTB Super Fiesta (for example) contains a lot of the shenanigans and emergent fun of that kind of large experience but big sandbox modes are not Battle Royale any more than Oddball is CTF.”

O’Connor joked that Halo Infinite will still have BR–the Battle Rifle, that is. And while Halo Infinite may not have a battle royale mode, O’Connor teased that 343 is looking into “big social modes with loads of organic shenanigans.”

“The launch modes for MP are not 100% defined and are subject to change till quite late in the process–but Battle Rifle will still be there,” he said. “So you can have BR. But are we interested in big social modes with loads of organic shenanigans? Yes. Specifically A blimp full of survivors heading to an Island after a (metaphorical) lecture from Beat Takeshi? No. We are NOT doing this as of now–and no plans to–but Battle Royale could be made for any of the Halo games in MCC or [Halo 5] with some content and scripting additions, because it is a mode. It would have limits based on each engine. I’m pointing that out to be clear that it’s one of the ways we think about gameplay possibilities rather than a single direction for a title.”

Brad Sams, who has accurately reported on many unannounced Xbox endeavours, may be accurate in stating Microsoft has done some work on a Halo battle royale game. Game development is highly iterative. So it might be possible that 343 experimented with battle royale and decided not to pursue it further. Given the enduring appeal of the battle royale genre, it makes sense that Microsoft would at least consider a battle royale mode for Halo Infinite.

The Call of Duty franchise added battle royale with Black Ops 4‘s Blackout mode, while Battlefield V‘s battle royale mode is called Firestorm. These are modes within the games, not standalone experiences like popular free-to-play battle royale games like Fortnite and Apex Legends.

Also in the Sams video, he claims a new trailer for Halo Infinite is being prepared for E3 this June. That would be no surprise, as Halo is one of Microsoft’s tentpole franchises, and we’ve already heard that Halo Infinite will be part of the show. He also responded to the recent claim that Halo Infinite has a $500 million budget. He said he’s heard that the actual budget is “in that region.” Given the sizeable investment, Sams added, “Careers will be made or broken on [Halo Infinite].” As Sams understands it, the reported $500 million budget would cover game development and development costs associated with the brand-new engine, Slipspace, that Microsoft created for Halo Infinite. It’s unclear if marketing costs are included.

A spokesperson for Microsoft told GameSpot about the $500 million budget, “We do not comment on speculation and rumor.”

Halo Infinite is in development for Xbox One and PC; a release date hasn’t been announced yet.

In other Halo news, it was recently announced that Orange is the New Black and American Gods actor Pablo Schreiber will play Master Chief in the Showtime Halo TV series. GameSpot and Showtime are owned by CBS.

Avengers: Endgame is almost here. Its release this week comes amid massive anticipation, and as a result, the superhero blockbuster is expected to have a huge opening at the box office.

Deadline put some projections together, and Endgame is expected to have the biggest domestic opening in the history of movies. Sources told the site that pre-sale tickets alone in the United States have reached as high as $140 million, which is uncharted territory in film.

Avengers: Infinity War holds the record for biggest domestic box office debut, coming in at $257.6 million in 2018. Deadline reports that Endgame could reach $300 million in the US for its opening, to set a new record. Endgame is a very long movie, coming in at 3 hours and 1 minute; by comparison, Infinity War was 2 hours, 29 minutes and The Force Awakens was 2 hours, 16 minutes. Box office analysts told Deadline that if the 12,000 or so US theatres have four or five showtimes for Endgame per day day at each location, with each theatre at 70 percent capacity, then Endgame might have a chance of reaching $300 million for its opening weekend.

Deadline acknowledges that tracking estimates are challenging for Endgame, considering the sample size of movies that have made more than even $200 million over their opening weekends is so small. “More realistic projections for Endgame have it beating Infinity War’s all-time domestic opening record of $257.6M last year at this time, and coming in within a range of $260M-$270M,” Deadline reported.

Also bear in mind that Deadline’s report is only for the US. The movie of course is opening around the world, but box office projections for international markets weren’t included in the report. Infinity War made $640.5 million for its opening weekend to hold the worldwide opening-weekend record.

As for Endgame’s total box office haul, that will be interesting to watch. Infinity War made $2.048 billion globally, while Avatar remains the highest-grossing movie worldwide in history with $2.78 billion.

Endgame is expected to make so much money, but it’s also been a very expensive film to produce and market. The film no doubt has a massive budget due in part to its cast of A-list talent and extensive VFX, among other things. In addition, Deadline reports that Marvel is spending an unprecedented $200 million to promote the film.

Endgame is coming on April 26, with some screenings scheduled for the evening of April 25. Spoilers have begun to leak on the Internet, making this a very perilous couple of days for fans who want to be surprised when they see the conclusion of this decade-long story. The film’s directors have politely asked everyone not to spoil the fun for others, but we’ve also put together some practical advice on how to avoid being spoiled.

In other news, Fortnite has teased a new Avengers-themed crossover event–get all the details here.