Author: Trafficblast

With Disney+ launching on November 12, Marvel Studios’ own Kevin Feige talked about various shows coming to the streaming service. Falcon & Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Hawkeye, Marvel 616, What If, Heroes Project and Loki have all been confirmed. Recently released Avengers: Endgame will also arrive to Disney+ in December along with other MCU movies such as: Captain Marvel, Thor: Ragnarok, and Black Panther.

Oscar winner Mel Gibson will play a “rowdy, unorthodox” Santa Claus in a new film called “Fatman,” according to Variety. According to the report, the movie will begin filming in Canada in early 2020. There is no word as of yet about who will star alongside Gibson in the film.

Variety’s description of the plot states that that Gibson will play a version of Santa Claus who is “fighting his business decline, while a neglected and precocious 12-year-old hires a hitman to kill Santa after receiving a lump of coal in his stocking.”

Fatman will be directed by brothers Ian and Eshom Nelms, working off a script they wrote. They previously worked on Waffle Street, Lost on Purpose, and Small Town Crime.

Gibson is just the latest big-name actor to play Santa. Tim Allen portrayed the character in The Santa Clause series, while Richard Attenborough played him in 1994’s Miracle on 34th Street. More recently, Kurt Russell played Santa in the popular Netflix movie The Christmas Chronicles.

Gibson is a two-time Oscar winner who earned his awards for for 1995’s Braveheart.

Bill Skarsgard was praised for his performance as Pennywise the killer clown in the 2017 Stephen King movie It, and he’s returning to play a more sinister version of the clown in this year’s sequel. In a new interview, Skarsgard talks about how playing the clown affected him personally.

He told Entertainment Weekly that he went home after wrapping up It: Chapter II, and at night, he was visited by Pennywise. “I was home, done with the movie, and I started having very strange and vivid Pennywise dreams. Every night, he came and visited,” he said.

Just like in the films, Pennywise assumed different forms when he visited Skarsgard in his dreams. “It was in the shape of either me dealing with him, sort of Pennywise as a separate entity of me, and then also me as Pennywise in circumstances that I didn’t appreciate,” he said.

Even though Skarsgard says he was visited by Pennywise in his dreams, the actor said it was like an exorcism to finish Chapter II. “Him exiting my body and getting rid of the Pennywise toxins,” Skarsgard said.

Also in the interview, Skarsgard said Pennywise–having been “defeated” in the 2017 film–returns 27 years later in the sequel as more terrifying and bloodthirsty. “He’s inflicted fear on his prey, and he’s very focused on fear, but he’s never experienced it himself,” he said. “Now he’s experienced something that he has been inflicting on others and … there’s a shift leading into the second movie.”

The actor teased that Pennywise is not bound by continuity in the sense that a traditional character would be, and this allows him to go to some horrifying places. “We can explore his unpredictability now that we’ve established the character for the audience. We can still sort of shock them,” he said.

The first trailer for It: Chapter Two will be released on Thursday morning, so keep checking back with GameSpot for more.

Chapter Two picks up 27 years after the events of the first movie. The kids are now adults, and Pennywise the Clown is back to terrorise them once more.

The cast is full of big names. James McAvoy plays Bill and Jessica Chastain portrays Beverly, while Bill Hader stars as Richie, Jay Ryan as Ben, James Ransone as Eddie, Andy Bean as Stanley, and Isaiah Mustafa as Mike. Bill Skarsgard returns to play Pennywise. The children who played the child characters from the original movie will return as well in flashback scenes.

Andy Muschietti, who directed the original, is back as well for the sequel. It: Chapter Two hits theatres on September 6.

The 2017 movie It made more than $700 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing horror movie in the history of cinema.

US Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) announced he is introducing a bill that would potentially bar the sale of loot boxes in certain video games. If enacted, Hawley’s bill, called The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act, would ban loot boxes and “pay-to-win” microtransactions in titles targeted at or popular among minors, likening the business model to addiction.

“Social media and video games prey on user addiction, siphoning our kids’ attention from the real world and extracting profits from fostering compulsive habits,” Senator Hawley said in a statement. “No matter this business model’s advantages to the tech industry, one thing is clear: there is no excuse for exploiting children through such practices. When a game is designed for kids, game developers shouldn’t be allowed to monetize addiction. Game developers who knowingly exploit children should face legal consequences.”

Hawley cites the popular mobile title Candy Crush Saga as an example, as it allows players to purchase a $150 “Luscious Bundle” to make the game easier, though it is certainly far from the only title to offer these kinds of spending options. A large number of mobile games are designed to encourage microtransactions, and many of today’s most popular PC and console games, including PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Rocket League, and Overwatch, give players the option to purchase loot boxes that contain a randomized assortment of cosmetic items.

Hawley’s bill will first need to pass the Senate and then the House of Representatives before potentially becoming a law, but this isn’t the first time US lawmakers have taken aim at the practice. Last February, Hawaii state representative Chris Lee put forward a bill seeking to limit the sale of video games with “gambling-like mechanisms” to people under the age of 21. Other countries have also undertaken investigations into whether or not loot boxes constituted gambling.

Follow Hawley’s announcement, the Entertainment Software Association released a statement in response to the proposed legislation. “Numerous countries, including Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, determined that loot boxes do not constitute gambling. We look forward to sharing with the senator the tools and information the industry already provides that keeps the control of in-game spending in parents’ hands. Parents already have the ability to limit or prohibit in-game purchases with easy to use parental controls.”

Loot boxes have been a point of controversy in the industry for many years. 2017’s Star Wars Battlefront II, for instance, garnered a lot of criticism and backlash for the way it initially incorporated microtransactions, effectively tying them to your progression. In response, publisher EA removed all loot boxes from the game just prior to launch, but that didn’t help stem the push for anti-loot box legislation.

Thomas Was Alone and Volume developer Mike Bithell has announced his studio Bithell Games’ next game, and it’s a “fast-paced, action-oriented” strategy game based on the John Wick movie series. John Wick Hex is coming to unspecified consoles as well as PC; it’ll be exclusive to the Epic Games Store on PC and Mac at launch.

John Wick Hex is described as “fight-choreographed chess brought to life as a video game.” The game, which was developed in cooperation with the minds behind the film series, aims to “captur[e] the series’ signature gun-fu style while expanding its story universe.”

Here is more from the game’s official description: “Players must choose every action and attack they make, while considering their immediate cost and consequences. Every move in John Wick Hex feels like a scene from the movies, and every fight contributes to your progress on the job and requires precise strategic thinking.”

Hex features an original story separate from the film series. As players progress they will unlock more weapons, as well as new suits for John Wick and more locations to explore. Regarding the gunplay, a press release mentions that players will need to strategically consider the weapon they use for the specific battle in front of them. Not only that, “ammo is finite and realistically simulated, so time your reloads and make the most of weapons you scavenge on the job,” the developers say.

Regarding the art style, Hex aims to offer a “unique graphic noir art design.” The game also features the voices of John Wick actors Ian McShane and Lance Reddick; more cast members will be announced later. It’s unclear if Keanu Reeves, who plays Wick in the movies, will be involved.

Check out the Hex announcement trailer embedded above to see the first gameplay and more. No release date was announced.

The announcement of Hex comes just days before the third John Wick movie, John Wick: Parabellum, comes to theatres on May 15. This is not the first John Wick game, as a VR game–John Wick Chronicles–was released last year. It also doesn’t mark the only expansion of the universe, as we know a John Wick TV series is in the works, with Reeves onboard as executive producer.