Author: Trafficblast

Mortal Engines, the big-budget sci-fi movie from a series of Lord of the Rings veterans, is expected to be a major box office flop. Variety reports that the film is expected to lose more than $100 million when all is said and done. The film had a reported production budget of $100 million, with “tens of millions” more spent on marketing.

As of today, Universal’s Mortal Engines has made only $42 million worldwide.

“This is a true Christmas disaster and a lump of coal for Universal,” Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock told Variety. “They took a big swing, and they struck out.”

Mortal Engines has yet to open in China, which is a massive market, but it currently has no release date for that country.

The disappointing box office results come even though Mortal Engines has big names attached–it was written by LotR’s Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh. It was directed by Oscar winner Christian Rivers, who also worked on LotR.

As we reported in the past, Mortal Engines takes place in the far future where modern technology as we know it has been destroyed and morphed into a steampunk-like world, where giant, moving cities traverse through Europe looking for other cities to eat, in order to use the eaten city’s structures to power their gigantic machines to continue the hunt.

That might be a visually stunning set-up, but the complicated plot was one of the reasons that Warner Bros. and Fox said no to the film because Universal picked it up, according to Variety. Universal reportedly only contributed 30 percent of the production costs, with Media Rights Capital putting up half of the money. Legendary and Perfect World also financed the movie.

Jackson apparently at one point said he believed Mortal Engines could become another big franchise, but this box office performance suggests that may not happen.

For the first time in the history of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, this year’s game, Odyssey, lets you choose to play as a man, Alexios, or a woman, Kassandra. But which was the more popular choice?

Game director Scott Phillips told Game Informer (via Destructoid) that Alexios is currently the more popular choice. Around two-thirds of players chose him. This ratio surprised Phillips because early playtests were closer to 50/50.

“Right now it’s two-thirds Alexios and one-third Kassandra,” he said. “The interesting thing is that, during playtests, it was pretty much 50/50. I was a bit surprised; I was expecting half-and-half or even a little bit more Kassandra.

“The idea of choice being key to our game shows really well in that even we are surprised by some of the choices [players] ended up making.”

It’s unclear if the breakdown between Alexios and Kassandra includes people who played the game more than once and chose a different character the next time. We also don’t know how the player split breaks down by console.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey launched in early October, and it enjoyed the franchise’s best start in many years in terms of game sales and microtransactions.

Both the rosters of Raw and Smackdown came together on Sunday, December 16 for the WWE PPV TLC, where the sports entertainment superstars used tables, ladders, and chairs to beat down their opponents. Things got pretty brutal that evening, especially during the main event match.

The show took place in San Jose, California at the SAP Center, and the card was stacked with 12 matches over the course of the evening. Yes, that is a lot of matches for a non-major WWE PPV. There were plenty of titles on the line and plenty of foreign objects allowed in these matches. TLC is a bit of a crazy beast. Check out all the matches in the order they aired.

TLC Match Card:

• Buddy Murphy (c) vs. Cedric Alexander (Cruiserweight Championship) — Kickoff Show
• Elias vs. Bobby Lashley (Ladder Match) — Kickoff Show
• R-Truth & Carmella vs. Jinder Mahal & Alicia Fox (Finals of MMC Season 2)
• The Bar (c) vs. The New Day vs. The Usos (SmackDown Tag Team Championships)
• Braun Strowman vs. Baron Corbin (TLC Match)
• Natalya vs. Ruby Riott (Tables Match)
• Finn Bálor vs. Drew McIntyre
• Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton (Chairs Match)
• Ronda Rousey (c) vs. Nia Jax (Raw Women’s Championship)
• (The New) Daniel Bryan (c) vs. AJ Styles (WWE Championship)
• Seth Rollins (c) vs. Dean Ambrose (Intercontinental Championship)
• Becky Lynch (c) vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka (Triple Threat TLC Match For The Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Before this PPV kicked off, I had no expectations. I thought it was going to be pretty awful, as there were 12 matches on the card, and Raw’s side of things had little to no build-up to its matches. And I was wrong. The WWE PPV ended up being quite a bit of fun, even with the shorter matches and lack of strong stories. At times, the fights didn’t feel like PPV matches, but it was all fine and dandy throughout the evening, as TLC is nothing more than a pit stop on the way to Royal Rumble anyway, which in itself is a pit stop on the way to Wrestlemania.

Like everyone on the internet, I have strong opinions about what happened during the WWE event, so I wrote down all my thoughts, ranked the matches and have presented them to you. Here’s what I thought about all the matches during the evening at the WWE PPV, TLC.

One of the most anticipated games of 2019, Kingdom Hearts III, isn’t due out until the end of January, but it has already leaked in some capacity. Game director Tetsuya Nomura responded to the unfortunate news, saying in a statement that he urges people to not share any spoiler-y videos. Specifically, Nomura said he hopes players don’t spoil the “epilogue and secret movie,” as these represent the game’s “biggest spoilers” overall, though he didn’t say why.

“We want everyone to be able to equally experience the full game after its release, so we ask for your continued support on this matter,” Nomura said.

Regarding the leak, Nomura said he and the team are aware of a “small portion” of the game emerging online ahead of time. He also stated that Square Enix knows “how this has all happened,” though he didn’t share any specifics.

“We’re sorry to see this caused concern amongst our fans who are excited for the release,” he said. “We’re one month out from the release. Let’s enjoy the game together when it releases on January 29, 2019.”

According to Eurogamer, Kingdom Hearts III’s title screen and other elements have emerged online. Leaks are nothing new in gaming, but this one comes six weeks out from launch, which makes it notable. Fans hoping to go into the experience with fresh eyes should be careful on social media sites and elsewhere between now and launch.

Kingdom Hearts III is the first new numbered entry since Kingdom Hearts 2 in 2005, so it has been quite a long time, indeed. Fans have been waiting a long time to see this story resolve, and Square Enix and Disney have put the requisite work in to make it a treat for fans–including pulling familiar voices from its various Disney movies.

The game launches on January 29 for playStation 4 and Xbox One.

The new animated Spider-Man movie, Into the Spider-Verse, is not only a success with critics, but it’s doing big business at the box office as well.

The movie opened this past weekend, and it made $35.4 million over its first three days in the United States. That sets a new all-time record for any animated movie released in December. Into the Spider-Verse was the No. 1 movie of the weekend by far, with Clint Eastwood’s The Mule ($17.2 million) coming in second place for the three-day period.

Into the Spider-Verse holds an incredible A+ CinemaScore rating from movie-goers, which suggests the movie will perform well into its second weekend and potentially beyond.

With its international box office figures added in, Into the Spider-Verse has now made $56.4 million after just one weekend. The film had a reported budget of $90 million.

Into the Spider-Verse is just the latest Spider-Man film from Sony, which licenses the character Spider-Man and others from Marvel. Sony’s previous Spider-Man movie, the spinoff Venom, was a massive success at the box office, taking in more than $850 million.

Into the Spider-Verse features the voice of Shameik Moore as Miles Morales in the lead role.

In GameSpot’s Into the Spider-Verse review, Meg Downey wrote that the film is an “instant animated classic, and, with any luck, the firm of many of its kind.”

You can see the full Top 10 box office chart below, as rounded up by EW. Of note, the CGI-filled steampunk film Mortal Engines from Peter Jackson and other Lord of the Rings veterans, is off to a slow start and might end up losing $100 million or more.

December 14-16 Domestic Box Office

1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — $35.4 million
2. The Mule — $17.2 million
3. The Grinch — $11.6 million
4. Ralph Breaks the Internet — $9.6 million
5. Mortal Engines — $7.5 million
6. Creed II — $5.4 million
7. Bohemian Rhapsody — $4.1 million
8. nstant Family — $3.72 million
9. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald — $3.65 million
10. Green Book — $2.8 million

[UPDATE] Capcom has officially announced a brand-new Street Fighter V character, Kage. He’s available in the game right now alongside a new balance patch.

“Kage, the Embodiment of the Satsui, rises in Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition. Available now! Manifesting due to Ryu’s rejection of the Satsui no Hado, Kage hungers for power to prove Ryu is nothing without him,” reads Capcom’s official description of the character.

You can watch the reveal trailer for Kage in the embed above, while a more in-depth breakdown and analysis of the character can be seen here on YouTube.

The original story is below.

It appears one of the Street Fighter V announcements coming at the Capcom Cup event today has leaked ahead of time. An image of a brand-new character named Kage has appeared online; you can check out the image below from Twitter user @DaFeetLee.

EventHubs reports that Kage started appearing in Street Fighter V’s character-select menu when you apply a new update that some people are getting already. An image of a darkened character appears in the character-select menu, and hovering over it reveals his name. Kage looks quite evil, with spiky black hair, red eyes, fangs, and horns.

The Capcom Cup 2018 professional gaming event is taking place right now, and you can follow along with the action here on Twitch.

It is rumoured that there may be multiple new character announcements pegged for the end of the event, so keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.

In other Street Fighter V news, the game recently introduced advertisements on loading screens and other places that are toggled on by default. You can turn them off, but some people are still unhappy about it.

Microsoft has announced a really good deal on Xbox One hardware this holiday. Starting today, all Xbox One S and Xbox One X bundles are marked down by $100 in the US.

That means you can get a new Xbox One S with a game for only $200, and a new Xbox One X with a game for only $400. It’s the best deal on the console ever, and it matches some of the offers from Black Friday. Microsoft was previously offering $50 off every Xbox One bundle this holiday, but the deal has now been sweetened nicely to $100 off.

With the $100 off deal, you can get an Xbox One S in bundles that come with games like Fortnite, Minecraft, NBA 2K19, Battlefield V, Forza Horizon 4, and PUBG.

Of note, the Fortnite bundle comes with 2,000 V-Bucks to buy extra cosmetics with, along with the Eon cosmetic outfit right out of the box. The Battlefield V bundles come with the game’s Deluxe Edition, which gets you copies of Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 1943, as well as a one-month subscription to EA Access.

The Xbox One X has numerous bundles available going for $400. These include bundles that come with Battlefield V, Fallout 76, PUBG, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Forza Horizon 4, and others. It is difficult to buy an Xbox One and not get a free game.

You can visit the Xbox website to see a full rundown of all the Xbox One S and Xbox One X bundles.

This is an aggressive pricing promotion from Microsoft, and it’ll be interesting to see if PlayStation follows with a PS4 deal of its own this holiday. Microsoft is in second place against Sony, and this price drop, though it is temporary, may help close the gap.

Pokemon Go developer Niantic Labs began its life as a Google subsidiary, but the company spun out in 2015, and reached a new stratosphere of success with the launch of Pokemon Go in July 2016. The San Francisco-based developer is growing still, with a new report claiming the company is working to secure a $200 million round of funding.

According to The Wall Street Journal‘s sources, the further $200 million would raise the company’s total valuation to $3.9 billion. The latest round of funding is expected to be led by venture capital firm IVP, with more money coming from Samsung and aXiomatic Gaming.

There is no word on what the rumoured round of $200 million in funding would go toward at Niantic, but the studio has a new Harry Potter game in the works, in addition to ongoing support for Pokemon Go. The WSJ report says Niantic could be working on games for “other franchises,” but none were named.

Niantic’s new Harry Potter game, Wizards Unite, was initially expected to launch in 2018 but it was later delayed to 2019. Not much is known about the game, but it’s said to use a similar augmented reality set-up that Niantic struck gold with for Pokemon Go.

Pokemon Go is free, and it makes money through in-game microtransactions. While the game might not be as popular as it once was, it still makes a lot of money. In November, the game pulled in $80 million worldwide from its microtransactions on iOS and Android, according to a report from SensorTower.

In other news, Pokemon Go’s latest winter event kicks off this week. Among other things, it lets you earn bonuses, hatch Eggs more easily, and encounter Pokemon from the Sinnoh region. You can learn more about the event in our coverage here.

(Presented by Oculus) In the final episode of the Change the Game VR Charity Challenge, Magnus Beasticus and Lemming go toe to toe in Creed: Rise to Glory to win $100K for charity. Visit vrcharitychallenge.com for more info!

Learn more about our two awesome charities:

Stack Up Website: https://stackup.org/

Take This Website: http://www.takethis.org/