After a series of protracted delays and uncertainties due to the world grappling with the coronavirus, the Demon Slayer: Mugen Train movie is finally making its way to North American theaters on April 23 in English dub and subtitled forms. As of last July, when word was roughly expected to come out about the film’s theatrical fate, theaters were acquiescing and closing for an indeterminate period of time.
But according to a release, confidence in moviegoing has returned to the extent that tickets will be available to pre-order starting April 9 via this website, which as of this writing isn’t yet online but will be in the near future. In addition to choosing between sub or dub tickets, fans can also opt for 4DX and IMAX experiences. Check out the trailer below to get a sense of what that experience might be like, on a screen much, much larger than your phone or computer.
Mugen Train follows the events of Demon Slayer’s final episode, in which Tanjiro Kamado and company follow Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku to investigate a mysterious series of disappearances occurring on a train. One of the Twelve Kizuki’s, Enmu, is also aboard the train and things quickly take a turn for the worst.
Fans will additionally be able to pre-order the film on Apple TV, the Microsoft Store, and the PlayStation Store starting April 26. After the theatrical window, fans will be able to watch the film on streaming popular platforms on June 22.
Jade Raymond has started Haven Entertainment Studios, an independent company that will be working on an unannounced new IP for PlayStation.
Announced on PlayStation.Blog, Raymond wants this studio to “create worlds where players can escape, have fun, express themselves, and find community.”
Jade Raymond has announced the formation of an independent studio called Haven, and it already has its first project booked: a new, original IP for PlayStation platforms. The new studio is based in Montreal, and its project is backed by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Raymond published the announcement on the PlayStation Blog. While it’s mostly devoted to her new studio’s outlook and philosophy, she does mention that Sony’s “commitment to excellence is unmatched” and that the game has “their backing and support.” The blog was also addressed specifically at the PlayStation community, suggesting the new IP will be some form of exclusive.
“We want to create worlds where players can escape, have fun, express themselves, and find community,” Raymond said. “We want to pour our passion into a project. We want to make something wondrous for people to experience. Because we believe in the power of games to bring joy to people’s lives.” She also said the studio is named after her outlook that games are a haven for players.
The blog also noted that it’s been a “strange and difficult” year, due to the pandemic, social injustice, and job elimination. That sparked self-reflection and questions of whether she wanted to be involved in game development, and she concluded that this is still important for her.
The point about job elimination may hit close to home, because Raymond was recently impacted herself. She had been attached to Google’s ambitious Stadia studios initiative, but the company recently shut that down entirely. It wished her the best of luck, but we never saw what her team was planning for Stadia-exclusive games.
Raymond has been involved in some big franchises like Assassin’s Creed, and for a while was attached to EA for a Star Wars game. This is the latest in her big moves, though this time it’s her own independent studio instead of being within an existing major publisher.
A new Walking Dead video game has been announced. Called The Walking Dead: Survivors, the strategy game is in development for iOS and Android and features familiar characters from the comics. The game challenges players to build a town and then defend it from not only other players, but also zombies walkers.
Rick, Maya, Vayne, Glenn, and Dwight are featured in Survivors, along with other characters to be revealed later. There are “combat” survivors who are in charge of doing battle, while “development” survivors are used to build and improve a settlement to protect it from the undead.
As a strategy game, players will decide how and where to build their bases and which characters to promote as they try to stay alive against the hordes of undead. For attackers, these take the form of melee, sharpshooters, and cavalry, and each can be upgraded to help you survive longer. When playing defense against the zombies, you’ll need to place obstacles and fortify your positions.
After fighting against zombies, the villainous Negan comes knocking with his group of “Saviours.” At that point you’ll need to assemble your own clan to go up against him.
Survivors is scheduled to release in summer 2021. You can pre-register for the game on iOS in the US and UK and Android in the US right now. The game is developed by Chinese studio Elex in partnership with Walking Dead rights-owner Skybound.
The new live-action movie adaptation of Peter Pan has started production. The Disney film is titled Peter Pan & Wendy and will star Jude Law as Captain Hook.
Peter Pan & Wendy is now shooting in Vancouver, ahead of a 2022 release on Disney+. The movie is directed by David Lowery, who previously helmed the Disney film Pete’s Dragon, as well as the upcoming dark fantasy film The Green Knight.
The cast also includes newcomer Alexander Molony as Peter, Ever Anderson (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter) as Wendy, Yara Shahidi (Grown-ish) as Tinkerbell, Molly Parker (House of Cards) as Mrs. Darling, Alan Tudyk (Rogue One) as Mr Darling, and Jim Gaffigan (Bob’s Burgers) as Smee.
In a statement, Lowery said, “Peter Pan has long been one of my favorite stories, partially because I’ve always resisted growing up, but also because of the heart, adventure and imagination that makes J.M. Barrie’s original tale so evergreen. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to redefine his iconic characters for a new generation–and even more excited that I get to do so with such an exceptional cast and crew.”
Peter Pan & Wendy will be the first high-profile Disney live-action movie to be made specifically for Disney+. Although last year’s Mulan was given a premium release on the studio’s streaming platform, it was originally intended for a traditional theatrical release before the pandemic closed cinemas across the world.
The next live-action Disney movie will be Cruella. The film stars Emma Stone as the iconic 101 Dalmatians villain, and it hits theaters in May. Check out the latest Cruella trailer.
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For WWE fans, March 16 is Steve Austin Day, also known as 3:16 Day. Both WWE fans and wrestlers alike come together to celebrate the work of six-time WWE Champion “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Over on Twitter, the love for the “Bionic Redneck” ran rampant with posts featuring various videos and animated gifs of everyone’s favorite ringmaster.
Five years ago, WWE talent did their best impression of Austin’s now-iconic King of the Ring ’96 speech in a compilation video. Now, they’ve done it again with a different roster including former WWE Champion Drew McIntyre and Montez Ford.
Lastly, former WWE Smackdown Women’s Champ Carmella went all out with makeup and a bald cap with her ode to the Texas Rattlesnake.
Last year, Austin celebrated the event in front of an empty area with Becky Lynch as the COVID-19 pandemic had just been declared and live events had been put on hold. While he’s still out of in-ring competition for the most part, his podcast on the WWE Network, the Stone Cold Sessions, have him more in a mentor and historian position with fellow legends and the biggest stars of today.
Activision has dispatched the latest teaser for Call of Duty: Warzone, this time sending hospital scrubs to influencers that contain a startling message about the future of Verdansk. The scrubs carry the “Verdansk General” name and logo for the hospital on the battle royale map.
The message warns players that “it’s looking grim” and that there may be no cure. “The latest diagnosis? It’s looking grim in Verdansk. Escape while you still can. I’d say, ‘Take two of these and I’ll see you in the morning.’ But you won’t last until morning,” the message says.
Players have speculated that the zombie incursion could grow more and more out of control until eventually, Verdansk will get nuked to solve the undead problem. This event is supposed to happen sometime around the end of Season 2, which would be in April. The ongoing theory is that Warzone will then re-launch with a Black Ops theme after the nuke event.
Netflix has released a trailer for Concrete Cowboy, one of the many films the streaming service indicated back in January would be coming out this year as part of its annual one-movie-every-week release schedule. The Western drama, due to hit Netflix on April 2, had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, and is based upon the novel Ghetto Cowboy by Greg Neri–which in turn was inspired by the real life Black urban cowboys in North Philadelphia.
The film possibly may be best summed up 10 seconds into the trailer when a teenager (Caleb McLaughlin) walks into his estranged father’s (Idris Elba) house and remarks, “There’s a horse… in your house.” That moment seems to tee the film up as an odd comedy, but the rest of the trailer resets and shows the film to explore deeper themes of overcoming adversity, coming to grips with identity, and similarly coming to grips with community and family. Check out the clip below.
From the official synopsis: “When 15-year-old Cole is expelled from school in Detroit, he is sent to North Philadelphia to live with Harp, his estranged father. Harp finds solace in rehabilitating horses for inner city cowboys at the Fletcher Street Stables, a real-life black urban horsemanship community that has provided a safe haven for the neighborhood residents for more than 100 years. Torn between his growing respect for his father’s community and his reemerging friendship with troubled cousin Smush (Jharrel Jerome), Cole begins to reprioritize his life as the stables themselves are threatened by encroaching gentrification.”
Concrete Cowboy is directed and co-written by Ricky Staub (Snow White and the Huntsman), who wrote the script with Dan Walser (The Cage). In addition to McLaughlin, Elba, and Jerome, Concrete Cowboy also co-stars Byron Bowers (The Chi), Lorraine Toussaint (Orange is the New Black), and Clifford “Method Man” Smith (The Wire).
With the Season 3 premiere of Mayans MC on FX, which debuts March 16, the fallout from a major moment in the Season 2 finale is finally seeing the light of day. Thankfully, the biker drama isn’t wasting any time dealing with what comes after the death of Dita (Ada Maris) at the hands of EZ (JD Pardo)–a death she requested as payback for her own misdeeds. No character is rocked by the loss as much as her own son, Miguel (Danny Pino).
Speaking to GameSpot, Pino revealed that the version of Miguel fans will meet in Season 3 has vastly changed in the wake of his mother’s death. “Miguel is untethered in Season 3. Miguel is trying to find sanctuary, in a sense,” the actor explained. “Because of the death by suicide of his mother, he feels a certain amount of responsibility for that, if not the total responsibility for that. But trying to, as most humans do, not feel the full impact of that responsibility, he projects that on the people around him, and what part they had in that in that ultimate act from his mother.”
That projection leaves Miguel’s world in shambles. “The fact that his marriage is torn apart, and that his consigliere Devante (Tony Plana) is no longer around, his lack of trust in Marcus Alvarez (Emilio Rivera) or Nestor (Gino Vento), it’s really isolated him,” Pino continued. “And that makes that character incredibly dangerous, not only to himself but to others. And we’re [going to] see this rawness, this implosion of Miguel Galindo that, you know, looking back on Episode 1 of Season 1, you would never suspect a character that is that self-confident and that’s self-assured and not under control to reach the depths of what he’s encountering and Season 3.”
It’s not just Miguel feeling the weight of Dita’s death, though. The act of killing her itself is going to rock the foundation of EZ’s family to its core.
“The death of Dita becomes this catalyst for these characters to really explore life on their own, in a way,” Pardo said. “EZ’s always felt the protection of his father and his parents all through growing up as a child. And the death of Dita has such an effect on [his father] Felipe (Edward James Olmos), that it creates this feeling inside of him–a fear about who EZ really is. And so, their relationship is strained. EZ can’t just go to Felipe for everything anymore because he recognizes that the energy has changed. Their relationship has changed.”
That shift in dynamic is sure to be a dramatic one, given that the relationship between EZ and his father has been so central to the show. Who will EZ turn to now? One answer, obviously, is the club. He became a full-patch member of the Mayans in the Season 2 finale. However, there might be someone else for him to lean on this season.
“Now, EZ is latching on and he’s on his pursuit in this idea of love, this very romantic fantasy version of love that he wants to have for himself, now that it seems like his history with Emily is exactly that: history,” the actor said.
Pardo speaks, of course, of Gabriela (Sulem Calderon). The character first appeared in Season 2. Based on the trailers for Season 3, though, it looks like she’ll be sticking around for a while. As EZ sinks deeper and deeper into the club, it could be the connection to Gabriela that keeps him from drowning. Then again, if you’ve seen Sons of Anarchy–or the prior seasons of Mayans MC, for that matter–it’s hard to keep any of these characters from falling head-first into the devastation that the life of an outlaw biker brings with it.
Mayans returns March 16 on FX.
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Microsoft has announced all the new additions to Xbox Game Pass over the next couple of weeks, and there are some high-profile titles headed to the catalog, including one major surprise.
Square Enix’s RPG Octopath Traveler is coming to Xbox Game Pass on console and PC on March 25. Previously released on Switch and PC, as well as Stadia, the game takes players to the mysterious world of Orsterra where they experience the stories of eight travelers. Each one has distinct abilities that help them in battle.
While you have to wait a little longer to play Octopath Traveler on Xbox, Toby Fox’s acclaimed 2015 game Undertale is out right now on Game Pass for console, PC, and cloud streaming. The game features some Xbox-exclusive content as well.
On March 18, Xbox Game Pass will add a series of big-name games, including Nier: Automata (PC), Star Wars: Squadrons (console), Torchlight III (PC), and Empire of Sin (console, PC, cloud).
Following those will be Genesis Noir (console, PC), Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Ultimate Edition (PC), and Supraland (PC) on March 25. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life also arrives that day for console, PC, and cloud.
Then on March 30, Narita Boy will come to Game Pass for console, PC, and cloud. And finally, on April 1, Square Enix’s new shooter Outriders from the developers of Gears of War Judgment will arrive on Game Pass day and date with its official launch.
You can see the full list of new Xbox Game Pass titles below, while those leaving on March 31 include Journey to the Savage Planet, Hyperdot, and Machinarium.
Xbox Game Pass costs $10/month for access to all the games, while $15/month gets you Xbox Game Pass Ultimate which also comes with Xbox Live Gold, EA Play, and cloud streaming.
Xbox Game Pass New Additions
Out Now:
Undertale — (console, PC, cloud)
March 18
Empire of Sin — (console, PC, cloud)
Nier: Automata — (PC)
Star Wars: Squadrons — (console)
Torchlight III — (PC)
March 25
Genesis Noir — (console, PC)
Octopath Traveler — (console, PC)
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Ultimate Edition — (PC)
