A new trailer for Hulu’s upcoming Marvel show, Helstrom, has debuted during the show’s Comic-Con@Home panel.
The trailer gives fans a closer look at the dysfunctional Helstrom family, highlighting Daimon (Tom Austen), his sister Ana (Sydney Lemmon), and their mother Victoria (Elizabeth Marvel). The show will be standalone and independent from the MCU stories that exist both in theaters and on Disney+.
Showrunner Paul Zbsyzewski explained on the panel that Helstrom is a “really bad dad” story, and joked about the source material comics’ full title, “Helstrom: Son of Satan.” But he continued, saying that it’s also a “nature vs. nurture” story that examines the “values we’re imprinted with as we grow older, about the stuff we’re born with, and about the stuff we carry with us.”
In addition to childhood trauma and terrible father, the show is (naturally) also about demons and monsters–which is fortunate because the cast was quick to reveal that they’re all definite believers in the supernatural.
The hospital scenes were filmed on location, which cast members Victoria Lemmon and Elizabeth Marvel assure fans is “totally haunted.” Lemmon explained that she experienced all sorts of “spooky signs” from just the “energy of the place” to even seeing things written in dust on the floor during filming. And speaking of off-camera chills, Marvel explained that when she slips into her character Victoria Helstrom’s “crazy voice,” showcased in the trailer, some members of the crew were so freaked out they thought she was a “bear that somehow got onto the set” and even called security to check it out.
Last year, Mattel debuted its Hot Wheels collection for Mario Kart, which included racers and a really cool racetrack. During SDCC 2019, we got a closer look at the Mario Kart collection. Now, Mattel revealed during its Hot Wheels panel that even more Mario Kart racers are on their way.
In addition, Mattel and Hot Wheels have crafted some new cars based on the likenesses of characters from Overwatch, which you can also check out below. Additional info about prices and the toys will come at a later date. However, you can watch the reveal from the panel for yourself.
It’s been a very busy virtual convention for Mattel. Aside from these reveals, the company also unveiled tons of new upcoming WWE action figures–and we showcase a few right here.
Season 11 of the FX show Archer is on the horizon. It’s returning to the network on September 16. During a Comic-Con@Home panel for the show, the cast reunited, discussed the upcoming season, and made tons of jokes about being quarantined.
Speaking of quarantine, the final two episodes of this upcoming season were recorded during it, but that didn’t stop them from landing a few big guest stars for the season, like Simon Pegg and Jamie Lee Curtis. While how these actors fit into Season 11 wasn’t explained, we do know how Curtis landed on the show.
Judy Greer, who plays Cheryl on the FX animated series, explained that getting Curtis on the show wasn’t difficult. “When we first showed up [to the set of Halloween], to do rehearsals and stuff in Charleston, where we shot, I introduced myself to [Curtis], and she just went right in for Archer,” Greer explained during the panel. “So much so–and I’ve never actually asked her this–but I do think that’s why I got the job because she’s an executive producer on the movie… She and her son really bond over Archer. They watched it all the time. And it’s his favorite show, and she loves it. It’s one of her favorite shows.”
Greer believes it was one of the deciding factors for her getting into the new Halloween movie. And putting Curtis on the show wasn’t hard. “I said, ‘Jamie, you know [I] 100% could get you on the show.'”
After the panel concluded, a new trailer for Season 11 appeared, which you can watch below.
The latest season of the comedy series will be a bit different, as Archer is finally returning to the real world, after awakening from a three-year-long coma. “While many things changed during his absence, Archer is confident it will take just a little time for him to reset things back to the old ways,” reads the official synopsis. “The problem: does the rest of the team want that? Everyone else has been doing pretty well and may not be ready for his return to throw a wrench in their well-oiled machine.”
On Wednesday, September 16 Archer will return to FXX with back-to-back episodes starting at 10 PM PT/ET on FXX. These episodes will be available one day later on FX on Hulu. And you can watch the Archer@Home panel for yourself here.
While it’s not part of the official Comic-Con@Home lineup, Rick and Morty had its own panel as part of Adult Swim’s own convention, streamed live on Twitch. For the most part, the panel was a look back on Season 4, but that didn’t stop co-creator Dan Harmon from teasing what’s to come by showing the first footage of Season 5.
Fans got a look at a cold open for an upcoming episode. While the animation was unfinished, it looked as though Morty was carrying a wounded Rick back to their ship, before escaping through a rapidly closing portal that sends them on a crash course toward the earth. Facing his own doom, Morty calls up his crush Jessica to confess his feelings, only to be shocked when it turns out she likes him back and asks him out to watch a movie.
That’s all it takes to convince Morty he needs to live and he manages to land the craft without killing himself and Rick, crashing it into the ocean. That, however, opens up a whole new problem as it puts Rick face-to-face with his nemesis Mr. Nimbus, who appears via a giant clamshell from underwater and carries a trident. There’s little you find out about him, other than he likes to say his name a lot.
That’s where the cold open ends. While it doesn’t necessarily give away anything about the new season, Harmon noted that for practically the first time ever, the show is ahead of schedule.
“We’re basically done writing it. The only exception is I get on these Zoom edit sessions where we’re kind of finalizing the finale of Season 5,” he explained. “It’s a crazy situation to be in because this show has notoriously kept everyone behind schedule.”
The fourth season of Rick and Morty ended back in May. Thus far, a Season 5 premiere date has not been announced.
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With Xbox finally showing off gameplay for Halo Infinite, the sixth mainline entry in the popular first-person shooter franchise, we figured it would be the perfect time to go back and chart the series’ evolution. From 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved to 2020’s Halo Infinite, the franchise has seen quite a few changes over the years.
In the video above, Persia details those changes over the course of Halo’s six mainline entries, throwing in a few words for the franchise’s notable spin-offs, Halo 3: ODST and Halo Reach. Some of the changes have been narrative driven–Halo 2, for example, introduced a new playable character in the Arbiter. However, some changes were more gameplay-focused, like Halo 3’s introduction of split screen co-op in the main campaign.
Halo hasn’t merely changed on the campaign side either–it’s multiplayer has seen numerous overhauls over the course of the franchise’s history. Halo 3: ODST, for instance, introduced a brand-new horde mode called Firefight and dropped dual-wielding altogether. But there have been more transformative changes as well, the most notable of which has to be Forge mode. Not only did Forge mode open up the floor for the community to create its own maps, the addition led to the creation of game types that were so popular that developers Bungie and 343 Industries would go on to recognize them as permanent game modes, like Grifball.
If you’re looking to catch up on Halo’s story prior to the Holiday 2020 release of Halo Infinite, then your best bet is picking up Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The collection contains Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Reach, and Halo 4. Other than Halo 5: Guardians, that’s every game that Persia talks about in the video above.
Respawn Entertainment has responded to an anonymous Glassdoor review that claimed the developer was overworking employees and enforcing strict deadlines during the work-from-home period. An image of the review was shared on the Apex Legends subreddit, where a number of employees responded to the post, most notably game director Chad Grenier.
Source: Glassdoor
The review said that Respawn, unlike others in the industry, was not extending its timeline for Apex Legends updates nor was it being flexible with deadlines while teams work from home. The anonymous employee said they were working 12 to 13 hours a day and that the team did not plan properly around doing a live-service game.
Grenier (u/HkySk8r187) wrote a lengthy response in the comments of the post, addressing the issues. “I’ll chime in on this because a lot of this falls on me as the leader of the Apex team, but I truly believe Respawn has its [employees] best interest and health in mind, and always has,” Grenier wrote.
Quickly transitioning from the team working together in a shared space to working from home was not an easy change and Respawn did not have systems in place that made for a smooth switch, he wrote.
“As the Apex team leader I was vocal every day telling people to only work as much as they can. This was reiterated by Studio leadership, and EA leadership as well. Many have kids at home since schools are closed, or maybe their work environment isn’t comfortable, they don’t have a suitable home PC, or they have to take care of sick family members,” Grenier wrote.
Grenier wrote that both Respawn and EA put systems in place to ensure employees working from home were taken care of, like unlimited paid time off for those feeling physically or mentally unwell, reimbursement for any purchases to make working from home more comfortable, and additional pay each check to cover increased energy and internet bills.
As for hardset deadlines, Grenier pointed out that Season 4 of Apex Legends was extended by two weeks to provide the team with more time.
“Like a broken record I continuously asked that people speak up to their managers or producers if they will not be able to get their work done on time without crunching. Delays would be ok, we just need to know one is needed,” Grenier wrote. “Remember that odd [two] week delay when Season 4 was supposed to end, and then magically an additional [two] weeks was added to the end of the season with no weekly challenges? Yeah, that was because I delayed Season 5 by [two] weeks.”
Grenier wrote that despite leadership telling everyone to not push themselves, that the team is full of passionate workers, who always want to do their best, even in circumstances where it’s difficult to do so.
“The one thing I’ve learned about the team during this pandemic is that the team is filled with a bunch of rock stars and do-ers. Nobody wants to be the person to raise their hand and say they’re not going to hit their deadline,” Grenier wrote.
Lastly, Grenier closed by writing that above all else that while Respawn and EA are not perfect, both companies care more about the health of their employees–pandemic or not–than profits.
“As one of the original Respawners I can honestly tell you that Respawn (and EA) has been a great place to be over the past 10 years and is a place that puts the people first,” Grenier wrote.
Stunt work can be exhausting and dangerous. And when actors step into the role of a stunt person, things can get a little sticky, literally. During a panel at Comic-Con@Home, actor Charlize Theron recounted a moment when her The Italian Job co-star, Mark Walhberg, threw up on set.
Discussing her work in films, Theron explained that the stunt work in The Italian Job led to some dizzying moments, as she explained to moderator Terri Schwartz of IGN. “I vividly remember Mark Walhberg, halfway through one of our training sessions, pulling over and throwing up because he was so nauseous from doing 360s,” she said during the panel.
Outside of the car sick moment, Theron was a monster–no pun intended–when it came to honing her craft with the stunt driving in that movie. “The Italian Job was a great experience in the sense that I realized there was still so much misconception around women in the [action] genre–even though that film, the action is really based on cars,” she said. “We had to physically do a lot of that stuff. The only good thing that came out of that experience was that there was a real pressure to pull off those stunts with the actors. And that was the first time I experienced anything like that. But there was a very unfair process that went with that. I was the only woman, with a bunch of guys, and I remember, vividly, getting the schedule in our pre-production, and they had scheduled me for six weeks more car training than any of the guys. It was just so insulting. But it was also the thing that put a real fire under my ass. I was like, ‘Alright, you guys want to play this game? Let’s go!’ And I made it a point to out-drive all of those guys.
“I was very proud of the stunt work we did in that. I did a stunt in that movie where I do a reverse 360–or maybe 180–in a warehouse, with props everywhere and people, and I did that completely on my own. And it was a huge moment of like feeling, ‘We can do this all stuff.’ And women are so unfairly thought of and treated when it comes to the genre.”
Theron recently appeared in the Netflix movie The Old Guard, and in GameSpot’s review of the film, Meg Downey said, “The Old Guard may not be reinventing any wheels, and it’s certainly not going to go down in history as a watershed moment in cinema, but it will be a welcome watch for anyone who’s looking to kill some time this weekend while stuck at home. It’s streamlined, simple, and, depending on your age demographic, maybe even a little nostalgic; making it a worthy watch for 2020’s barren summer blockbuster season.”
And while fans were excited to learn that the next Mad Max movie will revolve around Theron’s character Furiosa, she will not be reprising the role, and she will be recast as it will be a prequel. Theron said that decision was a “tough one to swallow.”
Shortly after Halo Infinite was demonstrated on July 23 at the Xbox Series X games event, a rumor began circulating that the multiplayer portion wouldn’t be ready for launch this holiday. However, it was just that: a rumor. A 343 employee has cleared things up, and you won’t be limited to the campaign when the game releases.
Replying to a thread on Twitter, 343 community manager Brian Jarrard assured players that the multiplayer would indeed ship with the single-player campaign that was showcased during the Xbox event.
We only saw the campaign when the game was demonstrated during the Xbox Series X event, but Microsoft promised that multiplayer footage would be coming further down the line. We do know that Infinite will offer four-player split-screen support and that the grappling hook will function as a pickup in multiplayer.
Halo Infinite will be the first main game in the series since Halo 5: Guardians five years earlier, and 343 Industries created the new Slipspace engine to power it. The game received some criticism after its showing for some questionable visuals, particularly with the environments and enemy designs, but Xbox executive Aaron Greenberg clarified that these could be improved significantly before it releases.
343 Industries is aiming for the Halo ring in Halo Infinite to offer the same sense of scale and wonder as the original Halo: Combat Evolved. Its world is bigger than the last two Halo games combined, and it’s planned as the foundation for the next decade of Halo instead of releasing numbered sequels.
Halo Infinite launches this holiday season on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.
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