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With President’s Day upon us, we’re taking a log cabin look at some of Abraham Lincoln’s wildest and craziest movie and TV show appearances – from The Twilight Zone to Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure to Rick and Morty!

As perhaps our most lauded and esteemed former president, Honest Abe’s unique attire, amazing accomplishments, and tragic fate make him an ideal candidate for pop-culture adaptations and/or parodies. There are countless dramatic re-tellings of his life, like Spielberg’s Lincoln in 2012, along with some inspired zaniness. Here are 12 of Abe’s best, and looniest, screen cameos!

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The Twilight Zone: “The Passerby” (1961)

In this classic Twilight Zone chapter, a wounded Civil War solider and a war widow realize that the road they’re on is one leading to the afterlife – and that they’ve already been killed in the bloody conflict ravaging the nation. One of the final casualties of the war, and wanderers on the path, is Lincoln, arriving just as he’s killed in Ford’s Theater.

Star Trek: “The Savage Curtain” (1969)

Captain Kirk rolled out the red carpet for his personal hero, Abraham Lincoln, after the centuries-dead president appeared before the Enterprise, mysteriously floating in space. Lincoln, who was really manifestation of “good” created by an alien race called the Excalbians, then gave his life aiding Kirk and Spock in a clash between good and evil.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

Sure, Bill and Ted can say “Be excellent to each other!” all day long, but when Abe Lincoln proudly and loudly proclaims it to the students at San Dimas High, it’s a full-on happening. Yes, Abe Lincoln’s polite kidnapping, orchestrated by the time-traveling teens who one day unite humanity, brought him hilariously into 20th Century food court culture.

MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch: “4th of July Celebration” (1999)

As part of MTV’s late-90s claymation carnage, Abe Lincoln and George Washington were pitted against one another on Celebrity Deathmatch in a battle to determine the best president of all time. Though Lincoln wins, everyone’s eventually eviscerated by fireworks in the end, leaving no one standing triumphant.

Clone High (2002-2003)

MTV’s criminally underrated Clone High, from LEGO Movie’s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and Scrubs’ Bill Lawrence, featured a high school comprised of military-financed clones of historical figures. Teen Abe (voiced by Will Forte) spends his days in love with Cleopatra, idolizing the real Abe Lincoln, and struggling every day to live up to the former president’s ideals.

Futurama: “Insane in the Mainframe” (2001)

Ol’ Abe appeared a few times on Futurama: As a sentient head in a jar, as part of the Head Museum, and also as Linctron – an animatronic with multiple personalities (all of them Lincoln) and a key feature in the Hal Institute for Criminally Insane Robots.

Robot Chicken: “Massage Chair” (2006)

Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken wasn’t about to leave the Great Emancipator out of the mix. Especially when he can be voiced by Hulk Hogan.

When George W. Bush discovers his midi-chlorian count is off the charts, he uses his Jedi powers to bully all of D.C. It all comes down to a showdown between G.W. and Lincoln, with lightsabers, for the glory of ultimate supremacy.

Batman, The Brave and the Bold: “Mitefall!” (2011)

Captain Kirk wasn’t the only pop-culture icon that Honest Abe backed up in heated battle. On Batman: The Brave and the Bold, a parallel universe Lincoln teamed with the Caped Crusader to stop a steampunk armored John Wilkes Booth. Yes, you read all of that correctly.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

American history got a gruesome, ghastly tweaking in Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – a movie that presumed that the 16th President of the United States was also, in secret, a hunter of bloodsucking friends that were plotting to infest the country. “Whatever you are, be a good one,” Lincoln once said. And that included the beheading of vamps.

Adventure Time: “Sons of Mars” (2012)

Accused of crimes he did not commit, Finn is brought to stand before the King of Mars – which in the gloriously nightmarish dystopia of Adventure Time means…Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, being very Lincoln, then gives into guilt and sacrifices his immortality to Death in order to bring Jake back to life.

Rick and Morty: “Ricksy Business” (2014)

Leave it to Rick and Morty to combine one of history’s most beloved figures with its absolute worst, as Rick’s humanoid experiment, Abradolf Lincler, was a warped mashup of Lincoln and Adolph Hitler that he made in an attempt to create a morally-neutral super leader. Naturally, the project winds up being a catastrophic abomination.

The LEGO Movie (2014)

For The LEGO Movie, Clone High creators Lord and Miller brought back Will Forte to voice the LEGO version of Lincoln – a stalwart Master Builder of Cloud Cuckoo Land, complete with an axe and a flying Lincoln Memorial chair. “A house divided against itself… would be better than this!”

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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.

Atlus has confirmed that certain scenes in Persona 5, which were considered homophobic and offensive by many fans, will be updated and altered in the Western release of Persona 5 Royal.

Speaking to IGN during a Persona 5 Royal preview event, Atlus Communications Manager Ari Advincula explained that dialogue in certain scenes – specifically ones involving Ryuji and two effeminate male characters – would be changed so that those men were no longer shown in a “negative light.”

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“We actually were able to go through some of the lines that players may not have received as well, look at that feedback, and then [update it] for the current generation,” Advincula said, explaining that they’ve changed both the first scene in which you meet these characters as well as the notorious beach scene they are featured in later on.

The dialogue in these scenes has been widely criticized since Persona 5’s Western launch for a variety of reasons. Many fans consider the depiction of these characters to be offensively stereotypical, presenting the most prominent homosexual characters in Persona 5 as extremely sexually aggressive (toward a minor, no less) and intentionally ridiculous with intent of making their “weirdness” the joke – made worse by the fact that your protagonist provides similarly insensitive responses to their actions.

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While Atlus didn’t share exactly how these scenes would be updated in response to these complaints, Advincula said asking if they would be addressed was one of the first things she did when joining the team. “That’s really important to me, and I think it’s really important to the community as well.”

Advincula also explained that their localization team has an “internal content review team” she described as “very on the pulse about what’s right and what to do.” She explained Royal was “a chance to make it right.”

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That said, reports around Royal’s Japanese release late last year seemed to indicate these conversations were generally unaltered in Japanese, and we still don’t know exactly what the updates for the Western release will look like.

Atlus also told us that fans shouldn’t give up hope for a Persona 5 port on Switch, asking them to keep telling them they wanted it or they would never be able to make it. Persona 5 Royal is out in the West on March 31.

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Tom Marks is IGN’s Deputy Reviews Editor and resident pie maker. You can follow him on Twitter.

Persona 5 still hasn’t been announced for the Nintendo Switch, but publisher Atlus says it doesn’t want fans to give up hope just yet.

Rumors have swirled around a potential Persona 5 Switch port for a long time, with a bogus Best Buy listing even popping up in 2019, but that momentum has slowed considerably. So IGN asked Atlus Communications Manager Ari Advincula if it was finally time for fans to give up on hope for a potential port during a Persona 5 Royal preview event earlier this month, to which she responded “I am a strong believer in ‘never ever give up on hope’.”

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The fervor for a port was spurred on by protagonist Joker coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate early last year, but ended up being squelched somewhat when the teased P5S turned out to be Persona 5 Scramble, an entirely new game (and essentially a full-on sequel) coming to Switch. But Advincula says fans making their voices heard is the only way it’ll happen.

“You want what you want,” she explained, “and if you don’t let us know it we’re never going to be able to make it.” Advincula said Atlus is listening and does see the desire for Persona 5 on Switch, saying “it’s important to always voice your opinion.”

Advincula encouraged fans to “keep telling us what you want,” saying she was fighting for it internally as well. However, it’s important to point out that she also said she’s obviously “not the decision-maker” in a situation like this despite being an “internal champion” for it, so this shouldn’t be taken as an indication of what is happening or could happen down the line.

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Still, Atlus has made it clear it is listening to the Persona community and taking feedback seriously, notably also revealing that it will change a handful of scenes in Persona 5 Royal fans previously condemned for being homophobic for its Western release on March 31.

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Tom Marks is IGN’s Deputy Reviews Editor and resident pie maker. You can follow him on Twitter.

It seems that both an Overwatch cartoon and Diablo anime are in the works. Neither have been confirmed by Activision Blizzard yet but new evidence from a high-ranking employee makes it pretty likely they are in production.

Nick van Dyck, who is the president of the film and TV division of Activision Blizzard, says he has worked on both of these unannounced projects in his LinkedIn profile.

His profile lists him as being the executive producer of a TV adaptation of Diablo that is “rendered in anime style.” Apparently it’s in pre-production and will be distributed worldwide through Netflix. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about a possible Diablo animated series for Netflix.

If it really is coming, then it will probably look to follow in the very successful footsteps of the Netflix Castlevania animated series. Season 3, of which, is due out on March 5 and recently got a bloody, monster-filled trailer.

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More of a surprise is that Dyck’s profile also says that he has “developed and sold an animated series based Blizzard’s Overwatch franchise.” Nothing else about this is revealed. The fact that this has been “sold” suggests it isn’t another of Blizzard’s in-house Overwatch short films and is potentially a larger project.

Both of these animated series make a lot of sense given that franchises have a new game on the way. Diablo 4 was announced at BlizzCon last year but there’s no word on when it might launch. The same goes for Overwatch 2, which will add story missions alongside new heroes and modes to the first game’s formula.

Hopefully the success of recent video game adaptations, like the Castlevania series and the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, will carry over to these animated series.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Here are two reliable gaming facts–if there’s a major game that’s not on Nintendo Switch, owners of the Nintendo console will want a port, and if a port is in the works, it’ll likely be accidentally unveiled by a ratings board. This has once again come to pass, with GameXplain discovering that Catherine: Full Body and XCOM 2 Collection have both been rated for the Switch in Korea.

Neither game has officially been confirmed for release yet, but these age ratings are often a strong indication that the game is coming. These are not the only ports to recently receive ratings, either–in January, the BioShock: The Collection was rated in Taiwan.

Catherine: Full Body is an expanded version of 2011’s Catherine, which added a third love interest and plenty of new content to the game. XCOM 2 Collection contains all previously released content for XCOM 2, making it a sizeable package.

Both games reviewed well, with Catherine: Full Body receiving an 8/10 in our review, and XCOM 2 receiving a 9/10.

The Nintendo Switch is gearing up for a big 2020, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons releasing in March, and plenty of other games due this year.

The Call of Duty movie is seemingly no longer a priority for Activision, though that doesn’t mean it’s been scrapped altogether. Director Stefano Sollima (Sicario: Day of Soldado) said in a new interview with BadTaste that the action movie is on hold as the parties decide how to move forward.

Sollima pointed out that this move is nothing out of the ordinary, given Hollywood movies can take a very long time to come together. The Uncharted movie, for example, has been in various stages of production for more than a decade already and has cycled through 7 different directors.

Sollima also mentioned in the interview that he wrote the Call of Duty movie script alongside Scott Silver, who wrote the scripts for Joker and The Fighter, both of which earned Oscar nominations.

The interview was conducted in Italian, and GameSpot has confirmed the quotes.

There could be any number of reasons for why the Call of Duty movie is no longer a priority for Activision. We’ve contacted the publisher in an attempt to get more details.

The film will be produced under Activision’s movie label, Activision Blizzard Studios, which is a Beverley Hills-based outfit that is responsible for adapting the company’s game franchises for TV and film.

Activision Blizzard Studios was formed in 2015, following the release of the Warcraft movie. It’s headed up by producer Stacey Sher (Garden State, The Hateful Eight) and former Disney executive Nick van Dyk. Activision Blizzard Studios has not released any movies yet, but it partnered with Netflix for the Skylanders Academy TV show. Additionally, van Dyk’s LinkedIn page seems to confirm the rumors that a Diablo TV show is coming to Netflix. A new animated series based on Overwatch is also on the way, according to van Dyk’s page.

Sher and van Dyk said in an interview that movies based on Call of Duty sub-brands are currently in the works, while multiple scripts have already been written.

“We have plotted out many years,” Sher explained. “We put together this group of writers to talk about where we were going. There’ll be a film that feels more like Black Ops, the story behind the story. The Modern Warfare series looks at what it’s like to fight a war with the eyes of the world on you. And then maybe something that is more of a hybrid, where you are looking at private, covert operations, while a public operation is going on.”

“It’s going to have the same sort of high-adrenaline, high-energy aesthetic as the game, but it’s not a literal adaptation,” added van Dyk. “It’s a much more broad and inclusive, global in scope … a big, tentpole, Marvel-esque movie.”

What would you like to see from the Call of Duty movie? Let us know in the comments below!

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie has enjoyed a strong first weekend at the US box office, opening to $57 million, according to Box Office Mojo. This eclipses even the most generous of pre-release expectations, and means that the movie has now had the best opening weekend ever for a movie based on a game, surpassing Pokemon: Detective Pikachu’s $54.3 million opening.

It’s worth noting that the $57 million figure is an estimate, and although eventual figures tend to trend up rather than down, there’s always the possibility that the movie made slightly less than expected (Pokemon: Detective Pikachu was originally reported to have made $58 million in its opening weekend, which was later revised.)

In any case, it’s a good opening for the movie, which has attracted mixed reviews (although GameSpot’s review from Phil Hornshaw was very positive, as were many others.) The movie is expected to do well at the box office on President’s Day (February 17), too. The movie has made an additional $43 million outside of the US so far.

Recent successful movies based on games have made the majority of their money overseas. Warcraft and Tomb Raider succeeded internationally while doing poorly in the US, while Resident Evil: The Final Chapter made less than 10% of its money domestically. This makes Sonic’s opening weekend in the US all the more unique.

Meanwhile, Birds of Prey, which opened lower than expected last weekend, held well compared to many other DC movies. It landed in second place with an estimated $17.1 million over the weekend, dropping 48%. So far it has made $61,673,302 in the USA, and $145,273,302 worldwide.

Elsewhere, Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island brought in $12.4 million, and Parasite’s historic Oscar victory resulted in a $5.5 million weekend.

Here’s the domestic top 10 for the weekend of February 14-16, 2020. The full list is available at Box Office Mojo.

1. Sonic the Hedgehog: $57 million
2. Birds of Prey: $17.115 million
3. Fantasy Island: $12.4 million
4. The Photograph: $12.27 million
5. Bad Boys for Life: $11.305 million
6. 1917: $8.090 million
7. Jumanji: The Next Level: $5.7 million
8. Parasite: $5.5 million
9. Dolittle: $5.05 million
10. Downhill: $4.671 million

The NPD Group has released its latest monthly sales report, revealing which games, consoles, and accessories sold the best in January 2020 in the United States.

Starting with games, Dragon Ball Z: Kakorot was the month’s top-seller, and its launch-month sales were the third-highest in franchise history, following Dragon Ball: Fighterz and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare finished No. 2 in January, marking the first month since release that it fell to the second sales position. While it’s dropped down the charts, it remains the best-selling game over the past 12 months.

Another notable move was made by Grand Theft Auto V, which re-entered the Top 5 for the first time since August 2019. As announced previously, GTA 5 is the best-selling video game in history for the United States.

Total sales for games dropped 31 percent to $311 million. The downturn was driven by a difficult comparison to January 2019 which saw the release of big games like Kingdom Hearts III and Resident Evil 2.

Moving to hardware, the Nintendo Switch was January 2020’s best-selling console in terms of unit and dollar sales. It wasn’t all good news, however, as the Switch, the PS4, and the Xbox One all experienced year-over-year sales declines in January, which led to a 35 percent decrease in sales year-over-year to $129 million. January is historically a difficult month for console sales, as it follows the very busy holiday shopping season.

In terms of accessories, the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller was the top-seller in January 2020, which is a position it’s held since launch in November. According to the NPD, it’s the fifth fastest-selling accessory in US history. Total spending on accessories and game card sales for January 2020 reached $238 million, which is down 11 percent.

Total spending for January 2020–comprising games, hardware, and accessories–amounted to $678 million, which is down 26 percent. The NPD said this downturn was attributed mainly to a “lighter” slate of new releases and “late cycle hardware dynamics” for the PS4 and Xbox One.

With the PS4 and Xbox One entering the end of their lifecycles, it’s expected that sales would decrease. Both Sony and Microsoft have new consoles coming later this year in the form of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

Best-Selling January 2020 Games (US)

1. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
3. Madden NFL 20
4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
5. Grand Theft Auto V
6. NBA 2K20
7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
8. Mario Kart 8*
9. Ring Fit Adventure
10. Red Dead Redemption II
11. Minecraft#
12. Pokemon Sword
13. Luigi’s Mansion 3*
14. Star Wars: Battlefront II
15. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
16. Need for Speed: Heat
17. FIFA 20
18. Just Dance 2020
19. Mortal Kombat 11
20. Pokemon Shield*

*Digital sales not included

#Digital sales PlayStation and Xbox included