Netflix’s The Witcher was purposefully designed to be a TV adaptation of the series of fantasy stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski and not the CD Projekt Red video games, despite U.S. viewers being more familiar with the games than the books, according to showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich.
“I think Amercian audiences mostly know about Geralt from the video games,” Hissrich said, while speaking to host Brandon Jenkins on Netflix’s Behind the Scenes podcast. “The answer [to why the show adapts the books] is very simple though and it’s that the video games are are based on the books. They are an adaptation of the books. For me it didn’t make sense to make an adaptation of an adaptation of something.”
“What that does is allow us to tell The Witcher story but just in a different way,” she added. “I think a lot of video game fans are concerned that we’re taking something from them. That we’re usurping something that’s theirs. And the truth is, I love the video games. They are not going anywhere. They are insanely successful. I can only hope that our show is that successful. The video games aren’t going anywhere and the books aren’t going anywhere. This is just a third way to enjoy these same characters and this same world.”
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.
Third-generation pro-wrestler Tessa Blanchard, who was just named Impact Wrestling’s “2019 Wrestler of the Year,” is set to make history once again this Sunday, January 12, when she challenges Sami Callihan in the main event of the Hard to Kill PPV for the Impact World Championship.
Blanchard and Callihan clashed in a historic intergender main event match back at July’s Slammiversary and that clash took home the honors of Impact’s Wrestling’s “2019 Match of the Year.” This time however, the world title is on the line and Blanchard is the first woman ever to viciously vie for it.
“There are a bunch of firsts happening and women are given such a big platform now,” Blanchard told IGN. “I’ve always wanted to make history in my own way. A way that’s unique to me. A way that disrupts the business but also breaks barriers. I think Impact is giving us the platform right now where we can do something a little different and that’s been my goal since day one. I want to do something different. I never knew exactly what that looked like. But this Sunday, this feud has been eight months in the making.”
Tessa Blanchard confronting Impact World Champion Sami Callihan immediately after he won the title.
“When [Blanchard and Callihan] were the main event at Slammiversary we didn’t even know until the day of,” Blanchard continued. “But going into this pay-per-view knowing we’re the main event, knowing that we’re doing something different, something that’s making some people uncomfortable…it’s something that some people support but for some people it disrupts them. It’s cool because it shows that we’re doing something special. It shows that maybe we are accomplishing something by evolving things on both sides of the locker room. It makes me a little bit nervous too just because it’s something that I’ve thought about for six years. I never knew what making history in my own way would look like but it’s all piecing itself together and coming full circle now. There’s pressure that comes with that. There are nerves that come with that. But there’s a lot of excitement too.”
With Blanchard’s bout on Sunday, intergender wrestling takes a big step forward, possibly moving away from an “attraction” to something resembling more of a normal modern-era wrestling scenario. “I know it makes some people uncomfortable for obvious reasons,” Blanchard said. “Because it’s ‘just not normal.’ It’s not what people are used to seeing so they don’t think that’s what pro-wrestling is. It’s not the typical story that we tell. It’s not on Monday night. It’s not something they’re comfortable letting their kids watch. But in my mind I find it very empowering because I think that women can go out there and tell that story with a man. I think there’s a way to do it.”
“Some people write it off right away without giving it a chance,” she added. “For instance, I had a match during WrestleCon weekend against a man. And Santino Marella came up to me afterward and said ‘I wasn’t a fan of intergender wrestling, but now I get it.’ And that’s my goal. I want people to stay open minded it and get it. They don’t have to like it. It’s not for everyone. It’s just like how there are so many different styles of wrestling. There’s Strong Style, Luche Libre, and so many others. Maybe you don’t like every style. There’s nothing wrong with that. But at least give it a chance. What we’re doing is something cool.”
Impact Wrestling’s Hard to Kill PPV goes down January 12 at 8/7c. The official live stream can be found on FITE TV.
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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.
Star Wars’ John Boyega took to Instagram, posting an elaborate music video response to toxic tweets that he’s received over the past few weeks.
Boyega has been dealing with s*** fans since The Force Awakens, when some viewers took umbrage with the notion of a black Stormtrooper. This round of negativity however came mostly from people on Twitter berating Boyega after he took a playful jab at “Reylo” shippers back on New Year’s Eve…
The Instagram post, set to music, shows Boyega slicing up tweets, that’s he’s still receiving now, weeks later, with a lightsaber – as well as chopping them and running over them with a scooter. Boyega capped it all off with “Glad I got that out of my system.”
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.
Details surrounding the story of Star Trek: Picard are still pretty hazy. We know it concerns the storied Starfleet captain, Jean-Luc Picard, 15 years after his retirement from Starfleet. But we know very little about why Picard retired from the rank of admiral.
Ahead of the Star Trek: Picard release date on January 23, CBS All Access has filled in the gaps–at least slightly. The streaming service released an episode of its Star Trek short film series, Short Treks, that works as something of a setup for the events of Picard. In “Children of Mars,” we see some of the events that eventually spur Picard to leave Starfleet and take on a more reclusive life.
The episode follows two girls in a Martian school who have a tumultuous relationship. Their animosity grows throughout the episode, until they’re together during a tragic attack on Mars by a group of powerful ships. While it’s not clear that the two characters will play a role in Picard, we do know a few things about the situation in which they find themselves.
“Children of Mars” takes place some 15 years before the start of Picard, and it’s this attack on Mars and the trauma surrounding it that’s had such a profound effect on the legendary captain. From a news cast that plays during the attack, we now know that it’s executed by “rogue synthetics.” You might also spot a shot of Picard on those screens as well–as an admiral in Starfleet during the attack, he’s a major figure in responding to the attack.
So we know that a tragedy perpetrated by these “rogue synths” is a big part of the setup for Picard, although it’s still not clear what synths are or how they relate to the bigger picture of what’s going on in the series. It’s worth noting, however, that a big part of Picard’s story is his relationship with Data, the android who served on the Enterprise in The Next Generation and spent his life endeavoring to be more human. Data sacrificed himself to save Picard and the Enterprise at the end of the last of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films, Star Trek: Nemesis, and the trailers for Star Trek: Picard suggest that event still haunts Picard as well.
Disclosure: CBS is the parent company of GameSpot.
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What’s Old Is New At CES 2020
The majority of CES 2020 focuses on futuristic technology that may or may not ever actually release, but some of our favourite things at the show focus on refining the past into something new. Whether its 3/4-scale arcade cabinets, new plug-and-play devices, or a Game Boy-focused retro console, there was plenty to see and get excited about at CES 2020.
Arcade1Up had a lot to show at CES 2020, including a limited-edition Burger Time cabinet, an NBA Jam cabinet with online multiplayer, and more. We at GameSpot were also able to visit Hyperkin to check out a prototype of their new retro console that plays Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games.
Of course, there was even more that we saw, so scroll on through our gallery to see all of the cool retro gaming hardware at CES 2020. For more on the event, check out all of our CES 2020 coverage and our sister site CNET for everything tech-related.
Lucasfilm originally wanted Respawn to stick to blasters and make a first-person shooter, according to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Director Stig Asmussen.
In the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered, Ryan McCaffrey sat down with Asmussen to talk about Respawn’s pitch for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and, according to Asmussen, he was very clear about what he and his team wanted to do when he first met with Lucasfilm.
“‘We want to make a game with Jedi and lightsabers and Force powers.’ and I could feel that the room kind of gasped for a moment. That’s when I realized; Jedi are really big… I mean, of course they are a big deal… but it’s a really big deal. It’s like the Holy Grail here.” Asmussen also discussed Lucasfilm’s reverence for Jedi in the latest episode of the AIAS Game Maker’s podcast, when he sat down with Insomniac’s Ted Price.
“There was a little bit of people eye-balling each other and somebody, I don’t remember who, on the Lucasfilm side said, ‘What about making a game with blasters? Something more like a shooter?’ They didn’t mention any games in particular and I said, ‘You know, part of my background is melee and the team that we built is melee-action… I think you wouldn’t be really happy with the results of what we’d make for that, because I’m not super comfortable with doing that.’ And I said, ‘but, you know… lightsabers.’”
That was far from the end of the discussion, Asmussen said. “They talked a little bit more about it, and we went back and forth and they said, ‘Here’s the deal; we can do something with lightsabers and Force powers, but we can’t… we can’t talk about Jedi. We’ve got to refer to them as “Force-users.”’” Asmussen shrugged, “As long as we’ve got lightsabers and Force-powers, I’m cool.”
“That’s the day that I learned; every step of the way, we have to earn it. We can’t just come in and say, ‘This is the game that we’re making.’ It’s gotta be a conversation. It’s gotta be a collaboration, and we have to earn the respect, and that works both ways. But here we are, years later, and the name of the game is ‘Jedi: Fallen Order.’”
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Brian Barnett writes news, features, wiki guides, deals posts, and much more for IGN. You can get your fix of Brian’s antics on Twitter and Instagram (@Ribnax).
A D23.com news briefs article spotlighting the upcoming Fox Marvel movie The New Mutants got fans in a tizzy when it seemingly revealed groundbreaking information connecting the X-Men universe movie to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but we’re here to let you know that it was not true.
The article referred to The New Mutants as the “seriously electrifying new addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” and while the former very well may be the case, IGN can confirm that the latter is not. No, The New Mutants isn’t an MCU movie, though it is the first Fox Marvel movie to be released since Disney’s acquisition of the studio.
The D23.com article has since been removed from the official Disney fan club website, but you can see the original comment in the screenshot below:
D23.com incorrectly referred to the upcoming X-Men universe film as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
When the purported MCU connection started spreading around social media, fans were intrigued, though doubtful of its accuracy:
From the official D23 site… The New Mutants is the newest addition to the MCU. pic.twitter.com/o8WG0LY1Fo
The New Mutants’ release is interesting because, as mentioned earlier in this article, it is the first X-Men universe movie to be released since Disney acquired Fox, and since that acquisition, the future of the X-Men franchise has been unclear. While Dark Phoenix seemingly brought the core X-Men franchise to a close and Gambit is well and truly dead, The New Mutants was designed to expand the scope of Fox’s X-Men movies with a more standalone story using other characters from the X-Men comics pantheon — a move conceived in a pre-Disney/Fox world.
Because of its delayed release and the acquisition leaving X-Men’s Disney future unclear, there was a concern that The New Mutants might be shelved permanently, though fortunately, that was not the case. This is standalone from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s pantheon of characters, though, which is why the seeming confirmation of its existence within the MCU earlier Friday would have completely recontextualized The New Mutants movie’s function and purpose.
Even though they haven’t been announced, Marvel’s Kevin Feige confirmed he does have plans for the X-Men to join the larger MCU. At San Diego Comic-Con, he told IGN, “Whatever we do will be quite different than what’s been done before.” You can watch our full interview with Feige below:
The New Mutants stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, Henry Zaga as Sunspot, Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie, Blu Hunt as Danielle Moonstar, Alice Braga as Dr. Cecilia Reyes and Antonio Banderas as the film’s villain.
While The New Mutants may not be a part of the MCU Phase 4 lineup, plenty of other titles are. Refresh yourself on what’s coming for Marvel over the course of the next few years by clicking through the gallery below:
Fleischer is no stranger to Sony, as Venom and Zombieland are both its properties. So, it doesn’t come as a huge surprise that executives would like him to head up this major project — however, negotiations have not yet begun.
Earlier this year, Sony announced PlayStation Productions, an in-house development studio responsible for turning Sony’s games into movies. Shawn Layden, previous Chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios told The Hollywood Reporter, “We feel that now is a good time to look at other media opportunities across streaming or film or television to give our worlds life in another spectrum.”
Layden continued, “We’ve got 25 years of game development experience and that’s created 25 years of great games, franchises and stories.” While nothing has been announced, Sony owns tons of different franchises that it could turn into movies, such as The Last of Us, God of War, and Spyro the Dragon, just to name a few.
