New York Comic-Con has almost come to an end, but Sunday offered up a few more panels for TV series, movies, and more. The YouTube Premium series Cobra Kai, held a panel to discuss what’s coming down the line for Season 2 of the series.
On the stage, stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, and screenwriters Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg discussed the first season of the series, while in the midst of shooting Season 2. They also revealed that there is a whole new–yet familiar set–coming to Season 2. A clip was shown at the event, and Heald provided setup for it. In it, the younger members of the cast give a tour of the Miyagi Dojo, a major set piece for the second season. Viewers saw Miyagi’s garden at the end of Season 1, and now Mr. Miyagi’s old home has been turned into a dojo. Obviously, this set piece will be the place where LaRusso trains his new students. It is completely empty inside, but the backyard is a place of serenity and peace, featuring trees, green grass, and a pond with water feature.
We learned that the next season Cobra Kai will debut sometime in the summer of 2019, and it will consist–like Season 1–of 10 episodes. However, the runtime for those episodes may be a bit longer, as Hurwitz explained the show “will be digging deeper on everybody.” Season 2 will expand a bit more on the younger generation we saw in the first season, but it will continue to have the same balance between the kids, Johnny, and Daniel.
Going into this new season, the writing team had a good idea of where they wanted to take the story. “We have multiple seasons planned out,” explained Heald, who also stated they had so much planned for different character arcs for Season 1 that they simply couldn’t pack it in. However, this show isn’t just trying to rekindle the love of Karate Kid with those who grew up with it. “It was important that a newer generation falls in love with this the same way we did,” Hurwitz stated.
There were plenty of questions for the cast and creators, particularly revolving around whether or not Daniel and Johnny will be fighting in Season 2. There wasn’t a direct answer, but it did seem like both men would be involved in fight sequences in the next season, but it wasn’t clear if it will be against each other.
Find out more about Season 2 of Cobra Kai when it hits YouTube Premium next spring.
Bryan Singer is currently negotiating a big payday to helm Millennium Films’ remake of Red Sonja.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Singer, whose previous outings include X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse, is reportedly seeking $10 million to direct the Conan spin-off.
His appointment as director is a subject of some controversy as, late last year, Singer was accused of sexual misconduct, leading him to be removed as executive producer on Legion.
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 comes out October 12, and we already know the long-rumored Battle Royale mode Blackout is real and a lot of fun. On top of the new Blackout mode, Zombie mode returns to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. If you’ve ever dreamed of slaughtering zombies in gladiatorial combat or on the Titanic, Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII zombies has you covered.
It’s been scientifically proven that X-Men: The Animated Series is the best treatment The Uncanny X-Men have been given outside of comics, so it’s only fitting that their fluorescent 1990s appearances be immortalized as beautiful collectible figurines by Japanese company Kotobukiya.
We were more excited than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs to get up close and personal with these at New York Comic-Con this week. It was a collectible Jubilee! Literally, figuratively, and figurally.
While the awesome Sentinel diorama is sadly only for display, these 1:10th scale figures are readily available as two-packs. Hopefully, Kotobukiya keeps this series going, we’d love an Archangel, Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse, or heck, even Morph.
Those who know of What We Do in the Shadows probably think of the 2014 cult hit mockumentary about a brood of oddball vampires wrestling with typical roommate drama like who should do the dishes and how to gobble down human blood without making a mess in the living room. Ten years before that, it was a short film that Jemaine Clement claims was made for about $200.
Before that, as Clement and his co-creator Taika Waititi revealed today at New York Comic Con 2018, the idea was born as a stand up comedy routine in which one of them told bad vampire jokes (“I just flew in from Transylvania and boy are my arms tired!”) and the other heckled him, also as a vampire, until they recognized one another as centuries-long rivals. Now, it’s FX’s latest comedy show, and based on the pilot episode–which screened exclusively during NYCC on Sunday–What We Do in the Shadows is perfect for fans.
(Disclaimer: The pilot episode screened at NYCC was reportedly unfinished, and this is not a review of the final program.)
The new What We Do in the Shadows follows a similar formula to the original. Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), and Laszlo (Matt Berry) are vampire roommates, this time in New York City’s Staten Island rather than the original’s New Zealand. But their dynamic, and the humor it enables, is similar. When Nandor, who was once a “ferocious” soldier in the Ottoman Empire, calls a flat meeting in the library, he and Laszlo (Berry, giving off similar vibes to Jemaine Clement’s character in the original movie) nearly come to blows over the bad habit of leaving half-drained humans around the house. They bare their teeth and hiss like feral cats before Nadja, Laszlo’s partner and the series’ first female vampire, defuses the situation.
As any normal roommates would, the three resolve to mark their human prey with their names and dates of consumption from now on to avoid the problem in the future. Nandor adds “buy markers” to the list of chores for his hapless familiar, Guillermo (Harvey Guillen), who keeps a photo of his childhood self dressed as Antonio Banderas from Interview with a Vampire framed in his sad bedroom under the stairs, and serves his master’s every whim in the hopes of one day being turned into a vampire himself.
Panel photos courtesy FX
The group’s way of life is challenged when an ancient vampire baron comes to visit via lantern-lit ship from the old country. Our heroes, it turns out, arrived Staten Island 200 years earlier and, instead of undertaking their mission to colonize all of America as part of a new vampire world order, they just kind of hung around. They worry the baron, who fills a similar comedic role to the movie’s 8,000-year-old vampire Petyr, is there to check on the progress of their mission.
Although the show is definitely similar to the movie, it’s clear from this unfinished pilot that co-creators Clement and Waititi–as well as executive producer and writer Paul Sims, who joined them onstage after the screening–have plenty of new ideas for this world.
For example, just as in the movie, our three vampire protagonists have a roommate. But instead of the millennia-old Petyr, Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) is basically just an average-looking guy. In what is undoubtedly the episode’s best and most unexpected gag, Colin is a “psychic vampire” who can drain all the energy from humans and other vampires alike just by speaking to them about boring subjects like office gossip and different types of car washes.
“We either bore you with a long conversation, or we enrage you,” Colin explains in the episode. “In fact, you probably know an energy vampire. We’re the most common kind of vampire.”
Clement said afterward that he came up with the idea for Colin while researching types of vampires. “I think we all know a person like that,” he said. “We hadn’t thought of anything like that for the movie, but when I was reading about different kinds of vampires, that was one that people mentioned as a real kind of vampire that exists and that we all come up against. And I could think of conversations I’ve had where I’ve been trapped by someone, and probably people have felt like that with me there.”
In the episode’s other subplots, Guillermo hunts for tasty virgins at a LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) event, while Nadja stalks a human man who she believes may be her reincarnated former lover, a knight named Gregor who she accidentally decapitated centuries earlier. Meanwhile, Laszlo and Nadja each separately reveal that they’re looking forward to the baron’s arrival for the same reason: Despite being a decrepit, crumbling horror, the baron is apparently a monster in the sack, although each is unaware that the other has been there.
It’s easy to see how FX will stretch out the absurd, distinctive comedy from the original 2014 movie into a full series. There’s plenty in this pilot–which is uproariously funny, even in unfinished form–that could conceivably continue for whole seasons, from Guillermo’s hopeless pining to become an immortal to Nadja and Lazslo’s unwitting love triangle with the ancient baron. And much like the movie, sprinkled throughout the show are moments of gruesome horror that give it just a little bit of a sharpened, wooden edge.
What We Do in the Shadows won’t premiere on FX until Spring 2019, but Sims has already teased a future episode in which the brood will venture into Manhattan. As they haven’t actually left Staten Island since arriving by ship centuries earlier, they’ve apparently always assumed the island borough is all of New York, or maybe even all of America. But they’ll discover that their fellow nightwalkers in Manhattan are “a little cooler” than them, according to Sims.
A still from the 2014 film
Now that we’ve caught a glimpse of What We Do in the Shadows and we know what kind of show we’re getting, the last remaining question for fans has to be whether Clement’s and Waititi’s characters from the movie will ever appear on the FX show.
“Only if something really disastrous happens,” Clemente teased cryptically. “It would have to be of incredible import.”
“We’re creating a universe to rival that of Marvel and DC,” Waititi joked. “What we’re doing is we’re taking one idea and stretching it out for years and years.”
“That’s what they do too,” Clement replied, laughing.
What We Do in the Shadows is scheduled to premiere on FX in Spring 2019.
The final stand to save Gotham City has begun. The fifth and final season of Gotham won’t premiere until 2019, but the cast and executive producer John Stephens took part in their final New York Comic Con panel to give the first look at the new episodes and share some news about what this show’s version of the “No Man’s Land” comic book story arc will look like.
That arc will include a new character played by Shane West, who was previously announced for the series. Stephens finally confirmed that West will play Bane, pulled directly from the comics. In fact, there will be one showdown between Bane and Alfred that will see the butler’s back get broken.
In a short sizzle reel that included new footage, the future of Gotham looked bleak. After Jeremiah (Cameron Monaghan) blew up the bridges to the city, essentially cutting off the outside world, Gotham has descended into something resembling The Purge–except, it’s everyday life.
In the new Gotham, the city has been divided up into pieces controlled by various villains, with a small green zone right in the center of town that Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) and the GCPD are keeping safe. The Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) has taken over City Hall, Poison Ivy (Peyton List) ruling Central Park, and the Riddler (Cory Michael Smith) making the Gotham Public Library his own domain.
Additionally, Penguin has naturally found a way to make himself a vital piece of Gotham’s underworld. He’s essentially a war profiteer, controlling the city’s ammunition. If anyone wants bullets, they’re forced to go to him. Barbara (Erin Richards), meanwhile, has enforced a man-free zone of Gotham and will suffer a major loss early in the season. Our guess is it’s Tabitha (Jessica Lucas) that will bite the bullet, propelling Babs on one final tear through Gotham City.
As for Selina (Camren Bicondova), who was shot and potentially paralyzed in the Season 4 finale, the new episodes will find her suicidal as she copes with her injuries. “We find her in a place where we’ve never seen her before,” Bicondova said. “We find her in a place of despair… The Selina we’ve known for the past four seasons goes completely out the window.”
With so much bad happening on Gotham–including even more new villains, like a Harley Quinn-esque girlfriend for Jeremiah–the need for a Batman continues to grow and fans are finally going to get that. Mazouz confirmed during the panel that, “Bruce is going to become Batman,” in the final season. Of course, you’re going to have to wait for that as it won’t be happening until late in the season.
As for when Gotham will premiere, a date was not announced. However, the final ten episodes will air sometime in early 2019 on Fox.
Riverdale has finally cast Jughead’s mom and sister for Season 3.
As announced at New York Comic Con, Gina Gershon will play Jughead’s mother, Gladys Jones, “a ‘businesswoman’ who runs the salvage yard (chop shop) that doubles as a Serpent compound, and the Serpents all snap to attention when she gives them an order. A Serpent with a GED, she acts as Fagin to a crew of teenaged car parts thieves.” And newcomer Trinity Likins is set for the role of Jughead’s sister, Jellybean “JB” Jones. She’s described as “wise beyond her years, and her favorite bands are Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath. Jellybean lives with her biker mom in Toledo where they run scams to make ends meet. And like mother like daughter: Jellybean — who goes by JB now — is quite the little con artist herself.”
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey transports the franchise to ancient Greece, when the military driven Sparta and democratic Athens are in the midst of war. For the first time in the series, you get to choose whether to play as a man named Alexios or a woman named Kassandra. Regardless of your choice, your protagonist is the disgraced child of a Spartan general who grows up to be a neutral mercenary for hire.
As a mercenary, Kassandra and Alexios should hold no allegiance for any one side in the war, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey allows you to choose who they side with. If you want, you can ally with neither or both sides as well. In terms of gameplay, this allows Kassandra or Alexios to do missions for either army, even if they’ve spent the previous hour helping the other.
This opens the game up to some pretty enjoyable side quests and bounties, but it also clashes with the game’s overall narrative. Even if Kassandra and Alexios aren’t technically Spartan, it seems odd for them to betray their country. And when the game’s story switches gears and presents plenty of evidence as to why Kassandra or Alexios would side with Athens, the game still allows you to kill the Athenian leadership.
In the video above, video producer Jake Dekker discusses how this ludonarrative dissonance–an inconsistency between a game’s narrative told through the gameplay and told through the story–causes Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to make no sense. It’s not the only example either, as Kassandra and Alexios have access to seemingly supernatural abilities, like surviving a drop from any height without a pile of hay, that make no sense in the world of Assassin’s Creed. However, as Jake also notes, this is totally okay. Despite the illogical disconnect between story and gameplay, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is still fun and absolutely worth playing.
In our Assassin’s Creed Odyssey review, editor Alessandro Fillari gave the game an 8/10, writing, “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s ambition is admirable, which is reflected in its rich attention to detail for the era and its approach to handling the multi-faceted narrative with strong protagonists at the lead. While its large-scale campaign–clocking in at over 50 hours–can occasionally be tiresome, and some features don’t quite make the impact they should, Odyssey makes great strides in its massive and dynamic world, and it’s a joy to venture out and leave your mark on its ever-changing setting.”
