Universal Studios Orlando is preparing to launch the latest addition to its Wizarding World of Harry Potter with Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. The "immersive" roller coaster puts visitors on Hagrid's motorcycle as they journey through the Forbidden Forest and come face-to-face with a number of magical creatures from the world of the Harry Potter books and films. The creatures aren't all that's in store, though.
Universal Orlando has unveiled its first look at the animatronic figure of Hagrid that will be seen in the coaster, and it's scarily realistic. Like, a few steps removed from a Harry Potter-themed version of Westworld realistic.
According to a press release, Hagrid's face was sculpted by hand, while actor Robbie Coltrane's mouth was scanned to recreate the character's teeth. Coltrane also recorded new dialogue for the animatronic, while the character's costume was designed by the team that dressed him in the films.
"Hagrid is such an iconic character and an integral part of the Harry Potter franchise, so we were excited to develop a truly innovative and authentic animated figure to bring him to life for this experience," Universal Creative senior vice president Thierry Coup said in a statement. "We worked tirelessly to make sure Hagrid's full essence was captured with the utmost attention to detail for our guests to feel completely immersed in this all-new adventure."
You can see just how detailed the Hagrid animatronic is in the images above and in the trailer below. Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure opens at Universal Orlando on June 19. Between this and the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom parks, it's an exciting summer to be a theme park fan.
Warner Bros.' live-action Detective Pikachu movie hits theaters later this week, and Niantic is celebrating its premier with a special event in Pokemon Go. Beginning tomorrow, May 7, at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST (6 AM AEST on May 8), players will have a chance to capture Pokemon from the upcoming film--including a new Shiny Pokemon and Detective Pikachu itself.
From May 7-17, Pokemon that star in the Detective Pikachu movie, such as Bulbasaur, Snubble, Psyduck, Jigglypuff, and Aipom, will appear in the wild more frequently than normal. Some movie Pokemon will also appear as Raid bosses, and players will have a chance of coming across a Shiny Aipom. On top of that, a Pikachu wearing a detective's hat may photobomb any Go Snapshots you take; if that happens, you'll have a chance to catch it.
Beyond the increased Pokemon spawns, you'll earn twice the usual amount of XP for every Pokemon you capture during the Detective Pikachu event. Niantic is also distributing special Field Research tasks at Poke Stops, and there are Detective Pikachu-themed clothing items for purchase from the Style Shop, including a shirt featuring the film's logo and a detective hat with Pikachu ears.
Detective Pikachu hits theaters on May 10. The movie is based loosely on the 3DS game of the same name and stars Ryan Reynolds as the voice of the titular Pokemon. "Detective Pikachu should prove enjoyable for any and all Pokemon fans, young or old," Michael Rougeau wrote in GameSpot's Detective Pikachu review. "As the first official live-action trip to the world of Pokemon, Detective Pikachu presents characters I want to see again and a setting I'd like to return to."
In other Pokemon Go news, the Legendary Lake trio--Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie--have started to appear in Raid Battles around the world following their unexpected appearance in the wild earlier this month. The game's next Community Day event, meanwhile, is scheduled for Sunday, May 19. The featured Pokemon this time will be Torchic, the Fire-type starter from Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire.
Usually, we keep an eye out for the best deals on new or critically acclaimed games, but the latest sale at GameStop offers the chance to pick up older titles for a fraction of their original price. Running now through Saturday, May 11, GameStop's Pre-Owned Sale offer markdowns on used games for not only PS4 and Xbox One, but also PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and DS--so if there's an older title you always meant to buy and never did, now could be a great time to snag it.
There's a lot going on in this sale, so here are the highlights: First off, most pre-owned games are marked down by $5 to $10. On top of that discount, you can get two for $20 on all pre-owned games listed as $15 or less. Pre-owned, refurbished Wii and Nintendo DS systems are $20 off, a pre-owned Xbox One (500GB) is only $150, and if you buy any pre-owned console, you'll also be eligible for a buy one, get one 50% off deal on any pre-owned PS3 and Xbox 360 games. And it's worth mentioning that all Animal Crossing Amiibo are currently buy one, get one 50% off as well.
Many recent Pokemon titles are notably marked down on 3DS, if you feel like taking a trip down memory lane before Pokemon Sword and Shield launch on Nintendo Switch later this year. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask for 3DS is only $19, and usually sells for $40. Far Cry 5 on PS4 and Xbox One is down to $20, and while there aren't many Switch deals, you can grab Bayonetta 2 for $35.
See more of the best deals below, and check out the full collection of pre-owned game discounts at GameStop. Note that if you're part of GameStop's PowerUp Rewards program, the price will be even cheaper.
Following the wave of cancellations that hit all Marvel's Netflix show over the past six months, it's easy to forget that there's still one more season of Jessica Jones to come. The third season of the show is due to hit the streaming service this year, and its release has now been teased by Marvel.
In a new tweet, the studio has announced "the final season" of Jessica Jones. While it was assumed that the recent second season of The Punisher would be the last, it was released before the show was officially cancelled and just presented as Season 2. But this is not the case with Jessica Jones, which was officially axed in February. The tweet doesn't reveal when we'll see it, just that it's "coming soon." But for fans of the dark superhero drama, it's exciting news. Check it out below.
"Everything changes, and nothing really changes. People die, new people are born, and we exist in between." The final season of Marvel's @JessicaJones is coming soon to Netflix. pic.twitter.com/HswnJuCdva
Jessica Jones Season 2 will star Krysten Ritter as troubled private detective Jessica, plus Rachael Taylor (as Trish), Eka Darville (as Malcolm Ducasse), and Carrie-Anne Moss (as Jeri Hogarth). Few details about the story of the new season are known, but a trailer shouldn't be too far behind.
Jessica Jones was the second Marvel Netflix show, following Daredevil, and Season 1 was released in November 2015. Iron Fist, Luke Cage, The Punisher, and The Defenders followed, but ultimately all were cancelled. Disney launches its own streaming platform, Disney+, in the Fall and has a host of its own Marvel shows in development for the new service.
In February, Ritter posted on Instagram shortly after the show's cancellation. "It has been a dream to play Jessica alongside my amazing cast and the best crew in the business for these past 5 years," she wrote. "I am so grateful for every second of it. We have THE BEST fans. You guys mean the world to me and I appreciate you beyond words. The final season of #JessicaJones is coming later this year and I am proud of how we complete JJ's journey."
Have you already burned through everything on Netflix you've wanted to watch? Well, it's a new week, and the streaming service giant has a whole bunch of new content headed your way, including the return of a Fox television series.
The devil himself heads over to Netflix as the former Fox series Lucifer gets a brand-new season debuting exclusively on the stream service. The series centers around the Lord of Hell, who becomes bored with ruling over the bad place and moves to Los Angeles to open a nightclub. The new season debuts on May 8.
There's a new TV series headed to Netflix called Abyss you may want to check out. Two people die in separate incidents, but they've come back to life in bodies they don't recognize. The Korean science-fiction show leans heavily towards comedy, but it seems like it could be a lot of fun. Abyss hits the service on May 6.
For non-Netflix originals, on May 9, the freaky horror film Insidious arrives, and on May 10, the first season of the Ryan Murphy FX series Pose will be available to binge to your heart's content. Below, you'll find everything new to Netflix for the week of May 5-May 11. If you want to know what else is coming out this month, check out Netflix's release schedule for May.
New To Netflix This Week
May 6
Abyss -- NETFLIX ORIGINAL
May 7
The Heat: A Kitchen (R)evolution
Queen of the South: Season 3
May 8
Lucifer: Season 4 -- NETFLIX ORIGINAL
May 9
Bathtubs Over Broadway
Insidious
May 10
Dry Martina -- NETFLIX FILM
Easy: Season 3 -- NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Gente que viene y bah -- NETFLIX FILM
Harvey Girls Forever!: Season 2 -- NETFLIX ORIGINAL
After 10 weeks and dozens of challenges, Season 8 of Fortnite is nearly over. This season of the hit battle royale game comes to an end on Wednesday, May 8, and now developer Epic Games has revealed when the next one is set to begin with its first teaser image for Season 9.
The teaser, which you can see below, confirms Season 9 will kick off on all platforms this Thursday, May 9. "The Future is Unknown," the tweet reads, suggesting the new season may have some kind of futuristic theme, while the accompanying image shows off what is presumably one of the new skins players will be able to unlock.
If history is any indication, there will likely be more teasers to come in the lead up to Season 9. Epic typically hypes up big occasions in Fortnite--be it the start of a new season or a special event, such as the Fortnite/Avengers: Endgame crossover--by meting out teaser images each day leading up to them, so we'll presumably see more over the next few days.
Epic also has a tradition of ushering in every new season with a major world-changing event in Fortnite, and one such event occurred this past weekend. On May 4, the mysterious vault in Loot Lake opened, and players who jumped inside were able to vote on which vaulted weapon or item to bring back to the game. Ultimately, the Drum Gun was chosen.
Once players returned from the vault, the volcano that sprung up at the start of Season 8 erupted, destroying Titled Towers and dramatically changing the landscape of the island. However, due to technical issues, many players didn't get to witness the event unfold as intended, so Epic is giving out the Arcana Glider for free to those who were in the Unvaulting playlist at the right time.
With Season 9 quickly approaching, time is running out to complete any outstanding Season 8 challenges and unlock the last few Battle Pass rewards. If you need help mopping up any remaining missions, you can find tips and guides for all of the trickier ones in our complete Fortnite Season 8 challenges roundup.
The latest trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home dropped a serious bombshell: the MCU has a multiverse, apparently, and that's where Mysterio is from. Maybe. We've got some conspiracy theories about just how legit that is. But either way, if we assume it's true, it would seem that Thanos' snap did more than just decimate all living creatures in the universe--it tore a hole in reality itself, and now we're seeing the consequences.
The implications here are wild--maybe even more insane than the implications of all those potential alternate timelines left in Avengers: Endgame--and could spell out the future of the MCU as we move into the mysterious Phase 4.
Let's break it down.
What does a multiverse actually do?
If you've seen Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse or if you've ever picked up a superhero comic, you already know the answer to the basics of this question. A multiverse is a system of alternate Earths all occurring at the same time in the same place as one another, separated by different dimensional vibrations. Alternate Earths have all sorts of differences from one another--everything from very slight changes (food brands being different, TV shows being canceled and renewed--you know, normal stuff) to major ones (like whole worlds populated by talking, cartoon animals.)
The function of a multiverse in many comics is to allow for unlimited avenues in storytelling and to explain away various plot holes and continuity problems that come from decades-old superheroes with constantly changing, constantly evolving lore. Multiverses are as utilitarian as they are mind bending.
Marvel's relationship with its own multiversal system is a little unique as of late. Thanks to the Secret Wars event of 2015 (not the one from the 80s, or the one from the early 2000s), a major part of the multiverse was condensed into one new Earth which brought characters from the once-isolated Ultimates universe, Earth-1601--where Miles Morales is Spider-Man--to the "main" Marvel universe, Earth-616. The process erased most everyone's memories of their previous, individual Earths, meaning that almost no one knew there was anything different about the new, amalgamated reality that had been made.
Except, you know, the handful of people who did remember what happened and--well, as you can probably guess, things were a little more complicated for them when it came to navigating the new status quo.
The point being: Marvel's history is rife with multiversal potential and basically free from rules. By introducing a multiverse, the MCU is effectively giving itself carte blanche to really start playing fast and loose with its own established history and continuity.
What does that mean?
With multiple Earths now in play, one of the biggest things the MCU can now do is "resurrect" both heroes and villains who have been taken off the board. There's now a chance we could see Tony Stark again--a different Tony Stark than the one we've dealt with in the main MCU, sure, but still Tony Stark. We could see an alternate reality version of the Skrulls, this time as a group of more familiar conquering aliens. There could be a world out there where Steve Rogers is still an active hero.
There also could be a world out there that literally is the Ultimates universe, meaning a way for the MCU to introduce a live action Miles Morales and have him make the jump into the next phase without taking Tom Holland's Peter Parker out of action. We all saw how things ended for Black Widow in Endgame, even though we know that she's reportedly still got a solo movie in the works--a multiverse means that we may not be stuck in prequel mode for that particular outing afterall. The movie could be focused on any Natasha from any version of Earth.
This actually tracks with the What If? Animated TV show announced for the Disney+ streaming service. Previously explained as "alternate" takes on major MCU moments in the spirit and style of the What If? line of comics, it would make sense for the show to actually take place in different corners of the multiverse where big events went down in totally different ways.
At the end of the day, a multiversal system is a pretty exciting prospect that takes the guard rails of the linear MCU as a whole. Of course, it also has the potential to make things even more complicated--we still don't actually know how the whole timeline thing works in the post-Endgame world--but the limitless potential of an endless list of alternate Earths certainly feels like an exciting road to travel for Phase 4.
Of course, there's also the possibility that the multiverse in Far From Home isn't what it seems. Quentin Beck is not only a villain in the comics, he's a fantastic liar known for staging elaborate illusions and tricks to defeat his enemies, so it might be best to take everything about him with a grain of salt for now. There's a very real chance that this could all be part of his game.
Sony has announced that its next State of Play event will happen on May 9 at 3 PM PT / 6 PM EDT/ 11 PM BST / 8 AM May 10 AEST. The show will last around 10 minutes and feature a new look at the PS4 MediEvil remake, as well as a brand new title.
In a post on the PlayStation Blog, social media director Sid Shuman also said that Sony will "have other updates and announcements from upcoming PS4 games." For those wondering whether there will be any more details about PS5, he said, "Don't expect any updates relating to our next-generation plans this time. Sorry."
State of Play will be streamed on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Of course, GameSpot will also carry the stream and report all the news as it happens.
PlayStation's State of Play is very much modeled on the Nintendo Direct format, though they have generally been much shorter thus far. The first one happened in March and revealed that an Iron Man PlayStation VR game is in the work. We also got a look at a number of other upcoming PS4 titles. You can catch up on everything that happened in March's State of Play here.
While Sony isn't ready to talk about PS5 in the State of Play, a few details have officially been revealed. These include its specs, confirmation of backwards compatibility, and assurance that PS VR will be supported in the next-generation PlayStation. You can read about everything we know about PS5 here.
Avengers: Endgame might be currently destroying box office records across the world, but the next Marvel movie is only two months away. Spider-Man: Far From Home is the follow-up to 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming, and it hits theaters in July. Tickets are now on sale and the latest trailer is here, but before you watch be aware that there are major Endgame spoilers in it. This article contains Avengers: Endgame spoilers--a fact that Tom Holland warns viewers about before it begins.
January's first trailer set up the movie's basic story but with Endgame still to be released at that point, it didn't give away many plot details. This latest trailer however opens up with Peter Parker dealing with Tony Stark's passing. And Parker and his friends decide they need a vacation. However, Nick Fury gets a hold of Parker in order to get his help, as Mysterio--who is said to come from another dimension--needs to take down some gigantic bad guys, and no other Avengers are available. Check it out above.
Spider-Man: Far From Home stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker, Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio, Zendaya as MJ, Jacob Batalon as Ned, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, and Marisa Tomei as May Parker. It's directed by Jon Webb, who also helmed Homecoming, and it releases on July 5, 2019 (although the first showings are on July 2 in the United States). Tickets are now on sale in the US.
This is the last Marvel movie that the studio has confirmed a release date for. However, we know that several new MCU films are on the way as part of Phase 4, and presumably some announcements will be made later this year. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 is happening once more, with James Gunn back in the director's chair. In addition, production is expected to begin this year on the standalone Black Widow movie, starring Scarlett Johansson.
There are also several MCU shows in development for the upcoming streaming platform Disney+. These include a Loki series, the Scarlet Witch show WandaVision, and one focusing on Falcon and Winter Soldier. While release dates are yet to be announced, it was recently confirmed that Marvel shows will start rolling out in 2020.
Recent Articles:
You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website.
No comments:
Post a Comment