making

Link Tank: LEGO Star Wars is Making a Halloween Special

LEGO is making a Star Wars Halloween special sure to scare up some fun shenanigans. “When Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out in 2016, perhaps its most notable achievement was making Darth Vader scary again. After decades of familiarity and the thoroughly unintimidating prequel trilogy, it was almost impossible to remember that once Vader was considered frightening. This Star Wars Halloween Special from LEGO probably won’t change anything, but at least it looks fun.” Read more at Gizmodo The finale for season 5 of Rick and Morty might be setting up a sixth season fans won’t be too…
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Black Lightning is Making the Most of Its Final Season

This Black Lightning article contains spoilers through Season 4, Episode 9. The fourth season of Black Lightning will be its last and, barring any CW superhero crossover cameos or the greenlighting of the Painkiller spinoff, this may be the last time we will see these particular iterations of these comic book characters. The benefit of knowing the end is coming—a relative rarity in broadcast network TV, which are traditionally designed to run forever—is that it can allow writers to go places they might not otherwise go. With four episodes left ever, Black Lightning certainly isn’t holding any of its punches.…
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Tina Documentary Directors Talk About Making an Artist’s Final Statement

HBO’s feature documentary Tina is an intimate overview of Tina Turner, the person behind the musical icon. It is also a final statement, as the singer is moving on from the performance part of her life. The documentary tells Tina’s story the way the singer wanted it told: honestly. Some of Turner’s musical highpoints are skipped, like her scene-stealing role as the Acid Queen in Tommy or her appearance on the bulk of Frank Zappa’s Overnight Sensation. But the story of her early rise to fame, and the oppressive influence her musical mentor, husband and onstage partner Ike Turner had…
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Mortal Kombat: The Challenges of Making the Movie Reboot

“Respect is the word I just kept using over and over,” says Simon McQuoid about his directorial debut, the Mortal Kombat movie reboot. “Elevate and respect the material. So it was all just born out of respect for the characters.” For McQuoid, it’s a challenging beginning to take on such a long-running and venerated franchise. Since 1992, there have been 14 editions of the video game, two animated films, two live action films, an animated series, live actions series for TV and the web, a novelization, and even a live stage show. McQuoid and 30+ year industry veteran, producer Todd…
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Vikings Season 6 Part One Recap: Making Kings, a Kattegat Killing, and the Rus Threat

This article contains spoilers for Vikings season 6 part one. Season five of Vikings saw Ivar’s dreams of rule, romance, and Godhood collapse around him like a volcano on Floki’s head. Defeated by his band of brothers, betrayed by his wife, Freydis, the tyrant was forced to disguise himself as a peasant and smuggle himself out of Kattegat in the back of a merchant’s cart.  We left our heroes (a relative term in the topsy-turvy, strifey-knifey world of Vikings, admittedly) ready to begin the task of rebuilding their lives and their stronghold of Kattegat, all the while standing in the…
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Die Hard 2: Making the Sequel to the Greatest Christmas Movie of All

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – for Die Hard fans. While there may be a little less festive cheer to go around this December, one thing remains constant during the holiday season: the debate about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. And one man who probably knows better than most is screenwriter Doug Richardson. Besides Bruce Willis himself, Richardson has had a hand in more Die Hard films than almost anyone out there, starting with the similarly festive follow-up Die Hard 2: Die Harder. While Willis is firmly in the “no” camp on the question of…
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The Untamed’s Xiao Zhan is Making a New TV Show, And it Has a Trailer

If you’ve been on certain corners of the internet in the last year, then you’ve probably at least heard of The Untamed, the Chinese feudal-era fantasy melodrama filled with beautiful, bewigged men. Based on a queer romance web novel called Mo Dao Zu Shi or The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, the live-action screen adaptation (not to be confused with the animated or audio drama adaptations of the source material) follows Wei Wuixan (Xiao Zhan) and Lan Wangji (Wang Yibo), two soulmates and cultivators seeking justice in an often corrupt world of inter-clan rivalry. It’s brilliant, and is available to stream…
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Fear the Walking Dead: Lennie James on Making His Directorial Debut in Season 6 Episode 2

This Fear the Walking Dead article contains spoilers. Following one of the most infuriating cliffhangers in Fear the Walking Dead history, last Sunday’s season 6 premiere, “The End Is the Beginning,” finally confirmed that fan-favorite character Morgan Jones is alive and well(ish). Following an epic showdown with a no-nonsense bounty hunter with an affinity for big axes and baked beans, Morgan finds himself reinvigorated and dead-set on liberating his people from Virginia’s group of murderous trailblazers. While the second episode of season 6 won’t feature Morgan in the flesh, it will mark the directorial debut of Lennie James himself. Back…
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Link Tank: Radha Blank on the Making Netflix’s The Forty-Year-Old Version

The Forty-Year-Old Version on Netflix is a must watch. Check out this interview with creator Radha Blank. “The logline of Radha Blank’s The Forty-Year-Old Version — a struggling playwright takes up rapping at 40 — doesn’t tell the full story. Blank’s semi-autobiographical movie is painting on a much bigger canvas than that. It’s a portrait of Blank’s New York, where she works teaching high school students playwriting while trying to get her own work produced.” Read more at Thrillist. Like SDCC’s lackluster Comic-Con@Home, NYCC’s virtual con happened without much fanfare. To sum things up, here’s every trailer you missed from…
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The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever

The following contains spoilers for WNUF Halloween Special. In 1987, local news station WNUF held a special publicity stunt on Halloween night. Reporter Frank Stewart, joined by paranormal investigators and a priest, entered the infamous (and presumably haunted) Webber House, an empty home that was the site of a gruesome double murder. Hoping to get some ratings by doing a live call-in séance and an exorcism, Stewart and the others bit off more than they could chew as the event went completely awry. While the televised special ended in confusion, a special VHS tape was discovered years later that showed…
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The Boys Season 2: Who Is Making Everyone’s Head Explode?

This article contains spoilers for The Boys Season 2 Episode 7 During the final minutes of the penultimate episode of The Boys’ second season, ‘Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker’, there was a mad scramble when a crucial courtroom showdown set up by Mallory and our gang went very badly awry. The plan seemed fairly fool proof: with help from the series’ very own version of AOC, Congresswomen Victoria Neuman, the team would force retired Vought scientist Dr. Jonah Vogelbaum – key in the creation of supes like Homelander – to testify about the company’s history of experiments with Compound V; experiments…
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: A Tale of Immortality A Decade in the Making

This article is sponsored by The first time I ever interviewed V.E. Schwab, she told me about The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It was July 2018 and we were sitting in the lobby of the Hilton Bayfront Hotel during San Diego Comic Con. Schwab was in the midst of a promotional tour for Vengeful, the second book in her Villains series, with the launch of her middle grade fantasy series City of Ghosts just around the corner, but she couldn’t help but also mention then work-in-progress The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. “I never shut the fuck up about…
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The Godfather Making-Of Movie Casts Oscar Isaac as Francis Ford Coppola

Like Michael Corleone dreaming of a life with Kay, Hollywood may never be able to go back to the way things were in the 1970s… but they can make movies about what is generally viewed as their second golden age! Fresh off news that Ben Affleck will direct a movie about the making of Chinatown, another Paramount Pictures masterpiece of the New Hollywood era is getting its own film with Barry Levinson’s Frances and The Godfather. And now Jake Gyllenhaal and Oscar Isaac are climbing aboard, with the latter playing Francis Ford Coppola. The news comes out of Deadline, which…
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Xbox Boss Says Microsoft Intends to Keep Making Consoles Despite Streaming Innovations

In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Xbox head Phil Spencer states that Microsoft intends to continue producing console hardware in the future. “In terms of future hardware, absolutely I think we’re going to see more console hardware down the road,” Spencer says. “Just like in video, just like in music, it’s not that streaming has cut off device innovation. I think we’ll continue to see that, and that’s absolutely what we’re planning for.” Spencer’s comments come in response to concerns that Microsoft’s aggressive growth of the Game Pass subscription service and xCloud gaming platform would seem to suggest that they…
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Go Inside the Making of We Bare Bears: The Movie (Exclusive)

We Bare Bears: The Movie was an absolute delight and even thought it released at the end of June I’m still thinking about it. The way it managed to balance the comedy and melancholy of the series with its absolutely riveting message is one that’ll speak to generations to come. We got a chance to speak with Daniel Chong about the film when it came out but there’s even more We Bare Bears: The Movie behind-the-scenes content that’s coming soon! The movie will hit DVD on September 8, 2020 and will be stacked (in true We Bare Bears fashion) with…
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Link Tank: The Last of Us 2 Stuntwoman on the Making of the Game’s Ending

A stuntwoman for The Last of Us 2 reveals the work that went into making the game’s ending. “Stuntwoman Amy Johnston experienced them all to provide motion capture, primarily for Abby, but also stunts for central characters like Ellie, Dina, Yara, Lev, and a slew of other unnamed enemies, including some Infected.” Read more at Inverse. Everyone has that one show they rewatch over and over in times of stress. Here’s why they are important. “There is a difference between your favorite show and your comfort show. Sure, there are some overlaps (my list proves that) but it also depends on you…
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Ben Affleck to Direct Film About Hollywood Making Chinatown

Ben Affleck is returning to 1970s Hollywood for his next directorial effort. As the filmmaker who won a Best Picture Oscar for Argo in 2013, a movie that briefly crossed paths with Tinseltown at the height of Star Wars fever in the late ‘70s, Affleck already knows well the setting of The Big Goodbye, which is being developed at Paramount Pictures. And with the new movie focused on Paramount’s struggles in making the legendary Chinatown, this means Affleck is helming a movie where Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski, and Faye Dunaway are all characters. Also set to write the screenplay, Affleck…
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Making the Case for Fear City: New York vs the Mafia

Director Sam Hobkinson’s Fear City: New York vs The Mafia details the historic investigation and prosecution of New York’s criminal Commission. The resulting convictions of the law enforcement actions marked an end of an era. New York was no longer under the thumb of mob bosses; businesses maintained control of their goods, manufacturing and trafficking; the thin blue line thickened. As the documentary points out, the Mafia was untouchable when they controlled illegal street trade, but when they made offers which legitimate business couldn’t refuse, law enforcement stepped in and cleaned up. Fear City: New York vs The Mafia depicts…
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Martin Scorsese Making Documentary on New York Dolls’ David Johansen

Is it a crime to fall in love with Frankenstein? Martin Scorsese has, and hard. Pre-punk hard. The director is best known for movies with killer soundtracks, but he’s also brought such classic musical films as The Last Waltz–he even got Michael Jackson down a subway platform in the music video for “Bad.” Not to mention the work he did early in his career following Elvis Presley. Scorsese will next tilt his camera at the legendary David Johansen in a Showtime documentary, according to Rolling Stone. “I’ve known David Johansen for decades, and his music has been a touchstone ever…
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