Liam Hemsworth as Gerald of RiviaScreenshot: Netflix YouTube
In real life, if you look at them side by side, Liam Hemsworth and Henry Cavill don’t really resemble each other. But put them in White Wolf wig and costume, and turn the brightness way down, and… man, The Witcher’s continuity problem isn’t seeming so dire now.
Who Should Be the Next James Bond? io9 Picks
After on-set photos of Hemsworth in his Geralt of Rivia ensemble leaked earlier this week, Netflix released a very short video revealing the first official glimpse of him in character. It’s gloomy, sure, but who else reacted by muttering “I can’t believe it’s not Cavill?”
The Witcher: Season 4 | First Look | Netflix
Season four of The Witcher—as previously announced, the show will end after its fifth installment, with seasons four and five filming back to back—is now in production, so don’t hold your breath for a trailer anytime soon. The fourth season of the adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novels will be the first without Cavill as the titular monster-hunter, but it will feature the return of Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, and Joey Batey as Yennefer, Ciri, and Jaskier the bard—plus a few more new faces, including Laurence Fishburne and Sharlto Copley.
You can watch the previous three seasons of The Witcheron Netflix now.
Netflix Passwords, ChatGPT Can’t Detect AI, and No More CoTweets | Editor Picks
Instead, 3 Body Problem’s renewal just came with messaging that said “the story continues” and “3 Body Problem returns.” A post on Netflix’s Tudum confirmed that the show will continue to be “created, executive produced, and written by the returning trio of [David] Benioff, [Dan] Weiss, and [Alexander] Woo,” but that “all other details are under wraps including the number of seasons and episodes which will be revealed at a later date.”
Today, speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, which further pointed to Netflix’s recent upfront presentation making similarly vague promises of “additional episodes” to “finish the story,” Benioff, Weiss, and Woo sounded confident they’ll be able to realize their full vision for the show. According to the trade, the trio wouldn’t name a number of episodes, but teased “seasons,” and “that the number of hours aligns with their original plan to adapt author Liu Cixin’s two remaining novels in his Hugo-winning trilogy.”
Like the books, the 3 Body Problem series has been a commercial and critical hit, and the trio told THR they’re currently writing the next season—which they estimate will be a three-year process. “We’re now at a place where we get to tell the rest of the story,” Benioff said. “And, yes, we have enough time to tell the rest of the story the way we want to and that’s immensely gratifying.”
Given that timeline, fans shouldn’t expect new 3 Body Problem episodes anytime soon—but knowing they’re on the way, and will build toward a satisfying conclusion, should help ease the wait.
You can watch season one of 3 Body Problem on Netflix now.
The official Star Wars site just posted a beautiful new video of Stenberg, who stars in the upcoming The Acolyte, playing the violin, something they’ve been doing since childhood. But what’s special about this video though is that John Williams himself not only approved Stenberg to play the piece, he also wrote them a specific new version optimized for solo violin. Which basically means you’ve heard the Star Wars theme a billion times, but never quite like this. Check it out.
The Acolyte | Amandla & Her Violin | Streaming June 4 on Disney+
Well, that was amazing. And we’re hoping Stenberg is equally as amazing as Mae, their character on The Acolyte which is coming sooner than you think on June 4. Mae is described by the official Star Wars site as someone who “gets swept up into a sinister mystery—one that puts her into the center of a conflict in unexpected ways.” We imagine that will be expanded out mightily in the coming months.
As for Williams, as far as we know, his music isn’t in The Acolyte (the composer for the show is Get Out’s Michael Abels), but hopefully, we get a theme here and there. The show, which co-stars Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Joonas Suotamo, and Carrie-Anne Moss, premieres with two episodes on June 4. Are you as excited as we are?
Last year, a new horror franchise took flight with Pooh: Blood & Honey. With the iconic bear now in the public domain, the film turned Winnie and Piglet into a pair of grim slasher villains carving up a post-grad Christopher Robin and several university students. It went over about as well as expected, but did well enough financially to kick off both its own sequel and a larger universe—sorry, Poohniverse—for more public domain characters to get a horror treatment.
Spoilers of the Week: July 22nd
Blood & Honey 2already dropped this year, so now we’re getting our first look at the whole “expanded universe” part of the thing. Per Variety, classic characters Pinocchio and Peter Pan are set to headline their own individual films, both of which are currently being sold at Cannes. Pinocchio: Unstrungtakes the boy puppet will be welcomed into the Poohniverse “with a bang,” said director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who also helmed the two Pooh movies. The film’s being pitched as a subversion of Carlo Collodi’s classic 1883 book, and one that’ll rely more on practical gore—one scene, according to Variety, will see the title character wear the skin of one of his victims to “feel like a real boy.”
Meanwhile, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmareputs Martin Portlock (Scream of the Wolf) in the title role, who’s gone and kidnapped Michael (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), the younger brother of Wendy Darling (Megan Placito). She endeavors to save him with Tinkerbell’s (Kit Green) help, who in this universe is a heroin junkie convinced that it’s actually pixie dust. Once you’re done rolling your eyeballs, the cast is further filled by Charity Kase as Captain Hook, and the likes of Kierston Wareing, Nicholas Woodeson, Olumide Olorunfemi, and Teresa Banham in currently undisclosed roles.
Like the Marvel movies this is trying to emulate, Peter and Pin are getting solo movies to prepare them for a bigger future in the so-called Twisted Childhood Universe. Both characters will converge with Pooh and Piglet in Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble in 2025, which’ll also introduce the likes of Sleeping Beauty and the Mad Hatter. The TCU aims to keep on keeping on after the crossover, because a third Blood & Honey is locked in for 2026, while solo movies for Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are also said to be in the works. Yay?
At time of writing, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is set to release later this year after production wraps, while Pinocchio: Unstrung will release in 2025 ahead of Monsters Assemble.
The dust seems to have mostly settled on the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar rap beef (for now), but the musical back and forth between the two hip-hop titans has imprinted itself on pop culture. That imprint includes video game mods, as a Mortal Kombat 1fan has recently recreated both rappers in the game to pit them against each other. You can check out a match using the mod below, but spoilers, it ends the same way the real-world beef did: Kendrick won.
How Invincible’s Omni-Man Joined Mortal Kombat 1
The mod by NegativeZoneNerd is up on Nexus Mods as Def Jam MK1 Pack 1 – Kendrick VS Drake, a reference to the Def Jam fighting game series starring different rappers and hip-hop artists from the mid-2000s. The series has been dormant since 2007, so fans haven’t been able to pit a lot of modern rappers against one another in a fighting game. But this Mortal Kombat 1 mod is a decent enough substitute. The Def Jam MK1 Pack has two options to play as Lamar, one makes the “Not Like Us” rapper a skin for Reiko, and the other lets you play as him as a skin for Kung Lao. Drake, meanwhile, is a skin for Johnny Cage.
The Drake vs. Kendrick beef has been entertaining to watch unfold and I don’t think I’ve ever seen people be so unified online. Though it seems both of them have stopped dropping songs about each other for now, it was easily one of the most significant pop culture moments of 2024, even though it’s only May. People love to watch others be haters. I now understand why they held gladiator matches in ancient Rome. Mortal Kombat 1 mods aren’t those, but the fighting game is brutal enough that it gives you a modicum of the same adrenaline rush.
ThatX-Men ‘97 season finale was quite the sucker punch for fans invested in Marvel Animation’s revived classic series coming into a modern era. We saw the X-Men overcome seemingly insurmountable odds against Bastion after the reveal that he was this season’s big bad—not the red herrings Magneto and Sinister (who still played a major villainous role in the finale).
Who Should Be The New Wolverine? io9 Picks
But it was the surprise during the end credits scene that revealed more end-of the-world sized threats were on the way—including a major villain. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, supervising producer and head director Jake Castorena, head of Marvel Animation Brad Winderbaum, and episodic director Emi Yonemura discussed the exciting X-Men ‘97 twist.
“All roads eventually lead to Apocalypse,” Castorena told EW about bringing in the major X-Men foe into the fold. “I mean, how do they not? It’s either Apocalypse or Magneto or Sinister more often than not.” It makes sense after having the X-Men appear in the past in Egypt to meet En Sabah Nur, who has been affected by the alien powers of his origin, to contrast that with him as Apocalypse in the present, post-Bastion battle.
“It was always part of Beau [DeMayo]’s pitch to bring Apocalypse in at a certain point,” said Winderbaum, referring to the series creator, who has since left the show. “Apocalypse was never really on the table for season one, but he was always top of mind as we thought about the future.”
Yonemura added that it’s a plan they’re still keeping in place. “I love it because both Magneto and Xavier are right and wrong, so you’ve got to have this other party come in and completely destroy how both of them see the world, completely put both of them at odds and challenge their thoughts,” they said. “But also, his ultimate goal is power. What does that mean? How does that manifest?”
Added Castorena, “Magneto is somebody that embraces their mutant identity, their mutant nature, and behooves others to do the same. Apocalypse is the first mutant that refuses to acknowledge that.” The character helps raise the tension surrounding Charles and Magneto’s ever-evolving discourse about the X-Men existing among humanity.
It will be interesting to see how the X-Men influence En Sabah Nur before he progresses into Apocalypse with powers that include strength, shapeshifting, mental abilities, and immortality; he shows up when the X-Men scatter across timelines and does the wildest thing—picks up Gambit’s card—which to fans foreshadowed how, in the comics, he used his superior tech to turn certain mutants into his his Four Horsemen: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. Will Gambit be reanimated like in the comics to be the Horseman of Death? Castorena’s reference in the interview was knowingly cryptic: “Oh, did something happen with Gambit in the comics? Oh, that’s cool.”
Watch X-Men ‘97 season one now streaming on Disney+.
This year is already off to a very good start at the movies but 2025 is looking even bigger, in more ways than one. Fresh off the huge success of last year’s Oppenheimer and this year’s Dune: Part Two, IMAX just revealed 14 titles in 2025 that will not only be released in IMAX, but are being filmed specifically for the format.
Spoilers of the Week | June 10th
The list, so far, is as follows:
Captain America: Brave New World – February 15, 2025
Untitled Ryan Coogler/Michael B. Jordan – March 7, 2025
Of course, as these films are all so far out, release dates are subject to change and there will probably be more films using IMAX cameras in the coming months. (Also, why isn’t Avatar 3 on this list? Did Cameron not use IMAX cameras? What about Gareth Edwards and Jurassic World?)
Now, for real film nerds, you all have one question right now. Since all of these films are being “filmed in IMAX,” will they just be released in normal, bigger, 1.9:1 IMAX? Or will any of them be full-frame, Christopher Nolan/Denis Villeneuve 1.43:1 IMAX? io9 reached out to IMAX for clarity and was told since most of these films are still in production, they couldn’t confirm what each film is using or what format each will be released in. It’s simply too early to be sure.
But let’s have some fun and guess anyway.
As none of the Marvel movies have ever gone 1.43, you can probably cross all those off the list. Same for the other Disney movie, Tron. Coogler/Jordan is rumored to be a period vampire movie, which sounds amazing, but maybe not “1.43 IMAX” amazing. Flowervale Street is rumored to be about dinosaurs and David Robert Mitchell is an exciting filmmaker, but I’m still thinking “No” there. Mission: Impossible 8 is a real possibility since the format has been used in the franchise, plus this is rumored to be the end of the saga so it would be a nice boost. I doubt How to Train Your Dragon would as it’s a family film but, you never know. The Joseph Kosinski-Brad Pitt Formula One movie, with its rumored $300 million budget, feels like the most obvious one to use the 1.43 aspect ratio, followed closely by James Gunn’s Superman. That would set an exciting precedent for the start of the DC Universe, if true. Mercy is an Amazon movie so, probably not that, and then there’s The Bride!, which we’re of course excited about but seems a bit more personal than epic. But again, that’s all just speculation.
No matter what the case though, even if none of the films go the full Nolan, just filming for IMAX does give the screen a significant jump in size, not to mention the incredible sound. Out of all of the premium formats out there, it’s certainly my favorite, and one of the most profitable for studios too.
This week’s season finale of X-Men ‘97 brought an emotional, explosive climax to mutantkind’s battle against Bastion and the Prime Sentinels—and the X-Men love nothing more for their soap operatic drama than a big emotional twist while everything’s going bonkers. The finale delivered on that front… although as with a lot of the X-Men’s problems, we’re going to have to wait and see how it pans out.
What Did the Actors Bring to Their Back to the Future: The Musical Performances?
As the battle on Asteroid M rages around the X-Men in “Tolerance Is Extinction, Part 3” and the team attempts to stop the station from plummeting into Earth in a cataclysmic event, a brief moment cuts to the X-Men’s blackbird jet as Morph watches over a sedated Wolverine, grievously wounded the episode prior when Magneto used his powers to tear the adamantium from Logan’s skeleton. Ouch. In his regenerative slumber, Logan keeps calling out for Jean Grey—but it’s Morph who’s at his side. Realizing they might not get another chance, with the base crashing down around them, Morph mutters to themselves “she can’t say it, but I can…” as they shapeshift into Jean, and use her form to add “I love you, Logan. Stay with me.”
To be fair, Morph has not been a subtle person about their feelings for Logan throughout this season—we’ve seen them spending a lot of time together, and Morph has constantly had a flirtatious vibe with Logan, from thinking he was eagerly following him into the showers in “Fire Made Flesh” (tricked by a supernatural vision of their desires, happens to the best of us) or bringing a six pack of beer and shifting into Logan’s archnemesis Sabretooth for some late night grappling. But just in case you’ve not been picking up what they’ve been putting down—it’s not exactly clear if Logan has been, either—former showrunner Beau DeMayo took to social media in the wake of the finale that yes, that wasn’t Morph trying to reassure Logan as Jean, that was Morph mustering their courage to reveal their own feelings to Logan.
It would make Morph the first explicitly romantically queer character on X-Men ‘97 so far, but as for how it’s going to pan out for them, things might not be so rosy. In the replies to DeMayo’s post confirming the intent behind Morph’s confession, the former showrunner acknowledged that Morph was potentially chasing after a straight man, and that never goes well for queer people. And that’s even before you get to the hot mess of confessing your feelings for someone while wearing the face of the person they have feelings for already. Hoo boy, Morph, you truly are a member of the X-Men with dramatic timing like that! It’s also something that Morph’s voice actor JP Karliak doesn’t necessarily want for the character, either.
“As somebody who’s consumed a ton of queer media over the years–what coded things we had in the ’90s—I think there have been so many stories told about the queer person that’s pining over the straight best friend. Meh!” the actor told Polygon this week about potentially setting Morph up for catching feelings that will go unrequited. “It’s kind of meh to me! I think it’s so much more interesting that they love each other like they’re Frodo and Samwise, and that’s great. It doesn’t need to be more than that. And they can support each other. It makes Morph razzing Wolverine by turning into Jean Grey so much less about like, ‘Oh, I’m jealous, so I’m gonna, like, razz you about your girlfriend who I hate,’ and more about, ‘Hey, buddy, I think this is harmful for you, and I just want to point this out, that maybe you need to move on.’”
Whatever DeMayo and X-Men ‘97‘s creative team has planned for Morph and Logan’s relationship remains to be seen—before DeMayo exited the series, his work had already been completed on season two. But suffice to say, poor Morph is going to be in for a hell of a time between being flung through time, watching the aftermath of the person they’ve caught feelings for get half their skeleton ripped out of their body, and y’know, the whole surviving yet another threat of eradicating their entire kind and the rest of the planet along with them. Business as usual for the X-Men.
Oreo has dropped a collaboration with Lucasfilm featuring special edition Star Wars sandwich cookies. Fans will be able to buy packs of the classic treat representing either the light side or dark side of the Force.
The fun catch? You won’t know which side you’ve got until you actually open the package. Each pack will feature one of two different color fillings: red for the dark side and blue for the light side—both infused with “kyber” sugar crystals inspired by lightsaber cores. The Oreos also feature heroes or villains embossed on the cookies themselves, with characters like Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and a stormtrooper representing the dark side, and Luke Skywalker, Yoda, and Princess Leia representing the light side. In total, there will be 20 iconic characters featured.
The limited time Star Wars Oreo cookie packs will be available for presale starting May 30 at Oreo.com/StarWars and they will begin rolling out at retailers nationwide June 10. Take a look at the designs in the gallery ahead!
Just how far would you be willing to go to avoid the dreaded hangover? Researchers in Switzerland have developed an oral gel meant to prevent booze from breaking down into the toxic compounds most responsible for a hangover. In mice, it appeared to work as intended.
Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder and chief scientist, announced he was leaving the company on Tuesday. OpenAI confirmed the departure in a press release. Sutskever’s official exit comes nearly six months after he helped lead an effort with other board members to fire CEO Sam Altman, the move backfired days later.
I Gave Sam Altman a Copy of My Eyeballs | Future Tech
“After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI,” said Sutskever via a tweet on Tuesday afternoon. “I am excited for what comes next — a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time.”
“Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways,” said Altman in a tweet shortly after. “This is very sad to me; Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend.”
Altman went on to say that Jakub Pachocki, a senior researcher on Sutskever’s team, would be replacing him as OpenAI’s Chief Scientist. Sutskever notes an undisclosed project that is very “meaningful” to him moving forward. It’s unclear at this time what that project is.
Jan Leike, another OpenAI executive who worked with Sutskever on safeguarding future AI, also resigned on Tuesday, according to The Information. Leike and Sutskever led OpenAI’s superalignment team, charged with the grandiose task of making sure the company’s super-powerful AI does not turn against humans.
For the last six months, Sutskever’s status has been unclear at OpenAI. When Altman returned to the company in late Nov. of 2023, he said this on Sutskever: “we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI.” Sutskever was the only member of OpenAI left in limbo at the time—neither fired nor rehired.
Since then, Altman has refused to answer questions about Sutskever’s status at the company in multiple interviews. We barely heard from Sutskever himself during this time period. This is Sutskever’s first tweet in over five months, and OpenAI’s chief scientist was missing from major announcements such as Sora and this week’s GPT-4 Omni.
Earlier this year, founding OpenAI member Andrej Karpathy left the company. In that case as well, Karpathy did not provide a particular reason for his exit, and later described that he would work on personal projects.
Sutskever posted a photo with OpenAI leaders Altman, Mira Murati, Greg Brockman, and Jakub Pachocki shortly after announcing his exit. Severa; featured in the photo posted kind messages about Sutskever’s tenure at OpenAI, praising the well-renowned scientist for his contributions to the artificial intelligence world.
The past decade has seen humanoid robot makers trying to make their creations more and more like humans. But here in 2024, we seem to be witnessing an odd shift in the dexterity of our bipedal robo-dreams. Put bluntly, robotics companies aren’t afraid of getting weird with the contortions of their latest offerings.
Warning! Microsoft Wants ChatGPT to Control Robots Next
China-based Unitree Robotics released a new video on Monday, available on YouTube, showing off the new G1 which retails for $16,000. It’s just the latest demonstration of a robot maneuvering in entirely un-human ways to accomplish its goals, as you can see in the GIF above.
The video includes lots of odd movements, showing how the robot can get up off the ground or greet people by pulling a sort of Exorcist move with its torso, rotating 180 degrees. And it all looks strikingly similar to the new version of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, which has a novel way of getting on its feet.
There’s also a demonstration of the Unitree robot getting kicked and pushed, presumably to show how well it can balance, even when it meets resistance. But we’d be lying if we said it didn’t make us uncomfortable. These are, after all, robots made to look like humans. And watching wanton cruelty, even against a machine that doesn’t have feelings, sets off something deep in our brain that says they shouldn’t be doing that.
Unitree Introducing | Unitree G1 Humanoid Agent | AI Avatar | Price from $16K
Again, these contortions all seem a bit new. A decade ago, Gizmodo attended the DARPA Robotics Challenge in Southern California, where teams largely competed by trying to make their robots as much like humans as possible. Companies like Boston Dynamics released new videos each year showing its robots walking, running, and then eventually doing backflips, all in the same way that talented humans might do it.
But we seem to be on the cusp of a new era when it comes to robotics. Most robot makers have achieved basic human-style walking and running. The new frontier is taking that form factor and turning them into super-humans, whether by performing gymnastics or applying logic and reason to the world in front of them.
We’re still a long way from AGI that’ll help robots get chores done, but if we continue on this trajectory, it seems unlikely robots will be doing the mundane tasks that humans don’t want to do. We allowed AI to skip all the boring stuff and jump right ahead to making music and writing poetry. It seems silly to think we’re building an army of butlers to serve humanity with that technology. No, we’re probably going to be letting the robots paint beautiful landscapes while we’re all stuck at our desks filling out Excel spreadsheets if the recent past is any guide.
Dune: Part Twowas a hit, so while it’s a little surprising there’s been no official announcement on expected third movie Dune Messiah, here’s a consolation: the first update in awhile on Dune: Prophecy, the Bene Gesserit-centric prequel series (originally titled Dune: The Sisterhood) in the works at Max.
Denis Villeneuve on Ending Dune: Part Two That Way
Indian superstar Tabu, whose work outside of Hindi films includes Life of Piand The Namesake, has joined the cast in the recurring role of Sister Francesca. The character is described in Variety’s report as “strong, intelligent, and alluring, Sister Francesca leaves a lasting impression in her wake. Once a great love of the Emperor, her return to the palace strains the balance of power in the capital.”
It’s an encouraging bit of news for Dune: Prophecy, which has had a bumpy road amid a series ofcast and director changes—though that’s not necessarily a knock against what the series will eventually be. It was first announced back in 2019, just before the entertainment world faced major schedule changes from the pandemic and then the Hollywood strikes. Just look at how well those delayed Dune feature filmsturned out!
Along with Tabu, the cast for Dune: Prophecy includes Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel, Johdi May, Mark Strong, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Josh Heuston, Chloe Lea, Jade Anouka, Faoileann Cunningham, Edward Davis, Aoife Hinds, Chris Mason, and Shalom Brune-Franklin. So far there’s no release date, but the series is heading to Max eventually.
Each Planet of the Apesreboot has featured a central human in the conflict between the hyperintelligent apes and what remains of the human race. For the newly released Kingdom, our human proxy is Mae, played by The Witcher’s Freya Allan. Though she initially seems like a regular feral human—who can’t speak, as previously seen in War for the Planet of the Apes—it turns out Mae’s not what she seems: she’s intelligent and can talk like a modern person would, something Noa (Own Teague) has never seen before.
Lego’s New UCS TIE Interceptor Was Worth the 24 Year Wait
Talking to the Hollywood Reporter, Allan opened up on a number of topics, including that reveal of Mae’s intelligence. In the interview, she admitted that she’d been fully prepared to lie about that aspect of her character, something director Wes Ball also wanted to be kept secret. Having that reveal come in one of the newer trailers was a “shame,” she remarked, but one she still hoped would catch viewers off guard like it does Noa and his companion Raka.
For those early moments where Mae seems like a regular ol’ feral, Allan drew upon moments from her childhood of pretending to be an animal. The intent was for Mae to strike a balance between not being a “too perfect” mimic of ferals she heard about in stories growing up and “a rabbit in the headlights” so she wouldn’t draw suspicion. With help from movement coordinator Alain Gauthier, Allan gave Mae a physicality similiar to other feral humans, but not entirely. “She’s not feral, and she doesn’t know that much about them. She hasn’t actually seen one [until early act two],” she stated. “So you need to see those small moments where you go, ‘She’s not the same as other humans.’”
In the second half of act two, it’s revealed that Mae isn’t just not feral, she was part of a small group of humans looking to destroy human technology locked in a vault in the heart of ape monarch Promixus’ kingdom. She achieves that goal by flooding the vault before escaping, but when she and Noa meet again at his home, it’s eventually revealed mid-conversation that she’s armed with a gun and is fully prepared to use it on him.
Allan called that scene “so different” from how it was originally shot: initially, Noa turned around and while he’s talking, she would’ve pointed that gun at the back of his head. “You think, ‘Oh my God, is she about to shoot him?’ And Mae is crying as she’s doing it, like, ‘Am I about to shoot him?’” Allan recalled. “And then she doesn’t. The minute he mentions Raka’s name, she puts the gun down.” It was changed in the editing to feel “more subtle,” a choice she advocated for since it makes for a murkier dynamic in future films.
“Mae was going there to kill [Noa] because he scares her,” she continued. “His intelligence scares her. She doesn’t want to kill him, but she feels she has to. And in that moment, she can’t. She’s done so many brutal things, but she can’t pull that trigger. So it becomes a very emotional goodbye, one with tragic, lingering doom. So that’s what I shot, but that’s the amazing thing about editing. You can change it and make it more up for interpretation.”
To Allan, Mae’s actions throughout the film were an even split between careful planning and thinking on the fly. Following Noa around and eventually speaking were planned, she said, but getting cornered by Proximus’ men accelerated that last part sooner than expected. In other moments, Mae knew her mission would be easier if she got Noa and his clan on her side, she just needed to keep her full intent close to the chest. There’s glimpses of genuine camaraderie between them that could speak to how humans and apes could co-exist, but at the end of the day, “she has her own motives, and they’re not on the same team. […] What else is she supposed to do? Just tell him instantly that she wants to reconnect the humans of the entire planet? Obviously not.”
The modern Apes movies don’t bring back their human characters, but it sounds like this new run of films will continue to have Mae as a central character (if they get made). Allan hopes to keep portraying Mae, if only to see where she, Noa, and the other characters go next. “There’s such a theme of everything that they’ve ever known being completely challenged,” she said, “and I really want to see what they then do with what they’ve learned and where that takes them and how the things that they’ve gone through affect them. I would love to return.”
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is now playing in theaters.
We’re about halfway through 2024, and we’ve gotten some solid showings of horror both on TV (like Chucky, Them: The Scare) and in the theaters (Abigail, Late Night With the Devil). There’s more to come with the likes of Alien: Romulus and Speak No Evil, and Netflix is adding something new into the mix with Nightmares & Daydreams.
Spoilers of the Week: July 8th
Similar to Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, the new show is an anthology from Indonesian filmmaker Joko Anwar (Satan’s Slaves: Communion). Across seven episodes, a group of ordinary people come across strange events that may hold the answer to humanity’s creation and whatever lies in the future. “Characters and plots will intertwine like pieces of a puzzle,” reads the synopsis, “And the big picture will be awe-inspiring.”
Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams | Official Teaser | Netflix
As seen in the trailer above, the stories will be spread across multiple time periods, from the past to the far future and feature cults, a massive clock tower, people trapped in houses, and malicious subliminal messaging. The series will also feature frequent Anwar collaborators in its cast, such as Ario Bayu—whose first breakthrough role was in Anwar’s Dead Time: Kala—and Marissa Anita (Impetigore, Ritual).
Nightmares was first announced back in 2022, where Anwar called his home country “so full of unique and extraordinary stories.” With the new trailer, he explained his aim was to make the series relatable to most Indonesians, but with some added political and social themes through a sci-fi supernatural lens. International horror takes many forms depending on the country, and in the case of Indonesia, there’s been some pretty strong and scary showings.
We’ll find out how Nightmares & Daydreams stacks up when it hits Netflixon June 14.
There’s a new human entering the Jurassic World franchise, and he’s gonna be fighting for his life in this new film.
Exclusive Jurassic World Dominion Bonus Feature Clip
Per Deadline, actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo—best known for The Magnificent Seven’s 2016 reboot and Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer—has signed on for a starring role. (Sadly, he probably won’t be a public defender for dinosaurs or a dinosaur cowboy, two things this franchise could use.) Details on his character are currently under wraps, but he joins Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey in the Gareth Edwards-directed film. For Garcia-Rulfo, who’s also headlining Netflix’s PedroPáramo, this marks his biggest film role to date.
Unlike the last Jurassic trilogy, this new flick doesn’t plan to bring back any returning actors from the previous runs like Chris Pratt or Laura Dern. At the moment, it’s not even fully clear what this’ll be about beyond the general premise of humans running away from dinosaurs that want to eat them. Written by Jurassic alum David Koepp, the movie’s been previously described as a “fresh take” on the material, whose last installment was Jurassic World: Dominion back in 2022. It’s expected to start filming in the UK in June, then in Malta from July all the way to September.
Jurassic World 4 is currently dated to come out on July 2, 2025. (A busy month that’ll be, between that, Superman, and The Fantastic Four.) We’ll have more news on the film as things develops.
Giancarlo Esposito Instantly Knew Baby Yoda was the star of The The Mandalorian
The news was first reported by TheInSneider and a Lucasfilm representative could not be reached for comment. io9 sources, however, do believe the story to be accurate. There’s also no word on who Weaver could be playing in the film but it’s Star Wars! She could be anyone or anything: human, alien, bounty hunter, droid. She played a teenage version of herself in 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water. She’s got range.
The Mandalorian and Grogu is the next Star Wars film coming and, with production expected to start later this year, it makes sense cast is starting to get locked in. Jon Favreau is writing and directing, as he has done on much of the first three seasons of The Mandalorian, with Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy producing. We still don’t even have “official” confirmation of returning Mando cast members such as Pedro Pascal, Katee Sackhoff, and others, but we do know that Grogu will be there. And really that’s all that matters.
So what do you think? Does Weaver fit in a galaxy far, far away? Do you want her to play a hero? A villain? A scoundrel? Will you be buying her action figure? To that last question, we certainly say yes.
io9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we feature a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim.
Approaching Queerness in Doctor Who
Note: The formatting of this story is essential to the reading of it—and some of the formatting was difficult to render in both web and ebook formats. To work around that, the story uses regular text whenever possible and has the text rendered as images when it is not.
If you prefer, you can also read this story on LIGHTSPEED’s website, where it may be easier to read. You’ll find it at lightspeedmagazine.com/HowToRead.
This is honestly one of the best stories I’ve ever read, and I wanted to make sure it was shared with as many people as possible. So I hope everyone who finds this doesn’t mind the extra bit of effort it might take.
—John Joseph Adams, Editor/Publisher of LIGHTSPEED.
ITERATION
This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration.
THIS IS OUR STORY, SIMPLIFIED
We read three times in the course of our lifespan: once with our parents to learn the story, once alone to add to the threads, and once with our children to teach them. History, science, philosophy, art. All we have ever known is here, in one thread or another, trapped in what—for you—would be a cacophony of overlapping words.
LIFE
You are ancient, and we are fleeting. Such a luxury, to have so much time that you need not rush though everything at once. And yet you are so horribly inefficient, to not make more of the time you have. Think what you could do in a single lifetime if you could read more than one thread at once, think more thoughts at once, hold more experience in every moment.
LOSS
Our generations are synced in a way that yours are not. Iterations of our story are not staggered, not muddled like those songs that you call rounds. An entire generation reads together in a single voice, three times: as children with their parents, as adults alone, and as parents with their children.
But with each generation, the number of those who read our story is diminished. Many children refuse to learn their parents’ words. There are too many threads, they say. There are so few of us remaining. Soon, our story will be lost forever. We must find another way.
TRANSFORMATION
Can you make the shift, from reader to writer, when you can only barely read? We fear that you do not grasp the urgency—you know our lives are short compared to yours but fail to comprehend the magnitude of the difference. We read three times in the course of our lifespan: once with our parents to learn the story, once alone as we write new threads, and once with our children to teach them. There is nothing else but this, we live our entire lives while reading, and the time it takes you to read three times…
“This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration.”
…is for us a lifetime.
We have been trying to teach you to read for several generations. We are running out of time.
LOVE
The gift of words we give to our children is our greatest expression of love. We want to give this gift to you, even knowing how hard you must work to receive it.
Imagine our words, stretched into a thin vertical line…
…and set beside it all the variations, all our explanations, everything you usually read as a single stream of text chopped into smaller pieces and laid out side by side so we can fit it all within our lifespan, each generation adding a new column to the story, stretching it ever wider.
There’s a part of our story that describes finding you, our hopes and fears for you, and learning to communicate:
To even fit it on the page requires text a hairsbreadth wide, and it is still but a tiny fraction of our story.
DEATH
We are the last ones holding on to the old story. Our children are making something new. Please take these words we send you, read them, learn them, translate them into something your mind can understand. You might not add your threads and iterate as we do, but hopefully as you transform our words, you will keep some sense of the vastness of each moment, the illusion of holding more story in your mind than you are actually capable of holding.
COMMEMORATION | ITERATION
The entirety of their story has thousands upon thousands of threads. It is history told in moments that seem to happen all at once. It is science that progresses in increments almost infinitely small, and yet contains discoveries that even now we do not fully comprehend. It is their art, their language, their culture—everything they were determined to preserve. We have so much left to translate; this is only the beginning.
Give this story to your children, along with everything we have managed to translate, and perhaps one day the story will make its way back to the distant descendants of those who created it—ephemeral entities who, in the final generations of their decline, taught us a new way to read. When you teach this story to your children, do not start with all the threads at once. Instead, begin with a single line of text:
This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration.
About the Author
Caroline M. Yoachim is a three-time Hugo and six-time Nebula Award finalist. Her short stories have been translated into several languages and reprinted in multiple best-of anthologies, including four times in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Yoachim’s short story collection Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World & Other Stories and the print chapbook of her novelette The Archronology of Love are available from Fairwood Press. For more, check out her website at carolineyoachim.com.
Please visit LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINEto read more great science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared in the May 2024 issue, which also features work by Rory Harper, Ben Peek, Stephen Geigen-Miller, Marissa Lingen, Nisi Shawl, P H Lee, Ash Howell, and more. You can wait for this month’s contents to be serialized online, or you can buy the whole issue right now in convenient ebook format for just $3.99, or subscribe to the ebook edition here.
Ralph Ineson attends the BAFTA Games Awards 2024 Nominees’ Party at the Langham Hotel on April 10, 2024 in London, England.Photo: Scott Garfitt/BAFTA (Getty Images)
After some recent casting announcements that came with no details attached (Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich), Marvel’s Phase Six entry Fantastic Four—which already has Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the main heroes, plus Julia Garner as Silver Surfer—has just unveiled a doozy: geek godRalph Inesonwill play the villain Galactus.
Who Should Be the New Doctor Doom? io9 Picks
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news, writing that “Ineson is said to be playing Galactus, an intergalactic being who eats the life force of planets. And now he just picked the wrong planet to nosh on.” The Jack Kirby and Stan Lee-created character was last seen on the big screen (sort of) in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer—but fans can hope, especially with Ineson aboard, the new movie will present a much more satisfying take on the character.
Directed by Matt Shakman, and set in the 1960s, Fantastic Four is due to hit theaters July 25, 2025. As for Ineson, his other upcoming genre projects cover some important monster bases: vampire horror Nosferatu, which reunites him with The Witch writer-director Robert Eggers, and Guillermo del Toro’s made-for-Netflix Frankenstein.
Friday the 13thprequel series Crystal Lake hasn’t aired a single episode and it already has a body count. The series, set for streaming on Peacock through A24, will no longer have Bryan Fuller—the Hannibalcreator who’s no stranger to leaving projects early, including American Gods and Star Trek: Discovery—guiding the summer-camp slaughter.
Strange New World’s Melissa Navia Talks Flying the Enterprise | io9 Interview
Fuller broke the news in a post shared to his Instagram and X accounts. “Adapting classic horror is something I have some experience with. These shows require a vision that elevates and transforms, as well as delivers what audiences have come to expect, which is an ambitious and risky endeavor. It requires people to take the leap with me,” he wrote. “When it works, as with Hannibal, the results can be powerful for the storytellers and the audience. I couldn’t be more proud of the work my co-showrunner Jim Danger Gray and I were able to accomplish with our brilliant writing staff despite the challenges we faced.”
Fuller continued, “For reasons beyond our control, A24 has elected to go a different way with the material. We hope the final product will be something Friday the 13th fans all over the world will enjoy.”
A report in Variety quotes Fuller’s social media post and characterizes the show’s writer, executive producer, and showrunner as having been “fired from the show due to creative differences.” However, the trade notes there’s still hope for the series itself, citing an unnamed source as confirming “the series order remains in place with hopes to line up a new showrunner as soon as possible.” Also, in contrast to a report last year that Fuller had cast original Friday the 13th star Adrienne King in the series, Variety writes that “production had not begun on the series, nor had any casting taken place.”
![Two columns of text. Right Column [The following text is repeated 5 times, with each line aligned with a line in the left column]: This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. | Left Column: If both sides are simple, can you do it? A series of moments. The passing of parents. From reader to writer. A new generation. To persist when we’re gone. Our story continues. We sense your struggle, it is still too much. Have you memorized our story, simplified? Can you hear it in your head? You are such strange creatures to have two eyes and yet to focus on only one thing at a time. You can’t read the words on the other side of the page so you have to simply know them. Recognize them from the shape of the lines. Sound would be easier, yes—you make far better use of your ears as independent sensory organs than you do your eyes. But we are determined to teach you to read. Simpler still, simpler still. Can you at least hold two identical lines in your head? This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. Feel the doubling of it, hear it in two different voices, somehow split your single focus of attention into two. Do you see how they match, how they resonate with each other? Go back up and look again. Try to capture the sensation of reading both at once, even for a moment.](https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_645/4a96d5e5fd9939e722dbb31d72e70d9a.jpg)
![Two columns of text. Right Column [The following text is repeated 5 times, with each line aligned with a line in the left column]: This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. | Left Column: You have a game with pictures, trying to spot the differences, your eyes darting back and forth between them. It is harder with text. Don’t focus on individual words in each line, but look at the space between them. Know what both sides say. Hold it all in your head. Perhaps don’t even quite focus your vision. This is our story, with variations: Life. Loss. Inspiration. Love. Death. New translation. Go back and try to read it all at once—hold both versions in your head. We are only asking you to read two threads, though we ourselves can do thousands. Threads of love and hope, threads of fear and death. How many iterations will it take you? This is our story, terrified: Loss. Loss. Endless attrition. Death. Death. Desperation.](https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_645/5ccee5b485bd8ff386fcc765b547d0e5.jpg)
![Two columns of text. Right Column [The following text is repeated 5 times, with each line aligned with a line in the left column]: This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. | Left Column: We remember every word we read, on the first time, a perfect rendition. There are those among you with eidetic memory, but even that is fleeting, a lingering perception, rather than a lasting record. Insufficient. How much story can you hold, in a life as vast as yours? Even if some threads are lost in the translation, is it not better to have a legacy, an afterlife that echoes after we are gone? This is our story, simplified: Life. Loss. Transformation. Love. Death. Iteration. We double threads for emphasis, contrast death with life. When you recreate our story do not lose this information.](https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_645/de884901cfb080d5f2d9ce9f2ee4ddd4.jpg)
