ReportWire

Tag: HBO

  • “It’s Expensive to Look This Good”: ‘Gossip Girl’ Creator Josh Safran on the End

    “It’s Expensive to Look This Good”: ‘Gossip Girl’ Creator Josh Safran on the End

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    On Thursday, HBO Max’s Gossip Girl was officially banished from the Met Steps when Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it was not moving forward with the series for a third season. The news has taken the internet by storm, as fans mourn the end of the series. “I know that people love this season,” Gossip Girl creator, showrunner, and executive producer exclusively tells Vanity Fair. “I feel the love.”

    In his first interview since the news broke, Safran chats with VF and breaks down the danger of reboots, whether he thinks Gossip Girl will find another streaming home, and what season three would have had in store for his Upper East siders.  

    Vanity Fair: I’m sorry to hear about Gossip Girl’s cancellation. I was loving this season. 

    Josh Safran: Everyone is. It’s hard. All I get is constant feedback from how great people are feeling. So it’s rough. 

    How are you taking the news? How are you processing this? 

    Unfortunately it was to be expected in a way because of what’s happening at all streamers these days. Things are just going different ways than we all would hope. That Golden Age is coming to an end. 

    Also, this show is incredibly expensive. “It takes a lot of money to look this good,” [laughs]. And so it really would’ve had to have gotten House of the Dragon numbers or Last of Us numbers and there just aren’t shows like Gossip Girl that get those numbers. I mean, who even knows what anyone’s numbers are? I just know that a show like Gossip Girl isn’t going to get House of the Dragon or Last of Us numbers.

    It felt like Gossip Girl was resonating with its core audience. I’m already seeing on social media that people are really distraught about the cancellation. Do you think HBO Max’s decision to cancel Gossip Girl has something to do with Warner Bros.’ recent merger with Discovery? 

    I think you’re looking at a lot of cancellations at this particular network, but [also] every network, every streamer. In the rush to announce themselves, they spent money—which is great for us. I’m very grateful for that. Over time there is debt, and that’s why we’re seeing a wave of cancellation. So sure, I’m sure the merger had something to do with it, but also we are very expensive. Even if there hadn’t been a merger, who knows? I don’t know numbers, I can’t speak to that. I know that people love this season. I feel the love, I definitely get more reactions on social media than any other show I’ve ever worked on. 

    All we can do is have made a great show. We’re really proud of this season. I’m also proud of season one, but I think that the saddest thing about what’s happening these days in the marketplace is that the whole point of TV was to create characters and worlds that could grow and deepen as they went on. That’s becoming less and less likely for the majority of shows, and that sucks. 

    Have you talked to the cast and crew?

    Yeah, of course. Honestly  the one silver lining in all of this if this is the end—which I believe that it is—is that we are going out on the high. Nobody is going through the motions on a season five or six being like, ‘How much more of the same stuff can I do.’ Weirdly, we all love each other. We love working together. It was an incredible experience. So there’s no sadness or unhappiness or negative memories. I mean, we truly went out not only on a high, but, like, in Rome having the best time of our lives. 

    Did you say Rome?

    Yes, in Rome. We finished shooting the season in Rome. So even that ended in the best place you could be: gorgeous, glamorous Rome with everybody. 

    We’ve talked about how it took a little while for the world to catch up to the new Gossip Girl. How do you feel about the ending to this version of Gossip Girl in comparison to the original Gossip Girl, which had six seasons, but ended in a somewhat weird way?

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    Chris Murphy

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  • The Last Of Us Episode One Recap: Taking A Ride

    The Last Of Us Episode One Recap: Taking A Ride

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    “I’m taking a ride with my best friend.”

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    Carolyn Petit

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  • ‘The Last of Us’ Season 1: All the Easter Eggs You May Have Missed

    ‘The Last of Us’ Season 1: All the Easter Eggs You May Have Missed

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    Apocalypse Now

    Joel, Tommy (Gabriel Luna), and Sarah’s journey through Austin, Texas plays out incredibly similarly to the way it plays in the game—most importantly, it roots the viewer in Sarah’s point of view. The player controls Sarah for the first sequence of the game, ending with her death in the first (but certainly not last) brutal twist. The show bears this out with great fidelity, from camera angles shot from the back of Tommy’s truck, to seeing a neighbor’s home completely on fire, through the car crash in Austin proper. (The exploding airplane is a flashy innovation for the show.) It all culminates at the same point: Sarah’s death in the arms of her father, a scene that’s almost exactly one-to-one between the game and the show, from dialogue down to choreography.

    “Do I Look Like Your Mother?”

    It’s one of the most quotable lines from the premiere, coming from the lips of Fireflies Boston leader, Marlene. Notably, Marlene is played on the show by Merle Dandridge, who also voiced the character in the original Last of Us game. What’s more, Marlene’s line here—and even more specifically, that she’s the reason Ellie grew up under tight FEDRA supervision—speaks to an offhanded remark from Ellie within the first couple hours of the game, in which she says her mother and Marlene were old friends. How that backstory plays out on the show, if it plays out at all, is anyone’s guess.

    THE LAST OF US: Merle Dandridge and Natasha Mumba.Courtesy of HBO.

    Who is Riley?

    “Was Riley a terrorist?” It’s another pointed piece of dialogue from the conversation between Ellie and Marlene. At this point, viewers rightly have no idea who Marlene’s talking about. But fans of the games know better—at least, the ones who played The Last of Us: Left Behind bonus story know better. Left Behind is a downloadable content tale featuring Ellie’s experience before the events of the first game, and it prominently features a character named Riley. This isn’t just a simple nod toward Ellie’s backstory, either. Actress Storm Reid has been cast as Riley for a future episode, so Left Behind fans can count on seeing the DLC play out at some point in the first season of The Last of Us.

    The First Ending

    The first episode of The Last of Us ends on a major cliffhanger: Ellie tests positive for Cordyceps, but insists she’s not infected. She shows a bite mark that’s weeks old, an aberration from everything known about Cordyceps infection. The show’s version of the twist plays out very similarly to how it goes down in the game. The game doesn’t have a backstory for the soldier Joel, Ellie, and Tess encounter in this scene, and indeed, there are two soldiers who swoop in to scan the traveling trio. But everything else—the pouring rain, the bobbing and weaving through a mess of obstacles at night—comes right from the video game, and is yet another one of the show’s examples of how HBO’s The Last of Us is going to feel a whole lot like the Naughty Dog original.

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    Josh Wigler

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  • ‘The Last of Us Game’ Creator’s Parents Can “Finally Experience” His Work

    ‘The Last of Us Game’ Creator’s Parents Can “Finally Experience” His Work

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    Monday was an important day for Neil Druckmann. The cocreator of the beloved postapocalyptic video game The Last of Us had spent about a decade trying to adapt his story of an unlikely duo who band together to survive a harrowing trek across America. Now, finally, he was preparing to attend the glitzy premiere for the nine-episode HBO television adaptation he cocreated with Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin. But first, Druckmann needed to screen the show to another important group of constituents, the employees of Naughty Dog, the video game studio behind The Last of Us and its sequel. “I got to see it with hundreds of my colleagues, many of whom worked on the game for many, many years,” Druckmann tells VF a few days later. “They got to see their work realized, I think, to such a beautiful degree, and they were moved to tears.” One animator emailed Druckmann after the screening, ecstatic that two scenes she’d worked on for the video game had been recreated, shot-for-shot, in the TV show. “That was really special,” says Druckmann. 

    There’s a lot riding on The Last of Us, and not just for HBO as it attempts to launch a fresh franchise series under new, bottom-line focused owners. Hollywood has tried to turn video game IP into Marvel- and DC-magnitude cash cows for years with few successes. The Last of Us was critically acclaimed when it was released in 2013 and it quickly garnered legions of devoted fans who will be watching the series with a critical eye. But the TV adaptation can’t just pander to gamers. It must also find a way to invite in viewers who never considered playing their way through the PlayStation title, people like Druckmann’s parents. “They don’t play video games but they finally got to experience The Last of Us on their own,” says Druckmann, who brought them to Monday’s premiere.

    Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal star in The Last of Us on HBO.

    By Liane Hentscher/HBO.

    Tel Aviv–born Druckmann worked his way up from intern to copresident at Naughty Dog, where he also cowrote 2007’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. That game broke ground with its stunning visuals and focus on character development, paving the way for the release of The Last of Us a few years later. He originally planned to adapt The Last of Us into a movie with Sam Raimi, but, after that project fell apart, he found a new creative partner in Mazin, a longtime fan of the game. The Last of Us drops viewers into an alternate present-day world, one where 20 years ago, a fungus called Cordyceps laid waste to most of humanity. Joel (Pedro Pascal), a survivor of the Cordyceps outbreak, is tasked with escorting teenage Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across the country, fighting off the infected and relying on help from a cast of side characters—among them Bill and Frank, played by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, respectively. The reviews so far have been overwhelmingly positive, with Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson calling it “an unrelentingly dark but steadfastly humane series.” That’s helping Druckmann breathe a little easier heading into The Last of Us’s Sunday night release: “I’m hopeful that our show lands and finds its audience, and we kind of help shift how these adaptations are made.”

    Vanity Fair: You started adapting The Last of Us as a movie not long after the game came out. Did you always see the potential to tell this story in another medium?

    Neil Druckmann: When we were making The Last of Us, we had already started working on games in a way that was pretty different for big budget games in that we put story first. Back then, you’d have designers creating really fun encounters or fun setups, and then story would come in, like, “here are all these levels, write something to tie them all together.” I think that’s why we got pretty poor stories. Instead, we said with The Last of Us, which was the evolution of a lot of the work we did on Uncharted, what if the whole thing was constructed around a relationship? 

    The idea of it becoming something else was obvious to people because the structure of it is very much a three-act story. It is episodic in its nature as these characters go through different parts of the U.S., meet a cast of characters and slowly change over time through each one of these mini adventures. But it wasn’t constructed with the idea of ever adapting it, it just leveraged a lot of the things that we’ve learned from other kinds of media. Because of the success of Uncharted, there was a lot of interest in adapting it. Even before we finished the game, we had production companies and studios approach us. And I was very reluctant. I was fearful that this beautiful thing we created at Naughty Dog would turn into one of these poor adaptations that I’ve seen that at times can be embarrassing to the whole industry. 

    Craig Mazin has said that he felt like he cheated with The Last of Us because the story was already there and he didn’t have to build it out like you would with other video game adaptations. 

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    Natalie Jarvey

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  • ‘The Last of Us’ premiere draws excitement, momentum for Alberta film industry | Globalnews.ca

    ‘The Last of Us’ premiere draws excitement, momentum for Alberta film industry | Globalnews.ca

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    The biggest production in Alberta’s history debuts this weekend and many in the local film industry hope the highly anticipated show, as well as other prominent productions, spur more Hollywood interest in the province.

    The post-apocalyptic HBO series The Last of Us premieres on Jan. 15, and shooting took place at several locations across Alberta over the last two years.

    “This is monumental,” International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) 212 president Damian Petti said.

    “I think everyone takes a certain pride in this particular project.”

    IATSE 212 represents southern Albertan stage, motion picture and scenic artists and technicians across 23 departments that include grips, and special effects.

    According to Petti, more than 900 crew members worked on the enormous production over 17 months, not including crew from the Teamsters, the Directors Guild of Canada, or the performers.

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    “Those 900 people worked very close to one million hours on this project,” Petti said. “So the size of it and the growth of the industry that just comes from this one project is huge.”


    From left, Lamar Johnson, Jeffrey Pierce, Storm Reid, Nico Parker, Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Merle Dandridge and Gabriel Luna, cast members in “The Last of Us,” pose together at the premiere of the HBO series, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, at the Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles.

    Chris Pizzello, AP Photo

    The show stars Game of Thrones actors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

    Last week, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek and Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi attended the show’s premiere in Los Angeles, where they were joined by other representatives from Alberta.

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    Gondek said she was “blown away” by the production, and said producers of the show expressed gratitude to the province for “being so welcoming.”

    “We’ve all been pulling together to make sure people understand how film and TV friendly we are, and it’s paying off,” Gondek told reporters Thursday.


    “‘The Last of Us” HBO television production set on Rice Howard Way in downtown Edmonton, Alta. on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.

    Chris Chacon/Global News

    The series is based upon the critically acclaimed video game about a smuggler named Joel, who is tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, out of an oppressive quarantine zone and across post-apocalyptic America.


    “‘The Last of Us” HBO television production set at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton, Alta. on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.

    Chris Chacon/Global News

    During filming, streets in downtown Edmonton and Calgary were transformed into urban battlefields and even structures like the Alberta legislature were covered in vines and decay for the production.

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    However, The Last of Us isn’t the only recent television show that will feature some local landmarks that some might recognize.

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    Mayor Gondek heads to Los Angeles to sell Calgary to Hollywood

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    The FX miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven premiered last spring on Disney+ in Canada after shooting in and around Calgary and across southern Alberta.

    The true-crime drama is based on Jon Krakauer’s non-fiction book Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith about the history of the Mormon religion, and has an ensemble cast that includes Andrew Garfield, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Gil Birmingham.


    Local actor Emily James, who landed a part in the FX mini-series ‘Under the Banner of Heaven.’.

    Global News

    Emily James, born and raised in Calgary, successfully landed a role in the show as actor Sam Worthington’s daughter.

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    “I was very excited, it was my first time on a big set,” James told Global News.

    The TV series tells the story of the real-life 1984 brutal murders of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter Erica, juxtaposed with the origin and evolution of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and extremist fundamentalist offshoots of the religion.

    “Because it’s such a heart-wrenching story and it is a true story, I was excited to be a part of something so big and getting the chance to be a part of that story,” James said.

    After splitting time between Calgary and Los Angeles, James will soon be making the move to California to continue pursuing her acting career.

    “I was very excited to see that bigger productions are making their way to Alberta,” James said. “I definitely think there is a chance for more to come to Calgary.”

    ‘A perfect storm’

    With a lot of the success in Alberta’s film industry being attributed to a change to the province’s film and television tax credit, industry experts also cite expanding production infrastructure like the Calgary Film Centre, and more trained workers.

    “It’s the perfect storm,” Petti said.

    “The community’s worked very hard to get to this stage and we think 2023 will be a strong year.”

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    Petti said there are several productions eyeing shoots in Alberta this year.


    Road closure on Calgary’s 4 Avenue flyover for filming continues for HBO’s “The Last of Us” on Oct. 23, 2021.

    Global News

    Keep Alberta Rolling Ltd. is a non-profit organization created to showcase the benefits and potential of the Alberta’s screen industry.

    According to head of advocacy Brock Skretting, Alberta’s ability to pull off a production with the the size and scope of The Last of Us is expected to help attract more Hollywood blockbusters to the province.

    “The crew are known for handling any logistical problems, never complaining about the difficulty of it — in fact, embracing the difficulty of of hard shows: we do the biggest and we do the best,” Skretting said.

    “So that’s Alberta for you.”

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    HBO television series ‘The Last of Us’ takes over parts of Edmonton

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    One of the challenges that has faced the local film industry is always having a solid base of trained and experienced crew members.

    But Petti said thanks to recent productions in the province, growth in IATSE 212 is up 35 per cent, and there are now 500 more Albertans trained in the industry and ready to get to work.

    “To grow an industry, you do need a steady and stable supply of work,” Petti said. “We can grow the crew base no problem, if there’s a steady supply of work.”

    The province has hosted several notable productions in the past: 2016’s The Revanant starring Leonardo Dicaprio, the 2005 American neo-Western romantic drama Brokeback Mountain, as well as the more recent Ghostbusters: Afterlife in 2019.

    Brad Pitt spent time in Edmonton in 2005 while filming The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford at Fort Edmonton Park.

    It isn’t just movies either: Fargo, inspired by the 1996 Coen Brothers film of the same name, returned to film a fifth season in Alberta after relocating to Chicaco to film the fourth season.


    Click to play video: 'Alberta’s TV and film production booms following tax credits'


    Alberta’s TV and film production booms following tax credits


    Alberta is currently ranked fourth among Canadian production jurisdictions.

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    Industry experts said it may take some time to catch up to other provinces like B.C. and Ontario, which have had a competitive advantage for longer, but the hope is growing interest from The Last of Us will help Alberta climb those standings.

    “It’s just economic development through and through,” Skretting said.

    “To have millions of dollars spent on the projects, putting hundreds of people to work and then on the back end, everybody gets to see the projects market the province around the world.

    “So we’re really excited for the year coming up.”

    The Last of Us series contains nine episodes and will air weekly on Sunday nights through the Crave streaming app.

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    ‘The Last of Us’ TV series filming in Alberta to star ‘Game of Thrones’ actors Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey

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    — With files from Karen Bartko, Global News

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    Adam MacVicar

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  • ‘The Last of Us’ Is One of the Best Video Game Adaptations Ever

    ‘The Last of Us’ Is One of the Best Video Game Adaptations Ever

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    On the post-apocalypse television spectrum, there is the comic book nightmare of The Walking Dead at one pole and the literary grace and hopefulness of Station Eleven at the other. Somewhere between the two, but far closer to the grim, lies The Last of Us (HBO, January 15), an unrelentingly dark but steadfastly humane series based on the critically acclaimed and massively popular video game.

    That’s a note of distinction in itself: the series, shepherded into being by Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin and game creator Neil Druckmann, is surely among the most respectable video game adaptations in the canon. But the show hasn’t taken weak, juvenile source material and somehow polished it into prestige. The video game itself is a finely wrought entity (or, at least, the cut scenes that I’ve watched suggest as much). Little needed to be added to the ambition of the series to make it worthy of an HBO Sunday night. 

    Mazin does find new ways to add dramatic flavor. He’s given the series a double structure, one similar to other limited series lurking on cable and streaming. There is the main narrative: a haunted man, Joel (Pedro Pascal), ferries a spunky (and haunted) teenager, Ellie (Bella Ramsey), across a ruined America, 18 years after a fast-spreading fungal infection turned the world into a zombie-ridden hellscape of tattered military dictatorships and marauding reavers. Threaded throughout that mission are myriad digressions, flashbacks to various points before and during the plague when the lives of certain side characters and the backstories of the two leads are spun out in somber, elegiac fashion. 

    So, there is some timeline juggling to be done. But Mazin makes it pretty clear what is happening when. What The Last of Us struggles with is making these tragic, heroic stories—of quotidian things like love and loyalty surviving amid the rubble—feel fresh. We have already seen so many examples of this particular storytelling motif—on the various Walking Dead shows, on Station Eleven, in I Am Legend and The Hunger Games, and so many other properties. While many of the discrete narratives in The Last of Us are cannily staged, both poignant and dreadful, they eventually coalesce into something glumly familiar; we feel the same howling desolation, flecked with glimmers of ragged life, that we’ve felt before.

    Still, it is worth pointing out the many merits of the series. There is a particularly affecting interlude in which a stoic survivalist played by Nick Offerman meets and falls in love with a fellow remnant, played by White Lotus breakout Murray Bartlett. These two doomed lovers dart through the series, only occupying one episode, but they resonate. Not only because it is rare to see a gay love story in a butch series like this one, but because it exists almost entirely outside of the show’s violence. It is instead a small tale of peaceful isolation, one in warped dialogue with many of our own experiences of the last few years. 

    Later on, an episode introduces us to a preacher (Scott Shepherd) who initially appears refreshingly compassionate, and then very much does not. That hour is the show in full spine-tingling horror mode—for the most part, the series is a thriller-drama in which the scares are either lurking in the past or implicitly close by, out of frame. A steely character played, against type, by Melanie Lynskey effectively communicates a whole saga of past conflict while further delineating the show’s complex moral shading. Few people on the series are absolutely good or bad; they mostly dwell in the ambivalence of survival, their tribes’ righteousness hinging near entirely on perspective. 

    The tension between means and ends culminates, of course, with Joel and Ellie. The series ends (for now?) on the same note of bleak disquiet—a terrible, and perhaps completely unjustified, sacrifice made—that closed out the video game. Perhaps because that ending is already so iconic, or perhaps because the series feels curiously hurried in its pacing, it doesn’t land with the same grand, despondent ambiguity as it did in 2013. Or, maybe, we just expect such textured pathos from filmed entertainment. It was more striking and novel, ten years ago, when encountered in a video game. 

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    Richard Lawson

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  • Bella Ramsey Has Seen Your Hateful Comments and Has Some Choice Words for You | The Mary Sue

    Bella Ramsey Has Seen Your Hateful Comments and Has Some Choice Words for You | The Mary Sue

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    The casting of The Last of Us for HBO wasn’t an easy thing. Unlike many other big shows for the premium network, The Last of Us also came with a dedicated fanbase that rivals that of HBO’s other huge franchise: Game of Thrones. But where the two differ is that I don’t remember there being a ton of pushback over the casting of the original GoT series, but with The Last of Us, fans have been dream-casting who should play Joel and Ellie for years.

    So when the inevitable casting for these two iconic roles was announced, instead of being excited that the series was finally coming to life, many logged onto message boards to complain because it wasn’t who they thought it should be. There were Pedro Pascal-haters thinking Joel should be played by someone else, and “fans” who were furious that Bella Ramsey was cast as Ellie. Why? Because they wanted Kaitlyn Dever and made sure to make that fan-cast everyone else’s problem.

    Through it all, Ramsey saw their comments. In a cover story for The Hollywood Reporter, both Pascal and Ramsey talked a lot about taking on these beloved game characters and addressed the “fan” opinions about their casting. For Ramsey, all the negativity that came from years of “fan-casting” led the young actor to try not looking at the comments. But eventually, Ramsey did. (Ramsey uses she/her and they/them pronouns. We will be using both while talking about Ramsey and using she/her when speaking about her character Ellie Williams in The Last of Us.)

    “I’ve seen everything,” Ramsey said, with what James Hibberd described as “a note of steely and fuck you all defiance familiar to anyone who watched Lyanna Mormont dress down Jon Snow.” Ramsey went on to talk about how it was their first encounter with fans responding this way to casting, saying, “I’m aware of all of it. It was my first experience, really, with a lot of negative reactions.”

    But Ramsey didn’t let the negativity stop them. “Ellie felt like a character I already had in me,” Ramsey said. “Like the skins that you wear in a video game? She was one of my skins already.”

    Hating a casting decision before you see the performance is a choice

    Not only is hating on a young actor for being cast as a character truly and honestly weird, but with The Last of Us, many fans also said that Ramsey didn’t “look the part”. First of all, it is a video game character. Casting someone just because they look exactly like the character instead of casting the best actor for the job isn’t going to make a show good. It’s just going to make people who have some warped casting ideas in their head happy while the show itself suffers.

    Ramsey has not once put out a bad performance. Everything they’re in is fun, and Ramsey’s performance is often the heart of whatever character is being brought to life. Catherine Called Birdy worked because of Ramsey. Lyanna Mormont worked because of Ramsey. And I have a feeling that Ellie is going to be the same. Being angry you didn’t get your way doesn’t change the fact that the creators of The Last of Us saw Ellie in Ramsey, and based on that, I cannot wait to see what they deliver.

    (featured image: Mike Marsland, WireImage)

    —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

    Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

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    Rachel Leishman

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  • The State Of PlayStation In 2022

    The State Of PlayStation In 2022

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    An illustration of a PlayStation 5 is shown with a DualSense controller on top of it. The text "The State of PlayStation 5" is shown below it.

    PlayStation expanded beyond the console in 2022.
    Illustration: Angelica Alzona

    The decision-makers behind Sony’s console juggernaut spent a lot of 2022 putting down railway for 2023 and beyond, dumping money and time into growing the PlayStation brand beyond the funky-looking device in your entertainment center. The company wants the PlayStation name to be ubiquitous, and that has meant expanding not just in the form of video game acquisitions and new services, but bringing the PlayStation line into new mediums and markets. So, while Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarök bookended the PlayStation 5’s 2022 on the video game side, the brand was busy throughout the year.

    Drake and Sully are seen looking at something in an underground crypt in the Uncharted movie.

    Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg brought Nathan Drake and Sully (or people going by those names) to the big screen in 2022.
    Photo: Sony Pictures

    PlayStation becomes a movie and TV brand

    PlayStation Productions, Sony’s film and television subsidiary dedicated to putting out adaptations based on the company’s video games, released its first project this year in the form of the Uncharted movie. Featuring Spider-Man star Tom Holland as a vague amalgamation of Nolan North’s original interpretation of Nathan Drake and his own version of Peter Parker if he was slightly more stoic, the film also has Mark Wahlberg as a character who shares his name (and little else) with Nate’s father figure, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. The movie is, at best, aggressively fine. It took a critical beating, but did rake in over $401 million globally at the box office. Sony has plans to make Naughty Dog’s cinematic action game series into a full-blown movie franchise.

    While Nathan Drake put the PlayStation Productions logo in theaters, the company is spreading its brands out to several channels. Amazon is making a God of War TV show, Netflix is signed on for a Horizon series, and Peacock will stream a Twisted Metal show. (Yes, Anthony Mackie is set to star in a series inspired by a vehicular combat franchise that had its heyday on the PS1 and hasn’t seen a proper entry in over a decade.) The next project from PlayStation Productions is the upcoming Last of Us HBO show, which those involved with are promoting in very normal and sensible ways.

    Whether any of the above will be any good remains to be seen, but Sony is making deals to put PlayStation characters on more screens and subscription services. The company has clearly decided that PlayStation games aren’t enough, and that they can instead be the origin point for an expanded universe that ties into the games its first-party studios are putting out. Speaking of…

    Joel and Ellie are seen watching a group of giraffes walk through a grassy field.

    Sony and Naughty Dog released The Last of Us a third time with its PS5 remake.
    Screenshot: Naughty Dog / Kotaku

    PlayStation movies and TV get re-released tie-ins

    Putting an Uncharted movie in theaters and a Last of Us show on TVs is one piece of Sony’s new business model, but the company is also pairing these live-action adaptations with re-releases of the source material. Just a week before the Uncharted film launched, Sony released the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which brought both Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy to PlayStation 5, a console they were readily playable on through backward compatibility. Oddly enough, this only included the last two games in the series, rather than the three games that preceded them. But it was an Uncharted product that people could buy after seeing the movie, or even before, as it included a free ticket to the film.

    The Last of Us Part I, a remake of the 2013 original, launched in September to both praise for the source material and the technical upgrade the release brought to it, as well as a slew of criticism surrounding its $70 price point. The remake carried a cloud over it after a Bloomberg report exposed internal politics at Sony surrounding the project, which began under a PlayStation support studio before gradually becoming a Naughty Dog product. The whole situation stinks to high heaven, but it did conveniently fit into Sony’s business model of making its games into an extended universe. Now, there will be a (near) full-price Last of Us game on store shelves when the HBO show premieres on January 15.

    Kratos and Atreus are seen sitting in a boat, with Atreus' expression seeming troubled.

    God of War came to PC this year, but its sequel only came to consoles.
    Screenshot: Sony Santa Monica / Kotaku

    PlayStation continues to expand beyond consoles and to PC

    Both of these re-releases were part of a PlayStation initiative to get more of its games on PC. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves brought the series (again, just the last two games, rather than any of the foundational ones that came before) to PC for the first time in October, and The Last of Us Part I will bring Joel and Ellie’s story to a computer near you in March. But it wasn’t just Naughty Dog’s games that got PC love, as God of War, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Marvel’s Spider-Man and its Miles Morales spin-off also launched on PC in 2022.

    All that being said, we still have yet to see PlayStation release its first-party games on both its consoles and PC simultaneously. God of War launched four years late on PC this year, but its sequel, Ragnarök, only came to PS4 and PS5 in 2022. It’s been heartening to see Sony make more strides in the space, but hopefully in 2023 we see a more immediate commitment to bringing its games to those who play on PC.

    Key art for Destiny 2 shows three guardians geared up for battle.

    Sony paid a lot of money for Bungie, but Destiny 2 will remain multiplatform.
    Image: Bungie

    Sony acquires Bungie, Haven, and Savage

    All of these adaptations and ports were doubling down on PlayStation’s established brands, but the company also made its fair share of acquisitions and investments in the company’s future, as well. The most notable of these acquisitions was Destiny 2 developer Bungie, which PlayStation bought for a whopping $3.6 billion in January. However, it has no intention of making the shooter exclusive to its platform. The company also acquired the Jade Raymond-led Haven Studios, which hasn’t even released a video game yet.

    Outside of the AAA space, Sony also acquired Savage Game Studios, whose founders previously worked on mobile hits like Angry Birds and Clash of Clans, in an attempt to kickstart a new mobile gaming division. The studio is apparently at work on a new project for phones and tablets based on an established PlayStation IP.

    A render of the PlayStation VR2 headset shows the device alongside its dedicated controllers.

    The PlayStation VR2 will launch next year, but won’t be usable with old PSVR games.
    Image: Sony

    PlayStation VR2 seems like an upgrade, but with caveats

    Sony kicked off 2022 by announcing its second virtual reality headset, aptly named the PlayStation VR2. It sounds like a meaningful upgrade from the original PlayStation VR headset Sony released in 2016, with an impressive-sounding OLED, 4K resolution display, dedicated controllers so you won’t have to use your old PlayStation Move wands anymore, and a single-cord setup that will make using the whole thing more manageable. However, as news has come out about the device, things have gotten a bit more troubling.

    The most egregious drawback Sony has confirmed is that original PlayStation VR games won’t be compatible with the PSVR2 headset. Senior Vice President of Platform Experience Hideaki Nishino said on the PlayStation Podcast that this is because “PSVR2 is designed to deliver a truly next generation VR experience,” citing much of the new headset’s tech as being incompatible with old PSVR games. Regardless of whatever explanation Sony has to offer, it’s a bummer that the PlayStation 5 seemed to be developed with more future-proofing in mind and now we’re dealing with backward compatibility issues again. So if you want to keep playing your old PSVR games, don’t throw your old headset out.

    Oh, and the device will cost $550 when it launches on February 22 of next year, making it more expensive than the console it’s played on.

    The PlayStation Plus logo is shown with the service's three tiers listed below it: essential, extra, and premium.

    PlayStation Plus now has tiers, and whether you’ll get much value on them depends on where you live.
    Image: Sony

    PlayStation Plus launches new tiers with new problems

    PlayStation Plus, Sony’s long-running subscription service for playing games online and collecting a vast array of “free” games, saw a revamp this year that put it more in-line with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass. It doesn’t seem like it’s gotten the same resounding love as its direct competitor, though. PlayStation Plus now has multiple tiers, which each have different included features and perks.

    The cheapest is Essential, which is basically just what PlayStation Plus has been for years: online play, sales, cloud storage, and a few free games each month. The second tier is called PlayStation Plus Extra, which includes all of the above, as well as an on-demand library of PlayStation 4 and 5 games. The most expensive tier is PlayStation Plus Premium, which adds a streaming library of classic games from across all the PlayStation consoles, and even the PlayStation Portable.

    Compared to Xbox’s native backward compatibility, streaming old games isn’t exactly an ideal alternative, especially for those who live in rural areas where internet download speeds can’t keep up.There’s a lot of potential in what PlayStation Plus offers right now, but it sounds like it’s having a retention problem following the big relaunch, with millions of subscribers canceling their membership in the months since.

    The PlayStation 5 is (somewhat) easier to find

    The PlayStation 5 is two years old now, but the console is still relatively difficult to find due to supply chain issues that are expected to last well into 2023, if not longer. But as we get further away from the original launch and demand starts to calm down, it’s become marginally easier to track down and buy a PS5 of your own. Brick-and-mortar stores are still hit or miss, but Kotaku had a bit more luck finding the box on digital storefronts. So hopefully by the time Spider-Man 2 launches next year, those still looking for a PlayStation 5 won’t face a massive ordeal.

    A PlayStation 4 is shown with a DualShock 4 controller next to it.

    The PlayStation 4 is nine years old and still got most of Sony’s big games in 2022.
    Image: Sony

    The PlayStation 4 hangs on a little bit longer

    That being said, Sony still wasn’t quite ready to let go of the PlayStation 4 in 2023. The company’s biggest games this year, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and God of War Ragnarök, all launched simultaneously on the PS4 and PS5 and were pretty alright experiences on the last-gen console. You know, if you’re cool with your PS4 sounding like it’s ready to take off on a flight across the Atlantic.

    But looking forward, it seems 2023 will be the year Sony really starts to leave the old system behind. That’s a respectable ten years of service since its original 2013 launch, and PlayStation Studios now seem squarely focused on the PS5. Spider-Man 2, the VR spinoff Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Insomniac’s take on Wolverine were all announced as PS5 exclusive, so hopefully as this transition takes root, the PS5 becomes more readily available next year.

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    Kenneth Shepard

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  • This Character in ‘The Last of Us’ Is Going To Break Me | The Mary Sue

    This Character in ‘The Last of Us’ Is Going To Break Me | The Mary Sue

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    The Last of Us will be a series that emotionally destroys us (in the best way), and we know this from how the game uses its story to make you quickly fall in love with characters before having them meet their demise. We know that the series will be different from the game, but I do think that certain beats may be similar.

    Spoilers ahead for The Last of Us game

    … Which is why I don’t have the highest of hopes for Sarah Miller. In the beginning of the game, when the Clickers begin to take over, Joel and Sarah Miller run from their home with Joel’s brother Tommy. In the midst of their escape, they find some people and think they can help them, but it ultimately results in Sarah’s death (this is years prior to the major arc of the gameplay). Sarah’s death leads Joel to his new life and helps inform his relationship with Ellie, and I don’t really foresee that changing, which is why all the promo pictures of Sarah really hurt.

    The series is coming to us in January 2023, and the more they show of Nico Parker as Sarah Miller, the more I just feel my heart breaking into a million pieces. So today, when the official HBO series account shared an image of Parker with her hand in a sprinkler under the caption “Another day in Austin, TX,” I just felt like I wanted to curl up into a ball and sob.

    If you want to know how everyone is coping with Sarah’s inevitable fate, all the replies to this tweet are from people who are already upset and emotional—and we haven’t even met Parker’s take on Sarah yet. It’s going to be hard to watch.

    The opening of this show is going to hurt

    One of the biggest draws to the game is just how cinematic and heart-wrenching that prologue is. It’s like watching a movie; it’s so beautifully explored that it really does leave you sitting in silence once you’ve completed it. Imagining that in a television format is overwhelming.

    I wish there was a way that Sarah didn’t have to die because I don’t really want to see Nico Parker die. And I don’t want to see Joel miserable as a result of his daughter’s death. I’d love it if he had to take Ellie to the fireflies while Sarah is alive and well somewhere, but I just don’t see how that would function in the story. Sarah sort of has to die and if they find a way around it? Great! I’d love more of Nico Parker in the show.

    But right now, I just don’t know how that would work. Knowing Sarah’s fate from the game just makes all these promotional pictures of Parker as Sarah hurt that much more. I just want Joel and Sarah Miller to be happy, but I know I’m just going to be crying instead.

    (featured image: HBO)

    —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

    Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

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    Rachel Leishman

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  • Amazon Promises God Of War Show Will Be ‘Incredibly True’ To Original Games

    Amazon Promises God Of War Show Will Be ‘Incredibly True’ To Original Games

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    Kratos leaps up to attack a giant troll while his son fires an arrow at it.

    Image: Santa Monica Studios / Sony

    The last few years have been fairly bursting with TV shows and movies adapted from popular games. And even more are coming down the pipeline. If you ask some fans, many of these shows have strayed too far away from their original source material, so it might be nice to hear that the producers of Amazon’s God of War TV show aim to stay “incredibly true” to its original source material: the games.

    While it had been reported early this year, it wasn’t until last week that Amazon officially confirmed it was developing a TV show based on the popular and long-running God of War franchise. The PlayStation series features Kratos, a god-like Spartan warrior, running around the world killing everything. Recent games have aged him up and given him a son, changing the tone of the series and helping make it more popular than ever. And now, in an interview with Collider, Amazon Studios Head of TV Vernon Sanders explained that the upcoming streaming show will be “incredibly true to the source material” which he says has a “real emotional core.”

    “We know that there’s such a passionate fanbase for God of War,” Sanders told Collider. “But the thing that we’re always looking for is whether there is a real emotional core, if there’s a real narrative story, and I think [that’s] part of what makes God of War so special.”

    The Amazon TV boss continued, explaining that the newer games, while being “giant epic” adventures are still focused on telling a story about “fathers and sons, and families.” He thinks this will appeal to everyone, even people who haven’t played the games.

    “So what [showrunners] Rafe Judkins and Mark Fergus and [writer] Hawk Ostby have come up with for the first season, and for the series, I think, is both incredibly true to the source material, and also compelling on its own,” explained Sanders. “So we think it’s going to be huge.”

    Paramount / Xbox

    Recent video game adaptations, like Resident Evil on Netflix and Halo on Paramount+, have been heavily criticized online by fans for veering too far from the original source material the shows are supposedly inspired by. And while I do hesitate to agree with angry fans online and I think adaptations should be allowed to make changes, it’s hard not to get a bit annoyed by how often the Master Chief takes off his helmet in the new Halo show. And as Sanders points out, Amazon has a good track record with adaptations that fans like, listing The Boys and Invincible as examples of how to do adaptations correctly.

    G/O Media may get a commission

    Of course, talk is cheap, and making TV shows is hard. It’s always nice to say you’ll stay true to a video game’s storyline and narrative, but it’s much harder to do when so many of the games being adapted into TV shows are mainly 20 hours of combat with about four hours of cutscenes and script. But hey, maybe God of War on Amazon Prime and The Last of Us on HBO Max will be fantastic and true to their source material. Apparently, The Last of Us is actually the greatest story ever told in a video game. Seems like that should make for a few good episodes of prestige TV?

      

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • ‘The White Lotus’: Quebec City launching charm offensive to host popular HBO series | Globalnews.ca

    ‘The White Lotus’: Quebec City launching charm offensive to host popular HBO series | Globalnews.ca

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    By Staff

    The Canadian Press

    Posted December 21, 2022 5:32 pm

    Updated December 21, 2022 5:33 pm

    Quebec City wants to host the next season of the popular HBO series The White Lotus and the region’s tourism arm is aiming to make it happen.

    Destination Quebec City and its advertising agency LG2 have created a presentation promoting the provincial capital and its biggest assets as an ideal filming spot, notably the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac.

    Robert Mercure, head of the organization, plays up in the pitch addressed to series creator Mike White that Quebec City is a UNESCO world heritage site, boasting that it’s home to “the most photographed hotel in the world.”

    Read more:

    2023 Golden Globes nominations: ‘Turning Red,’ Sarah Polley among Canadian nominees

    The White Lotus is a social satire that follows guests and employees at a resort where they unleash their worst, most privileged impulses.

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    The first season of the critically acclaimed show was set in Hawaii, and the second season took place in Sicily.

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    Season 2 wrapped earlier this month and some tour operators in Italy are already promising to take visitors to filming locations in Taormina and Palermo.

    Mercure says buzzy shows like The White Lotus can have a major impact on a destination.

    Read more:

    Google releases Canada’s top searches of 2022

    One example is the South Korean series Goblin, which was partly shot in Quebec City in 2016 and still draws fans who want to visit filming locations — including a suite at the Fairmont that starts at $1,479 per night.

    “We’re inviting you to our city because we believe Quebec City is a destination extraordinaire,” Mercure says in the presentation, inviting White to visit, adding that historic Quebec would give the show “a certain je ne sais quoi.”


    Click to play video: 'What’s Streaming: Holiday edition'


    What’s Streaming: Holiday edition


    &copy 2022 The Canadian Press

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  • Nicholas Britell: Knowing the score

    Nicholas Britell: Knowing the score

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    Nicholas Britell: Knowing the score – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Composer Nicholas Britell won an Emmy for his music for the HBO series “Succession.” The three-time Oscar-nominee talks with correspondent David Pogue about his scores for shows like the “Star Wars” series “Andor,” and about his process for collaborating with such directors as Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”) and Adam McKay (“Don’t Look Up”).

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  • ‘The White Lotus’: Meghann Fahy Thinks Harper and Ethan ‘Become’ Cameron and Daphne

    ‘The White Lotus’: Meghann Fahy Thinks Harper and Ethan ‘Become’ Cameron and Daphne

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    Although she’s not really on social media, Meghann Fahy gets why the internet is obsessed with Daphne. The breakout star of The White Lotus season two dropped by Still Watching to discuss the momentous season finale which saw Daphne continuing to live her best life as the love triangle—square?—between herself, Cameron (Theo James), Ethan (Will Sharpe), and Harper (Aubrey Plaza) became even more complicated. 

    “I don’t have Twitter or TikTok, so I only really see what my friends send me and it just cracks me up,” she tells Vanity Fair. “Especially because her story line is one of the more sordid stories—for her to be in the face of all that and then be as sunshiny as she is—I totally get why that would be a character that people were like, ‘I wanna be her.’ Everything bad happens to her and she doesn’t care about any of it.”

    Elsewhere on the season finale of Mike White’s magnum opus, we bid a final adieu to Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), the “diva of Palermo” who makes a valiant effort to get rid of the crew of murderous gays before falling to her untimely demise. Unlike her boss, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) makes it out of Palermo alive, and even ends up getting Albie’s (Adam DiMarco) number after he gets burned by Lucia (Simona Tabasco), who ends the series walking off into the streets of Sicily, arm in arm with The White Lotus’s new piano player, Mia (Beatrice Grannò). Still Watching hosts Richard Lawson and Chris Murphy unpack the episode and finally determine who came closest to predicting the events that unfolded in the thrilling finale. Listen below, and find a partial transcript of the Fahy interview as well.

    Content

    This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

    Fabio Lovino/HBO 

    Vanity Fair: I think the defining scene of the episode is when you’re on the beach with Ethan and he says, “I think something might have happened [with Harper and Cameron].” You do so much incredible face acting before Daphne collects herself. Can you tell us a little bit about filming that?

    Meghann Fahy: Well, I think we knew going into it that it was a pretty important moment, so we really took our time with it. Mike was great in that way, anyway. I never felt like we rushed through something and didn’t really get a chance to sort of sit with it. And that scene is definitely an example of that. We did it a bunch of different ways. For me, it was really exciting to see how it ended up cutting together, because I didn’t really know what he was gonna choose—which sort of vibe he was maybe gonna pick of the ones that we played with. I love that scene for Daphne. I think it’s a moment for her where she’s, in her own way, being empathetic to Ethan and wanting to make him feel better.

    It’s so compelling because we see Daphne sort of take in the information and then make a decision, and the decision is ambiguous. What do you think pains Daphne more—the potential Cameron betrayal or the Harper betrayal?

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    Chris Murphy

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  • Kit Harington: Jon Snow Is “Not Okay” in Teased ‘Game of Thrones’ Sequel Series

    Kit Harington: Jon Snow Is “Not Okay” in Teased ‘Game of Thrones’ Sequel Series

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    As viewers eagerly await a second season of House of the Dragon, the status of another potential Game of Thrones spin-off is being addressed. In June, The Hollywood Reporter first reported that Kit Harington’s Jon Snow would potentially receive his own series at HBO. After months of silence on the topic, the two-time Emmy-nominated actor is now offering coy insight into what the show may bring.

    At a Game of Thrones fan convention on Sunday, Harington was asked about Snow’s outcome in the divisive series finale, where he discovers that his true identity is Aegon Targaryen, an heir to the Iron Throne, after killing Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys. He’s then exiled from Westeros and sent off North of the Wall with the Wildlings to start anew. “I think if you asked him, he would’ve felt he got off lightly,” Harington said, via Entertainment Weekly. “At the end of the show when we find him in that cell, he’s preparing to be beheaded and he wants to be. He’s done. The fact he goes to the Wall is the greatest gift and also the greatest curse.”

    The actor continued, “He’s gotta go back up to the place with all this history and live out his life thinking about how he killed Dany, and live out his life thinking about Ygritte [Harington’s real-life spouse, Rose Leslie] dying in his arms, and live out his life thinking about how he hung Olly [Brenock O’Connor], and live out his life thinking about all of this trauma.” Harington tellingly added, “So I think where we leave him at the end of the show, there’s always this feeling of like…I think we wanted some kind of little smile that things are okay. He’s not okay.”

    Earlier this year, Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin confirmed the spin-off’s existence under the working title Snow in a blog post. He also said that Harington’s team had met with him to “hammer” out the central story. “Yes, it was Kit Harrington who brought the idea to us,” Martin wrote. “I cannot tell you the names of the writers/showrunners, since that has not been cleared for release yet…but Kit brought them in too, his own team, and they are terrific.”

    Clarke similarly spoke of Harington’s creative involvement on the show, telling the BBC, “He has told me about it. And I know it exists. It’s happening. It’s been created by Kit as far as I can understand, so he’s in it from the ground up. So what you will be watching, hopefully, if it happens, is certified by Kit Harington.”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • What’s About To Happen In White Lotus?

    What’s About To Happen In White Lotus?

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    Image via SKY/HBO Max

    With the White Lotus finale happening this weekend, we are certain of one thing only: anyone could die. Countless fan theories are swirling around the internet and it’s taught us that we don’t know who to believe anymore. Every White Lotus theory seems correct, but we know to expect the unexpected with this show.

    Our editors have our theories, too:

    Langa

    This time last week I was convinced that it was over for Ms Tanya — and her little Portia too. But now I’m less sure. I — along with half the internet, so I can’t take credit — called the connection between Greg and the gays. The working theory: they were conspiring to kill Tanya for her fortune. However, Episode 6 revealed that they videotaped Tanya’s fab tryst with the Italian drug dealer. It seems Greg will use the tape to get Tanya’s money in the divorce. With this in mind, a murder plot seems superfluous. With the bag secured, there’s no ned for violence. I’m still putting a big pin in the gun in the bag though. Much to think about.

    And so now I am left with these theories:

    • Lucia is trying to scam Albie for money. In Episode 1, she seemed very friendly with Alessio so his stalking might be an act to get a windfall from the naive puppy. Then something goes wrong and Albie gets it
    • Something has to be up with the grandfather. He keeps falling — maybe this time, to his death? Last season’s murder was also an accident, so all this might end up being much simpler than we thought
    • I do not think the couples are the murderees. But I have theories about them: I think Harper was fucking with Ethan the way Daphne does to Cam. By flirting with Cam and unlocking the door, she wants him to go crazy like she did. And this craziness is the most passion she’s seen from Ethan the whole time
    • HOWEVER something could be going on with the fact that Cam hasn’t paid Lucia. She might confront him again and something go awry and someone dies
    • Did Valentina give Mia a master key to the hotel? That spells trouble for sure
    • When Lucia said “The whores are always punished in the end” what if she was talking about Jack, who seems to be in some transactional relationship with his not-uncle. What if Portia and Tanya try to get away and out pops the gun, which ends up killing my Essex king?

    Jenna

    PSA: I don’t have TikTok so I feel like I’m missing out on valuable clues. Regardless, this is going to be so embarrassing come Monday when all my theories are wrong. Here’s what I’m thinking:

    • Quentin and Greg try to kill Tanya or catch her in a ‘less-than-flattering situation,’ BUT Tanya and Portia use their narcissistic superpowers and end up killing him – intentional or not, I have no idea
    • This is technically like three guesses in one, but something goes down with Albie, Lucia, or Mia. Mia’s gone off the rails with her singing sex-scapades and I think it’s going to come to a dramatic ending
    • The married couples are where things get tricky for me. I oddly feel like Ethan and Cam have an unannounced chemistry (?), but Daphne threw me for a loop with those baby pictures (??). My money’s on Daphne snapping and killing Cam. But also Ethan is stressing me TF out.
    • Lucia, Albie, the Dad, and the dad’s Dad are giving me big Oedipus Rex energy. Considering that also doesn’t end great, I’m getting the sense that some unknown familial relation(ship) is going to come to the surface.

    Also, can I get bonus points if Laura Dern shows up?

    Jai

    My roommate, Brynn, has sent me a plethora of White Lotus theories on the Tok and the theories make me feel like I haven’t been watching the same show. Granted, you would have to pause every single scene to know what’s happening here. But here are my most solid ones:

    • That creepy scene where all of the men are staring at Aubrey Plaza while she walks around? It’s a parallel from L’Aventura (1960) where Monica Vitti ends up with her friend’s boyfriend after the friend disappears. Could we be seeing Cam and Harper together? Not to mention Tanya says she wants to look like Monica Vitti in a previous ep…
    • …Or is it that Jenna’s right and Ethan and Cam are truly meant to be? The artwork in Harper’s room is all Achilles and Patroclus. Patroclus did heroically disguise himself as Achilles to be killed by the Trojans
    • When Jack is singing the “Blowing Bubbles” song, it’s a signal to the people of Palermo that he is ready to fight. In 2006, 20 West Ham United fans were arrested for a brawl where they were “fighting like animals.” Jack is such a fan, he has a symbol from their crest tattooed on him. He’s up to no good and I’m scared
    • One person who dies isn’t supposed to die. Portia wearing “The Godfather” t-shirt where the wrong mark car is blown up. Then, when they are testing the car explosion, it’s the same dress Tanya is wearing. So maybe Tanya’s supposed to die but someone else does instead

    Report back on Monday to see who was wrong, and who was even more wrong.

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    Jai Phillips

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  • ‘The White Lotus’ Is ‘Fantasy Island’ Plus ‘The Love Boat’—On Acid

    ‘The White Lotus’ Is ‘Fantasy Island’ Plus ‘The Love Boat’—On Acid

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    “If everything’s so perfect, why are we so miserable?” That’s a line that could come straight out of any number of characters on The White Lotus, the second season of which deepens its examination of how real happiness eludes the well-heeled. Instead, it’s a line spoken by the ship purser Gopher (Fred Grandy) on the luxury ocean liner Pacific Princess, in the 1977 pilot of The Love Boat. 

    That’s notable, as The White Lotus creator Mike White recently revealed that his own prestigious hit series, whose second-season finale lands Sunday on HBO, is heavily influenced by his steady diet of crowd-pleasing hit shows that he watched as a kid. “I’m definitely in the Fantasy Island [and] Love Boat generation,” White told NPR earlier this week. “I was probably 10 to 13 years old when they were in their heyday. And I love those shows.” 

    His longtime love for those shows is evident in the bloodline of The White Lotus, but seems more as if he watched them on acid. He also reportedly admits to taking cues from the cliff-hangers of the reality TV show Survivor, on which he appeared as a contestant, and Laverne & Shirley, whose wacky working-girls hijinks influenced plot lines for local sex workers Mia (Beatrice Grannò) and Lucia (Simona Tabasco). 

    The Love Boat, which ran from 1977 to 1986, features affluent passengers cruising through Mexican resort beaches to forget their troubles, only to find that, removed from real-world distractions, those troubles are laid bare to a claustrophobic degree. It attracted a slew of top-notch actors of the day (or those who would soon become famous), from Betty White and Olivia de Havilland to a young Tim Robbins and Tom Hanks, and it ranked among the top-watched shows of the era.

    Part of a wildly popular double hitter of Saturday-night programming on ABC, The Love Boat was followed by Fantasy Island, a show where guests visited a tropical island (some on-location shots were filmed in Hawaii) and paid a handsome sum to have their deepest desires fulfilled, only to learn that they should’ve been careful what they wished for. Their fantasies took somewhat darker, unexpected turns than The Love Boat, sometimes even involving the supernatural or time travel. The show also drew top actors or soon-to-be-stars of the day to guest-star spots (Geena Davis, Don Knotts, LeVar Burton). 

    Both shows were produced by Aaron Spelling, whose pitch to ABC execs for Fantasy Island, funnily enough, echoes the underlying premise of The White Lotus. “Leonard [Goldberg] and I were sitting, and the head of ABC out here at the time [Brandon Stoddard] came in, and he wanted us to do some more TV movies for him,” Spelling told the Television Academy Foundation in 1999. “And we pitched some very touching subject matter and he said, ‘No, that’s too down. No, that’s too family. No, we need something exciting.’ We must’ve pitched six ideas trying to mull it down, and I said as a joke, ‘Oh, so what do you want, this great island where people can go to and all their sexual fantasies will be realized?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I love that!’”

    While it’s unlikely that’s how The White Lotus pitch to HBO went, it’s interesting that White alludes to the ways in which prestige is not really so different from classic TV hits. “When you’re on HBO and there’s all this sense of, ‘It’s prestige TV and blah, blah, blah,’ I’m doing basically a reboot of Laverne & Shirley meets Fantasy Island with some Survivor dropped into it,’” he told NPR. “I think those early entertainment things that capture your imagination definitely stick with you.”

    What seems to have stuck with White from those shows is that their guests are also seeking escape from the drudgery of real life. They also expect the best of everything. And they’re bummed or even outraged when the service, the rooms, the food, or the thrills don’t quite match their unrelenting expectations. And when pitted against one another for resources, shit gets dark.

    But modesty aside, his twist on those formulas is absent in the original shows’ DNA. He’s bringing something entirely of his own here. This was, after all, an era of laugh tracks, tidy resolutions, and simplistic moral lessons about just being honest with your partner or finding a compromise in a relationship. Sure, some guests narrowly escaped death in fulfilling their deepest desires on Fantasy Island (fighting in a war; escaping a well-guarded prison and getting shot at), and the passenger problems on The Love Boat were titillating for the era (one woman desperately wanted to prevent her congressman fiancé from finding out she’d posed naked in Kitten Magazine). But by today’s standards, those are about as controversial as anything on The Brady Bunch. On both shows, though, everything could always be counted on to turn out just fine by the time the credits rolled.

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    Meghann Fahy on

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    Meghann Fahy on “The White Lotus” finale – CBS News


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    Actor Meghann Fahy is being called the break out star of season 2 of “The White Lotus.” Fahy joins “CBS Mornings” to give a sneak peek of the explosive season finale of the hit series, and she explains why no one should underestimate her character Daphne.

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  • White Lotus’s Most Chaotic Character Has the Most Chaotic Style. Here’s Where to Buy It

    White Lotus’s Most Chaotic Character Has the Most Chaotic Style. Here’s Where to Buy It

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    I hate everyone in the latest White Lotus season. But, undoubtedly, that’s the point. Like the award-winning cast of Season 1 — which put Sydney Sweeney on the map — this year’s lineup is a mix of detestable rich people that I’m obsessed with.

    In the current Succession drought, I miss my weekly fix of insufferable capitalist antics. Season 1 of White Lotus was a revelation. And quite the poignant portrait of the intricate ecosystem of wealthy people. Set at the prestigious resort, the show did an impeccable job of sucking us into every last character’s storyline — even though we loathed them.

    And now Season 2 has arrived with a new cast of privileged hotel guests — and this time . . . in Sicily, Italy.

    The show’s genius is that it’s a gripping, modern take on the murder mystery. Not your classic whodunnit, the show is far more than an empty thriller. It’s an examination of class from every angle — and it paints an addictive and unforgiving perspective. If you somehow missed the first season — how? — now’s the ideal time to catch up. Season 2 is here, and every week brings fresh capitalist horrors.

    Aside from two returning guests — including the iconic Jennifer Coolidge, who won an Emmy for last season’s performance — we enter Season 2 with a completely new slate. A whole new hoard of characters to judge, hate, and … aspire to?

    Beyond the enviable vacation spot — the sprawling Italian hotel, the scenery, the food — one of the main signifiers of status and personality is style. From the put-together college girl duo to Alexandra Daddario’s cluelessly-assembled outfits in Season 1, the show’s styling is one of its many gems.

    The show’s costume designer — Alex Bovaird — is an Emmy-winning mastermind. Ethan’s love of tech fleece, Albie’s fresh-from-uni attire, Tanya’s camp opera cape, and even Jack’s tattoos. But nothing has captured the ire of social media like Portia’s outfits.

    Jennifer Coolidge won an Emmy for her role as Tanya in Season 1. And while she’s as fascinating as ever, fans are equally enchanted by a new character: her Gen Z assistant, Portia.

    What’s Portia’s deal?

    Played by Haley Lu Richardson, Portia’s the character they’re trying to launch as this season’s Sydney Sweeney-esque breakout star. Well, she’s certainly starting conversations. She’s Tanya’s assistant and was dragged along on this vacation and is now supposed to hide out in the resort. Which she is not doing.

    First seen sulking behind a restaurant menu and weeping poolside, Portia presents as a victim. Poor girl, stuck in a horrible job with a demanding and unhinged boss. Oh no! But as the show progresses, Portia becomes the anti-hero of the show. And while I doubt she’s the murderer, she’s a very compelling villain.


    Richardson herself told Vanity Fair that “as the episodes go on, you really see just the angst and the misery and the bit of narcissism and unawareness that Portia has.”

    “She’s a mess, she’s a miserable mess,” Portia complains over the phone to an exhausted-sounding friend in her first big scene. But now, that line could apply to her. I mean, she’s in Sicily, and the only work she’s had to do is watch her boss get a tarot card reading. Truly, there are worse things.

    But Miss Portia is not happy. And she’ll tell anyone who will listen — including the two men interested in her at this resort. Instead, she’s dissatisfied, unmoored, and … badly dressed?

    What do Portia’s outfits say about her?

    Everything Bovaird does is intentional. Her choices with Portia haven’t gone unnoticed by fans. “She’s trying a lot of different things at once, and it’s not perfect, so she’s a bit zany.”

    This zaniness takes indecipherable Gen Z style to a bonkers level. It’s maximalism with no clear direction. From hypebeast logo sweatshirts to barely-there bandeaus, everything Portia flaunts I’ve already seen on an Instagram ad. Gen Z favorite brands — Stussy and House of Sunny — are abundant. So are TikTok trends like a knit bucket hat and bright green nail polish.

    All of this points to Portia’s own unpredictability. The internet calls her style chaotic, just like her personality. And it certainly makes sense. She doesn’t know who she is or what she wants — and she dresses like it.

    This is the life of a disillusioned twenty-something, especially one with proximity to wealth. You want something better, something more than what you have … but you have no clue what that is. Unfocused desire, pandemic-stirred boredom, and far too much wine-lubricated social media scrolling lead to a wardrobe of Instagram finds. It’s evident that she’s been inspired by aspirational influencers she watches while doomscrolling. And the desire to prove she’s adventurous and interesting — even if there no substance underneath.

    But no matter what you think about Portia — her style, and her choice of men — a broken clock is right twice a day. So while I wouldn’t wear all her outfits, there are some pieces I do appreciate. I just probably wouldn’t pack them for a Sicilian vacation.


    All products featured are independently selected by our editors. Things you buy through our links may earn us a commission.

    Graphic Sweater Vest

    House of Sunny is one of Gen Z’s most loved, eclectic brands. It went viral on TikTok during the pandemic and is now famous for its prints and bright colors. This is why the exact House of Sunny Sweater Vest that was seen on Portia in her inaugural outfit is totally sold out. You can try to score it secondhand, sure. But like Emma Chamberlain — who is completely on Portia’s style inspo list — Gen Z girls like a sweater vest. So there are many similar options to get the look.

    Square Sunglasses

    Gen Z loves square sunglasses. It’s their chosen accessory — second only to scrunchies, which of course, Portia wears, too. These marble-printed Off-White knockoffs are Portia’s statement accessory. Work on the forehead or in the waistband of her slouchy pants for peak nonchalance.

    Away Luggage, in Millennial Pink

    The luggage of millennials, in that particular shade of pink favored by millennials. Despite Portia’s questionable taste, this one is a fabulous investment. Don’t forget to sloppily slap on some stickers.

    Levi Midi Cutoff Shorts

    Levi’s cutoff shorts are classic. But how Portia styles them? Maybe less classic. But this is the one piece that I’ld definitely take on any vacation. Versatile, flattering, and that mid-thigh cut to stay on trend.

    White Strappy Sandals

    When Portia steps off the boat, the first things we spy . . . the sandals. Clunky, chunky, and ugly-chic, they anchor many of her outfits. For a casual, controversial edge to your outfits, go for a similar strappy shoe.

    Aries ‘No Problemo’ Sweatshirt

    What Gen Z doesn’t love a logo sweatshirt? Bonus points for tie dye, the preeminent pandemic trend. Aries Arise is a newly minted hypebeast favorite, and this No Problemo slogan befits Portia’s apathetic attitude.

    Stussy Workwear Top

    Stussy has been a streetwear staple for decades. And now the internet girlies are catching on. Over the past few years, Stussy has become a social media sensation. But this orange gingham workwear-inspired top is one of the more divisive offerings.

    Nike AF1s

    Another streetwear classic, white Nike Air Force 1s have become sorority girls’ token white sneaker. No wonder they speak to Portia – they’re generic but paired with her kooky outfits, add another unexpected element.

    Asymmetrical Print Midi Skirt

    The 90s are back on trend, and this midi skirt proves it. Asymmetrical enough to appeal to Gen Z and turbulent enough to appeal to Portia, this vintage-inspired skirt is an eclectic addition to any closet.

    House of Sunny Patterned Halterneck Dress

    More House of Sunny! This halterneck dress appears when Portia starts having the fun she only dreamed about. When her fantasy Italian vacation finally gets into gear, she pulls out the big guns with this bold, knit dress.

    House of Sunny Two Piece Set

    Portia wears this two-piece on her big date with Jack. It’s one of her most put-together ensembles — but perhaps only because it’s a matching set. It says: I’m here for a good time, not a long time. And she certainly is.

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    LKC

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  • Theo James Is Done Being Put in a Box

    Theo James Is Done Being Put in a Box

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    Indeed James’s trajectory didn’t quite change with the end of Divergent; browse his IMDb and you won’t see him in any Oscar winners’ movies or on many Emmy-winning TV shows, the way things started out. “We are reliant on the whims of others,” he tells me at one point—but one reason why he launched his own production company, Untapped, in 2019. (His partner in the company is Andrew D. Corkin, who backed acclaimed indies including Martha Marcy May Marlene and We Are What We Are.) So far the banner has helped realize an eclectic batch of projects, including James’s well-received sci-fi vehicle Archive and Netflix’s new docuseries Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? In all this, James says he’s found a new way to look at an industry that he hasn’t always had the easiest time navigating. “You’re like, how will we make this? How will we package this? How does this work?” he says. “You start understanding everyone around you.” 

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    Whether you’ve seen it or not, James is in the midst of a period of varied, interesting work. The White Lotus being the most popular piece of the batch means more people are catching on right now, but the actor has appeared quite determined to break beyond the Hollywood hunk bubble for years. The effort materialized in fits and starts—the nature of the business—and has been largely facilitated by the small screen. In 2019, James starred in and executive-produced an acclaimed take on Jane Austen’s unfinished romantic manuscript, Sanditon, starring as the fiery male lead Sidney Parker (at least, in the first season—James departed after the series was renewed, telling me that “ending in a way which was uncomfortable and unsatisfactory felt very right for him as a character”). 

    He then moved to The Time Traveler’s Wife, the rare HBO drama to be savaged by critics and fail to score a second season. The melodramatic adaptation, which costarred Game of Thrones alum Rose Leslie, intrigued James for the simple challenge of playing a character from “very young to pretty old,” and found opportunities within that for a juicy challenge. The negative reception surprised him. “It was disappointing in many ways,” he says. “I thought the show definitely wasn’t perfect, but that there were some interesting through lines there for a story.”

    I ask if, unlike with Sanditon, this was a case where he would’ve jumped at the chance to do another season. “You learn to forget pretty quickly,” he replies flatly. “You numb yourself, or at least train yourself to forget, pretty quickly, because it’s problematic to not do that.”

    That tide may be finally turning. The sheer size of his White Lotus performance, salacious takeaways and headlines aside, leaves a lasting impression on both the viewer and, maybe, the actor himself. A hard one to shake off, you could say. On set some takes could run nearly 10 minutes long as James experimented before the camera with Plaza, Meghann Fahy (who plays Cameron’s wife, Daphne), and the rest of the cast. He got to be funny, which Hollywood hasn’t allowed for quite some time, even though James started out doing Edinburgh Fringe Festival comedy. He’s only seen three episodes as we chat, and is marveling at the bolder acting choices that have made it into White’s final cut. Again, there’s some acquired wisdom there: “You feel a freedom to take big stabs, and if it doesn’t land, it doesn’t land—but you see that the good stuff can land.”

    James is now two weeks into filming The Gentlemen, producing and playing the lead in the new take on Guy Richie’s 2019 hit, reimagined as a Netflix series. This version centers on a soldier who returns home following the death of his father, and becomes part of a kind of landed gentry with his inheritance—albeit with a criminal empire bubbling underneath. James describes the show as a comedy and an action thriller and a social drama rolled into one—a messy, vibrant coalescence of everything the actor has been bringing to the table of late. 

    Is he nervous, then, about how it will be received—either another step forward, or another setback? Certainly he knows that back-and-forth all too well. James responds simply, and like a true industry veteran: “No, no, definitely not. I mean, if you did that, you’d be fucked.”

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    David Canfield

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  • All of Helena Targaryen’s Prophecies in House of the Dragon, Explained

    All of Helena Targaryen’s Prophecies in House of the Dragon, Explained

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    Warning: This article contains possible spoilers for House of the Dragon Season Two and George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood. 

    The House of the Dragon season one finale officially marked the beginning of the long-brewing Dance of the Dragons, with audiences left with no choice but to hold their breath for at least more two years before we can watch how it all unfolds. The bloody civil war within House Targaryen is expected to cover countless betrayals and deaths involving both various members from the royal family and their beloved dragons.

    The show, of course, heavily draws inspiration from Game of Thrones’s lore as well as George R.R. Martin’s 2018 novella, Fire & Blood. Most notably, Martin has also taken a more hands-on approach with the adaptation of his work this time around and so, each liberality that the showrunners have taken can be construed to have been made with his blessing. 

    Among the biggest but most interesting—and arguably the best—of these changes are the ones made with Alicent and Viserys’ daughter, Helaena. 

    Targaryen Dreamers in ‘House of the Dragon’

    Viserys Targaryen in HBO's House of the Dragon.
    HBO

    Now, in the book Helaena is more of a quiet and subtle character. The same could be said for her counterpart on House of the Dragon, however, viewers have been quick to notice an important ability of hers: she appears to be a dreamer. 

    The seemingly hereditary ability of members of the house of the Dragon to see into the future have been mentioned many times throughout the show’s first season. There is, of course, the recurring theme of Aegon the Conqueror’s dream which he left secretly written in the catspaw dagger that also happens to foreshadow the primary conflict in Game of Thrones. King Viserys also made mention of the greatest and perhaps first dreamer in their line: Daenys Targaryen, who had seen the fall of Valyria. Upon her advice, her father relocated their entire family together with their dragons to Dragonstone, despite snide remarks and laughs they received from other lords and ladies in Old Valyria. Twelve years later, Valyria did fall and the Targaryens became among the last of the world’s dragonriders. 

    There is no explicit mention of Helaena having prophetic abilities in the source material and so the slight deviation has proven quite interesting and has left fans quite literally hanging onto her every word. 

    “He’ll have to close an eye.”

    (HBO)

    After being relentlessly teased for not having a dragon, Aemond was presented with the “pink dread” by his brother Aegon and Rhaenyra’s children, Jaecerys and Lucerys. As we all know, the “dragon” turned out to be a pig with makeshift wings, which upsets a then young Aemond who seeks comfort from his mother. In the background, we see a young Helaena examining a millipede in her hands and her simultaneously uttering, “He’ll have to close an eye.” just as Alicent assures Aemond that one day, he’ll get a dragon of his own. In the next episode, we actually do see Aemond lose an eye after Lucerys’ cuts him for stealing Vhagar. 

    “The last ring has no legs at all.”

    Aegon II Targaryen after his coronation in the Dragonpit in Episode 9 of House of the Dragon
    (HBO)

    Now this comment goes a little unnoticed. It was made during the same scene where she foreshadows Aemond losing his eye, all while still studying the same millipede. The show is currently set to run for at least four seasons and so we probably have to wait a couple of years for this one to play out but it could either pertain to one out of two things: Bran Stark or Helaena’s husband and brother, Aegon II. 

    In Game of Thrones, Bran Stark loses his ability to walk after suffering a fall in its first season. Somehow, somewhere down the line, in season eight, he ends up on the Iron Throne and is heralded as “Bran the Broken,” making him quite literally, the “last ring” with “no legs.” 

    If we’re to interpret this using House of the Dragon’s context exclusively, though, it just might be a foreshadowing of Aegon’s fate, which I think is more probable considering that the line before that was meant for Aemond. Again, this is a potential spoiler warning for the next seasons of the show: at the height of the Dance, Aegon finds himself in a battle against Baela in Dragonstone, where both of their dragons end up falling from the sky. Aegon saves himself by jumping off of his dragon’s back and survives but with the price of his legs shattering, leaving him pained and broken for the remainder of his life. 

    “Beware the beast beneath the boards.”

    A picture of Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, played by Eve Best, astride her dragon Meleys in Episode 9 of House of the Dragon
    (HBO)

    This line from episode eight left the theory mill churning day and night, especially considering how frantic Helaena was as she kept saying it over and over throughout the episode, even swatting her mother’s hand in the process. The reveal would turn out to be a little more on the nose but just as unexpected and badass as we would hope with Princess Rhaenys quite literally bursting from beneath the Dragon Pit together with her dragon Melys. 

    Many fans, however, have theorized that this line may also be a foreshadowing of Blood and Cheese, which we can probably expect to happen sometime in season two, based on the trajectory of the timeline of the series so far. The event is probably one of the most heartbreaking and downright devastating things to happen throughout the course of the Dance and primarily involves Helaena, her children, and a pair of hired assassins called Blood and Cheese who navigate the tunnels of the Red Keep to get to them. 

    “Hand turns loom; spool of green, spool of black. Dragons of flesh, weaving dragons of thread.”

    alicent hightower in her green power dressalicent hightower in her green power dress on HBO's House of the Dragon.
    HBO

    Helaena makes this prophecy in episode seven during Laena Velaryon’s funeral. In the same episode, we see later on that Rhaenyra and Daemon decide to get married to strengthen Rhaenyra’s claim to the Iron Throne (and, well, probably because the tension has been brewing for years). It’s essentially her describing everything going on behind the scenes between the two factions—the spools of green, of course, refer to Otto and Alicent Hightower—as the inevitable question of Viserys’ succession is continuously put to the test as he grows weaker and weaker. 

    “It is our fate, I think, to crave what is given to another. If one possesses a thing, the other will take it away.”

    On the outset, this one feels like another throwaway line but seemingly summarizes almost every character on the show. First, we have Alicent and Rhaenyra’s relationship, where it could be argued that Alicent’s holier-than-thou gig mostly stems from bitterness and regret that she didn’t get to follow her heart like her old friend-turned-stepdaughter. There’s also the envy between Aemond and Aegon, where both know that the former is much more suited but it is the latter who has the birthright. 

    (Featured Image: HBO)

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    Danielle Baranda

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