Shadow of War, which launches on October 10, is the sequel to 2014’s Shadow of Mordor. Developed by Monolith, we found the sequel to be bigger and more ambitious than the first title, though we had our issues with it as well. You can read our full Shadow of War review here.
As for The Evil Within 2, it’s from the same studio as the first one, Tango Gameworks in Japan. The team is led by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami. The Evil Within 2 puts you back into the shoes of detective Sebastian Castellanos who is looking for his lost daughter in a world filled with horrors.
Other notable new releases this week include the physical version of Friday the 13th: The Game, which of course launches on Friday the 13th. New PlayStation VR releases this week include combat racing game Radial G: Racing Revolved and the murder mystery game The Invisible Hours from Rime developer Tequila Works.
FX announced “substantial edits” are being made to a scene in the next episode of American Horror Story: Cult. Creator Ryan Murphy and the show’s producers made the call following the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas on October 1.
The scene in question opens the episode and, as FX explains, “contains a sequence that some viewers might find traumatic.” According to the network, the opening scene was filmed two months before the events of Last Vegas. Still, while the scene won’t be shown in its original form when the episode airs Tuesday, October 10, it will be available to watch. According to FX, viewers will be able to see the full scene through VOD and the network’s streaming platforms.
The full statement from FX follows: “In light of the tragedy last week in Las Vegas, Ryan Murphy and the producers of American Horror Story: Cult have chosen to make substantial edits to the opening scene of tomorrow night’s episode (Tuesday, October 10, 10 PM ET/PT). This opening, which was filmed two months ago and which portrays an occurrence of gun violence that has sadly become all too common in our country, contains a sequence that some viewers might find traumatic. Only the edited version of the episode will air on the FX linear channel, while the unedited version of the episode will be available on the VOD platform of your cable, satellite or telco provider, as well as on the FX Networks non-linear platforms, FXNOW and FX+.”
AHS isn’t the first TV show or movie changing plans after the Las Vegas attack. Previously, Marvel and Netflix announced the cancellation of The Punisher’s New York Comic Con panel. In a statement, the companies said, “After careful consideration, Netflix and Marvel have decided it wouldn’t be appropriate for Marvel’s The Punisher to participate in New York Comic-Con.” The series still has no announced premiere date, while one was expected to be revealed during the panel.
Meanwhile, Deadline reports that Annapurna Pictures’ Death Wish shifted its release date to 2018, after it was originally set to debut on November 22. The film, which stars Bruce Willis, is a gun violence-heavy remake of a 1974 vigilante film. While the studio has not said the movie’s changed release is related to what happened in Las Vegas, the move came mere days after the mass shooting.
Spoilers for Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 below
Like Harrison Ford’s character Rick Deckard as he sat in Niander Wallace’s water-logged office, Blade Runner 2049 viewers got a shock when Sean Young’s character from the original 1982 movie, Rachael the replicant, appeared in the just-released sequel looking fresh as a fabricated daisy.
In the movie itself, the character is confirmed to be long dead. More importantly, in real life the actress Sean Young has aged more than 30 years since the original Blade Runner‘s release. In Blade Runner 2049, Jared Leto’s Wallace goes to presumably painstaking effort to recreate the replicant Rachael–to the best of his abilities, at least. The process of recreating Sean Young’s appearance in the film, director Denis Villeneuve told GameSpot, was just as intense.
They started by casting a lookalike actress with the same height, skin tone, and general appearance as Sean Young in the original Blade Runner. Then they brought in Young herself, who’s fully credited as an actress in the film, to coach the lookalike on exactly how to move. Rachael’s elegant gait is pretty distinctive, after all, and it had to look believable when she walked in the room.
Once it was all shot, Villeneuve handed it to a VFX company that worked full time for an entire year to make Rachael look like Rachael. The director said he was especially worried about this process thanks to some other recent examples that looked less than stellar, including Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia and Peter Cushing’s Tarkin being recreated in the Star Wars movie Rogue One.
“When we were doing the process I saw Rogue One, and I went back to the editing room, and I said guys–I didn’t like it at all,” Villeneuve said. “I have a lot of respect for that director, and that movie I thought was great, but it took me out of the movie.” Villeneuve told the VFX artists that if the director’s mother didn’t buy it, it wasn’t good enough.
“I want my mother to say, ‘Oh, you found someone who looks really like her!'” he said. “I didn’t want people to think it’s a synthetic performance.”
What about Sean Young’s voice? How did they get Blade Runner 2049‘s new Rachael to sound like the classic?
“Sean’s voice is different, very different,” Villeneuve said. “So we put samples from the first movie, where the character is in the same kind of emotion, then we worked with several actresses in order to find the closest thing that sounds like Sean Young, as close as possible. It was a long process to find the right one.”
The computer-generated Sean Young that appears in Blade Runner 2049 may be the best example yet of CGI being used to resurrected deceased or aged actors for new roles. It will likely be viewed as a high-water mark for future attempts. But Villeneuve thinks we’re still far away from this becoming common practice. He said the problem with Rogue One‘s CGI characters might have been simply a lack of time on the filmmakers’ parts.
“It [takes] very long to do. That’s the thing that maybe saved my ass–is that I limited the amount of shots [with CGI Sean Young in them],” Villeneuve said. “It’s tough to find the unique computer artists that will have the sensibility of a director. I was talking to them like I direct an actor. My VFX supervisor, they were like a pit bull. They didn’t let it go. They worked seven days a week for months, pushing, pushing, pushing.”
“If I was a SAG [Screen Actors Guild] member I would not worry, because it’s so difficult,” he continued. In other words, real actors shouldn’t worry about being replaced by CGI any time soon.
Fortunately the effect in Blade Runner 2049 is far less uncanny valley than in Rogue One. Villeneuve, too, is happy with the results.
“For me it’s mesmerizing,” he said. “You see her coming, and Deckard’s looking at her, and I want myself to believe. We did it. We worked on it until we felt that she looks real, that I was emotionally involved like the other characters.”
We teamed up with Bethesda to give away these awesome The Evil Within 2 prize packs:
The Evil Within 2 on PS4, Xbox One, or PC
The Evil Within 2 Prima Strategy Guide, Shirt, Comic, and Journal
Grand Prize: Custom The Evil Within 2 skinned consoles, (1) Xbox One and (1) PS4
Please read this carefully: We have a total of fifteen (15) prize packs, including two (2) winners who will receive a custom The Evil Within 2 skinned console for Xbox One or PS4. Five (5) winners will be announced daily at approximately 5:00PM PT until the competition ends on Friday, October 13th at 5:00 PM PT. Console winners will be chosen on Friday. If you enter for a chance to win today and don’t win, you’ll be automatically entered again the next day. Entry is open to United States residents only, void where prohibited.
Enter below (the additional entries are optional to increase your chances of winning):
John-Rhys-Davies has revealed he would love to return as excavator Sallah in Indiana Jones 5.
Speaking to Yahoo Movies at the BAFTA Cymru Awards, Rhys-Davies pondered Sallah’s life beyond The Last Crusade. “I like to think that he would have been somebody like Khaled al-Asaad – that marvelous 80-year-old man who was defending his museum in Palmyra and who hid its major treasures and refused to give them over to ISIS and was beheaded in the town square,” he said.
Rhys-Davies is referring to Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Assad, who tragically died defending the ancient city of Palmyra in 2015. He believes the “best digger in Egypt” would have shared some qualities with the late scholar.
A bronze statue of the late Anton Yelchin was recently unveiled, honoring the actor’s life and career.
According the The Hollywood Reporter, the statue was revealed during a service for Yelchin, which was attended by some of his Star Trek collaborators, including Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, and J.J. Abrams.
Director Joe Dante, who helmed the Yelchin-led horror comedy Burying the Ex, shared the following photo of the statue on Twitter:
It’s not October with out New York Comic Con at NYC’s Javits Center, and this year some big news broke out of the fall convention that has major repercussions for pop culture.
In case you missed some of the biggest headlines, we rounded up the 15 most important stories out of New York Comic Con to help you stay up-to-date with all the news that’s fit to print. From the multiple Marvel controversies that made headlines to the Watchmen character back from the dead to a massive Walking Dead crossover in the works, here’s what you might have missed from NYCC:
