Crunchyroll has revealed that Chainsaw Man: The Movie - Reze Arc will arrive on the anime streaming service this spring. In the announcement, Crunchyroll notes that the streaming release will be accompanied by “a range of subs and subs,” but does not confirm specific languages.

While not exactly a concrete release date, the streaming window is relatively soon, offering a boon to fans who didn’t catch one of last year’s biggest anime movies in theaters.

The Chainsaw Man movie was originally released in Japan last September, where it quickly climbed and proceeded to hold on to the #1 spot at the box office for over a full month. The movie's popularity continued to grow after expanding to North American theaters in mid-October, leading to a global box office haul of over $162 million.

This success is one of many that contributed to a record-breaking year at the Japanese box office. According to The Hollywood Reporter, theaters saw a 32% increase in revenue over the course of the year. Another notable release contributing to the box office excitement was Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, which, as of early 2026, is the highest grossing Japanese movie of all time.

In the world of anime movies, this is a relatively quick turnaround for a streaming release, likely a product of the film’s theatrical success. The Chainsaw Man movie also ended up being Letterboxd’s highest user-rated film of 2025, with IGN’s own review highlighting plenty of action as well as "a compelling and hauntingly beautiful romance."

For now, Chainsaw Man: The Movie - Reze Arc is only available to purchase digitally through services like Prime Video. Crunchyroll, which recently increased prices and removed free streaming support, asked fans to “stay tuned for more details for an exact release date, time and languages.” No information has been revealed about a physical release, but it would be reasonable to anticipate one under the Crunchyroll banner.

The first and only Chainsaw Man movie so far is a direct sequel to the anime’s first season, which we gave a solid 9/10. Season 2 is currently in development, expected to pick up right after the movie's conclusion with the Assassin’s Arc from Tatsuki Fujimoto’s original manga. No release window has been announced.

Blythe (she/her) is an Audience Development Coordinator at IGN who, when she isn't following streaming news, spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.

Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski has railed against the addition of AI tools into creative processes, as he prepares to launch a new sci-fi comedy featuring a rogue artificial intelligence as its villain.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die arrives in theaters this Friday, February 13 as Verbinski's first movie in eight years. Sam Rockwell stars as a time traveller who seeks help in the present day from a group of quirky diner customers, in order to stop an AI threat in the future.

Discussing the movie's AI villain character with The Hollywood Reporter, Verbinski said he wanted to create an adversary that wasn't "HAL 9000 or Skynet" but an AI that was worse because "it wants you to like it" — similar to the wave of seemingly-helpful AI bots and tools being injected into everyday apps and software today.

"So much of what AI has initially been focused on is how to keep us engaged. What do we buy? What do we consume? More importantly, what do we hate?" Verbinski said. "We're writing our worst attributes into its source code, and it's generating so much stuff back into the internet that it's starting to drink its own piss."

Verbinski said he'd been in meetings with movie executives where he's been told the future of film-making is using AI to make movies for cheaper, and as a "tool" he should use. "They're very fast," he said of discussions where this topic has come up.

"Why is AI helping me write a song or tell a story?" he continued. "I don't want it to breathe or f*** for me; I want it to solve cancer. Send some shit through a black hole; do something that we can't do. Or dig a ditch; do the shit we don't want to do. Why is it coming after the stuff that we essentially need to do to be human beings?"

Verbinski's comments echo the similar — if rather more succint — verdict on generative AI from Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out director Rian Johnson. "F*** AI," Johnson said recently. "It's something that's making everything worse in every single way."

In September 2025, the SAG-AFTRA actors' union issued a strongly worded statement in response to the emergence of Tilly Norwood, the AI-generated "actress" that has enraged Hollywood. In December last year, Disney invested $1 billion in OpenAI and agreed to let the algorithm legally create content using 200 of its most beloved characters. Meanwhile, in the background, the $82.7 billion sale of Warner Bros. to Netflix rumbles on, as one recent report suggested that Netflix valued Warner Bros. so highly because it wanted to use the century-old company's intellectual properties within its own generative AI content in future.

Image credit: Eric Charbonneau/Briarcliff Entertainment via Getty Images

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Mummy fans, you’ve got a lot going for you right now. Lee Cronin’s take is dropping trailers and visuals left and right, and the film is set to be released in just over two months. On top of that, Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are returning for a sequel to the beloved 1999 adventure film — and we now have a release date for that project.

According to the official release calendar for Universal Pictures, the fourth installment in The Mummy franchise — which currently has no official title just yet — will hit theaters on May 19, 2028. It’s a ways away, for sure, but at least there’s a date on the books!

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, two of the members of the directorial collective and production company Radio Silence, will serve as directors on the project. By now, you know these guys well; they’ve directed two of the three most recent Scream sequels, both 5 and 6, and both Ready or Not and its sequel film, which is hitting theaters at the end of next month. They also made one of the best V/H/S segments to date, the finale segment of the original film titled “10/31/98.”

David Coggeshall, the writer behind Orphan: First Kill, will write the script for the upcoming Mummy sequel film — and it seems as though the plot of the next movie will be fulfilling a dream for Fraser himself.

"The one I wanted to make is forthcoming," he explained to The Associated Press back in November. "And I've been waiting 20 years for this call. Sometimes it was loud, sometimes it was a faint telegraph. Now? It's time to give the fans what they want."

"The one I wanted to make was never made," he also noted, revealing of the third installment, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: "the third one was a model of… how can I say this to the AP reporter? NBC had the rights to broadcast the Olympics that year. So they put two together and we went to China."

After The Mummy was released in 1999, the first sequel titled The Mummy Returns debuted two years later in 2001. The third film premiered in 2008, though Weisz did not return for it and was replaced by Maria Bello. Thankfully, though, she’s back and it's hoped she and Fraser will bring the heart and charm of the original right back to this beloved franchise… in 2028, that is.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

Crime 101 opens in theaters on Feb. 13.

A few minutes in to Crime 101, with the streets of Los Angeles whipping by, a tense, thudding soundtrack gnawing at you while carefully laid plans are set up with unassuming close-ups only to be paid off in full-circle moments, you might start to think that you’ve seen this movie before. If you find yourself enjoying the cross-cut montage of the main characters crossing paths on the 101 and the evocative LA-at-night atmosphere, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong in feeling a little deja vu.

Like an entry level college course from which the film takes its name, Crime 101 is proficient in all the right elements of a heist movie. Director Bart Layton and the stacked cast led by Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Halle Berry do what they can to take some chances around the periphery, veering from the formula in a few interesting ways. But like a high-end thief who strays from his MO, the movie ultimately pays for it in the end.

Crime 101 doesn’t actively do anything bad. In fact, the film tries to do a handful of interesting things, but only does each of them half as well as it could have with a little more focus. The pull of familiar heist movie tropes, the cat and mouse of Heat or the “one last score and I’m out” of… well, Heat again, proves too strong and too thoroughly reproduced in Crime 101 for the variations to comfortably fold in. It all adds up to a pretty standard heist flick featuring some flourishes to the formula that feel more out of place than like a creative riff on the genre.

For example, Chris Hemsworth’s Mike Davis is an awkward, almost cripplingly shy man who, at times, seems to be neurodivergent. It’s definitely a departure from Thor or any number of the comedic supporting roles he’s shone in over the years. He’s a charismatic presence on screen no matter who he’s playing and his performance here works in the moments where he struggles to connect with a would-be love interest or when he scrubs himself down before a job to avoid leaving DNA evidence behind. However, the characterization gets a little lost when he shows no compunction about car chases or shaking down insurance executives.

Mark Ruffalo’s Detective Lubesnick and Halle Berry’s broker Sharon, even Hemsworth’s thief, all suffer under the unjust treatment of awful bosses and the same dead-end sense of futility. Both Sharon and Detective Lubesnick wear the bitterness well, but are dismissed by their superiors in ways that are equally frustrating and formulaic. The trio also share a clarity as to who the real villains are in their world, leading to no small amount of Robin Hood style class warfare, with the film dipping a toe into a thread of wealthy white people buying and hoarding Black and Native American art while stopping short of a proper eat-the-rich kind of theme.

The real problem is none of this is allowed to be what the movie is “about” because Crime 101 is so determined to fall in line with the crime thriller genre that the flourishes feel more like bugs than features.

On the upside however, Barry Keoghan is an energetic little blast of a character. His version of the dangerous wild card thrown into the mix brings a rabid energy to the proceedings. He’s desperate to prove himself, bouncing back and forth between a skilled criminal and a clear psychopath.

Nick Nolte (now with 100% more gravelly-voice) does his thing as the elderly fence / father figure to Mike, but doesn’t get much else to play with outside of what the elderly fence / father figures usually get to do in movies like this.

Frankly, one of the real highlights is a one-and-a-half scene cameo. Jennifer Jason Leigh, in her screentime with Mark Ruffalo, helps make a tragic scene grounded and hilarious as an argument erupts about how much of a “beach guy” Lubesnick may or may not be. As far as scene partners go, they’re a pair I’d love to see more of.

By the end of the movie, though, the scales are tipped toward familiar crime movie tropes as opposed to the variations on the pattern. There are interesting ideas at play throughout the film that get swapped out like one getaway car for another in service of a plot that’s less compelling than any one of them.

Ultimately, there really isn’t anything wrong with Crime 101. That might be its biggest problem, though.

Oscar-nominated racing blockbuster F1 is getting a sequel, producer Jerry Bruckheimer has now confirmed.

Speaking to BBC News today, Bruckheimer confirmed he was "working on a sequel," though did not share further detail on a filming schedule or plans for a release. It's unknown, too, whether F1 star Brad Pitt will return for the second film.

The quick confirmation comes as something of a surprise, just days after executives from both F1 and Apple TV hinted at the possibility of a F1 follow-up while simultaneously suggesting that any public confirmation was still a year away.

"Stay tuned," said Formula 1 boss Stefano Domenicali at an Apple TV press event last week. "We're going to tell you something more in the future. Never say never. But we need to digest more the success of this movie because it was something unique. And if you want to think of a new one, it has to be really, very, very good. Therefore, if this will happen, it will not be for next year. But maybe next year we're going to be here, and hopefully we have something more to announce."

Bruckheimer, who apparently didn't get that memo, today said he planned to be involved again — including in casting decisions. "I never worked with Brad Pitt before and it's really a thrill to work with Brad," he added, without confirming whether the Fight Club, Ocean's 11 and Troy star had yet been tempted back on board for the sequel.

Work on F1 2, or whatever it gets called, seems to still be in its early stages — and that's not surprising, considering the fact that the first F1 is still to see out its award season. Released last summer, the movie earned $630 million at the global box office and garnered four Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.

"F1: The Movie follows the sports movie playbook almost perfectly," IGN wrote in its F1 movie review, "finding ways to be just that much better at nearly every stage of its 156-minute runtime – creating a super fun racecar flick in the process that eventually finds its way to victory lane."

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is in select theaters now.

Half the fun of watching guerrilla productions like Jackass or Borat is the thrill of a flimsy artifice couching publicity stunts as if they’ve been pulled off “for real.” The camera, visible or otherwise, follows eager protagonists who ensnare an unsuspecting public into infantile shenanigans – a tradition dating back to the 1948 debut of TV prank show, Candid Camera. In the most technical sense, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie exists in that same vein, making it a delight to watch with an audience. However, it’s also a time-travel movie incorporating footage from earlier versions of the concept, forcing the story to twist around itself with head-spinning proficiency, leading to one of the most absurd, laugh-out-loud comedy films in years.

How exactly do you employ a sci-fi conceit while blurring the lines between real and unreal in a mockumentary where messing with actual people is the point? If you’re Canadian comedians Matt Johnson and Jay McCaroll, who play fictional avatars of themselves and enact hare-brained plans to get hired at a music venue, well…you just do. The result, born from the duo’s against-all-odds creative ethos, is a jaw-dropping blast that constantly raises the same core question as Alfonso Cuarón’s 3D space scorcher, Gravity: “How the hell did they make this?”

For the uninitiated: The legacy sequel, directed by BlackBerry director (and Matt and Mara actor) Johnson, follows his and McCaroll’s short-lived Viceland TV show from 2017-2018, Nirvanna the Band the Show, itself a sequel to their independent web series Nirvanna the Band, which ran from 2007 to 2009. You don’t need to have seen either one to watch the new movie, since it opens with footage they shot on cheap handycams in 2008, introducing us to the duo’s core dynamic: A hyperactive, fedora-sporting Johnson ropes the more laid-back McCaroll into trying to score a music gig at Toronto bar & restaurant the Rivoli under the copyright-skirting moniker, “Nirvanna the Band.” This is despite them never having actually written a song, or even contacted the venue’s management. After a mini-episode’s worth of buffoonery, the film skips forward to 2025 and finds the makeshift musicians in a state of arrested development. Johnson – who behaves largely the same, but has put on some weight – is still trying to convince a now-haggard McCaroll that his next plan will actually work, at the risk of a potential creative schism.

This (re)introduction to the characters also serves to convince new viewers to stick around for the ride. It’s hard not to, when Johnson’s latest ploy involves the publicity stunt of parachuting off Toronto’s iconic, nearly 2,000-foot-tall CN Tower, a scheme whose absurd logistics are funny enough until, shockingly, we actually see Johnson and McCaroll con their way up to the top of the structure for real. This dizzying feat – shot by off-screen comrades with hidden HD cameras – doesn’t go exactly as planned (in reality or in the fiction), but it’s pulled off with enough panache that any computer-generated seams are completely invisible, buying loads of goodwill from anyone who might still need convincing.

Nearly 20 years into trying and failing to play at the Rivoli, McCaroll is at the end of his rope. However, Johnson’s ultimate, galaxy-brained ploy is yet to come – traveling to the year 2008 by turning the pair’s RV into a Back to the Future-style time machine fueled by a long-defunct Canadian novelty drink. Before they know it, the duo finds themselves in an earlier version of downtown Toronto populated by Goth fashion, billboards for The Dark Knight, and – most impressively of all – younger, wide-eyed versions of themselves, accomplished through a combination of body doubles, ingeniously-edited archival footage, and meticulously recreated sets. The scenes where the older and younger pairings almost come into contact, combining old and new footage shot nearly two decades apart and skillfully spliced together, are a fist-pumping triumph.

The movie’s mischievous plot involves not only fetch quests to try to return to 2025, but the hilarious horrors of alternate timelines and even stranger publicity ploys whose staging blurs the lines between fiction and reality. All the while, the story’s emotional core pivots around the now forty-something Johnson and McCaroll coming within inches of their past selves, and in the process, reflecting on this timeline’s Obama-era, iPhone 3G optimism – not to mention the limitless promise of being able to self-distribute video content for the first time. This is in sharp contrast to their many regrets and failures during the intervening years. Much like the recent Jackass Forever, it’s a prank film about the passage of time, told with the same scrappy DIY sensibility as the original web series, albeit with Johnson employing more crash zooms and rapid movements to emphasize both comedic and dramatic moments.

Will this peek into the past finally convince McCaroll that he’s better off without his over-enthusiastic, man-child bestie? In Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, quite literally anything is possible, including the production improvising entire plot developments around a real shooting outside the home of Toronto rapper Drake. It’s ambitious and audacious, to say the least.

Each roguish set piece remains grounded in the emotional dynamic of its leads, who – despite their jejune conduct and sensibilities – imbue these broad, middle-aged-loser versions of themselves with genuine pathos. The movie’s mockumentary style, whose aesthetics are hilariously adjusted for each era, harbors both the daring realism of an elaborate hoax as well as the gooey “aw, shucks” melodrama of two men realizing how much they need each other. It’s a pitch-perfect medley of styles and a nonstop hoot with a crowd.

Netflix will release a recorded version of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, the franchise's live stage show which includes important backstory for Henry Creel.

As reported by Collider, Netflix is expected to film the show this week with its original Broadway cast. A release date for the filmed version has not yet been announced.

Fans have recognized Stranger Things: The First Shadow as an important chapter of lore within the franchise, as it answers questions about Henry Creel, AKA the series' key villain Vecna, that some had expected from its divisive finale — and then from within the series' phantom extra episode that some fans incorrectly believed would follow.

A prequel to the main Stranger Things TV series, set during Henry Creel's teenage years, The First Shadow shows the growth of Creel's psychokinetic powers and finally reveals their true origin. Audiences also get to see the proto-villain at school with some other familiar faces, Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers (then Maldonado).

For fans, The First Shadow is a key part of the main series' story, so it makes sense that Netflix is now filming it for a wider audience who can't easily get to its Broadway or West End productions. Will its lore also help calm those who still feel the TV series' final episode (and wider final season) didn't do everything they wanted? Well, that remains to be seen.

The First Shadow originally launched in London in 2023, several years before Stranger Things ended, but was always planned to tell a story that dovetailed into the main show. Its script was written by series writer Kate Trefrey, who worked on the plot with Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, as well as Adolescence and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne.

The play also features the character of Dr. Martin "Papa" Brenner, whose TV actor Matthew Modine recently said he disliked the series' finale and hoped "for the fans" that the conspiracy theory around a secret final-final episode was actually true. (It is not.)

"Stranger Things was a generational event that barreled into a series finale with almost impossible expectations surrounding it," IGN wrote in our review of the Stranger Things series finale. "The Duffers certainly evolved into the successful blockbuster directors they so admired in their childhoods, but their enduring legacy will be mostly doing right by a cast of characters who beguiled the globe."

While the main series may have ended, there's still plenty more Stranger Things to come as well as The First Shadow. The Duffer Brothers are now working on a new live-action TV spin-off with fresh characters, and we've already got our first look at Stranger Things '85, an animated series showing further adventures with the original gang while they were younger.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Horror director Mike Flanagan is once again linking up with iconic author Stephen King for a new movie adaptation of The Mist, reports Deadline.

Based on King’s 1980 sci fi horror novella, first published in a Viking Press horror anthology in 1980, The Mist is the story of a group of survivors stuck in small-town Maine by a thick fog that’s enveloped the whole area, which conceals deadly creatures. The Mist was nominated for a number of literary awards at the time and is typically considered amongst King’s most well-regarded works. Flanagan is on deck to direct, and will write the screenplay.

The Mist was previously adapted into a movie back in 2007, starring Thomas Jane and directed by Frank Darabont, who had previously directed 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption and 1999’s The Green Mile (which were also based on Stephen King stories). It was also adapted into a short-lived, 10-episode TV series in 2017, though it was cancelled the same year it aired.

This new adaptation will join a lengthy list of existing King collaborations for Flanagan, including 2017’s Gerald’s Game, 2019’s Doctor Sleep (the sequel to The Shining), and 2024’s The Life of Chuck. Flanagan is also working on an eight-episode TV adaptation of Carrie for Prime Video. King’s first published novel, Carrie has previously been adapted into film on three separate occasions.

Flanagan is also currently leading a new Exorcist movie project, which Scarlett Johansson joined late last year.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.

Amazon has launched a 'Buy 2, get 1 50% off' sale ahead of Valentine's Day, and it's filled to the brim with 4K movies. These promotions are always a great time to pick up a sweet little movie gift for yourself or your loved ones, and this version of the sale has particularly great options for the Disney fan in your life.

There are a bunch of 4K Disney and Pixar movies eligible for the deal, including some of the newest releases. I've rounded up the full list of Disney offerings here, but you can also mix and match these movies with any other inclusions in the sale and still receive the special discount. There's a healthy mix of books, Blu-rays, anime, and even board games to choose from.

Buy 1, Get 1 Half Off 4K Disney Movies

Although this list of eligible Disney movies in this sale is pretty Pixar heavy, there are still a few animated gems in here. The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch were both released in 4K just last year, and are already discounted and eligible for the additional 50% off. The Emperor's New Groove just celebrated its 25th anniversary with that 4K release and it's absolutely worth picking up for your collection if you don't already have it. The original animated Lilo & Stitch also got a 4K release in 2025 alongside the live-action remake of the film.

If you're a fan of Pixar, there's a lot more to choose from in this sale. I'd personally recommend grabbing Rattatouille in 4K, partially because it's one of my favorites, but also because it was released back in 2019 and is the most likely to go out of print before it gets a 25th anniversary edition in 2032. You can also snap up the Elio 4K steelbook, which is a limited edition and won't be around forever.

Upcoming Disney 4K Releases

Cold Storage will be released in theaters on Feb. 13.

For those who have enjoyed certain types of horror-comedy hybrid films through the years, there’s something comforting about Cold Storage from the start. On-screen text at the opening, which turns an ominous backstory about the remnants of the Skylab space station and what it actually brought down to Earth into a purposely jokey over-the-top display, makes it clear that there’s a “we’re having fun here!” approach.

That tone continues in the film’s prologue, as an investigation into ghastly deaths in a tiny Australian town caused by a piece of Skylab evokes 1990’s wonderful Tremors, both with its desert setting and its heightened, funny tone accompanying its horror movie scenario. It’s not full farce or self-parody, but it’s winking just enough, buoyed by some clever visuals from director Jonny Campbell, particularly when it comes to depicting what happens to the oh-so-dangerous fungus discovered at the scene and the passage of time that follows.

Cold Storage loses some momentum after its great opening, feeling more hit and miss comedically as we pick up 18 years later, when two employees at a 24-hour self-storage warehouse – Travis (Joe Keery) and Naomi (Georgina Campbell) – come into contact with this fungus. The substance has been secretly sitting in hidden levels underneath them; their place of work just so happened to once house a military base. The specific horror-comedy vibe the filmmakers are going for is a tricky one to maintain, and there are beats that don’t quite hit the mark as we get to know Travis, Naomi, and a few other characters that will be significant over the long night they’re about to endure.

Still, there’s a lot to appreciate throughout, starting with the film’s leads. Stranger Things fan favorite Keery and Barbarian star Campbell make for an appealing central duo, with the proper amount of charisma and chemistry to sell the bantering ‘opposites attract’ dynamic between Travis the ex-con and Naomi the aspiring veterinarian. They also have one hell of a pivotal third major player in the form of Liam Freaking Neeson as Robert Quinn, a now retired military veteran we first meet in the prologue.

Robert gets a heads-up that things are going awry at the storage warehouse and goes to help, even as Travis and Naomi begin to find out just how much trouble they’re in. Again, this film’s tone doesn’t require Neeson to go full Naked Gun as far as sending up his tough guy image to an extreme level, but it does let him show different, gently funny and humanizing sides to his usual action persona, including the fact that Robert has quite a bad back from a previous injury. Yes, this is something begging to be significant in the third act, and thankfully, the film pays it off in a very entertaining manner.

Cold Storage is produced and written by David Koepp, adapting his own novel. Koepp has an interesting Hollywood career; he’s a go-to screenwriter for massive studio movies from franchises like Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, and Indiana Jones, but in between those sorts of films, he’s also frequently writing (and sometimes directing) smaller, quirkier projects. And while some of them have been misfires, there have been some notable highlights there as well, including 1999’s compelling ghost story, Stir of Echoes, and last year’s terrific Steven Soderbergh-directed spy film, Black Bag.

Cold Storage finds Koepp operating outside his usual style with something much more heightened and winky. This is a movie about a fungal outbreak that turns those it infects into zombie-like creatures; it’s also about the long locked up remnants of a previous outbreak accidentally being unleashed, leaving some out-of-their-depth average-joe employees to deal with it. So if there was a shorthand I’d use for this movie, it would be “The Last of Us meets The Return of the Living Dead,” and in that regard, while it doesn’t match either of those projects at their best, it’s still quite fun in its own right.

Koepp and Jonny Campbell add some nice flourishes that keep the film from feeling like a carbon copy of other zombie-adjacent stories (though there are plenty of familiar elements, of course), including the fact that those infected will eventually just plain explode out of nowhere. That allows for moments that are both surprising and jolting, and also darkly funny and plenty gory.

In the midst of all this, subplots involve an elderly woman (Vanessa Redgrave, reuniting with her Mission: Impossible screenwriter Koepp 30 years later) coming to the storage place intending to kill herself with a gun; Naomi’s ex showing up after a household accident, also carrying a gun; and an inside job plan by Travis and Naomi’s boss to rob the storage place that night. Is it pretty silly that all of these things happen to be going down at this isolated location on the very same night as a potentially world-ending outbreak is simultaneously beginning beneath their feet? Sure, but the jokey, easygoing tone of the movie allows you to let it slide more than you might otherwise.

Still, there are times where Cold Storage falters. As a Prometheus apologist, I will say this movie really pushes things in terms of having multiple characters – including those who should definitely know better – lean in close to something clearly horrible and dangerous occurring in front of them. There’s also just a tiny bit more sentiment included near the very end than what feels right for the overall feel of the story. The movie’s budgetary constraints are also felt in some of the visual effect shots, which are not always the most convincing.

But TV veteran Jonny Campbell, whose credits include episodes of shows like Doctor Who and Westworld, frequently overcomes that budget obstacle with some stylistic shots that are less beholden to sell complete reality. This includes a great sequence showing how the fungus is passing between insects and animals, where the camera hurtles forward and visually leans into everything looking more like CGI animation rather than photorealism.

Lending solid support is Ellora Torchia (Midsommar) as a military analyst contacted by Neeson’s Robert who ends up being his Al Powell-like new buddy feeding him crucial info even though they’ve never met in person. There’s also a very likeable, endearing performance by Lesley Manville (Maleficent) as Robert’s old comrade-in-arms who also comes out of retirement to try to help save the day.

Before it was a multimedia empire, Masters of the Universe started life as an action figure line. It only makes sense that Mattel would be going all-out on new MotU toys as He-Man and his friends return to the big screen in 2026.

IGN can exclusively reveal new images of the new Masters of the Universe figures and role-playing toys ahead of their debut at New York Toy Fair 2026 this weekend. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

This new line of action figures is designed at a 5.5-inch scale, making them a smaller and more kid-friendly alternative to Mattel's collector-oriented Masters of the Universe figures. This initial "Masters of the Universe Core Kids Assortment" line will include He-Man, Skeletor, Teela, Beast-Man, and Skel-Knight figures. Each figure includes 14 points of articulation and is priced at $10.79

He-Man and Skeletor are also being featured in the "Masters of the Universe Kids Feature Assortment" line. Power Sword Slash He-Man and Havoc Staff Attack Skeletor are priced at $16.19.

Finally, there's the "Masters of the Universe Core Assortment" line, which focuses on accessory vehicles and role-playing toys. There's the Battle Cat Feature Action Figure ($21.59), the Roton Assault Vehicle ($37.79), the Skeletor Talking Mask Role Play toy ($21.59), and the obligatory Power Sword replica ($43.19).

All of these toys will be released in Spring 2026, with the official global retail launch date for the Master of the Universe movie line being April 25.

Masters of the Universe stars Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man and Jared Leto as Skeletor and is set to hit theaters on June 5, 2026. For more, you can check out the Vintage Castle Grayskull playset that launched just last month.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Mamoru Oshii, the director of legendary anime movie Ghost in the Shell, has said that he's played Fallout 4 for 10,000 hours while avoiding its main quest.

In a Japanese video interview to mark the 30th anniversary of Ghost in the Shell, Oshii chatted about his love of games — and specifically Fallout 4.

"Looking at Steam, my playtime (in Fallout 4) is around 8,000 hours but before that I played it on PlayStation, so I think altogether I've put in about 10,000 hours," explained Oshii, the director behind anime cyberpunk movie Ghost in the Shell and its sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, in remarks translated by IGN. "I'm still playing now," he added.

So what is the appeal of Fallout 4 to Mamoru Oshii? The 74-year-old called it a "game that seems to have been made for my own desires," and described how he wanders the ruins of the post-apocalyptic world carrying a rifle and accompanied by the game's canine companion, Dogmeat.

Outside of Fallout 4, Oshi explains that he's also a big Hideo Kojima fan and plays every new game from the Metal Gear Solid creator — he recently finished playing Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, in which he actually appears as an NPC known as The Pizza Chef.

But for almost a decade, Oshi said he had followed a cycle where he breaks off from playing Fallout 4 to play Kojima's new game upon release, completes it, and then... returns back to Fallout 4 once more. "There are no other games I want to play," Oshii simply said.

"I once tried PUBG and racked up 250 hours," he casually noted, but said that he didn't really like online multiplayer games or first-person shooters that require quick reflexes. "They're not for me," he noted. (He does recall taking a commemorative screenshot after getting a Chicken Dinner in PUBG, but only once.) "After all is said and done, I prefer playing games on my own," he said.

"Fallout 4 is just right," he continued. "Although it's an action game, as people who play it will know — it has the VATS system." Fallout's slo-mo aiming system allows even people who are no good at aiming to land shots, he suggested. "If the game didn't have this, I probably couldn't play it."

Mamoru Oshii previously revealed in great detail to Automaton that he has a rather eccentric way of playing Fallout 4 - that he doesn't ally with any factions, and has ignored the main storyline in favor of spending hours on side quests and raids with Dogmeat as his sole companion. His playstyle seems to be that of a community-minded lone wolf, stripping all the gear off raiders and gunners.

"It's a win-win," he noted, "I get to enjoy the pleasure of stripping scumbags naked while also contributing to the local community’s welfare." He's said that he is particularly hostile towards Brotherhood of Steel members (who he likens to Nazis) and always sneak kills whole units (at one point, he amassed so many Brotherhood of Steel Power Armors that he used them to build a moat). Back when he played on console, Oshii apparently gathered so much loot at his base that his PS4 struggled to run the game.

"Around 4 years ago, I ran out of things to do (in Fallout 4)," Oshii explained. "So I installed mods." However, the Angel's Egg director noted that Fallout 4's new version (i.e. the 2025 Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition update) rendered his mods unusable. Upon launching Fallout 4 after the update, Oshii says that instead of his customized character, "some random bald guy wearing a suit suddenly appeared, and it took a lot of effort to get the game back to normal. I wish they'd stop changing things without asking."

Image credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.

Are you ready for the whole bloody affair? If you’re a Quentin Tarantino fan, you should be, because the ultimate version of his fourth film, Kill Bill, now officially has a VOD release date for the complete version, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.

According to Apple, the Tarantino opus will be available to rent beginning on February 17 with a $19.99 price tag. It is currently available to pre-order on their platform. As for Amazon, it does not have the new version listed for rent yet at the time of this writing, so keep your eyes peeled if that’s your preferred platform.

As the story goes, Kill Bill was originally conceived as one film by Tarantino himself, before he was forced to split the four-and-a-bit hours of film down the middle. In doing this, the movie was forced to be released in two parts, though Tarantino avoided the cuts that would have been necessary to trim everything down to just one part — a small price to pay. However, Tarantino has specified that The Whole Bloody Affair represents the true way to watch the film.

That said, it’ll be great for fans who didn’t get a chance to catch the film during the limited theatrical run to finally get to see it at home. The release was announced back in October 2025 and a trailer dropped the following month in November. The nationwide theatrical run began on December 5, and on top of seeing the two films as one, the new version included never-before-seen scenes and a Fortnite tie-in short film at the end.

In late January, it was also confirmed that a 4K physical release of the film will be coming as well, but there's no word yet on exactly when to expect the set. Until then, you’ve got the digital version coming your way very soon, so sharpen your Hatori Hanzo sword.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

While the X-Men made their name in comic form, the X-Men movie adaptations have become beloved in their own right, with such fan favorites as Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. These films are also pretty notorious for their messy timelines, with origin stories, retconning, and time travel to really spice things up. There are plenty of different ways to watch these films, and the choice of how you watch them will determine how certain reveals and moments will pay off.

While it can be easy to just watch them as they were released, we’ve organized the 14 films into how they roughly fit into one big timeline. This will allow you to experience the X-Men story from the beginning and follow each character’s journey from its earliest point.

With the original X-Men cast returning in Avengers: Doomsday llater this year, we thought the best way to get ready for the future was to honor the past. Without further ado, here is our mostly spoiler-free look at how you can watch the X-Men movies in timeline order!

Jump to:

• How to watch by release order
• How to watch in chronological order

X-Men Movies in Release Order

Just looking for a quick list of the X-Men movies in the order they originally came out? Here you go:

Which X-Men Movie Should You Watch First?

If you're new to the X-Men movie franchise, you can choose to start with First Class and make your way through the timeline chronologically. However, if you want to experience the films how they were originally released to audiences, you'll want to start with X-Men (2000) where the series officially began.

X-Men Movies in Chronological Order

1. X-Men: First Class (2011)

X-Men: First Class is the start of a new X-Men chapter that rewinds the clock to the earliest point on the film franchise’s timeline. The film begins in 1944 at the Auschwitz concentration camp before jumping ahead to 1962. The story follows a young Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto and the origins of both the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants.

Read our review of X-Men: First Class.

2. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

X-Men: Days of Future Past is a bit hard to place on the timeline as it features the X-Men from both the original films and the newer ones. Much of the story takes place in 1973, but plenty of time is spent in an alternate version of 2023 as well. Certain story elements we won’t spoil here make us comfortable placing it here on the timeline, but having an affection for the original crew definitely does help make it a more special moviegoing experience. This means it can also fit right near the end of this list if you so choose.

Read our review of X-Men: Days of Future Past.

3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

The first X-Men spinoff movie starts back in 1845, but the bulk of the story is set in 1979 and explores the… well, origin of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Not only do we get to see how he got his iconic adamantium claws, but we also get our first introduction to Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson/Deadpool. It's an essential part of the Wolverine timeline.

Read our review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

4. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

X-Men: Apocalypse stars Oscar Isaac as En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse and pits him against our reboot X-Men crew. While the film starts all the way back in 3600 BC, much of the story is set in 1983.

Read our review of X-Men: Apocalypse.

5. X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the last film starring the X-Men crew led by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, and it tells the story of the transformation of Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey into Phoenix. The film begins in 1975 but takes place mostly in 1992.

Read our review of X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

6. X-Men (2000)

Due to how these movies play out, the switch from Dark Phoenix into X-Men doesn’t happen as smoothly as a film like Rogue One transitions to A New Hope, but the first X-Men live-action film does fit next into the timeline as it takes place in the early 2000s. While James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender played their younger versions in the previous films, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen take on the role of the older versions of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto in these films.

Read our review of X-Men.

7. X2: X-Men United (2003)

Taking place not too long after the original, X2: X-Men United picks up the story as a brainwashed Nightcrawler attempts to murder the President of the United States. Some big events happen at the end of the film that set up The Last Stand and tease the arrival of this trilogy’s iteration of Phoenix.

Read our review of X2: X-Men United.

8. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

X-Men: The Last Stand was the first live-action film to tell the Phoenix story, but in terms of the series’ internal chronology, it is the second. Either way, we get to see Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey resurrect as the dangerously powerful Phoenix and go up against our favorite X-Men in this final film in the original trilogy.

Read our review of X-Men: The Last Stand.

9. The Wolverine (2013)

The Wolverine is a sequel of sorts to both X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: The Last Stand and takes place shortly after the latter film and deals with the fallout of the events it portrayed. It also introduces Yukio, a later version of whom would appear in Deadpool 2.

Read our review of The Wolverine.

10. Deadpool (2016)

While he made his first appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds Wade Wilson/Deadpool makes his solo feature film debut in 2016’s Deadpool. This film is mostly separate from the happenings of the mainline films, but Deadpool is in the same universe so this would give you a complete picture of the franchise. There is no specific time Deadpool takes place, but it seems to take place around the time it was released - 2016. As one of the best Ryan Reynolds movies, you can watch this one out of order if you need to.

Read our review of Deadpool.

11. Deadpool 2 (2018)

Much like the original, Deadpool 2 doesn’t have an exact date it takes place and its events mostly happen outside of everything else going on in the X-Men franchise. That being said, this sequel does feature some returning, younger X-Men and a spoilery moment/reference for Logan, so it’s possibly set in the late 2020s. All that being said, it’s Deadpool and all jokes are fair game for this fourth-wall-breaking merc with a mouth.

Read our review of Deadpool 2.

12. The New Mutants (2020)

The New Mutants appears to take place sometime in the late 2020s as it features a connection to Logan, which is set in 2029. Much like Deadpool, The New Mutants mostly tells its own contained story and can be safely viewed at this spot or somewhere around it.

Read our review of The New Mutants.

13. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

If things were already all over the place, timeline-wise, they got even more complicated with this 2024 crossover. Deadpool & Wolverine is set in its release year, 2024, so technically before Logan. But it's not really that simple because this movie makes references across all the X-Men (and Marvel) timelines, seemingly existing in the same universe and an entirely different one at the same time. So, yeah, it's set in 2024, but this movie's got its own thing going on.

Read our review of Deadpool & Wolverine

14. Logan (2017)

As previously mentioned, Logan takes place in 2029 and follows Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier in a world where mutants are basically extinct. This is clearly the film that takes place farthest ahead in the timeline and thus should be the one to finish them all off. And it’s a great one to end on.

Read our review of Logan.

Upcoming X-Men Movies and Shows

The first major X-Men project since Marvel Studios re-acquired the rights to the franchise was X-Men '97, an animated series outside of the MCU timeline that picks up where the original animated series left off. Season 2 is in the works and expected to come out in 2026.

Otherwise, we'll be getting a reboot of the X-Men under Marvel. Several original X-Men cast members were included in the massive cast reveal for Avengers: Doomsday, which is set for release on December 18. More recently, Kevin Feige announced that the X-Men would be recast after Avengers: Secret Wars, which leaves the question of what exactly is going to play out for the OG team in those upcoming Avengers movies.

For more info on what's to come, check out our guide to all upcoming MCU movies as well as what to expect from DC and Marvel in 2026.

Adam Bankhurst is a news and features writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Wuthering Heights opens in theaters on February 13.

Three years after Wuthering Heights was first published under the pen name Ellis Bell, Charlotte Brontë, the sister of its true author, Emily Brontë, issued a correction in its new edition. "The immature but very real powers revealed in Wuthering Heights were scarcely recognised," she wrote in 1850. "Its import and nature were misunderstood."

That sentiment holds up with the arrival of “Wuthering Heights”, writer-director Emerald Fennell's fast and loose adaptation of the beloved book. I now understand why she opted to put the title in quotation marks, because this is by no means a faithful homage. It's shallow fan fiction that has more in common with E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey than Brontë's unflinching portrait of obsessive love, vengeance, the violence of class, racism and generational trauma. If, as Fennell has said, this is her teenage recollection of Wuthering Heights, then it speaks more to the white affluence of her upbringing than Brontë's novel.

The writer-director dispenses with the book's beginning and end, as well as multiple characters who fully contextualize the toxic atmosphere of the eponymous estate. Instead, she opens with black and the grunting sounds of a man. Is he having sex? No, he's being strangled to death in a contrived public hanging scene, gleefully watched by young heroine Catherine Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington), as other kids laugh at his "stiffy" and the camera follows some common folk engaging in promiscuity. This sets the highly sexualized tone for the rest of the film, charting Cathy's sexual awakening from child to "spinster," as her father, Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), calls her, once Margot Robbie takes over the role.

There's been valid criticism of the whitewashing of "dark-skinned gipsy" orphan Heathcliff, a role shared by Owen Cooper and Jacob Elordi, who washes up at Wuthering Heights via Mr. Earnshaw – no longer the novel's loving adoptive parent but redrawn in, from the book, Hindley Earnshaw's revolting, drunken likeness (Hindley being his son, who doesn't appear in the film). But Robbie's casting is equally ill-fitted. The novel's Catherine is a dark-haired, dark-eyed teen, whose unruly stubbornness and violent love that she shares with a similarly-aged Heathcliff speaking volumes for their juvenile nature.

Robbie looks amazing for 35, but here her age works against the authenticity of Catherine's youthful recklessness. She struggles to exude the naivety of a teen who thinks she can have her cake and eat it, by having both Heathcliff and the social status of wealthy Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), after he moves into the nearby Thrushcross Grange and proposes.

Robbie and Elordi are obviously very attractive people, and with the number of steamy sex scenes shoehorned in, you'd be forgiven for thinking this amounts to palpable chemistry. But it all feels too forced, like a sales bin, smutty romance novel come to life, working too hard to hide the erasure of Brontë's far more complex ideas about the hell of societal convention.

That's due in large part to the script, which ignores the Gothic supernatural elements and too often paraphrases Brontë's earnest, expressive dialogue in key scenes. Fans hoping to hear Catherine's "If all else perished, and he remained" speech will be left wanting. It also strips away the compelling social commentary about Heathcliff's ethnic ambiguity and sanitizes the brutality of his revenge narrative, softening Heathcliff's aggressive cruelty into something coldly charismatic. His Yorkshire accent isn't bad, but Elordi's performance recalls his Euphoria character, Nate, more than Brontë's antagonistic antihero.

Supporting players like Nelly (Hong Chau) and Isabella Linton (Alison Oliver) fare better. While Nelly's backstory is changed from servant to bastard companion, Chau affords Nelly a quiet composure as a vulnerable witness to (and sometimes meddler in) Catherine and Heathcliff's destructive romance. As Edgar's ward (she's his sister in the book), Oliver nails Isabella's sickly sweet innocence. Even as the film weirdly pushes Isabella to evoke the spirit of Brontë's Catherine, she brings a deviant edge to her infatuation with Heathcliff. It's a wonder they didn't just cast the Irish actor as the lead.

The same could be said for Latif, who, as a mixed British-Pakistani actor, better fits the profile of Heathcliff. The novel even describes him as a "little Lascar," the name for a sailor from the Indian subcontinent. Where Brontë's Edgar is laced with snobbish hostility towards Heathcliff, thus becoming a mighty catalyst for the low-born lad to exact revenge against him, Latif's iteration barely registers. He rarely engages with his rival and, as with the silk wallpaper modelled after Catherine's skin, serves merely as window dressing. His color blind casting ticks the box for diversity, but Fennell gives him little character to work with.

Her approach to the class divide feels somewhat hackneyed, too. The lilt of the Yorkshire accent is relegated to the lower class, where Fennell throws in sexual deviancy as a marker, too. Film and TV frequently stereotype the Yorkshire accent this way, but the Earnshaws aren't landed gentry; they didn't require posh accents like the Lintons to reinforce the upstairs-downstairs dynamic.

Cinematographer Linus Sandgren does capture the tumultuous beauty of the Yorkshire Moors and the stormy atmosphere of the Heights estate, but the production design of Thrushcross Grange is jarringly anachronistic. It becomes a Gothic Barbie Dreamhouse (derogatory), with the costuming, though beautiful, more in keeping with an Alice in Wonderland film. Throw in Charli xcx's pulsating original songs and Anthony Willis's overwhelming score, and you've got a bombastic world that does more to distract than solidify the emotional journey of these iconic literary figures.

I don't believe all book-to-screen adaptations need to be carbon copies. And maybe if you haven't read the novel, "Wuthering Heights" will work for you. But I must have read a different book in my teens than Fennell, because her vision obscures my memory of it – as it will for many Wuthering Heights fans out there.

Ah, the Big Game. An annual chance for football fans to root for their team (frequently, if you happened to grow up in New England in the dynasty era like I did), take in some world-class entertainment at the halftime show, and load up not just on dairy and carb confections, but that most delectable of American treats… advertising! Lots of those immaculately produced commercials are there to remind you of products and services you already love (horse beer! Sports gambling app!), but ‘round the ol’ IGN, we get especially excited for the sneak peeks of upcoming movies and TV shows.

Super Bowl LX featured previews of some of 2026’s most anticipated releases. We got new looks at Supergirl, Disclosure Day, Scream 7, Hoppers, The Adventures of Cliff Booth, Minions and Monsters, Project Hail Mary, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Studios, networks, and streamers use Super Bowl ad space (and the truckloads of money it takes to buy it) to let general audiences know what they’ve got cooking, and why you and everyone else you’re watching the game with should be getting jazzed for it. Hell, Netflix even dropped a whole-ass Cloverfield movie on us during one of these spots a few years ago, and a lot of people who may not have otherwise cared ended up watching it because of that hype… even if popular opinion has settled into that whole-ass Cloverfield movie being kinda half-assed. Point being: You can drive a lot of eyeballs to your movie or show with a well-placed Super Bowl ad.

But there was one ad this year for a summer 2026 release that put a pit in my stomach.

The Mandalorian and Grogu just used 30 very expensive seconds of Sam Elliott voiceover and the bones of a Budweiser advertisement to incept Silver Man and Green Boy back into your brains without showing off more of the $150 million-plus budgeted movie the two star in, which releases in just a few months.

I have a bad feeling about this.

In the early days of The Mandalorian’s meteoric popularity on Disney+, it seemed like the idea of eventually wrapping up the show’s story with a big summer blockbuster could be rooted in a desire to legitimize the streaming series as just as worthy of a theatrical release as any of the other Skywalker Saga or legacy-heavy spinoff movies. Sentiment around the show has wavered over the years, and even still, I don’t consider myself one of those people who believe the show’s gone off the rails. Largely, I haven’t minded The Mandalorian’s shift into exploring Mandalorian culture from perspectives other than Din Djarin’s, even if I do agree that it’s kept the narrative from feeling as cohesive and punchy as it did in the earlier days. Has the Disney era of Star Wars been perfect? Of course not. But at the end of the day, I’m just a boy, holding his broom aloft, looking out at the sky and hoping to see a good Star War.

So why isn’t Disney showing us more of the new Star War?

In these complicated times, I’m a big fan of the philosophical frame of “Occam’s razor,” or the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. The first (and, to date, only) trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu debuted at D23 in August 2024 and, naturally, leaked online immediately after that. Those trailers are supposed to be special, “you had to be there” moments for attendees of those kinds of events, but even through the off-screen recordings, it was clear that this first look wasn’t evoking much sense that Din Djarin and Grogu were getting all that much of a glow-up in their transition to the big screen. No, the overwhelming response has seemed to be some version of “it just looks like an episode of the show” or, more succinctly, “...that’s it?” Not even the additional footage added in the official release of the trailer late last year, not even Jeremy Allen White’s stronkboy Rotta the Hutt has seemed to be enough to move the needle on fan excitement. At least not that I’ve been able to see on my scanners and radars.

But Disney’s still got a movie to sell. So what do you sell when you’re seemingly averse to selling the movie itself? Based on the Big Game spot, it seems like the answer is nostalgia… for a 6-year-old branch of the Star Wars tree. Super Bowl ads are a hefty investment. Just 30 seconds of ad space costs $8 million. I can’t imagine Disney spent any less than a million bucks on sledge-bearing tauntauns, getting Sam Elliott into a VO booth, and getting Grogu out of his trailer. A drop in the bucket for Disney, sure, but it’s still a lot of money, and you’ve gotta wonder what the Mouse House was looking to buy with it.

To make an educated guess on that, let’s check out the component parts of the ad: Sam Elliott’s gravelly voiceover – a mainstay of American advertising – intoning about how “sometimes we choose our path,” and that we’re “driven by a deeper purpose.” Pair that with the distant sight of majestic creatures running through the snow, and eight seconds into this thing, visions of classic “yearning for simpler times” ads from beer or automotive companies are likely dancing through your head. It becomes clear right around then that these are tauntauns as Elliott mentions all that rugged individualism being guided by an “unseen force,” just as Grogu takes the reins from Din Djarin… with the unseen Force. The first half of the trailer gets your nostalgia juices boiling, the second half reminds you how damn cute that puppet is. The logo for the movie comes up, and we’re back to watching the Seahawks defense absolutely stymie the Pats.

Really, the full text of the ad’s voiceover makes this all as clear as Cerveza Cristal:

Sometimes we choose our path. Other times, the path chooses us.

Through it all, we keep pushing forward:

Driven by a deeper purpose, guided by an unseen Force.

The journey never gets any easier; the bond just gets harder to break.

This is the way.

Only in theaters and IMAX May 22.

WHAT DOES ANY OF THAT EVEN MEAN!? Look, I may be thinking a little too much about this, but if none of this has been rolling around in your noggin in the last 24 hours, I’d encourage you to think about it just a little more critically. From how Disney has chosen to frame this ad, the only conclusion I can draw from The Mandalorian and Grogu spot is that Disney sees value in letting us know the movie’s coming, but not in letting us see more of what the movie actually looks like.

Disney’s spent the last decade working out how best to serve its multi-billion dollar investment in the Star Wars franchise and do right by the fans at the same time – they’ve had unquestionable successes in that space. New leadership will inevitably revitalize and push that effort in different directions, and I’m optimistic it will lead to even more great Star Wars stories. Hem and haw about how scared you are about the potential Filonification of Star Wars, but after “somehow, Palpatine returned” and the trainwreck of Rise of Skywalker which followed, I’m happy to give Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan the benefit of the doubt. Fear leads to the dark side, after all. But the dawn of the New Lucasfilm Order has not yet touched the horizon: There’s night yet to journey through, and a commercial spoof’s not convincing me that we’re going to make it through the darkness unscathed.

Good or bad, I just wish The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first new Star Wars movie to hit theaters in seven years, wasn’t being treated like a dirty little secret. Because “unseen Force” is a phrase I want to associate with that which surrounds and binds us, not the Rotten Tomatoes consensus the Monday after the movie comes out. I’m going into it with a wary mind, but an open heart.

As the ad says, The Mandalorian and Grogu releases in theaters on May 22.

Tom Jorgensen is a senior video producer at IGN, where he also regularly reviews movies and interviews creative people. You can check out more of Tom's stuff on his Instagram (@jomtorgensen), X (@tom_jorgensen), and Bluesky (@tom-jorgensen.bsky.social) accounts, where he promises to never refer to himself in the third person like he has to in this very text box right here.

Brandon Sanderson recently revealed he's struck a deal with Apple TV to adapt his massive Cosmere universe for streaming. This has been huge news for those already in love with his books, but for those who aren't already familiar with Sanderson's literary works it may be the final push to finally they need to dive in and start reading. And with Amazon's current 'Buy 2, save 50% on 1' sale going on right now, there's never been a better time to start your journey into the Cosmere.

Not all of the details of the Apple TV collaboration have been revealed just yet, but Sanderson has confirmed he's writing the screenplay for a Mistborn movie and will be co-showrunner on a Stormlight Archive series. Those projects will be adapted from his most popular series' in the Cosmere universe, both of which currently have box sets included in Amazon's sale.

Brandon Sanderson Box Sets are Buy 1, Get 1 Half Off

Last night's Super Bowl teaser for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie featured an extended look at Mario and Luigi being chased by a T-rex. But why is it actually Baby Mario and Baby Luigi we see here? As ever, the internet has some theories.

Nintendo fans got a first glimpse at Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Toad and Yoshi encountering a T-rex in last month's The Super Mario Galaxy Nintendo Direct. The dinosaur, which looks similar to its appearance in Super Mario Odyssey, roars at our heroes, sending them running away scared.

Now, we've got a slightly longer look at the same scene, with Baby Mario even shown waking up the sleeping dinosaur by drumming the classic NES Mario theme on its teeth. Still, the jury's out about what's really going on — and why we're seeing the plumbers' infant forms at all.

Don’t wake the dino. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is only in theaters April 1. pic.twitter.com/34vjqImsBf

— The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (@supermariomovie) February 9, 2026

As fans will remember from the first Super Mario Movie, Mario and Luigi travel to the Mushroom Kingdom for the first time as adults, suggesting this is unlikely to be a flashback to their youth. (We also see the brothers as Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, confirming they are their past selves, although very much living their childhood in Brooklyn.)

Could we have been misled, and the brothers actually visited the Mushroom Kingdom as children? It seems unlikely. Instead, the pair appear to have been reverted in age. Perhaps this is something to do with the fact they're in a prehistoric environment? Or maybe this is the work of Bowser Jr., or his minion Kamek?

"I'm sure Kamek made Mario and Luigi babies," wrote Nintendo fan Delbianco27 on reddit.

"There is a possibility that they either hid the fact that they once ventured into the Mushroom Kingdom as babies, or some weird time travel shenanigans," countered josh_winnnnnn.

"I feel like there in an area that 'takes them back in time' hence why Mario and Luigi are babies," suggested GoldenGirlsFan213. "I really hope they aren't babies for most of the movie cause that would be awful."

"Could possibly be a relative of the present-day Toad," agreed josh_winnnnnn again. "We'll find out in several weeks..."

Other fans have suggested this scene is simply an homage to Yoshi's Island, Nintendo's 1995 classic for the SNES where Kamek attempts to kidnap Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, before they're saved by Yoshi. Speaking of Yoshi, last week gave us our first look at the beloved dino eating someone (Kamek) and pooping them out as an egg.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie stars Brie Larsen as Rosalina and Benny Safdie as Bowser Jr., alongside the returning cast from the first film: Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek.

As for the mystery behind Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, all will be revealed when The Super Mario Galaxy Movie lands in theaters on April 1.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski has said that his scrapped BioShock film adaptation would have somehow included both of the original game's endings to mess with the audience's heads.

Verbinski was attached to make a movie version of the beloved game back in 2008 alongside Universal Studios, with a script in place from Gladiator and Skyfall scribe John Logan.

Alas, the project never materialized due to lengthy wrangling over its planned $200 million budget — deemed risky due to it also aiming for an adults-only R rating. Verbinski has previously said the movie came within eight weeks of shooting, before plans faltered. Work continued to try and get the film financed for several more years, though BioShock creator Ken Levine confirmed the project had been fully cancelled by 2013.

"I loved this project when we were getting close to making it at Universal," Verbinski has said now, discussing the project in a reddit Q&A. "I was going to dive deeply into the Oedipal aspect and definitely keep it hard R with the Little Sisters, and the 'choices' the protagonist makes... and the consequences.

"I had worked out a way with writer John Logan to have both endings and I was looking forward to bringing that to the big screen and really f***ing with people's heads," he continued. "[We] had some great designs for the Big Daddies and the entire underwater demented art-deco aesthetic. Every year I hear something about the project, but I'm not sure any studio is quite willing to go where I was headed."

The original BioShock has two endings, based on the player's choices to either rescue or sacrifice the game's Little Sisters — and the two very different outcomes you get based on your level of mercy. The game's 'happy' ending — seen if you rescue every Little Sister — rewards the hero with a long life and the surviving sisters present on his eventual deathbed. However, if you harvest any Little Sister, your character is shown instead having influenced Rapture's citizens to believe that power is all that matters. An ominous final cutscene then shows what looks to be a nuclear submarine being taken over in an attack.

The two endings are pretty different, then — a long and happy life or potential nuclear apocalypse — and it's unclear exactly how Verbinski's movie would have shown both. Could one have been a dream sequence, showing what might have been the alternative outcome? Or would the movie have presented audiences with two possible futures, and left viewers unclear as to which actually played out?

The later BioShock Infinite played on the multiverse theory ("there's always a lighthouse"!) but it's worth pointing out that this was still years away at the point of Verbinski being involved. Still, it's fun to ponder how an adaptation might treat the game's two endings now. Especially as plans to adapt BioShock have since resumed — with Netflix now involved in a potential adaptation.

Netflix announced plans for a fresh adaptation back in 2022, though recent years have seen the project stall again, as cuts changed the scope of the movie, necessitating changes to its script. In September 2025, producer Roy Lee confirmed the project is still in active development, with director Francis Lawrence on board to direct after finishing his work on the forthcoming The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.

"It's a tricky adaptation, so there's lots of things to figure out and to get right," Lawrence told IGN previously. "There's regime changes at Netflix, and so things stall out and get re-energized and stall out and get re-energized, and I think we're in a pretty good place, honestly."

Back in the world of video games, 2K confirmed last summer that it had overhauled the similarly long-awaited BioShock 4, which has been in development for the last decade. Amid layoffs and a further delay to the project's release, former Gears of War head and Diablo franchise lead Rod Fergusson will now oversee the project. Fergusson will also head up the game's development studio Cloud Chamber, as it attempts to finally wrestle the project to release.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

As the Seattle Seahawks took home the win at Super Bowl LX, movie fans were left with a smorgasbord of movie trailers for some of the biggest films of 2026.

Highlights from this year’s Big Game included sneak peeks at films like Disclosure Day, Scream 7, and Project Hail Mary, but the biggest surprise was probably Netflix’s first look at The Adventures of Cliff Booth. While Marvel was indeed a no-show this year, DC helped fill the superhero gap with a Puppy Bowl trailer for Supergirl.

From the surprises to the disappointments, we gathered every Super Bowl 2026 movie trailer for you to see below. After you’ve caught up on all of the movies coming soon, you can check out our collection of this year’s show’s best commercials.

Supergirl Trailer Sees Krypto Make Surprise Appearance for the Puppy Bowl

It doesn’t sound like Warner Bros. will show up for a commercial during The Big Game itself, but that didn’t stop DC from debuting a sneak peek at Supergirl for the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. The 47-second TV spot puts the spotlight on Kara Zor-El’s superpowered pup, Krypto, and what appears to be their final days on Krypton. In between shots of the canine companion, who made his DCU debut in 2025’s Superman, we get a glimpse at some of what will likely be the film’s many action scenes.

Supergirl premieres in theaters June 26, 2026.

Hoppers Big Game Spot Shows More Animal Antics Ahead of March Release Date

Pixar’s Hoppers was one of the first movie trailers to show up for Super Bowl LX. The 30-second commercial reminds viewers of its person-turned-beaver storyline, while highlighting some of the other critters, such as snakes, birds, lizards, ants, turtles, and dancing frogs, that viewers can look forward to.

Hoppers is another creative universe from Disney and Pixar, and it comes to theaters March 6, 2026.

Scream 7 Slashes Into Super Bowl LX Ahead of February Premiere

Scream 7 is just weeks away from taking viewers (and Neve Campbell’s Syndey Prescott) back to Woodsboro. The trailer, which actually arrived just a few days ahead of today's game, moves the focus from Sydney to her daughter, teasing a Ghostface who is out for blood like never before.

Paramount Pictures takes another stab at Scream February 27, 2026.

Disclosure Day Trailer Gives Audiences Their First UFO Sighting

Disclosure Day is coming, and during Super Bowl LX, we got the next look at what that looks like. The second trailer for director Steven Spielberg’s UFO movie puts greater emphasis on the action without giving too much of its story away, as we see Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colman Domingo, and Colin Firth trapped in a world that’s about to come into contact with extraterrestrial life.

Catch your first look at a UFO in Disclosure Day before it descends into theaters June 12, 2026.

The Mandalorian and Grogu Trailer Tames Tauntauns for a Snowy Sneak Peek

While mainline Star Wars movies take a bit of a break, The Mandalorian and Grogu is finally bringing everyone’s favorite pair to movie theaters in just a few months. Both of the film’s titular characters take centerstage for the teaser, which sees them using the force to trade off driving duties as they steer a group of tauntaun’s through the snow.

With gravelly voiceover from what sounds like A Star Is Born actor Sam Elliot, the trailer does a good job at feeling like car or beer commercial in a galaxy far, far away. It’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at The Mandalorian and Grogu ahead of its May 22, 2026, theatrical release date.

The Adventures of Cliff Booth Gets Surprise Teaser from Netflix

The Adventures of Cliff Booth, David Fincher’s unexpected follow-up to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, made a surprise appearance at Super Bowl 2026. The trailer for the Netflix project featured a Brad Pitt with long hair and a moustache and a lot of censored scenes.

It’s a brief look at one of the most highly anticipated films that did little to spoil its story. For now, viewers have only been told that The Adventures of Cliff Booth is “coming soon.”

Minions & Monsters Trailer Shows Despicable Me Mascots on the Hunt for Beasts

The first trailer for Minions & Monsters shows everyone's favorite little yellow menaces as they search the world for ghouls and ghosts. The two-minute video focuses on what appears to be a mini-Cthulhu, who joins the Minions as they encounter mummies, bunnies, and slimes.

“This is the rambunctious, ridiculous and totally true story of how the Minions conquered Hollywood, became movie stars, lost everything, unleashed monsters onto the world and then banded together to try and save the planet from the mayhem they had just created,” an official description says.

Minions & Monsters arrives in theaters July 1, 2026.

Project Hail Mary Movie Trailer Teases an Emotional Tale from Ryan Gosling and Rocky

Amazon and Sony have published the final trailer for Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s sci-fi epic, Project Hail Mary. Coming in at just under three minutes long, the full cut of the commercial sees Ryan Gosling’s Ryland Grace link up with Rocky, a small alien made of rocks who needs a little help communicating.

It's an emotional look at one of the year's biggest movies that's backed by Prince's I Would Die 4 U. The directing duo behind The Lego Movie will unleash their Project Hail Mary movie adaptation when it premieres March 20, 2026.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Trailer Gives Fans More Baby Mario and Baby Luigi

Don’t wake the dino. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is only in theaters April 1. pic.twitter.com/34vjqImsBf

— The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (@supermariomovie) February 9, 2026

Universal Studios and Illumination may not have had too much more to share from The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but the Mario Movie sequel still had a few seconds of footage to share with fans online. The Big Game TV spot sees Yoshi and Toad rescue both Baby Mario and Baby Luigi from t-rex before telling fans to wait for its April 1, 2026, premiere. It’s a scene we’ve seen a glimpse of before, with today’s sneak peek adding a few new moments, including a shot of Mario drumming the Super Mario Bros. theme on the sleeping dinosaur’s teeth.

No Toy Story 5 Trailer, But…

There’s a great story behind every original.👖
See the full commercial from @Levis. pic.twitter.com/tGtHP0M6wE

— Toy Story (@toystory) February 9, 2026

Pixar fans were hoping Hoppers would be joined by Toy Story 5 for the Super Bowl 2026 festivities, but Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potato Head, and the rest of the gang spent the evening in Disney’s toychest – for the most part. While the animated movie icons are leaving audiences waiting for their June 19, 2026, release date, Woody found just a little bit of time to promote Levi’s jeans.

The clip comes in at a whopping four seconds long and is far from the full-on trailer many were expecting. Still, it serves as a (very) small reminder that the fifth Toy Story movie is still on the way.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).