Swerve Strickland's coronation could be just days away. The leader of the Mogul Embassy is set to join rival Hangman Page in challenging Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship at AEW Revolution. Swerve's first AEW World Championship match comes at a time where the company is slowly ushering in a new era as well, as the imminent arrival of Will Ospreay as well as the rumored acquisitions of Kazuchika Okada and Mercedes Mon? puts All Elite Wrestling in a position to boom similar to Summer 2021 when CM Punk, Adam Cole, and Bryan Danielson all arrived.

"I really feel like this changes the perception of AEW," Swerve told ComicBook.com when asked about the acquisitions. "I feel like when you have an Ospreay, someone I've been wrestling since he was 19, Okada, Mercedes, this is the perfect time for the perception and just the momentum shift to happen."

And if he wins the AEW World Championship at AEW Revolution, Swerve is the one behind the wheel during that momentum shift.

"It's almost like I won the NBA Championship, now there's the new draft of guys coming in the next year that's about to alter the whole way the next year of the NBA is going to be. That's what it honestly feels like," Swerve continued. "It's almost like the new wave of quarterbacks in the NFL. It's Patrick Mahomes at the top. I want to be the Mahomes. I want to be the dynasty of what AEW is about to be. It's not like we're searching for the next guy, who's it going to be? No, he's here. We see it, we want it, we need it."

Appreciating that opportunity goes beyond just the fact that it is coming on the precipice of a boom period. Swerve sees his potential title win as a way to usher in "true change" to the entire wrestling industry.

"For me to be the number one person on top of the company, being the lead of that momentum shift, means the world," Swerve continued. "It means like this is true change to not just AEW but the industry worldwide. I believe I might go down as the youngest African-American world champion in the history of the big industries. That means everything. Like going from 205 Live to the World Heavyweight Championship of this major company, All Elite Wrestling, nobody ever would see something like that happening. I changed that."

Swerve Strickland challenges for the AEW World Championship at AEW Revolution this Sunday, March 3rd.

The producers behind Star Wars: The Bad Batch are commenting on the surprise return of Asajj Ventress. The third and final season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch was officially announced at last year's Star Wars Celebration. The season will look to bring some resolution to the stories of Omega, Crosshair, and the rest of the Bad Batch, but the Season 3 trailer for The Bad Batch also revealed the former Sith Asajj Ventress will also make an appearance. What makes Asajj Ventress' return surprising is she supposedly died in the 2015 novel Star Wars: Dark Disciple while working with the Jedi to take out Count Dooku. So what will Ventress' role be in Star Wars: The Bad Batch? We checked in with the show's producers to find out.

ComicBook.com spoke to Star Wars: The Bad Batch producers Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau to talk about the final season, where the topic of Asajj Ventress came up. "Without spoiling too much, we have a storyline that requires someone," Jennifer Corbett said. "And she was the best fit for what we needed. But, again, Brad [Rau] and I don't make these decisions. It's very much a conversation, and when Ventress was put on the table we were very excited about it because we're big fans of that character, and we wanted to honor what her character was in Clone Wars, while also honoring Dark Disciple."

How Asajj Ventress' appearance in Star Wars: The Bad Batch connects to Dark Disciple novel

When asked about the possibility of Asajj Ventress' appearance in the third season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch addressing the events of Star Wars: Dark Disciple, Brad Rau responded, "Once we knew we could use this character that we love so much, we immediately were doing lots of research. We went back to unfinished arcs from The Clone Wars that were actually the inspiration for the novel, Dark Disciple, and there were designs created, including her hairdoo, which is so cool, and her lightsaber and the color of the lightsaber. So we honored that for when she shows up in our storyline. We can't go into all of the details, but we can say the answers to your questions - and we know a lot of fans are asking questions - will be answered. They may not all be answered in The Bad Batch, but rest assured, the connections are all there and they will be told. So just hang tight."

What is Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 about?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 picks up where Season 2 left off. The Bad Batch is still reeling from losing one of their members, Tech, and determined to rescue Omega from capture at Mount Tantiss.

According to a press release from Disney+, in Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3, "the Batch will have their limits tested in the fight to reunite with Omega as she faces challenges of her own inside a remote Imperial science lab. With the group fractured and facing threats from all directions, they will have to seek out unexpected allies, embark on dangerous missions, and muster everything they have learned to free themselves from the Empire."

As Star Wars: The Bad Batch draws toward its end, Star Wars fans may wonder what's next for Star Wars animation. There's currently Tales of the Jedi, an anthology of connected Star Wars shorts, and Star Wars: Visions, also an anthology, showcasing global animation via shorts set outside of Star Wars canon. ComicBook.com spoke to Star Wars: The Bad Batch producers Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau about The Bad Batch's final season and asked what the future of Star Wars animation might look like. While they couldn't say anything about upcoming projects, they seem to be anticipating watching what comes next from the Lucasfilm Animation team as fans.

"Obviously, we can't really speak as to if there's something in the works or not, but I will just say that the team at Lucasfilm Animation, it's been a pleasure working with them, because they are so fantastic at what they do, and have such passion for what they do," Corbett says. "If there is stuff in the future I'm going to watch and be a fan because I love all the things that they do."

Rau adds, "Sign me up. I want to watch more.'

What is Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 about?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 picks up where Season 2 left off. The Bad Batch is still reeling from losing one of their members, Tech, and determined to rescue Omega from capture at Mount Tantiss.

According to Disney+, in Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3, "the Batch will have their limits tested in the fight to reunite with Omega as she faces challenges of her own inside a remote Imperial science lab. With the group fractured and facing threats from all directions, they will have to seek out unexpected allies, embark on dangerous missions, and muster everything they have learned to free themselves from the Empire."

Who is in the Star Wars: The Bad Batch cast?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 stars Dee Bradley Baker (American Dad!) as the voice of every Bad Batch member and Michelle Ang (Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462) as Omega. The cast also includes Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld), Noshir Dalal (It's Pony), and Wanda Sykes (The Upshaws).

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is executive produced by Dave Filoni (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian), Athena Portillo (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels), Brad Rau (Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Resistance), Jennifer Corbett (Star Wars Resistance, NCIS) and Carrie Beck (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian), with Josh Rimes (Star Wars Resistance, Star Wars: Visions) as co-executive producer and Alex Spotswood (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels) as senior producer. Rau is also the supervising director, with Corbett as the head writer.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 debuted its first three episodes on Wednesday, February 21st, on Disney+. Here's the entire Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 episode release schedule:

Season 3 Episode Schedule:

• ? 2/21: Episode 301 "Confined," Episode 302 "Paths Unknown," Episode 303 "Shadows of Tantiss" (debut)
• ? 2/28: Episode 304 "A Different Approach"
• ? 3/6: Episode 305 "The Return"
• ? 3/13: Episode 306 "Infiltration" & Episode 307 "Extraction"
• ? 3/20: Episode 308 "Bad Territory"
• ? 3/27: Episode 309 "The Harbinger"
• ? 4/3: Episode 310 "Identity Crisis" & Episode 311 "Point of No Return"
• ? 4/10: Episode 312 "Juggernaut"
• ? 4/17: Episode 313 "Into the Breach"
• ? 4/24: Episode 314 "Flash Strike"
• ? 5/1: Episode 315 "The Cavalry Has Arrived" (finale)

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is saying goodbye with its final season on Disney+. The series spun out of Star Wars: The Clone Wars' final season and has become connective tissues between many elements of the Star Wars saga through its connection to Project Necromancer. But how does that compare to the original plan for the series? ComicBook.com had the chance to talk to Star Wars: The Bad Batch producers Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau and asked how Star Wars: The Bad Batch's final season, with its darker tone, compares to their original plan for Clone Force 99. While they didn't go into specifics, Corbett did acknowledge some deviations from the initial plan, but expressed gratitude that they were able to close out the show on their terms.

"There are definitely some similarities but also some differences," Corbett says. "It's been a number of years so, again, we always dreamed that we could do this in three seasons and the fact that we were able to have that opportunity, and we owe a lot of thanks to Lucasfilm and Disney+ for giving us that time and the fact that we knew in Season 2 that Season 3 was going to be the last one we got to end it the way that we felt was fitting. And, you know, we're very thankful."

What is Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 about?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 picks up where Season 2 left off. The Bad Batch is still reeling from losing one of their members, Tech, and determined to rescue Omega from capture at Mount Tantiss.

According to Disney+, in Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3, "the Batch will have their limits tested in the fight to reunite with Omega as she faces challenges of her own inside a remote Imperial science lab. With the group fractured and facing threats from all directions, they will have to seek out unexpected allies, embark on dangerous missions, and muster everything they have learned to free themselves from the Empire."

Who is in the Star Wars: The Bad Batch cast?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 stars Dee Bradley Baker (American Dad!) as the voice of every Bad Batch member and Michelle Ang (Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462) as Omega. The cast also includes Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld), Noshir Dalal (It's Pony), and Wanda Sykes (The Upshaws).

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is executive produced by Dave Filoni (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian), Athena Portillo (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels), Brad Rau (Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Resistance), Jennifer Corbett (Star Wars Resistance, NCIS) and Carrie Beck (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian), with Josh Rimes (Star Wars Resistance, Star Wars: Visions) as co-executive producer and Alex Spotswood (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels) as senior producer. Rau is also the supervising director, with Corbett as the head writer.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 debuted its first three episodes on Wednesday, February 21st, on Disney+. Here's the entire Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 episode release schedule:

Season 3 Episode Schedule:

• ? 2/21: Episode 301 "Confined," Episode 302 "Paths Unknown," Episode 303 "Shadows of Tantiss" (debut)
• ? 2/28: Episode 304 "A Different Approach"
• ? 3/6: Episode 305 "The Return"
• ? 3/13: Episode 306 "Infiltration" & Episode 307 "Extraction"
• ? 3/20: Episode 308 "Bad Territory"
• ? 3/27: Episode 309 "The Harbinger"
• ? 4/3: Episode 310 "Identity Crisis" & Episode 311 "Point of No Return"
• ? 4/10: Episode 312 "Juggernaut"
• ? 4/17: Episode 313 "Into the Breach"
• ? 4/24: Episode 314 "Flash Strike"
• ? 5/1: Episode 315 "The Cavalry Has Arrived" (finale)

Mean Girls (2024) is now available to watch digitally, so ComicBook.com spoke to the film's directors, Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. about the musical numbers and their hopes for the future. Mean Girls marks the first narrative feature helmed by Jayne and Perez Jr., but they do have some interesting experience helming short films and music videos. Perez Jr. directed Justin Timberlake's "Say Something" video and Paul McCartney's "Grand Central" music documentary. During our interview, we asked Perez Jr. if his music video history helped when making Mean Girls.

"Everything," Perez Jr. said when asked about pulling from music videos. "I started coming up through a blog called La Blogoth?que, the Takeaway shows. And I would hold my own camera and I would do live improvised music videos with all these bands that came from doing the indie scene. So Lumineers, Edward Sharpe. The blog did Arcade Fire and Phoenix and Bon Iver and everybody. The exercise was just, 'Think as quickly as you can, you get one...' Because the idea was in between sound check and the show, there was a little bit of time and we could just improvise a music video. And it was so much fun. So that gave me the confidence to think outside the box a little bit."

"And to not be afraid of live performance and capturing it all in one take," Jayne added.

"Yeah, so I think that that was my film school," Perez Jr. shared.

What Is Mean Girls About?

You can check out the official description for Mean Girls here: "From the comedic mind of Tina Fey comes a new twist on the modern classic, Mean Girls. New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called 'The Plastics,' ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Rene? Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina's ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina's crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group's apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis (Auli'i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school."

You can watch our interview with Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. at the top of the page.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is back for its third and final season on Disney+ and Michelle Ang, who voices Omega in the series, is looking back on the fond memories she'll take from her Star Wars role. Speaking to ComicBook.com at the Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 press junket, Ang discussed the surprising premiere episode and the final season's darker tone. Responding to our question about her favorite Star Wars: The Bad Batch memory, Ang doesn't name a particular episode, line, or scene, but instead puts forth a recurring theme.

"That's such a hard question," Ang says. "I'm not very good at remembering lines like that, but anytime Omega basically reminds everyone that the clones are our brothers, like this sort of this epic camaraderie that extends past people that she hasn't even met yet, this feeling of absolute connectedness to people and this desire to protect and look after them... That sort of intention just feels so important and epic and so much of who Omega is.

How will Star Wars: The Bad Batch end for Omega?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 is the final season of the Star Wars animated series, but is it the end for Omega in the Star Wars universe? Without spoiling any details about the series finale, Ang called the show's ending "bittersweet" and made it clear that she wants more Omega stories.

"I mean listen, it was really bittersweet," Ang says of Star Wars: The Bad Batch ending. She goes on to say she's "grateful for every step of this journey - nothing has ever been taken for granted, at least from my experience."

"I hoped there was a long, long, storyline potential for this to continue for a long time, but I also feel like our creators have done a beautiful service to these characters that they've brought into this series, and this is a nice place to end it," Ang says. "Without giving away too many spoilers, I think that people who have followed along will feel like it's a satisfying end. But yeah, I could've continued, I could've done more."

What is Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 about?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 picks up where Season 2 left off. The Bad Batch is still reeling from losing one of their members, Tech, and determined to rescue Omega from capture at Mount Tantiss.

According to Disney+, in Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3, "the Batch will have their limits tested in the fight to reunite with Omega as she faces challenges of her own inside a remote Imperial science lab. With the group fractured and facing threats from all directions, they will have to seek out unexpected allies, embark on dangerous missions, and muster everything they have learned to free themselves from the Empire."

Who is in the Star Wars: The Bad Batch cast?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 stars Dee Bradley Baker (American Dad!) as the voice of every Bad Batch member and Michelle Ang (Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462) as Omega. The cast also includes Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld), Noshir Dalal (It's Pony), and Wanda Sykes (The Upshaws).

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is executive produced by Dave Filoni (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian), Athena Portillo (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels), Brad Rau (Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Resistance), Jennifer Corbett (Star Wars Resistance, NCIS) and Carrie Beck (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian), with Josh Rimes (Star Wars Resistance, Star Wars: Visions) as co-executive producer and Alex Spotswood (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels) as senior producer. Rau is also the supervising director, with Corbett as the head writer.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 debuted its first three episodes on Wednesday, February 21st, on Disney+. Here's the entire Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 episode release schedule:

Season 3 Episode Schedule:

• ? 2/21: Episode 301 "Confined," Episode 302 "Paths Unknown," Episode 303 "Shadows of Tantiss" (debut)
• ? 2/28: Episode 304 "A Different Approach"
• ? 3/6: Episode 305 "The Return"
• ? 3/13: Episode 306 "Infiltration" & Episode 307 "Extraction"
• ? 3/20: Episode 308 "Bad Territory"
• ? 3/27: Episode 309 "The Harbinger"
• ? 4/3: Episode 310 "Identity Crisis" & Episode 311 "Point of No Return"
• ? 4/10: Episode 312 "Juggernaut"
• ? 4/17: Episode 313 "Into the Breach"
• ? 4/24: Episode 314 "Flash Strike"
• ? 5/1: Episode 315 "The Cavalry Has Arrived" (finale)

In honor of Mean Girls' digital release, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with some of the folks involved with making the film. We spoke with the directors, Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., about some of the film's musical numbers, and talked to Jaquel Spivey (Damian Hubbard) about representation in the film. Since the new Mean Girls is based on the Broadway musical that was based on the 2004 film that was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, we asked the directors if there are any other musicals they'd like to bring to life on the big screen. While chatting with Spivey, we asked if there are any films he wants to see turned into a musical, and he gave a very interesting answer.

"Oh my goodness," Spivey replied when asked if he'd like to see any movies be turned into musicals. "There is a movie that's kind of unsung, if you will. It's called Life and it stars Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, and it's pretty much about the journey of two men who are dealing with being wrongfully incarcerated. And, of course, when you hear something like that, it sounds like trauma porn, which we're all very used to at this point, but it's actually a comedic film and it's more comedy than it is drama."

"And I think there is something to watching people find joy in very tough situations, and I think we may need more messages like that," he continued. "I think sometimes these movies and these musicals make it seem like life is just always perfect and it's nice to show people finding joy in hard times, like The Color Purple, and in some ways like Mean Girls. There are some difficult things to touch in as far as bullying and self-image, and I think it's nice to show people coming out of that."

We also asked Spivey if there are any other Broadway characters he'd want to bring to life on the big screen in the future.

"I don't know if maybe I'm still too young, even though I was older than Damian, I would love to play Nicely-Nicely Johnson on the screen. I don't know if anybody's ever going to do a new Guys and Dolls movie, but I would love for that character to be revamped in a very cool way," he shared. "And 'Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat,' of course, is already iconic. I love the song. I'd like to put my spin on it and I'd like to kind of do... I love doing the opposite, so this being a very contemporary show, I love kicking it old school a little bit for a role like Nicely and giving him a fresh take."

You can watch our interview with Spivey at the top of the page.

2024 is proving to be a big year for DC's Dreamer. Last year, the eagerly anticipated graphic novel, Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story was given a release date and then, soon after that, DC announced that the character would be taking up a major role on an even large stage with the arrival of a new Suicide Squad ongoing series, Suicide Squad: Dream Team, which will see Dreamer/Nia Nal front and center of a new Task Force X. But it's not just a big year for Dreamer; both Bad Dream and Suicide Squad: Dream Team are written by Nicole Maines, who brought Nia Nal to life on The CW's Supergirl, blazing a trail as the first transgender superhero on television before bringing the character to the pages of DC.

Ahead of the arrival of Suicide Squad: Dream Team #1 on March 12th and Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story on April 2nd, ComicBook.com spoke with Maines about the next chapter in Dreamer's journey as well as her own in taking the character from screen to page.

ComicBook.com: The last time we spoke it was for Nia's Lazarus Planet experience and now she's tangled up with the Suicide Squad. This feels like a huge evolution for the character. Where is Nia as we walk into this much bigger stage?

Nicole Maines: This whole things sort of kicked off during the Beast World event when she and Jon Kent teamed up to evacuate the alien district of Metropolis and she helped bring them all back to Parthas, her hometown which is a secret alien refugee site where they would be safe and we have the Blue Earth movement going around with all their anti-alien crap, so she was like, let's give them a safe place to evacuate to. And during the course of those events, Amanda Waller became privy to Dreamer and to Parthas and is now using that as a bargaining chip. So, as we open on the Suicide Squad, we find Dreamer, who has been running missions for Amanda and growing tired of the lesser of two evils narrative that Amanda Waller subscribes to.

There's a moment in the issue that jumps out to me as cementing the idea that we're at a turning point for Dreamer -- it's the line 'do you really think your time as a hero is best spent playing Whack a Mole". What's kind of going on in Dreamer's head at this point because this really does feel like it is do or die.

It's difficult for her because, and you put it perfectly, on this much bigger stage. She is still this inexperienced 18-year-old girl who never thought she was going to have these powers, who doesn't really know how to use these powers, and she's doing her best to live up to the legacy set by her dearly departed mother. But she doesn't know how and so she's doing the best that she can and given the information that she has and what she sees in her visions, she's trying to use her best judgment and she's trying to do the right thing and protect the most people. It's a turning point for the character because that is sort of Dreamer's whole mission and seeing the future, it's, you know, go after the big target, don't, like, little hero of the week or whatever. If you see what's coming down the pipe you have a responsibility to stop it. It's very see something, say something but yeah. Amanda Waller.

You're getting to take on some truly iconic DC characters in this, Waller, Harley Quinn.

A lot of people I've seen online have been like, 'oh, it's gonna be a Harley Quinn story' or they're like, 'oh, it's a backdoor Dreamer story' and I'm like, wrong. Amanda Waller is the main character here, make no mistake. I'm having a blast writing Amanda. She's awesome.

How do you prepare for that? Amanda Waller is a really layered character when you really dig into her. How do you even approach this?

I think the most important part for me was making sure especially as we're moving into this new territory with her where she's really becoming this major villain within the DC Universe, I wanted to make sure that we allotted some amount of time to not reestablishing or reaffirming, but I think reminding people that she's just a human woman who has had a life. She's loved and she's lost. Everything she does comes from a place of hurt and a place of fear and desperate desire for control. I think the thing that interested me the most about her when I first started thinking about this were the similarities between her and Dreamer. They're both women who, through Amanda's position and through Dreamer's powers, have both seen the world come very close to ending a lot of times. And while Dreamer is in a position where she's like apologizing for her power, and she's trying not to abuse it, Amanda has no problem being like 'yeah, I have put myself in a position where I have a tremendous amount of power. I would be stupid not to abuse it.'

In the issue you actually talk about that. Waller calls out how similar they are and Dreamer is like 'no, we're not". I thought that was interesting. We're getting to see two sides of very much the same coin.

Accurate. One hundred percent they are. And that was intentional to make these two women feel like two sides of the same coin because a whole arc for Dreamer over this series is going to be 'do I subscribe to Amanda Waller's line of thinking to defeat this person to save the future or do I have to adopt this sort of greater good, break a few eggs to make an omelet mentality. She's kind of been stumbling around in this kind of idealistic young way and I think the nature of her powers and the situation she finds herself in is kind of demanding, like 'hey girl, you need to reevaluate some stuff and you need to decide what you want to do. Is your definition of being a hero going to save the day or does that need to change?' And that's true for everybody on the Squad.

It's going to be a wild ride.

I'm excited about this series because it really is looking at what is a hero. How do you act as a hero within the confines of something like the Suicide Squad? We're seeing that with Harley, we're seeing that with Deadeye, we're seeing that with Dreamer, Bizarro, less with Clock King. And Black Alice has reached a point post Lazarus Planet that is complete nihilism so it's sort of we have the full range of how do you be a hero. Do you even want to be a hero? Is there even a point and you know, sort of weighing the consequences of going against an oppressive force.

This is juxtaposed, for me, against Bad Dream. You've promised that we would get more of Dreamer's backstory, even when you were on Supergirl and brought her to life. Now we get that more. What's it been like for you to finally get here?

I started the process of the graphic novel in 2020. This was my pandemic baby. Bad Dream is so special because that was the passion project that was so much like blood, sweat and tears went into that and the writing.

I started, I went in with a plan and somewhere around Act Two, the entire thing fell apart and it just became a situation of I'm just going to write the thing as it comes. Dreamer, especially on the show, we didn't really get to dig into her backstory and now with the comics not being tied to the Arrowverse, I was free to kind of go in whatever direction I wanted. I think the thing that I was most excited about was getting to decide first of all what Parthas looked like, what that felt like and also Naltor. What rules do they have? What was that like for the people who defended it? With her mother, giving her a little bit more of a backstory and a history aside from oh yes, she very wise. She's been through things. She's broken some rules and it is not without consequence that she's here on Earth. It was just really fun to kind of get to flesh out what Dreamer's world looks like.

These stories are kind of leaning heavily on each other. Not a spoiler because her mother's death happened on Supergirl. But she has these flashbacks to all the failures in her life that are her fault and that's the thing about Bad Dream. We can say oh poor baby, sweetie, oh this wasn't your fault. It 100 percent was. We get why she did the things that she did, but it is her fault her mother is dead. And that's just something she has to live with and something she has to try to atone for so now, finding herself on Suicide Squad is the worst-case scenario.

What I love about Bad Dream is that we're not getting like on Supergirl where we meet her and she gets these powers as an adult. It's a completely different type of character arc to develop these powers as a teenager and experience a trauma and then still be a teenager trying to apply these powers and healing.

She has the training wheels on, she's like trying to do a triathlon on a training bike and everyone's faster and she's like 'I'm just afraid". And I think that's the thing people have to remember as the stories are unfolding. She's doing her best to put on the hero front and trying to remain in control of the situation. This is scary stuff for anybody, especially a teenager. And she so desperately wants to do the right thing and is right away confronted with oh no, I messed up and I enabled something terrible and it just gets worse. She just kind of hits every single thing on the way down. But it transforms her into what Paul Kaminski and I were talking about when we first started talking about this. He was like, 'I really want to see Dreamer as this Sarah Connor character.' And that's kind of what she becomes here.

You've had this very unique experience where you have gotten to take Dreamer and shepherd this character through two versions and really create her whole cloth. What is this like for you? If you went back to talk to the Nicole who was just cast as Dreamer, what would you say to her?

First of all, I'd be like 'girl, you have no idea how big a part of your life this character becomes.' When I got cast, I was 20 and came at a point in my life when there was so much, like, I was in such a transition period that I sort of came of age along with this character. And I think she and I kind of became entwined in a way that is very profound and hard for me to describe.

This character just means a lot to a lot of people. I just want to see her do cool stuff. And I'm excited to see her in the comics. It just keeps getting better and better and it's just like something that I never would have imagined and she has grown into this character that is so much bigger than I thought likely. I'm just really grateful that I've had the opportunity to work with so many amazing people who have said yes.

What do you hope people take away from both Bad Dream and Suicide Squad: Dream Team?

I want people to come away with either a new love for Dreamer or a reinvigorated love for Dreamer. I just want people to come away with more of a demand for this character. I want people to be like, 'yes, we love this. We love her, we love what she does. We love what she can do. We want to see her go more places.' I want to see what happens next in the story of Dreamer. It's interesting that Bad Dream and Suicide Squad are coming out at the same time because Bad Dream is like her start of everything and her origin and Suicide Squad is where we are now and in stark contrast.

Suicide Squad: Dream Team #1 arrives on March 12th. Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story arrives April 2nd.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The newest version of Mean Girls is now available to watch digitally, so ComicBook.com had the chance to talk to the film's directors, Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. During the chat, the duo talked about the film and shared some fun stories about the musical numbers. The new movie is based on the Broadway musical that was based on the 2004 film that was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. During the interview, we asked if there are any other musicals they'd like to bring to the big screen, and they mentioned the smash Broadway hit, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton.

"Hamilton," Perez Jr. quickly replied when asked if there are any other musicals they want to adapt. "Alexander Hamilton. We're screaming it from the treetops like he would. But unless maybe Lin wants to direct it, but ... That would be amazing. That would be an incredible thing, too. But if he doesn't want to direct it... We're not throwing away our shot."

Jaquel Spivey On Meeting Daniel Franzese:

ComicBook.com also spoke with Jaquel Spivey (Damian Hubbard), and he talked about meeting the original Damian, Daniel Franzese.

"I think the words of wisdom that he gave me were, 'I'm excited to see your Damian,'" Spivey shared when asked about his encounter with Franzese. "And I think as an actor, that's the biggest gift you can receive because sometimes you wonder, 'Is this person going to like me if I'm touching something that's been theirs for so long?' And I made it very clear, I am not Damian, I am not the new Damian. There's no torch that needs to be passed. I play Damian in this film, but even for me, Damian is always going to be Daniel."

"So, to have him bring such warmth and kindness to me without even meeting me yet was a very, very big gift," he continued. "And then meeting him in person, I forgot that it was like 1,000 cameras and all these people around me because I just had to tell him like, 'Thank you, you were taking the job and you were performing a role, but I don't think you understand how many people you have touched in doing that, especially people like me,' so that was a joy."

Mean Girls (2024) is now available digitally.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 debuted this week on Disney+ with the first three episodes of the Star Wars animated series' final season, which were darker in tone. Up until now, Star Wars: The Bad Batch - which some consider to be the last Star Wars project with George Lucas' influence - has been about Clone Force 99 keeping themselves and the young clone Omega outside of the Empire's reach. That changed in Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2's finale, when the Empire captured Omega and took her to Mount Tantiss, where Chief Scientist Royce Hemlock leads experiments related to M-count and Project Necromancer.

That turn of events has resulted in Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 having a somewhat more serious tone. The season opener is a muted episode that looks at Omega's repressed existence within the halls of Mount Tantiss, a far cry from the high adventure that characterized most episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch prior. ComicBook.com spoke to Michelle Ang, who voices Omega, ahead of the Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 premiere. In addition to expressing a bittersweet sentiment about Omega's story ending, she discussed Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3's unorthodox season premiere episode.

"Whenever I get a script, it becomes my sort of manuscript, my touchstone," Ang explains. "It doesn't work well for me to look too far forward or too reflective. I have to know where I have come from emotionally. But really, the scripts are so well done and so thoughtful that that becomes what I lean on for performance. But I was relieved that we were starting that way because Season 2 ended so intensely. I think it would have been horrible to just have launched into some sort of like business as usual mission in Season 3. And I will say I had a lot of fun because I feel like season three is a lot darker. It's more dangerous. There's a quality to it that feels more thriller but still exciting. There's a lot more tension because, I guess in honesty, the stakes are higher."

Ang continued talking about the darker tone of Star Wars: The Bad Batch's final season. Like many good modern adventure cartoons, she thinks Star Wars: The Bad Batch may have aged up with its target audience.

"There's medical testing on living beings happening," she says. "It's dark. It's dark. But, you know, maybe that's also clever for the creators because for some of the younger - The Bad Batch is accessible for all kinds of people. I think that's the cool thing about it. But for some of the people who chose to bring in younger viewers or younger family members to watch it from Season 1, perhaps, three years in, they are now ready to have this sort of content. Maybe that's why, too. But it did have a different flavor. I'm so glad that you picked up on it because I definitely picked up on it as a performer, and it took us to different places."

What is Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 about?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 picks up where Season 2 left off. The Bad Batch is still reeling from losing one of their members, Tech, and determined to rescue Omega from capture at Mount Tantiss.

According to Disney+, in Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3, "the Batch will have their limits tested in the fight to reunite with Omega as she faces challenges of her own inside a remote Imperial science lab. With the group fractured and facing threats from all directions, they will have to seek out unexpected allies, embark on dangerous missions, and muster everything they have learned to free themselves from the Empire."

Who is in the Star Wars: The Bad Batch cast?

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 stars Dee Bradley Baker (American Dad!) as the voice of every Bad Batch member and Michelle Ang (Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462) as Omega. The cast also includes Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld), Noshir Dalal (It's Pony), and Wanda Sykes (The Upshaws).

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is executive produced by Dave Filoni (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian), Athena Portillo (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels), Brad Rau (Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Resistance), Jennifer Corbett (Star Wars Resistance, NCIS) and Carrie Beck (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian), with Josh Rimes (Star Wars Resistance, Star Wars: Visions) as co-executive producer and Alex Spotswood (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels) as senior producer. Rau is also the supervising director, with Corbett as the head writer.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 debuted its first three episodes on Wednesday, February 21st, on Disney+. Here's the entire Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 episode release schedule:

Season 3 Episode Schedule:

• ? 2/21: Episode 301 "Confined," Episode 302 "Paths Unknown," Episode 303 "Shadows of Tantiss" (debut)
• ? 2/28: Episode 304 "A Different Approach"
• ? 3/6: Episode 305 "The Return"
• ? 3/13: Episode 306 "Infiltration" & Episode 307 "Extraction"
• ? 3/20: Episode 308 "Bad Territory"
• ? 3/27: Episode 309 "The Harbinger"
• ? 4/3: Episode 310 "Identity Crisis" & Episode 311 "Point of No Return"
• ? 4/10: Episode 312 "Juggernaut"
• ? 4/17: Episode 313 "Into the Breach"
• ? 4/24: Episode 314 "Flash Strike"
• ? 5/1: Episode 315 "The Cavalry Has Arrived" (finale)

After making his long-awaited return at Survivor Series, Randy Orton hit the ground running and has continued to be in the main event picture on WWE SmackDown. That leads us to this weekend, which is a big one for the Viper, as he will have a chance to secure a WrestleMania Title shot at Elimination Chamber. Then on Sunday Orton will be in the spotlight again as the subject of Biography: WWE Legends' season premiere. ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to Orton ahead of the anticipated premiere, and Orton confirmed that they were filming during the early part of his time away from WWE, which was a time when Orton wasn't sure if he would ever get to return to the ring.

"Well, as far as the documentary goes, we did film all of it. In fact, while I was out, and they followed me around to a doctor appointment in the middle of that first six months when I was out after Riddle and I dropped the titles to the Usos," Orton said. "And they were around when I wasn't quite sure if I was going to be able to return to the ring. It was still up in the air. So I believe some of it will be documented. I saw an early version, but I know that they've made a lot of cuts since then, so I honestly am not quite sure everything that's going to be discussed."

The episode will also dive into other aspects of Orton's life, including a critical point in time when he was discharged from the Marine Corps at the age of 19. While he has spoken about that in the past, Orton really opens up about what led to that event and what happened in detail.

"But I do know that it was important to me that I talk about the Marine Corps and the bad conduct discharge when I was 19 years old, because I've always been really open about that, but I haven't dived into why, what happened, what led up to the bad conduct discharge," Orton said. "So I think that'll just get people to understand where I was coming from a little bit more, maybe humanize me a little bit and get people to relate, because maybe they would've done the same thing if they were in my situation."

"As far as not being sure about returning to the ring, it was rough. For about six months I was home, and I was in a lot of pain, and I was trying to find the doctor or doctors that were going to be able to fix my spine and make me more durable than ever and able to be an athlete again," Orton said. "And the problem is a spinal fusion is usually reserved for elderly, slash obese people. And when it's done, it's a hack job. They cut through muscle, and your core is never the same. You're never really the same, and to be an athlete after a spinal fusion just isn't in the cards."

Thankfully a new technique allowed Orton to not just return to the ring but return better than ever. "But there are some new techniques out there. There's some hardware that was just invented less than a decade ago, and I had the privilege of having three different doctors, one that invented the hardware that's on the back of my spine. A frontal approach specialist, she went in through my stomach and basically dissected me like a frog by peeling the fascia back," Orton said.

"They didn't cut through any muscle, because when you cut through muscle and then you stitch it back together, that muscle never heals like it once was, and it'll render you a non-athlete. It'll make things difficult. Your body will never function quite the same. And the core is very, very important. It helps you do everything, especially if you're in that wrestling ring. So because of what they did during that surgery, I was able to recover and then strengthen to where I was able to do things in the gym that I hadn't been able to do since I was in my late twenties," Orton said.

Biography: WWE Legends begins a new season on Sunday, February 25th at 9/8 PM CST.

Who do you want to see Orton take on next? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!

The new Mean Girls movie is now available digitally, which means fans of the film can finally sing along to the musical numbers. The new movie is based on the Broadway musical that was based on the 2004 film that was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. There's been a lot of talk about the songs in the films, and ComicBook.com recently learned some fun behind-the-scenes stories about the musical numbers. While chatting with directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., we learned that "Revenge Party" almost featured a very cool prop. During another chat with Jaquel Spivey (Damian Hubbard), we learned some interesting things about "Apex Predator."

"I will say for me, as one of the musical theater babies of this cast, 'Revenge Party' was also my favorite because it is so theatrical," Spivey shared. "And of course, I love the idea of making musical numbers suitable for the screen and for a movie audience, but to me it's something about that musical magic that really will translate no matter what medium it's on. So for me, it's like we're wearing crazy costumes, crazy makeup, and also just our phenomenal dancers. I loved being in any scene or musical number where the dancers were doing their thing and just watching them and we were all together, us, the dancers, background, everybody was on set for hours to make that number happen."

"But I would say the one that probably surprised me was 'Apex Predator,' because I did not expect for the animal kingdom to look as cool as it did on screen. I was there when they told the background actors, 'I need you to be animals,' and they were not prepared for that. So they're like, 'What you mean animals? What you talking about?' And they were like, 'We need you to be animals, do it.' As soon as they said action, just seeing all these people just come up with stuff, I don't know, it was just really cool, and it was nice to watch the editing and everything was really cool."

Jaquel Spivey Talks Going From Broadway To Film:

Mean Girls marked Spivey's first film role, which he took shortly after being nominated for a Tony for his Broadway debut in A Strange Loop. During his chat with ComicBook.com, Spivey opened up about his unexpected transition from stage to screen.

"Well, it was a scary transition, but even more so on the fact that I didn't train in acting for the camera. I always thought the stage was going to be my home, that's where I'll do most of my work," Spivey explained. "I did not expect a movie, too. This was one of those dreams that wasn't even on my vision board. So when the time came around I was like, 'Are you all sure?'"

"But I think it was nice to be able to stretch in an environment that allowed me to fail, that allowed me to succeed, that allowed me to ask questions. So, for it to be a project called Mean Girls, it was nice to be around nice people who took care of me and made sure I understood what was happening."

You can watch our interview with Jaquel Spivey at the top of the page.

Sh?gun, the new series on the way from FX Networks, marks the second major TV adaptation of James Clavell's classic novel. First published in 1975, the book was well received by critics and became a best seller despite being a tome that was over a thousand pages. It's success as a book lead to the initial television adaptation, a nine-hour miniseries that ran on NBC in September of 1980. Now over forty years later, FX Networks is bringing a whole new version of the novel to life, and one that James Clavell's daughter Michaela Clavell believes he would enjoy very much.

Speaking with ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview for FX Networks's Sh?gun, we asked Clavell (who serves as an executive producer on the series) how her father felt about the original series and how he might feel abut the new one. Since James Clavell was an EP on the original series he had a lot of love for it, but there are a lot of advantages to doing a new adaptation of Sh?gun.

"He was very proud of the first one which was done in the late seventies, and that's the difference really, time," Clavell said. "We have a lot more technology on our side. We have a much more sophisticated viewer on our side. So you don't have to start from scratch because, to put it in perspective, many people didn't know what sushi was in the late seventies."

With the new adaptation however they were interested in making it new and relevant in the modern age. As soon as development started it came with a clear mandate, create it from the ground up from the Japanese perspective. Clavell adds:

"If you are in the book, the books are very much along those same lines as well. Very much into the mind of the Japanese at that time, the culture, and that's the whole point, entering a different world. think we were able to make this relevant and in a way that he would have loved very, very much because it is very true to the whole breadth of the book. Not just the romance and the perspective of 'the stranger in a strange land' kind of a thing which, as Justin (Marks) and Rachel (Kondo, co-creators) have said, it's been done, we wanted to do something different. Well, all you had to do was go to the book, read the book and it's all there, a whole different perspective then was shown and able to be shown at that time, different period. So I think he'd be stunned at the beauty and the complexity of this Sh?gun, which is true to the book."

What is Sh?gun about?

FX Networks describes Sh?gun as follows:

Set in Japan in the year 1600 at the dawn of a century-defining civil war, producer Hiroyuki Sanada stars as "Lord Yoshii Toranaga" who is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him. When a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village, its English pilot, "John Blackthorne" (Cosmo Jarvis), comes bearing secrets that could help Toranaga tip the scales of power and devastate the formidable influence of Blackthorne's own enemies - the Jesuit priests and Portuguese merchants. Toranaga's and Blackthorne's fates become inextricably tied to their translator, "Toda Mariko" (Anna Sawai), a mysterious Christian noblewoman and the last of a disgraced line. While serving her lord amidst this fraught political landscape, Mariko must reconcile her newfound companionship with Blackthorne, her commitment to the faith that saved her and her duty to her late father.

Sh?gun cast

In addition to Hiroyuki Sanada stars taking on the role of Lord Yoshii Toranaga, the cast for Sh?gun also includes Tadanobu Asano as "Kashigi Yabushige," a notorious backstabber and close ally of Toranaga; Hiroto Kanai as "Kashigi Omi," the young leader of the fishing village where Blackthorne's ship was found; Takehiro Hira as "Ishido Kazunari," a powerful bureaucrat who is Toranaga's chief rival; Moeka Hoshi as "Usami Fuji," a widow who must find new purpose amidst her lord's fight; Tokuma Nishioka as "Toda Hiromatsu," Toranaga's trusted general and closest friend; Shinnosuke Abe as "Toda Hirokatsu" ("Buntaro"), Mariko's jealous husband; Yuki Kura as "Yoshii Nagakado," the brash son of Toranaga with a strong desire to prove himself; Yuka Kouri as "Kiku," a courtesan renowned for her artistry throughout Japan; and Fumi Nikaido as "Ochiba no Kata," the revered mother of the heir who will stop at nothing to put an end to Toranaga and his threat to her son's power.

The first two episodes of FX's Sh?gun premiere February 27th on Hulu and FX

The newest version of Mean Girls was released in theaters in January, and now the film is available to watch digitally. The movie saw the return of original screenwriter Tina Fey, who also reprised her role as Ms. Norbury alongside Tim Meadows' Principal Duvall. The rest of the cast is a mixture of Mean Girls newcomers and folks who appeared in the Broadway musical. Another big difference from the original film is the directing team. Mean Girls (2004) was directed by Mark Waters while Mean Girls (2024) was helmed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with the directing duo about the movie, and they shared a fun story about filming the musical number "Revenge Party."

"There was a traffic jam in the Utopian hallway," Jayne began. "There was," Perez Jr. added. "It was so hard to shoot in the Utopian hallway because..."

"Everything was on location," Jayne explained. "We shot it in a real school. It was an abandoned Catholic school that we took over. So it's not like we can move walls or anything like that."

"I remember there's a line that goes, 'A turntable made out of bones,'" Perez Jr. continued. "And we had Karen on top of a turntable made of bones, but it was hitting the AstroTurf."

"Our props department worked forever on this turntable of bone," Jayne added. "And we all loved it so much."

"We were obsessed. Obsessed with it," Perez Jr. echoed.

"Karen had her headphones on and she was ready to go. And then it just... There was just a 50 person pile up in the Utopian Hallway. And we were like..."

"No one could talk to each other. Everyone on walkie was like, 'What's going on?' Total mess," Perez Jr. explained.

"Oh my God," Jayne added. "And one of the amazing masters, Angie, we had all worked so hard on this and she's such a New Yorker and I'm like, 'Angie, I don't know. I don't know if we can use the turntable of made a bones.' She just got her headset and she's like, '86 the turntable made of bones. I know, I know. We'll all mourn for it later. We're going to 86 the turntable made of bones.' ... We were so sad."

You can watch out interview with Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr at the top of the page.

Mean Girls was released in theaters last month, and now the film is officially available digitally. The new movie is not quite a remake of the 2004 movie or the Broadway adaptation. Instead, writer Tina Fey has referred to the project as a hybrid. This makes sense considering Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles from the original film while the rest of the cast is a mixture of Mean Girls newcomers and folks who appeared in the Broadway musical. One such newcomer is Jaquel Spivey who plays Damian Hubbard in the film. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Spivey, and he talked about the importance of representation and meeting original Damian actor, Daniel Franzese.

"So many, and that's why I do it," Spivey replied when asked if any young people have spoken to him about being inspired by the film's representation. "It sounds cliche and I feel like a lot of people say that, even if it's not true, but for me, I just remember being younger and looking around and being so jealous of friends because it's like, 'You have someone in media that you can relate to. You have someone that you can see and you can see yourself.' I didn't have anybody, so the closest I got was Damian, and also to have Damian be a Black man, I think there's something so rich in that because most of the time when we see Black men, they're a specific way in media, but especially as queer Black men."

"So with this one, I was like, 'I want him to be fem, I want him to be flamboyant, I want him to be all the things. I want him to be built like a football player and be everything but a football player,'" he continued. "And that to me was the biggest joy, and then of course, to have Janis, Auli?i [Cravalho], to play off of and just to bring all that queer energy to life, I don't know, it felt really special, and I hope that there were a lot of people who felt seen in places that they didn't think they would in this movie."

Jaquel Spivey On Meeting Daniel Franzese:

"I think the words of wisdom that he gave me were, 'I'm excited to see your Damian,'" Spivey shared when asked about his encounter with Franzese. "And I think as an actor, that's the biggest gift you can receive because sometimes you wonder, 'Is this person going to like me if I'm touching something that's been theirs for so long?' And I made it very clear, I am not Damian, I am not the new Damian. There's no torch that needs to be passed. I play Damian in this film, but even for me, Damian is always going to be Daniel."

"So, to have him bring such warmth and kindness to me without even meeting me yet was a very, very big gift," he continued. "And then meeting him in person, I forgot that it was like 1,000 cameras and all these people around me because I just had to tell him like, 'Thank you, you were taking the job and you were performing a role, but I don't think you understand how many people you have touched in doing that, especially people like me,' so that was a joy."

Mean Girls (2024) is now available digitally.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is returning for a sophomore installment. Earlier this month, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that the serialized adaptation of Rick Riordan's best-selling novels had been renewed for Season 2. Riordan himself followed up the announcement by confirming that Percy Jackson Season 2 will chronicle the events of The Sea of Monsters, the second story in the core Percy Jackson pentalogy. This next arc will introduce fan-favorite characters such as Tyson but will also flesh out familiar faces like Dior Goodjohn's Clarisse La Rue. Returning talent goes behind the camera as well, as a team that had its fingerprints on just about every second of Percy Jackson Season 1 will be back for round two.

Percy Jackson Season 2 Brings Back Score Team

The epic orchestral sound of Percy Jackson and the Olympians will retain its composer in Season 2.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Percy Jackson score mixer Ryan Sanchez revealed that his company, Echo Lane Productions, as well as Percy Jackson composer Bear McCreary are returning for the next installment.

"Yeah, we're excited about that," Sanchez said when asked if he and McCreary will be back for Season 2. "It was announced very quickly after the [first] season had ended. That is always a plus, just knowing that everyone in the audience really enjoyed it and was super pleased with it."

Sanchez fronts Echo Lane Productions, a company that specializes in score engineering. Echo Lane Productions was founded in 2018 and helped fine-tune scores in God of War, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and Percy Jackson.

McCreary's Percy Jackson score received praise from fans and critics alike for its nuances throughout Season 1, with compliments highlighting the thematic sound for the show's end credits as well as the individual themes for characters like Medusa and Luke.

"It's such a small world, Bear McCreary actually literally lives a few houses down for me," Luke actor Charlie Bushnell told ComicBook.com in a previous interview. "I met up with him and he took me into his studio and he showed me that scene and he played the theme for me. I got goosebumps the first time I heard it."

All eight episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 1 are now streaming on Disney+. Percy Jackson Season 2 is currently in pre-production.

Apple TV+'s latest genre-bending experience is Constellation, which just premiered its first three episodes this week. The series takes a high-concept approach to exploring the most integral components of humanity, which makes for a cathartic experience for viewers, but also presents some unique challenges to its stars. The fractured nature of the narrative means that performers find themselves bringing to life alternate realities centered around different choices they have made, with stars James D'Arcy and Will Catlett reflecting on the exciting and satisfying experience of translating writer Peter Harness's work to the screen. New episodes of Constellation premiere each Wednesday on Apple TV+.

"I think the thing that is so brilliant and unique about this show is that what Peter Harness, who wrote it and is a genius, was able to do was explore the nature of what it is to be human," D'Arcy shared with ComicBook.com. "So much of my time is spent living in my head, and I'm living in either a state of worry or a state of excitement about what's to come or what's already happened. I'm never here. But when I'm living in those other places, I'm worried about paying the bills or I'm excited that I'm going to win the lottery or whatever it is, I'm actually there. Like, I actually go to those places in my head, it feels very real."

He continued, "What I think is great is Peter has given us an opportunity to show certain situations from different angles, which you don't normally get in a drama. That's not normally how television works. It's a real privilege to be involved in something that is looking at life in a slightly different way."

Constellation stars Noomi Rapace as Jo -- an astronaut who returns to Earth after a disaster in space -- only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing. The action-packed space adventure is an exploration of the dark edges of human psychology, and one woman's desperate quest to expose the truth about the hidden history of space travel and recover all that she has lost.

"If you split an apple open, it looks identical, but it doesn't mean that they feel the same. The human experience, we look alike, so to speak, but we might not always feel the same," Catlett added. "I believe Peter Harness wants you to feel and go on an inward journey within yourself, even though you're watching this big, massive, genre-bending, epic space thing, but what about yourself? We split you down the middle, what are you finding? How do you deal with regret? How do you deal with loss? How do you deal with unforgiveness? And these are things that humans struggle with, and Peter did a great job of painting that canvas and getting us in a space where we can talk about that human condition."

New episodes of Constellation premiere each Wednesday on Apple TV+.

What do you think of the new series? Let us know in the comments!

The main event of AEW Revolution is up in the air. As of this writing, AEW World Champion Samoa Joe is scheduled to defend his prize in a triple threat match against Swerve Strickland and "Hangman" Adam Page. This past Wednesday on AEW Dynamite, all three men were involved in a trios bout, with Swerve and Joe uniting with Brian Cage to oppose Hangman and the team of Hook and Rob Van Dam. Late into the contest, Hangman put Swerve through the announce table, taking him out of the equation. Not long after that, Hangman clipped his ankle and was visibly shaken up about it, encouraging AEW cameras not to film him as he struggled to return to the backstage area.

Within hours, reports circulated that Hangman was just selling and that he is "fine" ahead of AEW Revolution. That said, there was speculation that even if Hangman is legitimately healthy, this ankle injury will be worked into the pay-per-view's headlining storyline.

Swerve Strickland Responds to Hangman Page's Injury

The AEW Revolution game changes significantly if Hangman is out of the question.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Swerve Strickland addressed Hangman Page's AEW Revolution status following this past Wednesday's AEW Dynamite, questioning whether the former AEW World Champion is downplaying the significance of his injury.

"It changes a lot because me and the Hangman, I know his game, I know his style," Swerve said. "I've studied this man. I've endured a lot from this man. Hangman is a tough dude but he is also overly prideful. There's a lot of rumors going around about the possibility of him being hurt, but people are reporting that he had been walking around fine in the back after said injury. I think that's his pride overshadowing the fact that his body just can't go at the moment. Whether he shows up, whether he can do the match, whether or not we don't know."

Swerve and Hangman have battled on three separate occasions now, with Swerve being victorious in the first two encounters. The two men went to a time-limit draw in their third match.

"The man's very prideful. He would be the one to hide that he is more hurt than he actually is," Swerve continued. "I wasn't there. He put me through the announce table. I couldn't see him. I didn't know what was going on with him in the match at that time. What it sounds like he's being a very prideful individual and he is not letting the world know how actually really torn he really is right now."

Even though Swerve's chances at becoming AEW World Champion go up in a one-on-one match, he admittedly has no in-ring familiarity with the titleholder.

"I've never faced Samoa Joe," Swerve noted. "Me and Samoa Joe haven't really had real one-on-one contact yet. I'm not sure what to really expect with him. At the same time, there's advantages. He doesn't really know what to expect with me."

AEW Revolution goes down on Sunday, March 3rd.

Jordynne Grace is one of the flag-bearers as TNA embarks on its new era. Grace captured the TNA Knockouts Championship this past January at TNA Hard to Kill, the first pay-per-view under the TNA banner in over seven years. While this began Grace's third reign with her employer's top women's championship, it was the first time she was holding the TNA-branded version of the Knockouts Championship.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Grace reflected on her emotions during the day of TNA Hard to Kill ahead of her marquee match.

"I just felt overwhelmed by everything. I mean when you're there, you're worrying about not just the match, but how you're representing yourself and the company backstage, and oftentimes that's more important than what you actually do in the ring," Grace said. "I was really just trying not to step on toes, being as nice as I could. I think I shook every person's hand in the building probably 10 times each, just because I wanted to make sure I didn't forget anyone. It was very overwhelming."

Grace's TNA Knockouts Championship victory came one year to the day after her last reign with the gold ended.

"I feel a lot more confident," Grace said when asked how much she's changed since her last run as champion. "I've been at TNA for six years and I feel like everything that I've done there has got me to this point. I feel like the opportunities they've given me to show what I can do and to learn more, both in the ring and out of the ring, I really felt a hundred percent prepared in that aspect. The only thing that I was really nervous about was just the backstage interactions. You never know what someone thinks about you, and especially with social media now, there's all kinds of things that could be misconstrued. Backstage and in the ring, I'm a walking wrestling advertisement, If I don't do well, that's going to reflect badly on my company and I don't want that at all."

Representing TNA has already come in big ways for Grace. Just weeks after winning the TNA Knockouts Championship, Grace competed in the WWE Women's Royal Rumble Match, following in Mickie James's footsteps.

"My biggest goal now is to hopefully get more fans to watch the product," Grace said when asked about what she hopes comes from her Royal Rumble appearance. "Because if you think that I'm a decent wrestler, there are wrestlers that we have like Josh Alexander, Mike Bailey, these are guys that are just incredible wrestlers. I feel like if fans are going to tune in because of me, they need to stick around for guys like that because those guys deserve all the eyes in the world on them."

While Grace's latest reign as TNA Knockouts Champion is just beginning, she's proven before that she can hold that championship for the long run. Her longest Knockouts Title reign lasted 208 days, the fifth-longest reign in the title's history, 69 days behind Taya Valkyrie's record 377-day reign.

"It would be a huge honor to be the longest reigning Knockouts World Champion," Grace said. "It's definitely a dream of mine. I also would love to have the most title defenses in that time out of any knockout. I just want to have good, great matches with as many women as I possibly can."

Grace's next defense comes against Gisele Shaw at TNA No Surrender which streams live on TNA+ tonight at 8 PM ET.

A beloved game show is headed back to television, with Deal or No Deal Island debuting on NBC in a matter of days. The reboot, which is hosted by actor Joe Manganiello, has promised to up the ante of the long-running game show Deal or No Deal, which aired from 2005 through 2019. This time around, contestants will play in tropical conditions with a wide array of challenges standing between them and a massive amount of money -- and now, we have a bit of an idea of what that will entail. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Manganiello spoke about the various environmental elements posing a threat on Deal or No Deal Island, as well as the new structure of the competition itself.

"The show is really different," Manganiello explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "I mean, obviously there's the Deal or no Deal component that is the same. Fans of the original, they're gonna be fulfilled. And also, there is a twist because as the game goes on, it doesn't end after one game. It's cumulative. If you can survive a duel with The Banker, which happens on every episode, that money, that total that you won will then go into a cumulative final case that will grow and grow and grow over the entire season, that the one remaining guest contestant will play for in the end. So there's a bit of a difference, because you can survive and move on, or you can get knocked out by The banker. So it was a bit different. And then also, the events that lead up to who's going to play against The Banker, and then who's going to be up for elimination. Those are decided by these excursions out into the jungle that can involve snakes, heights, jet skis, canoes, dynamite, on and on. There are explosions, there are trees falling over. Snakes everywhere. I mean, it's pretty insane."

What Is Deal or No Deal Island About?

Deal or No Deal Island will combine thrilling challenges, mind-bending dilemmas and the classic game of Deal or No Deal as contestants try to beat the banker," per the official description. "Manganiello will guide them throughout - leading the game play, relaying the banker's tempting offers and helping them through the toughest decisions of their lives.

"The role of Deal or No Deal host has always been held by someone charming, hilarious and devastatingly handsome," Corie Henson, Executive Vice President, Unscripted Content, NBCUniversal Entertainment, said in a statement when the show was first announced. "When we took the show out of the studio and transported the game to the Banker's island, Joe was the obvious choice. He loves all kinds of games, lives for adventure and isn't afraid to stare down a snake or two to help players win a life-changing payday and, hopefully, beat the Banker at his own game."

Are you excited for Deal or No Deal Island? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Deal or No Deal Island supersized premiere airs February 26th at 9:30 p.m. ET on NBC before moving to its regular timeslot at 10 p.m. ET on March 4th. All episodes will be available next day on Peacock.

Todd McFarlane's Spawn has carved out a unique space in the comic landscape, building a massive mythology in the decades since its debut. The Image Comics series has not only birthed movies, an animated series, and multiple video game appearances, but a record-breaking 350 issues of sequential comics. During a recent interview on ComicBook.com's That Collectibles Show, McFarlane spoke about the tenure he has had on Spawn thus far, and outlined just how difficult it would be for any creator to surpass his current record.

"My first Spider-Man I ever bought, Amazing Spider-Man. I started collecting late, right?" McFarlane explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "I was like 16. The first Spider-Man I ever bought [was] Amazing Spider-Man #167. I have clarity of exactly where I was when I bought it. So #167, that means that comic book had only been around for like 14 years, 13-14 years. By the time I got to draw it, I had to grow up, teach myself, break into comic books, make my chops, and then be able to get to Amazing Spider-Man. And my first issue was #298 and now I'm at #350 with Spawn. So Spawn has got fifty more issues than when I, basically, did my first issue, or it's over double what it was when I bought the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man. And I thought Spider-Man had been around forever at those points. And I go "Wow, time is passing by." And given that we started in 1992, you just do the math, right? I now know that any human being on this planet who's 31 or younger has never spent a day on this planet where my character didn't exist."

"We're going to do math," McFarlane continued. "Let's do the math. You do 120 [issues] every ten years, okay? So at #360, I'm at 30 years. So if I go another 30 years, which I plan on doing it, then I'll be up to over 700 issues. So somebody needs to beat that record. You have to start at twenty [years old]. I don't even know who this, I don't even know who this 20 year-old is that exists. They have to be sitting there right now saying 'I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do it until I'm 81 years old, and I'm not gonna stop, and then I'll beat Todd."

Will Todd McFarlane Leave Spawn?

In a previous interview with ComicBook.com to promote Spawn #350, McFarlane indicated that he does not plan on leaving the book anytime soon, and argued that his ownership over the character provides a unique creative outlet.

"I've been with Spawn now for over 30 years. I know that seems like a long time," McFarlane explained in our interview. "I've been with my wife for 45 years, and I think I still got another 40 with her, so I don't know. When you enjoy doing what it is you're doing, it's not work, it's easy. And I've said before, I need it in my life because I deal with so much other stuff, especially on the toy side where I deal with corporations and getting people's approvals and getting people to sign off. I need my little creative paradise that is all mine, that I can just wake up, come up with whatever is in my head and do it, and not need anybody's approval. It's my chicken noodle for my soul. I know people go 'Todd, how do you do it for so long?' I think I'd be half crazy if I didn't have it, in all honesty."

Is Spawn Getting a Movie Reboot?

Another facet of the Spawn franchise that fans have been excitedly following is the long-awaited Spawn movie reboot. Spawn will follow the journey of Al Simmons (portrayed by Jamie Foxx), a man who makes a deal with the devil and is reborn as a Hellspawn-turned-vigilante. The new Spawn movie has been in the works since early 2015, with McFarlane initially planning to write and direct it himself. In the years that have followed, Brian Tucker, Scott Silver, Malcolm Spellman, and Matthew Mixon have all been brought on to rewrite the script. Blumhouse's Jason Blum has previously told ComicBook.com that the film is targeting a 2025 release date.

"It's in very very active development," Blum explained in an interview last year. "What needs to happen is that my fellow friends the writers and the studios need to figure out their differences and get back to writing, but we've got a great group of folks putting it together, and my hope is that that movie -- my prediction is maybe we'll actually see a Spawn movie in '25. No promises, but that's my prediction."

What do you think of Todd McFarlane's new comments about Spawn? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Spawn #350 is now available wherever comics are sold.

There was a time when Wolverine almost got a new costume from creator Todd McFarlane. The co-founder of Image Comics is still chugging along with Spawn, as the title reaches its milestone 350th issue today. McFarlane rose to fame as an artist for Marvel Comics, with a fan-favorite run on Spider-Man as one of his many highlights. Even though fans typically think of McFarlane's Image Comics co-founder Jim Lee when it comes to the X-Men and Wolverine, McFarlane reveals he was still tasked with coming up with a new costume for the Canadian X-Man.

Todd McFarlane was a recent guest on ComicBook.com's That Collectibles Show, where he showed off never-before-seen concept art for a new Wolverine costume he created. Marvel decided not to use the costume, but McFarlane still kept a design sheet he came up with. "At one point they wanted to revamp Wolverine's costume," Todd McFarlane said. "They said, 'Hey Todd, you wanna take a wack at a costume?' They never took it up, but that's what I sent to them." McFarlane held up a large sheet of artist paper revealing the Wolverine costume, and while it's only partially shown, you have to wonder how the artist changed Wolverine's classic look.

Inside the artist's studio, you can see some of his classic covers, including the cover of Spawn #1 which was released back in 1992. You can check out That Collectibles Show's full interview with Todd McFarlane in the video below:

Todd McFarlane talks Spawn #350

Ever since Al Simmons killed Malebolgia in Spawn #100, nobody has managed to take permanent control of Hell yet. After 250 issues, that's set to change -- and it's going to chart a new course for the foreseeable future of the Spawn family of titles, from creator Todd McFarlane. The series, which holds the Guinness world record for the longest-running American comic book, is starting 2024 with some big things planned.

Spawn #350 hails from writers Rory McConville and Todd McFarlane, with artists Carlo Barberi and Brett Booth (Booth's inks provided by Adelso Corona). Jay David Ramos provides colors for the issue, with Tom Orzechowski on letters.

"I think it's going to be in keeping with what I've done in the past; you're going to get a thick issue," McFarlane told ComicBook.com. "You're going to get terrific artwork. Brett Booth is coming on, he's going to be the new artist on the book. Carlo Barberi, who's been giving me years of his life, he's going to do one of the chapters on that before moving over to [Gunslinger Spawn]. So, visually, it's going to be a hell of a book, right? And then there's going to be... I don't know if it's a true twist ending, but hopefully there'll be a surprise to the end of it that people will go, 'What? Okay, cool.' But that surprise then, although it's a weird one, that although the story sort of culminates this 250 issues of Hell's Throne being vacant finally being filled, right? That's the punchline of the story. It gets filled."

FX's upcoming adaptation of Sh?gun marks the second major TV adaptation of James Clavell's classic novel. With the series however, the creators are shaking things up. Rather than cementing the world of Sh?gun entirely around the perspective of the white characters that have made their way to Japan, FX's Sh?gun is rooted in the perspective of the Japanese. Speaking with ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview, series co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo revealed that one the key elements that helped them make 2024's Sh?gun even better was by giving star Hiroyuki Sanada an executive producer credit. Not only did the star take this seriously, he brought major perspective to how the Japanese culture had been portrayed.

Best known to western audiences for his roles in The Wolverine, John Wick: Chapter 4, Westworld, Mortal Kombat and its upcoming sequel, and Avengers: Endgame, Hiroyuki Sanada's career has spanned decades, beginning with work as a child actor in Japanese feature films and television in the 1960s. Though he has had extensive work in Hollywood projects over the past decade, his Japanese credits have made him a household name in Japan. That made him the perfect person to know exactly all the wrong ways that Japan had been shown on screen by Hollywood.

"The point of view that he brought, which was so important and so crucial to making this show was 'I've been doing it here in Hollywood in the United States for 25 years. I have seen every mistake that Hollywood has made in conveying my culture,'" Marks revealed. "So now let's do it and you can just give us the laundry list and we can walk through it and we can try to avoid it every single day as we make this show, which meant that what he began to do is say, 'I know the person you need to hire. I know this person. I know that person.'"

Sanada became responsible for the involvement of Sh?gun's Japanese producer Eriko Miyagawa in addition to securing key crew members like advisors for the props department and art department, plus language advisors, translators, and historians. As Marks put it, he not only was vital in finding the right people for these jobs on Sh?gun but also for convincing them to leave Japan and come work in Vancouver for the better part of a year.

"Without his contribution in addition to what Rachel saying, which is just being there, making sure everyone's in costume right, that the hairpieces are looking right that everyone overseeing our Japanese crew, who are really guests here, and making sure everyone felt comfortable and felt like they had the ability to speak up when something was wrong. That was such a crucial part. I mean, there would just be no Sh?gun without that."

Se Rachel Kondo added, "And you would think that he would be doing this to kind of like, this is the pinnacle of his career, it's the role of a lifetime. No, he would always talk about I'm actually doing this for the young cast, many of whom had signed on to do this show to work with him. He's always doing it for the younger generation so that their twenty, twenty five year journey might be a little collapsed."

What is Sh?gun about?

Based on James Clavell's novel, FX Networks describes Sh?gun as follows:

Set in Japan in the year 1600 at the dawn of a century-defining civil war, producer Hiroyuki Sanada stars as "Lord Yoshii Toranaga" who is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him. When a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village, its English pilot, "John Blackthorne" (Cosmo Jarvis), comes bearing secrets that could help Toranaga tip the scales of power and devastate the formidable influence of Blackthorne's own enemies - the Jesuit priests and Portuguese merchants. Toranaga's and Blackthorne's fates become inextricably tied to their translator, "Toda Mariko" (Anna Sawai), a mysterious Christian noblewoman and the last of a disgraced line. While serving her lord amidst this fraught political landscape, Mariko must reconcile her newfound companionship with Blackthorne, her commitment to the faith that saved her and her duty to her late father.

Sh?gun cast

In addition to Hiroyuki Sanada stars taking on the role of Lord Yoshii Toranaga, the cast for Sh?gun also includes Tadanobu Asano as "Kashigi Yabushige," a notorious backstabber and close ally of Toranaga; Hiroto Kanai as "Kashigi Omi," the young leader of the fishing village where Blackthorne's ship was found; Takehiro Hira as "Ishido Kazunari," a powerful bureaucrat who is Toranaga's chief rival; Moeka Hoshi as "Usami Fuji," a widow who must find new purpose amidst her lord's fight; Tokuma Nishioka as "Toda Hiromatsu," Toranaga's trusted general and closest friend; Shinnosuke Abe as "Toda Hirokatsu" ("Buntaro"), Mariko's jealous husband; Yuki Kura as "Yoshii Nagakado," the brash son of Toranaga with a strong desire to prove himself; Yuka Kouri as "Kiku," a courtesan renowned for her artistry throughout Japan; and Fumi Nikaido as "Ochiba no Kata," the revered mother of the heir who will stop at nothing to put an end to Toranaga and his threat to her son's power.

The first two episodes of FX's Sh?gun premiere February 27th on Hulu and FX

The upcoming Drive-Away Dolls comes from filmmaker Ethan Coen, but in a departure from his previous works, he didn't collaborate with brother Joel Coen and instead developed the script with Tricia Cooke. While the project might not be exactly what audiences are expecting, based on Coen's previous works, there's lots of cinematic DNA that is consistent with previous Coen projects, which includes oddball characters, dark comedy, and entirely unexpected narrative twists and turns. Stars of the film Margaret Qualley and Beanie Feldstein recently spoke about what it was like bringing the unique experience to life, which hits theaters on February 23rd.

While speaking with ComicBook.com about what sets an Ethan Coen project apart from other experiences, Qualley expressed, "I think it's all on the page. Well, it's both. It's everything. From the very start, I was auditioning and I loved the script and really wanted to be a part of this movie. And I'm a huge Coen fan and became a huge Tricia Cooke fan, when I realized how entrenched she was in that world already, and then had the opportunity to work with her on this."

Written by Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, Drive-Away Dolls follows Jamie (Qualley), an uninhibited free spirit bemoaning yet another breakup with a girlfriend, and her demure friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) who desperately needs to loosen up. In search of a fresh start, the two embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals along the way.

While Qualley and Viswanathan take center stage throughout most of the adventure, Beanie Feldstein stars as Jamie's ex-girlfriend, allowing her to punctuate the adventure with even more absurdity.

"I think that some of the most fruitful, memorable roles have been something that Ethan has been a part of. And so with Ethan and Trish creating this lesbian, powerful, angry cop, it was a dream to play," Feldstein expressed of the opportunity. "And I think that when you know you're being taken care of and guided by two remarkable artists that are the best at the game, I just felt safe knowing that they would let me know when to pull it forward, pull it back, and Ethan just kept telling me to go for it more."

She added, "Even from my audition, it was just like, 'Do not take your eyes off of her. Do not let up for one second.' I was like, 'Okay, I understand what you want.' And it was unbelievably freeing and joyful."

Also starring in the film are Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, and Matt Damon.

Drive-Away Dolls lands in theaters on February 23rd.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments!

A new era of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics is nearly upon us. In January, IDW Publishing announced that it would celebrate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' 40th anniversary by relaunching its TMNT ongoing series with a new first issue. Eisner-award-winning writer Jason Aaron, a former Marvel architect known for his runs writing Thor and the Avengers, will write the new series. Aaron's run will begin with a 10-page prelude story in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Alpha #1 in June before the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 ships in July. Each of the first four issues of the series focuses on an individual Turtle, with art from different artists. Crucially for fans, the new series is a continuation of IDW Publishing's long-running Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe, which includes the longest-running Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series ever.

ComicBook.com had the opportunity to talk to Aaron over video chat and discuss his vision for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a series with "grit under its nails." He also hinted at answers to questions that some TMNT have been wondering about, including the fate of Jennika, the fifth Turtle introduced to the group in the IDW continuity. Here's what he shared with us:

Let's start with a simple but important question: We've got our four Turtles. We know which ones your artists are into based on which ones they drew here. Which one of these Turtles do you identify most with out of the four?

Jason Aaron: You're not the first person to ask me that, and I can't say I have an answer. I shouldn't have an answer, right? You don't want me to pick one Turtle over another. Certainly, at the beginning of the series, we're doing the first four issues, each one focusing on a different Turtle, drawn by a different amazing artist, so it's very much me getting to dig into each one of them. And I am enjoying each one of those stories for how very different the Turtles are, how very different the story is, the situation we find those guys in. So, I don't have a favorite yet. I would say at this point, this exact point in time, I haven't written all four of those yet, so technically I haven't written all four Turtles yet, but I will be there very, very soon. But I'm still not going to have a favorite, or at least I'm not going to tell you if I do.

Well, let's talk big picture then. This is a big relaunch. It's the 40th anniversary. When you started talking to IDW about relaunching the Ninja Turtles series, what was the vision you expressed to them? What's the big idea behind your take on the Ninja Turtles?

To me, it was nothing too overly complicated. I have loved the IDW run. I've loved how the books have expanded the cast of characters, the world, and the timeline with the Last Ronin stuff. Just as a fan, I have been reading those books the entire time from the very beginning and loved all that. I think for me coming in, especially here in the anniversary and launching a new book, you want to do something that is - not a reboot, that's the same continuity, it's a continuation of that story that's been going on for so many years now - but I'm just trying to go back to what is my connection point with the Turtles, which is that original Mirage Studios. Before the cartoon, before the movies, or anything.

I'm just going back to that original book. The first issue of Turtles I picked up was four in the original oversized format and started reading the book from there. That was the point where I just started to get into comics, and I was reading a little bit of everything, reading superhero stuff, but during that period in particular, in the '80s, it was just this explosion of smaller publishers, and I was eating all that up, and Turtles was at the forefront of that. And I just responded to this book because it seemed so completely different from anything else I read. It looked different, felt different. It felt like a book that was grungy and raw and had dirt and grime under its fingernails, and I loved all that.

So, if anything, I'm just trying to make this book feel like that. This is a new number one, a celebration of the Turtles' anniversary, honoring everything that's come before while also pointing back to where things started. And for me, just trying to do a book that has some of that same grit under its nails.

You mentioned that there was this explosion of indie comics at the time, and Turtles is the biggest success story to come out of that. I was wondering if you had thoughts or ideas about why Turtles? We're still talking about Ninja Turtles 40 years later when that is not the norm for what eventually became with those books.

It's not an accident. One, it was a cool idea that hit at the right time with a book that struck a nerve, and that, again, just seems so in your face and punk rock. And then everything that's come since then. What I have built my entire career on doing is taking characters that have been around for usually longer than me, for decades and decades, and there have been countless different stories told with them, and it's a question of how do you keep these characters relevant? How do you honor all those great stories from the past without just picking the bones of them but bringing something new to the table, bringing something of yourself, something that connects with you in a real emotional way and tells a new story?

And I think that the Turtles have been able to do that time and time again in all different ways, not just in comics, but in movies and TV and everything, which I think is... It's not just by accident. That takes a lot of people doing a lot of hard work. So, I love all that stuff. I love it when characters and stories are able to continue to grow and evolve over the years and stay relevant. For my part, I'm just excited to get to add my name to the list of people working to keep the Turtles alive.

So, you mentioned that this is not your first time coming in and working on storied characters, or long-running franchises, and in a way, it almost seems, at least from the outside, that it could have been easier to just hit the reboot button and start over. But instead, you're continuing the same continuity as the last 150 issues of this series. So, I'm wondering what extra challenges does that potentially pose? Are there those extra challenges? Was reboot ever a possibility, or were there just things in those 150 issues that you wanted to get to play with even as you're bringing Turtles back to that first brush you had with them?

In all my years in comics, I don't think I've ever really been a part of a straight-up reboot. I think it's always a matter of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There's nothing broke about the Turtles comic universe and what IDW has been doing, people like Sophie and Tom Waltz, and all the awesome stories they've been telling. So why? There's no reason to do a reboot. Again, everything that I've done my entire career is how do you take all these years' worth of continuity and create a story with a number one on it that somebody can pick up and read and enjoy if they've never read any of that stuff before? So, I think it's always about we don't need to throw out everything that's been done. You take what is relevant and important and exciting about all those stories and you distill it down and put it on the page.

Even if you've read every single issue of the IDW run so far, or if you've read none of them, I want your experience with this first issue to be the same, with this new series, and I need to show my work, right? Pretty much everybody picking this up has a connection to the Turtles in some way or another, but maybe you've never read any of the comics. It doesn't matter. I need to distill, in the form of this story, why I think these characters are cool. What about each of them excites me? What about this world interests me, and what do I have an emotional response to? It needs to all be on the page so you can pick this up, again, regardless of your experience with the Turtles, and get exactly what you need right here in the form of this new book.

You wanted to show in this book the things that resonate with you from Turtles stories. What can you tell us about what some of those things are? The Turtles have done tons of different stories even just in the IDW universe from street-level crime stuff to space-faring stuff, and you've written all those kinds of stories. Where are we starting in terms of tone and genre when you launch the new book?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think it's a little hard for me to answer without giving away too much more, more than I would want to give away. I would say that the tone, in particular, is set right out of the gate in the alpha issue that comes out in June where I've got a 10-page story in that, a 10-page Donatello story with Chris Burnham. The most important part of that story for me was, this sets the tone. This tells you what my run on the book is going to be like. I don't want to tell you how it does that, where that story is set, or what it's about. Really, any of these first four issues where we pick up with each of the Turtles, I don't really want you to know where they're at, what they've been doing since the previous book ended, where we pick up with them.

I will just say that those four stories - five, really, including this alpha issue story - are, I think, stories, on the one hand, that point back to all the things I talked about that I love about that original Mirage Studios series while also taking those characters to places we haven't seen them in before. So, I think that the tone is really an important part, and also just where we can take these guys and how we can explore each of them at the core of who they are as they're each presented with challenges, unlike anything they've ever faced before.

The promotional art so far is focused really on the four Turtles who are the core, have been the core for 40 years of this franchise, but I know a lot of fans were immediately wondering, where's Jennika? Where are the other supporting characters? Can you say anything about what role those secondary characters are going to play in your run? Are they being sidelined a little bit to change the focus in the short term, or long term? Do you have plans?

Yeah, all I can say without giving everything away is, for Jennika in particular, there certainly are big plans, and I'll leave it up to IDW to reveal what those are as we go. In regard to the rest of the cast, certainly, there are plans for characters beyond just the four brothers, but coming out of the gate with this book, that's where the focus lies, really on exploring, again, who these guys are at this point in time, where they are in particular, which will be surprising in some cases in where that's going to lead things going forward. But like I said, I'm very excited about being a part of this universe that IDW has built with Sophie and Tom and everybody else who's worked on the series over the last several years, and none of that stuff is going away. None of those characters are going to be sidelined. That world will continue to stay rich and vibrant going forward.

You're coming to Turtles having spent years working on superhero stuff with their massive, shared universe. I'm wondering, given that Turtles is a long-running series but as far as the number of characters, relatively small in scale compared to the Marvel Universe and how vast that is, do you feel like your time working on those big superhero universes, the lessons learned there, are serving you well with the Turtles? Or is it a very different beast?

I don't think it's a different beast. I haven't really felt that about, I guess, anything I've done. Like you said, I worked at Marvel on an ongoing series for about 15, or 16 years, I guess. I worked at Star Wars during that time. Now I'm starting to do stuff at DC Comics for the first time. Especially, the last year for me since I stopped being exclusive to Marvel has been about spreading my wings and working in a lot of different places. So, I'm working for more companies now than I ever have at any point in my career. But none of it feels like something that's out of left field. Certainly, each character is its own challenge of just figuring out, "Who is this character to me? What is this world? What story do I want to tell?" That's always its own thing, but it's all still about telling good stories.

I've been reading comics obsessively since I first learned how to read. Below where I'm sitting here in my office is my basement which is filled with lots and lots of long boxes. Believe me, when I moved here, you appreciate just how many you got when you have to pick them up and carry them. So, I've been researching. I've been working towards this job literally my entire life; I've loved comics, and I eat, sleep, and breathe comics. So that part of me is just something that I've always done that I love to do. So, it all just, to me, it feels like comics, right? Tell good stories, craft interesting characters, and do something cool that we haven't seen before while, again, paying homage to what's made characters like this important and exciting in the first place.

We touched on Jennika and supporting characters, and I get the impression you're not going to tell me too much here, but obviously, all heroes need villains to clash against. I know in recent Turtles comics, Shredder has had a redemptive arc, they're going up against bigger threats. What can you say, broadly speaking, about the villains you're going to put the Turtles against in the coming series? Are you interested in recontextualizing old villains, or are you going to be introducing some new ones? What can you tell me about that?

It'll be a little bit of both. Certainly, there's a brand-new villain who's at the heart of the story that launches in issue one, but we're also not trying to completely reinvent the wheel there. I think part of going back and looking at what made me fall in love with Turtles in the first place in that original series, the Foot Clan is a big part of that right from the get-go. So, this is going to be a book that is still in some sense about mutant turtles fighting ninjas in the streets of New York City. We'll just get there in different ways, and there'll be a brand-new villain who, again, is at the heart of all that.

Can you say anything about the scale of this relaunch? You're writing this series, but traditionally, IDW has had at least two, maybe three Turtles series going at once. Are you pretty laser-focused on this one relaunch book? Do you have bigger plans in store, or is that more a question for IDW's editorial staff?

Certainly, there are big plans in store. I can't speak to the bigger publishing plan. In terms of me and what I'm doing, I am writing this one main title. So that Alpha issue that comes out in June will have a story by me, I believe stories by other folks as well, pointing the way towards what the overall plan going to look like. Then in July, you get Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 by me and Joelle Jones and we're off and running from there.

Speaking of Joelle Jones, you have an absolutely ridiculous lineup of artists here. As someone who currently has Leonardo socks on, the idea of Cliff Chang drawing Leonardo feels like a personal gift to me.

You're welcome. It was just for you.

Can you talk a little bit about assembling this art team? Were they all immediately eager? Did you handpick them? Did IDW already have them on call? Was there any fighting over who got to draw which Turtle? What was the situation like there?

I guess some of that, in terms of if there was any fighting, you'd have to ask my editor, Jamie Rich, and he's definitely responsible for putting together such an all-star team. He would just email me and say, "What about this person?" I'm like, "Are you kidding? Are you asking me? Yes. The answer is yes." It's an excess of riches. To launch with these four issues with these four artists is pretty insane. You get Joelle Jones doing issue one, Raphael Albuquerque doing issue two, which is the Michelangelo issue, and Cliff Chang, as you said, doing Leonardo, and then Chris Burnham doing Donatello in issue four and then also in the Alpha issue. So yeah, that's a pretty amazing list.

I've worked with Rafa on a short, 10-page Old Guard story. I think it's the only story I've done with any of these folks. I've known Cliff Chang pretty much my entire time in comics. We've never been able to work together. Joelle is just someone I've been a fan of her entire career, and I've tried to work with her and wanted to work with her on other occasions. This is the first time we've been able to make it happen. And Chris Burnham, the same way, I've always loved his stuff. He actually lives here in Kansas City, so we had lunch yesterday. He lives 10 minutes away from me, so that's good. We'll probably be hanging out and having more Turtles lunches in the future. But yeah, that's a ridiculously stellar lineup of artists, and to me, it just makes this launch, how we're doing it, all the more exciting that this is the group of artists we've got on board.

I'm going to leave you with one question that I think is fun. I want to lead in by saying this is hypothetical, so we're not leaking anything IDW has secret plans for. But IDW has done a lot of very cool intercompany crossovers with the Turtles - Batman/Turtles, Power Rangers/Turtles, that kind of stuff. If they handed you the reins, and they were like, "All right, let's do Turtles and X, something that you think it would be fun to mix the Turtles into," what would be your pick? What would be your pitch for a Turtles intercompany crossover, hypothetically speaking?

That's a good question. There've been so many good ones over the years. I'm not sure exactly which boxes have all been checked and which haven't. I think for me personally, if you're signing me up to write one, maybe if we wanted to do Turtles/Thor, I feel like I'm well-equipped to write that one. I think that'd be - I don't know, now my mind is jumping to Turtles and Asgard. So yeah, I think that'd probably be my pick. Although, has there been a Turtles/Godzilla book? Has that happened yet?

I don't think so, but that would be fairly incredible.

Well, there we go. Let's make that one happen. I'd write that too.

Although, I'm going to put you on the spot now because now you have me thinking about it: Which Turtles would be worthy of lifting the hammer?

Well, that's a great question. I think we have to answer that in the pages of the story, not here now before it even exists. Maybe all of them, maybe none of them. I don't know. If you've read my Thor stuff, that's always a big question of if Thor himself worthy to pick up the hammer.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Alpha goes on sale in June. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 follows in July.

Considering The Walking Dead became a cultural juggernaut in the 2010s it seems impossible to imagine someone that hasn't seen the show in some form, but even the newcomers to the cast of the latest spinoff series are just now getting to it. Speaking with ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Lesley-Ann Brandt (who plays a new character for the franchise named Pearl Thorne) revealed that one of her biggest pieces of preparation for her role was to do her homework and watch the entirety of the flagship The Walking Dead TV series. Not only did she watch all of it to get ready, she watched all 177 episodes in just three weeks.

"It helped that I binged the show from the beginning. I did all the seasons, that's a lot of Walking Dead, and I think I did it in like three weeks. I felt a responsibility to you, the fans, and also in understanding the tone of the show and what made these two (Rick and Michonne) so special. What was the spark and how does my character come in to help tell that story? And what is my point of view? And what makes me different and similar to these two? Because I think, outside of this world, Michonne and Thorne would have probably been friends. They're two strong women. And I think that plays into a little bit of the chemistry of those two."

Lesley-Ann Brandt went on to tease with us that her character Pearl Thorne will force a unique relationship with Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes, largely thanks to the surprise similarities they have in their backstories.

"She will forge a very close relationship with Rick and a real comrade. They share a similar...she was trying to get home to her love and had been trying for years. So they share that same struggle. Thorn I think is someone who understands when she made that decision that this is the world she's now in and she commits to it. Whereas, you know, Rick is a bit of a wild horse and it's harder for him to do that. Obviously he has a family, he has Michonne out there. I think she starts out just trying to help him through that and saving his butt a couple of times as they progress through this time at the CRM and at the Civic Republic."

Where can I watch The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live?

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will premiere its first episode on AMC and stream on AMC+ on Sunday, February 25, 2024. The six-episode series will premiere new episodes weekly, with the release schedule looking like this:

• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1 release date - Sunday, February 25, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 2 release date - Sunday, March 3, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 3 release date - Sunday, March 10, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 4 release date - Sunday, March 17, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 5 release date - Sunday, March 24, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 6 release date - Sunday, March 31, 2024

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live series is the much anticipated return of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, filling in the gap of the story about what happened to his character after he left the flagship The Walking Dead series in season 9 while also continuing the story of Danai Gurira's Michonne following The Walking Dead series finale. Other cast members for the series include Pollyanna McIntosh, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Matt Jeffries, and Terry O'Quinn. AMC describes The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live as follows:

This series presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead... And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they've ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive -- or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead? Gimple serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside Lincoln and Gurira.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is now available to buy on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD. In honor of the prequel film's physical media release, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with some of the movie's stars. We spoke with Mackenzie Lansing, who plays Coral, the fierce tribute from District 4 who ends up being Lucy Gray Baird's (Rachel Zegler) biggest adversary in the arena. Being from a district known for fishing, Coral's weapon of choice is a trident, which she uses throughout the film. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! Coral ends up being the last tribute to die after Dr. Gaul (Viola Davis) sends her mutant snakes into the arena. We asked Lansing about filming her big death scene and training to use the trident.

"So, I love talking about this," Lansing said of being engulfed by snakes in the film. "I've been on other sets before where you're wearing a suit with dots. I did a movie also called The Creator, where I was attacked by a robot, and so there's a guy in a blue suit. What was really special about this is there was nothing, and you can think that that's kind of terrifying, but actually it was the most liberating experience as an actor because there were no instructions."

"I got to decide how quickly the snakes move," Lansing explained. "Every actor got to decide how they're responding to the poison, how quickly it affects them, does it slur their words? And of course, we're all kind of on the same page on what it does, but just like anything else, it's going to affect people differently. So, any time you see me rip a snake off, that's like, 'Oh, I decided that there's a snake here,' and so I think that that was one of the most exciting things is we got to make those choices as actors."

"It was around two months and we did the big fight scene where we all rush for the weapons," Lansing added when asked about working with the trident. "We would start the day warming up with that because very much to make it go smoothly and also just for it to be very realistic for everybody, we wanted to be able to do that scene without stopping, so they could do one take if necessary. So, especially when you see the drone shots and everything, we just went through the entire battle, which meant run for weapon, dodge, roll over your back, another person comes. So, you had to prepare for the entire fight, which was kind of a first sort in The Hunger Games, which was very cool."

"But then in terms of the trident specifically, after that, we would break off and I would spend hours a day sort of throwing my trident around, doing trident choreography, and it was really cool to learn this new skill and be sort of stretched that way. And it became, to me, a very important part of actually getting into character," Lansing continued.

"We had so many different tridents," she added. "So, the trick was I had to practice with different ones and be able to adjust according to the weight of the trident to make it look the same no matter which one it was, because obviously if I'm in a scene where it's pretty static, it's like a full trident with points. If I'm stabbing someone with it, then it's got the foamy bits on the end. So there was a lot of like, 'Okay, today's a lighter trident, I'm going to practice throwing it around my back and make sure that it doesn't fly off into the air.' Or when we did the interview scene, which most of it didn't make it into the movie, but the interview scene with Lucky Flickerman, that was a real one that was very heavy. So, I had to make sure that I'm putting my full body into it to move it around."

Stay tuned for more from our interviews with the cast of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. You can watch our interview with Mackenzie Lansing at the top of the page.

When The Walking Dead premiered in 2010, actor Andrew Lincoln was just the star of the show, taking on the role of Rick Grimes from Robert Kirkman's comic book series. Flashforward to know and Lincoln is a star, executive producer, and co-creator of the new spinoff series, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. It's been a long road for him as an actor, and now that he wears multiple hats on set he has realized that when something goes wrong the only person he can look at is in the mirror. Speaking with ComicBook.com, Andrew Lincoln opened up about the brutal conditions of one scene in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, revealing that he was prepared to yell at an executive producer for the series over it.

"I remember being on top of a truck harnessed to the top of a truck at 4 a.m. after a week of night shoots in February in New Jersey. And I was covered in blood and I had wet hair and everybody looked like Cartman, you know, in South Park, they all had these snoods on and I could only see their eyes and the edge of their noses. And I was like, I was on top of this thing covered in blood wet and then it started to snow and I just, and I thought, and I started to cry a solitary tear and I wanted to scream at a producer. And then, and then I realized I was one..this was all my fault."

Why did Andrew Lincoln leave The Walking Dead?

After eight years leading The Walking Dead, Andrew Lincoln departed the series after the first five episodes of The Walking Dead season 9. Speaking in a previous interview when it was confirmed that he would no longer be on the show, Lincoln revealed that it was so he could spend more time with his family. The shooting schedule for The Walking Dead at that point was extensive, forcing him to work in America while his wife and children lived in the UK.

"I mean, there's only so many sports days you can miss and really call yourself a father, so I think it was time for me to get back for some important days and just be around and have some continuity back home," the Rick Grimes actor told Access.

Unlike most characters that left the series though, Lincoln's version of Rick Grimes didn't die from the bite of a walker or by turning into one himself, he just...disappeared. Rescued by a mysterious force and flown away on a helicopter, the upcoming The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will of course finally answer the question of where he's been and how he reunites with Michonne.

Where can I watch The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live?

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will premiere its first episode on AMC and stream on AMC+ on Sunday, February 25, 2024. The six-episode series will premiere new episodes weekly, with the release schedule looking like this:

• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1 release date - Sunday, February 25, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 2 release date - Sunday, March 3, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 3 release date - Sunday, March 10, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 4 release date - Sunday, March 17, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 5 release date - Sunday, March 24, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 6 release date - Sunday, March 31, 2024

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live series is the much anticipated return of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, filling in the gap of the story about what happened to his character after he left the flagship The Walking Dead series in season 9 while also continuing the story of Danai Gurira's Michonne following The Walking Dead series finale. Other cast members for the series include Pollyanna McIntosh, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Matt Jeffries, and Terry O'Quinn. AMC describes The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live as follows:

This series presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead... And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they've ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive -- or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead? Gimple serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside Lincoln and Gurira.

Madame Web is officially out into the world, and Sony's latest Spider-Man spinoff has left viewers with a lot to talk about. In addition to providing the live-action debuts for several of Marvel Comics' Spider-Women, the film also introduces general audience to Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), who serves as the story's antagonist. In an exclusive interview with ComicBook.com, Rahim spoke about tying the specific comic lore of Ezekiel Simms into his live-action portrayal in Madame Web.

"We shot different things and I don't think we'll have more to show than what it's in the movie," Rahim explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "But what I did is, I went back to the comic books and I tried to put in as much of him from the comic books as I could to create a connection. I told myself: What is his back story in this movie, specifically, for me? It's just a young boy who was abandoned, mistreated and had to experience every bad thing that the world has to offer, and eventually turned him into a selfish man who wants power for himself."

Who Is Marvel's Ezekiel Sims?

Created by J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr. in 2001's The Amazing Spider-Man #30, Ezekiel is a wealthy man who gained superpowers through the Spider-Totem. Over the years, he teamed up with Spider-Man on a number of occasions, especially where the supernatural aspects of their mythos was concerned.

Ezekiel also plays a key role in the origin of Cindy Moon / Silk, as he gets approval from her parents to lock her away in a secret bunker once she develops powers. Spider-Man eventually discovers this detail and helps free Cindy, which kicks off her time as a superhero.

What Is Madame Web About?

In Madame Web, Cassandra "Cassie" Webb (Dakota Johnson) is forced to confront her past while trying to survive with three young women with powerful futures who are being hunted by a deadly adversary. In addition to Johnson, Madame Web will also star Sydney Sweeney as Julia Cornwall / Spider-Woman, Isabela Merced as Anya Corazon / Spider-Woman, and Celeste O'Connor as Mattie Franklin / Spider-Woman. The film will also star Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims, with Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, and Zosia Mamet cast in currently-unknown roles.

"It's really the story of Madame Web," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura previously told ComicBook.com. "So, in that respect, if you're a Spider-Man fan, you're gonna love the character because you know it from the comic books, which she doesn't really have that big a character in the comic books, we're doing the origin story of Madame Web. And so you meet her before she's actually the person that you know in the comic book and you come to understand how she becomes that person. So, I think that'll be a really fresh new terrain for the fans."

What did you think of Madame Web? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Madame Web is now playing exclusively in theaters.

Madame Web was recently released in theaters, adding yet another title to the tapestry of live-action Marvel movies. The film, which is part of Sony's Spider-Man Universe, tells a story around Cassandra "Cassie" Webb (Dakota Johnson), a paramedic who becomes an unlikely superhero after accidentally triggering her precognition powers. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Johnson spoke about the unique experience of crafting Cassie's fighting style, while showing the strength of her powers in the processs.

"That was actually really fun for me because, I feel like, typically, you see a superhero and their physicality is the thing that makes them recognizable," Johnson explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "But with Madame Web, it's her mind, and her fighting is scrappy. She's just a human fighting. And because she grew up in the foster system, I wanted her to be really kind of primal and scrappy and tough, and grab bottles and knives and whatever is around to defend herself with. It felt really wild and natural to her."

Who Is Madame Web?

Created by Dennis O'Neil and John Romita Jr. in 1980's The Amazing Spider-Man #210, the comic version of Cassandra plays a distinct role in the Spider-Verse landscape. As an adult woman, Cassandra was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis, which left her paralyzed and blind. Her husband, Jonathan Webb, created a life support system to help her survive, which just so happens to look like a spider web.

There, Cassandra uses her various superpowers -- telepathy, clairvoyance, and seeing the future -- to help various superheroes. She not only forms a bond with Spider-Man, but she becomes a mentor to Mattie Franklin when she takes on her role of the third Spider-Woman. Cassandra is then captured and killed by the family of Kraven the Hunter, just after she transfers her superpowers to Julia Carpenter.

What Is Madame Web About?

In Madame Web, Cassandra "Cassie" Webb (Dakota Johnson) is forced to confront her past while trying to survive with three young women with powerful futures who are being hunted by a deadly adversary. In addition to Johnson, Madame Web will also star Sydney Sweeney as Julia Cornwall / Spider-Woman, Isabela Merced as Anya Corazon / Spider-Woman, and Celeste O'Connor as Mattie Franklin / Spider-Woman. The film will also star Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims, with Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, and Zosia Mamet cast in currently-unknown roles.

"It's really the story of Madame Web," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura previously told ComicBook.com. "So, in that respect, if you're a Spider-Man fan, you're gonna love the character because you know it from the comic books, which she doesn't really have that big a character in the comic books, we're doing the origin story of Madame Web. And so you meet her before she's actually the person that you know in the comic book and you come to understand how she becomes that person. So, I think that'll be a really fresh new terrain for the fans."

Is Madame Web Connected to Spider-Man?

In a recent interview, Madame Web director S.J. Clarkson confirmed that the film is not directly connected to any previous live-action incarnations of Spider-Man, despite theories from fans hoping for the contrary.

"She's definitely in a standalone world," Clarkson told the outlet. "I was able to just have free rein and let the movie be what it needed to be, as opposed to trying to force it into something else. That was a gift, in a way, to be able to take something and bring a fresh and I hope original take to it."

Are you excited for Madame Web? What do you think of Dakota Johnson's new comments? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Madame Web is now playing exclusively in theaters.

Ubisoft is hitting the high seas with its much anticipated new game Skull and Bones, which puts you in the boots of a pirate crew as they hunt for treasure, deck out their ships, and attempt to leave a mark in the pirate world. You'll find all sorts of things during your time on the open seas and encounter other crews and possibly a few legendary creatures along the way, and the game also tips its hat to the real-life history of pirates in more ways than one. Fans can learn more about that history in the Skull & Bones companion podcast Gangsters of the Seas, which will be hosted by Fast & Furious and Dungeons & Dragons star Michelle Rodriguez. Rodriguez had a chance to explore the vast seas of Skull & Bones in an early gameplay session, and she discussed what she loved most about the gameplay, ship customization, combat, and more in an interview with ComicBook.com.

Rodriguez jumped into the game early to experience what awaits fans on the open seas, and the game's mix of ship customization, combat, and exploration seems to have hooked her in a big way. It doesn't hurt that you never know what you're going to find in that open world, as Rodriguez found everything from sea monsters to ghost ships during her adventures.

"Oh, dude, I got to say it is really great because there aren't a lot of world-building games or world... What do you call it, world-roaming games that I'm attracted to. Assassin's Creed has always been a big one for me. I just started the new Avatar one. Harry Potter was really great, but it's not something that I do very often just because it's a lot of work. You put in all that time and sometimes your stuff gets destroyed and you have to start all over and it's very painful for impatient people like me," Rodriguez said.

"But I've got to say, just the idea of being able to modify your own ship and go out into the seas, and the world is so vast, so big, you can run into everything from sea monsters to ghost ships to play online with other people," Rodriguez said. "It was attractive. Now after playing it, I'm like, 'This would be something really cool to get a whole crew together with and build like a clan and just go out there online and just play.' You could spend so much time in different parts of the Indian Ocean. It's pretty gnarly. It's awesome."

There's also a level of investment you have in the world and your space in it, as you can lose everything you've built if things go seriously awry. While that does pose a big risk, the rewards and the experience it provides are very much worth that risk for Rodriguez.

"And the fact that you have to earn your stripes from a nobody, back into building your own ships and getting your crews together from scratch every time you get defeated, it really puts your skin in the game. You know what I mean? It makes you very careful about what you do next," Rodriguez said.

Now, customization is where I spend far too much time in just about any game, but give me a sweet ship and I'm at least going to be messing with it for a few hours. Rodriguez is also taken with this aspect of Skull and Bones, and broke down all the various parts of the ship you can toggle and tweak to your liking. You can even make your own furniture!

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want the nitty-gritty. Yeah, dude, you can build the outer layer of your ship. You can build the inner layer of your ship. I'm talking about armaments, shielding. You can actually build furniture within the ship that can modify how your armaments work. You even have weapons that you could shoot at your partner ship to heal it. So you can be the med ship. You can modify your ship to be the one that repairs everybody, and you can do that very quickly as that kind of ship. You can also be the ship that is just full of all the cannons and they have every single type of cannon down to the med cannon, which helps heal your partner ships," Rodriguez said.

"It's insane. I mean, it is pretty redonc what you could do. I also like the modifiers for the characters. They're pretty awesome," Rodriguez said. "They've got some pretty legit tattoos that are from the real world that I'm like, 'Dude, where'd you get that?' I'm like, I recognize that. That's from Thailand."

Oh, and if you were worried about not having a tiny animal comparison, fear no more, as there is an adorable pet reporting for duty as well. "Oh, you even get a pet that you get to carry around. Well, the pet stays on your ship, of course, by the captain's quarters.," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez is also hosting the game's companion podcast Gangsters of the Seas, which aims to showcase the real history of pirates, and those who jump into the podcast will become even more fascinated with this already compelling world. "It's the world that they're getting into that I've always been attracted to. We didn't get into it in the podcast, but my favorite are the Caribbean French female pirates," Rodriguez said. "They're sick. I mean, hopefully, they'll include them in the sequel, but these girls, these women were just hardcore, just ripping new ones at sea. And I was just like, I hear the stories in the old books from the 1700s, and I'm like, dude, where are these chicks?"

"And so that's really what got me started, got me interested in doing the podcast, just because I was intrigued by that world in general. Because to me, it seems like the wild, wild west of the sea. And the sea, there's more of it than there's land, and so to me, it seems so vast and crazy, and it seems like stepping into the abyss," Rodriguez said. "That's like somebody shooting you into outer space, into the blackness of the unknowable, and you just going out there full throttle like, 'Yeah, man, I don't care. Let's do it.' It takes some serious balls to do what these pirates were doing back in the day, so I'm just intrigued."

Rodriguez has played several characters that seem perfectly made for a Pirate crew, with Holga and Letty of Dungeons and Dragons and Fast & Furious immediately coming to mind. I had to ask if she wanted to see a crossover at some point, and Rodriguez is game to make it happen.

"Dude, I want crossover everything, but I'd love to be a pirate man. Hands down. I think I'd be right at home on a nice ship. I'd probably have to learn how to sail one, but that's secondary. It's the lifestyle I'm attracted to. Just the freedom. The freedom of just doing your own thing and not giving a rat's ass what happens," Rodriguez said. "I'm a little bit more amoral about stuff. If I'm going to hit something, I need a reason. I don't just take stuff from people for no reason. That's weaselly, to me. I don't like it. There's no integrity to it. But if I could, I don't know, do some Robin Hood s*** or some insurance type of stuff, that doesn't hurt me any. Yeah. I have to have a reason though. I can't just be stealing from anybody."

You can dive into the world of Skull and Bones on the podcast right here, and you can jump into the game when it launches on February 16th on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.

Madame Web finally arrives in theaters this week, bringing one of the most unique superhero movies in recent memory to the big screen. The live-action film centers around a handful of lesser-known female characters from Marvel's Spider-Man mythos, throwing them into a cutthroat fight for survival. At the center of the story is Cassandra "Cassie" Webb (Dakota Johnson), whose powers and origin make some changes from the comics. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Johnson spoke about the comic origins of her Madame Web character, and what qualities she was particularly drawn to.

"Very cool," Johnson revealed in our interview, which you can check out above. "I like that she's so sassy and spicy in all the comics."

Who Is Madame Web?

Created by Dennis O'Neil and John Romita Jr. in 1980's The Amazing Spider-Man #210, the comic version of Cassandra plays a distinct role in the Spider-Verse landscape. As an adult woman, Cassandra was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis, which left her paralyzed and blind. Her husband, Jonathan Webb, created a life support system to help her survive, which just so happens to look like a spider web.

There, Cassandra uses her various superpowers -- telepathy, clairvoyance, and seeing the future -- to help various superheroes. She not only forms a bond with Spider-Man, but she becomes a mentor to Mattie Franklin when she takes on her role of the third Spider-Woman. Cassandra is then captured and killed by the family of Kraven the Hunter, just after she transfers her superpowers to Julia Carpenter.

What Is Madame Web About?

In Madame Web, Cassandra "Cassie" Webb (Dakota Johnson) is forced to confront her past while trying to survive with three young women with powerful futures who are being hunted by a deadly adversary. In addition to Johnson, Madame Web will also star Sydney Sweeney as Julia Cornwall / Spider-Woman, Isabela Merced as Anya Corazon / Spider-Woman, and Celeste O'Connor as Mattie Franklin / Spider-Woman. The film will also star Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims, with Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, and Zosia Mamet cast in currently-unknown roles.

"It's really the story of Madame Web," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura previously told ComicBook.com. "So, in that respect, if you're a Spider-Man fan, you're gonna love the character because you know it from the comic books, which she doesn't really have that big a character in the comic books, we're doing the origin story of Madame Web. And so you meet her before she's actually the person that you know in the comic book and you come to understand how she becomes that person. So, I think that'll be a really fresh new terrain for the fans."

Is Madame Web Connected to Spider-Man?

In a recent interview, Madame Web director S.J. Clarkson confirmed that the film is not directly connected to any previous live-action incarnations of Spider-Man, despite theories from fans hoping for the contrary.

"She's definitely in a standalone world," Clarkson told the outlet. "I was able to just have free rein and let the movie be what it needed to be, as opposed to trying to force it into something else. That was a gift, in a way, to be able to take something and bring a fresh and I hope original take to it."

Are you excited for Madame Web? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Madame Web is currently scheduled to be released exclusively in theaters on February 14th.

Marvel Studios has wrapped the god of mischief's 12-year arc. This past fall's Loki Season 2 saw Tom Hiddleston's titular trickster come full circle, shedding every last ounce of his villainy in favor of assuming He Who Remains' mantle, seating himself beyond space and time as the god of stories. While Hiddleston was front and center at his culminating chapter, it took a village to bring Loki Season 2 to life. This included working with FuseFX to create numerous visual effects shots throughout the latest six-episode installment.

"Our primary responsibility was centered around many of the TVA technology effects, including the Time Door and the deletion effect when one is struck by a Time Stick. Both of these setups underwent a comprehensive reconstruction for Season 2," FuseFX VFX supervisor Kevin Yuille explained. "We leveraged the established look from Season 1 while elevating the fidelity and detail of the effects."

Yuille is no stranger to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, having previously worked on Loki Season 1 and Ms. Marvel.

"I'd say the workload on these seasons has been approximately the same," Yuille compared. "Regarding Loki Season 2, it was a particularly special project; every aspect ran exceptionally smoothly, creating such a positive experience that we felt a sense of sadness when it concluded."

Beyond the Disney+ programs, Yuille was also involved in Marvel's first venture into live-action television.

"To go back further, Fuse played a crucial role in all 136 episodes of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., serving as the lead VFX house," Yuille added. "Although I acknowledge it may not be officially considered canon, it was an enjoyable show to work on with an incredible amount of work delivered. On a personal note, those years significantly contributed to shaping my current position in my career, fostering both artistic development and supervisory skills."

His experience from the original Loki installment allowed him and his team to pick up some elements where they left off, like the aforementioned Time Door and the Time Stick's deletion effect. That said, Yuille and company did encounter new challenges in Season 2, notably in the form of The Gizmo.

"In essence, it was conceptualized as early Time Door technology that had been repurposed to encapsulate and crush its contents," Yuille said of The Gizmo. "Since it derived from Time Door tech, the setup shared nearly identical renders but underwent distinct treatment in compositing to achieve a unique appearance. Unlike the vertical slab of glass seen in the Time Door, the Gizmo took the form of a versatile giant cube with the ability to adapt to various sizes. Initially expansive, it functioned as a trap for any object or person, resembling a potent trash compactor.

"Setting itself apart from the Time Doors, The Gizmo featured internal reflections, enhancing the integration of people and objects with the internal walls," Yuille continued. "Some reflections were extracted from on-set plates where actors were filmed against moving planes of plexiglass. Others were renders from FX or involved compositing techniques such as flipping performers. This sequence proved to be a particularly enjoyable sequence to work on and stood out as one of the significant accomplishments for FuseFX in this season of the show."

These finalized visual effects are only achieved after going through various conceptual stages.

"There are many ideas that are left on the cutting room floor, particularly during the process of experimenting with look development for a particular visual effect," Yuille noted. "The initial approach involves sketching out broad strokes and presenting various options for the client to consider. Once a general direction is chosen, the focus shifts to delving into the specifics--layers upon layers of intricate details. A multitude of detailed options are presented, allowing the client to refine their preferences by selecting what they like and dislike."

With FuseFX molding and mastering the visual effects to Marvel Studios's liking, anything left on the cutting room floor is usually scrapped for a purpose.

"In general, when an idea is cut, it's typically for a valid reason and isn't revisited," Yuille continued. "It's worth noting that Marvel is cognizant of the diverse powers and visual effects aesthetics, paying meticulous attention to details such as color, effects animation, and so forth to avoid duplicating a hero's abilities with another one's."

With Loki now in the rear view and a third season not anticipated, Yuille has his sights on a new medium for FuseFX's next collaboration with Marvel Studios.

"It's incredibly exciting to be a part of these MCU projects," Yuille concluded. "Hopefully, our next venture could involve working on a feature film."

Loki Season 2 is streaming in full on Disney+.

Madame Web arrives in theaters in just a matter of days, adding a whole new layer to Sony's stamp on Spider-Man characters. The live-action film brings together a number of Marvel Comics' Spider-Women, throwing them into an unprecedented crossover event. With Madame Web on the horizon, and the multiverse of heroes and villains more popular than ever thanks to Sony's hit animated Spider-Verse movies, some fans have naturally wondered which crossovers could be on the horizon. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Mattie Franklin actress Celeste O'Connor and Anya Corazon actress Isabela Merced both named a hypothetical live-action Miles Morales as the character they would most like to cross over with.

"I almost want to share a screen with the live action Miles Morales," O'Connor explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "Personally, I feel like Maddie Franklin and Miles could be friends. I could say that."

I think we all want Miles Morales in the live action," Merced echoed.

What Is Madame Web About?

In Madame Web, Cassandra "Cassie" Webb (Dakota Johnson) is forced to confront her past while trying to survive with three young women with powerful futures who are being hunted by a deadly adversary.

"It's really the story of Madame Web," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura previously told ComicBook.com. "So, in that respect, if you're a Spider-Man fan, you're gonna love the character because you know it from the comic books, which she doesn't really have that big a character in the comic books, we're doing the origin story of Madame Web. And so you meet her before she's actually the person that you know in the comic book and you come to understand how she becomes that person. So, I think that'll be a really fresh new terrain for the fans."

Who Is in the Cast of Madame Web?

In addition to Johnson, Madame Web will also star Sydney Sweeney as Julia Carpenter / Spider-Woman, Isabela Merced as Anya Corazon / Spider-Woman, and Celeste O'Connor as Mattie Franklin / Spider-Woman. The film will also star Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims, with Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, and Zosia Mamet cast in currently-unknown roles.

"I've always been a really big fan of all the Marvel and Sony Universe movies," Sydney explained in a 2022 interview shortly after being cast. "I've grown up watching them all and I've been engulfed in the entire world my entire life, so being able to be a part of that is such an incredible, incredible thing."

Is Madame Web Connected to Spider-Man?

In a recent interview, Madame Web director S.J. Clarkson confirmed that the film is not directly connected to any previous live-action incarnations of Spider-Man, despite theories from fans hoping for the contrary.

"She's definitely in a standalone world," Clarkson told the outlet. "I was able to just have free rein and let the movie be what it needed to be, as opposed to trying to force it into something else. That was a gift, in a way, to be able to take something and bring a fresh and I hope original take to it."

Are you excited for Madame Web? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Madame Web is currently scheduled to be released exclusively in theaters on February 14th.

Isabela Merced kept her role in the Marvel movie Madame Web a secret from DC after she was also cast as Hawkgirl. The young actor has already amassed an impressive resume of films, including the leading role of Dora the Explorer in Dora and the Lost City of Gold and a co-starring role in Transformers: The Last Knight. Two of her upcoming films put her in superhero attire for competing companies, Marvel Studios and DC Studios. Merced suits up as Anya Corazon in Madame Web, and next year sees her dawn Hawkgirl's wings in Superman: Legacy. While playing in both the Marvel and DC Universes is becoming more common, Merced still found a way to keep her Madame Web role from DC.

ComicBook.com spoke to Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O'Connor, and Isabela Merced to talk about Madame Web, which arrives in theaters this week. When asked if Madame Web helped prepare her to play Hawkgirl for DC, Isabela Merced responded, "Oh absolutely. And I was like, 'Is it possible to do both?' I know people have, but why would I be able to do it? So I just didn't tell them about Madame Web."

She continued, "They asked, 'Oh, do you have any previous stunt training?' And I said, 'Yeah, but I don't remember where I did it. I was in a harness too, I don't know where."

Madame Web doesn't cross over with other Spider-Man movies

Director SJ Clarkson (Marvel's Jessica Jones) has described the 2003-set Madame Web as taking place in a "standalone world" unattached from the Spider-Man movies, including the multiversal Web of Life and Destiny seen in the animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

"We made a decision early on that the advantage in this story was not to attach it to all these other stories," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told ComicBook.com. "We tip the hat. But really, we wanted to concentrate on a character journey, and I think some of the superhero fatigue that people talk about is because those movies are often not about the central character."

"And so we felt it was a stronger choice for us to say, 'This is Madame Web's story,'" Di Bonaventura continued. "She comes out of the Spider-Man comic books, but it's not part of this other giant thing. It is its own standalone, which gave the freedom to really tell the character story."

Who is in the Madame Web cast?

Madame Web features Dakota Johnson as the titular Madame Web, Sydney Sweeney as Julia Carpenter / Spider-Woman, Isabela Merced as Anya Corazon / Spider-Woman, and Celeste O'Connor as Mattie Franklin / Spider-Woman. Madame Web's cast also includes Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims, with Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, and Zosia Mamet in undisclosed roles.

Madame Web swings into theaters on February 14th.

Thanks to the accomplishments he's earned through his work on projects like Underwater and Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, many movie fans are familiar with William Eubank through his work in the horror genre. The filmmaker's abilities aren't only limited to the realm of the dark and disturbing, however, as he proves in his latest film, Land of Bad. While the film, focusing on a mission gone wrong and the soldiers tasked with a death-defying survival scenario, might not overtly display the darkness of his other outings, it still tasks Eubank with keeping audiences on the edge of their seats as our protagonists aim to escape their ordeal. Land of Bad hits theaters on February 16th.

Land of Bad is described, "When a Delta Force team is ambushed in enemy territory, a rookie officer (Liam Hemsworth) refuses to abandon them. Their only hope lies with an Air Force drone pilot (Russell Crowe) as the eyes in the sky during a brutal 48-hour battle for survival."

ComicBook.com caught up with Eubank to talk the development of the project, his work in genre film, and more.

ComicBook.com: Liam's character, he's forced with this difficult decision very early on in the picture of what type of cereal he wants to bring with him on his mission. So you, William, if you were forced to go out on a death-defying, intense mission and you could only bring one cereal with you, what are you going to go with?

William Eubank: I would probably go with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or it's possible Golden Grahams, but I like Golden Grahams in milk, so if I had to eat them dry ... Well, I don't know. I like Cinnamon Toast Crunch in milk, too. Yeah, that's a tough one, because you're eating the cereal dry probably, so yeah, that's a tough one. In that case, maybe you just want the Frosted Flakes because it's just pure sugar, or dry, you're just eating sugar. I don't know. Which one would you choose?

Oh, it's going to be a seasonal variety, so something like Count Chocula is going to be what I'm going to be drawn towards, but it depends on what time of the year it is, whether or not I actually have access to Count Chocula. You're right, milk changes the whole thing. Speaking about Liam, though, this film has such a great cast, so what was the casting process like for this? I also wondered, once you got the cast involved, if the characters themselves underwent any substantial changes once you started collaborating with these performers?

Yeah, absolutely. This movie, we wrote it a long time ago. I wrote it while I was doing the movie The Signal. On the weekends, I was at a coffee shop in New Mexico writing this movie because I was so afraid The Signal was too crazy and weird, so I was like, "I've got to make something more grounded." And all these years later, there'd been so many renditions of the script and we had almost started it a few times, and all these years later I had had another movie that I was possibly going to do with Russell, and we got to know each other through almost making this other movie and it didn't end up going. All these years later I was like, "Man, Russell would be so great as Eddie Grim Reaper. I'll just reach out to him."

I hit him up and he was like, "Oh, well, I'm pretty busy, but hey, it's great to hear from you. Send me the script, tell me a little bit about what it's about, and I'll get back to you in a few weeks and let you know." Then he hit me back the next day and was like, "Hey, I really love this. It asks some very interesting questions. You pull it together, let's do it." We got very fortunate. Russell came on, and then from there, everything fell into place. We had sent it to Liam's people and he responded to it.

I guess once you start to get your core guys in place, it all flows from there. And with Russell's character specifically, he just is so detailed and he really wants to, obviously, know all the aspects, so it's fun working with him to develop certain idiosyncrasies and how he is inside the room, how he is outside the room. Russell has a huge say in that and is so collaborative and full of ideas, so it was a blast working with him in that regard.

Since this film stars Liam and Luke Hemsworth, can you confirm or deny that there is, I believe they call it the "Hemsworth Family Buy One, Get One" deal, that once you cast one Hemsworth, you get another Hemsworth at a discount?

No, no. What's really wild was we actually had Luke on, because I had met Luke, he had been in a movie that my little brother had written, and so we'd already met him and he was into it. Then we separately went through Liam's people, because they all just do their own thing. They obviously are very connected and I'm sure they do talk, but they really do respect each other's career choices and paths and whatnot. So you really can't get to one and get to the other or anything like that.

We really went through different channels and it just worked out that they both agreed to do it, so whether or not they talked on their own or anything like that, I have no idea. But yeah, it was just awesome having them both. Obviously, they have that camaraderie together, but it was funny watching them try to create that gap. It was almost harder to not know each other in the film, so it was fun to witness.

I'm sure it was difficult for them to have to play any sort of tension at all or antagonistic elements of that first meeting when they know each other so well.

Yeah, absolutely.

You've mentioned how Russell came to you and said how the film asks a lot of interesting questions, so with how long you've been working on this movie and how long you've been writing the script, what was that research process like of finding that balance of tech warfare with drones and then infantry and all that military stuff? What was that process like for you?

Frankly, when we first wrote the film, we thought, "Okay, we'll tell the story of how hard it is psychologically to be in war and then go to Starbucks right afterwards." Then that movie Good Kill came out with Ethan Hawke, and we shelved the concept for a little while because we were like, "Ah, I guess that's been done." And then what ended up happening was, as we were dabbling in some things and somehow the news got out that we were going to make it a JTAC film, and we got contacted by a JTAC at Fort Erwin who was like, "Hey, I'd love for you guys to come out. I'm an instructor out here now. Why don't you come stay for a while and see how it goes?" And so we actually went out there for weeks and worked with them. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this, but I was calling in to F-35s. We were blowing sh-t up. It was insane, dude. It was so crazy.

And then we met real drone pilots and we started to realize, "Man, the psychological idea of these guys going through all this turmoil is not really even remotely in the vein," because these guys are so committed and trained, if you will, and so committed to each other that you're like, "We'd love," in Hollywood, to be like, "it's so dramatic and there's so much personal turmoil, when you're like, 'Whoa, these guys are hardcore operators from the top to the bottom.'" And I realized, in that regard, at that point, we had chased the wrong story, and really, at that point, realized, "Man, when you get to that level, you are so trained and so psych evaluated and so dialed in, and you really want to be doing your work, so you're really just committed to the people you're working with and the job you have to do," so we wanted to get into those themes.

And, of course, the movie does ask the question of, "Oh, the main character thinks one way or thinks that there's maybe a better version of violence," and it really seeks to put that out there of, is there a better version of violence or is it all pretty crazy at the end of the day? And that's really what the film is asking at the end of the day, but at the same time trying to make it entertaining and pretty wild.

I believe we just passed the four-year anniversary of Underwater being released, that was a thing that came out right before the pandemic, and then I think people definitely found it on streaming. It is such a gorgeous movie, and that movie is so rife with the potential of these cosmic, horrifying concepts.

Oh, thank you.

Has there been any talk over the years of getting to mine that well again?

We always talk about it. I hope someday. I really hope someday. We built so many things in that movie that you just don't see that are so cool, from all the dredges that lift all of the stuff that they're mining to the surface and these huge, almost like drone supertankers that are down there. There's so much cool sh-t, man. I hope someday we get to, because the world is really big and really fun. It's tough. Anytime you go underwater, it's expensive, so who knows? We'll see what happens someday.

Just the fact that it shortly premiered on streaming after release, I feel like people definitely found it in the pandemic, even if they missed it in theaters.

We were so lucky we got into theaters, man. We were the last ones to go January. Woof.

That's totally why I was able to remember, "Oh yeah, four-year anniversary," because a month later the world shut down.

I know. Yeah, I remember Bloodshot released right during it, so it was in theaters for a few days, and then Bloodshot had all this free advertising forever because all the theaters were shut down, so the poster was up at The Grove for five months. It was insane.

I do have to bring up a franchise that people really love that you got to work on, that you got to work on the Paranormal Activity series with Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. Have there been talks about continuing that? Do you feel like that was a one-off for you?

No talks with me on that, but I loved making that. And Chris Landon, who has really created that universe from after the first one, he was so awesome to work with, and he was my producer/writer on that, so it's really their baby. That was really fun for me to come into that world and I love just doing different things. That was so much fun working with the little cameras and just trying to tell a different story, whether or not that's what the Paranormal people wanted.

I think for some Paranormal fans, it was too shiny in that regard, and that version went to a different demon and whatnot. So I have no say in that world, but I loved every second of getting to do it. I loved building those sets and those crazy churches, and so I don't know. You never know what could happen, but I'm really proud of the work we did in that space. And as a filmmaker, I'm always trying to do different things, so hopefully I'll continue to do that.

Land of Bad hits theaters on February 16th.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.

Once the original Paranormal Activity landed in theaters in 2009, the franchise began releasing new installments on a nearly annual basis, though the release of Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones in 2015 resulted in a six-year pause on the series until Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin in 2021. Given the coronavirus pandemic, the film only earned a streaming release, which understandably impacted the potential for the project, with director William Eubank recently confirming that, despite his passion for the series, he currently isn't in talks to return to the found-footage franchise. Eubank's next film, Land of Bad, hits theaters on February 16th.

When ComicBook.com asked Eubank if he's been in contact with studios about a return to the series, he confessed, "No talks with me on that, but I loved making that. And Chris Landon, who has really created that universe from after the first one, he was so awesome to work with, and he was my producer/writer on that, so it's really their baby. That was really fun for me to come into that world and I love just doing different things. That was so much fun working with the little cameras and just trying to tell a different story, whether or not that's what Paranormal people wanted."

The early films in the franchise focused on characters setting up amateur video cameras in hopes of capturing supernatural presences, though as technology advanced, new films incorporated new ways to orchestrate scares. Eubank noted that he feels fans might have thought he got too experimental with his cinematic techniques.

"I think for some Paranormal fans, it was too shiny in that regard, and that version went to a different demon and whatnot," the filmmaker pointed out. "So I have no say in that world, but I loved every second of getting to do it. I loved building those sets and those crazy churches, and so I don't know. You never know what could happen, but I'm really proud of the work we did in that space. And as a filmmaker, I'm always trying to do different things, so hopefully I'll continue to do that."

Land of Bad is described, "When a Delta Force team is ambushed in enemy territory, a rookie officer (Liam Hemsworth) refuses to abandon them. Their only hope lies with an Air Force drone pilot (Russell Crowe) as the eyes in the sky during a brutal 48-hour battle for survival."

Stay tuned for possible updates on the Paranormal Activity franchise. Land of Bad hits theaters on February 16th.

Would you like to see the director return to the franchise? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

The 2020 sci-fi film Underwater was one of the last movies to land in theaters before the coronavirus pandemic saw movie theaters around the world be shuttered, with the film's debut on streaming platforms allowing more audiences to dive into the adventure. What initially appeared as a straightforward creature feature included teases of massive, cosmic threats, with director William Eubank recently confirming that so much was invested into that original film that he still hopes he'll get to continue the experience and unravel those threads with a potential sequel. Eubank's latest film, Land of Bad, lands in theaters on February 16th.

"We always talk about it. I hope someday, I really hope someday," Eubank confirmed to ComicBook.com of his interest in a sequel. "We built so many things in that movie that you just don't see that are so cool, from all the dredges that lift all of the stuff that they're mining to the surface and these huge, almost like drone supertankers that are down there. There's so much cool sh-t, man. I hope someday we get to, because the world is really big and really fun. It's tough. Anytime you go underwater, it's expensive, so who knows? We'll see what happens someday."

Speaking to the scope of the film, while Underwater concluded with a shadowy glimpse of an underwater creature, Eubank had previously teased that the beast was envisioned as a stand-in for Cthulhu from H.P. Lovecraft lore.

"He was written in the script as a big, whale-like creature," Eubank shared with Mr H Reviews on YouTube back in 2020. "A massive behemoth - it was called 'The Behemoth.' And in designing the movie - we were done shooting, but we obviously never shot the behemoth cause we were gonna do him later - I just basically was like ... we were early enough in the design that was able to shift more to a mystical being. So that's where we started going Lovecraftian. So I was like alright, '[We're] making Cthulhu here.'"

Land of Bad is described, "When a Delta Force team is ambushed in enemy territory, a rookie officer (Liam Hemsworth) refuses to abandon them. Their only hope lies with an Air Force drone pilot (Russell Crowe) as the eyes in the sky during a brutal 48-hour battle for survival."

Stay tuned for possible updates on the future of Underwater. Land of Bad hits theaters on February 16th.

Would you like to see the movie get a sequel? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes star Owen Teague suggests that the upcoming film may bridge the gap between the prequel series and the original Planet of the Apes films, at least visually. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which had a Super Bowl trailer debut on Sunday, is a sequel to 2017's War for the Planet of the Apes, the third film in this rebooted Planet of the Apes series after 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes and 2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Those three films presented a more grounded and realistic take on the Planet of the Apes concept compared to the original 1968 film and its sequels from the early 1970s. The new Planet of the Apes films also rely on modern motion capture and visual effects technology to create the ape characters instead of actors in ape costumes. While that new technology is still in use in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Teague says the world of Kingdom of the Planet of Apes may look more like that of the original Planet of the Apes movies.

"Of this most recent string of movies, this is the one that I think is starting to feel more like the originals," Teague tells ComicBook.com. "We had Rise, Dawn, and War, which are amazing movies, but that's a very different feel from the '68 version. And now we're starting to get into what that original was without being a remake or anything even remotely similar to that, but hints visually in terms of the world is beginning to look like that, which we haven't seen before with performance capture, we haven't seen with the CGI apes, so that's really cool."

Set 300 years after Caesar's story ended in War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes casts Teague as Noa, a young chimpanzee who breaks away from ape society after a brutal leader takes power. Noa ventures out searching for a better way forward for apes and humans alike. Teague says that the difference in upbringing is central to the differences in Noa and Caesar's characters.

"Caesar was raised with humans, and so a big part of Caesar's character is dealing with his relationship with humans, and his relationship with other apes and how similar the two species are," Teague explains. "Noa doesn't really have that. He's never met a human before at the beginning of this movie, and so he doesn't really know anything. Caesar goes into his trilogy knowing a lot and knowing more about the human world than the ape world, knowing very little about how to be a chimpanzee; he thinks he's a human. Noa is very much a chimpanzee, and while he's fluent in speech and all that kind of stuff, he's still an ape, and he's a very sheltered ape, and so I don't know that Caesar had the kind of wonder at the world that Noa had. Noa's primary driving thing is curiosity. I'm shaky on Cornelius's driving motives, but I remember he's a scientist, and I think Noa is more on that spectrum of character traits."

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Cast and Release Date

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set many years after the reign of Caesar. In the film, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.

Wes Ball directed Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and Patrick Aison. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes stars Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, and William H. Macy. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes opens in theaters on May 10th.

After initially being planned as a streaming exclusive, last year's Evil Dead Rise would go on to become the biggest earner at the box office in the history of the franchise, leading many to wonder if we could get a follow-up to the adventure. Star of the film Lily Sullivan recently confirmed that there have been discussions about what the future could hold for her character, though avoided giving any confirmation on what the future could hold, likely due to those conversations not bringing any certainties. As fans wait for more Evil Dead, they can see Sullivan in her new film Monolith, which hits theaters and digital on February 16th.

"There's been many, many conversations, many alt paths, many possibilities, which are all quite whack and fun and great. And whatever ends up coming to fruition, I'm excited for it. But yeah, I can't say anything on it though, but yeah, excited," Sullivan shared with ComicBook.com. "It's all literally up to the universe of the Evil Dead gods. In a great way, until you cross the bridge, that's just what it is. The blessings of this industry, and the curse, you have to walk into the unknown, so people should also walk into Monolith. Look at that."

Even though it's currently unknown if Sullivan or Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin will be returning to the world of Deadites, last week saw the announcement that S?bastien Vani?ek was developing a new film for the series that was being described as a "spinoff." In this case, it's also unknown if we can expect any type of sequel for the franchise or if creators Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Rob Tapert will instead aim to develop a number of standalone adventures for the series.

Cronin shared a similarly vague yet optimistic update about his return to the series last year.

"It's certainly something to be discussed," the filmmaker explained to The Hollywood Reporter. "It's something that we discussed on set, because when you're making a movie in a franchise, you're always talking about what's next and what's possible. So I suppose I'm in the lucky position where I have some choice, whereas in the past, when you're trying to crawl up the ladder to be a filmmaker with any focus on you, you're just going after the thing that you're desperate to get made. So it's nice right now.

Monolith is described, "While trying to salvage her career, a disgraced journalist begins investigating a strange conspiracy theory. But as the trail leads uncomfortably close to home, she is left to grapple with the lies at the heart of her own story."

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Evil Dead franchise. Monolith hits theaters and digital on February 16th.

Would you like Sullivan to return for a sequel? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Many fans know Aldis Hodge best for big movies such as Hidden Figures, The Invisible Man, and Black Adam. However, the actor has been consistently working in Hollywood for nearly 30 years. In fact, his first role was playing Raymond, the nephew of Samuel L. Jackson's Zeus, in Die Hard with a Vengeance. The 1995 threequel is considered one of the best of the franchise and saw Bruce Willis' John McClane solving puzzles throughout New York City alongside Jackson. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Hodge about his new film Marmalade, and we brought up the fact that Die Hard with a Vengeance is turning 30 next year. Considering there have been talks of a Die Hard prequel, we wondered if Hodge would want to return as Raymond in a hypothetical spinoff alongside Jackson.

"Absolutely. Absolutely," Hodge said about wanting to work with Jackson again. "You know what? My brother and I and our team, we were actually talking about 'what would've happened if' a little while back. So we might have to revisit that conversation because I think that would be awesome to see. Absolutely."

"Sam is the coolest," Hodge added. "Yeah, he's cool, man. I mean, I first met him when I was eight, but man, we still cool now. You know what I mean? And it's just great. I think he's got a lot to teach for sure with the magnitude of his career. But to work with Sam again would be amazing."

What Is Marmalade About?

Written and directed by Keir O'Donnell, Marmalade also stars Joe Keery (Stranger Things) and Camila Morrone (Daisy Jones & the Six). The film was produced by Sarah Gabriel, Marc Goldberg, James Harris, Mark Lane, and Jason Shapiro. You can read the official description of Marmalade below:

"MARMALADE is an edge-of-the-seat crime-tinged romance tale. Recently incarcerated Baron (Keery) strikes up a friendship with cellmate Otis (Hodge), a man with a well-versed history of prison breaks. As the pair hatch an escape plan together, Baron recalls the story of how he met Marmalade (Morrone), the love of his life, and their 'Bonnie and Clyde' style scheme to rob a bank in order to care for his sick mother and give the couple the life they've always dreamed of."

Will Aldis Hodge Play Hawkman Again?

Hodge made his live-action DC debut in Black Adam back in 2022, but after James Gunn and Peter Safran were tapped to be the co-chairs and co-CEOs of DC Studios, it was revealed that the franchise was being rebooted. Gunn has said some actors from the DECU will return to play their characters, but Hodge isn't sure that includes Hawkman or the rest of the JSA.

"I don't know if that's in the cards for me," Hodge admitted when speaking with ComicBook.com. "I mean, look, if it is, obviously I love the character. I would love to continue the character. Definitely had plans to continue the character before some changes were made. But yeah, I couldn't tell you. You're going to have to ask James."

You can watch our interview with Hodge at the top of the page.

This weekend, Marmalade was officially released in theaters in addition to being available On Demand. The new crime dramedy stars Joe Keery (Stranger Things), Camila Morrone (Daisy Jones & the Six), and Aldis Hodge (Black Adam), and currently has a 73% critics score and 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. In honor of the film's release, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Hodge, who talked about what drew him to the project and what it was like working with Keery. Marmalade marks the directorial debut of Keir O'Donnell, so we asked Hodge what it was like working with the first-time director.

"No, it's great because he understands how we think and what our machinations are, so that was fantastic,' Hodge said of O'Donnell. "I don't know if you know but his wife, Polly [Morgan], she was a DP, so that was great. And she was just coming off of The Woman King, so obviously that was going to be shot well. But to sort of have that shorthand understanding between your director, your DP, really moves things along in a real smooth way. And she's fantastic. Keir is great. I think that he wrote a great script and I mean for his first feature, I think he did an outstanding job."

"I think that the rest of our cast was really awesome," Hodge added when we asked if he wanted to shout out anyone from the production. "I mean, first of all, the crew always. Anybody on the ground, I don't care who you are, if you're doing crafty, doing whatever, PA, our crew handled us because we are small budget, limited time, limited resources, and our crew is really the blood that pumps through the whole machine to get the job done. So our crew is fantastic. Our supporting cast members. I mean, I think they're stars in their right because the fact is a film like this really is balanced in tone and that is really supported by every single body being on the same page, playing the same music. And the rest of our cast, I mean, you saw the film, I think they were hilarious and it just helps to really paint out the rest of the world. So yeah, no, they were amazing."

What Is Marmalade About?

Written and directed by Keir O'Donnell, Marmalade was produced by Sarah Gabriel, Marc Goldberg, James Harris, Mark Lane, and Jason Shapiro. You can read the official description of Marmalade below:

"MARMALADE is an edge-of-the-seat crime-tinged romance tale. Recently incarcerated Baron (Keery) strikes up a friendship with cellmate Otis (Hodge), a man with a well-versed history of prison breaks. As the pair hatch an escape plan together, Baron recalls the story of how he met Marmalade (Morrone), the love of his life, and their 'Bonnie and Clyde' style scheme to rob a bank in order to care for his sick mother and give the couple the life they've always dreamed of."

You can watch our interview with Hodge at the top of the page.

2024 marks fourteen years of The Walking Dead Universe on television. Over 170 episodes and sixteen seasons of the flagship The Walking Dead TV series along with six different spinoff TV shows later and it's one of the biggest franchises in television storytelling of all time. But what if there was one thing that they could go back and change about the show...what would it be? Speaking with ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview for the upcoming The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, we asked The Walking Dead CCO Scott Gimple this exact question. Be it a story point, or something they would later revisit, what would he change about The Walking Dead? His answer was a little more sentimental.

"Oh my word. Oh dear. I don't know, man. I don't like having regrets and even if I have them, I don't even wanna share them. I will say a regret I have, which is not like a story of regret. But when we did the premiere in Madison Square Garden, I got into like a conversation with somebody in the green room. I don't know if it was Norman (Reedus) or somebody else and I never sat down to watch it in that crowd and I regret that all the time not watching the show on the big screen. I think it was 601. I don't know what I was doing because I could call Norman now. I don't know if we were talking, I was talking to somebody else but I majorly regret not sitting in the audience for that one. It was an amazing event and I was in a green room."

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live cast

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live series is the much anticipated return of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, filling in the gap of the story about what happened to his character after he left the flagship The Walking Dead series in season 9 and taking the place of the previously announced trilogy of feature films that would focus on the character. In addition to the return of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes,The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Liv will also continuing the story of Danai Gurira's Michonne following The Walking Dead series finale and her pursuit of a reunion with Rick

They're not the only cast members from the other shows that will appear in the series either with Pollyanna McIntosh's Jadis Stokes aka Anne also set to appear, picking up from her appearances in The Walking Dead (where she picked up Rick and mysteriously fled with him) and The Walking Dead: World Beyond (where it was confirmed she works for the Civic Republic Military). Other cast members in the series include Lesley-Ann Brandt, Matt Jeffries, and Terry O'Quinn, who plays the role of Beale, The Major General of the Civic Republic Military.

When does The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live start?

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will premiere its first episode on AMC on Sunday, February 25, 2024. The six-episode series will premiere new episodes weekly, with the release schedule looking like this:

• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1 release date - Sunday, February 25, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 2 release date - Sunday, March 3, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 3 release date - Sunday, March 10, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 4 release date - Sunday, March 17, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 5 release date - Sunday, March 24, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 6 release date - Sunday, March 31, 2024

AMC describes The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live as follows:

This series presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead... And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they've ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive -- or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead? Gimple serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside Lincoln and Gurira.

Despite 193 issues of The Walking Dead comic, 177 episodes of The Walking Dead TV series, and six other The Walking Dead spinoff TV shows, one fan theory has prevailed: the whole thing is a dream happening in Rick Grimes' mind as he lies in a coma in a hospital bed. Like so many "it was all a dream" style fan theories, the "Rick is in a coma" theory was seemingly born from a hope that things would all work out for all the characters whose horrible fate we had to witness, not to mention the ongoing trope of "it was all a dream" seen in shows like Newhart and St. Elsewhere. But it can't be true... right?

Speaking with ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview for the upcoming The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live TV series, we asked The Walking Dead CCO and series executive producer Scott Gimple if he had a favorite fan theory from all his years working on The Walking Dead and its many spinoffs. Having been a part of the series since its second season, Gimple has seen it all, and he was quick to note the Rick Grimes Coma theory as one he's surprised people appear to still be into.

"You know what? I try not to read too much of that stuff because I never want to like, you know, inadvertently take any of that stuff even though I love fan theories. But, I do like people who still believe that Rick is still in that bed and he's still in a coma. I mean, that's always, but that's like, even from the comic...That's not like a spoiler....He's awake."

When does The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live start?

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will premiere its first episode on AMC on Sunday, February 25, 2024. The six-episode series will premiere new episodes weekly, with the release schedule looking like this:

• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 1 release date - Sunday, February 25, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 2 release date - Sunday, March 3, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 3 release date - Sunday, March 10, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 4 release date - Sunday, March 17, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 5 release date - Sunday, March 24, 2024
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Episode 6 release date - Sunday, March 31, 2024

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live series is the much anticipated return of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes, filling in the gap of the story about what happened to his character after he left the flagship The Walking Dead series in season 9 while also continuing the story of Danai Gurira's Michonne following The Walking Dead series finale. Other cast members for the series include Pollyanna McIntosh, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Matt Jeffries, and Terry O'Quinn. AMC describes The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live as follows:

This series presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Kept apart by distance. By an unstoppable power. By the ghosts of who they were. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead... And ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they've ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors? Without each other, are they even alive -- or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead? Gimple serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside Lincoln and Gurira.

Thanks to his Academy Award-nominated work in Elvis, Austin Butler has become a unique actor for fans to watch out for. Butler's next high-profile movie project will be Dune: Part Two, which he stars in as the villainous Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. While a lot of viewers know Butler for his mannerisms and voice as Elvis, a few stray lines of dialogue in Dune: Part Two's marketing have shown a very different portrayal. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Butler shed a little bit of light on how his portrayal of Feyd-Rautha came to life, and the inspiration he took from his onscreen father, Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsg?rd), when crafting his character's voice.

"I didn't tell him I was gonna do that, actually," Butler explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "There was a moment the other day, actually, where he said, 'I never asked you: how did you sound like me?' I said, 'I just listened to a ton of him talking.' I have an amazing dialect coach named Tim Monich who I worked with, and who Timoth?e knows very well. Yeah, so we worked a lot."

Who Does Austin Butler Play in Dune: Part Two?

Butler is cast as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Dune: Part Two, the heir to Baron Harkonnen's empire who becomes a significant adversary for Paul Atredies (Timothee Chalamet).

"I'm always nervous. I always feel an incredible pressure," Butler explained in an interview with Interview Magazine last fall. "I felt that when I was 12 years old. Even if the material doesn't really require it, I feel I need to do the best that I possibly can. That sets a bar, and then I'm always afraid that I'm going to miss something. With Dune it was interesting, because I met with Denis [Villeneuve], and we got along very well, and started talking about the character. At that point, we didn't even have a script, but as we started talking about Feyd, my imagination started running, and I started to feel the terror of the challenge. That's what I'm guided by now: What really scares me?"

What Is Dune: Part Two About?

Dune: Part Two will explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

The big-screen epic Dune: Part Two includes Timoth?e Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and L?a Seydoux, with Stellan Skarsg?rd, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem. Denis Villeneuve directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts based on Frank Herbert's iconic novel.

Are you excited to see Austin Butler in Dune: Part Two? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Dune: Part Two is set to be released exclusively in theaters on Friday, March 1st.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is currently available to buy on digital, and ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with some of the actors who play mentors and tributes in the film. The actors have talked things ranging from book changes to sharing stories about big names in the cast like Viola Davis and Jason Schwartzman. In the film, Mackenzie Lansing plays Coral, the fierce tribute from District 4 who seems to have it out for Rachel Zegler's Lucy Gray Baird. We brought up Lansing's friendship with Zegler, and she explained why their real-life dynamic helped make their onscreen rivalry easier to play.

"I go off other actors, but I'm very much of the school of thought that, actually, if you're close to someone and you're friends, it makes it easier to be meaner to them," Lansing explained. "I personally, just for me and the way I work, don't believe in making the animosity real in order to do that. So, I actually think that us being close friends allowed us to really go after each other and not be afraid of that and be able to take risks on set. And then aside from that, she's just an amazing human being, and I feel very lucky that we had a friendship that blossomed on set."

You can check out a sweet photo of Lansing and Zegler behind the scenes below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mackenzie Lansing (@mackenzielansing)

When Is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Coming To DVD?

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is currently available to buy on digital, and Lionsgate will be releasing the new film on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on February 13th. You can read a description of the film below:

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) as he sees a chance for a change in fortune when he is chosen to be a mentor to Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), the girl tribute from the impoverished District 12. In addition to Blyth and Zegler, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to feature big names such as Viola Davis (Head Gamemaker Volumnia Gaul), Peter Dinklage (Casca Highbottom), Jason Schwartzman (Lucretius "Lucky" Flickerman), Hunter Schafer (Tigris Snow), and Josh Andr?s Rivera (Sejanus Plinth).

Stay tuned for more from our interviews with the cast of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. You can watch our interview with Mackenzie Lansing at the top of the page.

Marmalade is officially playing in theaters and is available On Demand. The new film sees Joe Keery (Stranger Things), Camila Morrone (Daisy Jones & the Six), and Aldis Hodge (Black Adam) leading a Bonnie & Clyde-esque story from first-time director, Keir O'Donnell. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Hodge about the film, and he spoke about working with Keery and improvising with the Stranger Things star.

"I mean, honestly, the scenes that you probably won't catch, the different improv moments, different takes when we were building out these scenes take after take and just having more and more fun with it. And then, I mean, when I see the film I'm like, 'Okay, yeah, Keir wrapped up the best of it in these shots.'" Hodge explained. "But that's where the fun really kind of sprouted that you don't get to see all of because we were just shooting everything. We were shooting at everything, and Keir allowed us to just have the freedom to do so. So that to me was awesome."

You can watch our interview with Aldis Hodge at the top of the page.

What Is Marmalade About?

Written and directed by Keir O'Donnell, Marmalade was produced by Sarah Gabriel, Marc Goldberg, James Harris, Mark Lane, and Jason Shapiro. You can read the official description of Marmalade below:

"MARMALADE is an edge-of-the-seat crime-tinged romance tale. Recently incarcerated Baron (Keery) strikes up a friendship with cellmate Otis (Hodge), a man with a well-versed history of prison breaks. As the pair hatch an escape plan together, Baron recalls the story of how he met Marmalade (Morrone), the love of his life, and their 'Bonnie and Clyde' style scheme to rob a bank in order to care for his sick mother and give the couple the life they've always dreamed of."

How Will Stranger Things End?

The fifth and final season of Stranger Things is currently in production, and fans of the Netflix series are eager to find out how the series will end.

"I'm gonna just make a bold statement," David Harbour (Jim Hopper) told ComicBook.com last year. "Each year, it feels like the show's getting bigger and bigger and more exciting. And we have a real responsibility to knock it out of the park in the final season. So if we don't, give me all of your fan rage. Write the petitions. Go ahead, do it. Because I'm going down there next week to start and I'm going to pour my whole heart into this thing. I've read some of the scripts and in my mind, they're stunningly beautiful. It's time. We're going to knock it out of the park. We're going to deliver you the finale that you need, that you want, that I want."

Stranger Things creators, Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer, recently revealed that their pitch for the fifth season was a tear-jerker.

"Listen. It's our process but it's just like, we really just try to focus on one season at a time," Ross Duffer previously told The Wrap. "We do have an outline for season 5 and we pitched it to Netflix and they really responded well to it. I mean, it was hard. It's the end of the story. I saw executives crying who I've never seen cry before and it was wild. And it's not just to do with the story, just the fact that it's like, Oh my God, this thing that has defined so many of our lives, these Netflix people who has been with us from the beginning, seven years now, and it's hard to imagine the journey coming to an end."

Marmalade is now playing in theaters and is available On Demand. Stay tuned for more updates about Stranger Things.

The press conference to kick off WWE's WrestleMania 40 ended in epic fashion, with The Rock taking a shot at Cody Rhodes after a tense encounter on the stage. The Rock said that their family was the royal family of wrestling, which obviously drew Cody's ire. Cody then called out Rock's family line, and that led to Rock getting in his face and slapping him to cause a frantic brawl as the conference came to a close. Seth Rollins was right in the thick of all of it, and ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to Rollins about what went down during the event and The Rock's actions. That's when Rollins took a shot of his own, saying that what Rock did felt like a Will Smith moment.

"I mean, yeah, I push, I push the rock. I shove the rock, which, you know, he's a member of the board. So, like, I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble for that or not," Rollins said. "But he deserved it, kind of. So I mean, it's just gross. I just thought it was gross. I don't know. I thought it was gross that it was like...it was like wielding power in a way that didn't need to be, didn't need to happen."

"You know, I get it. You felt disrespected. Great. We've all felt disrespected," Rollins said. "But like, it felt to me like a Will Smith moment, you know, I mean, that's what it felt like was a Will Smith moment, and it just didn't need to happen. So I'm pretty, I'm pretty disgusted by it."

The good news is that if Rock does try to sue Rollins, at least there's video of what happened and how started the confrontation. Rollins said, "Yeah. I mean, if it goes to court, they'll figure it out, right?"

Rollins is of course referring to the infamous moment at the Academy Awards where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock after a joke was made about Jada Pinkett Smith. In The Rock's case, it was after Rhodes refereed to Reigns and Rock's grandfathers, but there was already some animosity between Rock and Rhodes leading into the event. There was also discord between Rock and the Cody Rhodes fan base after Rock labeled the vocal fans Cody Cry Babies.

"It was the Cody crybabies," Rock said. "These are grown-ass men (starts typing) Cody's gotta finish his story. He has to finish his story now, it's like wait a second, hold on. Dad, you want to go outside and play catch with me? Not now, Cody's gotta finish it and I'm upset. The wife comes in. 'Hey honey, do you wanna go have sex? Not now I'm finishing the story!"

"At the end of the day, look. You've got the Cody crybabies and you have the Cody fans and then you have Cody himself and there's a clear distinction between the three," Rock said. "But The Rock says this. Those Cody crybabies, the ones with every 10 tweets they're shoving a chicken McNugget in their mouth. For every 20 Tweets they're shoving two McNuggets up their ass, The Rock says this. All you gotta do is sit back, know your role, shut your mouth, and enjoy the ride that The Rock is gonna take your candy asses on."

"So hashtag that. Hashtag shut your b**** asses up. Hashtag Cody Crybabies," Rock said. The Rock then added, "That's the fun part of what we do. That's wrestling. That's pro wrestling. That's WWE, and it's awesome, and I can't wait for this afternoon at T-Mobile."

What did you think of Rollins' comments on The Rock's slap to Rhodes? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!

WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins is busier than ever these days with everything happening on the road to WrestleMania, with the recent WrestleMania 40 press conference setting the tone for that journey in a huge way. Rollins also took part in some big projects outside of the ring as well over the past year, and that includes one of Marvel's more anticipated films Captain America: Brave New World. Recent reports have hinted that Rollins' role as a member of the Serpent Society might not end up making the Final Cut, but ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to Rollins right after the press conference and get an update on his role in the MCU.

Rollins couldn't give much in the way of details, but he is very excited about seeing what's to come. "I'm not allowed to say much, but I will say it's been an incredible experience so far and I'm very, very much looking forward to seeing what's to come," Rollins said.

Rollins opened up a bit more on the experience of working with Marvel during a recent episode of Last Meals, where he opened up about the experience and the opportunity to be part of such a cool crossover with host and Mythical Chef Josh Scherer.

Scherer brought up Captain America: Brave New World and asked what Rollins could say about the role. Rollins was still careful not to say too much. Rollins said, "Nope, can't do that! Can't tell you nothing about that (smiles). It was a really good experience and I think it's going to be pretty cool. I think our audience is going to love it. I think their audience is going to love it, so it was a cool crossover to be able to jump into some totally different skin and try a new thing out for me."

Rollins also talked about getting out of his comfort zone by jumping into the realm of acting. "I'm not comfortable...like, look, I'm 38. I've only been doing wrestling for 20 years. Only, nonstop. That's it. I worked in like crappy restaurants and a carwash when I was in my early 20s, and that's it," Rollins said. "Other than that all I've done is wrestling, so anytime I get out of my comfort zone I am nervous. I'm like I suck at this, I don't know what I'm doing, but I was in good hands and it was a really fun experience and I'm excited to see how it turns out."

At the moment, the most pressing thing on Rollins' mind is WrestleMania 40, and at the press conference, he ended up in a chaotic brawl that involved Roman Reigns, The Rock, and Cody Rhodes. He also took some shots at Reigns during the event, and in a recent interview on The Rich Eisen Show, Rollins took a few more shots at Reigns and his Championship (H/T WrestleZone).

"Well, look, Roman Reigns is working on his own schedule all, and in his mind, he thinks that makes the title bigger and maybe at a time, that was the truth," Rollins said. "But the problem is, Roman Reigns isn't present, which means his title isn't present, which means you don't have a crack at it, which means there's a glass ceiling, which means this the title that he holds isn't gonna be in every town, in every city. It's not there. It's the Hollywood title."

"It's as close to a prop, as you can call it and I don't want to demean it, because I've been the World Heavyweight Champion, that WWE Champion and when I was, I took it everywhere. I defended it all over the place. I made sure that it was present. I made sure that it was on Raw. It was on SmackDown. I made sure that other people had an opportunity at that title," Reigns said.

Are you excited to see Rollins in the MCU? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!

When Paul Atreides rides the Shai-Hulud in Dune, the massive sandworms that live on the planet Arrakis, it marks not only a thrilling sequence for fans to witness, but a significant moment in Paul's journey to embracing his destiny. Fans have caught glimpses of how the scene transpires in the upcoming Dune: Part Two with its marketing materials, with actor Timoth?e Chalamet recently recalling how intense it was to bring the sequence to life for the film, while also expressing the significance that this encounter plays in the overall plot. Dune: Part Two lands in theaters on March 1st.

"I was getting blasted with sand the whole time with a huge industrial fan. It was right in my face," Chalamet shared with ComicBook.com. "I think it's important that the stakes feel high there, and I think they are sincerely high. As Mother Mohiam would say, there's the potential that he's the one, it's not a definite thing, he still has so much to learn, she says in the first movie. That's why I love the introduction of [Austin Butler's] Feyd-Rautha's character, because we see it's not a pre-destination, it's not Neo from The Matrix. There's real mortal possibility here."

He added, "I loved shooting it. They built a little slab of the actual worm and the rest was superimposed. It was insane and controllably-uncontrollably violent, the rig."

To build even more excitement for the sequence, a full six-minute clip of the encounter has already been released online, though watching it ahead of the film's theatrical release likely won't have the same impact as witnessing it in a cinematic setting.

Dune: Part Two will explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

The big-screen epic Dune: Part Two includes Timoth?e Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and L?a Seydoux, with Stellan Skarsg?rd, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem. Denis Villeneuve directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts based on Frank Herbert's iconic novel.

Dune: Part Two will hit theaters on March 1st.

Are you looking forward to the sequel? Let us know in the comments!