Another wicked cool cyber punk short film to watch. Lost Boy is the latest project from PostPanic Pictures, an Amsterdam-based production company (also behind the sci-fi short film Sundays). The film is a pitch for a feature sci-fi project from directors Anthony Scott Burns and Ash Thorp, and introduces us to a dark, gritty, barren world. Inspired by American action classics and Japanese samurai films, this has a true cyber punk design aesthetic, and looks damn good for a short film made on a limited budget. I really dig the world design and the costumes, though there’s not much of a story here but hopefully that is something they’re working on for the feature. The vehicle that shows up at the end is probably the coolest part. Check this out. ›››
“Don’t regret the things you do, just the things you don’t.” Magnet Releasing has unveiled an official trailer for a gritty crime thriller titled Detour, a neo-noir from filmmaker Christopher Smith (of Creep, Triangle, Black Death). The fantastic young cast in this is lead by Tye Sheridan (seen in Mud, X-Men: Apocalypse), Emory Cohen (seen in Brooklyn, The Place Beyond the Pines) and Bel Powley (seen in The Diary of a Teenage Girl). The film involves Sheridan playing a young law student named Harper, who meets a grifter and his companion who get him into all kinds of trouble. Also featuring Stephen Moyer, John Lynch, Jared Abrahamson and Gbenga Akinnagbe. The most interesting aspect is the split-screen narrative, which seems like a unique twist but you’ll have to see the film to find out how exactly it plays into the story. ›››
“Guess you’re gunna have to stop the wedding.” eOne in Canada has unveiled the first official trailer for an indie romance titled Lovesick, about a 30-something guy dealing with problems with his love life. Jacob Tierney stars as Dash, the guy at the center, who still has a thing for his ex-girlfriend, played by Quebecois actress Jessica Paré. Along the way he meets a new girl, of course, named Nora played by Ali Tataryn. The cast also includes Jay Baruchel, Rebecca Gibson and Adam Brooks. This looks charming and has some nice moments, but the story seems so typical – from one beautiful girl to the next, what is a guy to do? ›››
Blizzard Entertainment has canceled the Overwatch graphic novel,First Strike, the developer announced in a blog post. Explaining the cancellation, Blizzard’s Michael Chu said, “We’ve ultimately decided to take the story in a different direction.”
“The original idea for the graphic novel dates back to the early days of the game’s development and came from our desire to tell the story of the founding of Overwatch during the Omnic Crisis,” he added. “In the years since First Strike‘s conception, we have done a lot of development on the universe and its stories. While the core of this story remains, we have changed and expanded upon how we see the events that took place during the first days of Overwatch.”
Chu teased that Blizzard plans to eventually tell the story of the early adventures of Overwatch’s main characters–but that’ll have to wait for “another day.”
“I’d like to thank everyone for the enthusiasm, passion, and support you’ve shown towards the Overwatch universe,” Chu added. “We have a number of stories in development that will delve deeper into the world and its heroes, and we can’t wait to share them with you in the coming months.”
Announced in July, First Strike was scheduled to come out in November 2016. It was described as a “brand-new entry in the Overwatch canon” and “will contain 100 pages of sequential artwork telling the story of the original Overwatch strike team.” It was going to be written by Micky Neilson and penciled by Ludo Lullabi.
Star Citizen has been in development for a long, long time now, as the original Kickstarter campaign began in October 2012. Pieces of the game have been released, but the full thing isn’t out yet. The game has grown in scope over the years, so the initial target release dates have come and gone. In a frank and candid blog post today, director Chris Roberts announced a major change for how the studio will communicate release dates, namely that the studio will share “target” dates that could change.
“Whether or not to share this kind of information has been a long running debate among the team here at Cloud Imperium Games,” Roberts said. “Target dates are not release dates, and everything you see will shift at some point, sometimes slightly and sometimes wildly. The danger in doing this has always been that casual observers will not understand this, that there will be an outcry about delays every time we update the page.
“We’ve taken stock, thought through everything and decided that, while that is a risk, above all we trust the community that has given us so much support,” he added. “The community that has let us focus our passions on this incredible project. You have allowed us to take this journey, you have tracked and followed so much of how game development works… and now we think it is right to further part the curtain and share with you our production process.”
Beginning with Star Citizen Alpha 2.6, Cloud Imperium will share its internal development schedule on a weekly basis. “These are the very same schedules we update daily and are circulated internally on our intra-studio hand-offs with a few exceptions: the individual developer names assigned to the tasks will be omitted (for obvious reasons), we’ll remove the JIRA details and we’ll modify the technical wording to make it readable for a wider audience, but otherwise, when something changes, slips or is completed, you will know,” Roberts went on to say.
Here is a sample of what the production chart will look like:
This schedule will be permanently posted on the Roberts Space Industries website; additionally, the developer will provide updates every week with a new “snapshot” of its internal schedule.
“We take the process of production very seriously and spend a lot of time on improving our ability in this area,” Roberts added. “Our worldwide Production Team is twenty-five strong and they are the backbone that drives our development forward. They work closely with developers to break down and create tasks, chase up task completion daily, update their respective team’s schedules, encourage and strengthen open communication by organizing meetings, agendas, and creating action items to help push the project forward day by day. The Production Team has many collective years with some of the biggest developers, publishers and games. They are like the rest of the CIG team, world class.”
Also in the blog post, Roberts spoke about how the studio has “take a lot of flak” over the years for pushing Star Citizen’s timeline further into the future.
“But the simple fact is that game development, especially game development on the scale of Star Citizen, is complicated. If you talk to any developer that works on large titles they will tell you that schedules, especially early in the development cycle, move all the time,” he said. “Most people never see this because a publisher won’t announce a project publicly until it is very far along; normally at least in Alpha, with all the technology and gameplay R&D completed. Even then, the timelines can be unpredictable as can be seen in the delays on big name titles from publishers.”
“Open development does have its drawbacks,” he added. “Not everyone understands the process or how difficult it can be. We have always tried to be open and share our progress. We refactored Around the Verse to focus more on developers showing and talking about their work to help give insight into the process. Our monthly reports have more information than any monthly report I had to do for Electronic Arts or Microsoft when at Origin or Digital Anvil.”
A report earlier this month named Leitch as the frontrunner to direct Deadpool 2, though at the time it was said that others were being considered as well. Variety reported today to confirm that Leitch has been officially named the director for the sequel.
Though Miller, who was instrumental in helping bring the massively successful Deadpool to theaters has dropped out of the sequel, original writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Rheese are still on board.
Commenting on Miller’s exit from the sequel, Reynolds said earlier this month, “All I can really add is that I’m sad to see him off the film. Tim’s brilliant and nobody worked harder on Deadpool than he did.”
Released in February, the R-rated Deadpool was a smash hit. It made $782 million at the worldwide box office against a budget of $58 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
The NPD Group this week announced what games sold the best in the US during October, confirming that Battlefield 1 led the way. Here’s the full list. Any surprises?
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick shared some new insight into Red Dead Redemption 2 this week. He said, “I think the times are right for a big, sprawling, optimistic view of America again.” The executive added the game will have “great story elements and great gameplay elements.” [Full story]
Atlus announced another delay for Persona 5 this week. The PS4 and PS3 game won’t make it out in February as planned, but is now slated for April. [Full story]
THE OTHER STUFF:
Rainbow Six Siege’s new DLC map is the focus of this new in-depth trailer in which developers talk about Red Crow Operation. Take a look:
A man faced trial this week in a case where it’s claimed he defrauded EA out of millions of dollars using FIFA. Get the full story here at Kotaku.
Developer Netmarble Games this week announced Star Wars Force Arena, a real-time PvP game set in the Star Wars franchise. It’s a free-to-play game that will feature more than 65 “iconic” characters, vehicles, and units. You can read more about the game here on its website.
Would you vote for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for president? You might be doing just that in 2020, as the world’s highest-paid actor said this week that he hasn’t ruled out a bid for the office. Get the full story here at Vanity Fair.
What if FIFA glitches happened in real life? That’s the premise of this silly video.
Polyphony Digital has shared new insight on the improvements that GT Sport players can expect on PS4 Pro and PlayStation VR. Get all the details here at the PlayStation Blog.
Is Disney going to buy Netflix? That’s what’s claimed in a new report going around this week. That would surely be something. Read this report to find out more about what’s going on.
The newest episode in Rare’s ongoing Sea of Thieves video has been published. This latest video focuses on the Xbox One and PC game’s island–looks pretty cool!
Streaming site Hulu this week announced everything coming to and leaving the service for December 2016–get the full rundown here on Hulu’s blog.
Ever want to see someone play a video game with a microwave? You’re in luck, as Rudeism is back with his newest video where he plays Overwatch with a microwave. Watch the video at Polygon.
This new IMAX/Transformers video contains some new footage of next summer’s Transformers: The Last Knight. Check it out:
Each week we search and gather up the coolest comic book art you won’t see in actual comics. The reason you won’t is because professional artists often draw sketches for fun or commissions and post them on their websites, blogs, and Tumblrs. Some artists even arrange commissions through their sites so be sure to check them out. This is a way to see the artists working on one book draw characters from other comics or publishers.
We have a different format for the Mystery Art Challenge. This time, the artist draw from two separate hats to determine the character and random object they’ll be drawing. Agnes Garbowska had to draw Han Solo and a video game controller.
Stay tuned for more of these.
Todd Nauck posted a Kitty Pryde commission on his Tumblr.
Kris Anka posted commissions from Thought Bubble 2016 on his Tumblr.
Michael Walsh posted recent commissions on his Instagram.
Marcio Takara posted some commissions on his Tumblr.
Chrissie Zullo posted a Harley Quinn commission on her Facebook page.
Fallout 4 update 1.8 went live yesterday, bringing with it the long-awaited ability for PlayStation 4 players to use mods. Nearly 200 game tweaks are now live for the PS4, and many of them actually work. It’s a process, really.
“I haven’t felt that magic has ever let me down.” I’ve always been a fan of magic since I was a kid, and I love going to shows, even still as an adult. Magicians: Life in the Impossible is a documentary about the lives of professional magicians, and how hard it is and how dedicated they have to be. We’ve seen quite a few movies about magicians recently (between Now You See Me and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone) but it’s nice to actually see a story about the real people, the real men and women who make us all believe in magic. One could say this doc almost looks like Hoop Dreams for magicians, following four different performers as they try to establish themselves in the entertainment industry. Fellow magic lover Peter from SlashFilm says this doc is worth watching and it’s already out on VOD, so give this a look and let us know what you think. ›››
