Portlandia co-creator Jonathan Krisel is in negotiations to direct the Pokemon Detective Pikachu live-action sequel, according to Deadline. Former Late Show with Dave Letterman and The Kings of Summer writer Chris Galletta will handle the script for the follow-up to the 2019 box office hit.

The first Detective Pikachu starred Ryan Reynolds as the voice of the Pokemon mascot and Justice Smith, who can soon be seen in the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons movie. The film grossed more than $430 million at the global box office. It's unconfirmed at this time, but it is assumed that Reynolds will have some part to play in the upcoming sequel as his human character, Harry, returned back to his body after it was fused with Pikachu.

Over almost 30 years, Pokemon has become one of the most successful franchises and properties in the world. With more than 440 million video games sold worldwide, tens of billions of Pokemon cards shipped, and an animated series broadcasting in 177 countries, spanning 25 seasons--with a brand-new series on the way.

It's the first weekend of Destiny 2's Lightfall era, and while much has changed in the sci-fi sandbox this week, a visit from everyone's favorite intergalactic arms dealer is one tradition that remains intact. Xur usually has a fine selection of Exotic gear to sell and Legendary-class extras that you can purchase for your collection. Here's where you can find Xur this weekend and what the Agent of the Nine has for sale.

This week you can find Xur in the EDZ, in the Winding Cove. For his weapon, Xur is offering Trinity Ghoul. Hunters can pick up the Knucklehead Radar helmet; Titans can grab Synthoceps gauntlets; and for Warlocks, Xur has the Claws of Ahamkara gauntlets.

Spawn in at the Winding Cove transmat zone, then hop on your sparrow and go north. Take the collapsed overpass on the left and look for a cave near the bend in the road. Follow the tunnel through the cliff face to reach a higher ridge where a Fallen dropship has crashed; you'll find Xur waiting there.

If you've ever wondered why so many mythical and monstrous beings call Dracula's castle their home in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, you're not alone. In fact, that line of thought is precisely what led to the creation of The Deep End Games' newest steamy action game, Romancelvania.

In an exclusive dev diary, creative director Bill Gardner, narrative director Amanda Gardner, and producer Lindsay Gardner discuss how playing Symphony of the Night and encountering creatures like the Salem Witch and Frankenstein inspired them to come up with a reason as to why they lived under Dracula's roof. The team then shares how this led to them offering up their own light-hearted and spicy take on the situation, and creating Romancelvania.

"We wanted to create a game that was fun and quirky and gothic and spooky," Lindsay said. "I think the world needs some fun, the world needs some kookiness."

The Saw franchise will never die. These movies are just too cheap to make and too strangely compelling to let go. The two attempts to reboot the series after Saw: The Final Chapter didn't quite manage to tap into what made the franchise interesting, sadly, but Saw X has the potential to bring everything back together. But there are many big ifs involved.

Saw X is currently scheduled for release on October 27, 2023, just in time for Halloween this year.

Not yet, but they've completed filming and so a trailer could drop tomorrow. But it's more likely that we won't get our first real look at Saw X until much closer to its release date.

While it certainly doesn't have anywhere near the cultural cachet of Marvel or Star Wars, the live-action Transformers franchise has been plugging along for more than 15 years, printing money for Paramount. This year, we're getting the seventh such movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

It's not the first time this series has delved into Beast Wars territory--Transformers: Age of Extinction featured a subplot involving Dinobots--but this will be the first proper dedicated live-action Beast Wars movie. So I hope you're ready to see some very large robot animals beating the crap out of each other, because that's what you're gonna get from Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts releases in theaters on June 9, 2023.

A Massachusetts town is spending $20,000 in funds from a COVID-19 relief program to give some of its manhole covers a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles makeover.

The Western Mass. city of Northampton is providing the funds to the Northampton Vibrance Committee to design and create four manhole covers based on the TMNT series. Northampton received $4 million from the COVID stimulus initiative called the American Rescue Plan, according to local news affiliate WCVB.

Why is this happening in Northampton? That's where Mirage Studios, the original creators of the TMNT comic book series, called home for a period of time.

HBO's post-apocalyptic series The Last of Us has set a new viewership milestone. According to Nielsen data shared with Deadline, the series reached its first billion-minute week on HBO Max.

The Last of Us reached 1.2 billion minutes streamed from January 30-February 5. Of note, Nielsen's streaming data only counts HBO Max streams in the US, not numbers from HBO's linear TV channel or other sources.

While HBO was quick to boast about The Last of Us viewership numbers for episodes 1-4, the network stopped sharing numbers since then, presumably because they don't look as good. It's been reported that Episode 5 was the first to see a week-over-week decline in viewers. That could be because the episode clashed with the Super Bowl. It did stream two days early on HBO Max, however.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty's PC port is seemingly suffering from some performance issues, according to its Steam reviews.

Team Ninja's latest game officially launched today across PC and consoles, a dark fantasy action RPG similar to the developer's previous titles like Nioh. However, the game isn't being received too well so far on PC (via Polygon) with players pointing out various problems from performance, constant crashing, and bugs.

Wo Long currently has an overall "mostly negative" review label according to the game's Steam page, and out of 3,339 total reviews, over 2,850 are negative. The main complaint focuses on technical issues, with one popular review reading, "A good game buried beneath the biggest catastrophe of a PC port that I have ever seen. The game runs poorly for how it looks, but the biggest issue are the controls."

Destiny 2's new Lightfall expansion has introduced several new Exotic weapons to the game, including a deadly sidearm that might be a little too good for PvP. Final Warning, a Strand-energy sidearm, is currently proving to be a menace in the Crucible, as evidenced by videos doing the rounds on social media:

The new Strand sidearm Final Warning is absolutely CRACKED in PvP! | #Destiny2 pic.twitter.com/RZb9qMvMG5

What makes Final Warning so effective is that this weapon can fire rounds that aggressively track targets. For its All at Once perk, holding down the trigger marks targets within your range and loads multiple bullets, which fire in a burst with increased stability when you release the trigger. If these rounds hit a target, it'll apply a high-damage unraveling effect to them.

The gun gets even better with its other perk, Pick your Poison. This is what allows for bullets to track targets when you hip-fire the sidearm, and these rounds deal increased body shot damage on impact. If you prefer to aim, projectiles will have greatly increased velocity and deal extra critical hit damage to marked targets. With the right loadout and fireteam backing you up, Final Warning currently has devastating potential in PvP.

The third and latest installment of the Creed film series earned a strong $5.5 million in previews, including from Thursday night shows and sneak screenings earlier in the week, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

The Michael B. Jordan-helmed film is now pacing to open with an impressive $40 million domestically, with no clear competition, Creed III could easily take the weekend box office's top slot.

Back in 2015, the first Creed film, directed by pre-Black Panther Ryan Coogler, punched its way to a $42.1 million domestic opening weekend over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday. That total includes $29 million for the three-day weekend. The Steven Caple, Jr.-directed sequel opened over Thanksgiving three years later, grossing around $56 million over five days, finishing second at the box office and marking the best Thanksgiving opening for a live-action film, topping Disney's Enchanted ($49.1 million) and Four Christmases ($46.1 million).

Director Steven Spielberg is known for, among other things, movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and War of the Worlds, and the man himself is a believer that aliens are out there.

Speaking to Stephen Colbert, Spielberg said the recent government disclosures about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are "fascinating" and he wants to know more.

"I think what has been coming out recently is fascinating, just absolutely fascinating. I think the secrecy that is shrouding all of these sightings, the lack of transparency until the Freedom of Information Act compels certain materials to be released publicly, I think there is something going on that simply needs extraordinary due diligence," he said. "I don't believe we are alone in the universe. I think it is mathematically impossible that we are the only intelligence species in the cosmos."

The Wii U might be remembered as one of Nintendo's least successful consoles ever, but it had a number of great games that you can still play today. Well, maybe not literally today, as Nintendo recently announced that Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon were taken offline due to "a vulnerability related to online play." No timeline was given for their return.

Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon were two of the most successful games for the Wii U, being the first- and sixth-best-selling games for the console respectively. Mario Kart 8 has sold 8.46 million copies as of late 2022, while Splatoon has sold 4.95 million copies. Super Mario Maker, another hit online game for the console, was shut down permanently in early 2021.

This shutdown is particularly notable because the Wii U remains the only way to play the original Splatoon, arguably one of Nintendo's most innovative games of the past decade. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe remains online on Switch, so we recommend checking that out if you need your Mario Kart 8 fix immediately.

The original Dead Space is a solid reminder about the value of brown pants, but if you're looking to have an even more stressful time in this classic survival-horror game, then this first-person mod is what you've been looking for. Naturally only available on PC for the 2008 game, the first-person mod designed by Reverse Engineering Gamer shifts the perspective to a more in-your-face angle and is the end result of several months of hard work by its creator.

"The core of this mod took a little over five days to create," Reverse Engineering wrote on their Nexus Mods page (via Eurogamer). "The fine-tuning of this mod is what took several months; to locate functions, compare variables, stabilize pointers, write bug-free scripts, play-test. Although initially started out of curiosity as to see what else I can do other than create a free cam and player fly mod for Dead Space, this quickly grew into a first-person mod project."

A first-person view does heighten the tension of the classic game, although it does so at the expense of vital visual information. You won't be able to see how much health you have left on protagonist Isaac Clarke's handy spinal gauge and you'll have to listen carefully for any Necromorphs hunting you from beyond your peripheral vision.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie releases in theaters next month, and as such, the animated film's marketing machine is revving up. Jack Black, who plays Bowser in the film, appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show this week dressed in costume, and, well, his performance was overshadowed by the actor's testicles and what NBC did to try to hide them from viewers.

As part of a stunt, Black ran out on stage in costume as Bowser, and during his entrance, his bean bags were flopping around enough inside his tight yellow onesie to prompt NBC to censor them. Really. This probably happened out of an abundance of caution on NBC's part.

Presumably NBC could have been fined if Black's coin purse was actually exposed to the audience. There is also the matter of how The Super Mario Bros. Movie is very much a family film, and showing Black's privates, even the outline of them, is probably something best to be avoided. Here's the video in all its glory(?).

The Jumbotron will find Liam Neeson if he's in attendance at a sporting event. And that's exactly what happened at Madison Square Garden as the celebrated actor watched the Ottawa Senators against the New York Rangers. What's unique here, though, is that Neeson decided to have some fun in recreating his Taken character, Bryan Mills, for a bit.

ESPN senior NHL writer Greg Wyshynski shared on Twitter a clip of the Jumbotron playing the iconic scene from Taken where Mills says: "I will find you, and I will kill you." The big-screen then switched to Neeson sitting in his seat. He has his phone to his ear and a scowl, re-enacting the sequence.

Always the best when Liam Neeson gets MSG Jumbotron time. @NYRangers pic.twitter.com/v2SX9QgkW7

Neeson ends with a big smile, obviously having fun playing up the Taken angle. The first film premiered in 2008 and was followed by two sequels. There was also a Taken TV series that lasted for two seasons beginning in 2017. It didn't feature Neeson, instead recasting a younger actor as Mills (Clive Standen) to focus on his origins.

Elden Ring's sprawling and hauntingly beautiful world is easily one of the most well-realized settings we've seen in an open-world game. If you spent dozens of hours in the Lands Between, you already know it's the type of video-game world that you want to stop and admire. As such, it makes sense that Elden Ring's world will soon fill the pages of an official art book. The two-volume set is available to preorder now at Amazon ahead of its July 25 release.

Each volume is being sold individually with an MSRP of $60. Right now, Amazon is selling preorders for $54 each. It's worth noting that art books often receive even steeper discounts closer to release. If you order now, you'll get the lowest price offered until your order ships. We wouldn't be surprised to see preorders sell out, so Elden Ring fans may want to secure their preorders soon.

Together, the two-volume set eclipses 800 pages. The hardcover books feature unique cover art and were translated from Japanese to English.

As a part of Nintendo's recent move to bring its more iconic Game Boy and Game Boy Advance titles to its subscription service, Nintendo Switch Online, the company has announced a port of Metroid Fusion is on the way. The classic Game Boy Advance title will be available for all subscribers starting Thursday, March 9.

Originally released in 2002, Metroid Fusion follows the iconic bounty hunter Samus Aran as she explores the surface of planet SR388 in search of parasitic organisms referred to as X. The 2D action game is commonly regarded as one of the best entries in the Metroid series. In GameSpot's review of Metroid Fusion, we stated its "extremely responsive controls, terrific graphics, and great audio make Fusion easily one of the best action games for the Game Boy Advance."

Metroid Fusion's surprise announcement comes hot on the heels of Metroid Prime Remake's reveal last month. And, considering Metroid Dread is also a fairly recent entry in the Metroid series, we're crossing our fingers all this means the long-awaited Metroid Prime 4 is coming sooner rather than later. Announced back in 2017, the fourth entry in the series has been in and out of development repeatedly over the course of the last six years. However, development on the game restarted in 2019 after producer Kensuke Tanabe, who also served in this role on the first three games and Metroid Prime: Hunters, decided to return to the series.

Japanese publisher Capcom has announced a games showcase, and it's coming up soon. The publisher will host its own dedicated event during the afternoon of Thursday, March 9. The showcase will run for approximately 26 minutes and Capcom will deliver "updates and new information about upcoming games."

Viewers can expect updates on a range of upcoming Capcom games, including the Resident Evil 4 Remake, Exoprimal, and the remaster of Ghost Trick. Also on tap are updates for the Xbox and PlayStation version of Monster Hunter Rise and some news about Mega Man: Battle Network Legacy Collection.

The Capcom showcase begins March 9 at 2:30 PM PT / 5:30 PM ET. GameSpot will report back with all the major news, trailers, and other information from the event as it's announced.

If you've been walking around the Tower in Destiny 2 recently, you may have noticed a few guardians emitting a golden glow. No, your game was not glitching out. It turns out that Bungie has introduced a new way to show love to players rising through the ranks of Destiny 2's new Guardian Rank system.

Complete your objectives, participate in your rank-up ceremonies, and become bathed in gold, to be celebrated by your friends and random guardians alike. https://t.co/Pe96MxggFW

According to Ben Platnick, a VFX artist at Bungie, players who complete all of the objectives listed under their next rank and take part in "rank-up ceremonies" glow golden for an undetermined amount of time so players can celebrate them. The effect is similar to the halo that used to sit above players heads when they completed Nightfalls before it was removed.

Currently, it's unclear if this golden effect happens every time players rank up or for specific ranks.

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses made huge changes--some to survive, some to earn consumer goodwill. Streaming services went in big on features that would let people watch movies and TV shows together. Now, as Netflix prepares for a big crackdown on password sharing, Movies Anywhere is pulling back on is sharing options as well, the company announced.

If you're someone who still buys their movies on disc, you probably know what Movies Anywhere is. The codes for digital movies that come packed in with each of those discs are generally for Movies Anywhere--a way for studios to keep physical movie releases relevant in an increasingly online world. One of the coolest features of Movies Anywhere has been Screen Pass, which lets a Movies Anywhere user share up to three movie passes per month without having to share login info. That feature, however, is going away.

"As the experience continues to evolve, we want to notify you that effective May 1 users will no longer be able to use the Screen Pass feature to send a Screen Pass," the announcement says. "For Screen Passes sent prior to May 1, recipients will still be able to accept and finish watching the movie before their passes expire. As of June 1, the Screen Pass feature will no longer be supported."