Franchises

Image via Lucasfilm Arguably the biggest series on the face of the planet, even some 40 years after its first film was released, Star Wars is absolutely everywhere. The tendrils of the dark side and the light have spread across to television, comic books, radio, and of course video games. The first ever Star Wars videogame was Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, released in 1982 for the Atari 2600 just as gaming began to take off ever-so-slightly for home markets and away from arcades. Undoubtedly clunky…

Images via Universal Pictures - YouTube/Looper A theory can come from out of nowhere and many times they are simply too far-fetched to take seriously, but once in a while there’s a theory that makes everyone scratch their heads. That’s what’s happening when a horror fan who said they were joking about Alien and The Thing threw out a theory on Reddit that actually works. Alien is a movie that came out in 1979 starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright, and Harry Dean Stanton and was…

Phillip Faraone/Getty Images There’s been countless iterations of the infamous consulting detective that is Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle conceived the character in in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels. In recent years, Benedict Cumberbatch and Henry Cavill’s renditions have ranked among the greatest portrayals ever, but that’s not discounting the unforgettable Basil Rathbone (of the late 1930s) or Jeremy Brett (of the ’80s and ’90s). What with BBC’s Sherlock taking off without a…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeWhether we want it or not, we’re getting more Lord of the Rings. The press release that announced it read like the work of a cyborg. “The opportunity to invite fans deeper into the cinematic world of Middle-earth is an honour,” whirred the Warner Bros chatbot. “We are excited to partner with Middle-earth Enterprises and Embracer on this adventure.” The dull, unenthused syntax felt…

Image via Marvel Studios After a record-breaking long gap between its theatrical release and its streaming premiere, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has now finally made its Disney Plus debut. While you’d think that would be nothing but a cause for celebration for Marvel fans everywhere, unfortunately the acclaimed awards magnet being easier to watch than ever before has only increased criticism of the film, from its frustratingly murky lightning to lingering resentment over one of the franchise’s biggest…

EA and FIFA set to part ways Electronic Arts announced its financial earnings for its third quarter of the fiscal year, revealing that the latest, and last, entry in its long-running FIFA franchise, FIFA 23, is on track to be the best-selling release in the franchise’s entire history. Speaking in a conference call, transcribed by VGC, EA CEO Andrew Wilson noted that North American sales of the football sim are up a huge 50% on last year’s release, and as such the title is “pacing to be the biggest title in franchise…

Just because a movie has the ability to make money doesn’t always mean it’s going to win Best Picture at the Oscars, and for the horror genre — that’s quite alright. Scary movies exist to make us scream, shout, throw our popcorn, and rake in a decent chunk of change in the process. It’s a winning formula if we’ve ever seen one. In recent memory, no horror franchise has been better at doing just that than The Purge. We’ll admit, the first movie definitely had its moments, but as the years have gone on audiences…

Photo via Marvel Studios The number of milestones one could pick out among the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s wealth of titles is nothing short of impressive. The first big team-up in the original Avengers film, the beginning of one of Spider-Man’s greatest ever origin stories in Homecoming, and the claim of owning the masterclass in peaking the internet’s ability to react in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. As for what takes the crown as the franchise’s best ever project, that will be a debate that could possibly…

EA has restored a limited number of Madden 23 cloud saves that were corrupted in December but confirmed that others are completely lost and unrecoverable.Since Madden 23 launched in August last year, many players have reported issues with the game's Franchise mode while others have lost saved data due to the faulty cloud services. Some players were locked out of the leagues because of this problem and although a fix arrived on December 15, another issue appeared days later. This bug made it so an unknown…

British actor Harry Melling is probably best known for his role as Harry’s spoiled and mean-spirited cousin Dudley Dursley in all Harry Potter films. However, suppose you’ve seen his movie on the 2023 movie schedule, The Pale Blue Eye, where he plays a fictionalized version of Edgar Allan Poe, In that case, the actor is barely recognizable. You can barely tell he's the guy who played Dudley all those years ago. According to the actor (now 33), he prefers not to be as identifiable as his fellow Wizarding World costars.…