Category: Worldwide

Well, folks, it looks like we’re going to have to wait a bit longer to see the dark fantasy world Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki and Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin have been cooking up for us: Elden Ring has officially been delayed. The good news is, as far as delays go this one should be a piece of cake to wait for — especially for anyone who followed Cyberpunk 2077 hellish development cycle. While Elden Ring was originally scheduled to release on January 21, 2022, the upcoming action RPG has been moved just about one month later to February 25. Developer FromSoftware announced the decision in a tweet shared from the official Elden Ring Twitter account earlier today, explaining the team has pushed the date because “the depth & strategic freedom of the game exceeded initial expectations,” thus requiring more time to perfect.

Following the announcement, FromSoftware was quick to soften the blow with the reveal of an upcoming “Closed Network Test” that takes place November 12-14 via PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. According to publisher Bandai Namco’s official site, “the network test is a preliminary verification test in which the selected testers play a portion of the game prior to the full game launch,” where “various technical verifications of online systems will be examined by conducting large-scale network load tests.” All interested players are encouraged to sign up for a chance to test the game out, with registration closing on November 1.

All this comes shortly following the gameplay of Elden Ring leaking on Twitter, showing off the game’s open world, HUD, and overall aesthetics. While we’re sure the upcoming title will have many of the qualities that make Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro such beloved titles, it’s worth pointing out just how much Elden Ring differs from its predecessors in how vast and open its world will be, with dungeons scattered throughout the realm and a map, compass, and waypoints to guide you. For those who aren’t able to get a look at the game during its network test, Elden Ring will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, and PC on February 25.

After Drake’s reluctance to allow his Degrassi character Jimmy to be paralyzed after an episode about a school shooting became public, his portrayal is now being praised by the leader of an organization dedicated to kids with mobility issues for helping normalize wheelchairs. Madeline Robinson, executive director of Wheelchair 4 Kids, told TMZ that Drake’s role — however reticent he initially was to play it — gave kids in wheelchairs confidence. “When was the last time you went to a mall and saw a kid in a wheelchair hanging out with other kids?” she wondered, saying it’s rare.

“It is great when we see our kids being represented,” Robinson asserted. That was the logic that the show’s producers used to get Drake on board with the character development when the actor threatened to quit after seeing the script, worried that it would have a negative effect on his then-nascent rap career. In AV Club’s oral history of Degrassi: The Next Generation, writer James Hurst recalled telling Drake, “Aubrey, there’s some kid somewhere in a wheelchair, who’s completely ignored, who’s never on television, never gets represented. I need you to represent this person. You’re the coolest kid on the show, and you can say there’s nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair.”

Drake is now arguably the biggest star in hip-hop, so it’s clear he’s surmounted his worries, however well-founded they may have been.

Women is Losers (HBO Max film) — If you loved Shang Chi and the Legend of the Seven Rings, then be sure to check out Simu Liu’s newest movie, which debuted at this year’s SXSW festival. This 1960s-set drama costars Lorenza Izzo and revolves around Izzo’s former Catholic schoolgirl, who attempts to rise beyond stereotypes and oppression and poverty and really, you know, go somewhere. If the title sounds familiar, that’s because the movie’s named after Janis Joplin’s song of the same name.

We’re Here (HBO, 9:00pm) — Nope, you’re not looking at a photo of Beyoncé. This ^^ would be the fabulous Shangela (of RuPaul’s Drag Race fame), who’s back with the rest of the Queens (including Bob and Eureka) in Spartanburg, South Carolina and Temecula, California after COVID interrupted the first round. In Season 2, the trio will continue to recruit small-town residents (in this case, that would be Noah, Faith, and Olin) and train them for onstage moments that they never dreamed possible.

9-1-1 (FOX, 8:00pm) — A man overexerts himself during a fitness quest, which leads to an awfully awkward rescue call, and they also find a groundskeeper whose daily chores have gone wrong.

Wakefield (Showtime, 9:00pm) — This miniseries follows a beloved and brilliant psychiatric nurse who’s caring for patients int he Blue Mountains of Australia. Her array of patients will also entertain as well as endear.

Ordinary Joe (NBC, 10:00pm) — It’s like Sliding Doors but with TV Prince James Wolk (Watchmen, Mad Men, Political Animals, Zoo) and no Gwyneth Paltrow. If that’s not enough to make you climb aboard, consider that Wolk not only plays a rock star (!) but two other Joes in parallel timelines. This week, the various Joes deal with Halloween and its many masks (and what they mean).

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Rep. Adam Schiff, Kacey Musgraves

In case you missed these weekend picks:

Halloween Kills (Universal movie on Peacock) — A horror blockbuster is here to spook you in your living rooms, y’all. Michael Myers survives that damn fire, which leads to a fully-had-it-up-to-here mindset of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, who’s mad as hell at firefighters and vowing that Michael Myers is going down. If it was a matter of wills and badassery, she could make it happen, but that’s not how things usually roll out in this franchise. Laurie may believe that she can (once again) presumably kill her brother and tormenter, but the bloodbath is only getting started. David Gordon Green directs again here, and he’ll be back for Halloween Ends, so good luck, Laurie.

You: Season 3 (Netflix series) — Nothing says (twisted) family bonding like two parents digging a grave for their murder victims while an infant sits in his car seat and does his best to amuse himself. Yikes. Fortunately for all of us, however, the show about Stalker Joe manages to sustain its gimmick and volley the nutso-factor into the stratosphere. It’s a lot like Mr. & Mrs. Smith but with serial killers. Joe (or “Will”) can’t give up his ways (including his roaming eyes), Love refuses to give up hers, and their sleepy little suburb is about to get rocked into oblivion.

In an announcement that probably no one saw coming, Hulu has picked up History of the World, Part II, a sequel series to the classic 1981 Mel Brooks film. Naturally, the legendary comedian will be a writer and executive producer on the new series, but he’ll also have some help from a sizable chunk of the team behind Netflix’s Big Mouth.

Nick Kroll, Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, David Stassen, and Kevin Salter will help Brooks bring the eight-episode sequel series to life. As of this writing, there is no information yet on which historical events the show will lampoon when it starts production in Spring 2022. Via Variety:

“History of the World, Part II” is described as a sequel to the 1981 film. The film was made up of segments set during different periods of world history. Among those was the Stone Age, Ancient Rome, and the French Revolution. Like most of Brooks’ work, it also featured musical numbers, including one about the Spanish Inquisition and, of course, “Jews in Space.”

In a follow-up statement, Brooks said, “I can’t wait to once more tell the real truth about all the phony baloney stories the world has been conned into believing are History!”

As for Kroll and the Big Mouth team, they recently dropped the trailer for Season 5, which premieres next month and looks freaking wild. There’s a puppet Christmas special, and a super jacked Kumail Nanjiani playing, well, a super jacked Kumail Nanjiani. (No word on the finger guns though.) Meanwhile, Barinholtz has been hard at work on his own separate series, Chicago Party Aunt, which has plenty of Big Mouth vibes itself. Brooks picked a good team is what we’re saying. And they seem pumped about it, too.

(Via Variety)

Nicki Minaj’s attorney has filed a motion to dismiss the complaint against her and her husband Kenneth Petty for failing to respond to the harassment case against them, according to Complex. Court documents filed last week address the motion filed by attorney Tyrone Blackburn on behalf of Jennifer Hough requesting a $20 million default judgment in Hough’s witness intimidation case against the couple. Hough sued the couple in August, saying they have been hounding her to recant her initial account of her alleged 1994 rape by Petty, for which he served a decade in prison.

Hough says that ever since Nicki Minaj and Kenneth Petty were married in 2019, the couple and their representatives have intimidated, bribed, and cajoled her to change her testimony in the hopes of getting Petty removed from the sex offenders registry. As he did not update his address and file as a sex offender when the couple moved to California in 2019, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release. Last week, The Daily Beast reported that Blackburn filed the request for a default judgment after the deadline to respond to the lawsuit passed.

Now, however, Minaj and Petty’s lawyer, Judd Burstein, has filed a motion to dismiss the new complaint, saying that the delay in responding was “not willful.” Instead, the defendants maintain, it was the result of an innocent mistake after a Zoom conversation on September 22 ended with the impression that Burstein had been retained. However, Nicki says she learned on October 15 that her manager “had not understood” that she approved the lawyer, prompting her to contact him and ensure his services.

“My failure to respond to the complaint was the product of an innocent mistake, and I ask the court to excuse the delay so that I can defend what I believe to be an entirely frivolous case which plaintiff’s counsel has brought against me in an effort to use my name to generate publicity for himself,” the new documents read. The docs also assert that Nicki was never served the initial lawsuit, claiming that the person the process server handed the documents to was never at the residence.

Back in 2013 (so many years ago), we learned that Christian Bale auditioned for Batman Begins while wearing Val Kilmer’s suit. As it turns out, that suit got a lot more use during the casting process for The Batman. The Bruce Wayne role eventually went to Robert Pattinson who’s got a new, tricked-out suit that matches Matt Reeves’ vision for RPattz’s gothed-out, goon-fighting version of the character. The new suit appears to carry a dark secret, but before the updates happened, yeah, Pattinson tested in Batman Forever mode. And it was an intense and sweaty affair.

Via ComicBook, Reeves revealed during DC Fandome that the Kilmer suit played its role in getting Pattinson into bat-mode, which is sort-of a shame because, hell, what a wasted opportunity to not pull out George Clooney’s bat-nipped costume just for fun, right? Actually, that probably would have spoiled the mood, and Pattinson had other issues on his mind:

“It was crazy. But I remember putting it on and thinking, ‘This is impossible. This is going to be absolutely impossible.’ I mean, wearing a kind of two-inch-thick rubber suit, or latex suit, and being incredibly nervous and full of adrenaline the whole time.

“I remember we did like two takes and people were just saying, ‘What can we do about the sweat?’ (laughs) They were like, ‘Nothing! Nothing that can be done.’ I had to be drained of liquid.”

That sounds about right for a guy who blew up a microwave while trying to get through quarantine. And the sweat helped him get into the mindset of wearing all the smudgy eye makeup, for sure. In any event, Kilmer wore that suit while going up against Jim Carrey’s Riddler, and Paul Dano’s putting a distinctly new spin on that character. No word on whether sweat was a big part of Dano’s prep as well, but hey, it couldn’t hurt.

The Batman arrives on March 4, 2022.

(Via Comic Book)

As the 6 p.m. ET contract extension deadline approached for the 2018 Draft class, many of the biggest names had already gotten taken care of, with Trae Young, Luka Doncic, Jaren Jackson Jr., Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Michael Porter Jr., and Mikal Bridges all getting extensions done this offseason.

However, one significant name is missing from that list, as the top overall pick, Suns center Deandre Ayton, entered Monday without a deal done and little in the way of positivity that something would get done. Ayton had expressed his frustration with the situation, as he thinks he’s done more than enough to justify being given the max that Young, Doncic, SGA, and MPJ have all gotten, coming off a Finals run where he was a key contributor in the middle.

Any hope that after the Bridges deal got done, the Suns would get serious about Ayton was snuffed out on Monday afternoon when ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that talks had ended with Phoenix refusing to put that max deal on the table.

It’s a disappointing way for the Suns to start the season given all of the positivity coming off of a Finals run where Ayton stepped up in a major way down the stretch and in the postseason. There’s still an incredibly high chance that he signs long-term this coming summer with the Suns matching what will likely be a max offer he gets from another team. However, it’s more about the messaging towards a young core piece, and what feels like a step back in terms of the culture they have worked so hard in building recently.

A mere two hours before doors opened to her show this past Friday at Berkeley’s open air Greek Theatre, Phoebe Bridgers sent a cryptic tweet to stoke the fire of the evening, writing, “get to the show early tonight trust me.”

So for the lucky folks in the sold out 8,500-capacity crowd who wised up and listened to Bridgers and indeed got there early, they were treated to a surprise opening set from her Boygenius bandmate, Julien Baker. Baker played a clean eight song set that was heavy on material from her 2016 breakthrough Sprained Ankle, including the title track, “Everybody Does,” “Blacktop,” “Good News,” and “Something.”

To close out Baker’s set, Bridgers joined her on stage for a cover of Loudon Wainwright III’s 1985 track “One Man Guy,” a song that also appeared on Rufus Wainwright’s (Loudon’s son) 2001 album Poses (which would explain why Bridgers told the crowd it was a Rufus song.)

The pair did not stop there with the surprises however, as Baker joined Bridgers for HER set too. Playing guitar on “Graceland Too” and “I Know The End” (the closing tracks from Bridgers’ 2020 album Punisher.) You can watch that performance in the video clip below.

Bridgers, who performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last week, has three remaining appearances in 2021: At the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on 10/21 and 10/22 and at Atlanta’s Shaky Knees festival on October 24.

Coldplay’s partnership with K-pop titans BTS has been particularly fruitful. Earlier this month, “My Universe” became Coldplay’s first No. 1 song in well over a decade. Now, they’re keeping the Music Of The Spheres single alive with a new version of the track, remixed by BTS’ Suga.

The “Suga’s Remix” version of the song maintains a lot of elements of the original track, but there are some key changes. The song’s hook takes on a more danceable new rhythm, while the verses are more subdued in nature. While the original track is Coldplay at their most pop, the Suga remix brings it even further into pop territory.

Coldplay says of the remix, “We’re so grateful to SUGA for this glorious remix. A BRILLIANT producer on top of everything else.” Suga also noted, “I’m thrilled to be able to work together with Coldplay, who I’ve admired since I was a kid, and honored to be a part of this remix.”

Meanwhile, Chris Martin recently noted that Music Of The Spheres, the band’s ninth album, could be one of their final LPs.

Listen to “My Universe (Suga’s Remix)” above and check out our review of Music Of The Spheres here.

Coldplay is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

While Eternals is right on schedule for its November 5 release date and the next entry in the Spider-Man series is still swinging into theaters on December 17, just about every other Marvel movie has officially gotten a somewhat substantial delay, starting with Doctor Strange in the Mulitverse of Madness. While the sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange was originally scheduled to premiere March 25, 2022, the film has been pushed back to May 6. As a result, every subsequent Marvel movie is also being pushed back, with Thor: Love and Thunder moving from May 6 to July 8, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever moving from July 8 to November 11, The Marvels moving from November 11 to February 17, 2023, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania moving from February 17, 2023 to July 28, 2023.

According to Deadline, the drastic shift has “nothing to do with a change in distribution strategy for these films” nor are ” Disney execs immediately concerned about the future of the global marketplace.” Instead, Deadline reports, it’s all “on account of a domino effect going on with production and filmmakers,” as “some titles are contending with finishing scenarios while others are in production.”

While it’s a bummer to have to wait a bit longer to find out what happens next in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some fans have been quick to look at the bright-side of the whole ordeal. For example, the only other movie opening against Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 6 is now Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, which I feel we can safely say won’t lead to too much competition. In addition, no other big blockbusters films are currently slated to go up against Thor: Love & Thunder on its new date of July 8. While Black Panther: Wakanda Forever does hit pretty close to DC’s The Flash, there’s at least a week of space between the two, meaning you won’t have to pick which film to see (or hurt your wallet seeing both in the same weeekend) when the time comes.

In addition to all these MCU titles, the next entry in the Indiana Jones series has also been extremely delayed, shifting from July 29, 2022 to June 30, 2023. As of right now, it’s not believed the push-backs are causing any changes in the production of the films, so it seems safe to say you can expect the exact same films, just a bit later.