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Ron DeSantis hasn’t even formally launched his 2024 presidential campaign yet, but it’s already clear how he would rule if he won. As governor of Florida, he’s sung the glories of freedom all while punishing those he hates. So when word that a Republican state legislator proposed a chilling bill that would require bloggers writing about elected state officials to register with the state, it didn’t seem far-fetched to imagine DeSantis himself supporting it. Alas, it’s so extreme that it’s being met with pushback from such progressive figures as…Newt Gingrich…and even Meatball Ron.

Let’s start with the former Speaker of the House and GOP boogeyman of the Clinton era. Gingrich — a man so principled he divorced his first wife when she had cancer and left his second after she’d been diagnosed with MS — was not only appalled at the authoritarian idea of restricting a free press, but also that a Republican in the year 2023 could dream it up.

“The idea that bloggers criticizing a politician should register with the government is insane. it is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced a bill to that effect,” Gingrich tweeted. “He should withdraw it immediately.”

It’s a pretty insane bill, even for a guy who openly complained about how easy it was for Georgians to vote. As proposed by one Jason Brodeur, it would require any bloggers covering state officials to register with “the appropriate office” five days after their first post. But that’s just the start. They’d have to file monthly reports if they continue to blog about them. Failure to file reports could lead to $2,500 fines per story — well above what anyone’s being paid per blog.

Given DeSantis’ open hostility towards the free press — and his silence when the bill was proposed — it was assumed that it had his tacit approval. And yet, miraculously, it does not. As per Mediaite, DeSantis belatedly distanced himself from the bill during a press briefing on Tuesday.

“There’s articles with my face on the article, saying that ‘Oh, they’re going to have to, bloggers are going to have to register for the state’ and it’s like attributing it [the bill] to me,” DeSantis. “That’s not anything that I’ve ever supported, I don’t support [it].”

Or at least he doesn’t support it now. DeSantis is MAGA Republican lawmaker, whereas Gingrich hails from a very different and very bygone version of the GOP, when there was at least a modicum of respect for journalists and their rights. Maybe DeSantis will change his tune.

(Via Vanity Fair and Mediaite)

One of the biggest festivals of the year is HARD, a long-running festival that began in 2007 to highlight alternative and electronic acts and has been running ever since. This year, though, it’s making some big changes, moving to a new venue in Los Angeles and continuing to expand its horizons, adding hip-hop acts such as 21 Savage and Kid Cudi as special guests after bringing in Megan Thee Stallion and Lil Uzi Vert last year.

HARD Summer 2023 returns to Los Angeles, the festival’s birthplace, for the first time in 10 years on August 5 and 6, leaving behind the San Bernardino NOS Event Center for the Exposition Park area near downtown, which includes both the Coliseum and BMO Stadium (formerly the Banc Of California Stadium).

And although there are some other rap names on this year’s lineup, including Fat Joe and Ludacris, HARD’s keeping things mostly the same, with headliners Kaskade and Skrillex joining a lineup that includes standouts such as Four Tet, Diplo, Black Coffee, Dillon Francis, Oliver Tree, and more. There also appear to be some surprise artists on the bill who will presumably be announced as the festival nears. And don’t discount the possibility that Drake, who collaborated with Black Coffee on last year’s Honestly, Nevermind, might show up too. Never forget who started EDM in the first place.

Tickets go on sale on Friday, March 10 at 10 am. You can get more info on the official website.

If you ever want to make Brian Kilmeade feel all sorts of icky inside, try shouting the words “Tiny D” at him. On Monday, as Mediaite notes, the Fox & Friends co-host admitted that he’s not a fan of Donald Trump’s reported new nickname for Ron DeSantis.

While discussing this year’s CPAC event, Kilmeade and co-hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt weren’t interested in talking about such wild shenanigans as Kimberly Guilfoyle turning a speaking engagement into a Home Shopping Network segment while peddling gold coins like an unhinged leprechaun. Nope, they wanted to talk about the things that mattered — including the ongoing beef between Trump and DeSantis. Kilmeade made it clear that he thinks the Florida governor is a pretty a-ok kinda guy, noting that “he’s extremely personable.” Which is most certainly the number one quality you want in the leader of the free world.

Kilmeade was less impressed by Trump’s insatiable desire to come up with the perfect DeSantis put-down, as “Ron DeSanctimonious” is not sweeping the nation in the way the former POTUS hoped. While he noted that “Ron Dishonest” and “Ron Deestablishment” were among the contenders, Kilmeade — who once kind of bragged about reading Mein Kampf cover to cover — is really not on board with what seems to be Donald’s chosen winner: “Tiny D.”

“I don’t know,” said Kilmeade. “It’s hard to label somebody who is so similar to him with a nickname… It makes everybody on all sides seemingly uncomfortable. Even people reporting it.”

Speak for yourself, Kilmeade.

(Via Mediaite)

Do you want the best crunchy taco you’ve ever had? Cool! Buy some hamburger meat, cut up a red potato into tiny pieces, and throw the two in a cast iron pan. Season with paprika, salt, black pepper, red pepper, cumin, and chili powder, drain the fat, put a lid on it under low heat, and wait until those potatoes soften. Then warm up some corn tortillas, spoon the meat inside, pin each end closed with a toothpick, and throw the whole thing in a hot pan with oil. Remove when it’s sufficiently fried (lighter than you expect) top it with lettuce, and cheese, and dip it in whatever makes you happy (sour cream, guacamole, salsa, all three) and bing bang boom, you’ve got the best fried taco you’ve ever had in your life in 20 minutes.

Crunchy tacos are so easy to make at home that it’s amazing to me that we even have a fast food version. But then again… so are burgers! Sometimes you just don’t have time, and we respect that. So if you’ve got a craving for crunchy tacos and you don’t want to do any work whatsoever, what’s the play? The closest taqueria with fried tacos of course! But if you don’t have one of those (we’re really meeting you halfway here), it’s going to have to be Jack in the Box, Taco Bell, or Del Taco.

Fast food crunchy tacos are weak. They’re not nearly as good as what you can easily make at home and the meat inside is questionable. Having said all that… I still love them. Don’t get me wrong, I fully recognize that fast food crunchy tacos are a sad imitation of the real thing but have you ever rolled up to a Jack in the Box or Taco Bell in the middle of the night, sufficiently buzzed (or high) and hungry? Few things in life are better than that first bite into a greasy flavor-packed taco that costs just above $1.

So who makes the best? We’re about to find out. That’s right, we’re giving crunchy tacos the blind taste test treatment!

PART I — Methodology

Sadly, there aren’t very many fast food chains with crunchy tacos anymore. You used to be able to get crunchy tacos at Burger King, Carl’s Jr, Del Taco, Jack in the Box, and Taco Bell, and now BK and Carl’s are out. You could, of course, go to Chipotle, but we’re willing to bet if you have a craving for crunchy tacos, you want the cheap stuff, not a $10 customizable taco plate.

So for this blind taste test, we gathered up tacos from Del Taco, Jack in the Box, and Taco Bell and put them to a blind test. Because I know these tacos well, I had my girlfriend bring each on a plate one by one and donned my trusty blindfold for all four tacos. Here is our lineup:

• Del Taco — Crunchy Taco
• Jack in the Box — Crunchy Taco
• Taco Bell — Crunchy Taco
• Taco Bell — Doritos Loco Taco

Let’s eat!

Part 1: The Tasting

Taste 1:

Greasy, intensely so, there is so much grease I can straight up taste it, but it’s also… kind of interesting. The tortilla shell is very light and crispy, and I’m getting a hint of mild taco sauce in there.

This taco is incredibly wet. Is that grease, is that sauce, do I want to find out?! The cheese is gooey but a little too flavorless. It’s more texture than anything else. I can’t really get a sense of what the meat tastes like and the lettuce is awful and smells bad.

Taste 2:

What the hell am I eating?! Not enough crunch here and a whole lot of conflicting flavors. I’m getting an intense zesty cheese flavor, a whole lot of salt, with watery lettuce that muddies the beef. The mouthfeel is also awful, it tastes almost dusty. Not a fan.

Taste 3:

Pretty solid. The shell has a great crunchy texture and the meat is beefy and savory with a nice blend of spices. I’m getting salt, paprika, and a hint of garlic. I love the texture of this one, everything just comes together harmoniously. There is a strong grease flavor that stains the aftertaste, but that doesn’t bother my tastebuds as much as it bothers me on a mental level.

Biting into it I thought “I know this is bad for me.” But I also promptly took another bite.

Taste 4:

I was certain Taste 3 would win the top spot but Taste 4 is the winner. This has everything the last taco had but a significantly better cheese flavor and that really makes a difference in a three-ingredient taco. The cheddar here is rich, with a balance of sweet, sharp, and nutty notes that perfectly blend with the savory meat.

The beef here isn’t quite as flavor-packed as Taste 3 but the rest of the ingredients, from the shell, which is sturdy and crunchier to the crispy lettuce, taste significantly better. Overall, the taco provides a better experience. As far as the meat goes, you wouldn’t think it was under-seasoned, but side by side with Taste 3 the difference is apparent. Not enough to hurt it though.

Part 2: The Ranking

Taco Bell — Doritos Locos Taco (Taste 2)

I get that the Doritos Locos has fans but — why? Is it because it’s just a cheap taco in a giant Dorito? It’s okay if that’s the reason, but this taco has nothing on Taco Bell’s OG. As a novelty, it’s a lot of fun but I honestly think the idea of this taco is its best seasoning. As it stands on its own, it’s an assault on the taste buds in the worst possible way.

The Bottom Line:

I know I’m going to anger the Taco Bell fans with this one, but this taco is designed to be enjoyed solely by people who are stoned or drunk! Or people that really really really like Doritos.

Find your nearest Taco Bell here.

Jack in the Box — Crunchy Taco (Taste 1)

I’m actually surprised this one isn’t at the bottom of the ranking. Like I said in the tasting portion, this taco’s flavor is just grease. It’s very crispy slightly mild grease. And I kind of like it. Does it offend me that there is American cheese in here? Absolutely. Is the lettuce legitimately some of the worst lettuce I’ve ever tasted? Absolutely. Would I order one of these again in a heartbeat? Abso-f*cking-lutely.

The Bottom Line:

I’m not proud of this one but what can I say? I kind of like it. It’s greasy and tastes like it might kill you but it hits some sort of pleasure spot in my brain.

Find your nearest Jack in the Box here.

Taco Bell — Crunchy Taco (Taste 3)

Although it didn’t get the number one spot, I still think Taco Bell makes one of the best fast food crunchy tacos ever. Somedays, I’ll take this over a Chipotle taco, and they used marinated meat over there! There is just something special about this taco, it’s probably the reason fast food crunchy tacos are a thing in the first place.

With the right packet of hot sauce, you can easily take this taco from good to great. It won’t beat what you can make at home, but it satisfies if you’re too beat to cook and want a cheap and easy dinner.

The Bottom Line:

Taco Bell’s greatest menu item, no cap.

Find your nearest Taco Bell here.

Del Taco — Crunchy Taco (Taste 4)

The Del Taco does everything that Taco Bell’s taco does — but better. While the flavors are very similar, there is something about Taco Bell that comes across as incredibly cheap. It’s the sort of taco that you eat and it constantly reminds you throughout the day that you’ve eaten it, whether that be from burping its flavors to hurting your stomach. That’s not the case with Del Taco.

Both are cheap, but at Del Taco it actually tastes like you’re getting quality. The meat is a little drier, but you know it’s meat. The lettuce is crisp and tastes more like a leaf than water, but the real star of the show is the cheese. It’s hand grated from an actual block, which means it doesn’t have that weird powdery texture that cheap shredded cheese has and packs a whole of flavor.

It’s sweet, nutty, savory, almost… floral, and I’m just talking about that cheese!

The Bottom Line:

The perfect fast food crunchy taco.

Find your nearest Del Taco here.

The Western genre died at some point in the 1970s, and one movie star more than any other has spent decades trying to bring it back. That star is Kevin Costner. He’s made several Westerns over his career — Silverado, Dances with Wolves, Open Range — and while some have been big hits, they’ve never quite brought the genre back full-force. Now it appears he’s finally succeeded: Yellowstone has inspired everyone else to make their own oaters. And one agent explains why dusting off the Western is a no-brainer.

A new report by The Hollywood Reporter rounds up some of the other Westerns currently in production at other streamers, who are hoping to strike Yellowstone gold. Amazon’s working on one from True Detective’s Nick Pizzolatto. Netflix has two, including one from Sons of Anarchy’s Kurt Sutter. Then there are all those other Yellowstone spin-offs. Why did the Western even die? That’s what one unnamed literary agent is wondering.

“Yellowstone has super-dramatic characters, love triangles, shoot-outs, murders, surprise adopted kids … it’s a soap opera in the modern Wild West,” they told THR. “It’s where a majority of the world and this country live; it’s what we should have been making this entire damn time.”

It’s not that content creators haven’t spent years trying to rescue the genre. “Writers have always pitched Westerns, but execs never wanted them,” the agent said. “Yellowstone has reignited interest in Americana and actual real-world living.”

In the past, Westerns have occasionally broken through, on both the big and small screens. Something like the Coen brother’s take on True Grit will scare up Marvel cash… only to inspire no copycats. Then again, sometimes you just get Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West.

In the meantime, the jury’s still out on whether the OG Yellowstone is ending or not, reportedly due to reported conflicts with Costner. That said, a song he recently wrote sure sounded like he was preparing for the end.

(Via THR)

If we looked 60 years into the past, there are a lot of things that were accepted as “normal” that today most people find abhorrent. For example, people used to smoke cigarettes everywhere. They’d light up in hospitals, schools and even churches.

People also used to litter like crazy. It’s socially unacceptable now, but if you lived in the ’70s and finished your meal at McDonald’s, you’d chuck your empty styrofoam container (remember those?) and soda cup right out of the window of your car and onto the street.

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It’s hard to imagine that just 60 years ago spousal abuse was considered family business and wasn’t the concern of law enforcement.

It makes me wonder when people in the future look back on the year 2022, which things will they see as barbaric? Almost certainly, the way we treat the animals we use for food will be seen as cruel. The racial divides in the criminal justice system will be seen as a moral abomination. And I’m sure that people will also look at our continued reliance on fossil fuels as a major mistake.

A Reddit user by the name u/MEMELORD_JESUS asked the AskReddit subforum “What’s the weirdest thing society accepts as normal?” and the responses exposed a lot of today’s practices that are worth questioning.

A lot of the responses revolved around American work ethic and how we are taught to live to work and not to work to live. We seem to always be chasing some magical reward that’s just around the corner instead of enjoying our everyday lives. “I’ll get to that when I retire,” we say and then don’t have the energy or the inclination to do so when the time comes.

There are also a lot of people who think that our healthcare system will be looked at with utter confusion by people in the future.

Here are 17 of the best responses to the question, “What’s the weirdest thing society accepts as normal?”

1. Work-life balance

“Working until you’re old, greying, and broken then using whatever time you have left for all the things you wish you could have done when you were younger.” — Excited_Avocado_8492

2. Rest in comfort

“That dead people need pillows in caskets.” — Qfn4g02016

3. I.R.S. mystery

“Guessing how much you owe the IRS in taxes.” — SheWentThruMyPhone

4. You get the leaders you deserve

“Politicians blatantly lying to the people. We accept it so readily, it’s as though it’s supposed to be that way.” — BlackLetyterLies

5. The booze-drugs separation

“Alcohol is so normalized but drugs are not. It’s so weird. I say this as an alcohol loving Belgian, beer is half of our culture and I’m proud of it too but like… that’s fucking weird man.” — onions_cutting_ninja

6. Stage-parent syndrome

“People having kids and trying to live their lives again through them, vicariously, forcing the kids to do things that the parents never got to do, even when the kids show no inclination, and even have an active dislike, for those things.” — macaronsforeveryone

7. Priorities

“Living to work vs working to live.” — Food-at-last

8. ‘The Man’ is everywhere

“Being on camera or recorded any time you are in public.” — Existing-barely

9. Tragic positivity 

“‘Feel-good’ news stories about how a kid makes a lemonade stand or something to pay for her mom’s cancer treatment because no one can afford healthcare in America.” — GotaLuvit35

10. Credit score

“As a non-American, I am amazed at their credit score system. As a third-world citizen, credit cards are usually for rich (and slightly less rich) people who have more disposable money than the rest of us and could pay off their debt.

The way I see people on Reddit talk about it is strange and somewhat scary. Everyone should have a card of his own as soon as he becomes an adult, you should always buy things with it and pay back to actively build your score. You’re basically doomed if you don’t have a good score, and living your life peacefully without a card is not an option, and lastly, you’ll be seen as an idiot if you know nothing about it.” — BizarroCullen

11. The retirement trap

“Spending 5/7ths of your life waiting for 2/7ths of it to come. We hate like 70% of our life, how is that considered fine?” — Deltext3rity

12. Yes, yes and yes

“Child beauty pageants.” — throwa_way682

13. That’s not justice

“The rape of male prisoners. It’s almost considered a part of the sentence. People love to joke about it all the time.” — visicircle

14. Customers aren’t employers

“Tipping culture in the US. Everyone thinks that it’s totally OK for employers not to pay the employees, and the customers are expected to pay extra to pay the employees wages. I don’t understand it.” — Lysdexiic

15. Staring at your phone

“Having smartphones in our faces all day. This shit isn’t normal…imma do it anyway…but it is not normal.” — Off_Brand_Barbie_OBB

16. Homework on weekends

“Students being assigned homework over weekends and only having a two-day weekend. The whole point of a weekend is to take a break from life, and then you have one day to recover from sleep deprivation then one day to relax which you can’t because of thinking about the next day being Monday. And the two days still having work to do anyways.” — MrPers0n3O

17. Kids on social media

“Children/young teens posting on social media sites. I’m not necessarily talking about posting on a private Instagram followed by friends, I’m talking about when kids post on tiktok publicly without parental consent.” — thottxy

This article originally appeared on 03.11.22

Fire up your keyboards, Citizen Detectives, because the second season of Yellowjackets is upon us. We’ve been treated to a full-length trailer and some major casting announcements teasing where things might be going when we return to the woods but let’s be honest: It’s been a year since the season one finale and our sleuthing skills are, understandably, rusty.

With season two launching later this month, now’s the perfect time to ditch your neighborhood book club and instead, read up on all of the plot twists and unanswered questions the show’s finale left us with.

How Did Yellowjackets Season 1 End?

The dual timelines at the center of this show both delivered some shocking twists that asked more questions than they answered. In the past, the girls are left reeling from their “Doomscoming” party in the woods — remember, they got high off Misty’s shrooms and had a hormone-fueled, blood-thirsty bacchanalia that left one hell of a hangover. Lottie fully embraced her mystic cult leader aura, taming and killing a wild bear before cutting out the beat’s heart and using it in some sort of ritual sacrifice. (Maybe she saw The Craft in theaters before jumping on that plane?)

All of the occult extracurriculars were beginning to drive a wedge between Taissa — who definitely doesn’t believe in this spiritual nonsense — and Van, who has become radicalized after her near-death experience. Meanwhile, Shauna and Jackie finally came to blows, spewing every terrible thing they’ve ever thought about the other while the team watches on. (Well, most of the team. Natalie and Travis went looking for Javi who disappeared after the night’s Lord of the Flies orgy had run its course.)

In the present, Misty, Natalie, Shauna, and Taissa teamed up to take on their dreaded high school reunion and dispose of a dead body. (R.I.P. Adam, we never really knew ye.) Turns out Shauna’s extramarital hook-up wasn’t a long-lost Javi, he was just a guy whose obsession ended up costing him his life. She’s not the only one who committed homicide in the finale though because Misty had a freed hostage she needed to silence once and for all. Smoking really does kill, kids.

But perhaps the most unexpected revelation came in the episode’s final minute when Taissa, who won her run for state senate but lost her family in the process, was outed as a still-sacrificing member of Lottie’s cult. Whether Taissa is working with Lottie, who is alive and off kidnapping Natalie by the end of the episode, is still up for debate, but she most definitely is practicing the rituals Lottie introduced the girls to in the woods. She’s got an altar where the family dog’s head has been resting in her basement and she’s been munching on dirt at night while unknowingly traumatizing her own child.

Who Died In The Yellowjackets Season 1 Finale?

Plenty of people (and a couple of animals) took a dirt nap — though not the kind Taissa favors — by the end of the show’s first season. Shauna’s sidepiece, Adam, Misty’s captive, Jessica, poor Biscuit, and a bear just minding its business all breathed their last in the season finale but one death surpassed them all in terms of shock value.

We finally learned that Jackie, the team captain and all-around Queen Bee of this team, never made it out of the wilderness. Instead, she froze to death after her argument with Shauna ended with the girl demanding she leave the safety of the cabin as the rest of the group watched on. Jackie struggled to make a fire, eventually succumbing to the elements but the show first gave us an alternate ending to her death scene — a dreamlike “what if” that saw Shauna welcoming her friend back inside, apologizing for hurting her, and the team rallying around their former leader. The reality was much grimmer — Jackie froze to death and Shauna had an emotional breakdown when she discovered her body just a few feet from the cabin the next morning.

What Will Happen In Yellowjackets Season 2?

With the casting announcements of Lauren Ambrose as adult Van and Simone Kessel as adult Lottie, expect to see more about the mysterious cult that might be behind the recent blackmail scheme terrorizing the remaining group members. Lottie obviously believes the girls should’ve stayed in the woods and it’s likely she has a plan for them all to return to the wilderness, one way or the other. Elijah Wood is also joining the cast this season, playing another Citizen Detective that may pose some problems for Misty. And while Taissa juggles her political campaign and her crumbling home life, Shauna’s got a murder investigation to dodge and a nosy teenager living at home that should keep her busy.

Yellowjackets returns for its second season on March 26th at 10 p.m. ET on Showtime.

Fans thought Nick Cannon was going to announce a new baby. Instead, they’re getting a game show with Kevin Hart about making babies.

Let me back up.

Yesterday, the rapper-turned-TV-host — who has a reputation for being kind of a baby-making machine, fathering 12 kids with six different women — teased an upcoming announcement with wording that had fans nervous for lucky number 13. Instead, the announcement turned out to be so much weirder than anyone could have thought.

Instead of a new child, Cannon shared a trailer for a new game show on E! Network with Kevin Hart playing off of his reputation by having women compete with each other for a strange (and borderline gross, let’s be honest) grand prize: The honor of becoming Nick’s seventh baby mama. It’s like The Bachelor, I guess, except skipping the love/romance/marriage part and getting straight to the child support. No wonder he has so many jobs.

Joining Nick in this … ahem … endeavor is fellow comic Kevin Hart, who was among the many voices teasing his good buddy about his
prolificity last year, trolling him with a billboard giving away his phone number for “fatherhood advice” and sending him a vending machine full of condoms. Judging from the trailer, the competition will be quite zany and extend the comedic pairs’ long prank war. Check it out below.

Knowing what we know, in the year 2023, it is extremely unlikely that somebody will be slapped at this year’s Academy Awards, considering what happened last year. A “violence-free” award show might seem like a no-brainer, but at this point, we simply cannot take any more chances. The industry cannot handle it. But….let’s say it does happen (again, it probably won’t). What would really go down?

According to this year’s host Jimmy Kimmel, he is willing to defend the honor and integrity of the award ceremony by beating up anyone who tries to slap him. This all makes sense when you think about it. The Oscars are so fragile, you see, that even a threat to the stage could send the production into a frenzy. But Kimmel is prepared to take one for the team.

It was recently reported that the Academy is enlisting a “crisis response team” in order to make sure things go smoothly on the big night. But Kimmel knows nothing about that. “I’ve not been involved in that. I guess I’m the last thing they’re worried about,” the host told Variety in a new interview. “I feel like I should at least know what was discussed so I know what I should fear when I walk onstage. But, really, I suspect it mostly has to do with UFOs.”

So let’s say it’s not UFOs, and some unoriginal prankster tries to storm the stage and slap Kimmel. What would he do? “You mean, if somebody comes up on the stage and slaps me? Well, I size them up, and, if I’m bigger than they are, I beat the sh*t out of them on television,” Kimmel recently told the mag, adding, “And if it’s the Rock, I run.” The Rock does love to sneak up on people during award shows, in addition to being a historically good fighter.

Even though Kimmel will be safe from any physical threats, he is still disappointed about his last slip-up, the infamous La La Land/Moonlight debacle of 2017. But he’s not mad that it happened, he’s mad that it was overshadowed by The Slap. “We got knocked down the list. It’s disappointing in a lot of ways,” Kimmel confessed. “If you’re gonna be part of a f*ckup, it might as well be the biggest fuckup ever. Being part of the second-biggest f*ckup doesn’t carry as much cachet.”

Here’s to hoping there is a bloodbath on stage for no reason other than pure entertainment. Movies are back, baby!

(Via Variety)

Star Wars shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to delivering Disney+ hit television series like The Mandalorian and its ever-growing number of spinoffs, but the franchise has not had the best of luck when it comes to getting a feature film off the ground. The last Star Wars movie to hit theaters was 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, which was financially successful but universally derided by both fans and critics. It also didn’t help that Game of Thrones‘ creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were tapped for a new Star Wars film project right as they were being lambasted for that show’s ill-fated series finale. (Benioff and Weiss would ultimately part ways to focus on their Netflix development deal.)

Since Rise of Skywalker, Lucasfilm has put all its weight behind its TV offerings, but there have been efforts to get a new film going. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige was reportedly getting to live a lifelong dream of making a Star Wars movie and Patty Jenkins was tapped to direct Rogue Squadron, which for a brief moment, was on the fast track to becoming the first new film out of the gate. Both of those are now reportedly dead.

According to Variety, Feige’s movie is no longer in active development (a major surprise given his strong ties with Disney) and Rogue Squadron is remaining shelved despite Jenkins’ schedule opening after she exited Wonder Woman 3. However, Taika Waititi’s Star Wars movie is still looking like the strongest contender to break the theatrical curse. Damon Lindelof’s mystery project is also in the works.

Via Variety:

Sources say “Thor: Love and Thunder” filmmaker Taika Waititi continues to work on his possible “Star Wars” feature, and he would most likely have a part in it as well, similar in prominence to his standout role as an imaginary Adolf Hitler in his Oscar-winning 2019 feature “Jojo Rabbit.” And although Lucasfilm has yet to officially confirm it, sources say the studio is committed to a “Star Wars” movie from director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

One of those films could snatch the December 2025 release date that Lucasfilm is hoping to fill. Considering Waititi has already re-entered the Star Wars universe with The Mandalorian Season 3 premiere, his movie being the first out of the gate is a strong bet for being announced at the upcoming Star Wars Celebration in London next month.

Or zero movies will be announced and Lucasfilm will continue to print money by slapping Baby Yoda on everything. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?

(Via Variety)