Premiere Date Set for THE X-FILES: SEASON 11

The X-Files Season 11 Mulder Scully

With an eleventh season of the much-loved X-Files long confirmed, we’ve now found out just when Mulder and Scully will be returning to the small screen.

As announced by FOX, Season 11 of the genre favourite will premiere on Wednesday, January 3rd in the US. Where UK fans are concerned, no set premiere date has been made public at this stage, although the series will be shown on Channel 5 and is expected to have its season premiere not too long after the show’s US return.

Plot-wise, it appears as if the main focus of this new season will be on the search for Mulder and Scully’s son, William. In terms of cast, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are joined by Mitch Pileggi, William B. Davis, Annabeth Gish, Lauren Ambrose, Robbie Amell, Chris Owens, Veronica Cartwright, Dean Haglund and new additions in the shape of Haley Joel Osment and Barbara Hershey.

As ever, expect more on the return of The X-Files as we get it.

Jenna Elfman and Garrett Dillahunt Join FEAR THE WALKING DEAD

Jenna Elfman Fear the Walking Dead

With Fear the Walking Dead having now finished its third season, the show has moved to bring in some new faces for the already-confirmed fourth season of AMC’s Walking Dead spin-off.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Golden Globe winner Jennifer Elfman – best known for Dharma & Greg – as well as Deadwood and The Last House on the Left’s Garrett Dillahunt have signed-on as series regulars. At this stage, it’s yet to be revealed what characters the pair will be playing, but they’re believed to be significant players.

In addition to this, the outlet also reports that production of the series has moved from Baja California, Mexica to Texas to match the new setting of the show when it returns for its next season.

Fear the Walking Dead will return at to-be-confirmed point next year.

EA Disables Refunds for BATTLEFRONT II (Updated)

battlefront 2

With three days to still go before its full release, Star Wars: Battlefront II has been hit with one controversy after another. The monetisation system in particular has been the subject of heavy criticism, and Electronic Arts’ attempts to douse the flames have led to only further fury over the past few days. While changes have been promised, the question is if they are enough. Or, for that matter, what lengths the company will go to in order to secure its sales numbers.

Over the past several hours multiple reports have been made on both EA’s technical support forum and Reddit page claiming that they can no longer request refunds. This has led to many customers alleging that the refund option on Origin itself has been disabled for this game, and that they have seemingly no option to back out of this purchase. EA itself has yet to respond to these comments, but with growing numbers of understandably disgruntled customers.

The only good news surrounding the game of late is that the company has responded to criticisms, claiming that they will be shortening the grind needed to unlock most heroes. However, the question still remains if anything can be salvaged from this entire situation.

Update – Electronic Arts has responded to these criticisms with the following statement:

“For clarity… the self-service refund option is only available if you have not been charged for the product yet. After that point, you can call EA Help to get a refund.
Currently, you will be billed if you have pre-ordered the standard edition, and therefore would need to call EA Help to get a refund.
You can read the Refund Policy and request a refund here: https://help.ea.com/en/help/account/returns-and-cancellations/
Update: We realize that this system isn’t as clear as we’d hoped, so we’re working to roll out an update in the near future that will improve it.”

Nevertheless, despite this claim, there are still a number of notable oddities surrounding how Battlefront II handles its refunds. As noted by PCGamesN, this has been a reoccurring problem with pre-order titles, where Origin is only listing certain versions of the game on its refund page and forcing all others to go through customer services. However, all documents and information present on the platform suggests that a customer should be able to directly refund a pre-order through Origin itself, and makes no mention of this.

While a substantial amount of this backlash can be put down to poor communication on the publisher’s part, this also highlights how this has been a long-running problem for Origin. The inability to easily refund pre-orders directly has been occurring for some time and, as cited on the aforementioned article, examples can be found as far back as 2013.

Amazon Confirm LORD OF THE RINGS TV Series

The Lord of the Rings

After rumours saying as much earlier this month, Amazon has moved to confirm that, yes, a Lord of the Rings TV series is in development.

Having picked up the global TV rights to the famed J.R.R. Tolkien property, a multi-season Lord of the Rings series is planned to be developed for Amazon Prime.

On this news, Amazon Studios’ Sharon Tal Yguado enthused, “The Lord of the Rings is a cultural phenomenon that has captured the imagination of generations of fans through literature and the big screen. We are honoured to be working with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line on this exciting collaboration for television and are thrilled to be taking The Lord of the Rings fans on a new epic journey in Middle-earth.”

Matt Galsor of the Tolkien Estate and Trust and HarperCollins added, “We are delighted that Amazon, with its longstanding commitment to literature, is the home of the first-ever multi-season television series for The Lord of the Rings. Sharon and the team at Amazon Studios have exceptional ideas to bring to the screen previously unexplored stories based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original writings.”

The early word on the series reads:

Set in Middle-earth, the television adaptation will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The deal includes a potential additional spin-off series.

So there we have it, it’s now official. Pretty major news, right? We’d certainly say so!

Expect more on all of this as it continues to develop.

Sony Developing a Morbius Movie for Their Spider-Verse

Michael Morbius Marvel

With Sony Pictures currently developing their cinematic Spider-Verse, you can now add Michael Morbius to the equation.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, the studio is planning a picture based around Morbius the Living Vampire. This, of course, joins the Tom Hardy-headlined Venom and the aptly-titled Silver and Black Silver Sable and Black Cat team-up picture, not to mention tentative plans to give solo movies to both Kraven the Hunter and Mysterio. Interestingly, a script has already been done for the Morbius effort, with Dracula Untold’s Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama having penned a screenplay.

For those unfamiliar with Michael Morbius, he was created back in 1971 by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. A science bod with a rare blood disorder, he decides to use his smarts to cure his condition but instead inadvertently turned himself in to a vampire. Like several other characters – most notably Dr. Curt Connors – Morbius was a reluctant villain at times, with him fighting to rid himself of the bloodlust and changes he suffered from.

As it stands, the Spider-Verse that Sony is developing is minus one key component. Yep, you guessed it… Spider-Man! Rumours persist that Tom Holland’s six-picture Spidey contract will see him feature in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 2018 Avengers: Infinity War, its 2019 sequel and the Spider-Man: Homecoming follow-up before then swinging in to Sony’s then-established Spider-Verse for the last picture of his current deal. That’s yet to be made official at this stage, however, and could just prove to be speculation – even if it does seem extremely plausible.

Expect to hear a whole lot more on all of these films as they develop.

Jason Momoa Teases the CROW Reboot is Imminent

Jason Momoa

Well, it looks as if the long-awaited Crow reboot could well be on course to start shooting imminently.

The last we’d heard on the long-gestating project was last month when director Corin Hardy suggested that the film could start shooting this coming February. Of course, this next entry in The Crow lore has had its fair share of problems over the past several years, and so many thought that this could be yet another false dawn for the reboot. Now though, adding further considerable fuel to the fire, Jason Momoa has taken to his social media channels with the following:

I’ve been waiting for sooooo long. @corinhardy let’s do this brother aloha j

A post shared by Jason Momoa (@prideofgypsies) on

If you remember, Mamoa is the man tasked with playing Eric Draven is this reboot, having landed the gig ahead of contenders such as Bradley Cooper and Tom Hiddleston, not to mention Luke Evans at one point being signed-up for the role. And judging by Momoa’s Instagram post, it appears that it could well finally be all systems go for this next Crow movie; a movie seemingly titled The Crow Reborn at the last count.

As ever, expect more on all of this as it continues to develop.

Synopsis Revealed for The CW’s CRISIS ON EARTH-X Crossover Event

We’ve known for a little while now that this year’s annual Arrowverse crossover event was set to see a trip to an alternate Earth for our heroes, but now we’ve finally been given the official synopsis for said crossover.

As per The CW, the official blurb on the event – titled Crisis on Earth-X – reads:

Barry and Iris’ wedding brings the gang together, but things go awry when villains from Earth-X attack the ceremony. All of the superheroes band together with help from their super friends like Citizen Cold, The Ray, Felicity Smoak, Iris West and Alex Danvers to take on their most formidable villains yet. Earth’s mightiest heroes – Green Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash and White Canary – lead their teams into battle to save the world.

Over in the US, the crossover is set to launch on November 27th with Supergirl. From there, the tale will continue to play out on Arrow, The Flash and finally DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Given how we’re a week behind US viewers here in the UK, expect the crossover to commence from December 4th over here on Sky1.

Ellen Page to Headline Netflix’s THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY

The Umbrella Academy Ellen Page

It seems that wherever you turn these days, there’s a comic book adaptation looming. And with that in mind, it likely comes as no real surprise to hear that yet another adap is on the way.

This time, it’s Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s The Umbrella Academy that’s being brought to life, with Netflix having ordered a ten-episode series to premiere next year. As per Variety, Ellen Page has signed up to headline the show.

The early word on the series reads:

Based on the popular, Eisner award-winning comics and graphic novels, the series follows the estranged members of a dysfunctional family of superheroes (The Umbrella Academy) – The Monocle, Spaceboy, The Kraken, The Rumor, The Séance, Number Five, The Horror, and The White Violin – as they work together to solve their father’s mysterious death while coming apart at the seams due to their divergent personalities and abilities.

In The Umbrella Academy, Page – best known to genre fans for the likes of Hard Candy, Juno, Inception, Whip It, Super, the X-Men franchise and, err, the recent shoddy Flatliners remake – will be playing the black sheep of the family, Vanya. That’s a character described as “the only one of Reginald Hargreeves’ adopted children with no supernatural abilities. A meek and insecure wallflower, Vanya struggles to find her place in the world.”

As ever, expect more on this new series as it continues to develop.

Live-Action STAR WARS Show Confirmed for Disney’s Streaming Service

Luke Skywalker Mark Hamill Star Wars

If news of a new Star Wars movie trilogy isn’t enough to satiate your Force appetite, there’s now news that a live-action Star Wars TV series is on the way as part of Disney’s new streaming service.

The Walt Disney Company’s Bob Iger discussed the topic during a chat with investors, explaining that the new service will house a Star Wars live-action show in addition to small-screen series for Monsters, Inc. and High School Musical. While we all have a lot of love for Monsters, Inc., and we’re sure High School Musical has its fans, clearly the biggest part of this equation is the prospect of further adventures to a galaxy far, far away.

Sadly, no further details are known at this early stage, but the possibilities really are endless when it comes to a Star Wars TV show. Given that there’s so many corners of the galaxy that have been untouched this far, that means there’s so much to potentially explore. Then, of course, there are existing characters and planets that could be delved in to further in such a format.

For the Disney streaming service, that’s due to launch in 2019. The early word is that it will follow a similar setup to Netflix and Amazon Video, although obviously the focus will be more on Disney-driven properties. Given how Disney owns the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that’s one huge pull for the service, as they can snatch back related properties and make them exclusive to their own service. Then, there’s the famed Disney and Pixar work that will be a big selling point to many, not to mention the countless other properties that the House of Mouse has under their umbrella. Even at this early stage, it’s being pegged that the to-be-titled streaming service will have 500 movies from the vast Disney library, plus 7,000 episodes of various Disney-driven TV shows.

As ever, expect more on Disney’s new service and, more importantly to us, this live-action Star Wars series as it continues to develop.

Rian Johnson Developing a New STAR WARS Trilogy

Rian Johnson Star Wars Episode IX The Last Jedi Carrie Fisher

Well, well, well. While the current main trilogy of Star Wars movies is due to come to a conclusion with 2019’s Episode IX, and the Star Wars Story films are continuing next year with Ron Howard’s Solo, now comes word on further cinematic outings to a galaxy far, far away.

Lucasfilm have moved to confirm that Rian Johnson is developing a whole new Star Wars trilogy; a trilogy that is supposedly separate to the standard Skywalker-centric saga. The current plan is to introduce a slew of new characters from a corner of the galaxy that has yet to be seen in Star Wars lore. At this stage, Johnson – who is the director of this year’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi – will be writing and directing the first of this trilogy, with Ram Bergman to produce.

On this news, Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy enthused, “We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi. He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing thing with the blank canvas of this new trilogy.”

In a joint statement, Johnson and Bergman added, “We had the time of our lives collaborating with Lucasfilm and Disney on The Last Jedi. Star Wars is the greatest modern mythology and we feel very lucky to have contributed to it. We can’t wait to continue with this new series of films.”

We were all expecting Disney and Lucasfilm to dip in to the Star Wars well way past Episode IX, and now we know a little about what they have planned for this beloved property. In addition to all of this, of course, there’s still a third to-be-confirmed A Star Wars Story picture to arrive following the Alden Ehrenreich-headlined Solo. Previous rumours had Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda or Boba Fett as the likely centrepiece of that third film, but we’ll have to wait and see on that front. What do know now, though, is that there’s still plenty of further Star Wars adventures once Episode IX brings this current trilogy to a close.

Up next for the series, Star Wars: The Last Jedi heads to cinemas from December 15th.