Robert Rodriguez Still Has Hopes For an Alita: Battle Angel Sequel
The Name of the Rose meets The Book of the Dead in a new prestige zombie drama. The Eternaut gets a second season at Netflix. Plus, what's to come on the next episodes of The Last of Us and Doctor Who. Spoilers, away!
Rapture
Relatedly, Deadline reports Will Poulter, Kit Connor and Manu Rios will star in Rapture, a Medieval zombie film marking the feature debut of playwright Jordan Tannahil. Set in Medieval England in the year 1348, the story 'alights on Lansley Abbey, a remote stone monastery in Yorkshire, which houses ten monks bound by a life of strict routine and devotion. Their fragile peace is disrupted by the arrival of a messenger – a man with haunting news from the outside world who rapidly shows symptoms of a mystery illness. A virulent plague is spreading through the land: marked initially by a hemorrhagic fever, it turns its victims into 'revenants' — restless, undead beings. As the contagion closes in, Lansley Abbey becomes a battleground: desperate outsiders beg for refuge while the infected threaten to overrun its walls. The monks are torn apart by a moral rift — between those who believe they must care for the sick and those who want to protect the centuries of knowledge safe-guarded by the monastery. As death is fully unleashed, so too is the brothers' capacity for extraordinary acts of altruism and ruthless betrayal, forcing them to confront the ultimate question: what does it mean to be human?'
Hot Ted
Variety also reports Ella Purnell, Ariana Greenblatt and Billy Magnussen will star in Hot Ted, a summer camp-set slasher directed by SNL's Hannah Levy. The story concerns 'true-crime podcast enthusiast Zoe (Greenblatt), who is unwillingly sent to Shady Pines Camp for the summer by her parents. When camp counsellor Liz doesn't arrive for breakfast one day, counsellor Amy (Purnell) tells everyone she's had to leave for a 'family emergency.' But Zoe doesn't buy it, and is convinced fellow counsellor Ted (Magnussen) is behind Liz's disappearance. Ted's got all the hallmarks of a classic serial killer: he's not on social media, and he owns a van. The only trouble is, he's too hot to be a murderer. It's up to Zoe and her friends to investigate the truth: is Hot Ted really a serial killer or is he just, like…the perfect guy?'
Alita: Battle Angel 2
During his recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience (via Collider), Robert Rodriguez confirmed he still 'wants to do' a sequel to Alita: Battle Angel.
Yeah, we want to do another one for sure. That whole city is still in my parking lot. 20-foot ceilings, seven streets. It's like the largest standing set in the country, if not the world.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Empire has a new image from Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Omukade
A giant, monstrous centipede from a cursed mine attacks Japanese soldiers occupying Thailand during WWII in the trailer for Omukade.
The Eternaut
Deadline confirms The Eternaut has been renewed for a second season at Netflix.
The Last of Us
The spores go airborne in the trailer for 'Wolves,' next week's episode of The Last Of Us.
Doctor Who
Finally, Anansi the Spider demands new stories at a Nigerian barbershop in the trailer for this week's episode of Doctor Who.
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Time Magazine
an hour ago
- Time Magazine
In Its Final Season, 'Squid Game' Is Back to Its Brutal Best
If you have a low threshold for spoilers, you might want to save this review for after you've watched Squid Game Season 3. There is an exquisitely devastating episode early in the third and final season of Squid Game. For almost all of its hourlong runtime,'The Starry Night' follows contestants darting around a multi-floor indoor maze of hallways and locked rooms, its ceilings painted deep blue with yellow stars like an elementary school mural, playing a lethal game of hide-and-seek. Half of the players are given knives and told they'll be eliminated if they don't kill at least one person from the other group, who get keys that open some of the doors as a sort of head start. It's a simple setup, but it makes for superb television. More than ever before, we see characters making individual decisions to kill and die; just about everyone comes out a murderer, a hero, a corpse, or some combination of the three. This is the kind of episode that will surely thrill fans and inspire recappers to dissect the ethical and emotional dimensions of each unthinkable choice. That, at least, was my reaction. Then I pressed play on the following episode and was embarrassed to see the VIPs—oh yes, they're back, those monstrous and awkward masked elites who listlessly spectate the last few Squid Games on site—voicing some of the same observations that had occurred to me. Yikes. Welcome to the exhilaratingly brutal last chapter of Squid Game, which ensnares viewers with characters and storylines we can't help but care about, then implicates us for treating a sadistic spectacle as entertainment. There's no underestimating the harm Netflix did to Squid Game by merchandising this dark satire of capitalism into consumerist oblivion, then delaying its conclusion with a second season that was mostly filler. But I'm pleased to report that writer, director, and executive producer Hwang Dong-hyuk has wrested his creation from more cynical hands. Despite all the indignities to which it's been subjected, the show closes with its most unsparing season yet, an indictment of societies where money trumps humanity that roots out all forms of complicity—especially our own. The groundwork for these final six episodes was laid in a Season 2 finale that ended just as the plot started moving. (Could the 13 episodes that comprised the show's second and third seasons have been compressed into a single 10- or even eight-part season? Easily, and almost all of the cuts would have come from the first batch.) Our hangdog hero, Squid Game veteran Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), had fomented revolution among some of the players, but that revolution failed, revealing that his ostensible comrade-in-arms, Player 001, was actually the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and leaving casualties that weigh heavily on his conscience. The aftermath is a crushing return to death games as usual. There's a torturous rendition of jump rope to be played, cash to be won, people to be 'eliminated,' and soon enough, VIPs to entertain. The VIPs were among the most divisive elements of Squid Game's first season, and it's not hard to see why. Suddenly, we had a new cast of live-action cartoons in sparkly animal masks speaking a version of English that sounded pretty stilted to Anglophone ears. Their scenes threw the tone out of whack, adding an element of artifice to a show whose emotionally realistic storytelling balanced out a far-fetched premise. None of the actors playing VIPs is in danger of winning an Emmy. And yet, the VIPs are crucial. On one hand, more than even the Front Man who oversees the awful spectacle, they're the show's ultimate villains—the people who pay for the annual pleasure of watching hundreds of high-concept murders. Yet their role as spectators of and commentators on the stylized death games that we, too, are watching and talking about also makes them a mirror for the audience. In what could be interpreted as a response to Squid Game's emergence as a global phenomenon—albeit one neutered by reality competition spin-offs and child-size Player 456 Halloween costumes—the VIPs' return in the final season emphasizes this uncomfortable identification between viewer and villain. If the VIPs were Season 1's sour note, then in Season 2, slow-moving side plots set among the guards and the search party looking for Squid Game Island provided less jarring but more extensive distractions from the main event. Detective Hwang Jun-ho's (Wi Ha-jun) procedural-like quest to follow Gi-hun back to the island, in hopes of shutting down the abhorrent competition and confronting his brother the Front Man, dominated the first two episodes; once the games began, Jun-ho and his crew mostly drifted around, lost. Meanwhile, a guard, Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young), who'd left her young daughter behind when she defected from North Korea, was putting herself at risk by interfering with her co-workers' organ-harvesting side hustle. By the Season 2 finale, her purpose in the show remained opaque. Season 3 quickens the pace of both stories, though they function mostly as catalysts for the endgame. That endgame is nothing short of gutting. Though we do get the occasional glimpse of hope, it's overshadowed by horror after horror, each revealing a new dimension of Director Hwang's diatribe against greed. This doesn't make Season 3 a rehash of Season 1 but a profound, frequently poignant, and, yes, thrillingly twist-packed deepening of its themes. It is, in particular, an acknowledgment that individual heroes, burdened by conscience and a disproportionately low share of resources, can only do so much in the face of systemic evil. As one wise character laments to Gi-hun: 'Bad people do bad things, but they blame others and go on to live in peace. Good people, on the other hand, beat themselves up about the smallest things.' To pretend a Squid Game victory could be anything but pyrrhic would be to accept a fairy tale written by the worst people on the planet. The only true victory would be a victory over Squid Game. So, Hwang is asking, when will the millions of us watching impotently from the sidelines join the Gi-huns of the world?
Tom's Guide
an hour ago
- Tom's Guide
I think 'Squid Game' season 3 just took my soul — this is the show's boldest, most emotional chapter yet
Wow. That's the only word I could manage after each episode of 'Squid Game' season 3 ended. And considering I'm someone who loves to immediately unpack what just happened, that's saying a lot. So yes, I can officially confirm: Season 3 is emotionally devastating in all the right ways. 'Squid Game' isn't just another Netflix hit but one of the most popular shows in the platform's history. Season 1 alone racked up a staggering 1.65 billion hours viewed globally within its first 28 days. (And yes, I contributed to that number with the number of times I rewatched it.) Naturally, expectations for season 2 were sky-high. While it didn't hit quite as hard as the first, it still took the story in bold, unexpected directions. Now, with season 3 finally here, I can confidently say it surpasses the previous installment. I was left speechless more often than not and emotionally wrecked by the end. One of the most striking things about this season is how director Hwang Dong-hyuk kept the show's emotional core intact and took it even further. And true to his promise, this season dives straight into 'the bottom parts of human nature.' 'Squid Game' season 3 is all about being human in a cruel landscape, and how Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) fights to preserve the good within himself. If you're curious to know more, here are my honest thoughts on this final chapter (spoiler-free, of course). Since the second season of 'Squid Game' didn't feel as impactful as the first, I was a little worried about how this final season would play out. But to my surprise, it's some of the best TV I've seen in ages, and I'm still reeling. Part of that is because season 2 didn't tell a complete story. We were introduced to a new set of characters and games, and those episodes mainly existed to get us invested in them. We also dove deeper into the organization behind the games (including the Front Man) and explored how the players might plan an escape. Season 3 picks up right where that left off, and because we're already familiar with the setup, everything that follows hits even harder. I have to say, these games are the most emotionally devastating we've seen so far. In earlier seasons, the games had a more chaotic, sometimes even absurd tone, but this time, they're simply dark. Their sole purpose is to drag out the worst in people, literally. Most of the time, I was hiding behind my hands. Not because I was scared, but because I was anxious about what might happen next. The show has always had a knack for building tension, but I'm glad Hwang Dong-hyuk also leaned hard into character-driven storytelling this time. We see how Gi-hun is still grieving the death of his best friend, teetering on the edge of depression. And that makes everything feel more urgent because the brave, scrappy Gi-hun we're used to is barely holding it together. He's the glue keeping the group from falling apart. That's a huge reason why I love this season. We get a new side of Gi-hun, one that's darker, angrier and stripped of the drive he once had. He's mentally and emotionally drained, and honestly, it makes sense given everything he's been through. 'Squid Game' has always been about humanity and the idea that anyone can tip toward good or evil, depending on what the world puts them through. Even though Gi-hun is a protagonist we've all come to love, I actually found myself even more drawn to some of the newer characters introduced in season 2, including Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), Geum-ja (Kang Ae-sim), and Jun-hee (Jo Yuri). Their dynamic as a trio in season 3 is incredibly compelling, and it's refreshing to watch characters navigate the games without Gi-hun leading the charge. Most of all, season 3 doesn't waste any time getting into the gritty stuff. There are new games to get stuck into, and when we're not focused on the chaos, we're seeing deeper character development — particularly with No-eul (Park Gyu-young), who's navigating her role as a pink guard with renewed determination. We also check back in with Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), who's still out at sea, trying to track down the island. There are plenty of shocking moments that take time to process, and as you can imagine, this season isn't exactly cheerful in any way, shape, or form. But each one-hour episode is packed with enough tension and emotional weight to keep you hooked. This might just be one of the most emotional binge-watches I've ever had. 'Squid Game' season 3 is excellent, but I'm glad the show isn't being dragged out. Even in this final chapter, you can tell some side plots were overshadowed and stretched thin, which made it harder to stay fully engaged, especially when the real focus is, of course, on the main games and players. No-eul did get some well-deserved screen time, along with a few moments that shed more light on her past. But even with that, a weaker script had her feeling like she was running in circles. By the time the darker, juicier parts of the games kicked in, other characters and their subplots lost momentum because all I could think was, 'Wait, how does that game end?' The same goes for Jun-ho and his team, including Woo-seok (Jun Suk-ho), who are trying to locate the island and bring down the games for good. At times, it honestly felt like scenes from season 2 were being recycled since their storyline didn't move forward for a few episodes. Then suddenly, everything converges at once, and those storylines feel rushed. And yes, while the games remain the strongest part of the season, some moments did start to feel repetitive, like players deciding whether to stay or leave or going through the same motions with food and rest. That's part of why I'm relieved this is the final chapter. Aside from the characters we really know, we're once again introduced to the VIPs who take sick pleasure in watching the games. In the first season, they were a mysterious group I thought would be explored further, but unfortunately, their true motivations remain hidden. Honestly, I ended up getting tired of them. What's more, these VIPs made me sigh every time they appeared on screen. The performances almost crossed into campy territory, which really wasn't the right tone for something so bleak. The constant switch between their annoying jokes and the brutal reality of the games felt jarring, and I just wanted them gone. They added nothing meaningful to this season, which is probably the biggest issue I had. The only good thing about the VIPs was having the Front Man there, interacting with them and promising that these new rounds of games would be worth it. At least he brought a commanding presence. It's sad knowing that season 3 marks the end, but as I mentioned earlier, it really does feel like the right place to wrap up a great Netflix show. There are plenty of shocking twists and games that will (probably) leave you speechless — both in scale and in purpose. One standout? The jump rope game, which is arguably one of the most intense the series has ever delivered. On top of that, season 3 quickly shifts how you feel about certain characters. People you rooted for in season 2 might not make your favorites list this time around. Honestly, there were a few I ended up genuinely hating, but that only made the season more gripping. As the games progress, the desperation kicks in, and characters become increasingly ruthless. The only advice I would give is to mentally prepare yourself. I know I shed a few tears during certain revelations, but that's to be expected. 'Squid Game' has never exactly been a happy show. Most of all, 'Squid Game' season 3 is everything a final season should be — bold, emotional, and not afraid to push its characters (and viewers) to the edge. It still manages to leave a real impact and reminds you why this show blew up in the first place. Saying goodbye is bittersweet, but this final chapter proves it was always about what makes us human, and what we're willing to lose (or protect) when everything's at stake. Don't forget the tissues. Stream "Squid Game" season 3 on Netflix now.
Tom's Guide
an hour ago
- Tom's Guide
'Squid Game' season 3 premiere live — real-time reactions, character recaps, and more from Netflix's big finale
It's officially game time. All six episodes of 'Squid Game' season 3 have just dropped on Netflix, and that means the deadly competition is back for one final round. Whether you're diving in right away or planning to binge it later, we're kicking off our live coverage of the show's epic conclusion right here. As fans around the world press play, I'll be breaking down every major twist, shocking moment, and character arc as the season unfolds. Expect real-time episode reactions, a closer look at returning players, and plenty of internet chatter as social media lights up with theories and spoilers. I'll also be rounding up early reviews from critics, tracking audience response, and flagging anything you might have missed. So whether you're watching alongside us or just want to keep up with the carnage without jumping in yet, this live blog has you covered. Let's see what the final chapter of 'Squid Game' has in store for us. Spoiler warning: This live blog will feature spoilers for each episode of "Squid Game" season 3. All spoiler-heavy posts will be clearly marked so you can scroll safely. Alix is a Senior Streaming Writer at Tom's Guide, which basically means watching the best movies and TV shows and then writing about them. It's a dream job for someone who's been obsessed with storytelling since she first figured out how to work a remote.
