In case you missed it during its West End run earlier in 2026, there's good news for international theatre fans: Les Liaisons Dangereuses will be in select cinemas worldwide from June 25, before heading to the National Theatre at Home streaming service later in the year.

This is all thanks to National Theatre Live, whose productions have been seen by more than 13 million people across the globe. I'm one of these, having seen everything from Hansard to All My Sons in theaters and local community centers.

The goal is to make British theater more accessible, which is fantastic news if you're international or just (rightfully) can't afford paying up to £120 for a ticket. Out of all of the productions I've seen, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is one that you absolutely cannot afford to miss.

For us peasants, this translates to Dangerous Liaisons, which you've likely seen in the 1988 movie of the same name starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich. This time, Lesley Manville and Aiden Turner take on the respective roles of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont.

During its three-hour (I know) runtime, viewers experience a whirlwind of drama, deceit, unrequited love, and outright chaos. The staging is exquisitely minimal yet dramatic thanks to its use of moving mirrors, with our cast included in mass choreographed dance numbers interspersed throughout.

Frankly, it's like nothing I've ever seen. So when the National Theatre invited me on an exclusive tour behind-the-scenes during one of its two filming days for NT Live, I was as giddy as a five-year-old.

National Theatre Live: Les Liaisons Dangereuses was shot with the same cameras used to film your favorite Netflix movies

Here's how it works. For productions that aren't beamed into cinemas live, filming happens across two performances in the same week.

This way, editors can splice together the best cuts of scenes, meaning that if there's a mark on the floor or a prop out of place, you won't notice. The idea is to replicate the

When I walk into the theater on the second day of shooting, a total of seven cameras are rehearsing their placements for later in the evening. They're all a part of ARRI camera systems, which are the same kind that film all the latest Netflix movies. Small world, huh?

Most of them have a stationary position, with the camera closest to the stage operating on a dolly (which is essentially a small piece of track it can move up and down). Instead of being operated hands-on like on a movie set, the dolly camera is operated remotely from a portable control room.

So where is this mysterious crew? Instead of being packed into the auditorium, they're (literally) parked outside in two mobile van units. The first acts like a screen studio you'd see on an actual TV set, monitoring each camera through numbered live feeds. Next door is the audio mixing unit — meaning if someone coughs in the audience, it will be removed.

Basically, it's all the pleasure of being at the theater without any of the annoyances. I'm almost jealous of whoever gets to see it on screen, zooming into painful and poised movements in a way that I just couldn't see, even with my best glasses on two rows from the front.

You might be wondering what happens when a production is beamed totally live into cinemas without editing or delay, such as Inter Alia with Rosamund Pike in 2025. The process is almost the same, except that the NT team has to book a satellite to use in order to do so. According to my tour guide, that means a lot of bartering with international TV channels.

Regardless of how it is recorded, you can guarantee getting the best theatre experience possible. And if that hasn't sold you... Lesley Manville and Rivals' own Aiden Turner?! Come on.

If you're looking for the very best Dolby Atmos movies to show off what your that home system you've lovingly researched and chosen can do, then there's a smart list of the 'top 100' options available on a site called Hello Atmos.

This top 100 was curated by the creator of Hello Atmos in order to find the 'consensus' list of the movies that get recommended the most often. It's based on published reviews and lists of great Atmos movies (including ours), plus community recommendations from platforms like Reddit, in the many many threads where people ask for recommendations.

It's all pulled into an algorithm designed by the app's creator, Adrian Wrona, to rank the movies based on how strongly they're recommended, and resulting in the top 100 list.

You can read the full list just below, or see it on the Hello Atmos site, which also includes where you can stream the movies in your country (though it's TechRadar's stance that uncompressed audio from the best 4K Blu-ray players is the only way to really show off your system).

While like any best-of lists there's plenty of opportunity for an argument — is Blade Runner 2049 still a better showcase than Dune? Why isn't Dredd higher up the rankings? — it's a great and eclectic guide to some of the best sounding spatial audio soundtracks, with details of who did the mixing, which is a nice touch.

We've written about Adrian before; another tool on Hello Atmos scans your Apple Music or Spotify playlists to identify which ones are available in Atmos, which is great if you want to really explore spatial audio for music.

The 100 best Dolby Atmos movies, as rated by Hello Atmos

1. Blade Runner 2049
2. Dune
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
4. Ready Player One
5. The Batman
6. Top Gun: Maverick
7. Dune: Part Two
8. Gravity
9. Ford v Ferrari
10. A Quiet Place
11. The Matrix
12. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
13. Pacific Rim
14. 1917
15. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
16. Edge of Tomorrow
17. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
18. Fury
19. Midway
20. Saving Private Ryan
21. Deepwater Horizon
22. Bohemian Rhapsody
23. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
24. A Quiet Place Part II
25. Civil War
26. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
27. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
28. Twister
29. Godzilla vs. Kong
30. Roma
31. No Time to Die
32. Transformers
33. Hacksaw Ridge
34. Oblivion
35. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
36. Prey
37. Alita: Battle Angel
38. TRON: Legacy
39. Baby Driver
40. Warfare
41. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
42. Godzilla Minus One
43. Gran Turismo
44. John Wick: Chapter 4
45. Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague
46. Kong: Skull Island
47. Ambulance
48. Twisters
49. Unbroken
50. John Wick

51. Avengers: Endgame
52. Jurassic Park
53. Apocalypse Now
54. Blade Runner
55. First Man
56. Man of Steel
57. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
58. The Fifth Element
59. Soul
60. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
61. Black Hawk Down
62. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
63. John Wick: Chapter 2
64. Dredd
65. Star Trek Into Darkness
66. Deadpool
67. Nope
68. Sinners
69. Brave
70. Doctor Sleep
71. WALL·E
72. F1
73. War of the Worlds
74. Mission: Impossible - Fallout
75. Us
76. Alien: Romulus
77. Everest
78. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
79. Avatar: The Way of Water
80. Ghostbusters: Afterlife
81. 6 Underground
82. Avengers: Infinity War
83. Ballerina
84. Aquaman
85. Titanic
86. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
87. The Guns of Navarone
88. Aliens
89. Nosferatu
90. Uncut Gems
91. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
92. Back to the Future
93. Suspiria
94. Overlord
95. Top Gun
96. Sicario
97. 300
98. Evil Dead Rise
99. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
100. A Quiet Place: Day One

Full spoilers follow for Toy Story 5. You have been warned.

Thomas Jordan has seen a lot in his Hollywood career. The Pixar veteran, who began his career at the acclaimed animation studio in 1997 as a production intern on A Bug's Life, has had a front-row seat to the company's many highs and occasional lows, and the rapidly changing face of the entertainment business itself.

Hoppers, the first of two new movies from Pixar this year, launched to critical acclaim, grossing almost $400 million globally, and the Disney subsidiary is aiming for another box office success with its next feature.

Step forward Toy Story 5, the latest installment in Pixar's long-running, incredibly popular, and money-spinning film franchise. Despite a mixed critical reception — read my Toy Story 5 review to see what I thought — it's anticipated that the movie series' fifth entry will be a huge hit, financially, with some analysts predicting a $150 million windfall during its opening weekend in North America alone.

As the film's visual effects (VFX) supervisor — a role he filled for the very first time on Toy Story's fifth chapter — and with almost 30 years of experience under his belt, Jordan knew how big an undertaking this movie would be. After all, as he tells me, on a sunny Friday afternoon in London ahead of the family-friendly flick's June 19 worldwide release: "Toy Story is very precious. It started it all. It's our crown jewel. It's why Pixar is still here."

That's just one of many measured and insightful remarks Jordan gave in our exclusive interview. From developing innovative new technologies and crafting Bonnie's imagination-based art style to the challenges of animating the film's antagonistic tablet device Lilypad and Pixar's experiment with artificial intelligence (AI), here's everything we discussed in our chat.

(NB: this interview has been condensed and edited for clarity).

Bridging the animation tech divide

TechRadar: Each new Toy Story film — and Pixar project for the matter — gives you the opportunity to improve upon the last. What technologies, programs, and tools did you invent or refine to craft specific parts of this film?

Thomas Jordan: Well, to animate the realistic-looking horse — she's called Daffodil — we have in this movie, we needed to figure out a new rigging system. Without it, we couldn't have her in as many shots, because it would have been too laborious to animate her. This new system is more realistic in terms of horse motion and easier for the animators [to use], so we can have her in as many shots as we want.

The other example that comes to mind is the long, black, curly hair on the [human] character Blaze. We strive to create movies that represent the audience, and if we can't represent a certain part of the population, we feel like we're not doing our jobs properly. We put extra effort into solving the problem instead of changing the hairstyle because we wanted to finally solve this problem once and for all, and we knew it would not just benefit our film but any Pixar production.

TR: When you implement new tools, what are some of the challenges of making them work in tandem with established Pixar programs?

TJ: There's an expectation with every Pixar movie to push the envelope and innovate, so sequels are particularly appealing as testing grounds. But, early on, I did think about the danger of adopting too many new tools at once, so we were very careful about which current programs we combined them with.

There were instances where our new tools didn't overlap with pre-existing ones. For example, for Daffodil, the new rigging technology we used to animate her doesn't use our recent lighting tool Luna, nor our new rendering tool Renderman XPU.

We took a similar approach with Blaze's curly hair tool. We only used it alongside Renderman XPU for one sequence and with Luna in two to minimize the risk because, you know, the movie has a release date. No matter what we do, we can't jeopardize that.

What makes a toy?

TR: Let's talk about the new toys you introduce in this film, starting with Smarty Pants, Atlas, and Snappy. What was most challenging about bringing them to life and ensuring they moved in visually unique ways?

TJ: The first thing is they're all solid objects. None of them have hands or legs, and they either have screens or a sticker for eyes, so initially we had to work out how they'd move.

The next challenge was they all needed to feel like they were from different eras. We wanted Smarty Pants to be the oldest one, so his technology looks older because he's from when Blaze was a little girl, and his screen doesn't refresh as quick as the others. The next one she got was Atlas, and so we did a lot of research on what technology and screens looked like in the '80s, '90s and 2000s. After that came Snappy, who's the most advanced with her eyeball camera lens, and so things needed to feel unrefined.

On top of that, they all have screens, which have to be animated separately from the characters themselves. The problem was that when the animation team worked on Snappy, Smarty Pants, and Atlas, their screens were blank, which isn't very useful or inspiring for the animator who's trying to make them emote. So, we gave them a tool — it's like a virtual pencil they can animate with — that allowed them to mock up what shows up on the toys' screens.

Once their animation was approved by the director with these temporary sketches, we have an art team that creates what we call "motion graphics", which are these graphic design images but animated. So that's what we added to the screens, in the form of these chunky and old-fashioned pixels, after the rest of the characters were animated.

TR: I imagine you applied a similar process to Lilypad. As a modern toy with a touchscreen that Bonnie and other characters can swipe on, though, how did animating Lilypad differ from the others?

TJ: There was an extra complicated step. Like the other toys' screens, if the animator was, say, animating Bonnie's finger swiping on Lilypad's screen, we hadn't actually figured out what Bonnie would be swiping, so the animator was essentially swiping at nothing.

When the eventual screen images are designed, not only do they need to support the rest of Bonnie's animation, they also need to be synchronized with her swiping motion. So, while it was another use case for the virtual pencil sketch tool, it became a timing guide for the artists who were making the graphics for Lilypad's screen, and ensuring they lined up with when Bonnie is touching it and moving it.

As for Lilypad's screen, it has the highest resolution [of the new toy devices], but you'll notice that her eyes are still pixelated. The reason for that is our director, Andrew Stanton, really wanted to make sure the audience always remembered she wasn't just a toy, but a tech device. Because her screen is so high-tech, if we did that for her eyes, she might just feel like an actual frog toy as opposed to a device. So it was a deliberate decision we made, even though it makes her feel a little bit more retro.

Building Bonnie's imagination scene — and Toy Story 5's most intricate sequence

TR: A lot of positive things have been said about the art form used to represent Bonnie's imagination since Toy Story 5's official trailer came out. How many styles did you explore before settling on those visuals?

TJ: I'd say all of them! *laughs* That was a very long process where we were challenged to create something that the audience has never seen before, but we don't know what it is or what they want.

And so, on a weekly basis, we'd bring in our own toys, drawings from our kids, and examples of different painting styles, and get together in a meeting room to look at all of these little bits and pieces. As we started honing in on what the directors liked, it became clear they liked things that were reminiscent of Bonnie's crafts-oriented personality, so we extended that into what her imagination looks like.

We were also inspired by the early pastel lighting studies done by Toy Story 1's original production designer Ralph Eggleston. That was his style for showing what the lighting would look like for the entire film, so he would do sketches — we'd call it a color script — using pastel chalk to demonstrate it.

TR: Later in the movie, when Blaze is seen playing with Jessie and Bullseye, her imagination is stylized in the same way as Bonnie's. Was that used to telegraph to audiences how compatible she and Bonnie were as individuals and, as the film's final sequence reveals, friends?

TJ: Yes, it was a very deliberate choice to show Bonnie and Blaze had similar imagination styles — and Jessie sees it, too, because Jessie is part of that imaginary sequence, which helps her realize these kids are very similar, and they would make great friends someday.

That said, Blaze's imagination has a different color palette and some fun, different themes to it, as well. So, at the end of playtime, where Bonnie and Blaze are playing together, we purposefully combined the two art styles to show how compatible their personalities are. It was one of the most rewarding things to work on and see come together at the end.

TR: What was the hardest or most intricate sequence to realize, from initial concept to the final product?

TJ: When I read an early draft of the script, there was an "oh no" moment when I reached the scene where Jessie and Bullseye, along with Woody, the 51 Buzzes, and all the toy horses, are trying to rescue Lilypad from a moving truck on the highway. That meant we needed to figure out how to animate well over 100 characters individually, because they all have their own personalities and unique animation, and it all had to be coordinated so they arrived at the truck at the same time.

I thought, 'How the heck are we going to do that in this exterior environment? We're outside, racing through the countryside on a dirt road, and then all of a sudden we're on the highway, and there are other cars, we see shops and stores, and there are clouds in the sky!'.

It was by far the most complicated scene and required months of planning, so we decided to start working on it very early, because we didn't want to leave it to the last minute.

One eye on Easter eggs, the other on AI

TR: It's an understatement to say AI is a hot topic right now. What are your feelings on its use in the entertainment industry? And is it something you've tentatively or actively researched to improve any aspects of your work?

TJ: We've experimented with it at Pixar, but only to see how AI could be used, and very quickly we learned that it wasn't ready for our level of filmmaking. So, we've started to approach it more from the angle of wanting to improve the artist's experience, not replace it.

My personal philosophy is if there are steps to, say, helping set up a scene so you can actually get to animating it faster, that sounds extremely useful.

More importantly, it still puts the artist first, because I think the secret sauce of Pixar animation is the way that we animate. It's not meant to be based on the real world — it's artistic license and caricatured. We're trying to support the story and emotion, but in a way that allows us to put our creativity into the characters you see on screen, and I think that's something we would never want to change.

TR: No Pixar movie is complete without its Easter eggs. Do you have a favorite that you snuck in? And should viewers keep an eye out for the Pizza Planet truck?

TJ: Yes, the Pizza Planet truck is there. It's in all but one of our movies, so it's tradition to include it. As for another specific reference, I challenge the audience — and this is another of my favorite Pixar traditions — to find the Easter egg related to our next film.

Every Pixar movie has an Easter egg for the one that comes after, and the fun thing is that you don't know what to look for until you've seen the most recent film. So, there was a Toy Story 5 secret in Hoppers, which was Atlas the GPS hippo device.

And so, for Gatto, the film we're releasing in 2027, there's an Easter egg for that in Toy Story 5. I'll give you a hint: it's not the titular black cat himself. Let me know if you find it!

Toy Story 5 is out now in theaters worldwide.

It's one of the biggest pop culture franchises on the planet, but how well do you really know Star Wars? Let's find out.

Since the 1970s, Star Wars has been a media titan; movies, TV shows, video games, theme park attractions, novels, card and board games, action figures and so, so much more. It's hard not to think of places you've seen iconic characters like Darth Vader, R2-D2 and Yoda.

Just as prevalent as Star Wars icons are Star Wars fans, with many knowing the characters, events and planets of the franchise with intimate knowledge. And that's just as well, because the massive franchise has many facets to get your head around — make sure to read our how to watch the Star Wars movies in order guide if you're not sure where to start.

To see how much of a Star Wars fan you are, this quiz has been designed to test your knowledge on the franchise. The questions will be about the movies, TV shows, games and more in the franchise — so you may find our new Star Wars movies and Disney+ show explained guide useful — not about the world building itself, so you don't need to know Luke Skywalker's favorite holiday planet, or who delivers Yoda's mail.

We'll start with 10 easy questions, and then move into 10 medium ones, and finish with 10 difficult ones for the experts. So let's find out just how much you know:

If you need to brush up on your Star Wars, let's get you some revision material:

Six months ago, the question "how far away are we from AI movies?" felt reasonable to ask. Today it feels outdated, because they're already here.

Last week I attended a screening of Hell Grind, a 90-minute AI-generated movie that was made in just two weeks. On the same day, Dreams of Violets, a poignant docudrama inspired by real events from 47 years of Iranian civilian resistance, and which is 100% AI-generated, appeared at the Tribeca film festival. Then today I found myself watching something a bit lighter in tone — DEADLINES — on YouTube, a comedy-horror trailer made with AI that was funny enough to make me laugh out loud.

DEADLINES feels like it’s leaning strongly into the vibe of the new Apple TV horror/comedy series Widows Bay, where creepy things happen on a cursed island. But even though it clearly borrows from Apple's hit series, what surprised me was how funny the trailer actually was.

Ultimately, all three releases made me realize we've crossed an important threshold. The question is no longer whether AI can make movies. It can. The question now is whether anyone actually wants to watch them.

The difference between an AI movie and AI slop

For years, AI video demos have been judged on whether they could they fool us. Could they generate convincing actors, realistic camera movements, believable explosions and dramatic lighting? Every improvement felt like another step toward the goal of Hollywood-quality filmmaking.

Getting everything correct is important, because it only takes one obvious problem with an AI-generated scene to destroy the credibility of the whole movie. Now, though, the technical challenges are rapidly becoming the easy part — which makes what's going to come next so much more interesting.

What struck me most about DEADLINES was the quality of the writing. The trailer had actual jokes. It had timing. It had a clear sense of tone. It felt like somebody had a great idea and they wanted to share it.

But even though DEADLINES is a lot better than most AI videos, it’s still not perfect — the accent of the main character veers between several different regions of the UK, for instance. However, it’s good enough to make little things like this not really matter too much. That's the difference between a good movie and AI slop.

Nobody cares about the fingers anymore

While there's no need to count the fingers on people's hands these days, those questions about AI’s ability to realistically generate human beings haven’t gone away entirely; but they’re not the point anymore. When I watched DEADLINES I wasn’t paying attention to the visuals. Instead I was paying attention to the jokes, the pacing and the story, and deciding if I wanted to keep watching.

While DEADLINES knows it's using Windows Bay as its starting point, the trailer understands what it's parodying. It knows the language of prestige horror. It knows how to build a joke. It has an actual comedic premise.

That’s why I think things are about to change. The traditional gatekeepers of filmmaking are looking less secure than ever. The bottleneck isn’t really the production process, funding or access to filmmaking tools. Now, it's imagination and storytelling.

The bigger question now is whether AI filmmakers can create stories people genuinely care about. I don't know whether DEADLINES will ever become a full-length feature- film. What I do know is that it made me laugh, and that's a much more important milestone than generating another realistic explosion or perfectly rendered human face.

AI movies are already here. The race now is to make them worth watching.

If you're a fan of Pokémon, you've probably played your fair share of the many games out there, watched some of the anime, and maybe even checked out one or two of the movies. But if you'll want to do well in the following quiz, you'll need to prove your worth as a fan.

Ever since the original games were released in 1996, Pokémon has been an unstoppable cultural phenomenon — even grandparents would recognize a Pikachu or Pokéball. There are countless video games (who could forget Pokémon Go) as well as thousands of episodes of TV show, loads of movies and other media appearances; songs, manga, trading cards, the list goes on.

So there's a lot for fans of Pokémon to get their head around, and I hope you've made a good effort, because I'm about to test you on the franchise. We'll be asking questions about the various media that's been produced over the years, as well as names and numbers.

If you can't tell your Natu from your Eternatus, don't worry: this won't all be about specific Pokémon, but the entries in the media empire. But if you know what Pikachu looks like, that'll help.

We'll start with 10 easy questions, and then move into 10 medium ones, and finish with 10 difficult ones for the experts. So let's find out just how much you know:

Do you know your Graveler from your Grovyle? If you need to brush up on your Pokémon, let's get you some revision material:

At long last, the official trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been released — and you can watch it right now via the YouTube embed below.

There's a lot to unpack from Spider-Man's next big-screen adventure, too — so much so that TechRadar's entertainment team will need time to view it numerous times to analyze every single frame of footage that the new Marvel movie's latest teaser contains.

So, stick with us today (June 17) and tomorrow (June 18) as we dissect Spider-Man 4's newest round of footage, and bring you more details about the highly anticipated Marvel Phase 6 film over the next 12 to 24 hours.

A brand new day for a brand new trailer

Hello! And welcome to our live blog for the launch of Spider-Man: Brand New Day's official trailer.

I'm Tom Power, TechRadar's senior entertainment reporter and your friendly neighborhood host for today's event. I'll be here throughout the day to bring you all of the pre-release information we have on the exciting Marvel film's next teaser before breaking down the most important parts of the trailer post-launch.

So, load up the Spidey Tracker website — more on that in just a second — and stick with me as we prepare for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie's latest footage to arrive.

Where is Spider-Man?

Don't worry, despite what this post's title suggests, the iconic wallcrawler hasn't gone missing. Nonetheless, you'll be able to keep track of where and when he'll appear in a city near you on the Spider-Man 4 world tour.

Indeed, once trailer #2 has been released, you'll be able to visit spideytracker.net to find out what date(s) the Brand New Day press and fan tour will come to your neck of the woods. In fact, a post on the Spidey Tracker X/Twitter account has confirmed some of the places that Tom Holland, Zendaya, and company will visit as part of their globetrotting promo campaign, so we already have an idea of where they'll show up.

Anyway, if you head over to the Spidey Tracker website now, you can watch a brief video from the site's CEO and founder — a certain Ned Leeds — to learn more about the tour and get an insight into what other information will be available once the page is fully live. Hmm, I wonder who that secret villain is...

What time will Spider-Man: Brand New Day's official trailer come out?

There's no official word on what time Spider-Man 4's new trailer will be released — but, thanks to a fan event taking place later today, we have an idea of when it might drop.

Indeed, a listing on the Pathé Netherlands Cinemas website has revealed that a Spider-Man: Brand New Day Global Fan Event is set to take place in its capital city Amsterdam later today. Doors open at 6pm local time, which mean it'll kick off at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm BST on June 17, and 2am AEST on June 18.

Admittedly, that doesn't tell us the exact time for the trailer's arrival — and, even though the listing indicates there'll be a surprise finale at 10:15pm local time, I'd be amazed if the new teaser's release is held back until then. After all, 1:15pm PT would be a strange time for a trailer launch...

But wait, there's more. Per the film's holding page on the website of UK cinema chain Odeon, tickets officially go on sale at 2pm BST, which means they'll also be available to buy at 6am PT / 9am ET / 11pm AEST.

My best guess, then, is that the trailer will launch at the same time that ticket sales go live. To sum up, then, make sure you're locked in to watch it on Wednesday, June 17 at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm BST / 11pm AEST.

Plug the leaks!

While it's widely expected that the movie's new teaser will drop today, some fans have already seen it.

"How?", you might ask. Well, because Brand New Day's latest round of footage has reportedly done the rounds on social media over the last few days. Hey, Sony and Spider-Man leaks go hand in hand, so this isn't that much of a surprise!

Now, I haven't seen it — I don't want to watch a teaser that looks like it's been recorded on a toaster... — and I won't be sharing any links to the leaked trailer because I'd rather not incur the wrath of Sony and Marvel. And, honestly, with the trailer likely landing in the next few hours, I think we can all agree to just wait a bit longer to see it in all of its HD or 4K glory.

New plot teases

Alright, while we continue to count down to the trailer's expected launch, let's take a look at some of the latest comments made by director Destin Daniel Cretton and lead star Tom Holland.

As part of a recent profile piece for Esquire, the latter dropped this new tease about Brand New Day's plot: "This movie is a real mystery and for a large portion of the film, even Spider-Man is a little bit at odds and lost and is like ‘What is going on?’. We’re just trying to find ways to make this movie feel like a detective movie."

Meanwhile, on the latest edition of Deadline's Crew Call podcast, Cretton joked that "everyone should go to this (movie) as if it’s the last Spider-Man". We know that won't be the case — the character makes too much money for live-action rights holder Sony. Nevertheless, does this seemingly innocuous comment indicate that Parker might give up the Spider-Man mantle by the end of the film? Or — and whisper it quietly — maybe even die? I guess we'll find out when the film is released in late July!

Trailer time (no, not the new one)!

Sorry if I got your hopes up there with this post's title! Hopefully the bit in brackets will have done their job...

Anyway, while we wait for Spider-Man 4's next trailer to arrive, why don't you rewatch its first teaser, which arrived in mid-March? Once you have, read my Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer breakdown piece to get my thoughts and opinions on what was shown.

Who's who in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?

As for who's set to join Holland as part of this superhero movie's starry ensemble, I'd suggest reading my Spider-Man: Brand new Day cast and character guide.

You won't get confirmation of every character who'll appear in the forthcoming flick — for one, the identity of Sadie Sink's individual remains a mystery — but there are plenty more details about the reset of its cast roster. So, hop to it!

Swinging out for lunch

And now it's time for a quick pitstop to refuel ahead of the trailer's possible release this afternoon in the UK, which is where I'm based. So, I'm hoping — nay, praying — that the trailer doesn't arrive while I'm out!

In the meantime let me know in the comments what you want to see as part of the new teaser. See you all shortly!

And I'm back!

Okay, I'm ready to attack the rest of the day now — and, more importantly, we shouldn't be too far away from the trailer's release.

While we wait, why not get the full lowdown on everything we know so far about Spider-Man: Brand New Day? I'll be updating that guide soon with all of the latest information on the film, but there are lots of interesting details within that are definitely worth reading in the meantime.

Another release date reminder

Even though we're not far away from the film's arrival in theaters, it would be remiss of me not to remind you of Spider-Man: Brand New Day's release date.

Originally, Spider-Man 4 was due to launch worldwide on Friday, July 31 but, depending on where you live, some of you will actually be able to see it early.

Indeed, UK audiences can catch Spidey's latest big-screen adventure at their local cinema on Wednesday, July 29. Those of you in India can check it out on Thursday, July 30, too.

Elsewhere, while most US fans won't be able to watch it until July 31, Amazon is giving Prime subscribers the chance to see Spider-Man 4 via early access screenings on July 29. For more details on how to grab your ticket, head over to the Amazon store's official Brand New Day page.

Not long now...

Hopefully, it won't be much longer until we get a brand-new look at one of the most exciting new movies of 2026. Deep breaths, everyone...

So, what will the latest trailer show us? Will we finally learn the identity of Sadie Sink's mysterious character? How about an actual shot of Marvin Jones III's Tombstone? Is there going to be a clip or two that, as the rumors suggest, Spidey will be forced to fight The Hulk? And will the movie's real villain please stand up!?

No trailer yet, but...

Well, this is awkward. It's gone 2pm here in the UK (that's 6am PT / 9am ET / 11pm AEST) and Spider-Man 4's latest trailer is yet to show its face. Hmmph.

But, hey, as some of the film's primary cast — Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacab Batalon — have revealed in the above Instagram post, tickets are on sale now, so go and grab your seat ASAP!

As for when the teaser could now come out: I honestly don't know. Even so, stick with me and I'll bring it to you as soon as it drops online.

I'm your villain

Rather than sit here twiddling our thumbs, let's pass the time by digging into a recent new fan theory that, after the release of yesterday's Spidey Tracker website teaser video, appears to have some legs.

Per the above screenshot, Brand New Day might feature a villain whose identity hasn't been revealed yet. We know they'll be some form of Big Bad, too, because the other characters we see as part of this list (Scorpion, Tarantula, Boomerang, and The Hand to name four) are said to have terrorized New York in recent years. And, yes, that includes Frank Castle/The Punisher, who's actually more of an anti-hero than a traditional villain.

But, I digress. Who is this mystery individual? It could be Sink's character but, while I think she'll initially be positioned as an antagonist, Brand New Day will perform a bait and switch move that reveals Sink's individual isn't who's pulling everyone else's strings.

Spidey has more than his fair share of enemies in the comics but, unless we get a more substantial description of this character, we'll be clutching at straws as to who it could be. Even so, let me know in the comments who you think it'll be.

And still the wait goes on...

Another hour has passed without incident. Anybody else starting to get a bit worried that we might not see a trailer today? No, stop with the defeatist talk, Tom — a new teaser is coming! It has to.

For what it's worth, industry leakers who have good track records when it comes to insider knowledge trailer launches, such as DanielRPK and Cryptic4KQual, are just as confused as the rest of us are that it hasn't dropped yet. Fingers crossed it does so soon, then...

Posters galore — but no IMAX one?

Official Posters for ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ from r/marvelstudios

Well, the trailer might not be here yet, but at least we've got four new official posters to look at. Yay.

After flicking through the above gallery, you might have noticed that there isn't an IMAX one. That's because Spider-Man: Brand New Day won't be available to watch in this format.

The reason? Christopher Nolan's next movie The Odyssey — another film that Tom Holland will appear in this year — has snapped up every available IMAX screen for at least a three-week window. It's out on July 17, too, meaning it'll only have been in theaters for two weeks by the time Spider-Man 4 arrives. If you were hoping to see Peter Parker's next MCU outing in IMAX, then, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Fandango's Big Ticket interview

Other promotional materials have hit the *ahem* web since ticket sales went live, too — one of which is the latest installment of Fandango's Big Ticket interview series.

The 16-minute chat, which you can watch above, sees the ticket e-site sit down and talk about spoiler-free things alongside Holland, Zendaya, Batalon, and Sink. If you can't watch it right now, though, here's a quick rundown of its most notable highlights:

• After reading and listening to what fans wanted from a Spider-Man film, Holland says Brand New Day doesn't "necessarily feel like saving the world, but maybe saving himself"
• Sink says "I didn't realize there'd be so much speculation" about her mystery character, but understandably can't confirm who she's playing
• Holland says Hulk's actual role in the film is "definitely a secret", and that Spidey and The Punisher have a "bickering, big brother-little brother" dynamic
• Holland also jokes that it was a "nightmare" to recreate some of the most iconic Spider-Man comic book covers in this live-action flick, and admits it took 65 takes to "perfect" the shot of Spider-Man and The Hand launching themselves at each other

Get me footage of Spider-Man!

Another hour, another trailer no-show.

Is Sony Pictures going to put us out of our misery at some point today? I'm still confident that the studio will, but it's looking more and more likely that the teaser will officially debut at that Amsterdam fan event I mentioned hours ago.

Of course, if it arrives between now and then, you can be darn sure that it'll appear on this live blog. For now, though, our watch continues...

Which MCU project are you most looking forward to in 2026?

As we continue to pass the time, I need to ask: have you voted in our 'most anticipated Marvel movie or TV show of 2026' poll yet?

If you haven't, might I divert your attention to the top of the page — no worries if you skipped over it — to have your say on which MCU production is top of your must-see list before the year ends. At the time of writing, over 1,300 people have cast their vote, so why don't you join them?

It's quiet, too quiet...

We've officially reached the three hour mark of when I expected Spider-Man 4's official trailer to be released — and, surprise surprise, there's still nothing to report.

The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that the film's forthcoming Amsterdam fan event will be where the latest teaser is first unveiled. By my estimate, that means we could be waiting until 1:15pm PT / 4:15pm ET / 9:15pm BST. In short: we could be in for a looooooooong wait...

No rest for the wicked

Well, I was hoping to call it a day and enjoy the World Cup matches that are on tonight, but I guess I'm here for the long haul.

Right now, though, I'm going to get some food, so I don't pass out waiting for this trailer to land. See you shortly!

Did I miss anything?

I'm back — again — and it looks like I didn't miss a thing re: a trailer drop.

Still, as the above Instagram post confirms, Tom Holland and Zendaya have arrived for today's Amsterdam-based global fan event. I'm keeping everything crossed, then, that the teaser will finally be released at some point in the next few hours. So, stay with me to see it as soon as it airs.

About this Amsterdam fan event...

Okay, let's take another look at what we know about this fan event.

Attendees were allowed to start taking their seats from 6pm local time, which translates to 5pm here in the UK. In the US, that's 9am PT and 12pm ET.

Next, nobody is allowed to enter the venue after 7:15pm local time. If I know anything about similar events that have happened on British shores, the event should then begin at 7:30pm or 8pm.

If it starts at one of those times, we might — and I cannot stress enough that it's 'might' — see the trailer sooner rather than later. That's if Sony doesn't want to leave attendees (and, by proxy, us) hanging around for much longer, anyway.

Of course, there is a so-called surprise finale that'll take place at 10:15pm, which could be the official unveiling of Brand New Day's official trailer, before the Amsterdam-based event ends at 11pm local time. Let's hope, then, that this final surprise is a completely different reveal to the actual teaser.

We have movement!

Battle stations, everyone! The official Spider-Man Instagram account has just started broadcasting live from the Amsterdam fan event.

Does this mean the trailer's release is imminent? Stay with me for more!

Edit: As of 19:53 BST, the fan event's host just confirmed the new teaser is set to be shown very, very, very soon!

IT'S LIVE!

This is not a drill! The trailer is here! Go and watch it, now!

That's a wrap... for now

My race is run, dear reader. I've been helming this live blog for almost 12 hours — minus a couple of food breaks — so it's time for me to retire for the day.

But, fret not, because I'll be back tomorrow (June 18) to dissect every frame of the trailer, offer my theories on what they tell us about Spider-Man: Brand New Day, highlight any major theories that fans have come up with post-release, and bring you more information what the Amsterdam event's big surprise finale is. For now, though, it's goodbye from me!

Hello again!

Good morning/afternoon/evening (delete as applicable), everyone — and welcome back to our Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer #2 live blog.

We had to be incredibly patient for said teaser's unveiling, but the wait was certainly worth it. Indeed, the Marvel film's latest round of footage teased a fair deal more about its plot without spoiling anything significant, which is always a tricky tightrope to walk.

But, enough waffling. After a restful night's sleep, I'm going to the next few hours breaking down Spider-Man 4's latest trailer, offering my thoughts on where its story could go, and highlighting any big new fan theories I come across online. Grab a drink and some snacks, then, and join me for more Spider-Man chatter then, won't you?

Who is Sadie Sink playing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?

Okay, let's start with the two biggest questions that fans have after this trailer's release, one of which we've been asking since Sink's casting in Spider-Man 4 was first reported last March. That being, who is Sink playing in Brand New Day?

Unfortunately, the movie's latest teaser doesn't provide further clues as to the identity of her character. In fact, we only catch another vague glimpse of what appears to be Sink's mysterious individual at the 0:56 mark. Per the screenshot above, which is a continuation of a scene shown in both trailers (see the image below for confirmation), she'll sneak into Peter Parker's apartment at some point in the film, too.

"Great, but who is she playing???", I hear you ask again. The prevailing rumor is that Sink will portray iconic X-Men member Jean Grey. Unsurprisingly, Sony and Marvel are staying tight-lipped on this to generate fan discussion and withhold the big reveal until Spider-Man 4 is released. We'll have to wait for the film to launch, then, to get an official confirmation.

Based on other frames in the trailer that show large groups of people getting paralyzed by an unseen force, it's more likely than not that Sink is playing Grey. After all, the Omega-level mutant's telepathic powers do allow her to physically and/or mentally freeze anyone in place. Furthermore, if Sink's Grey's latent powers have only just started to manifest, she might not have full control over them and be accidentally paralyzing people.

Of course, this could be a major misdirect on Sony and Marvel's part, because it might not be Jean Grey who's doing this. If not her, then who?

Who is the main villain in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?

This is the second major question I was referring to in my previous post.

It's no secret that Brand New Day will have its fair share of villains. Scorpion, Tarantula, Boomerang, and The Hand are all confirmed to appear. Meanwhile, despite not showing up in either trailer, Marvin Jones III is still expected to portray Tombstone in Spider-Man 4. Oh, and let's not forget that the return of Bruce Banner's feral Hulk form (more on him later) will be something of an antagonistic force that, as evidenced in this trailer, the webslinger will duel with at some stage.

Worthy foes of Spidey as these individuals and/or criminal gangs are, though, none have the capacity to freeze people in place. If Sink is playing Grey, then, does this mean she'll be a misunderstood antagonist, rather than a traditional villain, in this flick?

My theory is this is the initial direction that the story will go before it employs a bait-and-switch move that'll reveal its actual Big Bad. Will that be a villainous telepath who's framing Sink for their crimes? Or will Brand New Day walk a different path and reveal that Spider-Man's dark side (again, more on this later) was the thematic villain all along?

Again, I guess we'll have to wait for the movie's full release to find out, but I wouldn't be shocked if Spider-Man 4 positions Sink's character as its initial antagonist before it turns inward and puts Peter's rumored evolution into a version of Man-Spider front and center.

Organic panic

Okay, let's go back to events that we're shown earlier in the teaser, starting with the official confirmation that Peter's metamorphosis into... well, whatever he's becoming, means that, like Tobey Maguire's version of the titular hero, his body will start producing organic webbing.

Fans have theorized that Holland's Parker would self-make webs in Brand New Day ever since its first trailer was released in mid-March. We've had to wait until now, though, to have that confirmed.

It looks like, after initially struggling to control how his body produces organic webs, Spidey will learn to utilize it in creative ways. Indeed, the penultimate shot of this trailer shows him making a web tornado that strings up numerous members of The Hand during the prison fight sequence we've seen previously.

Light spoilers follow for Toy Story 5.

Toy Story is the franchise that Disney refuses to let go of. That's no surprise, given that the immensely popular movie series has raked in billions of dollars globally since late 1995. However, Toy Story 3 delivered a perfect end to Woody and company's individual and collective stories, so the entertainment giant's commitment to churning out money-spinning but superfluous sequels, such as Toy Story 4, suggests the proverbial cow is being milked for all it's worth.

Toy Story 5 does little to move the needle in that regard. Sure, it's a fun, thematically timely, and ultimately feel-good family-friendly flick that bears all the classic hallmarks of a Pixar movie. But it's also a far-too-familiar re-tread of its predecessors, and will leave some questioning whether it needed to be made.

Toys meet tech

Set a few years after its forebear, Toy Story 5 reunites us with Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), and the gang as they face another existential threat: technology.

When their owner Bonnie is given a state-of-the-art electronic tablet named Lilypad (Greta Lee) by her parents, the now-eight-year-old becomes obsessed with her frog-like handheld computer, leaving Jessie — who succeeded Woody as the leader of Bonnie's room after his departure at the end of Toy Story 4 — and Bonnie's myriad other toys fearing for their futures.

Jessie is arguably the most worried of the group, too. Bonnie's unflinching fixation with her new high-tech toy causes Jessie's deep-seated abandonment issues to resurface, forcing her to take drastic measures that set this film's entire narrative in motion.

If that sounds familiar, it's because it's an eerily similar storytelling approach to Toy Story 1, which sees Woody fearing he's about to be replaced by Buzz. This is one of numerous narrative rehashes in Toy Story 5 that'll evoke a sense of déjà vu and, initially at least, worryingly signals that the film is simply going to hang its cowboy hat on replaying the franchise's greatest hits.

Thankfully, the long-overdue but welcome sight of Jessie taking the reins and being its toy-based protagonist, even if it's just for this film, re-energizes the movie series' traditional formula.

Director Andrew Stanton told me he never planned to make JessieToy Story 5's lead star, but I'm glad he ultimately decided to do so.

Whether it's Jessie's unrelenting and understandably self-preserving quest to reclaim Bonnie's affection in the present, or Toy Story 5's flashback sequences that elaborate on her past — a subject that was only touched upon in Toy Story 2 — putting Jessie front and center of this movie adds a narrative zip to proceedings that sets it apart from the series' other installments.

Inevitably, further examining the emotionally tormented Jessie's backstory, and how it impacts her present-day actions, shifts the focus away from Woody and Buzz.

Sure, the pair are as involved as ever, but their roles are of the main supporting variety, rather than traditional co-starring ones. In fact, save for Buzz's increasingly important role from Toy Story 5's midpoint onwards, I'd say he and Woody are nothing more than this flick's comic relief, especially where the latter's elder-statesman position is concerned. I'd wager that some fans, then, might be disappointed by the lesser roles the iconic duo inhabit this time around.

Band of Buzzers

Original Buzz isn't the only Lightyear that audiences will see in Toy Story 5. In yet another recycled plot thread — this time, from Toy Story 2 — a squad of Buzzes (ones installed with cutting-edge technology) take center stage in a subplot that, for large parts of Toy Story 5, is wholly unnecessary.

Okay, like O.G. Buzz, their importance to the story grows as it progresses, and I'll admit that this side story's examination of modern tech navigating an unpredictable world, rather than the modern world grappling with new and unpredictable tech, is somewhat novel in its approach. Even so, I didn't appreciate the constant check-ins with this squad when the film's runtime would have been better served elsewhere.

One example of where that time could have been better spent is with Lilypad.

Positioned as an antagonistic figure rather than an archetypal villain, she's not underutilized by any means. However, major spoilers notwithstanding, the progression and eventual resolution of her arc happens too quickly for my liking, which makes her role and character development feel slightly undercooked.

The same can be said of the three other tech-based toys — Smarty Pants (Conan O'Brien), a potty-training device, Atlas (Craig Robinson), a hippo GPS handset, and Snappy (Shelby Rabara), a toy camera — that we meet.

All three have vital albeit by-design parts to play following their introductions midway through the plot, which is also around the time that Toy Story 5 starts to telegraph its semblance of a story twist and narrative endgame.

As with Lilypad, though, Pixar's latest feature breezes through these meet-and-greets to maintain its narrative momentum, albeit at the cost of fully examining their pasts with the franchise's newest human character Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), and how their experiences fundamentally shift Jessie's perspective on her relationship with Bonnie.

Speaking of Bonnie, I wish we'd seen more of the beautiful and dreamy pastel chalk-art style used to depict her imagination.

First glimpsed in Toy Story 5's official trailer, it adds some much-needed visual flair to the movie — and the franchise, for that matter — that helps it stand out from its four siblings. It's an art-form I'd like to see carried into future Toy Story offerings, too; but I suppose that will depend on how old Bonnie will be when Toy Story 6 is inevitably released, and/or if Woody, Buzz, and Jessie are the leads of the next Toy Story adventure.

My verdict

Toy Story 5 is a fairly enjoyable and typically tear-jerking Pixar flick that, from storytelling, visual, and topical viewpoints, does what it needs to in order to entertain the masses, and reminds us of the true value of human connection, especially among kids, in the digital age.

However, like Toy Story 4 and another recently-released Disney movie in The Mandalorian and Grogu, aka the latest Star Wars film to land in theaters, it left me wanting more.

That's not to say it's a bad movie — as the 3-star rating at the top of this review indicates, I thought it was pretty good. Five movies into this franchise, though, I think Toy Story films — and, really, all future Pixar projects — need to do more than simply relying on high-quality visuals and checking the 'emotional resonance' box. Sure, that's fine for a movie that's aimed squarely at kids and families; but for those of us who've grown up on and continue to watch Toy Story films, something more is needed. Otherwise, just like the tidied-away toys that inhabit the films, it might be best to leave the Toy Story franchise in storage.

As the Senior AI Editor at TechRadar, it's not often I get invited to movie premieres. Yet there I was in a private cinema room in a London hotel, about to watch Hell Grind — a 90-minute AI-generated horror movie that took just two weeks to make.

I was there as a guest of Higgsfield, a platform that brings together all the tools needed to make a complete AI movie; and I was about to watch its poster child for the very thing that's got Hollywood running scared: a purely AI-generated film.

As you'd imagine from the title, Hell Grind isn't a romantic comedy — as one of the other guests remarked, it sounds more like the name of a WWE event. I don't want to give the plot away, but it involves ancient artifacts that bestow supernatural abilities on humans when activated, and a Japanese-speaking bad guy covered in spikes, who portals into whichever location he detects the artifacts in and attempts to kill whoever possesses them.

Everything on screen is AI-generated. The human contribution comes in the story, editing, and deciding which AI-generated scenes make the final cut.

If you want a good marker for the speed of AI development in movies, when I attended the AI Film Festival in Venice last year the films were typically around five minutes long. Just a year later, movies like Hell Grind can maintain consistent characters and a coherent story for 90 minutes — and it only took two weeks to make the whole thing.

Who's that guy?

Talking to Higgsfield CEO Alex Mashrabov, I learned that the main character in Hell Grind is actually modeled on a real-life Higgsfield employee, who will presumably be going back to analyzing spreadsheets after his 15 minutes of fame are over.

The rest of the cast all looked like combinations of famous actors and actresses you've seen before, but whose identities you can never quite pin down. I found trying to work out who they resembled surprisingly distracting, and I swear that one of the main actors looked a little too much like Naomi Watts at times.

Leaving aside the ethical questions raised by AI models that appear capable of producing characters who resemble real actors, it's worth evaluating the movie on its own merits.

Surprisingly, the action scenes were often the strongest part of the film. Watching various super-powered heroes and villains duke it out was genuinely entertaining. But at no point did any of it look real.

Hell Grind is a horror fantasy, so it could be argued that realism wasn't the look it was aiming for. Even so, I got the impression that we're still a long way from AI-generated dialogue scenes that hold up on a big screen, and make us genuinely unsure whether we're looking at a real person or not.

Take a deep breath, Hollywood — we're not there yet.

There were some obvious problems with the dialogue. At points it sounded like an AI chatbot trying to write movie dialogue, and the characters would occasionally blurt out something unintentionally hilarious given their current predicament.

Most memorably, when one character was facing his imminent demise, he let out a baffling "Cool!" Moments like that threw you out of the film and back into the theater, breaking the spell.

The AI boogeyman

AI in movies is a contentious topic. There are obviously people who would rather drink a pint of toxic runoff water from a Mid-west data center than sit down and watch an AI-generated movie of their own free will.

Many people see AI as something that's going to take their jobs, ruin the planet, and eventually eliminate humanity itself. So Hell Grind simply existing in such a creativity-led industry is a provocative act in itself.

But parts of Hell Grind were fun, and the whole film almost hung together. It felt more like a proof of concept than a piece of art; but if Higgsfield's goal was to prove that AI can produce long-form content with consistent characters, it largely succeeded.

Hell Grind might not quite be there yet, but it won't be long before a real filmmaker, frustrated by the endless bureaucracy and gatekeeping of traditional filmmaking, starts using these tools to create something people genuinely want to watch.

The strange thing about Hell Grind is that it left me both impressed and reassured. Impressed because a small team created a feature-length movie in just two weeks. Reassured because, despite all the progress, AI still struggles with the thing that makes films memorable: believable people.

The action scenes worked. The visual effects worked. The story mostly held together. But the moments that should have felt human still felt synthetic.

Hollywood should absolutely pay attention. But after watching Hell Grind, it doesn't need to panic just yet.

Toy Story 5's release date is fast approaching — FYI, it's out on June 19, 2026 — and fans of the hugely popular and money-making Pixar movie series are ready to be reunited with Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and company in yet another animated adventure.

Before one of this year's most exciting new movies lands in a theater near you, though, I want to know who among you is a Toy Story expert. With that in mind, I've created what I consider to be a challenging quiz that'll test your knowledge of the 30-year-old film franchise.

So, if you think you know when the original flick initially arrived in cinemas, what could've happened to Andy's toys in Toy Story 3, and more besides, you'll definitely want to see if you can achieve 100% on the quiz that follows. Are you up to the challenge?

How did you do? Let me know your score in the comments once you're done. Then, read some of my exclusive Toy Story 5 coverage, including why Jessie was chosen as its toy-based protagonist and how many more Toy Story films we could see Woody, Buzz, and Jessie in.

There'll be more Toy Story 5 articles to check out in the days ahead, too, including my review and a spoiler-filled discussion with the movie's visual effects supervisor. So, make sure you revisit TechRadar later this week to learn more.

Toy Story 5 launches in theaters globally on Friday, June 19. The first four films are also available to stream exclusively on Disney+, aka one of the world's best streaming services, right now.

To celebrate the upcoming release of Zach Cregger's Resident Evil on September 18, I thought it would be fun to look back on some of the franchise's previous movies with a quiz.

It's important to note that Cregger's take on Resident Evil will be different from what we've seen before. The new movie is considered to be a reboot and is set during alternate events of Resident Evil 2, centering on a medical courier named Bryan.

During an IGN trailer breakdown, Cregger explained: "This movie takes place alongside the events of Resident Evil 2. I like to think that everything going on inside the police station could be going on in this world; it's just another dude, on another mission on the other side of town."

But while we wait to learn more about Bryan's experience in Raccoon City, let's put your knowledge of the previous movies to the test. How well do you know the Umbrella Corporation and its detractors?

How did you do? Let us know your score in the comments, and don't forget to check out more Resident Evil news, such as the upcoming remake of Resident Evil: Veronica.

It seems like this franchise is expanding rapidly, and before long we'll be settling in for Cregger's take on Capcom's beloved universe. But how will it compare to Weapons, which I gave a five-star review to? Only time will tell.

• The Rock has discovered AI
• He's ChatGPT positive
• The AI gave him a fantastic workout program and something else to chew on

The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) can be forgiven if he's only just now getting on the fast-moving AI train. The AI revolution, arguably kicked off by ChatGPT in 2022, is not even five years old, and in that time, The Rock has made five films, including big tent-pole features like Black Adam and Red One, Oscar Bait The Smashing Machine, and the Disney live-action Moana remake.

These are the days when film, TV, and even online video stars come out for or against a technology that may be eating their lunch. In January, SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin called the changes AI has wrought in his industry an "existential threat." Johnson is a SAG-AFTRA member, and while his superstar status might protect him from AI taking his job, there's no stopping someone from generating unsanctioned AI videos of Johnson in action.

Johnson, though, who sat down for a lengthy interview with Esquire Magazine, is more than just sanguine about AI; he's kind of a fan.

"I’ve always been an advocate for embracing big change—after taking a hard look at it...we can either stick our heads in the sand and be afraid, or we can say, 'Okay, we’re here. Let’s see. Let’s explore,'” Johnson told the magazine.

And explore he has. The former pro wrestler and noted fitness buff who's probably known as much for his physique as he is for his charming on-screen persona, installed ChatGPT just weeks ago and, as one does, he began quizzing it about a workout regimen,

For a novice, Johnson's ability to craft a usable prompt was impressive. He said he poured all kinds of details into it, like what he ate, how he slept, and his goals.

If, like many of us, you've been using ChatGPT or another generative chatbot for years, the results might not surprise you, but Johnson was blown away by the response. He said the training program was "Like it came from ten of the greatest coaches I’ve ever worked with. [It was] very specific. I wound up having an extraordinary fucking workout," he told Esquire.

Here at TechRadar, a few of us have been using AI to help us improve our exercise routines and, in general, have discovered the same thing: it knows us and can believably play a fitness expert.

The Rock in the People's House?

The interview is well worth a read because, after that first prompt and with the Esquire reporter watching, Johnson asked about the possibility of his running for President of the United States. This has come up before. I've read interviews with him going back almost a decade that have posed the same question, but this is the first time Johnson asked an AI — in this case ChatGPT — about his prospects. Really, he was asking, if he ran, why would people choose to vote for him?

Nothing that ChatGPT came back with is surprising. It notes the actor's likability, that he's not a politician, that he's not divisive, and his background, which was not always easy (find and stream the now-canceled TV show Young Rock if you can).

The answer, though, appeared to surprise Johnson, and who knows what comes next.

In the end, ChatGPT received an endorsement of sorts from one of the world's most popular actors, and The Rock may be freshly considering a run for the White House. Not shocking, really, but it might be worth remembering his words about AI writ large: "We can either stick our heads in the sand" or "we can say...Let’s explore." At the very least, you might end up with one of the best workouts of your life.

• First trailer for The Social Network sequel, The Social Reckoning, has been released
• Stars Jeremy Strong, Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison in leading roles
• Movie explores the 2021 whistleblowing scandal, but release coincides with another whistleblower being 'silenced'

The first trailer for The Social Network sequel, The Social Reckoning, has been released (which you can catch up with below).

Starring Jeremy Strong, Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison, the new movie is set to follow the 2021 Facebook internal document leak to the Securities and Exchange Commission and The Wall Street Journal by whistleblower, engineer Frances Haugen.

Described by Sony as a "spiritual successor" to The Social Network rather than a traditional sequel, The Social Reckoning will pick up 17 years after the first film ends with an entirely new cast and swaps director David Fincher for Aaron Sorkin (though Sorkin wrote the original screenplay for both).

The trailer has split fan opinion online, with some praising Strong for his "scarily accurate" portrayal of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, while others have dubbed it "unnecessary" and a "SNL sketch."

If you're somebody who has kept up with Facebook-related news over the first few years, you might have noticed that the timing of the trailer release is particularly interesting.

While it doesn't involve Haugen or anything we'll see in the new movie, another Facebook whistleblower, Sarah Wynn-Williams, has been "silenced" by the company mere days before The Social Reckoning debuted its first look.

The Social Reckoning trailer released days after Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams 'banned' from promoting Meta expose

Around the same time as The Social Reckoning is beginning to be promoted, Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Director of Public Policy at Facebook, was 'banned' from promoting her Meta expose book, Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work, at the Hay-on-Wye literature and arts Festival on May 31.

Why? With Meta strongly disputing the book’s claims, the company obtained an arbitration ruling in the US ahead of the book’s publication based on an agreement Wynn-Williams signed upon leaving the company.

This means that the author is banned from promoting or publicly discussing the book, with failure to comply with the rules potentially resulting in penalties of up to $50,000 per breach. As a result, Wynn-Williams sat in silence during her entire panel discussion at the festival.

The situation was described by panel host Carole Cadwalladr as “an author in a hostage situation." Copies of the book were removed from sale during the festival over concerns its sale could be tied to Wynn-Williams’ promotion.

For those who cannot wait for The Social Reckoning's release date of October 9, Careless People is a fantastic starting point to begin to get insight into Facebook's whistleblowing scandals (and I'd recommend this as an audiobook on Spotify, Audible and more).

Sales have reportedly increased by 300% since the 'silencing.'

Featured whistleblower Haugen also has a memoir to tide us over while we wait, with The Power of One: How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and Why I Blew the Whistle on Facebook being released in 2023.

• Toy Story 5 doesn't star Woody and Buzz as its lead characters
• Jessie is the movie's primary toy-based protagonist
• Its co-writer/director says he didn't intentionally plan for that to happen

The co-writer and director of Toy Story 5 has revealed he "never planned" for Jessie to replace Woody and Buzz as its main character.

In an exclusive chat with TechRadar, Andrew Stanton admitted he didn't approach the new Pixar movie's story with that aim in mind. However, as he and fellow writer Kenna Harris brainstormed ideas for the fifth entry in the Toy Story franchise, it became clear that Jessie, rather than Buzz and Woody, had to be the film's focal point.

Indeed, as Stanton explained, discussions about what a fifth Toy Story movie could be started three years after the film series' most recent installment, aka Toy Story 4. At the time, neither he nor anyone at Pixar or parent company Disney had a specific story idea in mind for what they and/or audiences would want to see.

It wasn't until Stanton sat down — first, on his own and, later, with Harris — that he began to fully visualize Toy Story 5's 'toys meet tech' narrative and its adjacent themes of screen addiction, childhood loneliness in the digital age, and toy-based obsolescence.

The last of those storytelling topics was key to unlocking Jessie's leading role in one of 2026's most anticipated new movies. Until now, fans had only been given a glimpse into Jessie's past life via Toy Story 2, which revealed she had been owned by a girl called Emily before being abandoned at the side of a road in a donation box when Emily outgrew her. Ultimately, it was filling in the gaps of this decades-long mystery that helped Stanton and Harris to not only build Toy Story 5's plot around Jessie, but also make her its central character.

"We never planned that," Stanton told me of establishing Jessie as the film's lead. "Basically, I was asked in 2022 if I'd be interested in making Toy Story 5, and I said, 'What's the idea?'. I was told nobody had one, so I said, 'well, I know these films take years to make, so it has to be an idea I really like. Let me write something and, if I like it enough, I'll want to work on it'.

"But, I knew Jessie's past was always something I wanted to address," he continued. "So, that was one ingredient I definitely wanted to deal with. I also knew I wanted to do something on devices, which had been around for a few years at the time, and were getting into the hands of younger and younger kids. Later, I had the idea of wanting to see 50 Buzz Lightyears in a multi-linked way, which ties into the movie's tech theme, but in a good way. Mix all of that together, and we had the elements to form our movie around."

Toy Story 5 will launch in theaters worldwide on Friday, June 19. For more exclusive coverage ahead of release, find out why Pixar has no plans to tell a Toy Story film without Woody, Buzz, and Jessie just yet.

American Horror Story season 13 — which currently doesn't have a confirmed subtitle — is due to land on the small screen at some point in September 2026.

For OG fans of the franchise, this is the season we've been waiting for for years, with creator Ryan Murphy confirming that new episodes will be a direct sequel to the show's popular third season, Coven.

This means that core cast including Sarah Paulson, Emma Roberts, Angela Bassett, Kathy Bates and Gabourey Sidibe are all reprising their roles from 2013, but it also means that Jessica Lange is rejoining AHS for the first time in season 8.

It's not publicly known if she'll reprise her Coven role as Fiona Goode, as rumors suggest she could be rejoining as her season 1 character Constance Langdon.

At this stage, the above is all we know for definite... until now. New season 13 star Berto Colón, who is joining the cast as Joe the Doorman, revealed that new episodes could be even scarier than anything we've seen before.

'Something evolves and becomes better than the original'

"I've already worked on four of the episodes.... they're still shooting in New York City," Colón tells me. "Season 13 will be 13 episodes, and it's public knowledge that all the stars are coming back. The story is a New York story that is going to be very freaky, very demonic... it's going to involve a lot of scary elements.

"It's a crazy world that Ryan Murphy has created and it's incredible that I join these ensembles and something evolves from them that becomes better than the original situation. I'm hired for one or two episodes and then I end up doing an entire season... so, fingers crossed, that'll be the same case here."

So if Colón isn't in the entire series, as far as we know, what do we actually know about his character so far?

"My role in AHS is very directly connected to Jessica Lange's character, and she's number one. It's gonna be fun. Based on the years of these and the seasons that I've watched, I think this is gonna be one of the more interesting ones as well."

Color me ridiculously excited. Given that we only have three months until the supposed release date, we should expect to hear more concrete updates sooner rather than later.

• Toy Story 5's creators have discussed the futures of Woody, Buzz, and Jessie
• The trio have been the movie series' leads for 25+ years
• There are no current plans to retire them and focus on a new group of toys

The creative team behind Toy Story 5 — and the wider film franchise — say they "don't have any plans" to retire Woody, Buzz, and Jessie as its main characters.

In an exclusive interview with TechRadar, director Andrew Stanton and producer Lindsey Collins indicated that they weren't actively looking to move on from the movie series' iconic trio. However, the pair also appeared to leave the door open on a potential changing of the guard at some point in the future.

Woody and Buzz have been the faces of Pixar's most beloved and enduring film franchise since the first — and groundbreaking — Toy Story movie was released in 1995. Following her debut in the aforementioned flick's 1999 sequel, Jessie has not only become an integral part of the group, but is also now popular enough to be the lead of a Toy Story, well, story — that being, Toy Story 5.

With Jessie installed as the protagonist of one of 2026's most anticipated new movies, Woody and Buzz find themselves in the unusual position of being the primary supporting characters, rather than the stars, of a Toy Story film.

Are Pixar and parent company Disney testing the waters to see how Toy Story fans react to having a different character — albeit an immediately recognizable face in Jessie — take the spotlight? And, if so, is this our clearest sign yet that the studios might be starting to plan for life without the fan-favorite individuals?

"It's an interesting question," Collins replied when I put similarly worded queries to her and Stanton. "So far, we've had a philosophy of following the kids — first, Andy, and now Bonnie — and the toys... they've obviously grown and evolved, and some have fallen by the wayside, but each film brings a few new toys.

"So, the kids themselves have been the thing that we've tracked narratively. There are the Andy years, and now Bonnie has a totally different experience with them and different issues she's got to deal with with her toys.

"But, it's never been about 'hey, there are no more stories to mine with these characters'," Collins continued. "Also, we don't ever think about the next movie while we're making the current one. So, we don't have any plans [to retire this group of toys]. We just treat each one as their own thing, let these characters rest, and see if a new idea for another story bubbles to the surface."

"Yeah, none of the other sequels were planned," Stanton added. "If we've learned anything from working on these films, it's don't plan ahead. So, as Lindsey says, we'll let them rest and see what happens."

Be that as it may, Pixar is seemingly moving forward with ideas for more sequels. Indeed, chatting to Entertainment Weekly in April, Stanton said that brainstorming sessions for Toy Story 5 means "there would be two movies' worth of Toy Story material to explore next". Whether they're centered around Woody, Buzz, and Jessie, though, remains to be seen.

Toy Story 5 arrives in theaters worldwide on Friday, June 19. Its four predecessors, plus the franchise's many TV spin-offs and miniseries, are available to watch now on Disney+, aka one of the world's best streaming services.

Spoilers for Tip Toe episode 5 ahead — contains distressing themes.

If you want to feel terrible about the world around you and simultaneously as though you've been hit with a sledgehammer, binge episodes 1-5 of Tip Toe in the same day (all of which are now streaming on Channel 4).

Since last week, we've been following a rapidly unraveling feud between a pair of neighbors in Manchester: Leo (Alan Cumming), a vivacious gay bar owner on Canal Street, and Clive (David Morrissey), a conservative electrician with two teenage sons.

While creator Russell T Davies teased what was to come in each episode's cold open, we finally learned the full horror behind Leo's fate in episode 5. After turning up at Clive's unannounced during a large football gathering, Clive orchestrates Leo's public death to "make an example" of not tolerating "his sort" on their street.

I cannot overstate just how difficult and upsetting it is to watch, but Davies perfectly encapsulates the growing social divides in the UK, and how many contrasting opinions are feeding into it.

Davies has already spoken of the timely series acting as a "wake-up call," but what did it take to make arguably the most important episode of TV in the 21st century into a reality?

'There are so many points that people could have stopped this from happening'

"For so long, it had been a two or three-hander, so to suddenly have all those boys arrive... it was brilliantly orchestrated and directed by Peter [Hoar]," Morrissey tells me. "They are a group of lads together, but they're also individuals, and they all brought this individuality to them as well.

"The other technical side is the stuff on the street, which is effectively the end. We filmed that way before the stuff inside the house, so everyone had to go away for ages and then come back to do the other stuff, work themselves up to that point."

Initially, Leo's presence in Clive's home doesn't cause too much of a stir. But when it's revealed that Clive's son George (Jackson Connor) had secretly been to Leo's bar the night before, tensions start to rise.

"God, they brought their A-game on the day," Cumming continues. "It was committed. It was very difficult from a technical point of view. Of course, what happens to Leo, but also keeping that energy, and also keeping yourself open to surprise.

"We had a week of laughter in a 'gap week' afterwards, which was much needed and welcomed. A week off is a very expensive thing, but you've done so much that's hanging there. When we came back to the studio we'd shot all the outside bits first, so we'd done the most horrible part and now we're going to be inside... back to the beginning of the story."

He continues, "I went back to New York for that week and it was just sort of such a silly experience to be away from what I was playing in my other life. It was surreal actually."

"Where we shot outside, we had to fence off the streets with huge hoardings because the drivers going past could have seen that happening in the street and they could have been distracted," Morrissey adds.

"There were kids at a nearby school that would leave, and the residents association and council said they couldn't see anything, which is quite right. So it was a heavily, heavily policed thing."

The irony of the street closure is how little Clive and his group would have cared if a child or passer-by had actually seen their actions. Kids as young as 16 (including George himself) make up the group that eventually kills Leo, with only a handful being sent to prison.

But with episode 5 rightly causing such a guttural reaction, why did Davies choose to tease what was coming at the beginning of each episode?

"All the way along you've got to a point where these people can stop the event," Davies explains. "They could actually go, 'You know what? Let's not.'

"But they don't. I think to that effect, it's asking the question of when to speak up when you already knew what was coming."

If you're in the mood for an entertaining thriller, look no further than Fuze. The new movie from director David Mackenzie ticks all the right boxes for those looking for thrills and heart-pounding tension, and it's now available to rent or buy from platforms like Prime Video and Apple TV.

The underrated thriller movie is set in London, where an unexploded World War 2-era bomb is found on a construction site. A team of military experts led by Major Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is tasked with dealing with it as quickly as possible.

Simultaneously, a diamond expert named Karalis (Theo James) is working alongside a shifty group of criminals to plot an ambitious jewel heist while taking advantage of the city’s evacuation order. With all eyes on containing the bomb, they have a chance to strike.

So we've got not one but two heart-pounding incidents here, giving plenty of ground for some thrilling scenes and tension building. The movie has a nice 96-minute runtime and is well-paced; you'll certainly never be bored.

But sometimes less is more. Fuze unfortunately does rely on action and impressive set pieces over its admittedly brilliant cast, which are criminally underused. Outside of their jobs and their responsibilities in the movie, we don't really know much about them. This means that character development is lacking throughout.

It would have been cool to see great actors like Taylor-Johnson and James given a little more to do, especially when it comes to interacting with those around them. James' Karalis character has a group of robbers alongside him, including Sam Worthington as X, Shaun Mason as Y, and Nabil Elouahabi as Z.

Unfortunately, those three do feel as generic as their codenames, and I would've liked to see some proper dynamics between the robbers, which would've added higher personal stakes and more drama.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as Chief Superintendent Zuzana Greenfield, alongside her right-hand Clareese, played by Honor Swinton Byrne. We have two more huge names here who feel wasted, just existing to give orders from a control room.

Had the characters been more interesting, I do think that Fuze could've been a much more effective thriller. There's no denying it's an exciting movie that will entertain you, but it's definitely not a character-driven kind of story. Then again, you might not be seeking out Fuze, looking for anything more than fast-paced scenes and nail-biting tension, which is perfectly fine.

Fuze is exciting and well shot, and despite being predictable in places, it is still a decent movie. It doesn't pretend to reinvent the wheel and gives us two exciting scenarios to follow. Set against a London backdrop with the threat of the capital's citizens in danger, it's a nightmarish scenario come to life on screen.

I would highly recommend this movie to fans of 70s thriller movies like Airport and Figures in a Landscape, as the vibes are very similar here. It's less about the characters themselves and more about the danger they find themselves in instead. Even if the characters feel disposable, we can still get sucked into the story.

Finally, Fuze's ending may divide viewers as it seems to simmer instead of going out with a bang, but I felt it was a satisfying conclusion. It might not be the most re-watchable thriller in the world, but it's still worth your time.

• Masters of the Universe fans might not have seen the last of Skeletor
• Its director says he already knows how he'd bring him back, too
• One of the sci-fi fantasy film's post-credits scenes teases how he could return

Masters of the Universe filmmaker Travis Knight has indicated we haven't seen or heard the last of Skeletor — and one of the movie's post-credits scenes all but confirms he'll return.

Ahead of the sci-fi fantasy film's release, I asked its director if He-Man's archenemy would return in the future. And while Knight didn't specify when or where we'd see Skeletor again, the movie's third and final post-credits sequence heavily implies he'll be back in a future project.

Full spoilers immediately follow for Masters of the Universe. If you haven't seen it yet: bookmark this page, read my Masters of the Universe review to see if it's worth a trip to the theater, go watch it, and then carry on reading this article.

In Masters of the Universe's final act, Adam/He-Man not only defeats Skeletor, but appears to kill him. Indeed, after their climactic battle comes to an end, all that's left of the flick's primary villain is the evil sorcerer's lifeless skull.

He-Man fans know better than to believe that Skeletor is no more, though. The Havoc Staff-wielding Lord of Destruction has come back time and again in other Masters of the Universe projects, including the 1985 animated series and Netflix's much-criticized TV reimagining of the Mattel-created franchise.

An end-credits stinger on this 2026 new movie also proves that his time will come again. Indeed, the final after-credits sequence shows Evil-Lyn, aka Skeletor's second-in-command, sneak her way back into Castle Grayskull and find Skeletor's remains. After picking up his skull, she makes a quip about his current predicament. Then, as the screen cuts to black, we hear Skeletor's iconic cackle, thereby confirming he's not as dead as he appears.

So, it's nailed on that we'll see Skeletor in a sequel to the new Amazon movie, right? I put this question to Knight at the film's UK junket, to which he replied: "You haven't seen the last of Skeletor. That's all I'll say about that.

"If the world wants more of this stuff and we're lucky to do a follow-up, I know what I'd want to see," he added when I pressed him for a better answer. "The end of the movie even suggests where things might go, and there are certainly other stories to tell. But, if we never get a chance to make a sequel, I'm very happy with the self-contained story that we told."

Want to know what one of those "other stories" could be? See what Knight had to say about Masters of the Universe's other post-credits scene and how it teases the long-overdue live-action debut of a popular He-Man character.

• Peacock will stream Telemundo's World Cup coverage with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos in AC-4
• Dolby AC-4 codec promises higher sound quality than current streaming codecs
• All 104 matches will be covered

Last month we reported on a blind test that says Dolby's new-generation AC-4 audio codec sounds as good as 4K Blu-ray even at a low streaming bitrate. And now you can hear it as the soundtrack to the World Cup — if you have the right tech and subscriptions.

Dolby and NBCUniversal have teamed up to deliver a world first. Telemundo's live Spanish-language FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage will be streamed on Peacock in Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos using the AC-4 codec — according to Dolby, this is "the first commercial deployment of Dolby AC-4 by a video streamer."

All 104 matches will be broadcast using the technology, the first time it's been used for a major sporting event. It's also the first time the technology has been used by a major streaming service.

(If Spanish-language commentary isn't your thing, you might be interested in Samsung's latest TVs and their AI Soccer Mode, which enables you to remove the commentary entirely while keeping the crowd noise — we tested two affordable Samsung 2026 mini-LEDs here.)

Why this World Cup will sound like the future

Sound quality is one area where streaming can be disappointing. The audio codecs used by the major streaming services can't rival the quality of a 4K Blu-yay disc's soundtrack because their audio is too compressed.

AC-4 is more modern, and delivers much higher quality at the same bitrates, and in the double-blind listening test I referenced above, multiple audio pros couldn't tell the difference between AC-4 audio and uncompressed audio. It's up to 50% more efficient than current codecs, apparently.

The use of Atmos with AC-4 means the sound of these World Cup matches should be even more atmospheric, so if you've got a decent speaker setup or one of the best soundbars, it'll be even more fun to hear.

I'm not sure it'll be 100% as "vivid and electrifying as if you are sitting front row for each match without stadium prices" as the marketing blurb claims, but better dyanamic range with Dolby's spatial audio tech should mean it feels genuinely more immersive.

Dolby and NBCUniversal's engineers have spent a year working together to bring Dolby Vision to live sports, and according to NBCUniversal's senior vice president of global video engineering, David Bohunek, “Fútbol fans will love watching Telemundo’s FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on Peacock in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos with Dolby AC-4 — it’ll be a truly stunning viewing experience they can’t get anywhere else.”

Of course, you'll need to be both a Peacock subscriber and using a TV with support for AC-4 in order to get the full effect. Dolby says that support in TVs is pretty widespread these days, and lists the following partners: "LG, Panasonic, Sony, TCL, Samsung, Sharp, Vantiva, Bang & Olufsen, Hisense, Huawei, Humax, Sagemcom, Skyworth/Strong, SEI Robotics, Innopia, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Liberty Global, Sunrise, SES HD+, Sky, Swisscom, Zattoo, Waipu.tv, PŸUR, Ocilion, Austrostream, TPVision, Vizio, Philips, Kaon, Winston Neweb".

Naturally, you'll to check if your particular devices supports it, using the manufacturer's website (or, more likely, Google).

Thinking of buying a new TV?

Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.

• Masters of the Universe has an end-credits scene that'll delight franchise fans
• It marks the long-overdue live-action debut for one of its most popular characters
• Director Travis Knight already knows what story he wants to tell about them

Masters of the Universe is out now in theaters worldwide — and this new Amazon movie has an after-credits scene that'll delight fans of the sci-fi fantasy franchise.

The brief scene teases a long-overdue live-action film starring one of the Mattel-owned property's enduringly popular characters. And, if that wasn't enough to set tongues wagging among the He-Man-fronted franchise's fanbase, the film's director Travis Knight "already has ideas" about what story he'd like to tell about said character.

This is your one and only warning: full spoilers immediately follow for Masters of the Universe's post-credits scene. If you haven't seen it yet: bookmark this page, read my Masters of the Universe review, go watch it, and then reload this article to read on worry-free.

So, who is the individual teased in the post-credits scene of one of 2026's new movies? That'll be She-Ra, aka the long-lost twin sister of Adam/He-Man.

We don't see her face in said scene, nor is anybody credited with playing her. However, UK actor Lauren Saliu confirmed via Instagram (NB: the post is no longer live) that she portrayed the Eternian princess, though it's unclear if she'll officially play She-Ra in the future or is simply a stand-in for this clip.

Real name Adora, She-Ra possesses the same superhuman abilities that her sibling does. She-Ra also wields her own mystical blade called the Sword of Protection, and has an animal companion — Spirit the horse — who, like He-Man's Cringer/Battle-Cat, transforms into a battle-ready creature called Swift Wind when Adora becomes She-Ra.

Unlike her fellow Eternian, though, She-Ra has never appeared, let alone starred, in a live-action movie. Until now, she's only in two animated series: 1985's She-Ra: Princess of Power and, more recently, the incredibly well-received TV anime She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, which ran on Netflix for five seasons between 2018 and 2020.

Her cameo in Masters of the Universe's end-credits scene, then, is a landmark moment because it implies that She-Ra could not only make her live-action debut in due course, but also appear on the big screen for the very first time.

Whether she will, though, depends on Masters of the Universe's performance at the global box office. Do well enough or even exceed expectations, and Amazon MGM Studios would be silly not to greenlight a sequel starring He-Man and She-Ra, or even a standalone Adora-led adventure.

Regardless of which of those options gets the go-ahead, Knight has a vision for the kind of story involving She-Ra that he'd like to tell. However, he's also fully aware that, if Masters of the Universe fails to make a splash, an Adora-led film may never get made — hence why she wasn't part of this movie's ensemble and a famous actor wasn't officially cast to play her in this short appearance.

"With every movie that I've ever made, I've always imagined where the characters go outside kind of the bounds of the movie," Knight told me. "You want to tell a self-contained story, and I think we've done that with this movie, but there are things within the wider mythology that didn't fit within that, and the She-Ra character was one of them.

"Adora is also a character that carries a lot of weight with her," Knight continued. "A lot of people, myself included, love that character, so we wanted to give a little nod to where that [a She-Ra movie] could go if we were given the opportunity to tell more stories.

"I would love to see her come to life on the big screen and I have ideas on how that would go," he added. "But, if we never got a chance to do that, we've told a self-contained story that works here."

For as long as I have access to the internet, I'll be telling people how much I love Russell T Davies' latest TV show Tip Toe and why they have to watch it.

With the first two episodes dropping on the streaming service earlier this week, we're beginning to see the horrifying outcome of a feud between two neighbors in Manchester: Leo (Alan Cumming), a vivacious gay bar owner on Canal Street, and Clive (David Morrissey), a conservative electrician with two teenage sons.

Things aren't going to get any easier to watch, I can promise you that much — but, when will all episodes of Tip Toe be available on Channel 4?

What time can I watch Tip Toe on Channel 4?

Tip Toe episode 3 will arrive on Channel 4 on Sunday, June 7 at 9pm BST.

If you're using a one of the best VPNs to watch outside of the UK, these are the times you need to know about for episode 3:

• US – 1pm PT / 4pm ET
• Canada – 1pm PT / 4pm ET
• UK – 9pm BST
• India – Monday June 8, 1:30am IST
• Singapore – Monday June 8, 4am SGT
• Australia – Monday June 8, 6am AEST
• New Zealand – Monday June 8, 8am NZDT

When do new episodes of Tip Toe come out?

If you're watching Tip Toe live on Channel 4 in the UK, here's the schedule for all five episodes:

• Episode 1: out now
• Episode 2: out now
• Episode 3: June 7
• Episode 4: June 8
• Episode 5: June 9

However, this is different if you're watching via Channel 4 On Demand, aka the terrestrial channel's streaming service, with episodes being available to watch earlier than their linear channel's release dates:

• Episode 1: out now
• Episode 2: out now
• Episode 3: June 7
• Episode 4: June 7
• Episode 5: June 7

On the other side of Hollywood Studios at Disney World in Orlando, FL, opposite the future site of the Magic of Disney Animation, is another area of rapid development that will eventually be Monstropolis — the first ever Monsters, Inc. themed land at a Disney Park.

Since the Muppets Courtyard, home to the former Muppet*Vision 3D attraction, closed in June of 2025, Disney has been hard at work reimagining and ultimately transforming the space into Monsters, Inc.

Now, Disney World is sharing a bit more information on the story of the land as well as confirming two other major parts of the land beyond the Door Vault roller coaster, but I also got the chance to go behind the construction walls into an extremely active site to get a view of the land with my own eyes.

We're still likely months, if not years, away from when Monstropolis will open to visitors at Disney World, but there are active hammers, drills, and elements being moved by countless workers on the site. I donned PPE and headed into a gutted building that was likely the former home of the PizzeRizzo restaurant that will soon be another eatery.

From the second floor, I had a vantage point looking down the main street to see facade work on several buildings and all the way down to the start of the Door Vault coaster.

So What's the Story of Monstropolis?

There, I heard from Imagineers who discussed what Disney World has ultimately announced today — the Monstropolis land at Hollywood Studios will be a celebration of a new day called "H.U.M.A.N. Day," which stands for Humans Understand Monsters Are Nice. Fans of the Monsters, Inc. universe — the original film, Monsters University, and Monsters at Work — will know that this represents the change from monsters collecting screams to them gathering laughter.

And it makes for a cohesive story as they'll be opening the doors of Monstropolis to let us all visit. To make this happen, the city has established the Department of Human Relations — the in-world team tasked with helping monsters better understand humans as welcomed guests, and the driving force behind the invitation.

As someone who has re-watched Monsters at Work on Disney+ more than a few times, it's a really exciting story for the land. And it fits with the overall theme of Hollywood Studios — you can become one of Andy's toys alongside Buzz, Woody, and Jessie in Toy Story Land or live out your Star Wars fantasy in Galaxy's Edge.

Monstropolis will let you enter the world of Monsters, Inc. to see folks like Mike and Sulley, but also other characters, and even explore other parts of the city. Yes, front and center at the end of the land will be the Monsters, Inc. company that houses the door coaster. It's actually Disney's first-ever suspended coaster, and it's gone vertical with main support poles visible today.

In the run-up to that, though, you'll be able to walk through Monstropolis and take a look at the sights, whether they be apartments or other city buildings. Chances are Disney will work on some stores and even light bite spots, but where I was standing, I saw it all starting to come together with more than a few scaffolds, and I spotted the future site of Harryhausen's, the same sushi restaurant from the original Monsters, Inc. film, where Sulley, Mike, and Celia end up alongside a whole host of other monsters. This will likely be an immersive dining experience, at least that's the hope. It'll also add a permanent nod to Ray Harryhausen, a pioneering stop-motion special-effects artist.

Beyond the coaster, the Glob Theater could become one of Monstropolis' most popular experiences near the eventual entrance of the land. While there isn't much known about the attraction beyond the fact that it will occupy the former home of Muppet*Vision 3D, Disney has indicated it will be an immersive experience that makes use of innovative technology.

Now, that has me personally pretty excited, considering the fast-paced developments from Disney Imagineering in the world of effects, robotic characters, and animatronics at large. Remember, the BDX Droids took a year to develop, the H.E.R.B.I.E. robot for Fantastic 4 was just 90 days, and Olaf took only 4 months.

The Glob Theater will help "bring the city to life," according to the Disney Parks Blog post, and I suspect that it might be similar to what we've seen from some other shows, mainly looking at Zootopia: Better Zoogether in Animal Kingdom — there, it's a screen show with 3D elements and a very realistic Clawhauser animatronic that takes part. The visual elements were a partnership between Imagineering and Disney Animation, so here it might be Imagineering and Pixar … in fact, they’re already working together to figure out what other parts of Monstropolis look like beyond what we’ve seen in released media.

Over at the future site of the Once Upon a Studio theater at the Magic of Disney Animation, it's teased that the characters will appear immersively around you, a nod to Disney's work bringing paintings and photographs to life, à la the Haunted Mansion or Haunted Mansion Parlor.

What could Monstropolis actually look like?

All in all, the information shared is a good update showing that Disney is making pretty rapid progress on Monstropolis — we're still keen for more details to be released about these immersive experiences, and, even more importantly, how technology might be used here. Could we see all-new animatronics for mainstays like Mike and Sulley on the coaster? Given Disney's recent pace of innovation, it certainly seems possible. But might we see walkaround character robots that are new friendly monster friends? If it's all about immersion and being welcomed into Monstropolis, I'd think yes.

And standing behind those construction walls, it's already clear that Disney intends for Monstropolis to be truly immersive in the way the best Disney lands are. The level of facade detail already taking shape suggests this won't just be a walk-through space between attractions — the kind of environment that could support characters peering out of windows, interactive storefronts, and other surprises woven throughout the streets. The goal seems to be that the moment you step through the entrance, you're not visiting Monstropolis — you're in it.

In the meantime, with Monstropolis still a ways off, there's plenty to keep Disney World visitors busy — Smugglers Run has been reimagined with Mandalorian and Grogu over at Galaxy's Edge, Rock 'N' Roller Coaster is back with a Muppets makeover right here at Hollywood Studios, Soarin' has a fresh experience over at Epcot, and Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin has been updated at Magic Kingdom. And of course, all the Monsters, Inc. media is right there on Disney+ to get you hyped for when Monstropolis finally opens its doors.

Disney still isn't ready to share an opening date, but based on the pace of construction and the scale of what's already taking shape behind the walls, Monstropolis is becoming much more than concept art. It's starting to look like a real city.

• Masters of the Universe's director has had his say on AI use in the entertainment industry
• Travis Knight says it shouldn't replace those who make movies and TV shows
• However, it has it uses if it's implemented properly

Masters of the Universe's director has offered his opinion on the ongoing debate surrounding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the entertainment industry.

Ahead of the new Amazon movie's release, Travis Knight exclusively told me that studios shouldn't use AI to replace those who, in his words, give movies their "spirit and soul".

However, Knight also suggested that AI could be beneficial to the wider business if those in charge of the world's biggest entertainment companies are "thoughtful and careful" about its application.

Knight's comments come amid a watershed moment for the implementation of AI in the entertainment sector, other industries, and our wider society.

Indeed, as the nascent technology becomes an increasingly prevalent fixture in our everyday lives and governments struggle to fast-track legislation to keep the tech in check amid its ongoing proliferation, businesses across the globe are looking at ways to utilize it.

That includes the world's biggest movie and TV makers like Amazon MGM Studios, the aka entertainment behemoth behind He-Man's latest big-screen adventure, and the studio that recently came under fire for announcing plans to make three new series for its Prime Video streaming platform via its newly-established GenAI Creators' Fund.

With numerous other entertainment giants, including Disney, Netflix, and Warner Bros., also exploring new avenues to use AI to make films and TV shows, as well as, in their words, "improve" the user experience on the best streaming services that they own, conversations about the technology will continue to dominate the news cycle for months and years to come.

Key among those discussions is whether AI will eventually replace the writers, artists, animators, directors, and various other creatives. Knight, though, believes it would be a dark day for the industry if such a scenario ever came to pass, even if he's not dead-set against AI having a role in some aspects of the moviemaking sector.

"To me, it's always about the amazing creatives who make movies," the man behind one of this year's new movies told me. "They're what gives movies their spirit and soul.

"And that's one of the things I love most about making movies," he continued. "You get all of these people together from all these different disciplines, and it's only that combination of people that could have told that story that way.

"Now, look, artificial intelligence can be a tool, or it could be a crutch — and it's not something that we used on this movie. I try to do stuff as much as I can practically. It's my background [in this industry], so I want to get as much stuff in camera as possible. We also used computer-generated imagery, a lot of simulations, and high-tech stuff to bring the movie to life in the best way, and I love that combination of the old school and practical kind of filmmaking with whatever new tech helps to tell the story that you're telling.

"It's a very interesting time for the industry, and I don't know where it's going to go," the sci-fi fantasy movie's director added. "I generally don't think this technology is something to fear, I just think it's something that we need to be thoughtful and careful around."

Masters of the Universe is out now in the UK, and launches in the US and other countries on Friday, June 5. Before you watch it, find out if it's worth seeing by reading my Masters of the Universe review.

Yes, Star Wars has returned to the big screen with The Mandalorian and Grogu, and on the same day it hit theaters, it landed in two Disney Parks — Disneyland in Anaheim, CA and Disney World in Orlando, FL.

Disney Imagineering and Disney Experiences used the new film — and the fact it was made with the help of Unreal Engine — to rethink and retheme Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. It's now really, really fun, even after more than a dozen rides, and the addition of The Mandalorian and the irresistibly adorable Grogu gives the attraction a shot of energy it genuinely needed.

It's not a one-to-one adaptation of the film, and it didn't require any physical updates to the Falcon itself or the attraction queues. You'll still board the Millennium Falcon and join The Mandalorian and Grogu for a mission — the three roles of pilot, gunner, and engineer remain — but the engineer role has been completely overhauled and is no longer the least exciting seat in the cockpit.

That's because the engineer now picks the planet; Bespin, Endor, or Coruscant — three distinct environments, and guests actually choose where they're going. That variability was the central goal of the entire rethink, according to Morgan McDowell, a senior software project manager for Walt Disney Imagineering.

"We now have three different planets that our guests can fly to and fly through, and all the different variability within the planets that they go to," McDowell said. "It's more like a traditional video game — if I want to go right, I can go right. If I want to go left, I go left."

All three roles still have a variety of buttons and controls to interact with. Pilots get a noticeably smoother experience and the chance to make the jump to lightspeed. Gunners have a critical role in collecting the bounty, with blaster fire that now visibly tracks targets.

But the engineer is the one driving the planet selection and gets near-constant access to Grogu throughout the ride — there's a dedicated button that triggers cutscenes with the character, and taking care of Grogu is woven into the mission from start to finish.

The view outside the cockpit has been upgraded too. It runs at 4K, 60 frames per second — an improvement over the original — and across all three environments it's smooth and vibrant, with none of the jitter or visual inconsistency that can break immersion in a motion simulator. A big part of making that possible is the move to Unreal Engine 5, new show game computers, and all-new Nvidia GPUs powering the attraction.

What makes the technical setup particularly interesting is that Disney Imagineering doesn't run Unreal the way you would at home. Unreal Engine is typically designed to run on a single GPU — but this attraction demands far more than that.

So Imagineering built their own custom version of Unreal Engine capable of running across multiple GPUs simultaneously, which is what allows the attraction to render everything in real time: the main screen, the individual position screens, the lighting package, the audio, and up to six inputs at once during a four-to-five minute ride. That's a tall order.

"We're running all-new Nvidia GPUs powering the graphics, as well as powering the new video game running on Unreal Engine 5," McDowell explained. She wouldn't share the specific GPU model or configuration, but confirmed it's a highly custom setup — and that Disney's version of Unreal, currently tracking alongside the publicly released 5.7 and 5.8 builds, is meaningfully different from what's available off the shelf.

"I think I have some of the smartest people on my team who own and innovate and update our build of the Unreal Engine, and that unlocks so many different things that we're able to do that Unreal offers, but then we can do it in a multi-GPU setting," she said.

The Lucasfilm partnership was central to making the day-and-date launch work. McDowell described teams from both sides working through the Florida install together around the clock, riding the attraction, flagging issues, and iterating on builds in real time.

"We had a lot of our Lucasfilm partners, or their QA lead, out here working with us day and night — getting the new builds on the new hardware in the attraction, and then actually running the game with them, and them doing tweaks, and us doing tweaks all together," she said.

The result is an attraction that feels genuinely fresh. The random events spread across three planets, the role-specific interactions, and the Grogu moments give it a choose-your-own-adventure quality that holds up across multiple rides in a way the original never quite managed. There are also secret modes to unlock, including a Grogu-specific one, and easter eggs that vary depending on which planet you visit and which path you take through it. There's even a trench run moment that, for what it's worth, had me thinking back to flying a Lego X-Wing on the Sphere in Las Vegas — high praise for a theme park ride.

While Rise of the Resistance had arguably eclipsed Smugglers Run as the centerpiece Star Wars experience at both parks, The Mandalorian and Grogu update doesn't just close that gap — it reframes what the attraction is. Less a set-piece ride, more a chance to live your own Star Wars story differently every time you board.

More broadly, rolling out a real-time video game experience across two parks on the same day a film releases speaks to what Unreal Engine is making possible for Disney Imagineering — and how quickly that capability is moving. Smugglers Run isn't even the only attraction running it — Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin at Magic Kingdom is already powered by Unreal — and it's clear Imagineering is thinking about where it goes next.

"We are always looking at the new features that are coming, and we do work with Epic on upcoming things," McDowell said, "and we start to think of how we can use that technology to bring the best guest experience in our parks."

• DC Studios has released one final trailer for this Supergirl
• Its further underlines why it's no longer called Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow
• The Milly Alcock-starring film will be released on June 26

There's less than a month to go until Supergirl takes flight in theaters worldwide — and what better way is there to celebrate its fast-approaching release date than with a new trailer?

Well, that's exactly what DC Studios has done today (June 3) by unveiling yet another round of footage ahead of the forthcoming film's arrival on June 26. And, if it wasn't abundantly clear why the comic book movie was stripped of its 'Woman of Tomorrow's subtitle, this latest teaser basically spells it out.

For those unaware: the DC Universe (DCU) movie is heavily inspired by Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, aka the 2021 graphic novel series created by Tom King and Bilquis Eveley.

Upon its initial reveal as part of the original DCU Chapter One movie and TV show line-up, the Milly Alcock-led film bore the same name as its comic book counterpart. However, last June, DC Studios co-chief James Gunn confirmed that its title had been shortened to Supergirl because he was "sick" of seeing movies with superfluous subheadings.

At the time, it seemed like an odd decision to make. After all, Supergirl was set to directly adapt a story from an existing piece of literature, so dropping the 'Woman of Tomorrow' part of this Kara Zor-El-fronted narrative didn't seem like a wise move.

Fast-forward to April 2026 and it started to become clear to me that Supergirl wouldn't be the comic book adaptation I was hoping for. Indeed, the footage released as part of its official trailer indicated that it would only be inspired by Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, rather than be a 1:1 translation of the story within its pages.

With the arrival of this third and final sneak peek, I'm fully convinced that's the case, too. From the revelation that it's Clark Kent — aka Kal El, aka Superman — who gives Kara her super-suit and signs pointing that Lobo will have a substantial role in this film, to Krem's apparently superhuman abilities (NB: he's just an ordinary individual in the comics), to the sheer number of vehicles at his forces' disposal (double NB: they only have a single spaceship in the graphic novel), it seems Supergirl's creative team has played fast and loose with its source material.

All of that is to say that my excitement for one of 2026's many new movies hasn't been quashed by this new trailer. I'm still looking forward to watching Kara kick ass in a live-action film that she desperately deserves, and I still expect Supergirl to contain all of the major story beats from Woman of Tomorrow. I just wish it was more of a direct adaptation rather than a reimagining of King and Eveley's award-winning literary works.

For more on the Milly Alcock-fronted film ahead of release, find out everything we know so far about Supergirl. Then, check out my Supergirl cast and character guide to see who's joining Alcock as part of its ensemble.

• Masters of the Universe's cast doesn't include every popular character
• Fan favorites like Orko are conspicuous by their absence from its trailers
• The film's director has explained why they're not part of the main ensemble

The filmmaker behind this year's Masters of the Universe movie has forewarned fans that some of the franchise's most popular characters won't appear as part of its primary cast.

Speaking exclusively to TechRadar, Travis Knight admitted he and the rest of the film's chief creative team had some tough choices to make over who to include in the new Amazon film. In the end, any fan favorites who didn't make the cut were left out because, in Knight's own words, they "wouldn't work within the story we're telling".

To be fair to Knight and company, there's a whole host of classic He-Man characters who are part of the proceedings. That said, there are notable absentees from its ensemble, including — but not limited to — Orko, Man-E-Faces, and Merman.

Understandably, there's no way that one of 2026's new movies could involve every famous face from the Mattel-created multimedia property. Nonetheless, some fans are sure to have been left disappointed when they realized that their favorite character wasn't part of the cast — especially when B-tier individuals like Ram-Man, Fisto, and Mechaneck made the cut.

As a self-confessed Masters of the Universe fan, Knight is well aware of the high regard that some characters are held in. But, as he told me, the film's creators had to draw a line in the sand somewhere to ensure its cast wasn't overstuffed, nor was its plot hindered by an immeasurable amount of character cameos.

"Movies are a time-based art," Knight said. "You only have so much time to tell the story that you want to tell and, even though it's called Masters of the Universe, it's fundamentally Adam's movie and story. So, there are definitely things that are outside the bounds of what you could tell in a two-and-a-half hour movie — you've got to be disciplined about that."

"There were certainly things that I wanted to put in the movie, but they wouldn't fit," he continued. "It would be a distraction and wouldn't work within the story that we're telling."

"It's such a big world and universe, and there are so many characters that I love, so it was hard making that selection," Knight added. "But, I do think that it honors so many different forms [of the franchise]. We have characters from the comic strips and the 1987 Dolph Lundgren live-action movie, so it really was a way for us to pay tribute to all the incredible work that's gone into this franchise over the last 40 years."

Want to know if He-Man's latest film adaptation is worth seeing? Check out my Masters of the Universe review before watching it in theaters from June 3 (UK) and June 5 (US and everywhere else). And, for more exclusive coverage of the flick, find out how Masters of the Universe pays tribute to the greatest He-Man meme of all time.

Light spoilers follow for 2026's Masters of the Universe movie.

It's been a rocky road for Masters of the Universe since Mattel initially created the sci-fi fantasy franchise in 1982. Indeed, from the heady heights of its popular toy range and subsequent animated shows in the 1980s, to its first live-action film and recent TV reimaginings that have been slammed by fans and critics alike, it's endured more than its share of ups and downs.

The arrival of a new Masters of the Universe movie from Amazon, then, is a make-or-break moment for the brand. Become a hit and it could re-energize a franchise that's long deserved a return to the spotlight. Fail to resonate with lifelong fans and/or newcomers, though, and there may never be another opportunity to resurrect it. To paraphrase its most iconic quote, it's a good thing, then, that Masters of the Universe has the power to be one of 2026's most surprising new movies.

By the power of Grayskull...

Masters of the Universe introduces us to Adam (Artie Wilkinson Hunt), the young, gentle, and timid crown prince of Eternos, aka the capital city of the planet Eternia ruled by his parents King Randor (James Purefoy) and Queen Marlena (Charlotte Riley).

When the malevolent Skeletor (Jared Leto) and his forces invade and conquer Eternos, Adam is hastily sent to Earth, i.e., his mom's home world, for his own protection alongside an ancient artefact called the Sword of Power. Unfortunately, Adam loses the all-powerful weapon, which grants superhuman abilities to whoever wields it, en route to his new safe haven.

Fast forward 15 years, and a grown up Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) refuses to give up on finding the Power Sword and returning to Eternos to liberate its people.

Eventually, Adam's persistence pays off. Not only is he reunited with the mystical blade, but also the adult version of his Eternos-based childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes), who had traveled to Earth to track him down. Together, Adam and Teela return to Eternos and, alongside Teela's adoptive father and Eternos' former commander-in-chief Duncan/Man-at-Arms (Idris Elba), plus numerous other allies who join their cause, set out to end Skeletor's reign of terror.

So far, so simple — and that remains the case throughout Masters of the Universe's runtime.

Indeed, it doesn't put a unique spin on the traditional 'Hero's Journey', aka the universal storytelling template coined by Joseph Campbell, nor does it reimagine the He-Man mythology like Netflix's Masters of the Universe: Revelations TV show did. Long-time fans who heavily criticized the latter for trying to reinvent franchise lore, then, will be relieved to hear that it doesn't similarly reinvent the He-Man legend for the sake of it.

And, frankly, it doesn't need to. The He-Man and the Masters of the Universe brand might be 44 years old, but its core themes, such as self-empowerment and the quintessential battle of good versus evil, are as pertinent today as they were in the '80s.

Equally, its glam rock-inspired universe and iconic characters aren't as famous as they were decades ago, either. Nonetheless, retaining the franchise's classic elements is a sure-fire way of feeding into diehard fans' nostalgia and keeping them onside amid this latest reboot.

As a result, Masters of the Universe does right by its source material and is therefore as faithful a reboot as you're ever likely to see.

From franchise-accurate costumes and locations, to the eclectic cast of individuals that inhabit its wildly creative universe and mythos surrounding it, the amount of crowd-pleasing fan service on show will convince even the most trepidatious fan that it's a worthy live-action adaptation. Throw in a reference to the greatest He-Man meme of all-time, and even viewers whose only exposure to the Mattel-owned IP comes via meme culture will appreciate what's on offer.

That all said, viewers hoping for a film with a less predictable plot will be left wanting more. Some might argue that's in keeping with the simplicity of its identically titled animated show, but, while its easy-to-follow narrative didn't ruin my enjoyment of what was on offer, I suspect some people will consider its story to be too generic for their tastes.

Feeling good and evil

Regardless, established fans and newcomers alike will find plenty more to enjoy about Masters of the Universe.

For one, there's no denying that it's highly entertaining. The early part of Adam's arc, which is punctuated by a series of 'fish out of water' moments on Earth and Eternia that speak to his initial alienation on both worlds, sprinkles a hefty dose of slapstick and self-aware humor on top of its drama-covered sundae.

Add in reams of banter thrown around by its charismatic group of heroes, including the scene-stealing sardonic android Roboto (voiced by a pitch-perfect Kristen Wiig) and vibrant, thrills-a-minute action on top, and Masters of the Universe is an absorbing galactic adventure that puts fellow sci-fi flick and recent Star Wars movie The Mandalorian and Grogu to shame.

It helps that there aren't many weak links in Masters of the Universe's cast, too.

As the socially awkward prodigal son who spends the entire story running towards his destiny rather than away from it, Galitzine is brilliantly amusing as he is melodramatic. Sure, it's a performance that won't win any prizes on the 2027 awards circuit but, as a more multifaceted version of the franchise's archetypal hero, he leads this film with the right amount of weird, wonderful, and wow factor.

Though it pains me to say something positive about the controversy-courting Leto, he's also in fine form as Adam/He-Man's archnemesis. Equal parts menacing and sassy, Leto captures the core essence of Masters of the Universe's enduringly popular miscreant in a hammy display of true villainy.

Good though the movie's supporting ensemble are, some aren't given the necessary time or arcs to be as fully-rounded as they should.

Mendes' Teela and Elba's Duncan don't fall foul of that per se — the badass pair are given enough to do throughout Masters of the Universe's 132-minute runtime. Nonetheless, I would've liked their detached surrogate bond to be examined in more detail, even if it was at the expense of some of its comedy.

The unluckiest member of Masters of the Universe's cast, though, is Alison Brie, whose Evil Lyn — aka Skeletor's right-hand lady — is given short shrift throughout. Brie does an as-ever excellent job with the material she has, but I longed to see more of her chewing the scenery as the double-crossing sorceress.

For a film with a reported budget of $170 million, its visual effects (VFX) are at-times incredibly jarring, too — the most glaring example of which involves a forest-based vehicle chase sequence involving He-Man and Skeletor's minions.

Indeed, for a movie of this size and scale, and whose VFX is largely unnoticeable elsewhere, the blending of its green/blue screen footage with computer graphic imagery (CGI) looks and feels cheap.

My verdict

In spite of those notable flaws and so-called Guardians of the Galaxy-ification of its universe, I had a really good time with Masters of the Universe. Sure, it's got those quintessential popcorn movie vibes, but it's nevertheless an extremely entertaining and lore-accurate space opera that, spoilers notwithstanding, also has a surprise or two up its sleeve.

Will that be enough to breathe new life into Masters of the Universe and help it thrive as a modern day franchise? Yes, I'd say so — but it'll need the support of general moviegoers more than its built-in audience to become the next vintage property to enjoy a cultural renaissance in the modern era.

Masters of the Universe arrives in theaters on June 3 (UK) and June 5 (US and everywhere else).

Yes, Disney World's Hollywood Studios surprised in late May by opening the courtyard outside the Magic of Disney Animation experience, and even though the main attraction isn't open yet, I've already walked through a good portion of it.

Behind the construction walls, what's emerging is less a single attraction and more a full reimagining of how Disney tells the story of animation itself — and a return to the park's roots. Even in its unfinished state, the space is far enough along to get a clear sense of how ambitious the final experience will be, blending character encounters, interactive environments, and nods to the studio's creative process.

Stepping inside the physical build makes one thing immediately clear: this is not a light refresh. It's a ground-up transformation of a space that sits on some of the most meaningful real estate in Disney's animation history.

The courtyard has already begun to take shape with embedded character footprints, hidden design nods, and a near replica of the Sorcerer Hat that stands outside Disney's animation building in Burbank, California.

What Dreams are Made of

Later this summer, Disney says the full experience will open with an Olaf animatronic guiding guests alongside recordings from Disney animators teaching drawing techniques for both classic and modern characters. The attraction will also include an immersive theater presentation of Once Upon a Studio — currently streaming on Disney+ — reimagined for a physical space, along with a range of character experiences spread throughout the building that once served as Disney Animation's offices.

Ahead of that opening, I had the chance to step behind the construction walls and tour the attraction while it remains an active worksite. I was guided through what will eventually become the "Off the Page" section. While much of the space remains unfinished, character artwork is already visible along portions of the ceiling trim beneath protective coverings — an early glimpse of the finished environment.

Guests will move through different stages of the animation pipeline while meeting characters along the way: Rapunzel's area is designed to resemble the inside of a multiplane camera, Mulan represents storyboarding, Chip 'n' Dale appear in the hand-drawn animation section, Stitch takes over effects animation, Goofy anchors lighting, and Donald and Daisy represent computer animation.

Inside the Experience

What I'm most eager to experience, however, remains under construction. The art gallery, the Once Upon a Studio theater, and Olaf Draws were not part of the preview tour because work is ongoing in those spaces.

Given the pace of development and Disney Imagineering's recent track record of delivering projects on schedule, I'm inclined to believe Disney when it says the attraction remains on track to open later this summer.

The art gallery could become one of the most compelling spaces at the attraction. Disney has already demonstrated effects that bring artwork to life in attractions such as Haunted Mansion and aboard Disney Cruise Line's Haunted Mansion Parlor. Here, I suspect we'll see Disney Animation characters emerge from frames and interact with one another. I also hope this is designed for repeat visits, with several effects occurring at random.

Similarly, Disney has shared only limited details about the Once Upon a Studio theater experience. Still, it has the potential to add an entirely new layer to the short film currently streaming on Disney+. It's been hinted that the action won't just be on the main screen, but on the walls and ceilings surrounding it.

Olaf Draws may ultimately be the most interactive experience of the bunch, bringing Olaf to life as he learns to draw alongside guests. Disney has already confirmed nine distinct drawing experiences, ranging from Mickey and Minnie to Nick and Judy from Zootopia, making it easy to imagine future updates keeping the attraction fresh.

A New Kind of Character

Even before any surprises, the technology already baked into Magic of Disney Animation represents a meaningful step forward.

Olaf Draws! may be the most technically interesting piece of the attraction. Rather than deploying a free-roaming character like the walking, talking Olaf seen at World of Frozen in Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland, Disney Imagineering has done something more precise: they've lifted a moment directly from Once Upon a Studio and made it real. In the film, Olaf sits at an animator's desk — and here, he does so again.

Guests will sit alongside the animatronic and learn to draw with it, guided by actual Disney animators on screen. It's a different kind of ambition than a roaming character, but in some ways, a harder one to pull off. The goal isn't spectacle, it's the feeling that you've stepped inside a scene that already exists in the movie.

Pair that with an immersive theater experience and a traditional meet-and-greet pipeline reimagined around the animation process itself, and the Magic of Disney Animation is already doing a lot to close the gap between screen and guest.

Which makes the question of what else Disney might have planned all the more interesting. The BDX droids — also developed in-house at Imagineering using the same reinforcement learning approach — showed what's possible when that technology is deployed as a roaming park presence, creating encounters that feel unscripted and alive in a way traditional animatronics never could.

Magic of Disney Animation, with its mix of interactive spaces and an audience already primed to engage with characters in new ways, feels like exactly the kind of environment where Disney could debut something in that vein.

Whether or not that happens, the attraction already represents the clearest signal yet of where Disney's character experiences are heading — and what it could mean for guests both in the parks and at sea on Disney Cruise Line.

What stands out most isn't just the scope of what Disney is building — it's that this entire experience sits on the grounds of the former Disney Animation building, giving it a layer of authenticity that ties directly back to Disney's creative legacy.

It's a return to Disney's own creative identity, built on the footprint of its former animation campus, designed to bring the animation process itself into the guest experience.

And it doesn't exist in isolation. Magic of Disney Animation is part of a much larger transformation underway across Walt Disney World, where Disney is investing roughly $60 billion into its global parks and experiences — with work continuing on a Cars-themed Piston Peak and a new Villains Land at Magic Kingdom, and an Encanto attraction and Indiana Jones experience at Animal Kingdom.

But where those projects add new stories to the parks, the Magic of Disney Animation feels different. It's about going back to where Disney's storytelling began and rebuilding the way guests experience it from the ground up, showcasing classics and more recent additions to the library.

While the Animation Courtyard is open now at Hollywood Studios at Disney World, The Magic of Disney Animation is expected to open in 'late summer 2026.'

When you watch as much TV as I do, it isn't often that your heart rips out of your chest so violently that you can't so much as look at a screen for the rest of the week. Yet Russell T Davies is the showrunner who can achieve this time and time again, from jaw-dropping noughties queer drama Queer as Folk to devastating AIDS crisis tragedy It's a Sin.

Now, Channel 4 adds Tip Toe to Davies' ever-growing list of gut punches, which can most easily be described as a cross between Queer as Folk and dystopian BBC drama Years and Years. The focus is on a pair of neighbors in Manchester: Leo (Alan Cumming), a vivacious gay bar owner on Canal Street, and Clive (David Morrissey), a conservative electrician with two teenage sons.

"As modern prejudices and radicalized opinions creep into their community, everyday friction spirals into shocking violence," Channel 4 explains. Not much more can explicitly be said without giving too much away, but Tip Toe episodes 1 and 2 are now available to stream.

If you've seen them already, you were hopefully horrified by the show's shocking cold open, alluding to the brutal ending that takes place just 10 days after our story begins. You were hopefully moved by the monologues drunkenly slurred down Manchester's famous Canal Street, and you hopefully didn't forget that, as fun and frivolous as things can seem in a gay club, things can turn on a knife's edge.

Anybody in the LGBTQIA+ community not only knows the above, but they also realize that Tip Toe could easily be a documentary. We look at clips of Years and Years seven years later and ironically muse over how the TV show predicted our political future, but we can't afford to be as idle after watching the five episodes of this new show.

Analysis: Tip Toe on Channel 4 isn't just a stark warning — it's an urgent call to action

Let's unpack what happened in Tip Toe's first two episodes (which is just as well, as I can't even begin to process the next three).

Within the first five minutes, Clive makes reference to the fact that Leo can't be left in the same room as his teenage son because "he's under 16," Leo's friend Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington) blames problems in the care system on the LGBTQIA+ community for introducing new ways to self-identify, and Canal Street stalwart Melba (Paul Rhys) muses over whether queer people now have too much freedom — because their visibility makes them more at risk than ever.

The language in Davies' script is so loaded, and this never lets up across the five episodes. It's a stark reminder of just how important our use of language actually is, and that throwaway comments actually tell us a great deal about what's happening in our socio-political subconsciousness.

The lines of ignorance and obliviousness are blurred together into an incredibly painful, yet plausible, reality. Much like Years and Years, Davies has perfectly echoed the growing unrest and divides among the British public, and his vision of an eventual outcome is, putting it mildly, absolutely horrifying.

Once upon a time, I'd have claimed that something like this didn't truly reflect the UK I know and (sometimes) love, but now I can no longer believe this to be the case. As a lesbian, a woman, and simply a human being, I grow more worried by the day about the general lack of empathy and understanding between people who don't live exactly alike.

A united kingdom we are not, and I don't think we want to be, either. What I hope is that Tip Toe holds a mirror up to many who haven't realized their own complicity in the frightening news stories we see on a daily basis.

If somebody doesn't like what they see staring back at them, they're prompted to try and change as quickly as possible. If not… well, as Davies shows us, the consequences will be fatal.

• Masters of the Universe references the best He-Man meme of all-time
• The sci-fi fantasy film even includes the song that's used in the viral video
• Its director wanted its inclusion to "make sense" within the story

Masters of the Universe includes a reference to a hugely popular He-Man meme, its director has confirmed. Speaking exclusively to TechRadar ahead of its release, Travis Knight revealed that the viral video famously known as "HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA" is referred in the movie. Furthermore, the music track that plays over the parody video — 4 Non Blondes' 'What's Up?' — is even used at one point in the sci-fi fantasy film.

For those unaware of the meme: in 2005, an animation company called SLACKCiRCUS created a spoof music video titled 'Fabulous Secret Powers'. Set to a campy, techno-house version of 'What's Up?', the video comprises footage from '80s cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe that's been edited in a way that's bemusing, surreal, and humorous in equal measure.

However, it wasn't until 2010 that it became a viral hit and part of the internet zeitgeist. Indeed, after YouTube user ProtoOfSnagem uploaded a cut-down version of SLACKCiRCUS' original work under the title 'HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA' — FYI, that's the video you can watch above — it wasn't long until the fan-made video went viral.

As of today (June 1), 'HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA' has been viewed 229 million times on ProtoOfSnagem's channel alone. For many viewers who weren't born when He-Man and the Masters of the Universe originally came out, 'HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA' is their first and/or only exposure to the animated show, live-action film adaptation, and wider brand.

So, when Knight, a self-confessed He-Man fan, was hired to direct the Amazon movie reboot, he knew he had to include a reference to one of the most recognizable memes of the early 2010s in the final product. Little did Knight expect, though, that Amazon would also manage to snag a licensing deal that would allow him to use 'What's Up?' in one of this year's most anticipated new movies, too.

"We definitely reference the 4 Non Blondes thing — and, we actually used the song in the movie," Knight told me. "We wanted to use it in a way that made sense, too, so it didn't seem like we were slathering it on top without any thought to how it actually felt within the fabric of the movie, and I'm delighted with the way it came together."

As for other classic references from the He-Man cartoon, Knight also confirmed that it acknowledges moments in the show "where they put their hands on their hips, and throw their heads back and laugh". However, Knight was conscious of not overloading his latest feature with Easter eggs from the animated series because he had to make a film that everyone — his fellow He-Man fans and general audiences alike — could enjoy.

"People have had different ways into this world, these characters, and the He-Man story," he said. "Part of the trick was acknowledging those different iterations that people love — the animated show live-action film, and internet video — while still telling a story that's coherent for people who don't know that stuff.

"So, I think we've found a really good balance," Knight added. "Long-time fans will see their version of Masters reflected back at them in small or large ways. And, for those who don't know anything about Masters, it's an accessible, entertaining, and emotional ride."

Masters of the Universe lands in UK theaters on June 3, and June 5 everywhere else. Keep your eyes trained on TechRadar later this week for my review, too.

"I used to walk into a room and just go 'ta-da!' Now, I tiptoe." This is a line I've directly quoted from episode 1 of Russell T Davies' blistering new Channel 4 drama Tip Toe, but it's also the sentiment of any LGBTQIA+ person living in the UK over the last few years.

As Western politics continues to shift to the right, being out and proud is something that's starting to have a brand-new set of consequences — and instead of shying away from it, Davies presents us with an alarming vision of the future.

Channel 4 explains, "Tip Toe chronicles the escalating, deadly feud between two Manchester neighbors: Leo (Alan Cumming), a vivacious gay bar owner on Canal Street, and Clive (David Morrissey), a conservative electrician with two teenage sons.

"As modern prejudices and radicalized opinions creep into their community, everyday friction spirals into shocking violence."

Except, this isn't actually the future at all. As a lesbian woman who could easily disguise herself as 'straight passing' if I was walking down the street, I watched Tip Toe with a horrific realization that in five years time, if Reform UK really does make good on its prediction of forming a government majority, Davies' vision could be reality TV.

But speaking to Davies and Cumming, it's clear that I've been naive about what's happening around the country right now — even if I did need an entire screen-free weekend to get over the trauma of watching these five episodes.

'Hopefully, this is a wake-up call'

"I very much was inspired by the spirit of both of those things," Davies responds when I ask if defining Tip Toe as "Queer as Folk getting the Years and Years treatment" is too reductive.

"If it was focused in any other way, it wouldn't be a timely project... it would be an old-fashioned project. This is literally happening to us now. Women can tell us that. Look at the laws on rape statistics and how many rapists are convicted. It's like every corner of society is shutting this out and yet the establishment just keeps marching on."

With this analogy, Davies isn't referring to a blatant sex crime, but the implication that one has happened. Through Leo and Clive's increasingly hostile encounters, the age-old rhetoric that equates gay men to child abusers comes back into the foreground. This is a thematic cornerstone of Tip Toe, but look around online, and you'll likely see similar happening there too.

Cumming continues, "This is definitely not a five years time thing, this is happening right now. My hope is that it will be impactful... it sort of feels like it is already in the way that people are reacting to the trailers and promo.

"Hopefully, it will be a wake-up call. I really think that's what the purpose of this is, to sort of say, 'look what the f**k is happening and let's have a chat.'"

My advice for this must-see TV? Stream Tip Toe at your own risk — and be ready for it to sit in your consciousness for every day after.

Star Wars: Starfighter will be the next Lucasfilm project to take flight in that famous galaxy far, far away — and we have a long, long wait for its arrival.

Indeed, with this next Star Wars movie not due out until May 28, 2027, you're going to have to sit tight for the Ryan Gosling-fronted sci-fi adventure to land in a theater near you. Thankfully, you can pass the time by reading all the most important information we have so far on one of 2027's most exciting new movies, including its confirmed cast and possible plot details, in this guide. So, read on to learn more about it ahead of launch.

Star Wars: Starfighter release date

As I mentioned above, Star Wars: Starfighter will launch worldwide on May 28, 2027. That official release date was confirmed at Star Wars Celebration 2025.

With principal photography wrapping last December, Starfighter is well on its way to being ready for that date. I wouldn't be surprised if reshoots and/or pickups happen, but I doubt they or the film's lengthy post-production stage will result in a delay.

Star Wars: Starfighter trailer — is there one?

No. An exclusive sneak peek was shown to Star Wars Celebration 2025 attendees, but that footage is yet to make its way online.

Unless a teaser makes a surprise showing at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 in late July, I wouldn't be shocked if we're made to wait until November or December for a trailer to be publicly unveiled. Whenever its first footage officially makes its way online, I'll update this section.

Star Wars: Starfighter confirmed cast

Here's Star Wars: Starfighter's confirmed cast so far:

• Ryan Gosling as TBC
• Flynn Gray as TBC
• Matt Smith as TBC
• Mia Goth as TBC
• Aaron Pierre as TBC
• Simon Bird as TBC
• Jamael Westman as TBC
• Daniel Ings as TBC
• Amy Adams as TBC

As of April 2025, Gosling (Project Hail Mary, Barbie) was the only actor confirmed to appear in a project directed by Stranger Things, Free Guy, and Deadpool and Wolverine filmmaker Shawn Levy (per StarWars.com).

However, a separate article posted on StarWars.com four months later revealed who'll appear alongside Gosling. That includes relative acting newcomer Flynn Gray (Wednesday), who, judging by the two official behind-the-scenes snaps released, will co-star alongside Starfighter's lead actor.

Gosling notwithstanding, Smith (House of the Dragon, Doctor Who) is arguably the next immediately recognizable face among the film's ensemble. Per Deadline, Smith will portray Starfighter's villain.

Where the rest of its ensemble is concerned, Goth (Pearl, The Odyssey), Pierre (Rebel Ridge, Lanterns), Adams (Invasion, American Hustle), Ings (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The Gentlemen), Bird (The Inbetweeners, Friday Night Dinner), and Westman (Hedda, The Essex Serpent) are all set to appear. Like Gosling, Gray, and Smith, though, their character identities are shrouded in secrecy.

Star Wars: Starfighter plot rumors

Public information on Star Wars: Starfighter's story is practically non-existent at this stage. However, as the above X/Twitter post confirmed last April, it'll be set five years after Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, so we know it'll take place in a post-First Order galaxy.

Does that mean it'll be Star Wars Episode X in all but name? No, director Shawn Levy told Collider, before he added: "It's an all-new non-sequel, non-prequel adventure. It's new characters [and] it's a new timeline. It inherits legacy themes, but it's really trying to give Star Wars [fans] — and just movie audiences — something fresh, something new. And, with a spirit of play and big-hearted adventure with moments of real levity that, frankly, A New Hope had in a revolutionary way."

Star Wars wasn't the only, well, star guiding Levy's vision for Starfighter, either. In a chat with Vanity Fair, he reveals he was also told by outgoing Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy to "make it feel like your movies feel". Expect it to have the humor, drama, and action of many of his family-oriented works, then, such as The Adam Project for Netflix.

As the supposedly leaked story brief in the X/Twitter post above suggests, Starfighter won't overlook the iconic sci-fi franchise's most important elements, including the Force.

Unsurprisingly, lightsabers are also part of this movie's narrative framework, with writer Jonathan Tropper telling ScreenRant that the legendary blades used by the Jedi and Sith will have a part to play. Furthermore, in a profile piece for The New York Times, Levy also let slip that none other than Tom Cruise had choreographed a lightsaber duel for Star Wars: Starfighter. It stands to reason, then, that we'll see some Force wielders in this flick.

Given Starfighter takes place after The Rise of Skywalker, could one of those aforementioned Force users include Daisy Ridley's Rey? And will Gray's unnamed character, who teams up with Gosling's protagonist, also be Force-sensitive? I guess we'll have to see.

How will Star Wars: Starfighter impact Lucasfilm's wider galaxy?

We don't know. Right now, Star Wars: Starfighter is being billed as a standalone adventure, so it might not even set up one or more of the many new Star Wars movies and TV shows that are in early or active development.

That said, if — and it's a big if — Ridley's Rey does appear in Gosling's Star Wars movie, the latter might set up some loose plot threads for the Rey-starring film that's currently known as New Jedi Order. There's been very little movement on that project since it was first announced, though — and, with Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan recently replacing Kennedy as Lucasfilm's new co-CEOs, it's unclear how many of the in-development Star Wars productions will actually get made.

Starfighter notwithstanding, the only other Star Wars project that'll be released in the next 12 months is Star Wars: Ahsoka season 2, which is expected to launch on Disney+ sometime in 2027. For more on that show's next chapter, read my guide on everything we know so far about Ahsoka season 2.

• Backrooms director Kane Parsons is the latest YouTuber to helm a big-screen project
• The online video sharing platform has become a breeding ground for new horror filmmakers
• Parsons has offered his thoughts on why that that is

The filmmaker of A24's Backrooms movie has offered his thoughts on why YouTube has become a breeding ground for a new golden generation of horror creators.

Kane Parsons, who makes his feature film directorial debut with one of this year's most interesting new movies, is no stranger to the online video sharing platform. Indeed, the 20-year-old made a name for himself with a series of viral, small-budget videos based on The Backrooms, aka the popular internet horror legend that this A24-produced flick and his own YouTube series are heavily inspired by.

The burgeoning moviemaker isn't the only YouTube graduate that Hollywood has recently taken a gamble on, though. From the Philippou brothers (Talk to Me, Bring Her Back) and Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons), to Michael Shanks (Together) and Curry Barker (Obsession), the world's biggest studios are using the Google-owned social media platform to uncover the next generation of nightmare-inducing storytellers.

They're not the only ones, either. Let's players — the collective term for content creators who record or livestream themselves playing video games — like Markus 'Markiplier' Fishbach have also found success with their film adaptations of horror games, such as Iron Lung. Furthermore, some YouTube-based movie reviewers, including Chris Stuckmann, have turned their hand to making their own crowd-funded horror flicks like Stuckmann's Shelby Oaks.

With YouTube set to turn 20 years old later this year, you've got to wonder why entertainment giants have slept on the platform as a place to find the next great group of talented creators. After all, it's not only the most popular online video sharing service around, but also viewed by many as the only outlet to pursue their ideas and bring them to life.

So, what are Parsons' thoughts on studios taking a punt on horror-minded YouTubers — and why has it taken them so long to view YouTube as this hotbed of untapped talent?

"I haven't gained the necessary industry insight to speak to the true depth of that conversation," Parsons exclusively told me. "But, I like to talk about YouTube as a means in and of itself, rather than a means to an end.

"Creatively, I am very content financially [on YouTube], but you have to appreciate that these [YouTube and the wider entertainment industry] are separate entities. You can't grow the same self-sustaining engine on YouTube as you can in Hollywood, especially if you want to make stuff with the kind of budget we had on this movie.

"If you don't have those resources, the next best place to get visibility for a lot of people, myself included, has frequently been YouTube," he continued. "It gives a very strong, immediate sense of having your finger on the pulse, you can engage with your audience in real time as soon as you've put something online, and it's been a very fun place to grow my understanding of my own art and build a relationship with my community.

"And I think big studios are wising up to that," Parsons added. "A common trait shared by a lot of these YouTube filmmakers is having an established contract with their audience, and treating fans like they're a little more intelligent and cognizant than the average entertainment fan. So, I can't speak to why studios are finally taking notice of us, but I'm glad they are."

Backrooms is out now in theaters worldwide. Before you watch it, check out our Backrooms review and see why Parsons thinks some movie and TV adaptations have failed in their duty to fans of their source material.

Backrooms is A24's new horror movie and one that I had been excited about for a long time. As someone who is obsessed with Kane Parsons' Backrooms YouTube series, I was intrigued to see how it would translate on the big screen. We had the chance to talk about Parsons' "fairly simple" story in an interview.

For me, it worked perfectly, but I do think it's important to acknowledge that I have been a fan of the very idea of Backrooms for a long time, which is why I stand behind my 5-star review. There are a few things that may be frustrating to newcomers, which I'll reference throughout.

First off, we need to talk about the sets. Backrooms is nothing without its iconic, empty, yellow location, and it was so exciting seeing it on this scale. It felt so vast and terrifying even in the early stages of exploration. But our introduction to them is my favorite part of the movie.

The movie wastes no time in throwing us straight in there with some grainy, shaky found footage. I firmly believe that this opening scene will go down in history with other horror greats, because it is the most anxiety-inducing few minutes as we follow a person trying to outrun a mysterious creature.

It's the instability of the found footage camera that makes this so tense. It whips around rapidly, makes jarring movements, and is a nightmare for anyone with motion sickness. Complete with shaky images, great sound design, and bizarre sets, this is an opener that sets the tone of the movie.

And then, it quietens down considerably. Backrooms turns into a slow burn after its tense opening sequence, something that may disappoint fans after it immediately gave us heart palpitations. But this gives us time to introduce us to Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his therapist, Dr Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), the movie's excellent central characters. There's also another stellar performance from Creep's Mark Duplass, in a role I won't spoil for you.

We learn about Clark's difficult past, especially with his ex-wife. As a furniture store owner and failed architect, his job perfectly mirrors the strange Backrooms he finds himself in, after he clips through a wall in his store and ends up surrounded by yellow walls and ominous buzzing from the lights above. At first, he finds it fascinating and attempts to map the place out so he can show Mary.

Unfortunately, Mary is skeptical when he shows up to his next session with a crudely drawn map. Clark insists he'll bring back proof, enlisting two of his employees to go into the Backrooms with him with a video camera, giving us enough time to brace ourselves for more creepy found footage.

Indeed, any scenes involving the shaky handheld camera are by far the scariest. I was glad that Backrooms leaned into that grainy, low-quality footage that makes these liminal spaces feel ten times worse. On the flip side, though, I was relieved the movie doesn't entirely rely on found footage, as that may have been too jarring.

This is the movie that long-time fans have been waiting for. It's a beautiful, eerie expansion on Parsons' already impressive lore. Much praise has been given to him for his use of the 3D modelling software Blender, and he gets to showcase those talents here. He is currently A24's youngest director, too, but it certainly never feels amateurish.

Backrooms has some well-orchestrated jumps, but if you're expecting loads of them, it won't happen here. Much of the dread and horror comes from the camera either creeping towards something or moving around erratically, both of which are very effective.

The movie also stays true to A24's brand of creepy, slow burns. It works very well here, in my opinion, but there may not be enough to hold the attention of non-Backrooms enthusiasts. In my eyes, though, it was everything I could have hoped for and more.

• The director of A24's Backrooms movie has had his say on why some film adaptations fail
• Kane Parsons thinks some studios ignore the "actual DNA" of franchises that made them popular to begin with
• Backrooms' filmmaker is also the creator behind a viral YouTube series that was inspired by this film's source material

The director of A24's Backrooms movie has had his say on why some film and TV adaptations fail — and how his first big-budget project will attempt to avoid similar pitfalls.

Speaking exclusively to TechRadar, Kane Parsons suggested that the reason some adaptations don't succeed is because studios and/or a production's chief creative team don't fully understand why fans latched onto them in the first place.

For the uninitiated: Backrooms is a feature film retelling of The Backrooms. A creepypasta (read: an internet-created horror folktale) that's only existed since 2019, The Backrooms is described as an impossibly large, interdimensional space filled with a seemingly never-ending number of rooms and corridors, and populated by monstrous entities.

Since its conception, The Backrooms has not only become one of the internet's most popular analog horrors but also spawned a wave of indie horror videogames and served as the inspiration for an American Horror Stories episode.

Additionally, a viral YouTube series, which began in 2022, has amassed hundreds of millions of views and further helped to shape The Backrooms' extensive lore. The individual behind said YouTube phenomenon? A then-16-year-old Parsons, who was hired to direct A24's movie adaptation just over a year after his first video metaphorically caught fire.

Given his prominent role in popularizing The Backrooms and fleshing out its mythos through his short films, Parsons appears to be the ideal candidate to helm Backrooms. It's a decision that, despite Parsons' tender age — he's still only 20 — should also pay off, especially with Backrooms set to attract long-time fans of its source material and Parsons' work to see if its big-screen adaptation is as faithful as Backrooms' trailer makes it out to be.

Other studios might want to take that expert-first leaf out of the A24 playbook, too, especially from the perspective of live-action reimaginings of other forms of media. Indeed, from Netflix's Cowboy Bebop TV show and Paramount's The Last Airbender film, to the Resident Evil movies and more besides, Parsons believes that studio interference and/or hiring the wrong people to oversee such adaptations are the root cause of their downfall.

"I think what happens is there's an overvaluation of the costumes worn by an IP [intellectual property]," Parsons told me when I asked how Backrooms threads the needle of appealing to diehard fans of The Backrooms and general moviegoers alike.

"And that's where most screen adaptations go wrong," he continued. "It's almost as though the skin, specific characters, and other elements of an IP are taken without any of the actual DNA that motivated those creative decisions in the first place. So, I feel like what you need to do — and we did this on our film — is rewind all the way to the beginning, and remind ourselves why people latched onto that initial post [of The Backrooms] and my first short film.

"Fundamentally, for all of the lore and depth, The Backrooms is a story playing in the periphery of a fairly simple concept. Whether people have seen it online or not, I think they can understand it's pretty supernatural in its makeup, so it'll be quite digestible for them.

"And I'd also say the goal isn't to feed into that simplicity in a negative way," Parsons added of one of this year's most exciting new movies. "It's figuring out what was so effective about that very first, almost sensory experience that fans had, and following that thread to build this movie from the ground up."

Backrooms launches in theaters worldwide on Friday, May 29.

I never thought I'd find a Tatiana Maslany role I enjoyed as much as Orphan Black, yet here we are. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is Apple TV's latest thriller, following on from recent huge releases like Margo's Got Money Troubles and Widow's Bay, and it's another fantastic release from the streaming service.

Here, Maslany plays newly divorced mother Paula, who has been spending time with Trevor (Brandon Flynn), a camboy. Since Paula's ex-husband has main custody of their daughter, she spends lonely nights talking with him, which inevitably leads to more.

Unfortunately for Paula, her private life doesn't stay that way for very long. During a session with Trevor, a masked man bursts into his apartment and starts beating him up. Paula films the attack, only to be told it's "not a real crime" when she tries reporting it.

Things take a darker turn from this moment on when Trevor calls her, begging for a $50,000 ransom, otherwise he'll be killed. She can't pay this, of course, and is spooked when she gets a call from Trevor and an accomplice on her work number. Considering she never shared that information, it's clear she's in trouble, and Trevor demands the money; otherwise, he says he'll ruin her life.

Trevor also coldly reveals that he’ll publish their secretly recorded interactions and ruin Paula's chance at maintaining custody, a threat that's not to be taken lightly.

It's good old-fashioned blackmail, and that's the catalyst for the rest of the ten-part series. Paula must balance her complicated divorce from Karl (Jake Johnson) alongside the stress of being blackmailed, with plenty of twists along the way.

Maslany is perfectly cast as she works to keep her job, be a good mother to her daughter, while trying to unravel who is blackmailing her. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed does center on how mothers, and women in general, can be so harshly judged by those around them to the point where evidence that Paula did connect with a camboy could ruin her life, just as the mysterious accomplice told her.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is one of those shows I wish had been released all at once. It's moreish and binge-worthy, so waiting a week between episodes might feel annoying. Even if it doesn't always balance the tonal shifts from humor to seriously shocking moments, I was largely impressed by the twists and turns throughout; it did keep me guessing.

As Paula falls deeper into this rabbit hole, we meet a great supporting cast of the various people in her life. Nobody here feels miscast; everyone does a great job at bringing the totally wild story to life, even if it's Maslany that shines throughout.

There's enough to help it stand out among the abundance of thriller shows across the best streaming services, and it's well worth hanging on to your Apple TV subscription so you can enjoy a new episode each week.

It really does feel like we're spoiled for choice there at the moment, with many of my current favorite shows having a home on Apple TV.

May has been a strong month for new horror movies, but as we approach the end of the month, it's safe to say that Passenger is the weakest of the bunch. A disappointment indeed, considering how interesting the trailer looked.

Passenger follows an unconvincing couple Tyler (Jacob Scipio) and Maddie (Lou Llobell), who have traded the Big Apple for an RV, which they're using to live a simpler life on the road. I wasn't hugely impressed by their dynamic here, unfortunately, which posed some problems as we spend the majority of the movie with these two leads.

On their journey, Tyler and Maddie learn that the roads are haunted (because of course they are) by an evil apparition called The Passenger. They learn all about him from an RV enthusiast called Diana (Melissa Leo), but there's nothing all that interesting about The Passenger and his backstory. This is the point in a movie where you'd hope to get some cool exposition, but it falls flat.

After being warned not to drive at night and if you have to, not to stop, Tyler and Maddie naturally ignore this advice when they witness an accident. Following on from this typically dumb horror movie decision, The Passenger hitches a ride and terrorizes them, simply because he can, I guess.

In my opinion, the Passenger exists to provide a lot of cheap, annoying jump scares and little else. There's nothing particularly interesting about this horror antagonist at all, and he has a weak backstory, which is a missed opportunity in my eyes, given how the trailer and marketing hyped the concept of him up so much.

I've been quite harsh so far, so let's examine some of the positives. Yes, it's a scary movie. There are scares in abundance as mentioned above, so this is not a slow burn, psychological horror at all. If you are the horror fan who loves being scared and having things jump out at you, then you will not be disappointed. Be warned, though, the trailer does spoil a lot of them.

Unfortunately, I find it lazy, so this technique of randomly jump-scaring the audience with no build-up or clever camera work (aside from one scene, where it does work) got boring real fast. We've seen this done a hundred times before in similar movies. Demonic creature screams out of nowhere, we jump, rinse and repeat. It doesn't work if you don't have the strong, compelling lore or tension building to go alongside it.

The cinematography is very good, though, especially when it comes to tight spaces. It is atmospheric, but it seems to rely on this too much. The movie is well shot and looks good; the red backlighting is especially cool, but I was expecting a lot more.

Passenger's predictability is disappointing too. If you've seen a lot of horror movies, you won't be surprised by many of the reveals or scenes that were intended to shock. In a world with so many fresh, exciting new horror movies, it falls by the wayside.

Despite the underwhelming nature of Passenger's final destination, it's worth seeing if you simply want a scary movie that will make you jump out of your skin. If you're more interested in the fright-filled journey than the end of the road, you might have a better time than I did.

But from a director like André Øvredal, who was behind the brilliant Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, I expected something far better.

Passenger is in theaters globally now.

At Disney World's Magic Kingdom, you're meant to lose yourself in the illusion. What you're not meant to think about is what happens after the park closes: the cranes, mechanics, overnight software updates, and engineering operations required to erase every trace of maintenance before sunrise.

But behind every seamless morning open lies a question worth asking: how does Disney keep rides that have been running for more than 50 years feeling like they've always been here — and always will be?

Taylor McLaughlin joined Disney in 2013 as a mechanical engineer, supporting projects across all four parks before helping launch Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Hollywood Studios. Today, as Senior Manager of Engineering Services at Magic Kingdom, she oversees engineering operations for Fantasyland and Tomorrowland Speedway — a portfolio covering some of the park's oldest and most technically demanding attractions. Her team of roughly 75 cast members works primarily between 11 PM and 6 AM.

On a rare behind-the-scenes tour Disney granted exclusively to TechRadar, McLaughlin walked me through several attractions mid-third-shift — past the safety lockout boards at Mad Tea Party, through the Speedway garage, and deep into the original back-of-show building behind "It's a Small World." Her team was already at work when we arrived.

'I came by at 6 AM and everything was cleared out'

The first stop is Mad Tea Party, and McLaughlin opens with a detail that immediately reframes the ride. There was a crane here twenty-four hours earlier.

Three flatbed trucks full of cribbing, a chain threaded down through a small hatch in the attraction's roof — invisible to guests — and a team on third shift using it to lift one of the spinning turntables clean off the floor to access the drive components and bearings underneath. By 6 AM, the crane was gone, the trucks were gone, and the ride was ready to open.

"I'm super proud of my team," McLaughlin says. "You would have no idea."

Unlike newer attractions with purpose-built maintenance access, legacy rides like Tea Cups sit directly in guest-facing space. Every crane, heavy lift, and bearing replacement is planned weeks in advance and executed overnight.

Tonight there's no crane, but the work hasn't stopped. Shawn, a foreman who has worked on the attraction for three years, has the hatch open while his team moves through nightly adjustments and inspections ahead of a 7 AM open. Watching them work, the scale of what sits beneath the ride's cheerful surface is surprising.

Walking onto the powered-down platform after hours completely resets your understanding of the attraction. Guests see spinning cups and pastel colors. What's actually here is a serious piece of industrial machinery: a giant exposed turntable, drive systems, and layered rotating platforms engineered to put three simultaneous axes of spin on every cup in the ride.

Every person entering follows a protocol called RMP: Ride Motion Protection. Power is formally eliminated, each team member applies their own physical lock to the E-stop, and registers their ID on a dedicated board before anyone moves. McLaughlin holds out a lock and asks for my driver's license. I hand it over. She slots it into the sleeve — your physical proof that you're inside, and that nothing moves until you're out.

The control console reinforces the ride's age. Where a newer attraction like Tron Lightcycle / Run relies on digital diagnostics, Tea Cups still uses physical indicator lights and a laminated note explaining what each blinking pattern means.

Technology has still been layered in carefully. Vibration sensors track bearing and drive-component trends over time, while gearbox oil testing helps identify developing failures before they become major problems. The team has also added instrumentation that requires an engineer to physically ride in a tea cup with an accelerometer to capture motion data during testing cycles.

"If I start seeing higher vibration, I can spot early changes and proactively plan [maintenance ahead of time]," McLaughlin says.

Auto-lubricators beneath the turntable systems close another gap. Instead of requiring someone to work underneath the ride while systems are moving, lubrication now happens automatically while extending component life at the same time.

"There are two types of maintenance," McLaughlin says. "You're either on the preventive side or the corrective side. The more we can be proactive and not reactive — that's our number one goal."

Redundancy as a system

The real engineering trick at Disney isn't eliminating failures entirely. It's designing systems where guests never notice them.

Space Mountain runs two independent track systems. Dumbo at Storybook Circus operates as two separate ride systems side by side, each with its own motors, gearboxes, and maintenance schedules. Soarin' at EPCOT added a third theater, partly so one could be taken offline without shutting down the experience completely.

"There are times things happen," McLaughlin says. "And still being able to bring guests through the experience, even at half capacity, is way better than zero."

Operators form another layer of the system. Every unusual sound, smell, or vibration triggers an immediate stop and inspection. Most turn out to be minor. McLaughlin recalls a recent guest reporting a possible mechanical issue on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train that ultimately turned out to be an intentional audio effect built into the ride.

The most mechanical ride in the park

Tomorrowland Speedway sits at the opposite end of the technology spectrum. No onboard computers. No software updates. Just gasoline engines, mechanical systems, and a working garage hidden inside a theme park.

"It's mechanically as basic as it gets," McLaughlin says. "True engines in these cars."

Fuel deliveries still feed tanks buried beneath the attraction. Some vehicles in the current fleet were transferred from Tokyo Disneyland after that park retired its version of the ride, with mechanics adapting the imported cars into the existing system.

The garage tells the story immediately: lifts, tool chests, parts racks, and vehicles in various states of repair. It feels exactly like what it is — a functioning automotive shop that happens to sit inside Magic Kingdom.

Even here, the improvement cycle hasn't stopped. After hood linkage failures occasionally caused hoods to fall unexpectedly during maintenance checks, the team retrofitted the fleet with pneumatic hood supports to eliminate the hazard.

The technology level changes. The engineering philosophy does not.

Original engineering, still running

Walking into the back-of-show building behind "It's a Small World" feels like stepping into another era of Disney engineering entirely — and another world most guests don't know exists.

This is an original structure from 1971, still operating daily. Boats line the space, with the infrastructure overhead to lift and move them as needed. Tool carts and workbenches run along the walls. In the middle of all of it, three engineers are mid-shift, working across the attraction's more than 350 animated figures. It's an active workshop — one that happens to be keeping a 54-year-old attraction show-ready for tomorrow morning.

The team still works from the original manuals. During our visit, one figure's arm had been removed, sent out for welding, returned, and was already being prepared for reinstallation — all within the same shift. Joe Ignell, a show technician who has spent years working on the attraction, is one of the engineers here tonight. The expertise in this room exists through repetition and experience as much as documentation.

When the original documentation doesn't capture how a figure is supposed to move, the team turns to whatever historical footage exists — hunting down decades-old park videos online to verify the reference before making adjustments. These are hydraulic animatronics built with technology that was cutting-edge in the early 1970s and still running today. Disney Imagineering teams inspect the attraction regularly, grading show quality and comparing figure movement against the original design intent.

"So much of Fantasyland is about relying on your gut, your experience with this ride," McLaughlin says. "That is a skill set. You have to have real expertise and experience in your field to be successful in these attractions."

Mine Train and the new standard

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is where Disney's modern maintenance philosophy becomes most visible.

When the attraction opened, many software fault conditions defaulted to option one: stop the ride and evacuate guests. Over time, McLaughlin's team has worked with sustaining engineers to rewrite portions of that logic, allowing the ride to recover from more minor issues without triggering lengthy downtime.

The system now produces predictive alerts tied to ride performance, surfacing developing issues before they become major failures. When faults do occur, engineers can often remotely assess conditions and restore operation faster than before.

"Sometimes it's not just about how you prevent the downtime from occurring," McLaughlin says. "It's also: okay, the downtime occurred — how do we make this more recoverable? How do we make this quicker?"

At the time of our visit, the team was midway through a multi-night testing cycle — uploading updated PLC logic overnight, running trains, and completing regular nightly maintenance inside the same narrow operating window. Every night, whether there's a software update or not, that cycle runs. A two-hour closure on Mine Train impacts thousands of guests. Reducing both the frequency and duration of those events becomes its own form of capacity gain.

The park comes alive

Just before 7 AM, the transition happens quickly.

The park-wide audio system comes online with the morning soundtrack. Tron's LED canopy ignites across the skyline. A tractor-trailer disappears backstage. Then the intercom fires:

"All lands must be clear of all vehicles and equipment. Show-ready at 6:45 AM."

Within minutes, the last maintenance vehicles are gone. The Tea Cups hatch is sealed. Overnight software updates are complete. Shawn's crew has handed off to operations. Joe and his team have their animatronic back in place.

The only evidence of the night's work is a set of attractions operating exactly as they should — which is to say, no evidence at all.

"You think third shift is going to be scary and quiet," McLaughlin says. "There's always painting, cleaning, horticulture, engineers — everywhere."

Technology in service of the ride

What a night inside Magic Kingdom's engineering operation makes clear is that Disney's maintenance strategy isn't about adding technology everywhere possible. It's about identifying where technology meaningfully improves reliability, safety, or recoverability, without introducing unnecessary complexity.

At Mine Train, software updates and predictive systems materially reduced downtime. At Tea Cups, targeted sensors and auto-lubrication modernized the ride without compromising the simplicity that has kept it running for decades. At Speedway, a pneumatic hood support solved a safety problem without fundamentally changing the attraction.

"We've been entrusted to keep something so important and special going," McLaughlin says. "The investment to keep adding safety features, to improve the guest experience — that doesn't stop because the ride has been here for 50 years."

What becomes clear overnight at Magic Kingdom is that the magic of a Disney park isn't only built into the new. A lot of it is rebuilt, quietly, every single night.

The Mad Tea Party, "It's a Small World," Tomorrowland Speedway, and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train are open daily at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and you read a deep dive into the most technologically advanced parade at that park here.

Full spoilers follow for The Mandalorian. Light spoilers also follow for The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Seven years is a long time for a franchise like Star Wars to spend away from the big screen. Sure, the wait for new movie-based entries in Lucasfilm's iconic galaxy far, far away has been significantly larger in the past. In an age where entertainment titans are mining everything they can from their money-spinning signature brands, though, it's surreal to think that a whole generation of fans haven't seen a Star Wars movie at their local theater.

Well, now they can. The Mandalorian and Grogu, a film sequel to The Mandalorian, aka the hugely popular Disney+ TV series that stars the aforementioned pair, aims to replicate the success of its parent show and recapture the magic of seeing the legendary sci-fi franchise on the silver screen for the first time. Unfortunately, it achieves neither of its objectives.

Wherever I go, he goes

Picking up sometime after The Mandalorian's season 3 finale, The Mandalorian and Grogu reunites us with the titular duo as they continue to carry out their contractual work for The New Republic. That being, hunting down Imperial warlords still devoted to the Galactic Empire to stop them from reviving the autocratic regime.

To that end, the Mandalorian known as Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his Force-wielding pal are given a specific mission by Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver): rescue Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White) for his crime lord relatives known as the Twins. In exchange, the latter will provide information on the whereabouts of Lord Janu (Jonny Coyne), The New Republic's next target.

Sounds simple, right? I think you already know the answer to that. Long story short: Mando and Grogu get more than they bargained for on a quest that proves to be their most dangerous yet.

Truth be told, they should be used to life-threatening situations as they've embarked on numerous perilous missions before in The Mandalorian.

And this is my first major gripe with The Mandalorian and Grogu, because it has the air of being two hour-long episodes of its parent show that have been smashed together.

It's difficult to explain without getting into major spoiler territory but, despite The Mandalorian and Grogu possessing a narrative throughline, there's a clear disconnect between its two parts that occurs exactly at its midpoint.

Indeed, with Mando and Grogu seemingly completing their Rotta-based search and rescue mission quicker than expected, I fully expected the end credits of this 'episode' to roll before its follow-up chapter began. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I not only realized this wouldn't happen, but also that there was an hour's worth of story left to tell when 95% of the plot's loose ends had seemingly been tied up.

Director Jon Favreau might claim that, rather than repurpose The Mandalorian season 4's scripts for this movie, he had to "start from scratch with The Mandalorian and Grogu's screenplay.

Nevertheless, given the notable split midway through this film's story, I'm of the opinion that some of that unmade season's plot threads have been reused and, whether by design or not, give it the structure of a multi-episode arc that's been stitched together. Think of how The Clone Wars animated series' first few episodes were similarly sewn together to unnecessarily turn it into a big-screen offering, and you'll get the idea.

The light and the dark

The Mandalorian and Grogu does win points for its action sequences, though. They're not wholly original in their makeup but, whether it's large- or small-scale battles, chase sequences, or vehicular- or duel-based combat, each one is as entertaining and well-executed as they need to be.

Speaking of being entertaining, Grogu is — if it even needs saying — the highlight of the show.

Multiple scenes involving Mando's apprentice are played for laughs (and rightly so, because he's an adorable little tyke), but he also gets enough character development that indicates he's not only coming into his own as a protagonist, but also being firmly positioned as Star Wars' next big, well, star. Suffice it to say, newcomers will fall head over heels for the individual affectionately known as Baby Yoda, while established fans will re-fall in love with him all over again.

Of equal appeal is The Mandalorian and Grogu following in the footsteps of its parent show and introducing us to fascinating new corners of the galaxy.

With growing fan criticism that Star Wars was reluctant to move away from exploring desert planets, The Mandalorian has given us new worlds — and the odd old fan favorite, such as Mandalore — to explore since its initial release on Disney+, aka one of the best streaming services.

It's a baton that The Mandalorian and Grogu is only too happy to pick up, too. Indeed, in flying us to new locales like Nal Hutta and Shakari, one of the many forthcoming new Star Wars movies and shows builds on its TV forebear's desire to visit unexplored regions of the galaxy, especially in the lawless Outer Rim. I'll take more of the same with other projects you've got in the pipeline, please, Lucasfilm.

While I'm making requests, it's also time for Star Wars to move past its overreliance on nostalgia bait, of which The Mandalorian and Grogu is as guilty of as its franchise contemporaries are.

Spoilers notwithstanding, it's a film dripping in Easter eggs and callbacks to other Star Wars projects, especially in its back half. That won't be an issue for diehards looking to mimic Captain America's "I understood that reference" line from The Avengers or Leonardo DiCaprio's finger pointing meme from One Upon a Time in Hollywood. Still, to me at least, the sheer number of nods to The Mandalorian and wider Star Wars universe felt more and more self-indulgent with each one I picked up on.

My verdict

The Mandalorian and Grogu is fine. It's an inoffensive and narratively safe addition to Lucasfilm's back catalog that'll still perform admirably at the global box office by virtue of it being a Star Wars movie, and the inclusion of Baby Yoda that's sure to lure in first-time viewers and diehard fans of the adorable green imp alike.

For those who grew up on the original films and/or want Lucasfilm and Disney to take more big creative swings in the vein of Andor, though, The Mandalorian and Grogu will feel like a missed opportunity. After all, this is the franchise's first big-screen outing since incredibly divisive 2019 flick The Rise of Skywalker, and I suspect some will have hoped that Mando and Baby Yoda's latest adventure would help to wash away the aforementioned film's lingering bad aftertaste.

Occasionally enjoyable though it is, The Mandalorian and Grogu fails to do just that and, as much as it pains me to say it, this isn't the way that Star Wars should've returned to the big screen.

The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in theaters worldwide on Friday, May 22.

Obsession is among the huge range of new horror movies in May, and it is already doing more than enough to stand out from the crowd. With clever marketing including a phone number to call, everyone's been creeped out by the premise from the very beginning. I've been following this movie on social media for months, and I will admit that I am obsessed with Obsession.

When you strip it back, the premise of Obsession is a very simple one. A man makes a wish on a novelty toy, asking that his crush would "love him more than anything else in the entire world", and it comes true. But like any cautionary tale whether it's a genie's lamp or a monkey's paw, sometimes wishes backfire spectacularly.

Immediately, you face palm at just how extreme this wish is. Bear (Michael Johnston) is very explicit in what he wants, to the point that he asks to be the singular object of Nikki's (Inde Navarrette) desire. It's an unreasonable wish, because even those of us in committed relationships have other things that we love. Nothing can come between me and my hobbies, let me tell you.

The One Wish Willow, a whimsical novelty toy invented by director Curry Barker, takes Bear's request very literally. Indeed, Nikki does begin to love Bear more than anything, and it's more terrifying than he could have anticipated. Instead of giving Bear a passionate romance, she begins to stalk and obsess over him, and it is soon clear she is no longer Nikki but something else far more sinister.

Obsession sets out to make us incredibly uncomfortable and succeeds in multiple ways. Inde Navarrette's portrayal of Nikki is well rounded because yes, she does an excellent job at freaking us out, but she also shows us a human side of Nikki and what she lost. The movie reminds us repeatedly that Bear wished for this, he took away Nikki's agency, and now he's left with the stuff of nightmares.

Navarette's unhinged performance is impossible to look away from, no matter what she's doing. There are some incredibly horrifying scenes in Obsession, as "Nikki" does her best to win Bear's affections and be the girl of his dreams, just as he asked. I did not expect things to get as dark as they did so be warned, some really messed up stuff happens. Nikki twists into something monstrous, a far cry from the person Bear loves.

Curry Barker has made something very special here. It ticks all the right boxes for any horror fan: it's gory, scary, and shocking. But it also forces us to confront some uncomfortable topics about relationships, desire, and consent. Nothing that happens in the movie would've happened if Bear hadn't broken the One Wish Willow, everything is a horrible, twisted consequence of his own actions. It's a tough pill to swallow.

Obsession is the kind of movie that lingers. Whether it's the disturbing scenes or the very idea of robbing someone of their humanity for your own selfish desires, it's sure to stick with you. I've seen plenty of interesting opinion pieces, videos and debates around the movie, which all good horror movies should do. It's a modern classic and I believe we'll be discussing it for many years to come.

Everywhere you look people are really analyzing Obsession and having a blast doing it, and because of this, its impact should not be ignored. It's only May and it has a very real chance of being 2026's best horror movie.

Many people are rallying for Obsession to be recognized during award season. With more horror movies being noticed recently, like Amy Madigan's performance in Weapons, I am hopeful that Obsession will get the flowers it deserves. It's thoroughly entertaining and grabs you by the throat, refusing to let go.

Truly, I could not have wished for more.

The Walt Disney Company recently marked its “Week of Wishes” — not a promotion for a new film, the unveiling of an attraction, or a product launch, but rather a celebration of its long-standing partnership with Make-A-Wish, the nonprofit focused on granting wishes for children with critical illnesses.

The initiative stretched across Disney Parks, Broadway productions, and special events, but one of the most distinctive experiences happened at Walt Disney Imagineering.

For Eli, a 12-year-old Make-A-Wish kid, his wish was to look behind the curtain at how Disney parks and attractions are built and operated — with a particular fascination for how engineers and designers bring characters to life through animatronics and immersive storytelling.

As a member of his middle school robotics team and with a deep curiosity for how things work, Eli has also spent time learning about Imagineers, animatronics, and the history behind Disney Parks’ most iconic attractions. Through Wishes Assemble, though, his curiosity was met in full.

Eli was given the opportunity to meet Imagineers and storytellers, ask questions once he warmed up, and see firsthand how creativity and engineering come together to build experiences for millions of guests.

“We knew Eli was interested in robotics and Audio-Animatronics so we really pulled back the curtain,” Leslie Evans, Executive R&D Imagineer, told TechRadar. “We showed a bit of the legacy of how our first audio-animatronic figures were designed and animated and then brought him into the actual spaces where Imagineers are designing and building the next generation of figures.

“This includes everything from the technology powering our characters, to the character sculpts and physical foundation, and finally the textures, finishes, skins and final touches that bring these characters from the screen into real life.”

One of the biggest highlights came when Eli met the BDX Droids — some of Disney’s most advanced robotic characters — and even had the chance to control one himself.

The expressive Star Wars-inspired robots combine custom hardware, animation systems, sound design, and reinforcement learning models, allowing them to balance, walk, react, dance, and move with distinct personalities. While the droids themselves have various systems, Disney also pairs them with performers using handheld controllers similar in size and layout to a Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch 2.

Eli guided one of the BDX Droids as it walked, jumped, swiveled its head, made sounds, and moved through pre-programmed actions. The robotics here are only part of the larger goal, though.

“When we prototype new characters at R&D, we're always thinking about the story first, the feeling of the moment we want to create, and what makes a character really come alive for our guests,” Evans explained.

Evans says that philosophy — using advanced technology in service of emotional storytelling — is central to Imagineering's approach to innovation.

“We start with a North Star of the experience we want to bring to life and then use technology to make it possible,” she said. “Diving into both the creative process and iterative development really gave Eli a peek at what goes into bringing these stories and characters to guests in our parks.”

That combination of engineering and creativity was a major reason Eli connected so deeply with Imagineering in the first place.

“Eli chose this wish because being an Imagineer encompasses all of his passions,” his mom, Amber Stortz, said. “He has also always had an inquisitive mind as far as engineering goes but still loves the creative and artistic aspects of engineering that only Disney offers.”

Steve Cotroneo, a Dimension Design Principal at Imagineering, says that for some guests, understanding how the technology and artistry come together can become its own kind of magic.

“For some, the ‘behind the scenes’ process can be just as magical, if not even more so, especially for creative individuals who have a passion for art and technology — and Eli is absolutely someone who has a passion for both,” Cotroneo said.

The timing makes this wish especially meaningful. After a rare six-week break from treatment, Eli recently learned his cancer has returned. While his treatment plan remains unchanged, his family sees this wish as a moment of joy and renewed strength before he heads back into what they call “fight mode.”

At Wishes Assemble, Eli’s experience reflected the week’s broader goal: turning wishes into real-world moments that bring joy, connection, and strength to kids and families who need it most.

We're just a few weeks away from the Toy Story franchise returning to the big screen with Toy Story 5, but in the lead-up, Disney has been quietly upgrading one of its most iconic attractions themed after one of the main characters at Walt Disney World.

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin is a Magic Kingdom staple in Orlando, Florida — a classic interactive dark ride where guests board a rotating vehicle, pick up a blaster, and try to rack up points by hitting targets while helping Buzz Lightyear and Star Command defeat Zurg.

"We tried to keep the soul and old charm of the original attraction, but level it up and plus it up where we could."

That's how Evan Klein, a Software Developer Lead at Walt Disney Imagineering, describes the approach behind the major refurbishment that has now fully reopened. It's a useful lens for what has changed here: not a reinvention of the ride, but a deep modernization of how it works under the hood in pursuit of a more fun, compelling ride.

Spoiler: there's a lot of tech being used here. New haptics inside entirely redesigned blasters, upgraded tracking systems, and onboard computers.

At its core, the biggest shift in Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin isn't visual — it's interactive. The attraction has always been a competitive shooter-style ride, but the new version is built to be far more responsive and dynamic in how it reacts to guests in real time.

That starts with the new blasters, which are no longer fixed to the ride vehicle but can be lifted and aimed freely. They vibrate with haptics and play audio feedback to confirm when you've made contact with a target — changes that make the moment-to-moment gameplay feel far more immediate.

The more significant shift is in what you're actually shooting at. Targets are no longer static props. They light up, change color, and carry dynamic point values that shift throughout the ride — effectively turning the attraction into something closer to a real-time game than a traditional dark ride.

Klein says that was the fundamental design goal. "The dynamic nature of the targets is the biggest leap," he explains. "Before, this was a very static attraction. None of the targets necessarily reacted. It was difficult to see where you're aiming and what you were actually hitting."

Now, targets encourage guests to scan the full environment rather than fixate on a single high-value spot. "With these targets that light up with different colors and have different dynamic scoring, it really encourages the guest to look around," noted Klein.

He's quick to note that the underlying technology philosophy was "innovation versus invention" — taking tried-and-true technology and deploying it thoughtfully. "A lot of what was done here is taking the best of all the different Buzz Lightyear attractions around the world, and some other attractions too, and trying to blend them into something that kept the soul of the original, but leveled it up where we could."

The most technically surprising aspect of the refurbishment isn't something guests will see — it's what's running beneath the surface, powered by Epic Games' Unreal Engine.

"Each ride vehicle actually hosts Unreal Engine for the score content that you see," Klein explains. The dynamic score screens showing your rank and progression to the next tier aren't pulling from a static asset library. Each vehicle runs two independent Unreal deployments — one per player, as each car seats two — generating that content locally in real time.

It's a notably different application of game engine technology than what Disney typically uses in major attractions. "This is a really interesting way to use the technology in an embedded context," Klein says, separating it from larger projection-based systems like what's used on Millennium Falcon, which itself will be upgraded on May 22 with new elements themed to The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Beyond the vehicles, every target and all the scoring systems across the attraction are networked together. Klein notes that over 200 machines are managed daily to keep everything synchronized and consistent. The result is a ride that behaves less like a single attraction and more like a distributed computing system.

The same engine also played a central role in the creative process — particularly in collaborating with Pixar on the ride's projected media, most notably in a hyperspace tunnel scene, which is likely my favorite addition.

"We were able to work with Pixar to develop the full attraction in a pre-visualization virtual environment," Klein explains. For the Hyperspace scene in particular, Pixar's media drafts were loaded directly into the simulation, allowing Imagineering’s Creative Director to walk through the space in virtual reality and evaluate how the media read from different angles inside the physical room.

That mattered because the projection space is unusually shaped. "The room is oddly shaped, and so there was a unique challenge in making sure the media actually read well from all different angles and perspectives from the ride vehicle," Klein says.

The same environment was used to test motion profiles for new figures, including a new animatronic named Buddy, and to evaluate how scenes would read from a moving vehicle at real ride speed.

It's a genuinely impressive use of the technology — not just as a tool for remote collaboration across coasts, but as a shared reference point that lets different teams weigh in at every stage of the process. Especially useful for a ride like this that had teams from Walt Disney Imagineering and Pixar Animation Studios working together.

What emerges is a version of Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin that still feels familiar on the surface but operates fundamentally differently. The layout, the story, the vehicles — all preserved.

Klein's own personal best on the attraction sits at 20.1 million points — a score he'll tell you required more than 100 rides and a few fortunate slowdowns to achieve.

For Disney Imagineering, the refurbishment is another step toward treating physical attractions less like static environments and more like evolving, software-driven systems that push immersion for guests to infinity and beyond.

Or as Klein puts it: taking something beloved and "leveling it up and just plussing it up where we could."

• Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Curry Barker has teased a little about his plans for the movie
• The new addition to the franchise may contain characters from Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2
• This suggests Barker is looking beyond just Leatherface, the franchise's iconic antagonist

In recent weeks, I've been cautiously optimistic about the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, especially when I learned that Curry Barker is directing it. Now we have been given a teaser of what to expect from Barker's script.

This week, Barker's highly anticipated Obsession arrives in theaters, with the new horror movie receiving a glowing 95% Rotten Tomatoes score from both audiences and critics. He's proven he's a strong new name for the horror genre, and his vision for Texas Chainsaw Massacre has got many of us excited.

In an interview with Polygon, Barker revealed he's a big fan of 1986's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, and he's aiming to incorporate one specific aspect of that film into his version.

He said: "I don't want to give up too much — I haven't even started writing it yet — but I like Texas Chainsaw 2 a lot and I think I have a pretty good idea of what people like about that movie."

"I liked that there was a different tone," Barker added. "It was like they were onto something in the '80s with Texas Chainsaw 2 that we're finally exploring now, which is this eerie comedy, but that turns really dark. So that's something that I want to tap into."

What do we know about A24's Texas Chainsaw Massacre so far?

Since it's in the early stages, the short answer is not a lot. However, Barker did hint that his script may lean on some of the characters that appear in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. So there's a very real chance we'll see some underrepresented characters in his movie.

"I really loved certain characters in that movie," Barker told Polygon. "I'm very excited to incorporate characters that we haven't seen a lot of."

Considering we've seen loads of Bubba Sawyer aka Leatherface over the years, it would certainly be a refreshing change to have more of the Sawyers and those affiliated with them depicted on screen, especially when backed by a big studio like A24.

Based on this interview, Barker's Texas Chainsaw could include family patriarch Drayton 'Cook' Sawyer and brother/conspirator Robert Sawyer aka Chop Top. If we go beyond the family, we could even see Lieutenant Boude 'Lefty' Enright, who attempts to stop the Sawyers' murder spree.

Right now it's all speculation, but I'm looking forward to learning more about this movie.

• A new poster for Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been revealed
• It shows Peter Parker wearing his superhero suit under a winter jacket
• Marvel fans can't stop poking fun at the poster's accompanying tagline

Sony and Marvel have released another new poster for Spider-Man: Brand New Day — and it hasn't taken long for fans to poke fun at the eyebrow-raising caption that accompanies it.

Released on the studios' social media channels, the one-sheet shows Tom Holland's Peter Parker wearing his iconic red and blue superhero suit underneath a winter jacket. The artwork also reconfirms that, if a reminder was even necessary, that Spider-Man 4 will swing into theaters worldwide on July 31.

That's not the only piece of promotional material that Sony and Marvel unveiled today (May 14).

Indeed, a new behind-the-scenes featurette has also been uploaded to the former's YouTube channel. In it, Holland and director Destin Daniel Cretton discuss shooting one of the Marvel Phase 6 film's action sequences practically in Glasgow, Scotland in August 2025.

Even better, the pair confirm that said set-piece will be part of the next Spider-Man movie's opening number. So, we'll see the eponymous hero — with a little help (read: not much help at all) from Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle/The Punisher — tackle that armored vehicle in an explosive, chase sequence as soon as Spider-Man 4 begins.

With Brand New Day's global launch just over two months away, plus the release of these new marketing materials, I wouldn't be surprised if another trailer makes its way online shortly. While we wait for another round of footage, read my Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer #1 breakdown piece to gain some insight into what its plot might entail.

Why are Marvel fans poking fun at Spider-Man 4's latest poster?

By now, you'll have seen the caption that accompanies Brand New Day's poster. If you've somehow skipped over the first part of this article, though, here it is in full: "The world has forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn’t forgotten them."

Seems pretty innocuous, right? So, why on Earth are fans falling over themselves to mock said caption? Because of recent myriad Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) events that have occurred in Spidey's home city of New York that he's somehow not been involved in.

Indeed, whether it's both seasons of Daredevil: Born Again, events depicted in recent Disney+ TV Special The Punisher: One Last Kill, or the duo's big-screen cousin in Thunderbolts, fans can't stop commenting on the irony of the aforementioned caption.

"Getting some mixed messages between this tagline, and his lack of presence during some pretty critical moments in New York over the last few seasons of Daredevil and Punisher: One Last Kill," one ResetEra user joked, before another person added: "Don't forget his lack of presence in Thunderbolts."

"You sure bout that, Peter?" another ResetEra forumite asked. "Little Sicily [the New York district depicted in One Last Kill] could use some help."

Tagline notwithstanding, others have questioned the overall quality of the poster and whether it's been created using artificial intelligence (AI). You only need to glance at threads on r/marvelstudios, r/spiderman, and r/marvelstudiospoilers to get a slice of other negative comments that it's been greeted within since its unveiling. Let's hope, then, a new trailer is released soon-ish to get fans talking about the film in a positive light again.

In the meantime, find out everything we know so far about Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Once you're done, read my Spider-Man 4 cast and character guide to see who'll join Holland and Bernthal in the wallcrawler's next Marvel project.

• The Legend of Zelda Movie's release date has been changed
• Nintendo confirmed as much on social media yesterday (May 13)
• The live-action film was set to arrive in theaters on May 7, 2027

Eyes up, Nintendo fans — The Legend of Zelda Movie's release date has been tweaked, but don't worry, it hasn't been delayed.

Indeed, the highly-anticipated live-action film, which was set to land in theaters on May 7, 2027, has actually been moved up by a week. It's now set to debut worldwide on April 30, 2027.

The announcement comes courtesy of Nintendo legend and president Shigeru Miyamoto. Indeed, in a statement posted on the videogame giant's social media channels yesterday (May 13), Miyamoto-san revealed The Legend of Zelda's movie adaptation would be with us earlier than expected.

"This is Miyamoto," the post begins. "We have decided to change the worldwide theatrical release date of the live-action film The Legend of Zelda from May 7, 2027 to April 30, 2027. In order to deliver it to everyone even one day sooner, the team is united in advancing production. It's less than a year until release, but please wait just a little longer."

It's unclear why one of next year's most exciting new movies is coming out earlier than anticipated. However, with filming reportedly wrapping on the project last month, it appears its production is going smoother than even Miyamoto-san might have predicted.

What do we know about The Legend of Zelda Movie so far?

Truth be told, not a great deal. Indeed, aside from its new launch date, the ever-secretive Nintendo has kept its cards close to its chest regarding the movie's cast, plot, and which of the franchise's many beloved games it's drawing inspiration from.

On the cast front, only two actors are officially involved in The Legend of Zelda Movie: Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, who'll play Link, aka the Hero of Time, and Bo Bragason, who'll portray the titular princess of Hyrule. Severance actor Dichen Lachman was believed to have been spotted on set as Zelda's protector-in-chief Impa, but Lachman's involvement is still a rumor at this stage.

Meanwhile, fans believe they know which game's story is being adapted for this flick after Nintendo released the first official images for The Legend of Zelda Movie in November 2025. Again, though, this is purely speculation, and it won't be until Nintendo releases the film's first trailer that we'll be able to decipher which game(s) it'll be inspired by.

While we wait for more concrete news, find out everything we know so far about The Legend of Zelda Movie.

• The Batman Part 2's first cast members have been revealed
• Six actors are now confirmed to be part of the highly-anticipated sequel
• Its director has said more announcements will be made later today (May 14)

The Batman Part 2's first cast members have been announced — but there's still no word on who the highly-anticipated sequel's main villain will be.

In a series of posts uploaded to his personal X/Twitter account yesterday (May 13), director Matt Reeves confirmed the first six stars who'll be part of his next Batman movie. The reveals, though, aren't all that surprising, because they're actors who were always expected to return, such as Robert Pattinson's eponymous crimefighter, or individuals who also appeared in The Batman and had already confirmed they'd be back for round 2.

Regardless, for those of you who don't want to scroll through Reeves' X/Twitter timeline, here's the confirmed cast for The Batman 2 so far:

• Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman
• Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon
• Andy Serkis as Alfred
• Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb/The Penguin
• Jayme Lawson as Mayor Bella Real
• Gil Perez-Abraham as Officer Martinez

Thankfully, the wait won't be a long one to find out who'll be joining the above collective in Reeves' forthcoming DC comic book film.

Indeed, after the aforementioned reveals, Reeves signed off for the night with one final tweet that simply reads "more... tomorrow" — tomorrow, of course, now being today (May 14). So, we can expect even more cast announcements in the very, very near future.

What can we expect from The Batman 2's next round of cast announcements?

Possible spoilers follow for The Batman Part 2.

For starters, two actors who are, or have been, part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Last December, news broke that Scarlett Johansson had reportedly signed on to appear in The Batman Part 2. Less than a month later, another MCU Stalwart in Sebastian Stan was also said to be part of The Batman 2's cast.

Who are the pair playing? Rumors abound that Stan is on board as Harvey Dent, aka the Gotham City lawyer who becomes the villainous Two-Face. Meanwhile, Johansson is believed to be portraying Dent's wife, aka Gilda Gold. However, some fans have theorized that she could be playing anyone from Poison Ivy and Vicky Vale, to Andrea Beaumont and Talia al Ghul.

Then there's the big question mark over The Batman Part II's primary antagonist.

It's possible that Stan's Dent could be its main villain, but that's only likely to be the case if he becomes his criminal alter-ego at some point in the film. Meanwhile, after Reeves revealed the first behind-the-scenes images for The Batman 2, fan hopes grew that Victor Fries, aka Mister Freeze, would be the next member of The Dark Knight's stuffed rogues gallery to battle Pattinson's titular character.

As for other returning faces, I wouldn't rule out cameos from Paul Dano's Riddler or Barry Keoghan's Joker — both of whom appeared in The Batman. I guess we'll have to wait for Reeves to take to social media once more, though, to find out who's officially joining Pattinson, Wright, and company in one of next year's most exciting new movies.

In the meantime, find out everything we know so far about The Batman Part 2. Once you're done, find out how to watch the Batman movies in order and/or see if you agree with our ranking of the best Batman movies.

“It’s like a community, right? And it’s a global community that people really love and identify with.”

That’s how Bobby Kim, Global Creative Director at Disney Consumer Products, describes Star Wars fandom. And it’s a framing that feels especially fitting as another May the 4th is behind us and we’re weeks out from a big-screen debut.

For millions of fans, myself included, it’s not just a set of films. It’s something more of a shared language — one that extends far beyond the screen into collectibles, toys, robots, video games, and all sorts of media from films and TV shows to books, comics, and shorts.

Inside Disney, that shift is increasingly shaping how Star Wars comes to life. It’s no longer just about the next movie or series, but rather it’s about how fans engage with the universe in between those major moments — and often, that starts with products.

Over a year into his role at Disney Consumer Products, Kim is still adjusting to the scale. Coming from a background in entrepreneurship and underground culture, he’s used to building within tight communities. At Disney, though, the audience is global, multigenerational, and deeply invested.

That level of connection, he says, comes with responsibility. Fans don’t just watch Star Wars — they identify with it. And that changes what a product is supposed to do.

“What Star Wars taught folks like me and artists and designers and creatives is how to understand a story not just from the perspective of cinema, but through the perspective of product,” Kim explained shortly after leading a conversation with The Mandalorian and Grogu director, co-writer, and producer, Jon Favreau.

It’s a simple idea, but it reframes everything from a product generation discussion to planning for a rollout. For decades, Star Wars has existed beyond the screen through toys, collectibles, and apparel, but nearly 50 years on, these products are becoming the experience itself.

From action figures to roleplay items, people can get closer and feel a connection to a specific character or legion – be it Rebel or Imperial – within the franchise. You don’t need to follow every film or series to feel connected. You can build a Lego Star Wars set, collect figures, or display memorabilia and still participate in the world in a meaningful way. Products aren’t just extensions of the story — they’re one of the main ways fans live with it.

That’s also why Disney is continuing to emphasize its internal design teams, ensuring that what it creates in-house reflects the same storytelling DNA as the films and shows.

Technology is pushing that even further, and no better example is Lego Smart Play, and the first wave of Star Wars sets.

“I love what Lego is doing. Smart Play is technology within a product that has enchanted collectors for, you know, eons. Literally.”

For Kim, the key isn’t reinvention — it’s expansion. “It doesn’t replace anything, it’s additive to me. And it’s just a new way that you can play with Lego Star Wars sets in a way that we maybe couldn’t have thought of before.”

That idea of “additive” design hints at where Star Wars products are heading. They’re becoming more interactive, more flexible, and more open to interpretation — less like static objects and more like platforms that fans can shape themselves.

It’s a natural evolution for a franchise that has always thrived on participation. From collecting to cosplay to fan builds, Star Wars has long encouraged people to make it their own. Now, the products themselves are starting to reflect that same philosophy.

And as technology continues to blur the line between physical and digital, that connection is only getting stronger. At the end of April 2026, Hasbro showed off a fully electronic Grogu – one of the most highly detailed and expensive Baby Yoda toys yet.

“I cannot divorce the two: the creative process from technology. It’s always one and the same.”

For Disney, that means designing Star Wars as something that lives across formats — film, yes, but also objects, experiences, and tools for creativity. For fans, especially on May the 4th, it’s a reminder of why the franchise endures. Star Wars isn’t just something you watch.

It’s something you build, collect, and carry with you.

• Eerie new Backrooms themed doors have been spotted around the US ahead of the movie's release
• The photos were shared by fanpage The Backrooms Online via Instagram
• Backrooms arrives in theaters on May 29, 2026

Backrooms is one of the many new movies to look forward to in May, and fans have stumbled across some excellent, but very creepy marketing out in the wild.

I'm a huge fan of how horror movies find ways to freak out their audiences long before they've even seen the movie. Recently I was impressed by Weapons' viral marketing, which created a fake missing persons website to grab people's attention.

Since Backrooms is essentially an alternate dimension that's similar to our own, they've really pushed the boat out and started freaking fans out by placing fake doorways in real-life liminal spaces, which an Instagram post described as "overlooked corners, alleyways, and blank architectural spaces".

Check out the creepy new photos below.

If you spot any of these strange doorways, it's probably best to avoid trying to walk through them as there's no guarantee you'll be able to return. Or maybe that's part of the appeal for fans who have long been obsessed with the creepypasta lore?

It's very cool to see more creative marketing for original horror, and I'm keen to see if more of these pop up ahead of the movie's global release on May 29.

Early reactions to Backrooms have been very positive

Backrooms had its premiere recently, and critics who saw it early have been raving about it. The horror movie has been described as "wholly unique and original" and "the best creepypasta adaptation yet".

There's no denying the hype for this movie has been off the charts. Kane Parsons is now A24's youngest director, soaring to new heights after the success of his viral YouTube series.

We still have a couple of weeks to go before fans can deliver their verdict, but so far it feels like a promising entry into A24's horror slate and I'm sure it will be worth the wait.