The U.S. is not the center of the universe (contrary to some Americans’ belief), but it is the world’s largest exporter of popular culture and has been for a while. While the U.K. and Japan (and, more recently, Korea) are recognized as other cultural exporters on the global stage, American film franchises like the MCU remain the biggest stories in the world. If America’s “soft power” is to be effectively challenged, it’s probably going to come not simply from the rise of other countries’ entertainment industries, but from U....

Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 10 The snow is piling as they stand atop the battlements. Hard fought for and hard won, two Stark siblings (who are now officially not siblings) consider all the lies, all the death, and all the treachery that has led to them being together in this exhausted, yet inexplicably peaceful, moment. In the wars to come, including the great war, they will have to become closer still if they hope to survive....

Here is everything you need to know about Gamescom 2021: Gamescom 2021 Schedule: Dates and Times Gamescom 2021 will run from Aug. 24 to 27, and while Europe’s premier games expo doesn’t host as many conferences as E3 does, there are still some big showcases you won’t want to miss. Here’s a schedule of the conferences you’ll want to watch this week: Opening Night Live: Wednesday, Aug. 25 – 2 pm ET Future Games Show: Thursday, Aug....

The first season on Gangs of London hit in 2020 right at the start of lockdown, it came out of nowhere and blew viewers’ minds. Created by Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery this was a slick study of ultra violence set in the capital city, which explored the game play between international gangs vying to control different parts of the criminal underworld. Events of season one are kicked off when gangland boss and patriarch Finn Wallace (Colm Meaney) is assassinated and his headstrong son Sean (Joe Cole) takes over, hell bent on revenge....

Now Romero’s widow Suzanne, who has been developing the script that her late husband started with three other writers, is ready to meet with directors for the project. Details on the plot remain secret, except for this tantalizing line: “The story is set in a decimated world. Life has all but disappeared. But there still may be hope for humanity.” Romero reportedly wanted to explore what came next after the end of 2005’s Land of the Dead, which saw the arrival of an intelligent zombie leader....

Gotham Knights lets players patrol Gotham City as Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood. Why them and not Batman? Well, Gotham Knights‘ story and gameplay revolve around the fact that Batman is dead. Gamers everywhere seem to refuse to believe that Batman is really dead in Gotham Knights, but it’s true. Those expecting to play as Batman in Gotham Knights need not apply. While Gotham Knights’ campaign largely revolves around several ongoing investigations, the cause of Batman’s death lingers in the back of its main characters’ minds....

Luckily, Arc System Works has been teasing its next big Guilty Gear game for a while now, and now we know when we’ll be able to play Guilty Gear Strive. The game will be available on April 9 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Steam. The Ultimate Edition and Deluxe Edition will be available digitally on April 6. The news was announced in this trailer: Last weekend, Arc System Works held an event called ARCREVO in Japan, which included online tournaments based on some of their kickass fighting games like Under Night In-Birth and BlazBlue: Centralfiction....

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a Harry Potter live-action TV series is in early development at HBO Max, with the streaming service having “early-stage exploratory meetings” with writers for potential ideas. “There are no Harry Potter series in development at the studio or on the streaming platform,” HBO Max and Warner Bros said in a statement, but you’d have to be as thick as Cornelius Fudge to believe they aren’t doing their darndest to extend that Galleons-filled universe....

There are no real original TV series of note coming this month, which is highly unusual for HBO and HBO Max. In their place, however, are some really impressive film offerings. Major Warner Bros. titles like The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (June 4) and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights (June 11) both arrive this month. So too do some interesting documentaries like Revolutionary Rent on June 15 and LFG on June 24....

The headlining title on HBO Max this month is undoubtedly The White Lotus season 2 on Oct. 30. Mike White’s freshly-Emmy-winning comedy looked to be a one-off after season 1. But cooler heads prevailed and the series is now returning in an anthology format. What will season 2 look like? Guess we’ll find out when the show checks in to Sicily later this month. Aside from The White Lotus, HBO also has a few other TV shows of note this month....

How does Hellbound force its characters to face their own mortality en masse? Through something that looks a hell of a lot like divine intervention: In the series’ opening minutes (shown in the first trailer for the series), massive, Hulk-like monsters appear out of nowhere to chase a man through the busy, daylit streets of downtown Seoul. The monsters beat the man to death and then burn him to a crisp with their otherworldly powers....

In the closing moments of Bad Wolf’s majestic adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, a caption on screen tells us what lies ahead for Lyra and Will. After freeing the ghosts from the Land of the Dead and returning healing Dust to the ailing multiverse, the teenagers weren’t granted a happy ever after. Instead, they faced a stark reality: stay together and be complicit in the death of the multiverse, or save it and separate forever....

“Witches hear the immortal whispers of those who pass between worlds. They speak of a child who is destined to bring the end of destiny. If told what she must do, she will fail. But she won’t walk alone. There is a boy whose fate is bound with hers. Together, they will change everything.” So speaks Kaisa, the daemon of witch Serafina Pekkala in episode five of the BBC/HBO His Dark Materials TV series, ‘The Lost Boy....

Some family TV shows exist to sell toys. Or to fill gaps between pocket money-targeting ads, and to profit from cross-promotional product placement. Not this one – and not only because it’s shown on the BBC, historic producers of children’s drama that values young minds for their creative, and not their consumer, potential. His Dark Materials exists to spark imaginations and excite debate about life’s most profound questions. It talks down to no-one, is accessible to everyone, and passes on a message that’s fundamental to everything fiction and drama are: tell stories....

1.5 The Lost Boy If the fun of last week’s episode sent this adaptation soaring up into the skies, the sad weight of this week’s brought it back down. Lyra’s side mission was characterised by terror and grief, Serafina Pekkala’s first appearance was grave and sorrowful, and our introduction to Will Parry added a sombre social realist thread to this fantastical story. Stopping the grief from becoming suffocating, there were light moments, and warm ones – at least in Lyra’s world....

It’s time to return to Philip Pullman’s fantasy world of dust, daemons and Asriel’s quest to free the worlds from religious tyranny. His Dark Materials is back for its third and final season, to tell the story of The Amber Spyglass. US viewers will be able to watch the season in double-bill instalments on HBO between Monday the 5th and 26th of December, while in the UK, all episodes will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer on Sunday the 18th of December, as well as airing on BBC One....

But would a real-life Harry and Marv have survived the kinds of traps Kevin set them? That’s exactly what The Unofficial Science of Home Alone – a new documentary on Sky Max – plans to find out. Comedians Guz Khan and James Acaster find out just how deadly the Home Alone boobytraps are via experiments set up by engineer and scientist Dr Zoe Laughlin, before coming up with savvy, science-based ways to survive them....

George R.R. Martin himself spoke about this at the recent SDCC panel on House of the Dragon, explaining that “I pilfered from real history,” and briefly outlining the series of events that led to the Anarchy. Showrunner Ryan Condal told Den of Geek’s David Crow that the writers “read a lot of material about the Anarchy all the way up, because I knew that just as the War of the Roses was the influence in the first series, I knew that was George’s influence here....

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 3 Episode 2 It’s the thrill of the chase. That’s the dominant theme in Star Trek: Lower Decks “The Least Dangerous Game.” Themes of game play, challenge, and the hunt resonate in this episode along with some popular Star Trek and non-Trek elements, all tied together with a little inspiration from a lesser-known character from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Anthony Rapp showed us last year that there is a strong intersection between fans of Dungeons & Dragons and Star Trek....

The perfect standalone female comic book hero has been a somewhat unobtainable dream for both Hollywood moviemakers and small screen show-runners ever since Blade, X-Men and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man launched us into the modern age of superhero multimedia dominance. Of course, there have been attempts – Catwoman and Elektra were released in 2004 and 2005 respectively, both hoping that the proven bankability of their heroine’s male counterparts (as in, Batman and Daredevil) and a few skimpy outfits would be enough to help launch massive new female-fronted franchises....