Movie and TV News

It’s a weekend, not much going on… but maybe you all want to have a fun time reading the latest crazy Star Wars rumors! We did this previously, where we discussed the rumor that Disney wants to sell Lucasfilm or is at least considering it (verdict was: extremely unlikely), but the rumor mill keeps on spinning and there are all new rumors making the rounds, and they are just as entertaining! So click through to enter the Star Wars Rumor Zone… this week mostly about The Acolyte!

You are about the enter the Star Wars Rumor Zone!

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You can’t make this up… at least one recently announced Star Wars movie is already delayed and has been pushed back!

Now, to be fair, one reason could be the writers strike, which has currently halted many productions. Another reason may be James Cameron’s schedule and how much time he needs to finish his 100 Avatar sequels. Disney has shuffled around almost all of the upcoming Disney, Marvel, Avatar and Star Wars movies! Click through to find out more!

Coming to a galaxy near you somewhat later…

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Even though this is not Star Wars, I feel that many Star Wars fans also grew up with Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and love at least the three classic movies from the 1980s. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was met with a much more lukewarm reaction 15 years ago, but it ultimately almost made $800 million worldwide, which means it was a success and made money. But now industry analysts have posted updated opening weekend box office projections (The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline have articles about the latest projections) for Indiana Jones And The Dial of Destiny, in which Phoebe Waller-Bridge will star alongside Harrison Ford, and the numbers are brutal: Indiana Jones 5 is currently projected to make $60 million on its opening weekend in North America, this is way down from previous projections. Let that sink in… the movie cost at least $300 million, add marketing costs and this movie easily cost Lucasfilm/Disney $400 million. And domestic opening weekend is just $60 million. Click through for more!

Phoebe Waller-Bridge will be Harrison Ford’s co-star in Indy 5 as Indy’s goddaughter

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As the title says the brand new Star Wars series showrun by Dave Filoni and featuring Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka will have its first episode released on August 23rd, which is once again a Wednesday. Ahsoka will reunite with her friends from Rebels, including Sabine (played by Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Hera (played by Ewan McGregor’s partner Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and ultimately also Ezra. Thrawn (played by Lars Mikkelsen) will be featured in some capacity and yes, we also get to meet yet even more Order 66 survivors, late Ray Stevenson plays the Order 66 survivor, his character is described as being some kind of “mercenary”. Anakin Skywalker is also rumored to be featured, how exactly is not sure, and Temuera Morrison will reprise his role as Rex. Inquisitors will also return. Let’s hope this time they will act a bit more professionally than in Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Are you excited about the brand new series? Or are you a bit wary after Lucasfilm’s recent track record with their Star Wars shows? This is Dave Filoni’s first big live action project, he previously collaborated with Jon Favreau on The Mandalorian. Ahsoka, together with The Mandalorian and probably even Skeleton Crew is meant to culminate in the yet untitled big crossover Mandoverse movie directed by Dave Filoni. So a lot will hinge on the success and popularity of Ahsoka.

Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine in an Empire Magazine exclusive set photo. Source: Empire Magazine

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Empire magazine is featuring two covers for the upcoming Ahsoka series. Get the full look right here, as well as an inside look at the upcoming series. 

The Mandalorian season 3 is still on the Nielsen streaming charts, barely so, my guess is that this is the last time The Mandalorian will be on the charts until the next season is released. It is currently in 9th place on the original series charts with 319 million viewing minutes. How does that compare to season 2? Not very favorably, not at all. Season 2 already had more viewing minutes (and a higher average), but after the finale was released this gap only widened. And now the gap has become quite massive. Also, Peter Pan & Wendy is already massively shedding viewers and chances are it will drop out of the charts next week, and it only entered the charts last week, and at the box office Disney has no reason to rejoice either. Click through for more!

Luke in The Mandalorian season 2 was a ratings hit

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Nielsen added the The Mandalorian season 3 finale last week, so why take a look at the Nielsen Streaming Charts now? Because it is quite interesting to see if The Mandalorian season 3 has strong legs or not. Especially in light of the fact that season 2 still had more than 1 billion viewing minutes one week after the Luke Skywalker finale was released. So how does season 3 compare? And how does Disney’s Peter Pan & Wendy movie perform which was added to the charts this week? I will also discuss box office projections for The Little Mermaid, for the people who are interested in how Disney is doing. Click through for more!

Viewership for The Mandalorian season 3 evaporates one week after the finale

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Another week, another update for the Nielsen Streaming Charts. They added episode 8 of The Mandalorian season 3, the finale. So how did it do and how does it compare to the previous season? And how does The Mandalorian, how do all the Star Wars series, compare to the Marvel shows? I added some charts to visualize all the numbers so you can better see how season 3 and 2 compare when it comes to viewership and how the various Star Wars and Marvel season finales compare! Click through for more!

The season 3 finale had lots of explosions

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Bob Iger announced a while ago that as part of Disney’s new cost saving program that not only would the company fire thousands of people, cut content production budget and space out shows much more, and, as revealed yesterday, surprisingly close down the Star Wars hotel after mere 18 months, it was also announced that content would be removed from Disney+ to save costs. Now you may wonder how a company can save costs by removing content that is already produced. Simple answer: residuals, i.e the people involved with the show do get some money as long as a series is available on streaming. Back in the day residuals were paid to creatives when a movie or show was broadcast on tv, even repeats, with streaming it is of course somewhat different. Anyway, so what original Disney+ series will get removed from the service? Click through for the full story!

Willow was celebrated online for its queer representation

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Visions volume 2 was released almost two weeks ago and I took me this long to go through all the shorts, which usually are 11-15 minutes long give or take a minute. Still, I found it difficult this time to watch more than one at a time. In my opinion Visions Volume 2 is a lot worse than Volume 1 and Volume 2 not only highlights what is wrong with entertainment in general these days, but also highlights why Visions, which is, in principle, a very good idea, has completely gone off the rails. So click through for my take on Visions volume 2, the good, the bad and the very ugly.

Star Wars teddy bears

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We are close to the finish line! Nielsen added the seventh season 3 The Mandalorian episode to their charts, which was part one of the grand finale! And the ratings are down compared to last week. It seems Lizzo and Jack Black convinced quite a few fans to tune out and not to bother with the finale. Click through for more!

Din Djarin tells Bo-Katan that she can have his show

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Nielsen have updated their weekly streaming charts! And this time the Lizzo/Jack Black episode was added! So how did the episode do? It’s the one thing you all wanted to know about. Here is the answer! Click through for all the details!

Artist’s impression of a scene from “Guns for Hire”

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Volume 2 of Star Wars: Visions is now available on Disney Plus.

As you may know Return of the Jedi was rereleased in theaters to celebrate its 40th anniversary. And without much promotion by Disney the rerelease had a pretty decent weekend for such an old movie almost everyone will already have watched at least one time in their life, it earned almost $4.7 million, which was good enough for the fifth position.
US box office was pretty slow this weekend, the Super Mario Bros. movie still dominates the charts (making it painfully obvious how much Disney has failed with its recent animated movies, since Super Mario Bros. is obliterating them, Super Mario Bros. just crossed the $1 billion global box office threshold this weekend). The somewhat slower weekend however made it possible for Return of the Jedi to climb all the way up to 5th place. Actually, according to Box Office Mojo Return of the Jedi has the highest per theater average of all movies, even a little higher than Super Mario Bros. because it is just a limited release, with only 475 theaters showing the movie in the US. In comparison, the box office flop for Hasbro that is Dungeons & Dragons is in 2,709 theaters, and made less money than Return of the Jedi.

Anyway,  the decent performance of the Return of the Jedi rerelease is perhaps a sign that Star Wars is not as dead some people believe it to be. But then again, it’s one of the classic Lucas movies.

Not as dead as you may think… screenshot from the 4K scan of a 1980s film reel of the movie, i.e. the original theatrical version

Another Friday, another update for the Nielsen Streaming Charts. This week they added episode 5 of The Mandalorian season 3, which was about the pirate attack on Nevarro which gets repelled by the Mandalorians. So how did the episode do? Pretty well. The Mandalorian is #4 on the general streaming charts and #3 on the original series charts with 878 million minutes. Netflix’ #1 series The Night Agent obliterates the competition with 3.06 billion minutes though. But how does The Mandalorian season 3 compare to season 2 and the other Star Wars shows? Click through to find out!

The Mandos defend Nevarro against space pirates

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It’s time again for yet another look at the Nielsen streaming charts. How does The Mandalorian fare with its fourth season 3 episode? Pretty well! While the absolute number, 795 million minutes, may seem pretty low (last week was more than 1.1 billion minutes) episode 4 which was added to the charts is also the shortest season 3 episode clocking in at just over 30 minutes of running time. This is good enough for #5 on the general streaming charts and #3 on the original series charts. So how does this compare to season 2 and other Star Wars shows? Also, I attempt to arrive at an estimate for the actual viewership numbers in the US and worldwide by using dark science, but no cloning! Click through to find out more!

Episode 4 featured an Order 66 flashback with Ahmed Best as a Jedi

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A little later than usual here is the review for The Mandalorian season 3 finale! I suppose the final episode made a few people feel a bit silly about overthinking things where no overthinking is required.
The finale was certainly lot of of fun, if endless action, blaster shootouts, throwing spaceships at people and heroes fighting baddies clad in all black with melee weapons and blasters is your kind of fun! Add a cute little space baby that can use the force and you can have a really good time with the finale! And I will certainly not spoil anything when I say that everyone gets a “happy for now” ending. The Mandalorian is not a drama with wild character twists… it is an updated version of your typical 1930s or 1940s (space or wild west) adventure serial.

Anyway… it’s time to discuss the season finale and to talk a bit about the season as a whole! So click here to read my spoiler review and let’s discuss The Mandalorian season 3 finale!

We are approaching the end of the week, which means Nielsen update their weekly streaming charts! As usual with a four week delay, so the ratings released today are actually for The Mandalorian episode 3, which was all about Doc Pershing eating biscuits and space popsicles, oh, and getting his mind fried! So how did The Mandalorian season 3 do with its third episode? Well, it has climbed to number 3 on the general streaming and original series charts with 1,115 million minutes viewed! This is the highest number for season 3 yet, but as usual the devil lies in the detail, because Nielsen’s streaming charts depend very much on things like episode length, number of episodes available, but most important is always the length of the current episode, and episode 3 happens to be, thus far, the longest season 3 episode by quite some margin. So what does that mean for the ratings? Also, for the first time ever Star Trek makes an appearance on the charts! What happened here? Click through for a closer look!

Surveillance cam footage from a Disney+ test screening room

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You all remember Rey’s dialogue from The Rise of Skywalker: “And I am all the Jedi!”

Now imagine some five-year-old kid shouting “And I am all the Star Wars action figures!” and you have a pretty good idea about the latest The Mandalorian episode. The big villain returns, yes, Moff Gideon is back! And Bo-Katan and her merry band of Mandos is ready to reclaim Mandalore! But not before Grogu gets the best toy ever. Or the worst. You decide… But say what you will, the weirdly titled “The Spies” is peak Saturday morning cartoon and probably the biggest fun you can have on tv/streaming in ages, well, since Luke Skywalker returned on The Mandalorian.

So there is a lot to talk about today about the latest adventure of Bo-Katan and her loyal follower Din Djarin who is happy to serve her! Click here or on the banner to read my spoiler review and let’s discuss “The Spies”!

The return of The Bad Batch for one final season was not the only animated Star Wars news. A trailer for Star Wars Visions 2, which will be released on May 4th, was also released. Check it out after the jump!

This is probably from the episode made by Studio Aardman (Wallace & Gromit)

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The Bad Batch will get a third and final season, this was revealed earlier today at Star Wars Celebration in London. A SWCE exlusive trailer was also shown which reveals that Palpatine will return in season 3, as well as Fennec Shand who was featured in season 1 and Wolffe.

However, the way animation is produced it is misleading to assume the season was greenlit just “now” or even recently. The fact that they could already show a teaser trailer means the season has been in (post) production for quite a while now, rendering takes quite some time. The dialogue was probably recorded more than a year ago, before Disney knew what the ratings for season 2 would be. Let’s just hope the producers were given advance notice that this will be the final season, so they can bring things to a proper conclusion. The Bad Batch will return for the final season in 2024.

Let’s also hope that showrunner Jennifer Corbett won’t waste time on random fetch quests and treasure hunts in season 3, since half of season 2 was entirely pointless, with the other half however delivering good to very good episodes that prove The Bad Batch could have been excellent if they had focused more on the actual plot.

Tales of the Jedi will also return. This was announced previously at SWCE.

Palpatine will return in The Bad Batch season 3

Many viewers of The Mandalorian have observed that season 3 seems to be shifting focus, away from Din Djarin and Grogu, over to Bo-Katan played by Katee Sackhoff. Season 3 is virtually all about Bo-Katan. How she reunites the Mandalorian clans, how she gets the darksaber back, how she gets her fleet back, how she will become yet again the leader of Mandalore. With Din Djarin mostly being along for the ride and Grogu more or less being relegated to cute pet status. So is that just something happening in season 3 or is this a sign that the series is slowly shifting away from Din Djarin as the only main character?
Well, IGN conducted an interview with The Mandalorian executive producer and director Rick Famuyiwa that sheds an interesting light on recent developments! Click through to learn what he has to say about The Mandalorian!

Bo-Katan, at the center of things

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As usual Star Wars Celebration also revealed several things not meant for the vast number of fans out there who could not afford a ticket or the trip to London! But as usual very kind people do post the spoiler material on Reddit and other places! So let’s talk about the Acolyte trailer that was screened at Celebration and the first few minutes of The Mandalorian Chapter 23 screened at one of the panels that heralds the return of a very important character and name drops someone very important. A first glimpse at Skeleton Crew was also provided! And we also got a short Andor season 2 teaser! Only read this article if you like spoilers! You will be absolutely spoiled if you click! So only proceed if you want to know more!

Updated with some additional info, Skeleton Crew trailer also added!

Carrie Ann Moss in The Acolyte in true potato cam leaker guild style

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Earlier today Kathleen Kennedy announced three all new movies at Star Wars Celebration… yet again. But the movies she did announce will make waves! Daisy Ridley will return to Star Wars as Rey in the movie that was originally meant to be written by Damon Lindelof, who exited the project. Steven Knight is still meant to write the Rey movie, with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a two time Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker who also directed two Ms Marvel episodes, in the director’s chair!

But it does not stop there! Two more movies were announced! And one of them will be directed by Dave Filoni and is meant to be an epic crossover Mandoverse event movie! Click through for more!

She’s back!

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Click through to check out the Ahsoka teaser trailer! 

Perhaps it is time to begin again…

Update: Newly revealed Ahsoka teaser poster added

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