Welcome to The Rundown report (as gathered by Taryn Belle) with Nerd Union for June 18th, 2021.
MOVIES
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has begun production in London, per Paul Rudd himself. He left a specific shoutout to Tyreek Hill, who then uploaded Rudd’s message to Instagram. Rudd’s response was in regards to not being able to join in on The Tyreek Hill Foundation Inc. Celebrity Basketball Game on June 25th in Kansas City, Missouri. Rudd’s excuse? “I wish I could be there. I’m in London filming Ant-Man 3, but maybe I’ll show up. I might be really small, you might not be able to see me, but I’ll be there.”
Netflix’s anime Nightmare of the Wolf will be a prequel for The Witcher will follow Vesemir as he becomes a monster-slayer before acting as Geralt’s mentor. This information was revealed during the Annecy FIlm Festival and reported by Variety, which notes, “Vesemir [is] a headstrong young witcher who relishes his job and the earthly benefits he reaps in doing what others can’t or won’t. Seemingly unshakable, Vesemir will face a crisis of conscious when a new power threatens the Continent, forcing him to reevaluate why he does the work he does.”
SHOWS & SERIES
Deadline has reported on Disney+ updating their release schedule. Since Loki debuted as the most-watched series premiere since Disney+’s launched, the streaming service is now moving all original programming for scripted, unscripted, and animated series to air on Wednesdays. Original Movies are sticking to Friday premieres. Here is a list of announced programming airdate changes:
Monsters at Work moves from July 2 to July 7
Turner & Hooch moves from July 16 to July 21
Behind the Attraction moves from July 16 to July 21
Chip ‘n’ Dale: Park Life moves from July 23 to July 28
Turning the Tables with Robin Roberts moves from July 30 to July 28
The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse Season 1B moves from July 30 to July 28
Growing Up Animal moves from August 20 to August 18
Short Circuit Season 2 moves from July 30 to August 4
Samira Ahmed announced on her official Twitter that she will be writing for Ms. Marvel, making her the first female South Asian writer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ahmed joyously shouted-out the many involved with bringing Kamala Khan, Marvel’s premier Muslim Superhero to life, including fellow creators of South Asian descent: Sana Amanet, Saladin Ahmed, Mashal Ahmed, and Preeti Chhibber.
Disney+ has paired with Hyundai to air a series of ads starring Loki, Wanda, and Sam Wilson (wearing his Captain America mantle), with each putting a spin on the car company’s slogan “Question everything. We do.” Loki questions: “If you’re living on borrowed time, do you have to return it?” while Wanda asks, “Why do we call it the golden age of television if it’s all in black and white?” Finally, Captain America quips, “Why do we say heads up if we really mean duck?”
During a recent Q&A Live Stream, Disney CEO Bob Chapek addressed fans’ curiosity over Robert Downey Jr. showing up again in the MCU. According to LaughingPlace, Chapek’s answer was, “Tell your Marvel fan that we’ve got a series called Armor Wars coming up, starring Don Cheadle as War Machine… I think that will probably scratch that itch that our fans have for more Iron Man.”
Obi-Wan is in production and Empira Star Wars Fan Club’s Instagram has snagged some photos around the set. Actress Indira Varma, from Game of Thrones, was captured clearly wearing an Imperial Officer uniform, but her specific character role has yet to be identified.
During an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Temuera Morrison deftly navigated questions about The Book of Boba Fett and Robert Rodriguez’s directing style: “Well, we can’t say too much, but we’re going to see his past and where he’s been since The Empire Strikes Back. Somebody pointed out he’s been kind of stuck in this one place, and now’s the time to actually go back in time and check out his journey and find out more about him. But yeah, that was the advantage for me, was that we hadn’t seen him do much. And along with Robert Rodriguez as director, we were able to sort of introduce him in a dynamic way, bring him back in a dynamic way alongside the Mandalorian. It was just an honor to be asked back.”
Variety has learned that Jaboukie Young-White will be working with executive producer Issa Rae in developing the book The Gang’s All Queer: The Lives of Gay Gang Members by Vanessa R. Panfil for HBO. The synopsis for the half-hour series is as follows: “a closeted twenty-something in Chicago, grieving a gang-related death, ditches college to find reckless closure.” Young-White is a stand-up comedian known for being a correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and has written for shows on Netflix, including Big Mouth and American Vandal.
According to Deadline, Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale have been cast in lead roles for The Watcher, a Ryan Murphy limited series with Netflix. While no specific details have been confirmed for the plot, it has been noted that it is connected to “the first season of Murphy’s hit American Horror Story … inspired by the infamous ‘Watcher’ house in New Jersey. A couple bought the 1905 Dutch colonial revival in 2014 for nearly $1.4 million. They were forced to abandon their new home over chilling letters from ‘The Watcher,’ who claimed to have been “watching” the house for decades.”
GAMING
Battery powered Xbox controllers are getting a new lease on life through Otterbox. Endgaget reports a new charging option with “Power Swap Controller Batteries”, noting: “Otterbox came up with a cage that you plug into the battery compartment, and then each battery gets inserted into that. The key to a seamless swap is the small reserve cell in the cage, which maintains power to the controller for about 30 seconds … just about enough time to pull out the drained battery and replace it with a fresh one from the dock … a low battery indicator [gives] an extra heads up to change out the pack; you won’t be caught unaware by a message on the screen or an unresponsive controller. The batteries can be popped out with one hand too, so you never actually have to stop playing. Each $60 set comes with two batteries … one to play and one to keep ready in the charger. There’s a dock to power up both at the same time, though you can also plug in the included USB-C cord to charge batteries right in the controller. Also included in the package are two cages, one for the Xbox One gamepad and one for the Xbox Series X|S, so you don’t have to worry about buying the ‘right’ set for your system, or having to pick up a replacement if you decide to upgrade your console later on.”
Seems like a worthy investment.
Some additionally exciting Xbox gaming news, Microsoft is making good on their promise to create an Xbox Series X mini-fridge, an incentive made by Aaron Greenburg of the company’s game marketing division if fans helped Xbox win a Twitter brand contest – which worked! So now, the mini-fridge-that-could AKA “the world’s most powerful mini-fridge” with “Xbox velocity cooling architecture” is coming Holiday 2021, according to an official YouTube announcement.
Social PLATFORMS
Twitter is getting an exciting new function to “Unmention yourself from this conversation” if you get tagged in a Tweet that you just really don’t want to be caught up in. This innovation has been spearheaded by Dominic Camozzi, a privacy designer with Twitter. He specifically notes this is an early concept that is meant to help control whether or not you really want to be a part of a conversation you got pulled into. Dominic also notes that feedback is invited and wanted on this evolving feature. For more details on how this initial roll-out works, check the details in the Twitter thread below.
Revue’s official Twitter recently revealed a tool coming to Twitter that will help writers integrate newsletter subscriptions. Twitter purchased Revue back in January and got a jump on the buzz of multiple social media platforms working to create seamless ways for content creators to grow newsletter subscribers directly through the interactive medium such platforms already provide.
YouTube has updated their ad rules to tighten what types of content is allowed to show up in the masthead area of the homepage. Now banned from that slot are ads for gambling, alcohol or prescription drugs, and specific election and political ads. The Ads Policy page states: “To ensure that we provide a high-quality consumer ad experience, YouTube masthead ads must comply with all Google Ads policies and YouTube ad requirements … The YouTube masthead ad content requirements may be more restrictive than the ad requirements for other platforms and surfaces, meaning disapproved YouTube masthead ad assets may continue to run on Google’s other owned and operated properties.”
Facebook just announced “several new tools to empower community builders based on feedback from group admins.” Noteworthy updates include Conflict Alerts which “uses AI to detect and notify admins when there may be contentious or unhealthy conversations in their group, so they can take action as needed.” As well as, Comment Slowdown where “admins can temporarily limit how often specific group members can comment, and control how often comments can be made on certain posts that admins select.” As admin in multiple Facebook groups, I’m really excited about these features!
Tired of the fine print when it comes to canceling subscriptions? Well, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced the Unsubscribe Act which is meant to help customers with unsubscribing or canceling services.. Spearheaded by Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), John Thune (R-S.D.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and John Kennedy (R-La.), the “bill would require companies to be more transparent about their subscription-based business model and make it easier for consumers to cancel their subscriptions once their free or reduced price trial period has ended.”
The Unsubscribe Act would:
- Require sellers to provide customers with a clear understanding of all the terms of the contract and obtain the customer’s express and informed consent;
- Require sellers to provide a simple means of canceling the subscription, which the customer can complete in the same way in which the original contract was entered into;
- Require sellers to provide a clear notice to consumers when their free or reduced-cost trial is complete and before charging for the full-cost subscription;
- Disallow automatic transfer to a contract longer than one month; and
- Require sellers to periodically notify the customer of the terms of the contract and the cancelation mechanism.
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