It's just Julian and Daniel this week on the program as Jeremy is "away". But the show must go on, so to kick things off Julian takes us through his picks for this year's "summer movie wager" and rips Regal Theatres for some questionable business practices. The guys then dive deep into the latest geek news, starting with a couple notable trailers for Marvel's Defenders and The Dark Tower. Moving on, Fox announces 3 new X-Men movies for 2018, Kevin Feige talks about "Phase 4" of the MCU, the Avatar sequels get new release dates (again) and Jeff Goldblum joins the Jurassic World sequel. On the TV front we got our first tease of Marvel's Inhumans and, DC and WB announce a new "DC focused" streaming service that will feature Young Justice season 3 and a new Teen Titans live action series. Over with games, Call of Duty: WWII got a trailer, Nintendo revealed some impressive sales numbers and Injustice 2 continues its march towards launch. To wrap things up the guys shower praise all over the premier of American Gods on Starz, the latest show from Brian Fuller based on the work of Neil Gaiman. All this and so much more on the week's Tower of Babble Podcast!

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Show Notes

Movies

Trailers:
- Kingsman 2 (The Golden Circle)
- The Dark Tower
- Dunkirk
- Marvel’s Defenders
Happy belated Star Wars Day. Celebrating 40 years!
Director Rian Johnson revealed he leaned hard on Carrie Fisher to help write lines for Leia in The Last Jedi
A little bad news, it looks like Lucas CHANGED the original prints of Star Wars to make some of his changes so it would be almost impossible to get a remastered version of the unaltered copies of the original trilogy.
Aquaman has officially started filming and to commemorate the day WB revealed the official logo and title treatment. James Wan also revealed a photo from set that looked to be on the inside of a submarine.
Fast and Furious 8 has officially made a billion dollars at the boxoffice worldwide. Making it the second movie of the year to reach that mark after Beauty and the Beast.
Jeff Goldblum will appear in the Jurassic World sequel. He’ll reprise his role as Dr Ian Malcolm for the 3rd time.
On May 2 the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers came to a “tentative” deal with the Writers Guild of America to avoid another writer's strike.
According to The Wrap, Seth Rogan and Billy Eichner have reportedly been cast as Timon and Pumba in the live action Lion King remake.
Fox has set release dates for 2 new X-Men movies and it looks like 2018 will be the year of the mutant as New Mutants will release on April 13, Deadpool 2 on June 1st AND X-Men (Dark Phoenix) will be released on Nov 2.
Speaking of release dates, coming off the rumours dropped by some of the cast of Avatar, it looks like we have “concrete dates” for James Cameron’s Avatar sequels. Announced on the films Facebook page, Avatar 2 will hit theatres Dec 18, 2020, Avatar 3 on Dec 17 2021, then after a three year wait, Avatar 4 will come out on Dec 20, 2024, and finally Avatar 5 on Dec 19, 2025.
In an interview with the BBC, Guardians actress, Zoe Saldana might have accidentally revealed the title to the sequel to Avengers: Infinity War. It’s not official yet but it looks like it will be called Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet.
Speaking of the Avengers, Marvel Studios Kevin Feige says that the MCU will “very different” after the Infinity War movies. He also mentioned that Avengers 3 and 4 are no longer filming simultaneously as it apparently got too complicated to “cross-board” both films and wanted to give each film the right amount of attention.
According to Variety, David Fincher is coming close to closing a deal to direct the sequel to 2013’s World War Z.
Director James Mangold revealed that there will be a one night showing of Logan in black and white.
In a bit of a surprise, M. Night Shyamalan announced a sequel to Unbreakable AND Split. Spoilers: Apparently the James Mcavoy film Split was secretly in the same universe as Unbreakable. Sam Jackson and Bruce Willis will reprise their roles and join James Mcavoy in the film that’s called simply “Glass”.
Heath Ledger’s sister in an interview with EW after a screening of the documentary “I Am Heath Ledger” shot down rumours that playing the Joker led to the actors premature death.

TV

DC and WB Television have announced that Young Justice season 3 and a new live action Teen Titans series, simply called “Titans”, will premier in 2018 on a new DC-focused streaming service. The streaming service promises to “deliver an immersive experience designed just for DC fans”.
- “Titans”, is being written by Akiva Goldsman, Geoff Johns and Greg Berlanti. All of whom will also be executive producing along with Sarah Schechter. The show will centre around Dick Grayson and will also include Starfire, Raven, and others.
First image from the coming Inhumans show shows off the main cast.
The DC comedy Powerless has been pulled from the schedule by NBC with only 3 episodes left to air in its first season. Its likely been cancelled.
A Boondock Saints TV series is in development, called Boondock Saints: Origins. The project is a partnership between creator Troy Duffy and Con Carmody Television.

Games

Call of Duty WWII trailer
Injustice 2 revealed The Joker and Darkseid gameplay as well as announced the first DLC fighter pack. The first 3 DLC characters in "Fighter Pack 1" are Sub Zero, Starfire and Red Hood.
Halo 6 will focus on Master Chief and won't have any other playable characters.
Fun fact: Did you know that the original Mario Kart started as a multiplayer mode for F-Zero
Nintendo had its year end earnings call and we got a few numbers:
- Switch sales numbers
  - Nintendo has apparently sold 2.74 million units worldwide in less than its first month on sale.
  - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sold 2.76 million copies on Switch (20,000 more copies than there are Switches on the market)
  - Mario Kart 8 Delux also recently launched on the Switch and it’s been the fastest selling Mario Kart to date having sold 459,000 copies on launch day in the US.
  - They expect to sell 10 million units of the switch in the next year with a projected 35 million in software sales.
- We also found out how many NES Classics were sold to retail: 2.3 million.
Nintendo WON'T have a large scale press conference at E3. They didn’t say what they would be doing instead but you can probably expect another Nintendo Direct type video.
According to rumour, a Mario/Rabbids crossover RPG is coming this year to the Switch. Called "Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle", it will feature 2 player co-op, 8 playable characters and is being developed by Ubisoft.
Half-Life 2, Portal and Left 4 Dead writer Chet Faliszek has left Valve. This means that EVERY primary writer from the Half-Life games and DLC has left the company.

What We've Been Watching/Playing

Guardians of the Galaxy
American Gods

May 22, 2025

SSSW/ToB Film Club - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

It's hard to believe that 'Rogue One' premiered nearly a decade ago. At the time, it was fairly well received, considered to be a decent first step into the standalone Star Wars movies, if not a bit messy. As the years passed, we learned more about the production. Gareth Edwards, who retained sole directing credit, was assisted by Tony Gilroy to "fix" the project. Tony went so far as to call it a "corpse" when he came aboard for rewrites and reshoots. It was Tony's inclusion that brought us some of the movies most memorable moments, and ultimately led him to leading the charge on 'Andor', a prequel project that flew under the radar as hits like 'The Mandalorian' hogged the spotlight. With 'Andor' now complete, considered by many to be a masterpiece in storytelling, not just in Star Wars but on television in general, now is the most appropriate time to reexamine the movie that spawned the Cassian-centered prequel series with fresh eyes. 'Andor', which leads directly into the events of 'Rogue One' recontextualizes much of the film, creating a unique viewing experience that pays off a multitude of threads that are brilliantly laid over the two seasons of 'Andor'. It takes the movie, which was already pretty good, and makes it great. Now existing as part of a whole that weaves a cohesive narrative from the nascent moments of the Rebellion all the way through to the destruction of the Death Star in 1977 (the seed that begat ALL Star Wars, and what we appropriately align our Star Wars BBY calendars to). It all feels wholistic and considered when viewed from the broader perspective - an accomplishment that should set a shining example of what Star Wars can and should aspire to.

May 15, 2025

SSSW - Andor S2 Finale

After only 4 weeks - the blink of an eye - it's all over. The best Star Wars story since the Original Trilogy has graced our screens and left us in awe. These final three episodes weren't able to reach the emotional highs of last week's arc, but that wasn't the goal. Instead, it provides time to look back at what brought us here, and sets the stage for the climax of the story to take place not in this moment, but within the now recontextualized film that birthed all of this in the first place, 'Rogue One'. And while the show may carry Cassian's name on the title screen, it's been the cast of characters we've met along the way that truly elevated this experience. Not to pick favourites, but in particular, Luthen and Kleya, who get an episode all to themselves this week are the standouts. And what an episode it was, as their story which shepherded much of the series came to an end, as we all expected it would have to. Embracing those feelings of closure, in the final moments of the series, as Cassian flies off into 'Rogue One', we are treated to our last glimpses of our heroes and villains. From Dedra to Vel and even Perrin, we are left to consider their fates as the story marches with inevitability into what begat all of this way back in 1977. Will we ever see Kleya, Vel, Wilmon, or Bix again? One can only hope - and rebellions? Well, they're built on hope.

May 9, 2025

SSSW - Andor S2 E7 - 9

When dealing in the world of prequels, it’s impossible to escape the inevitable - Anakin will fall, Han will win the Falcon, Cassian will die on Scarif. Somehow, in the midst of some of the most thrilling episodes of television ever put to screen, Tony Gilroy and his team found a way to address that impending doom and weaponize it against the audience to induce some of the most gut wrenching and heart breaking moments we’ve yet to see on ‘Andor’ - “There’s some place he needs to be”. At a larger scale, the show continues to outdo itself on a weekly basis, proving that the Star Wars galaxy provides a colour pallet of some of the richest hues from which to paint bold and personal stories. Proving you can go beyond the larger than life stories of heroics and grandeur to human stories of loss and pain and everything in between. That’s without mentioning the deft touch in pulling in themes that resonates with the contemporary while remaining timeless - a feeling that is a staple of Star Wars. Every detail is considered, every character is deep and interesting. There isn’t much more that can be said about such a powerful piece of art, except that not even the audience can escape the inevitable - only one week remains of this masterpiece.

May 2, 2025

SSSW - Andor S2 E4 - 6

I'm sorry to tell you all, but we're already halfway through this final season of 'Andor'. Fortunately, the quality hasn't dipped one bit as we accelerate into the finish. Join Julian and Rachel as they savour every minute of this 3-episode arch that takes us to Ghorman for the first time on screen. Tony Gilroy and the team at Lucasfilm outdid themselves yet again in crafting every detail. The size of the set alone is impressive, but they take it a step further by developing a unique culture and even language different from anything we've seen in Star Wars before. It all fits seamlessly into this next chapter of the story that has a heavy emphasis on spycraft as the pressure ramps up for both the Rebellion and the Empire.

Episode 95 - Everyone's Favourite Goldblum

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Games

What We've Been Watching/Playing

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