When Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil hit theaters in 2002, video game movies were largely seen as a niche. Films like Mortal Kombat and Tomb Raider had proven that big-screen game adaptations could be successful, but the commercial and critical failure of projects like the 1993 Super Mario Bros. still cast a long shadow. And while Anderson's vision of Raccoon City might have captivated audiences on the whole, many hardcore fans of Capcom's games were left disappointed by the way the original movies wildly deviated from the source material.

Weapons director Zach Cregger's new take on Resident Evil is a return to the franchise's fundamenta …

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Illustrators have spent years sounding the alarm about generative artificial intelligence startups training their models on artists' work without permission. They've pointed out how the practice is tantamount to theft, and in response, many gen AI boosters have argued that it's necessary for the technology's evolution. This has led to contentious legal battles, but it's also given rise to a new wave of AI startups like Pippa that market their services as being more ethical than the competition.

Like most companies selling access to text-to-video models, Pippa's main product is short bursts of user-generated footage that can be cobbled toget …

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Netflix, A24, Focus Features, and Warner Bros.' Clockwork have all reportedly decided to pass on picking up Artificial - director Luca Guadagnino's new biographical drama about OpenAI cofounder / CEO Sam Altman - for distribution deals. And while Neon and Mubi are still said to be interested in the film, this situation makes it seem like Hollywood no longer has the courage to tell critical stories about Big Tech.

Postproduction on Artificial was nearly finished when Amazon MGM unexpectedly announced last week that it no longer plans to distribute the film. The news came as a surprise given how far along the movie was and reports that Amazon …

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The Toy Story franchise began with a story about a vintage doll feeling threatened by the arrival of an electronic action figure. Woody and Buzz's rivalry embodied a shift that was happening in the '90s as children's toys were becoming more technologically sophisticated, and while toys have gotten even more tech-focused in the years since, there's also an entirely new world of smart gadgets and digital platforms that now shape kids' playtime.

Though Toy Story 5 is a continuation of Woody and Buzz's adventures in humanland, it is also a poignant exploration of what it's like for kids to grow up in a world where they're often encouraged to ex …

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By this time next year, Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch intends to have added Roku to his already expansive media empire. Should the acquisition go through, Fox will gain control of Roku's modest library of original programming, and the newly combined company will become "the third-largest player in U.S. television" in terms of viewing share. But the most significant thing that Murdoch buys with this deal is direct access to the 100 million households that make up Roku's user base.

It's precisely because Roku and Fox are very different kinds of companies that a merger between the two could have a major impact on our modern media landsca …

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In 2026, Marvel and Mattel are both releasing projects designed to capitalize on people's love for iconic animated heroes from their childhoods. Masters of the Universe has put a live-action He-Man on the big screen, and the second season of X-Men '97 is about to fling some of Charles Xavier's mutants into an apocalyptic future. Both projects were clearly made by people who love the source material, and they are similarly filled with nerdy Easter eggs meant to get hardcore fans hyped up. X-Men '97 and Masters of the Universe are both nostalgia plays, but the biggest difference between the two - and arguably the reason one of them hasn't been …

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For all the noise that's been made about how generative AI is poised to revolutionize the filmmaking industry, there haven't really been any projects created with the technology that felt like the sort of entertainment people would pay to see. Most AI firms' video models are still only capable of churning out short bursts of visually inconsistent footage. And some of Hollywood's biggest AI partnerships have suddenly evaporated in ways that make it seem like studios might not be able to rely on the new technology coming out of Silicon Valley. For the most part, short-form video slop appears to be the only thing that major production houses ar …

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