Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 1845

Netflix’s EVERYTHING SUCKS! Trailer Dials Up ’90s Nostalgia

Between shows like Stranger Things and The Goldbergs, the ’80s are well represented on television these days. But when it comes to nostalgia for a whole generation of us who grew up in the ’90s–grunge rock, grammatically incorrect Alanis Morrisette lyrics, Walkmans, and very slow dial up internet- Netflix‘s latest show, Everything Sucks! is a welcome throwback.

Set in 1996 in a town (literally) named Boring, the trailer introduces us to the newest (old) group of young AV Club enthusiasts. But rather than fighting Demogorgons, they’re using their video skills for a much more realistic high school freshmen reason: trying to pick up dates. Although it’s not ideal for your social life when the girl you’re in love with has a single father who is your school principal–who also happens to be dating your own mom.



The trailer, which presents the show as being equal parts comedy, family drama, and a coming of age story, isn’t shy about its ’90s references. (And yes Millennials, that’s really how we used to use the internet. If someone called the house we got kicked offline.) But the highlight of the trailer is the montage of of some of our favorite music videos from that time. The girl in the bee costume from the Blind Melon video was one of the most recognizable faces in the world, only behind that dancing baby.

For those of us who grew up during the ’90s, hopefully Everything Sucks! will prove to be a worthy homage to own teenage years.

Everything Sucks! comes to Netflix later this month, on February 16.

What was your favorite ’90s reference in this trailer? It would suck if you didn’t tell us in the comments below.

Images: Netflix

New WALKING DEAD Variant Covers Celebrate 15 Years Of The Zombie Apocalypse

15 years ago, a little independent black and white comic, inspired by George Romero’s zombie apocalypse movies like Dawn of the Dead, appeared on store shelves. No one could have known it then, but the arrival of The Walking Dead was going to change not only the comic book world, but ultimately all of pop culture as well, when the eventual AMC television adaptation became a cultural behemoth that is still going strong today. Then there’s the video games, novels, you name it. But it all started with one Image Comics first issue from Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore, which hit stores in October, 2003.

Now the folks at Image Comics/Skybound Entertainment are revealing three more in their series of monthly The Walking Dead variant covers featuring art by Bill Sienkiewicz, all intended to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the long-running series. Sienkiewicz is a comics legend, best known for his work on titles like The New Mutants and Elektra over at Marvel. These new  variants kick-off the “New World Order” story arc and will run throughout the rest of 2018.

Each of these covers features a portrait showcasing one of the iconic leads of the series, including Rick Grimes, his son Carl Grimes, Andrea, the notorious Governor, and the sword wielding Michonne. The first of these, issue #177,  will be available on Wednesday, March 7th, followed up by issue #178 on April 4th, and #179 on Wednesday, May 2nd.  Revealed in our gallery down below are the Sienkiewicz variants of The Walking Dead #177, The Walking Dead #178, and The Walking Dead #179.

What do you think of these expressive new covers? Be sure to let us know down below in the comments.

Images: Image Comics / Skybound Entrtainment

Get more of the latest nerd news!

Marvel and Stitcher release first trailer for their Wolverine audio drama podcast!
Evidently, The Good Place and Parks and Rec share a universe and we have many questions!
Our picks for the top 7 space horror movies to drive you mad!

GAME OF THRONES Creators Are Making New STAR WARS Film Series

Good-bye, Westeros. Hello, Tatooine. Game of Thrones creators and show-runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are making the jump to space. Lucasfilm announced on Tuesday that Benioff and Weiss will be writing and producing a new series of Star Wars films. Plural. These movies are different than the Skywalker saga films and the previously announced trilogy Rian Johnson is developing.

Huh. No release date or further details about their movies are available yet. Benioff and Weiss won’t be getting starting until after the final season of Game of Thrones is done, so it’s going to be 2019 before they being work.

In a statement, Lucasfilm present Kathleen Kennedy said, “David and Dan are some of the best storytellers working today. Their command of complex characters, depth of story and richness of mythology will break new ground and boldly push Star Wars in ways I find incredibly exciting.”

While Benioff and Weiss have certainly have enriched the world of Westeros as created by George R.R. Martin for television and managed an insane number of plot threads and characters, I’m not sure how to feel. Given some of the questionable decisions Benioff and Weiss have made in their projects–namely the treatment of female characters in Game of Thrones and the very notion of Confederate–it’s not a choice I would have expected from Lucasfilm. And of course, it’s two more white male writers and producers, which the galaxy far, far away already has plenty of.

How do you feel about this news? Jump to the comments and share your thoughts.

Images: Lucasfilm, HBO

More Star Wars stories!

The first Solo trailer is all about the action.
Natalie Portman raps about Star Wars prequels.
Huggable Star Wars pillows.

Marvel Releases Trailer for WOLVERINE Scripted Drama Podcast

Marvel and Stitcher announced in late 2017 that they’d teamed up for a new audio drama podcast, Marvel’s first scripted podcast endeavor, featuring Wolverine. Ahead of March’s debut episode of Wolverine: The Long Night, Marvel has released the first audio trailer for the ten-episode series, which finds Wolverine far removed from the world of the X-Men. The Hobbit star Richard Armitage is providing Wolverine’s voice for this story, and the trailer indicates that even Logan isn’t sure about what kind of man he really is.

Wolverine/Logan will be the star of his own story, but he will also share the spotlight with FBI agents Sally Pierce and Tad Marshall. The Long Night is set in Burns, Alaska, where a savage serial killer has left of a trail of terror in their wake. An amnesiac Logan is the town’s prime suspect, and the trailer indicates that his claws and his kinship with wolves have created a local mythology about his powers. Pierce and Marshall lead the hunt for Logan, but they may find that they have common ground with him when the town’s dark secrets come to the surface.

Green Arrow writer Ben Percy scripted Wolverine: The Long Night for director Brendan Baker. In addition to Armitage, the cast is headlined by Celia Keenan-Bolger as Agent Pierce and Ato Essandoh as Agent Marshall, with Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Scott Adsit, Bob Balaban, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and more in supporting roles.

Wolverine: The Long Night will premiere on Stitcher Premium on March 12 before getting a wider release on all podcast platforms this fall.

What did you think about the first trailer for The Long Night? Pop your claws into the comment section below!

Images: Marvel/Stitcher

Read more about comics!

DC Comics announces young reader imprints.
Who is Patriot?
A Back to the Future manga is in the works.

SUPER MARIO BROS. Gets a Power-Up with Feline Fan Film

Nintendo officially revealed that it’s giving Hollywood another chance to get Super Mario right with a full-length animated feature from Illumination Entertainment. While we’re certainly hopeful Illumination can give Mario his cinematic redemption, a new fan film has captured the fun of the original Super Mario Bros. game by re-envisioning Mario as a cat. It’s quite ameowsing.



Via Laughing Squid, Super Mario Cat Bros. was directed by Russian filmmaker Mike Tivikoff; he co-stars in the video as Luigi, Mario’s human brother. Perhaps in this world dominated by cats, Luigi was adopted by the Mario family. Even Princess Peach is a cat in this version of the tale. Mario doesn’t even bother to tell his brother before going out on his quest to save her. Fortunately, Luigi quickly proves to be loyal by following his brother into an epic adventure.

While this video seems to ignore the later Mario games, it does recreate the star and fire flower power-ups from the original. It’s very cute to see this Mario make his platform jumps, confront a Koopa, and even throw a fireball at a Goomba. But the moment we really loved was at the very end, when Mario and Luigi get the equivalent of the classic message, “Our princess is in another castle!”

Tivikoff has previously made a few video game parodies starring cats on his YouTube page, including this video from 2014 that follows the adventures of Mario’s cat when the ex-plumber’s away.



What did you think about Super Mario Cat Bros.? Save your meows for the comment section below!

Images: Mike Tivikoff

Pounce on more cat stories!

Purrfect highlights from the Kitten Bowl.
The world’s smallest cat.
The pawsitively best ever cardboard box maze.

Everything You Missed in the SOLO Trailer

After an extremely long wait, the first trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story has finally arrived a mere five months before it hits theaters. Lucasfilm also had a Solo teaser during the Super Bowl, and that’s literally all we’ve seen from the movie. So far, there’s no Jabba the Hutt or Boba Fett, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot to unpack! Today’s Nerdist News is all about everything you may have missed in the first Solo trailer!

Join host and confirmed Nerf herder, Jessica Chobot, as she lets us get lost in those fleeting shots of Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian. If Solo means that we could eventually get a Lando movie then this deal is getting better all of the time! It’s hard not to miss Lando in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon back when it was brand new. Apparently, Lando also has a robot sidekick in this film who isn’t his Cloud City right-hand man, Lobot.

Of course, this is still Han’s movie, and we’re still very eager to see Alden Ehrenreich explore the character on screen. And from the earliest scenes in the trailer, we can infer that Han and Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) were running afoul of Imperial stormtroopers when they were still teens. Note that Han’s lucky dice from The Last Jedi were on the dash of his vehicle. We also see that both Han and Qi’ra were a part of a crew put together by Beckett (Woody Harrelson). There are even some hints that Qi’ra either has money or she was also one of the Millennium Falcon’s owners prior to Han and Lando.

Near the end of the trailer, we may also be witnessing one of the key moments hinted at in the original Star Wars: the infamous Kessel run. If so, it’s not the cluster of Black Holes and asteroid fields from the Expanded Universe, but it does have a huge freakin’ tentacle monster.

The trailer is pretty heavy on action and light on plot, but we’ll probably learn more before Solo: A Star Wars Story is released on May 25.

What did you think about the first trailer for Solo? Answer the bounty for your thoughts in the comment section below!

Images: Lucasfilm

More of the nerdy news you love!

How The Cloverfield Paradox fits into the Cloverfield world!
The Solo trailer shows Han’s dice in an unexpected place!
A brief history of Captain America’s new shield in Avengers: Infinity War!

Breaking Down the Biggest Movie Trailers from the Super Bowl

The Philadelphia Eagles winning a Super Bowl wasn’t the only seemingly impossible thing that came to be last night after what felt like an endless wait; we also got a trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story! On today’s Nerdist News Talks Back, we break down the trailer and weigh in on whether or not it was worth the wait. Plus, we’ve got our thoughts on the new teaser for Avengers: Infinity War and Netflix’s bold strategy for releasing The Cloverfield Paradox.

Joining host Jessica Chobot today is Nerdist Editor-in-Chief Rachel Heine, associate editor Kyle Anderson, and Mothership writer Amy Vorpahl, and they hit the hyperdrive on the first teaser and trailer for Solo. What do we think of the movie’s overall look? Are we confident in Alden Ehrenreich pulling off that Han Solo charm? Which character has the best coat? And whose poster do we want to hang on our wall the most? (And no, we did not forget that our friend Derek Johnson totally won his bet about the movie getting a teaser during the Super Bowl, which is why he’ll be hosting the show later this week.)

Last night’s big game also gave us a new look at Infinity War and its characters, though not too new a look at the plot. Who or what were we most excited to see? Who got the best costume upgrade? What do we make of the pairings we saw? How will they section out the film’s multiple storylines? What movie are we more excited for: Infinity War or Solo? And will the Avengers outdo The Force Awakens at the box office? Tacos depend on it (seriously).

Finally, we didn’t just get a trailer for The Cloverfield Paradox, we got the whole movie! If you haven’t heard, that which was once called God Particle debuted on Netflix after the game. What did we think of it, and of this new no-marketing/sudden-release strategy? Is this going to start a new trend? And how long do you think we’ll now have to wait for Cloverfield 4?

Nerdist News Talks Back airs live on our YouTube and Alpha channels every weekday at 1:00 p.m. PT, so remember to tune in with us and join in the conversation. Especially now because instead of spending every day wondering about when we’ll get a Solo trailer we can now spend every day talking about it!

But we still want you to talk back to us about today’s topics, so share your thoughts on the show in the comments below.

Images: Lucasfilm, Marvel, Netflix

Keep Talking Back with us!

Will the new Super Mario Bros. movie be a hit?
When will the X-Men and Fantastic Four hit the MCU?
Can  Black Panther  really be that good?

WESTWORLD Websites Show 6 Total Parks and Reveal Delos Founder

HBO’s Westworld experience reaches beyond the television screen. The story is expanded through in-universe websites that add to and usually compound the plot threads shown in the series. For example, in July 2017, the Discover Westworld site featured a message from someone trapped inside the park–and that someone is probably among the hosts that are in the middle of an uprising. A new trailer for season two, which will premiere on April 22, shows that uprising is continuing to be chaotic and violent.

That same trailer also included a hidden message. Via Polygon, Redditor Askin1 spotted white bars flashing on the screen and realized it was binary. Once decoded, the numbers pointed to a new website, Delos Destinations. When you visit the site, one thing jumps out immediately: there are six total parks. Westworld shows it’s still open for reservations (oops), the image for the second park looks glitchy but it might be Samurai World (as hinted in the season one finale), and parks three through six have only static-covered images that state “Reservations closed to the public.”

The “About” page seems to show a glimpse of Samurai World.

Six. Total. Parks.

It’s unclear whether all of them are finished. I’m guessing not, since reservations aren’t available. But even if Delos only has a portion of the host androids ready for those parks…that’s a lot of robots to fight the humans and take control. Besides Samurai World, what other themes could exist? If they’re pulling from historical inspiration and not fantasy ideas (like, maybe no Martian world), medieval and Roman worlds make sense.

If you click on “Investors,” Delos Destinations leads to Delos Incorporated. Here, you meet the founder of Delos for the first time: James Delos. We only knew about Arnold Weber and Robert Ford. Delos had the idea for the company decades ago, and Delos Destinations is only one part of the company, as the page specifies: “We’ve centered our entire mission around understanding you better. We use our diverse portfolio of cross-industry synergies to ask the right questions, manufacturing solutions to problems of everyday life.” Not surprisingly, the company is at the forefront of biological engineering.

If the site’s introducing us to Delos now, I wonder if we’ll see him in one form or another in season two–maybe as a host.

Do you have thoughts on what the other parks are? If you worked at Delos, which parks would you lobby to design? Head to the comments and share your theories.

Images: HBO

Stay in park with more Westworld stories!

Watch the trailer for season two.
Visit a complete Westworld experience.
Could season two visit medieval and Roman worlds.

How THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX Fits into the CLOVERFIELD Multiverse

At the end of 10 Cloverfield Lane, which is set in Louisiana, there wasn’t doubt that the movie fit with the first film. It was unclear how many different monsters attacked Earth, how much they had spread across the country, how humans had managed to fight back, and what was next. But at least all of it was happening on the same planet in a linear timeline. After watching The Cloverfield Paradox that assumption is wrong. Now, none of the three films in the franchise have taken place in the same dimension, although they are all connected by the same catastrophic event.

To understand why, we first need to review what we know–and what we thought we knew. The original Cloverfield took place in New York on Friday, May 22, 2008. That film’s monster arrived on Earth in some kind of crash from space on April 27th (though we don’t know exactly what it was that landed off the Atlantic coast). By Saturday afternoon, May 23, New York was basically gone, bombed by the U.S. government in an attempt to kill the creature. But a radio transmission in the credits revealed it likely had survived.

The creature’s survival was the catalyst for the beginning of 10 Cloverfield Lane, in which John Goodman’s character Howard “rescues” Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Michelle and brings her to his fallout shelter. A fellow bunker survivor, Emmett, tells Michelle he fled to the shelter after seeing a red flash in the sky, which seems to confirm Howard’s theory that there has been a chemical or nuclear attack, either by another country or possibly aliens. While Michelle’s doubts grew about Howard, who might have run her off the road, a woman covered in some kind of rash tried to get into the shelter and made Michelle believe his story.

At the end, when Michelle kills Howard after realizing he’s a monster himself and she escapes, she finds the air isn’t contaminated at all and everything is totally fine. Then an alien spaceship controlled by a huge tentacled creature shows up, along with another smaller four-legged alien.

There is never a clear time period established in 10 Cloverfield Lane, but the ending shows the war from Cloverfield has expanded in the time Michelle has been in the bunker, and there are way more monsters attacking than we realized, and these ones are totally different from the original movie.

But The Cloverfield Paradox doesn’t just call all of that into question. It’s now far more likely those two movies aren’t taking place on the same Earth, but rather in different planes of existence. They are similar planets–both with a United States–but they simultaneously exist in a different dimension across the multiverse.

Paradox takes place sometime in the near future. The opening tells us “the world’s energy resources will be fully exhausted within five years,” which wasn’t true in 2008 and isn’t true now. Then the Shephard goes to space and has two years of failures before successfully firing their particle accelerator. Right before that happens though we hear from an author on Earth about why this entire experiment poses an existential crisis to mankind everywhere–and we mean everywhere.

“Every time they test it they risk ripping open the membrane of space time, smashing together multiple dimensions, shattering reality, and not just on that station–everywhere. This experiment could unleash chaos, the likes of which we have never seen, monsters, demons, beasts from the sea. And not just here and now–in the past, in the future, in other dimensions.”

He’s right of course, and the Shephard disappears into another dimension while the Earth they leave behind is suddenly attacked by huge monsters, just like in the original Cloverfield. But we know that’s not the same Earth from that movie, because it happens years in the future and everyone on Earth is caught off guard. If monsters attack the planet today we won’t be surprised if it happens again 15 or 20 years from now.

We also see the alternate second Earth in Paradox isn’t endangered by monsters (just World War III), so that planet isn’t connected to the first two movies either. But what this does indicate is that the “success” of the Shephard has done exactly what the author warned of, and has unleashed monsters and beasts across multiple dimensions and timelines. That means the attacks in Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane were likely caused by this event, even though it happened in the future in another dimension.

The Shephard ripped open the membrane of space time, and caused monsters to attack across different planes of existence. That’s why Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Michelle saw creatures that were totally different from what we knew, and why there was so much confusion over what was happening in that film. There was no initial attack in New York City to warn the world on this planet; that only happened on the Earth in Cloverfield.

The humongous monster seen at the end of Paradox, far bigger than the original movie’s skyscraper-sized creature, might have been the biggest yet because it was the Earth in the Shephard’s own dimension. Maybe being closer to the cataclysm resulted in drawing the biggest beasts.

The rules of this multiverse event are so wide it means anything could show up anywhere–at any time, which means we probably won’t ever see the same monsters twice. But we’ll know what caused it, and that every time we get a new Cloverfield movie, everything is related to this one event.

What do you think? How do the multiverses connect? Hit the particle accelerator on your keyboard and share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

Images: Bad Robot Productions

More from the Cloverfield Multiverse

Read our review of The Cloverfield Paradox
A look at  the first Cloverfield ‘s insane and effective marketing campaign

METAL GEAR SOLID V Players Uncover a Hidden Nuclear Disarmament Ending

Three years after its initial release, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain had seemingly given up all of its secrets. But over the weekend, players were surprised to see a Metal Gear V ending that had never officially been released. That’s because the ending in question required a full nuclear disarmament within the game itself, which seemed like an impossible task. But somehow, the final cut scenes played even without the complete elimination of the nukes. And in this ending, Venom Snake and his allies successfully achieved a goal that even they thought was unlikely to ever happen.



Via Polygon, the ending was triggered on the Steam version of Metal Gear Solid V, and even Konami doesn’t seem to be sure how this glitch occurred.

The nuclear disarmament event was triggered in the Steam version of METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN on Feb 2nd at approximately 12:00 GMT. We are still investigating, but can confirm that the event was triggered while the nuke count hadn’t reached zero. (1/3)

— METAL GEAR OFFICIAL (@metalgear_en) February 4, 2018

This ending could be seen as a parting gift from legendary game director Hideo Kojima, who left Konami shortly after Metal Gear Solid V was released. MGS V was originally supposed to have even more content, and the final seconds of this video hint where it could have gone. At the very end of this footage, Venom Snake learns someone has built a new nuclear weapon, and his mission to prevent the creation of new nukes may be even more challenging than he thought.

What do you think about Metal Gear Solid V‘s nuclear disarmament ending? Let us know in the comment section below!

Images: Konami

Continue with more stories about games!

A stunning trailer for Shadow of the Colossus.
Handmade wooden Nintendo cartidges/works of art.
A Telltale tease for Batman: The Enemy Within.