How “Those About to Die” VFX Supervisor Peter Travers Built Rome in 100 Days

Roland Emmerich knows how to destroy worlds. The multi-hyphenate is behind some of the biggest disaster movies in film history, including Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and Moonfall. But instead of depicting a cataclysm for his latest effort, he’s building an empire for the Peacock series Those About to Die (streaming on July 18), which takes place during Rome’s Flavian dynasty just as the Coliseum is receiving its finishing touches.

“Beckham” Editor Michael Harte on Bending A Massive Archive Into a Must-See Doc

Directed by Fisher Stevens, the documentary miniseries Beckham has been a hit for Netflix, charting David Beckham’s rise as a Manchester United star, England team captain, and player for Real Madrid and the LA Galaxy. But football (we’ll call it that here, as Beckham, his family, his mentor Alex Ferguson, and dozens of teammates and fellow celebrities do throughout the miniseries) is only one way into the star’s life, with the relationship between David and his wife of almost 25 years,

“Presumed Innocent” DPs Daniel Voldheim & Doug Emmett on Capturing Jake Gyllenhaal’s Raw Emotions & Moral Ambiguity

An intoxicating amalgam of courtroom thriller, relationship drama, and a whodunit, David E. Kelley’s latest entry into long-form prestige drama arrives with Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent, a cerebral puzzle steeped in betrayal, obsession, love, and ambition. Fresh off his quietly menacing turn in Amazon MGM’s wildly entertaining Road House remake, Jake Gyllenhaal (who also serves as Executive Producer) plays Rusty Sabich, Chicago’s chief deputy prosecutor and devoted family man,

Cinematographer Sam Levy on the Absurdist Fun That is Julio Torres’ “Fantasmas”

Julio Torres wrote, directed, and stars in his new HBO series, Fantasmas, a delightfully absurdist comic fantasy loosely predicated on a search for a lost earring. Fantasmas, which means “ghosts” in Spanish, questions reality — Torres and his costars, including Emma Stone and Bernardo Velasco, with cameos by actors like Tilda Swinton, exist in a world that seems to be both multi-dimensional and missing dimensions at the same time,

“The Acolyte” Costume Designer Jennifer Bryan on Dressing Jedis, Witches, Wookies & More

Note: this interview contains spoilers for the first three episodes.

In its newest Star Wars franchise, The Acolyte, Disney+ heads back in time to a century prior to the rise of the Galactic Empire. Amandla Stenberg stars as identical twins Osha and Mae, the former an ex-Jedi Padawan and the latter a vengeful warrior on the run. Both can use the Force, although the Jedi Order is neither twin’s birthright — the girls’ early childhood was spent in a coven of witches on Brendok,

“House of the Dragon” Season 2’s Most Intriguing New Power Couple

While calling them a “power couple” is certainly a stretch, in the second episode of season 2, “Rhaenyra the Cruel,” the embattled Princess Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) found herself an unlikely ally in Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno), a whisperer of the Red Keep with secrets aplenty known as the White Worm.

Rhaenyra was rocked in episode 2 by twin revelations—her desire to see Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) executed for murdering her son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) had been botched,

“Green Lantern” Series a Go at HBO as DC Studios Locks in First Live-Action Show

At long last, the Green Lanterns will light a path on TV.

James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios has successfully gotten their first live-action series a pick-up at HBO, which has grabbed Lanterns for a straight-to-series order for an eight-episode opener. Lanterns will be led by showrunner Chris Mundy (True Detective: Night Country, Ozark).

Lanterns also boasts Watchmen and The Leftovers creator Damon Lindelof and Tom King (Supergirl) as executive producers and co-writers alongside Mundy.

“House of the Dragon” Cast & Crew Discuss That Brutal Funeral in Episode 2

Child murder is nothing new to the world of Game of Thrones, and so it must go for House of the Dragon. The first Game of Thrones spinoff to make it to air, House of the Dragon has proven itself a satisfying slow burn that metes out its corporeal punishments judiciously, but when they come, they’re all the more brutal for it. In the season 2 premiere,

“Ahsoka” Composer Kevin Kiner on Scoring Jedis, Sith Lords, and Space Whales

There are few people alive with more Star Wars experience than composer Kevin Kiner. While Kiner would be the first to point out that the legendary John Williams has him beat, when it comes to the number of minutes—and hours—of music composed for a galaxy far, far away, Kiner is a proper Jedi. For more than a decade, Kiner has been working with George Lucas and Dave Filoni to score every season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and has added to his endless Star Wars credits scroll Star Wars: Rebels,

Callum Turner on Accents, B-17s, and Crew Glue in “Masters of the Air”

Based on Donald L. Miller’s 2007 book of the same name, Masters of the Air on Apple TV+ has been praised as theatrical television that’s both true to history and beautiful to watch. Created by John Shiban and John Orloff, the show marries vast set builds with painstakingly correct CGI to depict the tragedies and heroics of the 100th Bomb Group, which flew over 300 combat missions and received two Distinguished Unit Citations but also suffered heavy losses of 177 aircraft during World War II.

“Silo” Creator Graham Yost Unseals the Secrets of Season 1

Graham Yost had his work cut out for him when he set out to tackle author Hugh Howey’s apocalyptic sci-fi trilogy series “Silo,” all of which are set in the titular structure (none of Howey’s books are actually titled “Silo”) and deal with the society that lives within it’s 144 heavily monitored floors. The denizens of the Silo live in a claustrophobic brutalist tower outfitted with retrofuturistic touches that include clunky computers, a large screen in the cafeteria showing what appears to be a denuded,

The “Shōgun” Sound Team on Recreating 17th-Century Japan One Katana Clash at a Time

Praised for its authenticity, beauty, and sensitive storytelling, FX’s Shōgun has just been renewed for two more seasons. Created by Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, the show follows the plot of James Clavell’s 1975 novel, set in Japan in 1600. English pilot John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) and his ship’s crew run aground in a Japanese fishing village, and after a brief imprisonment, Blackthorne is taken on by Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada, also one of the series’ producers) to share his knowledge on European warfare and the Portuguese merchants and priests insinuating themselves into Japanese society.

How “SNL” Costume Designer Tom Broecker Recreated Barbenheimer for Ryan Gosling’s Sensational Monologue

It’s the week of April 13th and on the call sheet to host the 17th episode of SNL’s 49th season is Ryan Gosling, an actor who’s been capturing the hearts of hopeless romantics since The Notebook. The Canadian’s filmography is a treasure trove of unforgettable performances, from Blue Valentine, Drive, The Big Short, La La Land,

“Silo” Director/Executive Producer Morten Tyldum on Helming Rebecca Ferguson’s Sci-Fi Mystery

Apple TV+’s Silo, created by Graham Yost, is an ingeniously constructed sci-fi series that nevertheless opens with a shot worthy of any classic western—a Sheriff’s badge—and goes on to meld elements of that genre, along with police procedural and conspiracy thriller, in 10 satisfying episodes. The series’ claustrophobic setting, the titular Silo, serves as a character almost every bit important as Rebecca Ferguson’s resourceful, remorseful Juliet, an engineer plucked from the obscurity of the Silo’s lowest levels to take over for the last lawman,

How the Latest VFX Techniques Immersed the “Masters of the Air” Actors in Battle

Masters of the Air, starring Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan, is the latest celebrated WWII epic from Band of Brothers and The Pacific executive producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman. The intense drama inspired by the 100th Bomb Group is the most detailed on-screen depiction of B-17 planes ever. The visual effects teams from DNEG studios, led by VVFX Supervisor Xavier Bernasconi and VFX Producer Abigal Everard were provided with thousands of hours of research materials about the aircrafts and battles they flew from the Production Designer Chris Seagers and his show researcher Jessica Bradbury.

“Baby Reindeer” Cinematographer Krzysztof Trojnar on Lensing Loneliness

Amidst an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, audiences united in crowning Baby Reindeer the breakout hit TV series of the year. Series creator and star Richard Gadd mined his real-life trauma to create Donny Dunn, who yearns for adoration to catastrophic results. The aspiring comedian discovers that meaning well doesn’t always end well. In a time when there’s immense societal pressure for everyone to have rigid, binary opinions on every issue, and mistakes are often condemned while ignoring intention,

Ke Huy Quan Talks Drawing from Personal Experience to Play “Loki” Season 2 Standout Ouroboros

Ke Huy Quan was driving when he got a call from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige two years ago. Having just seen Quan’s (eventually Oscar-winning) turn in the record-breaking A24 epic Everything Everywhere All At Once, Feige — with whom Quan had crossed paths on 2000’s X-Men, working as assistant action choreographer in his first job out of college — offered him the role of the quirky,

“3 Body Problem” Production Designer Deborah Riley on Melding Sci-Fi & Period Perfect History

Netflix’s adaption of the first book in Liu Cixin’s hit Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, 3 Body Problem, is more than science fiction. Facing a slew of inexplicable suicides, a group of scientists and friends begin to uncover the future arrival of an alien race, the San-Ti, and learn of the Cultural Revolution-era events in China that set this gradual but hostile takeover in motion.

The series is primarily set in contemporary London and the English countryside,

“Shōgun” Editors Aika Miyake and Maria Gonzales on Cutting Mariko’s Heroic Path

The first season of Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo’s masterful Shōgun was an expertly paced slow-burn drama that plunged viewers into 17th-century Japan with a passionate obsession with the rigors and wonders of the period and location. The new Shōgun shifts its center of balance from the swashbuckling but woefully out of his depth British pirate Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) to his Japanese captors. Blackthorne has washed ashore on a land in the midst of a tectonic power shift,

“House of the Dragon” Renewed for Season 3 Ahead of Season 2 Premiere

House of the Dragons season 2 hasn’t premiered yet—that happens on June 16—but that didn’t stop HBO from topping up the successful Game of Thrones spinoff for another season. Showrunner Ryan Condal and his co-creator, author George R. R. Martin, have no doubt been plotting and planning for a third (and fourth, and fifth?) season already.

The drama centered on the scheming Tagaryen family has been renewed for season 3,