Dear White People Creator Justin Simien Talks Race and Comedy
In Netflix series Dear White People, sarcastic black radio host Samantha (Logan Browning), worn out after a long day of anti-racist activism at fictional Ivy League Winchester College, asks her best friend Joelle (Ashley Blaine Featherson) to "Say something funny and specific." Joelle obliges with a snappy one liner involving Drake and his ancient sitcom Degrassi High, propelling the show into its next scene on a buoyant comedic note.
Logan Browning Photo by Adam Rose/Netflix...
Genius‘s Hair & Make-up Department on Creating Einstein’s Look
Genius marks National Geographic’s first foray into scripted drama. The series, which is based on Walter Isaacson’s book Einstein: His Life and Universe and executive produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, charts the rise of the disruptive physicist who changed the way we understand the universe. We chat to Fae Hammond (hair) and Davina Lamont (make-up) about the process of transforming stars Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Flynn into the wild-haired genius at the different stages of his life. ...
Ryan Murphy’s Next American Crime Story Will be About Gianna Versace
Ryan Murphy’s (Glee, American Horror Story) critically acclaimed anthology American Crime Story has been pushed back to air the next cycle until early 2018.
The second cycle was originally slotted to be Katrina: American Crime Story. Instead, Versace: American Crime Story will air first in early 2018 and Katrina will follow in late 2018...
Watch Video That Captures Every Single Death in Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones became a cultural phenomenon in part due to the show’s fearlessness with which it approached the death of major characters. Granted, this was in large part because show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were committed to staying as true to George R.R. Martin’s source material as possible, but it was still a shock to see arguably the main character, Sean Bean’s Ned Stark, get killed in season one. Since then, all GOT fans (who haven’t read Martin’s novels) have relied on the fact that their favorite character could die at any moment...
Meet the Fire Starters: Go Behind-the-Scenes With Game of Thrones‘ Special Effects Team
Last week we told you that Game of Thrones had likely entered the Guinness Book of World Records with a massive stunt they pulled off for season 7. In the upcoming season, thanks to Dany's dragons now being the size of 747s, the stunt, visual and special effects department cooked up a massive sequence in which 20 stunt professionals were set on fire simultaneously. Now, HBO has dropped this inside look at ...
Remembering Adam West
Friday night, the world lost the original Batman, Adam West. West, 88, passed away after a short battle with leukemia.
West played the original Batman in the 1960s television series. Following his run on the show, he went on to pursue other ventures in his acting career, and was beloved for never taking himself too seriously, being kind to those both in and outside the industry, and forever making Batman a part of the American cultural landscape. Later on in his career,...
More Monsters and Horror Coming in Season Two of Stranger Things
Season two of Stranger Things is going to be all hands on deck for the VFX team. Season one rekindled the excitement of 1980s era mastery of practical effects that was seriously amped up by digital techniques. The CGI was awesome and anyone who watched the series had at least one nightmare about the deadly demogorgon. As VFX supervisor Marc Kolbe told us, "What the Duffers saw [in season one] can be done digitally,...
Stranger Things VFX Supervisor on Making Monster Mayhem
The Duffer Brothers' Stranger Things was a critical smash for Netflix, a medley of throwback charm, real tension, ace casting and superb pacing. The setting (small town Indiana) and the era (1983) were handled with loving attention and period-perfect detail, as we followed the mysterious case of a missing child, his friends' courageous attempts to find him, and the deepening weirdness that involved government experiments, supernatural creatures and worlds, and a possibly superpowered little girl who goes by Eleven. ...
Matt Smith on Playing Petulant Royalty in Netflix’s The Crown
One of television’s priciest shows to date, the first season of The Crown offers a faithfully detailed portrait of Elizabeth II’s early years as sovereign. Claire Foy plays the graceful if young queen; the difficult glory faced by her husband, Prince Philip, is portrayed equally well by the British actor Matt Smith (previously one of the doctors on Dr. Who). A lauded naval officer during World War II, Philip had to give up his career as he transitioned into being,...
The Crown & Game of Thrones’ Costume Designer Michele Clapton
Costume designer Michele Clapton, who won an Emmy for her work on Game of Thrones, swapped the diabolical Lannister family for the Windsors to work on Netflix’s The Crown. We talk to Clapton about why a man’s shirt was one of the most pivotal pieces Claire Foy’s Elizabeth wore, why she hates costumes that look like costumes and how she was drawn back to Game of Thrones. ...
Black Mirror‘s Charlie Brooker & Annabel Jones on TV’s Most Twisted Show
British sci-fi series Black Mirror reflects with chilling plausibility myriad ways in which technology brings out the worst in human behavior — one freestanding episode at a time. Creator Charlie Brooker and producer Annabel Jones, in Los Angeles on a break from shooting the fourth season of their Netflix limited series, say they hate repeating themselves and love the anthology format. "It's lunacy but by doing each episode as a one-off 50-minute film, we're able to take an idea and blow it up within that one episode and not have to worry about creating an arc that sustains for multiple seasons,"...
Director Stephen Daldry on The Creation & Execution of Netflix’s Brilliant The Crown
Rumoured to be the most expensive television show ever produced, the first series of Netflix’s lush period drama The Crown delves deep behind the palace doors into the events around Queen Elizabeth II’s ascension to the throne. Director Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Billy Elliot), chats to The Credits about how the idea for The Crown came about, diverting from the truth, why season two is ‘so f*cking interesting’...
Netflix Teases new Castlevania Animated Series
Nostalgia itself is no reason to create a film or a television series, but as inspiration, or merely a starting point, it can lead to some pretty spectacular creations. The 1980s have been very good to Netflix; their smash hit Stranger Things, which conjured the decade by way of Steven Spielberg, was enlivened by the passion and wit of the Duffer brothers, the show’s creators, to become much more than mere pastiche. Focused on a missing boy,...
Game of Thrones Drops Thrilling Official Season 7 Trailer
Game of Thrones has dropped their season 7 trailer, putting into sharp focus just how action-packed things are going to be. The trailer hints at what stars Kit Harington and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau mentioned in a recent interview; season 7 is going to start fast and stay that way. Everything you're excited about—colossal dragons involving themselves in massive battles, the Starks reunited, the Lannisters plotting, Dany in Westeros with her army, and the fate of Westeros on the line—it's all here...
Massive Dragon Highlights new Game of Thrones Season 7 Photos
We wrote back in March about how Game of Thrones season 7 would include dragons the size of 747s. Season 7 director Matt Shakman told Entertainment Weekly: “The dragons this year are the size of 747s…Drogon is the biggest of the bunch — his flame is 30-feet in diameter!”
Now EW has expanded upon this scoop with a series of new photos from season 7,...
Twin Peaks Premiere Delights, Creeps out Critics
David Lynch and Mark Frost’s iconic Twin Peaks returned to television last night, 27 years after it first appeared and changed the medium as we knew it, and it seems the wait has been worth it. Critics have spent today largely hailing the 2-hour premiere, which reacquainted us with FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), the Palmer family and the deeply creepy, supernatural weirdness that goes on in the fictional, titular town. What's more, Twin Peaks ...
Watch Marvel’s The Defenders Come to Life on the Page
Marvel's latest TV series, coming to Netflix this August, is The Defenders. The entire roster of Marvel TV superheroes will finally be together—Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Iron Fist (Finn Jones) and Luke Cage (Mike Colter) are all joining forces to try and take down a secretive assassin collective called The Hand. It's big news for Marvel fans. Here's the trailer to get you up to speed.
Now, have you ever wondered how the artists who work on the comics actually draw these iconic characters?...
Check out the new Black Lightning Trailer
The CW has become the best place to watch live-action superhero shows outside of Netflix, and now, with Black Lightning, the little network that could has earned a lasting place in our heart. We’ve enjoyed Smallville, we’ve been tickled by The Arrow, we’ve been satisfied by The Flash, we’ve been impressed by DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, we've loved Supergirl, and now we’re hoping that we’re going to be gaga for Black Lightning...
New Star Trek: Discovery Trailer Continues Sci-Fi’s Glorious Revival
The fact that Star Trek will be back on the air is news we all can use. Not only has the Star Trek reboot on the big screen been a massive success (led by J.J. Abrams), but the entire sci-fi genre is experiencing the kind of sustained excellence that speaks to just how malleable it is at telling stories we want to hear. Whether the narrative involves the human need for connection, space exploration,...
Upfronts: Watch Trailers for NBC’s Upcoming Slate of new TV Shows
Now that it’s upfronts week, we turn our attention to the small screen. This is the week that the networks gather in New York to celebrate, and promote, their upcoming seasons, introducing us to the new shows they’ll be airing. Let’s start with NBC.
You’ve got revivals, spin-offs, and fresh shows all joining the network’s schedule. The big ticket revival is the return of Will & Grace, while Law & Order is back with a new spin-off,...
