In what seems very much like a desperate attempt to save face after failing to convince the world that Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is a bad film, Elon Musk says that Grok Imagine will generate a “historically-accurate” adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. One can only imagine what “historically-accurate” means here.
Film
Cinema isn’t just about the latest Disney/Pixar project or Star Wars spin-off. Memorable storytelling is happening all over the film industry, from Hollywood’s box-office-busting superhero smashes to small, innovative indie experiments. The Verge’s film section is here to help you sort through the latest Hollywood news and reviews, from favorite genres like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror to the independent movies that matter.
The actor has expressed regret over the flat positioning of his hand in the La La Land poster over the years. Maybe he’s joking, but Lionsgate has now corrected it anyway, unveiling a tweaked design for the movie’s 10th anniversary that’s replacing the previous version “across every platform in the world.”

No amount of clever editing can make this Seedance-generated mess interesting.
The first full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday may not reassure you that the MCU is back on track, but it does suggest Marvel is finally pushing artistic boundaries.
swingdingaling:
The haters said it couldn’t be done but they’ve done it: they made a whole movie of people looking at stuff just off screen
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The theater chain reported earning $1.6 billion over the past few months, its highest quarterly revenue to date. In the earnings report (pdf), AMC CEO Adam Aron says he expects theaters to have their “strongest yet post-pandemic year” in 2026, citing the blockbuster release of The Odyssey and the upcoming debuts of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Dune: Part Three, and Avengers: Doomsday.


The epic made $264.1 million worldwide this weekend — Nolan’s biggest global opening yet — with $124.5 million in the US alone. Not bad for an R-rated adaptation of a 3,000-year-old poem. Fittingly, it’s likely to run on and on too, with no big competition until Spider-Man arrives, and IMAX 70mm screenings sold out for weeks.
As reported by The Wrap, A24 says it won’t, after all, go after a creator for using a Backrooms-adjacent wallpaper. You know, the generically yellow one. Smart move. After a Reddit user reported getting a complaint on behalf of A24, Backrooms director Kane Parsons said it “should not be happening.” A24 then said in a statement it “makes no claim over ownership over the yellow wallpaper.”
Backrooms is at the forefront of horror’s YouTube wave
Following its wildly successful theatrical run, Curry Barker’s Obsession is now streaming on Peacock for everyone who wants to be scared silly at home.
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Projects like Odysseus: The Fall highlight how the AI hype machine is powered by stunts and stolen valor.
Matt Reeves’ follow-up to The Batman has been delayed once again, and Warner Bros. now plays for the film to debut on Feb. 18, 2028. In the meantime, you can check out this new screen test from the film.
In an interview with A Rabbit’s Foot, the man who loves pushing technological boundries enough to anger his fans with controversial remasters had this to say about people who oppose artificial intelligence in film making:
“It’s very much like sitting here saying, ‘Well, I believe the horse and the buggy is really where it’s at. These cars, they break down, they need gas, there’s all kinds of problems with them and pretty soon they’ll be making them into tanks, and then they’ll be killing people. It’s terrible.’ There’s nothing you can do about it. That’s progress, it’s the future.”
Ash Koosha — the director behind the $2,000 AI-generated movie that debuted at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival — has apparently made his own adaptation of The Odyssey, which will be available to rent / buy from Fountain 0 some time later this summer.
Neill had starring roles in Peaky Blinders and the Oscar-winning film The Piano. He is best known for playing Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. News of his death was announced on his Instagram page.
Our first few looks at the upcoming feature film debut from Casper Kelly, the deranged human behind Too Many Cooks, played it completely straight. But with the first official teaser, it’s clear that Kelly is taking the “horror” part of “horror comedy” seriously.
The first teaser for Godzilla Minus Zero made it clear the kaiju would be stomping through New York, and now we have another brief look. The sequel takes place two years after the original, and introduces a new character played by Min Tanaka — fresh off of the surprise kabuki hit Kokuho — who is “a biologist carrying deep psychological scars from the war.”
Unfortunately, Robert Pattinson doesn’t seem to have a fun new voice in Dune: Part Three, but everything else about the latest trailer has me completely ready to watch the trilogy’s conclusion in December.
In what feels very much like a response to the way Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender leaked online last month, Paramount has bumped the movie’s streaming premiere date up from October 9th to July 25th.
The gen AI psyop known as Tilly Norwood is reportedly going to be in a movie produced by Particle 6. Put more plainly: the company that created Tilly Norwood in the first place is making an elaborate commercial about one of its products.
[Los Angeles Times]
In hopes of winning its ongoing legal battle with Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery Midjourney is trying to force the studios to reveal the extent to which they use artificial intelligence internally. This would establish whether “they are doing exactly what they are suing Midjourney for doing.”
The landmark James Cameron blockbuster turns 35 this year. It’s easy to forget sometimes how difficult it must have been for ILM to solve the problems posed by early ‘90s CGI, develop new technologies, and scale up to the over 100 CG shots required by T2.
For the 35th anniversary of the film, several founding members of ILM’s CG department got together to discuss the technical challenges of creating Terminator 2’s memorable liquid metal T-1000 character. For a more in-depth look at the film’s effects, check out the Light & Magic documentary on Disney Plus.
Technically, the 4K remaster already got a one-day IMAX screening in September 2020 and you can buy it on disc, but it’s finally coming back to US and Canadian theaters on September 4th, 2026. Few animated films have ever been so influential; countless works have paid homage to the Akira slide alone.
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Good news for those of you who didn’t catch Project Hail Mary in theaters — it’ll finally be available to stream on Prime Video on July 3rd. Unless you have something better to be doing this weekend…
Project Hail Mary is popcorn sci-fi at its best
Neon was one of the only studios that seemed interested in picking up Luca Guadagnino’s biographical drama about Sam Altman after Amazon suddenly decided not to distribute the movie. And now, Neon is reportedly “in advanced talks” for a deal that could get the project into theaters.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
YouTube-to-Hollywood hit Backrooms is coming back to theaters on July 3rd, with an expanded version called “Everything Must Go” that features 16 additional minutes of footage.
If you missed the second Super Mario movie in theaters, it’s hitting Peacock on July 30th, which is a good amount of time to jump into the games if you haven’t.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is beautiful but a little too busy

Supergirl’s less-than-stellar debut is a reminder that the DCU is fighting an uphill battle.
The first trailer for Robert Eggers’ Werwulf makes the movie seem a lot like a cross between The Witch and Nosferatu, which means it should make for a deliciously disturbing watch when it hits theaters on December 25th.
That’s Robert Eggers talking about his next creature feature, Werwulf, which follows 2024’s vampire horror flick Nosferatu. Esquire has a first look image of the film, along with some details from the director that have me itching for a trailer.


One way that Sony Pictures’ Klara and the Sun (due in theaters on October 23rd) sticks out among the crowded field of dystopian AI companion flicks is that it’s an adaptation of a book from Never Let Me Go author Kazuo Ishiguro. Waititi is writing the screenplay and directing, with a cast including Natasha Lyonne, Amy Adams, and Steve Buscemi.


The latest installment in the Pixar franchise raked in $160 million over the weekend, besting The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’s $131.7 million. It’s also the second largest opening weekend for an animated film ever, only bested by Incredibles 2 and its $182.7 million.
Developers Oliver and Patrick Evans have made a digitized 3D version of the famous movie closet that lets you explore 1,247 films distributed by The Criterion Collection. So now you can peruse the shelves and pull out titles to learn more about them, just like your favorite celebrities (kinda).
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[The Criterion Closet]
With tickets going on sale today ahead of Spider-Man’s premiere on July 31st, Sony Pictures released a new nearly three-minute trailer to follow the March teaser that quickly racked up a billion views.
This new one still features a world that’s forgotten Peter Parker, and also highlights the movie’s villain, an invisible entity that seemingly takes over even Bruce Banner / Hulk.

Disney and Pixar’s latest feature gets at the heart of how we let tech hurt us.
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