Interview | The Verge

The Miniature Wife was an exercise in visual trickery

2026-04-08T18:29:32-04:00

In Manuel Gonzales' 2013 short story "The Miniature Wife," a woman starts to become a different kind of person after her husband accidentally shrinks her down to the size of a coffee mug. Because of her new stature, the woman is more physically vulnerable, and it's difficult for her to effectively communicate with normal sized people. But for all the danger that the woman's tininess puts her in, it also pushes her to tap into a strength that takes her husband by surprise.

The marital dynamics are very similar in Peacock's new The Miniature Wife series adaptation starring Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen. The show adds depth to both of …

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Life is Strange: Reunion is a full-circle moment for its stars

2026-03-23T15:12:57-04:00

Fans thought they were done with the original Life is Strange duo of Max and Chloe. Following the first game and its 2017 prequel, players said their tearful goodbyes to these beloved characters - or so they thought. Following Max Caulfield's abrupt return in 2024's Double Exposure, this week sees the unlikely return of Chloe in Life is Strange: Reunion, an unexpected narrative retconning sequel that's been greeted with more raised eyebrows than rapturous fervor. It aims to bring the Max and Chloe story to an end for good - and it was just as much of a shock to the actors as it was to fans.

"It was a massive surprise," says the voice of Chl …

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Some writing advice from Project Hail Mary’s Andy Weir

2026-03-24T12:32:45-04:00

Andy Weir on the set of Project Hail Mary. | Image: Amazon MGM Studios

Andy Weir has done pretty well when it comes to adaptations. His first novel, The Martian, was turned into a movie in 2015, and the Ridley Scott-directed picture earned more than $600 million at the box office. And Project Hail Mary just had a huge opening weekend that puts it on track to be one of the year's biggest movies. However, despite that success, Weir tells me that he does his best to keep the idea of an adaptation out of his mind when he starts a new novel. "I try not to think about it at all," he explains.

The reason, according to Weir, is that the two mediums are just so different. That's something he's learned over the last dec …

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The gen AI Kool-Aid tastes like eugenics

2026-03-22T23:43:53-04:00

Like many people, director Valerie Veatch was intrigued when OpenAI first released its Sora text-to-video generative AI model to the public in 2024. Though she didn't fully understand the technology, she was curious about what it could do, and she saw that other artists were building online communities to share their new AI creations. The hope of connecting with people drew Veatch into the AI space, but once she was there, she was shocked to see how often the technology would generate images dripping with racism and sexism.

Veatch was even more unsettled by the way her new AI-enthusiast peers did not seem to care that the machine they ralli …

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Lina Khan was right

2026-04-12T12:07:43-04:00

Hindsight is 20/20. | Image: The Verge / Getty Images

In 2021, the virtual world was the future of the internet. The pandemic had sequestered everyone indoors, heightening the appeal of digital communities. Facebook rebranded to Meta - a sign of the tech giant's investment in and commitment to the metaverse as the future of the internet. Despite losing billions in VR, Meta released an upgraded version of the Quest 2 headset and began focusing on launching a higher-end Quest Pro. At the end of the year, it announced its plan to plunk down a rumored $400 million to buy the independent VR gaming studio Within, maker of a popular fitness game called Supernatural. Less than five years later, however …

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Why Project Hail Mary’s creators were ‘scared’ about making the sci-fi adaptation

2026-03-17T14:50:52-04:00

Project Hail Mary is a natural follow-up to The Martian. Both movies are based on sci-fi novels by Andy Weir, and both have bankable stars in the lead role (Matt Damon for The Martian, Ryan Gosling for Project Hail Mary) and accomplished directors at the helm (Ridley Scott for the former, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller for the latter). Even still, Drew Goddard, the screenwriter on both movies, went into Project Hail Mary with a lot of trepidation.

"My first thought was, 'Oh god, I don't know how we're going to make this into a movie.' I was so scared," he tells The Verge. "I didn't want to let Andy down. But I realized how challenging it …

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A Scavengers Reign artist explores contemplative sci-fi in new comics

2026-03-13T16:06:18-04:00

You may recognize Jonathan Djob Nkondo's work from animated projects like the surreal sci-fi series Scavengers Reign or the recent Gorillaz short film The Mountain, The Moon Cave and The Sad God. But before that the French artist and animator made self-published comics that depicted strange alien worlds and future societies. Now he's revisiting that work with a lush release of two graphic novels. "I think most of the people who follow my work don't necessarily know that I published comics," Nkondo tells The Verge. "I am mainly known for my work in animations, so revisiting those books and promoting them again was a good way to spread the wor …

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How a prize-winning cartoonist brings hand-drawn comics to the web

2026-03-04T10:45:56-05:00

Jailed during the 2021 coup in Myanmar, American journalist Danny Fenster spent six months as a political prisoner. For much of his incarceration he battled boredom and fear, subsisting on meditation and podcasts on an SD card smuggled in by mail, sent by his girlfriend, Juliana.

Now, nearly five years after his release, he collaborated with his cousin Amy Kurzweil, a celebrated New Yorker cartoonist and graphic memoirist, on a long-form interactive comic for The Verge about his imprisonment. I chatted via email with Kurzweil about her role as an illustrator and storyteller in this ambitious long-form project, the responsibilities inherent …

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Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley on taking ‘another run’ with new game

2026-03-03T08:54:13-05:00

It's been a busy few years for Scott Pilgrim. Following a live-action film and the conclusion of the comics in 2010, the series has slowly been coming back to life. First, in 2021 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game was rereleased on modern consoles after years of being inaccessible. Two years later came an even bigger surprise: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, a Netflix anime that remixed the story with an alternate take on Scott's battle with seven evil exes. This was followed by a giant box set to celebrate the comic's 20th anniversary, and now the series is back again with a game called Scott Pilgrim EX.

According to Scott Pilgrim creator Bry …

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Xiaomi, unlike Google and Samsung, thinks camera hardware comes first

2026-03-03T10:24:35-05:00

Xiaomi’s new Leica Leitzphone has new hardware tricks including continuous zoom and a LOFIC sensor. | Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge

When it launched the 17 and 17 Ultra in Europe on Saturday, Xiaomi bucked an industry trend: it didn't really talk about AI all that much. And it really didn't talk about AI when it showed off the two phones' cameras, including a special edition 17 Ultra co-created with Leica. According to Angus Ng, the company's director of communications and public relations, that's no mistake.

"We're still currently focusing on what is the limitation of hardware," Ng told me at MWC 2026, when I asked why its photography approach seemed so different to Google and Samsung's recent Pixel 10A and Galaxy S26 launches. "If it really comes to a point where we c …

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