Nerdist in Audio

Watch THE TRAVELER & THE TROLL Short: It Has a SIX-FOOT Puppet The award-winning, Kickstarter-funded dark fantasy horror-comedy short The Traveler & The Troll — starring Erika Ishii as a weary traveler who must answer a troll's three riddles to survive a haunted forest — is now available to watch online after a two-year festival run (including wins at Overlook Film Festival and HollySh...

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY Re-Release and the DLC-ification of Movies Disney and Sony are reportedly developing an imminent theatrical re-release of the still-in-theaters Spider-Man: Brand New Day , featuring cut scenes with Rosario Dawson's Claire Temple and other bonus footage — mirroring the recent Avengers: Endgame: Encore re-release strategy. The author strongly criticizes this as a greedy...

Alan Cumming Doesn't Understand AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Plot In a candid interview, Alan Cumming admitted he doesn't fully understand the plot of Avengers: Doomsday , in which he reprises Nightcrawler, joking that on set he simply asked crew members where to point his body rather than trying to follow the story. He also revealed he never actually filmed scenes in-person with Pedro Pascal or Flo...

Sony Developing a Series Based on Spider-Man's Clone Saga Sony and Prime Video are developing a live-action series based on Spider-Man's controversial 1990s comic book storyline, "The Clone Saga," written by American Born Chinese creator Kelvin Yu. The show will reportedly follow Peter Parker clones Ben Reilly (Scarlet Spider) and Kaine Parker as they grapple with their identitie...

Turn Off Your Smartwatch at the Movie Theater!!! A brief opinion piece urging moviegoers to turn off or remove smartwatches in theaters, not just silence phones, since their ambient glow and notification flashes are a constant, underrated source of distraction in a darkened theater. The author references Avengers: Doomsday 's cast PSA about silencing phones as inspiration for expanding the mes...

AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Cast Assembles for 'Silence Your Phone' PSA Marvel released a star-studded theater PSA featuring dozens of Avengers: Doomsday cast members (played by their actual actors) sitting in a movie audience watching Thor face off against Doctor Doom, only for a ringing cellphone to interrupt the dramatic moment. The audience includes characters like Gambit, Shuri, Cyclops, Reed...

Good News/Bad News About Jon Watts' STAR WARS: EPISODE X Jon Watts ( Spider-Man trilogy, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew ) has been tapped to direct Star Wars: Episode X , a new Skywalker Saga trilogy written entirely by Simon Kinberg, with Daisy Ridley returning as Rey in a "minor role" that may expand later. The author argues it's disappointing that Lucasfilm is revisiting the Skywalk...

9 TO 5 Returns to Theaters, Honoring Dolly Parton's Charities Following Dolly Parton's recent death at 80, Twentieth Century Studios is re-releasing her classic 1980 comedy 9 to 5 (also starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin) in theaters for one week starting October 9, with ticket proceeds benefiting The Dollywood Foundation's Imagination Library literacy program. The announcement came o...

VISIONQUEST May Pay Off 15-Year-Old CAPTAIN AMERICA Easter Egg The upcoming Disney+ series VisionQuest appears set to finally introduce Jim Hammond, the original 1939 Human Torch (Marvel's first superhero), 15 years after he first appeared as a background Easter egg in Captain America: The First Avenger 's Stark Expo scene. The article recaps the character's comics history — his creati...

These DC Comics Stories Are Perfect for LANTERNS Fans A reading list highlighting seven classic Green Lantern comics that influenced HBO's Lanterns , including Green Lantern/Green Arrow: Hard-Travelin' Heroes (the Hal/Ollie road-trip dynamic mirrored by Hal/John on the show), John Stewart's 1972 debut issue, the 1980s John Stewart solo-Lantern era, Geoff Johns' Secret Origin (Hal&#...

Alex Ross Almost Drew a Superman/STAR WARS Crossover Comic Legendary artist Alex Ross revealed he once created concept art for an unrealized Superman/ Star Wars crossover comic, including images of Superman fighting Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Superman side-by-side, Batman battling Boba Fett, and a A New Hope -style poster featuring the Justice League and Rebels facing off against Vader and Da...

LANTERNS Might Have Introduced an Infamous Planet from DC Lore In Lanterns episode seven, John Stewart and the Halogram travel through a portal to a desolate, corpse-strewn alien world where Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) is hiding after escaping Oa's prison. The author theorizes this is the planet Ryut from DC Comics — homeworld of Atrocitus, site of an ancient Manhunter massacre, and later the pr...

Marvel INCURSIONS Comic Pits X-MEN: TAS vs X-MEN: EVOLUTION Marvel has revealed details of X-Men '92: Incursions #1, a one-shot pitting the 1990s X-Men: The Animated Series team against their younger X-Men: Evolution counterparts in a multiversal incursion story (tying into the Avengers: Doomsday -inspiring "Time Runs Out"/2015 Secret Wars comics lore). Written by Craig Kyle and Chri...

ENDGAME: ENCORE May Tease Hulk for SECRET WARS, Not DOOMSDAY A new post-credits scene in Avengers Endgame: Encore shows Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom "collecting" Bruce Banner from an underground bunker where he'd been imprisoned since his Spider-Man: Brand New Day Hulk-out incident. While many assume this sets up a Doomsday role, the author argues it more likely teases Avenger...

What LOKI & ENDGAME's New TVA Scene Mean for DOOMSDAY The most crucial new Endgame: Encore scene shows the TVA (Mobius, Ouroboros, Casey) helplessly watching an unprecedented wave of "incursions" — collisions between parallel Earths — destroy 3,000 universes in seconds, including a clash between the Fox X-Men's Earth-10005 and Earth-1127 (which Earth-10005 wins, explaining X-...

What AVENGERS ENDGAME: ENCORE's New Scenes Mean for DOOMSDAY This roundup breaks down all four new "Encore" scenes: (1) Loki, in a TVA jacket, interrupts Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter's dance to warn them he can help — confirmed by Anthony Russo as the moment that leads directly to Doomsday ; (2) Doctor Doom's voice "collects" Bruce Banner/Hulk from his underground...

Steve Going Back in Time Causes DOOMSDAY, Confirms Anthony Russo Co-director Anthony Russo confirmed in a new interview that Steve Rogers' choice to travel back in time and live out his life with Peggy Carter in Avengers: Endgame is what sets Avengers: Doomsday into motion, saying "that's where Doomsday is born." The Nerdist author argues this retroactively (and fairly) frames St...

Gizmo Announces That GREMLINS 3 Is Delayed to 2028 Warner Bros. Discovery revealed via a short Gizmo promo that Gremlins 3 , long in development, has been delayed 11 months from its original November 19, 2027 date to October 6, 2028 — 44 years after the original film. Chris Columbus (who co-wrote the earlier script with Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein) is now directing, with Hannah Marks handling the...

Nicolas Cage's MADDEN Trailer Looks Like an SNL Sketch The trailer for Prime Video's MADDEN — a biopic about legendary NFL coach/broadcaster John Madden (Nicolas Cage) and Raiders owner Al Davis (Christian Bale) — has left the author unsure whether it's a serious drama or an unintentional comedy, given its bizarre tone and imagery (including a shot of Cage and John Mulaney in heavy mak...

Welcome Halloween Season With a Michael Myers Chia Pet NECA has released a Halloween II -themed Michael Myers Chia Pet (distinct from the original 1978 film due to separate licensing rights), notable for its bleeding-eye mask design unique to the 1981 sequel. Like other Chia Pets, it comes with a planter, drip tray, and three plantings' worth of chia seeds, achieving full "hair" grow...

LANTERNS: Why Doesn't Guy Gardner Have Hal Jordan's Ring? In Lanterns episode six, "Bad Optics," John Stewart asks Guy Gardner to retrieve Hal Jordan's ring and uniform for a proper burial, revealing that the Guardians actually forged Guy an entirely new ring rather than passing down Hal's — despite the show's rule that rings normally transfer between a sector's L...

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING Trailer: Elizabeth Holmes' Doc Is Insane A24 has released the full trailer for You Can See Everything , a bizarre documentary about disgraced Theranos founder and convicted felon Elizabeth Holmes, made by Nathan Fielder ( Nathan For You , The Rehearsal ) and Lance Oppenheim. The film chronicles how Holmes invited the filmmakers to live with her family and document her li...

George Lucas Defends STAR WARS Special Edition Changes While promoting his new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, George Lucas again addressed the enduring fan backlash over his Star Wars trilogy Special Editions, made nearly three decades ago. Speaking to CBS, Lucas explained that his original trilogy was never truly finished — just rushed out to meet release deadlines — and that the Special Editions...

Frodo Returns to Shire in LOTR: HUNT FOR GOLLUM First-Look Images Ten first-look images from The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum have been released, most notably showing Elijah Wood's Frodo Baggins returning to Bag End in the Shire. The film takes place after Bilbo's Eleventy-First birthday and before Frodo ever leaves the Shire, meaning Frodo spends much of the film in his home vil...

What DCU Heroes Might Live in LANTERNS' Midway City? Lanterns episode six reveals that John Stewart hails from Midway City, Michigan — likely serving as the DCU's fictional stand-in for Detroit, following James Gunn's pattern of replacing real-world cities with DC's fictional locales (Metropolis for New York, Coast City for LA). The article traces Midway City's comics history:...