‘The Mandalorian’ Shines With Surprising Season 2 Finale

This article originally appeared on Complex.com

[Ed note: This post contains spoilers for Season 2 of The Mandalorian, including MASSIVE SPOILERS for today’s finale— "Chapter 16: The Rescue"—do not read any further unless you want it all ruined for you! Don’t say we didn’t warn you.]

A legendary Star Wars character once said, “Never tell me the odds.” It’s advice I should have taken into consideration ahead of The Mandalorian’s first season. The Disney+ streaming show seemed to be carrying a tremendous burden with its debut. It had to launch a brand new platform for the House of Mouse and chart a new story outside the Skywalker films. The first season succeeded by focusing on an inherently paternal relationship between The Child aka Baby Yoda aka Grogu, and the show’s titular Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal), set against Western-style tropes. The show’s small-scale focus — it’s not about saving the galaxy, it’s about saving a child—allowed Star Wars to feel big again.

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Every Marvel Announcement From Disney's Investor Day 2020

This article originally appeared on Complex.com

Not content with the full slate of movies and Disney+ series they announced back in 2019, Marvel Studios took the (virtual) stage during Disney’s Investors Day to detail a lot more about the MCU’s future. While 2020 didn’t offer a single bit of new MCU content (thanks, COVID), Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige was quick to remind the public that there’s more coming very soon. And if that wasn’t enough, he brought a ton of shocking new information with him as well.

With added details to existing projects and shocking, brand new projects unveiled, the MCU’s future only looks to be bigger and bolder than what’s come before. To help you make sense of it all, we’ve dived deep into the news while also providing some comic book-based context about what fans can expect from these projects. Here’s everything you need to know about the future of Marvel.

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Every 'Star Wars'-Related Announcement From Disney Investor Day 2020

This article originally appeared on Complex.com

Rumors and speculation had Star Wars fans primed to anticipate some news from Disney’s Investor Day press conference last night. Still, even the most ardent fans couldn’t have expected all the news that broke. In addition to providing new information on previous announcements series, LucasFilm announced five brand new Star Wars-related Disney+ series and a new theatrical movie, charting the future of a galaxy far, far away.

The biggest takeaway seems to be that when it comes to Star Wars stories, not everything has to be about the Jedi. Many of these new projects are new genre shows wrapped up with a Star Wars bow. It’s a refreshing and bold new direction that finally seems to fulfill the promise of exploring a depth and breadth of different tales within this universe.

Below, you’ll find a breakdown of all the news. And, being the resident Star Wars nerd that I am, I couldn’t help but put all that lore to good use by speculating a bit about what we might see from each show once it debuts.

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What Warner Bros. Putting Their 2021 Film Slate on HBO Max Means for the Future of Moviegoing

This article originally appeared on Complex.com

Warner Brothers, which already announced that they would be releasing Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max and in theaters on Christmas Day, has responded to COVID-19 shutting down theaters with one swift action: declaring that their entire 2021 film slate would premiere on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously. This announcement was met with much shock; I know I had about six different chats going, all asking the same thing: is this the end of moviegoing as we know it?

It’s a question that comes with a loaded answer, honestly. On the one hand, this is the way of the world: for many of us, three-quarters of 2020 has been spent being unable to attend theaters due to COVID fears shutting down public spaces. This feels like a natural progression to a growing problem. However, this is a decision that doesn’t appear to be made solely based on the predicament studios are in due to cinemas being closed. It’s a lot to unpack, which is why I was glad when the homie William sent a note asking if I wanted to discuss this.

That said, here are some raw thoughts and opinions on what Warner Brothers releasing their 2021 film slate on HBO Max in conjunction with theaters might mean.

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The 4 Biggest Takeaways From 'The Mandalorian' Chapter 13: The Jedi

This article originally appeared on Complex.com

The Mandalorian’s sophomore season has continued to find ways to excite and surprise all kinds of Star Wars watchers, but the one thing diehard fans of the series have waited for is the appearance of Ahsoka Tano. Rumors around the character’s live-action debut started back in March of this year, with the news that Rosario Dawson would portray the Clone Wars protagonist. And, after much waiting, the speculation proved true as Ahsoka came to life in the latest episode of The Mandalorian called “The Jedi.”

Along with seeing Ahsoka interact alongside our beloved Mando (Pedro Pascal), audiences were given some monumental information—whether they knew it or not. If you’re an avid watcher of the Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels animated series, these juicy tidbits are a continuation of a long-promised story. But no worries if you haven’t seen a single episode of those two shows, as we’re here to breakdown what these big reveals might mean for the future of The Mandalorian.

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Unforgiven: A Timeline of Dave Chappelle's Falling-Out With ViacomCBS Over 'Chappelle's Show'

This article originally appeared on Complex.com

Dave Chappelle is a comedic, creative, and artistic force. He remains one of the only performers who when he speaks, everyone stops to listen. Nowhere was this better exhibited than in his Comedy Central sketch series, Chappelle’s Show, which ran from 2003 until he left the show in 2005. During this time, the show produced truly iconic sketches like Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories about Prince and Rick James, Clayton Bigsby, Wayne Brady’s Show, A Moment in the Life of Lil Jon, and more. The show became a massive hit for Comedy Central and firmly cemented Chappelle as one the artistic masters of the 21st first century—until he walked away from it all.

Chappelle’s Show is back in the news thanks to its recent return to streaming services. However, Chappelle himself is frustrated with the situation. On November 24, the comedian posted a video to his Instagram detailing his thoughts over the process in which his seminal series had been licensed out to various streaming platforms including Netflix, HBOMax, and CBS All Access. In the wake of this news Netflix—who Chappelle has worked with since 2016—has pulled the show from their service.

How did we get here? Chappelle’s frustrations with Comedy Central and its parent company ViacomCBS stretch back all the way into the early aughts. To provide a full and clear picture, we’ve assembled a timeline of events about Chappelle’s Show’s entire history and what came after the fallout. What you’ll see here still remains of Hollywood’s most interesting stories: how Chappelle had it all, walked away, and built something entirely new.

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Web Essentials: 5 Must-Read Miles Morales Spider-Man Stories

This article originally appeared on Complex.com

New comic book characters debut all the time, but few of them break out and capture the public’s heart as much as Miles Morales. Created by Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli in 2011 as part of the Ultimate Marvel imprint, Miles has transcended his comic origins to become the lead of his own animated movie (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and now a videogame (Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales) too.

According to then Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso, Marvel had plans to introduce a Black Spider-Man around the 2008 election of President Obama but delayed to find a more thoughtful and natural approach to presenting the character. The idea popped up again during the famous #DonaldforSpiderman Twitter campaign that sought to cast multi-hyphenate Donald Glover as Peter Parker in Sony’s cinematic Spider-Man reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. While Donald didn’t get the role, that didn’t stop Bendis from drawing inspiration from the campaign for the next phase of his run on the Ultimate Spider-Man title.

Marvel’s Ultimate imprint, originally started back in 2000, was a way to tell new and reimagined stories featuring classic Marvel characters. Divorced from decades of storytelling continuity, Ultimate Spider-Man was one of the line’s flagship titles for the innovative ways Bendis retold classic Spider-Man tales. However, change in comic books is commonplace, and imprint relaunches happen all the time. It provides publishers like Marvel with a new slate and allows a natural jumping-on point for new readers. In the wake of the Ultimate imprint event Fallout and the Death of Spider-Man, the Ultimate Marvel Universe version of Peter Parker died, leaving the world without a Spider-Man. Bendis used this opportunity to finally introduce Miles to the world. The character instantly resonated, bringing a whole new level of excitement to the Ultimate line.

With the release of Spider-Man: Miles Morales, we’re taking a look at Miles’ comic book origins and recommending five essential reads for those who can’t get enough of this truly amazing character. From the character’s earliest days to his latest ongoing adventures and plenty of dimensional travel in between, there’s a story for every fan of Miles.

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'Mank' is a Return to Form for David Fincher

This article originally appeared on Complex.com

"It isn't enough to tell us what a man did. You've got to tell us who he was.” This quote from 1941’s Citizen Kane smartly understands what makes for compelling writing and filmmaking, and it’s one of the strengths of Mank—David Fincher’s latest film and his first since 2014’s Gone Girl. Set for a limited theatrical run on November 13 before dropping December 4 on Netflix, this long-awaited return is cause enough to celebrate. But cinephiles have cause for great excitement, as The Social Network director turns his masterful lens to Old Hollywood. Mank charts the story of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, or Mank for short, and his journey to pen Citizen Kane for master filmmaker Orson Welles. Yes, the movie is a biopic—one that might be most relevant to Turner Classic Movie viewers and Criterion Channel subscribers. But Mank is also a David Fincher project, which means the entire endeavor has its individual pieces elevated into a more substantial, compelling whole.

Mank sets its gaze on the 60 days in which the titular writer (Gary Oldman) finds himself tasked with scripting Welles’ (Tom Burke) sprawling epic. Welles and producer John Houseman (Sam Troughton) sequester a recently-injured Mank on a quiet desert ranch outside of Los Angeles to ensure he follows through. German nurse Freda (Monika Grossman) and British typist Rita Alexander (Lily Collins) attend to the writer as he works. As the script comes together, the movie uses flashbacks—a direct homage to the narrative structure of Citizen Kane—to revisit his time writing for famed Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. These moments offer a window into Old Hollywood and its denizens, including authoritative MGM head Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard) as well as Mank’s frequent intersections with newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and his wife Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried). Viewers of Citizen Kane will know Mank drew from his time with Hearst and Davies to inform the movie’s overall story and main characters.

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