Month: October 2026

What is, for you, the worst Marvel movie? Not from Marvel Studios, but based on a comic from the company. Maybe The Trial of the Incredible Hulk? Maybe the Ghost Rider sequel? Could it be Fantastic Four? Or the legendary Morbius? I know the answer: it’s the only one I haven’t even been interested in watching. And that’s despite the fact that I sat through Madame Web! I’m talking, of course, about Kraven the Hunter, the last movie with which Sony tried to get its “Spider-Man Villains universe” off the ground without much luck and which proved that there was no superhero that could save this.

Hunting the little spider

With a budget of between $110 million and $130 million, the movie made only $62 million, making it a resounding flop. Now one of its stars, Christopher Abbott (who played the Foreigner, the villain of the piece, has said that he didn’t know what he was doing there: “Its director owes me one. I think I can say shit, no problem. I didn’t know what I was doing there. I didn’t understand what the superpower was, I didn’t know what was going on”. Ouch.

“Nobody had a good answer. I didn’t know what I was bringing to that thing. I’ve buried it deep. I adore Aaron, and Alessandro is my buddy, I liked the people. Everyone did great. I don’t know what I’m doing in that thing”. What’s more: he realized the thing wasn’t working while they were shooting: “At the time, I thought ‘I think this isn’t going well’”. So true.

Luckily, Abbott will have a second chance at Marvel as Professor X in the new X-Men, but at the time he accepted because it might be his only chance: “JC asked me to do it, and I’d never done a movie like that. I wanted to see how a project like this worked. It was interesting”. Luckily, his career won’t be defined by this failure. That’s something.

You can’t say that Nicolas Cage has stayed away from superhero movies. In fact, he’s played three different ones: Ghost Rider, in two live-action films; Superman, in a terrible cameo he didn’t even know he was going to appear in, parodying that movie he never got to make; and Spider-noir, both in the Miles Morales movies and in his own Amazon Prime Video series. Only the Marvel Cinematic Universe is left for him, but he’s made it very clear that he wants to slam that door shut tight.

Dark Thwip!

In a Q&A session with fans, Cage stressed that what the MCU is doing interests him very little, but it completely hooked him at first: “It started off, in my view, incredibly well. Some of the early stories were wonderful, how they tied everything together and told the different stories and character backstories”. At some point, of course, the love had to end.

“But lately, I say it with love, when I see more than 50 smart and talented thespians putting on those ridiculous suits and getting ready for the fight (let’s face it, it all comes down to the fight), it’s hard not to feel that the MCU is turning into a big-budget, glorified WWE match“. Call me perceptive, but I don’t think he’s been called for Avengers: Secret Wars.

Of course (what else would you expect?) his series is spared that criticism. “One of the things I liked about Spider-Noir is that it didn’t go straight to the fight. It was a detective story. There was mystery. And I’d like to go back to telling stories and not jump straight into the fight”. Personally, I think Cage hasn’t seen films like Thunderbolts, which could give him another perspective on the MCU beyond things like Captain America: Brave New World, which is exactly what he’s criticizing: a glorified WWE fight.

Who would’ve thought that more than 60 years after putting out an action figure destined to sell like hotcakes called G.I. Joe, we’d still be talking about the franchise? That’s right: after the toys, the comics, the 1983 series, the 1989 one, and the movies, both animated and live-action, now there’s a new chance to put it back in the spotlight thanks to none other than Bradley Cooper himself.

One hell of a war!

The film’s director will be Danny McBride, who’ll be making his first movie after scripting the last three Halloween installments or creating the TV series The Gemstones. For now we know little else, aside from the fact that Cooper, nominated for Oscars as an actor, producer, and director, will play Duke, the team’s leader.

Although at first this movie was going to be a crossover with Transformers after Rise of the Beasts ended, Paramount has decided to shelve the idea and do its own thing. Supposedly this will be a new version that’s more iconoclastic and less warlike, but there’s no way to know until it comes out. At first glance, G.I. Joe might seem like something already out of date, but the latest comics have put it back where it belongs.

The last time they tried to bring G.I. Joe back to life was in 2010, with the series Renegades, but after 26 episodes it ended in a very unceremonious way. Let’s hope this movie, which will mark the return to the Hasbro-verse, gives the franchise something to smile about again. It deserves it by now.

What? That the founder of an AI company sold to Netflix for $587 million used AI in his latest film? Well, I’ll be damned. Still, it’s surprising that Ben Affleck, the actor and director who first started making a name for himself with Good Will Hunting, which he wrote alongside Matt Damon, is now diving headfirst into letting “the little machine” do things. It is what it is, I guess.

Ben IAffleck

It’s not that Affleck has embraced AI: it’s that he already considers it indispensable for making something like Animals, a crime thriller coming to Netflix on October 9 and about a Los Angeles mayoral candidate who is kidnapped and will have to reveal his darker side to pay the ransom. I don’t really know why you’d use AI in a film that’s, on paper, so human, but we can’t judge before seeing it.

“I used AI for many things in that film. I’m a little afraid to show where or even talk about it because, in my business, we’re trying to maintain the illusion of reality. It’s like going to a magic show and the magician saying, ‘Before we start, I want you to know there’s another rabbit here’. It ruins it”. Well, maybe if you didn’t use it there wouldn’t be anything to ruin. You’re welcome for the little trick, Ben.

The actor, who isn’t worried about the anti-AI sentiment of much of the audience, says “Yes, we used it. And in fact, I thought it was a good example because it’s a very human film. It doesn’t take place in space, it doesn’t have visual effects, but it allowed us to move faster, especially in post-production, letting us do things we otherwise couldn’t“. You’ll never guess what Affleck’s AI company does. Anyway. Everything stays in-house.

Apple Stores around the world are getting ready. Several have received some intriguing confidential boxes that must remain sealed until next Thursday, October 8. As far as we know, we’re talking about a major revamp of the display areas, just as the possibility of a new Apple event focused on the home is gaining momentum.

Some boxes that line up a little too well with the timing

According to reports from MacRumors, the boxes would include display materials to update the labels, the graphics, and the general arrangement of the products. The date is, without a doubt, especially striking, since it comes just a few days before Apple’s possible October 13 event. The timing lines up very well with an event quickly followed by new products arriving in stores.

Rumors point to the standout product in this launch: the Apple Home Hub, a screen designed to become the center of our smart home. It could also be joined by a new Apple TV 4K and a second-generation HomePod mini, completing an major smart-home refresh.

The boxes could also be related to the iPhone Duo, on the other hand, and simply be the new product displays, but the secrecy surrounding them suggests there’s more to it. The smart home is the likeliest focus, especially especially considering that the arrival of Siri AI marks the start of Apple’s AI expanding throughout the home. If the dates line up, on Thursday we’ll see the first clues in Apple Stores.

Castlevania is a franchise that has evolved dramatically over time. Comparing the first Castlevania with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or with its 3D versions is absurd, because they’re very different games. Even if they all share a common spirit. What’s interesting about Castlevania isn’t that it’s a game that’s coherent in its mechanics or in what it does, but that it has an aesthetic, a spirit, and a way of doing things that has remained over forty years.

What remained to be seen was whether it would be possible to keep that when the one in charge of making a Castlevania was someone other than Konami, its original creators. And that’s something we’ve been able to confirm with the release of the demo for the next game in the franchise, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, which not only isn’t being made by Konami, but changes some elements that for many people are fundamental to 2D Castlevanias. All of it without ever ceasing to feel exactly like what Castlevania should be.

A game grounded in tradition

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is developed by Evil Empire and Motion Twin, the studios behind the celebrated roguelike Dead Cells. This is noticeable in the demo, especially in how the game’s protagonist, Rose Belmont, doesn’t even have the classic Belmont weapon, the whip. Armed with a sword and with a fireball spell, inherited from her mother in the form of tarot cards to complete, the game feels like a mix of Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Dead Cells.

From Super Castlevania IV it inherits two important aspects: mobility and the feeling of being a purer action game within Castlevania’s conventions. The first of these is especially noticeable when we get our first power, which is the whip itself. Once we do, we’ll be able to use it to grapple onto different kinds of rings and enemies, to move by swinging or hurling ourselves at full speed through the stage to reach places that until then were inaccessible. That makes the game tremendously satisfying.

This leads into the part closest to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The game is structured around an open map, where we’ll have to return to places we’ve already visited and take advantage of our new powers to access places that were previously inaccessible. And if that sounds like something typical of Metroidvanias, it’s because it is. But Symphony of the Night is one of the founding games of the genre, along with Metroid, and hence its name. And its clear inspiration.

But the influence of Symphony of the Night is also noticeable in the game’s more RPG side. As Rose’s levels and stats increase, if we get stuck somewhere we can always try leveling up before trying again. And with our spells having conditions to evolve and become more powerful versions of themselves, all of them conditional on actions we can perform simply by playing, it promises to create an interesting gameplay loop that helps smooth out any difficulty spikes.

Above all, an action game

Because the part where it most resembles Dead Cells is the part where it most resembles Super Castlevania IV. And it’s the part where the most people may end up feeling disappointed by the game. Which is the part where Silksong differs most from Hollow Knight. It’s a game with a great emphasis on being a pure, old-school action game, even if it has elements to try to ease the tension this can create.

Without blocks or dodges where we’re invulnerable, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse demands that when an enemy attacks us we not even be close to its attack. To that end, the game gives us tools that let us slide under their attacks, jump over them or, simply, move away from them, but at all times it makes one thing clear: there’s no button you can press to save yourself from an attack in this game. Spamming the attack button until the moment to press the defense button, in a test of reflexes, doesn’t work; we have to know which enemies to prioritize and which attacks we’re vulnerable to and when if we want to persevere.

This is especially evident in its first and only boss in the demo, very manageable when we know its attacks and act accordingly, but overwhelming when we don’t. That suggests that those who liked Silksong for its combat will adore Belmon’t Curse, but those who hated it for that same reason will hate it for exactly the same reasons. Even if, in a nod to the soulslike, they’ve introduced healing flasks that refill at mirrors where the game is saved… at the cost of making all the enemies you’ve defeated up to that point reappear.

With the demo available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC, any fan of Castlevania and roguelikes should try it. Because Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse has all the makings of being a strong candidate for GOTY even in a year packed with exceptional new releases. It’s going to cause debate and it’s probably not going to spark any less debate than Hollow Knight: Silksong, for exactly the same reasons, and one more: a lot of people are going to claim that it doesn’t really feel like Castlevania. But if there’s one thing we can state here and now, it’s that, even if Rose Belmont doesn’t end up wielding a whip throughout the whole game, we haven’t played a game that feels this much like Castlevania since 2008.