Emma Stefansky

Even though the story was more or less wrapped up at the end of The Purge: Election Year, we should probably get used to these movies, much like the Purge itself, happening about once a year. James DeMonaco, creator of the franchise and director of all three, will be back writing the screenplay and working closely with Universal to find a director for the fourth.

Split marked quite a comeback for a director whose name has lately been synonymous with huge disappointments. But by contrast, Split is a slick, thrilling superhero movie, and one of Shyamalan’s best in years. It’s still making waves at the box office and, riding off its success, the director already has a sequel planned that’s actually more like the third in a trilogy. If you haven’s seen Split yet, be aware that there are pretty major SPOILERS for the end of the movie from here on out.

Doctor Strange is the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature the kind of mind-bending magic absent from most other films in the Avengers series. The Thor movies tend to demur and call their magic science, but Doctor Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, and as such has powers so great they allow him to bend time and space. The bad news is his enemies can do the same, not to mention summon demons from other dimensions that require blood sacrifices.

Found-footage horror has always been pretty hit-or-miss: for every Blair Witch Project there’s a Last Exorcism. Most of the time, it’s the low-budget efforts that succeed in utilizing the style’s greatest strengths, so it’s not surprising that Paranormal Activity, made on a budget of $15,000, became a global phenomenon. The sequels are what they are, but the first movie is still chilling to this day, in part because of its two leads, who act in such a way that it’s easy to believe it’s all real.

Unbeatable entertainer Debbie Reynolds, star of Singin’ in the Rain and mother to Carrie Fisher, has died at the age of 84 after suffering a stroke earlier on Wednesday.

Michael Giacchino recently inherited scoring duties for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story after Alexandre Desplat had to bow out over scheduling conflicts — so recently, in fact, that he only had a month to compose the soundtrack for the whole movie. He’s been on a pretty successful tear though a bunch of franchises: he provided the music for Doctor Strange, the Star Trek revivals, and the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, so he sounded like a good fit for the Star Wars universe too when we heard he’d been hired on. Today, we got our first listen at some of the new pieces, and they’re perfect.

Remember how there’s going to be another xXx movie? Remember how the trailer has Vin Diesel skiing through a jungle? Remember how it’s going to be awesome? Well, in case you forgot it was happening, Paramount released a dozen new character posters for xXx: Return of Xander Cage’s ridiculously large cast.

The universe that Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg created with 1993’s Jurassic Park is a world ripe with all kinds of possibilities. What would a world in which the resurrection of extinct species is a reality be like? Can an ostensibly foolproof system of controlling these creatures and making sure they don’t escape their enclosures really work? (No.) Does life, uh, find a way? (Yes.) This summer’s Jurassic World chose to tell a simpler, more action-y tale than its predecessors, but from what Colin Trevorrow has said about its sequel, Jurassic World 2 will take a more nuanced approach to the possibilities of genetically resurrected dinosaurs.

Been wondering what Idris Elba and Richard Madden have been up to lately? Apparently, stopping a terrorist attack in the action-packed thriller The Take, which is unrelated to Tom Hardy’s British miniseries The Take, or the 2007 movie The Take starring John Leguziamo and Tyrese Gibson. In fact, this The Take was originally titled Bastille Day, but because of the attacks in Nice, France, the film has a new title for its release over here.

Along with some tidbits of new shows and movies coming to us all in the next year, NYCC has also gifted us all with an extended look at Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, the sixth and last installment in the franchise that has so far given us five different ways to end the world...