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The ornate collectable popcorn bucket is one of movie theaters’ go-to gimmicks to get butts in seats. Sure, they cost an arm and a leg often, but cinephiles will shell out for limited edition items. That’s how you get massive character heads or a sandworm of suggestive shape and orifice. At any rate, they’ve gotten bigger and more weirderer over the past few years as attendance to movie theaters has dwindled. Usually these will have something to do with the movie, but the first collectible popcorn bucket for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey isn’t Odysseus’ ship or the Trojan Horse or a Cyclops. No, it’s a big ol’ IMAX camera.IMAX

IMAX camera are big ol’ things in order to fit the double-sized 70mm film. Nolan has long championed IMAX as the best filming format for movies dating all the way back to 2008 with The Dark Knight. His movies do feel grandiose, and the frame size is a big part of that. However, I have to say, just a square box, even with the lens and a viewfinder, isn’t the most exciting of popcorn buckets. Real film snobs, however, will probably eat this up with a spoon. It’s also easily the most Christopher Nolan thing of all time. It’s not about the story it’s about C I N E M A.

RELATED ARTICLE

Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY Will Be R-Rated

Nolan’s previous film, Oppenheimer, won all the awards at the Oscars. Thanks to the Barbenheimer movement, ended up a huge box office hit as well. A Nolan movie will always draw a certain number of people to the theater, but recent tracking suggests a drop in interest following the most recent trailer. The movie cost a staggering $250 million, and with a near-three-hour runtime and an R rating, it’ll face a bit of an uphill climb, even for Mr. IMAX himself. Maybe a popcorn bucket will help make up the difference. In any case, this July’s box office will be an odyssey in and of itself.

The Odyssey hits theaters July 17.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post THE ODYSSEY Popcorn Bucket Is an IMAX Camera appeared first on Nerdist.

On Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released its interim final rule on Medicaid work requirements, mandating that everyone who seeks Medicaid support has to prove they are unable to work to a greater extent, even if they have already been diagnosed with a debilitating condition like sickle cell disease—and even if they are already on Medicaid.

Federal Medicaid work requirements are being implemented as part of President Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, a budget and spending bill which is also cutting nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid’s budget over the next decade.

In states with Medicaid expansion, an Affordable Care Act provision that allows more low-income people to access Medicaid, the legislation mandated that work requirements be implemented, but didn’t resolve certain details of how and who would be targeted—questions the Department of Health and Human Services has now answered in the most restrictive possible way. The Urban Institute estimates that between 4.9 and 10.1 million fewer people could be enrolled in Medicaid by 2028 as a result of work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. The interim final rule is likely to yield a figure at the high end of that estimate. Medicaid work requirements have to be implemented in all states with Medicaid expansion by January 1, 2027, though some Republican-led states have opted to do so ahead of schedule.

“Congress compelled states to impose Medicaid work requirements on the expansion population,” said University of Pittsburgh health policy and management professor Miranda Yaver, “but it wasn’t entirely clear from the legislation to what extent states’ hands were going to be tied…there were a lot of open questions about how much discretion there would have.”

Under the interim final rule, people with certain conditions who are already on Medicaid will no longer be automatically considered “medically frail,” a classification that exempts them from work requirements; they must provide further proof, beyond their diagnosis, that they are “greatly impaired” from working. The new federal rule is notably stricter than what was implemented in Nebraska, a GOP-dominated state that voluntarily enacted work requirements eight months before the deadline—but which at least retained a list of conditions considered automatically exempt from work requirements for those on Medicaid.

State officials were blindsided by this medical frailty definition outlined in the new federal rule, which was never brought up in discussions between states and the federal government, Jennifer Wagner, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities‘ director of Medicaid eligibility and enrollment, told me.

“We have heard that this was driven more by the White House,” Wagner said. “I don’t think it was CMS intentionally misleading states.”

While the federal interim rule is harsh, it is not final: there is a 60-day public comment period, after which states have until the end of the calendar year to implement (or, in Nebraska’s case, modify) their Medicaid work requirements.

“It’s going to be very costly in terms of time as well as money,” Wagner said, “and, realistically, states are not going to be able to do this accurately by January 1.”

There is no way to implement Medicaid work requirements without disabled and chronically ill people losing their access to the program, despite the claims of Republican politicians like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.).

“There are going to be so many disabled people and chronically ill people who lose access to their health care and other kinds of supports that Medicaid provides,” said Maria Town, the President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Town is also extremely concerned that Medicaid-supported employment for disabled people is not considered to be meaningful “community engagement,” another stipulation for Medicaid coverage under the new rule. “It’s just a way of saying that disabled people’s labor shouldn’t be compensated,” Town told me.

The new administrative burdens will push people off of Medicaid, as when Medicaid work requirements were implemented in Arkansas during the first Trump administration, leading to 18,000 people losing Medicaid coverage in the state.

“People who had lost Medicaid benefits were worse off—they were more likely to have medical debt and have delayed important healthcare due to concerns about cost,” University of Colorado, Boulder economics professor Chloe East said in an interview.

Yaver, of the University of Pittsburgh, is also concerned that places that serve more Medicaid patients, like federally qualified health centers, will not be able to keep up with paperwork requirements to prove medical frailty.

“Writing attestations of medical frailty would almost assuredly fall under the umbrella of non-billable hours,” Yaver told me, “and this is going to be a large share of their patient population.”

Not only do Medicaid work requirements not increase employment, according to multiple studies, but a majority of adults on Medicaid already work.

“It’s hard not to think that the cruelty of the policy is the point,” East said. “Adding work requirements to Medicaid is part of a massive shift in our safety net in this country under this administration to make it as small and hard to access as possible.”

On August 19, Startup Battlefield is returning to Sydney in partnership with Stripe, one of the world's most iconic technology companies. We're taking over Stripe Tour Sydney for a night that the Australian startup ecosystem won't forget.

Days after the state’s primary, California voters are in a familiar position – waiting to find out which candidates will go on to the general election in their most high-profile races, for governor and Los Angeles mayor.

It’s not surprising those have yet to be resolved, along with several closely contested congressional races, because the state routinely takes days, or even weeks, to fully tally races. Nor is it unusual for President Donald Trump to complain about the pace of the count and allege fraud, as he did Thursday. It’s something he’s done repeatedly in the past.

What was unusual was that Trump announced that his Department of Justice was investigating the count: “Why the vote counting DELAY???,” the president posted on his social media account.

He suggested that the state’s Democrats were somehow cheating so two candidates he favors — Republican Steve Hilton in the governor’s race and Spencer Pratt in the nonpartisan mayor’s race — would be bumped from the top two slots and therefore ineligible for the November general election.

“You see what’s happening in California, they’re rigging the election,” he told reporters during an Oval Office gathering Thursday.

Trump’s posts prompted a response from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose press office posted a clip of a CNN video explaining how the nation’s most populous state prioritizes accuracy and accessibility over speed, drawing out the count.

“For the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too,” Newsom’s office posted.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles declined to comment about whether it was investigating the ballot counting.

Slow count designed to ensure accuracy, but opens door to election lies

The law in California practically mandates a drawn-out count. Ballots are mailed to every eligible voter — some 23 million of them — and the state has permissive rules for returning them. They will be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at an election office within seven days.

Only after the polls have closed and most of the country has gone to sleep can local election workers begin the lengthy process of verifying the legitimacy of the late-arriving mail ballots and then start to tabulate them.

If a voters’ signature on the ballot envelope doesn’t match what’s on file, election officials are required to give those voters a chance to come in and prove their identity so the ballot will count, delaying a final tally further.

County Clerk Tricia Webber (right) training election officials at the county government building Tuesday. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

“We might not like how California administers its elections (and I don’t),” wrote Stephen Richer a former Republican election official in Maricopa County, Arizona, on the social platform X. “But that doesn’t make it fraud.”

Last year, Newsom signed a bill requiring the vote count to be completed within 13 days, rather than the previous 30 days. To get an extension, counties must inform the Secretary of State’s Office that they have a reason for a delay.

That’s not quick enough for the president: “The Dumocrats are at it again!” the president wrote on his social media platform. “They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.”

State Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Democrat who wrote the bill to accelerate ballot counting, said Trump’s comments were disappointing and “a lie.”

“While Trump is laser focused on lying about our elections and undermining voters’ faith in our democracy, so that Republicans can then try to pass policies like Voter ID laws that make it harder for people to vote, our priority is to make sure that every validly cast ballot is counted,” he said in a statement.

Many Democratic voters waited until the last minute to cast their ballot

Some experts warned that the count from Tuesday’s primary might take even longer than after previous elections.

“What compounds things this time around is that Democrats have been holding on to their ballots,” said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor.

The state’s millions of Democrats this year were exceptionally slow to send in their ballots, apparently waiting until the last minute to make a selection in the ever-evolving governor’s race. The state operates a primary in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, move on to the general election, and Democrats had been fretting for months that having so many Democrats in the race would splinter the vote in such a way that two Republicans would claim the top two spots.

Democratic voters appeared to wait until the end to see which of their candidates were emerging as favorites. The high number of late ballots will likely make the delay in getting final counts even greater.

While millions of ballots have been counted by now, it’s the uncounted ones that loom largest for close races.

Despite being an overwhelmingly Democratic state, California has featured some of the nation’s closest congressional elections, sometimes decided by just a few hundred votes, so there’s often no way to determine a winner until the weekslong ballot count has concluded. In 2024, one House race wasn’t called until December.

Things get even more complicated in a primary election, such as Tuesday’s. That’s because the news isn’t just the top vote-getter but also the second place finisher. To know the true outcome of any race, enough votes need to be tallied to know for certain who finished in first and second.

Later ballots skew toward Democrats, feeding conspiracy theories

Another side effect of the enormous crush of late mail ballots that get tallied last is that the final vote gets more and more Democratic. That’s because Republicans are more likely to return their ballots early or vote in person, on Election Day. Those ballots get counted first.

The gradual shifting of the vote to Democrats as ballot counting goes on has sparked all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Republicans have long complained about the California count, even though the GOP did well in close House races in the state in 2024. The Republican National Committee filed lawsuits in other states challenging the legality of counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day and the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on the issue sometime this month.

But worries about the California vote count aren’t only a partisan issue. Voting advocates have urged state lawmakers to better fund local election offices so they can process the avalanche of late-arriving ballots faster.

“The Legislature needs to throw a lot more money to get the count quicker,” Hasen said.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

The post California’s slow ballot count makes it a target for critics; it doesn’t mean elections are rigged appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

President Donald Trump’s name is set to be removed from the facade of the iconic Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, restoring an American treasure to its rightful condition. The office for the center’s general counsel circulated a memo to staffers on Thursday, ordering them to remove Trump’s name after a judge ruled against the administration late last week. The Kennedy Center was named…

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The Legend of Vox Machina stars Laura Bailey (Vex’ahlia), Liam O’Brien (Vax’ildan), Taliesin Jaffe (Percy), and Sam Riegel (Scanlan) sit down with Dan Casey to talk the show’s penultimate season, Wayne Brady’s show stealing new character Taryon, and whether season 4 will be Vox Machina’s Empire Strikes Back!

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The post Will Season 4 Be VOX MACHINA’s Empire Strikes Back? appeared first on Nerdist.

Consider supporting my work so I can continue creating it: Substack: https://nickanderson.substack.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/editorialcartoons Ko-Fi: https://www.patreon.com/c/editorialcartoonsCartoon Related | Judge says Kennedy Center board broke law putting Trump’s name on building…

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There have always been a few totems one can rely on in a Trump administration: corruption, mediocre thinking, and a Cabinet filled with stooges who always look terrible when they are forced to answer simple questions about their actions. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s appearance before the House Armed Services Committee began poorly and got worse as Democrats pressed him for…

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In a letter to the editor, a reader laments the loss of apple trees in the Pajaro Valley.

Meta may have one found one way to slash its massive data center bill: tents.

Poke, the startup that lets people use AI agents through simple text messages, has become the first AI agent approved for Apple’s Messages for Business platform.

The next threat your server faces may have been helped along by a bot. OpenAI's Codex agent helped uncover a remote denial-of-service (DoS) exploit that can be launched from a single machine to render vulnerable web servers inaccessible in seconds, according to Calif security researchers. The attack works on default HTTP/2 configurations of major web servers including nginx, Apache HTTP Server, Microsoft IIS, Envoy, and Cloudflare Pingora. As of Thursday, Microsoft IIS and Cloudflare Pingora still don’t have a patch, according to the researchers, although Cloudflare disputes this finding. “Cloudflare's existing architecture and DDoS mitigations automatically detect and protect against this attack, making customers resilient to this vulnerability,” a spokesperson told The Register. “No patch is needed.” “We are aware and actively investigating appropriate mitigations to help keep customers protected," a Microsoft spokesperson told The Register. Calif researcher Quang Luong discovered the exploit, named it HTTP/2 Bomb, and will present the full technical details of the attack at the Real World AI Security conference later this month. In the meantime, there are proof-of-concept exploit scripts on GitHub along with a warning from the AI red teaming security shop: “Please don't point these at infrastructure you don't own.” In a Tuesday blog, Luong says Codex chained two existing DoS attack techniques that have been known for more than a decade - HPACK compression bomb and Slowloris-style hold - and warns that upwards of 880,000 websites supporting HTTP/2 and running one of the vulnerable web servers may be affected. An HPACK bomb attack (also known as CVE-2016-6581) exploits the HTTP/2 header compression algorithm (HPACK) by sending thousands of tiny messages to the server, forcing it to rapidly allocate memory and ultimately crash. Then the Slowloris DoS attack (CVE-2016-8740 and CVE-2016-1546) overwhelms the server by opening legitimate connections and maintaining them as long as possible. Combining the two exhausts the server’s memory and forces it offline. “A home computer on a 100Mbps connection can render a vulnerable server inaccessible within seconds,” Luong wrote. “Against Apache httpd and Envoy, a single client can consume and hold 32GB of server memory in roughly 20 seconds.” The Calif research team disclosed the issue to nginx in April, and the web server’s maintainers fixed it the next day in version 1.29.8, which imports the max_headers directive from freenginx. Apache issued a fix (mod_http2 v2.0.41) the same day that Calif submitted its report, and assigned it CVE-2026-49975. “The fix commits above are public and disclose the vectors directly; any capable AI model can turn those diffs into a working exploit, which is exactly how we found that Microsoft IIS, Envoy, and Pingora are also vulnerable,” the threat hunting team wrote, adding that all three have been notified. In a Wednesday update, Calif pointed to Envoy patches “that appear to mitigate this attack,” and notes that its researchers are still validating the fix to ensure it works. For Microsoft IIS and Cloudflare Pingora, the security sleuths recommend disabling HTTP/2 if possible, or enforcing a cap on the number of HTTP headers a client can send in a single request to the server. The fact that a coding agent - not a human - discovered this attack is notable, according to Calif. “Both halves have been public for a decade,” Luong wrote. “What Codex did was read the codebases, recognize that the two compose, and build the combined attack. That combination is obvious once you see it, and yet as far as we can tell no human had put it together against these servers.” ®

On Saturday, Santa Cruz VegFest returns to the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville. This festival celebrates a plant-based, cruelty-free lifestyle with vegan food and drinks, vendors, crafts and more. Entry is $5. I’m excited to lead a behind-the-scenes tasting tour with 12 Lookout members to five vendors: Areperia 831, The Buzz Sushi & Market, Hole Foods Vegan Donuts, Samba Rock Acai Café and Santa Cruz Cider Co.  – Lily Belli

Here are more local events you might be interested in this weekend:

Thursday, June 4

• Crow’s Nest beach BBQ party and concerts | 5 p.m. @ Santa Cruz Harbor | Free
• Afrobeats Nite Santa Cruz | 6 p.m. @ Woodhouse Blending & Brewing | Free
• Santa Cruz Works New Tech | 6 p.m. @ RiverRow | $15-$25

Friday, June 5

• Kids Makers Fair and Wild Critter Art Exhibit | 5 p.m. @ Tannery Arts Center | Free
• Midtown Friday Summer Block Party | 5 p.m. @ 1111 Soquel Ave. | Free
• Pride First Friday at Santa Cruz Hostel | 5 p.m. @ Santa Cruz Hostel | Free
• Vine to View Winemaker’s Dinner Series | 6:30 p.m. @ Chaminade Resort & Spa | $155
• “Carmina Burana”: 130 musicians under the stars | 7 p.m. @ Quarry Amphitheater | $10-$57
• “Paris Is Burning” film screening | 7 p.m. @ The 418 Project | $10-$15

Saturday, June 6

• Private VegFest Tasting Tour with Lookout’s Lily Belli | 10 a.m. @ Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds | $10-$20
• Ben Lomond Village Market | 10 a.m. @ Ben Lomond County Park | Free
• Santa Cruz VegFest | 11 a.m. @ Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds | $5-$10
• Life on the Ranch: A Living History Event | 11 a.m. @ Wilder Ranch State Park | Free
• Culinary Lavender Harvest Workshop & Wine With Cottage Lunch | 11 a.m. @ Roberts Ranch Vineyards | $80
• Bicycle Film Festival | 3 p.m. @ Colligan Theater at the Tannery Arts Center | $22-$35
• Outstanding in the Field: Happy Valley Farm | 4 p.m. @ Happy Valley Farm | $390
• Queerlantis 2026 | 4 p.m. @ Santa Cruz Veterans Memorial Building | $33.85
• UCSC Jazz Big Band | 7 p.m. @ Music Recital Hall | $12
• Dance or Die: A Drag Rave Hotter Than Hell! | 9 p.m. @ The Catalyst | $28.72

Sunday, June 7

• Corralitos Farm and Garden Market | 11 a.m. @ 127 Hames Rd. | Free
• Singles Mixer Ages 30-45 (Western Edition) | 2 p.m. @ Laughing Monk Brewing and Gastropub | $23.18
• Santa Cruz Pride Parade and Festival – 51st Year | 11 a.m. @ Downtown Santa Cruz | Free
• Pride @ the MAH: Free Art Activity | 1 p.m. @ Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History | Free
• Dueling Pianos-Santa Cruz | 2 p.m. @ Santa Cruz County Veterans Memorial Building
• Endless Pride Pool Party | 2 p.m. @ Hotel Paradox | $65.87

Add an event to our calendar

The post Best of Santa Cruz County entertainment, arts & food events this weekend, June 4-7 appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is one of the most highly-anticipated films coming this summer. Fans are already waiting in long online queues to grab tickets for it, which is very understandable. Nolan is one of the great filmmakers of our time, and he has assembled a truly all-star cast to tell this epic and enduring tale. While we knew that battles would be a part of its story, it might get a lot more bloody than we imagined. According to Variety, the Motion Picture Association has given The Odyssey will be rated R.Universal Pictures

That’s kind of wild for a summer blockbuster type film. Usually, it’s something that can be a family affair with a wide ranging audience. We were expecting something closer to perhaps PG-13 for some language, violence, and perhaps dashes of sexuality. It is not clear exactly why The Odyssey is R-rated at this time, but we are assuming those elements are amplified.

RELATED ARTICLE

Christopher Nolan Says THE ODYSSEY Was the Marvel of Its Time

And, to be honest, we aren’t sure that too many kids would want to see The Odyssey anyway. They’d be more into Tom Holland’s other film…ahh, what is it called? Something about a spider person and another day. (We’re kidding, obviously.) 

But if anyone can make a summer hit that’s R-rated, it is Mr. Nolan. We all remember the Barbenheimer craze that took us from Barbie’s house to World War II. Let’s see what he will do with Homer’s epic this summer.

The post Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY Will Be R-Rated appeared first on Nerdist.

Fusion startup Helion is racing to complete a power plant for Microsoft by 2028. A fresh infusion of cash should help with that.

Maybe I’m leaning too much into The Discourse, but here’s this mind-boggling thing happening on the internet with the internet’s latest supervillian. Mackenzie Shirilla is the—star? protagonist?—of a new documentary on Netflix about a deadly 2022 car wreck that claimed the lives of her boyfriend Dominic Russo and his friend Davion Flanagan. Shirilla, the driver, was eventually sentenced to two consecutive life terms in an Ohio women’s prison after a judge ruled that she deliberately drove her 2018 Toyota Camry directly into a brick wall at more than 90 miles per hour.

While the case had previously been covered on HBO’s Mean Girl Murders and and Hulu’s Killer Cases, its May 15 Netflix release catapulted it to stratospheric new levels of public awareness. It’s not hard to see why. The whole thing is true crime catnip: Shirilla comes off as an entitled wanna-be influencer with a massive internet footprint, overly permissive parents, and a contentious romantic relationship history with Russo, 20, who showers her with designer gifts paid for, apparently in cash, with money from “crypto investments.” The entire friend group is portrayed as Sam Levinson’s Euphoria come to life, where everybody involved is privileged, addicted to weed or mushrooms, and bored.

In one clip that’s since gone viral, Shirilla’s mother, Natalie, addresses the court at her daughter’s sentencing and all but shrugs away Davion Flanagan’s death by saying, “he was a new friend.”

@wreeccked

Mackenzie Shirillas mother takes the stand and judge gives her comments about what she has to say! #mackenzieshirilla #crimetoks #fyp #bodycam #foryoupage

♬ original sound – CrimeWatch

YouTube and TikTok Nation are activated. Countless prison phone calls between Mackenzie and her mother have been released online, each signaling some new element of the case: her prison romances, her lack of remorse, her glee at the film’s popularity, her hope that Kim Kardashian takes on her case. She’s alleged to have sugar daddies putting money on her books, prison godmothers watching out for her on the yard, a lucrative but undisclosed prison business, a waist trainer. Sleuths have tracked down her high school disciplinary records. Her father, Steve Shirilla, was suspended from his job as a digital media teacher at a local Catholic high school over his comments in the film about being happy his daughter smoked weed “instead of shooting up.” It’s been reported that he won’t return.

The only redeeming person in the whole thing seems to be Davion’s adopted father, Steve Flanagan, who is portrayed as the film’s moral center. But even he seems, perhaps understandably, lost in bloodthirsty vengeance. Eventually he reflects on people’s capacity to change, and his hope that Mackenzie’s parents learn to hold her accountable. As for an appropriate punishment? He wants his son’s life to have concrete value, he says about the prospect of the judge issuing a sentence of either of at least 15 years to life.

“If that were 30, I’d be happier with that,” he says.

As a culture, we’ve been to this place before. It was called the 1990s and it was not particularly fun for whole swaths of people who were young, poor, or of color. Prison populations soared, communities were wrecked, and most of the damage was underwritten by salacious coverage of crimes perpetrated by young people whom judges and the media wrote off as irredeemable.

For a small pocket of time, just before and during the pandemic, we seemed ready to reckon with damage wrought by those punitive impulses. The Supreme Court even ruled that sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Shirilla, at least, will be eligible for parole—in 2037. But at sentencing, in August of 2023, Judge Nancy Russo (no relation to Dominic) didn’t seem optimistic. “I understand that the pain in this room wants me to impose the harshest sentence,” Russo said. “But I don’t believe that would be the appropriate sentence because I do believe that Mackenzie will not be out in 15 years.”

So, in other words, it’s not worth sentencing Shirilla to the maximum because she’s…probably going to wind up serving most of it anyway?

Likability is not a pre-requisite for freedom. The frenzy over this film shows that we have learned nothing from the hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed by an overzealous punishment system egged on by pop culture. We’re now hurtling dangerously toward a new nadir, one where the tough-on-crime tactics of the ’90s gets recast, its razor-sharp edges sanded down with the help of a new filter.

James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU is officially off and running. We have movies and TV shows to look forward for the foreseeable future after a great initial push. Creature Commandos is already streaming on Max. Superman hit cinemas in July and was a big success, while Peacemaker season two just wrapped in October. Now we know when the franchise’s next television installment will arrive. After getting delayed earlier this year, Gunn announced Lanterns will debut on August 16, just one month after Supergirl hits theaters. And unlike the show’s trailer, the image he used to share this news includes a whole lot of green.

Beware my power, Green Lantern's light. #Lanterns premieres August 16 on @hbomax.bsky.social.

— James Gunn (@jamesgunn.bsky.social) 2026-04-30T15:00:05.389Z

A new short date teaser also dropped to amp fans up for Lanterns release:

In brightest day, in blackest night. #Lanterns premieres August 16 on @hbomax. pic.twitter.com/5kaOKbY4Rl

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) June 4, 2026

What can we expect from the show when it does premiere? Here’s everything we know so far about Lanterns.

HBOTitle

The title of the series is simply Lanterns. The green is implied, I guess.

DC StudiosLanterns Plot

In his initial video announcing the DC Studios slate, James Gunn described the show John Stewart and Hal Jordan investigating a “terrifying mystery” that has huge ties to the entire franchise. He likened the “Earthbound” story to True Detective.

Later descriptions include a fuller look at the plot. “Lanterns follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.”

In a new trailer for its 2026 shows, HBO revealed its first clips from Lanterns. It highlighted how nutty Hal Jordan is. It also showed the Green Lantern ring.

First teaser for DC’s ‘LANTERNS’

Releasing in 2026 on HBO. pic.twitter.com/2VOexWIOWn

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) December 12, 2025

The series full trailer proved Gunn’s description was very accurate.

Behind the Scenes

Ozark showrunner and True Detective: Night Country producer Chris Mundy will serve as Lanterns‘ showrunner. Mundy along with comic writer Tom King (Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow) and Damon Lindelof (Lost, Watchmen) have written the series pilot and bible.

James Gunn and Peter Safran said of the announcement: “We’re thrilled to bring this seminal DC title to HBO with Chris, Damon and Tom at the helm. John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU we’re launching next summer with Superman.”

“When we first started the DCU, the first couple of weeks of heading this out, we got together with a group of writers, and Tom King was one of those writers, and we were in this room, and we came up with sort of this concept for Lanterns. It’s a much more it’s a very grounded series, a very real series, which is a strange thing to say about a Green Lanterns show. But it’s going to be something like nobody’s ever seen before.”

James Hawes, director of series like Doctor Who, Penny Dreadful, and Black Mirror, will direct the the first two episodes of Lanterns. He, along with the writers above, will serve as executive producers.

Taking to social media, James Gunn revealed a first-look image from Lanterns. And in it, we get our first look at Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern Ring. Additionally, we see Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart together for the first time.

John P. Johnson/HBO

Gunn notes in his post, “Excited that #Lanterns is now in production. DC Studios’ new show for HBO and Max, from creators Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, & Tom King, starring Kyle Chandler & Aaron Pierre, is something really special.”

John P. Johnson/HBO

Filming is expected to take place from January to June 2025.

Lanterns‘ CastNBC/DC Comics

The series will focus on the veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan working a case with rookie GL John Stewart. In order to play these roles, DC would need some heavy hitters. And heavy hitters they got! Kyle Chandler (Bloodline, Friday Night Lights) plays Hal Jordan.

To play the role of John Stewart, DC cast Aaron Pierre. Pierre had a big 2025 with both the Netflix thriller Rebel Ridge and as the titular voice in Disney’s not-live-action live action film Mufasa.

“Aaron Pierre is somebody who I’ve wanted to work together with for a long time,” said James Gunn during an NYCC panel. “People don’t know, but he was almost cast as Adam Warlock. He’s an amazing actor, and I just really admired him from the beginning of his career. Seeing him read with Kyle was one of those miraculous moments. I don’t care what they’re saying, I just love what they’re saying together.”

Max PR/Warner Bros Animation

Boardwalk Empire‘s Kelly Macdonald also joins Lanterns as “Sheriff Kerry, a no-nonsense woman deeply devoted to her family and close-knit town. Her resilience, shaped by a complex past that’s hardened her resolve, anchors her when the community’s secrets begin to surface.” According to Deadline, Kelly Macdonald’s character may also “be a potential love interest for Chandler’s Hal Jordan.” Very interesting.

Additionally, Jason Ritter joins Lanterns as Billy Macon. The official description for this character notes, “Billy Macon is a good-looking charmer who does his father’s bidding. Capitalizing on his family’s reputation, he clings to his small-town ego and has everything to lose.” Ulrich Thomsen will play villain Sinestro.

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LANTERNS Casts Sinestro, Danish Actor Ulrich Thomsen Will Play Iconic DC Villain

Finally, Deadline revealed that J. Alphonse Nicholson, known for his role on P-Valley, will have a recurring role as a younger John, Sr. in the series. Sherman Augustus will have a more regular role as the the current John, Sr.

Lanterns‘ Release Date

Lanterns will debut on August 16, just a month after Supergirl and a couple of months before Clayface.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

Originally published on December 30, 2024.

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House of the Dragon‘s third season hasn’t even debuted yet, but showrunner Ryan Condal is already working on the prequel series’ fourth and final season. What will it look like as his story upwinds? Will we see a quiet end to the explosve Dance of the Dragons? Absolutely not. He plans to go out with more fire and blood than Westeros has ever seen before. He says the plan is for the show’s last year to be the most ambitious and “massive” season yet.Warner Bros. Discovery

Condal spoke to Deadline as part of HBO’s promotion for House of the Dragon‘s upcoming third season. We knew the show would finally deliver the Battle of the Gullet when it returns, and it will be truly epic. He called the 25-minute sequence, which will occur in season three’s first episode, as “arguably the craziest episode of television ever made.” That’s important context for what he said about the eventual fourth and final season currently being written.

Condal said the last year will have both a “pretty similar cadence” and number of episodes to previous season. It’s the scope that will be even bigger. He said “the ambition” and writing for the last chapter of the story is “massive.” So long as the tricky weather in London cooperates, Condal says season four will be “the biggest season we have made, for sure.”

HBO

The show’s end will also likely be his last in Westeros. While the showrunner said “anything is possible,” he thinks he’s said what he wanted in the Realm. That might also be why he wants to go out not just big, but bigger than ever.

That kind of goal is always exciting to hear about any show. It’s especially true for one full of fire-breathing dragons. But fans will really appreciate just how big season four might be after they see the Battle of the Gullet.

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It’s no secret that we are massive LEGO fans at Nerdist. Those colorful bricks were a major part of our childhoods that we carried into our nerdy adult years. Over those years, LEGO has increasingly intersected with a few of our favorite fandom-driven franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, DC, and Sonic the Hedgehog. Now, its latest innovation and fandom collaboration is making us fall even deeper in love with LEGO. We were among a few lucky media attendees at a demo event and showcase in London, England for LEGO Pokémon’s upcoming SMART Play sets that allow kids and kids-at-heart to become real-life trainers. Here’s what we learned there that we want to share with you. LEGO/The Pokémon CompanyWhy LEGO and Pokémon Are Joining Forces 

Unsurprisingly to us, there’s a huge crossover between LEGO and Pokémon fans. In fact,  LEGO Chief Product & Marketing Officer Julia Goldin confirmed during the opening presentation that 80% of LEGO fans also love Pokémon. They both have the same multi-generational impact and appeal. Many Pokémon fans have played games, watched shows, traded cards, and much more to feel immersed in that world. But, what would it be like to actually have Pokémon in your possession and be able to catch ‘em, train ‘em, and take ‘em to epic battles? That’s where the LEGO Pokémon SMART play sets come into play. 

We will get more into the specific sets later, but for now, let’s go into exactly what SMART play technology is and what it allows you to do.

LEGO/The Pokémon CompanyHow SMART Play Brings Pokémon’s Famed Characters to Life 

The interactive elements of LEGO’s Pokémon sets are driven by SMART bricks, which are chargeable bricks that you can snap onto characters or other parts of a set, like a car. There are designated SMART tags that the brick reads information from and then brings it to life in a universe accurate sense. For example, when you attach a SMART brick to Pikachu, we hear him make his signature sounds and even an electric charging sound when you move him around during play. 

The SMART brick allows you to train a character by striking targets, whether those in a set or pretty much anything, like a wall, to make them more powerful. Of course, there are Pokémon who are naturally stronger than others but we all know that training truly makes the difference! And, when it is time for battle, all you have to do is bring your Pokémon close to another one, give it a shake, and music will play to get things going. Then, you can fast strike each other or perhaps power up for a stronger move. 

Battling aside, SMART play tech allows you to have some adorable fun with your LEGO Pokémon. You can feed it and even give it a little tickle, which leads to some truly adorable and funny results. It is truly as close to having your own Pokémon as you can possibly get. We learned that you can get up to 45 minutes of vigorous and continuous play from a SMART brick. And, you’ll be able to use that brick with any future sets that are designed for SMART play technology, so it is a supreme investment for LEGO lovers. 

What Kinds of LEGO Pokémon Sets Are Coming Soon 

There will be twelve SMART play sets in total featuring a wide variety of beloved figures like Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Eevee, Squirtle, and more. Two of them are All-in-One sets that include the SMART brick, a SMART charger, and four SMART tags.

LEGO/The Pokémon Company

The first one features Pikachu with a very cool training house, a Poké ball, and even a sandwich to feed your friend. Here are all the details about this set, which retails for $69.99 with 400 pieces: 

• LEGO® Pokémon™ SMART Play: Training House with Pikachu (72164) All-in-One set for ages 6+. This set includes a Pikachu-inspired tree house, training items, a Poké Ball, buildable sandwich, and more. Fans can get the chance to become a Pokémon Trainer as they nurture, feed, play, train and battle LEGO Pikachu. Includes 1 SMART Brick, 4 Tags, Figure and Charger.  

LEGO/The Pokémon Company

The other set features Charizard and Jolteon, who are primed for an all-out battle, and it includes the same extras as the Pika set. This one retails a little higher at $119.99 but it has 751 pieces. 

• LEGO® Pokémon™ SMART Play: Charizard vs. Jolteon Ultimate Battle (72167) All-in-One set for ages 8+ features Charizard and Jolteon in a fierce battle between the two iconic LEGO Pokémon. Look around and use the healing spray for support in the battle or have the Pokémon jump into a friendly training session together on the training grounds. Includes 2 SMART Bricks, 4 Tags, 2 Figures and Charger.    

The other ten sets do not come with a SMART brick, but they are all compatible to use one. So, in true Pokémon fashion, you just might wanna catch ‘em all to have the full experience. We have more details about those sets here, which range from $19.99 to $89.99 to fit virtually any fan’s budget. 

LEGO/The Pokémon Company

For more details about each set, head over to our previous post. All of these Pokémon LEGO SMART Play sets will release on August 1, but you are able to pre-order them right now. 

Three Exclusive LEGO Pokémon Sets Are Available: Pikachu, Eevee, and Charizard/Venusaur/Blastoise 

In addition to the SMART play sets, LEGO has three exclusive builds available right now. There’s an adorable Eevee set, which just includes the character and boasts 587 pieces at a $59.99 price point. Then there’s Pikachu leaping into action with a Poké ball. It is over 2,000 pieces and is $199.99 and boy does it look like a perfect one to have on display.

The big boy of these sets features Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise, which has 6,838 bricks and retails for $649.99. We got to see all three of them fully built at the LEGO event and they are glorious to behold. If you haven’t already gotten them, now feels like the right time to tide you over until the SMART play sets arrive later this year.

NerdistThere Are Fun Easter Eggs Hidden in the LEGO Pokémon SMART Play Sets 

We spoke with LEGO Group Designers Siddharth Muthyala and Mike Anderson about the process of bringing these sets to life. Both Pokémon lovers, they put years of hard work, testing with kids, and collaborating with sound designers and more to craft sets that would thrill their fellow fans. When we asked about any potential Easter Eggs that fans could find in sets, they didn’t give away too much, but did drop some hints, including information on the SMART tags. 

“The biggest one for me is the SMART tags,” said Anderson. “Internally we call them the heart, the soul of the Pokémon. So each Pokémon has a unique SMART tag. Originally they were just a tag with Squirtle’s face as an icon, but then we added the type icons, like a little water logo in there. And then we said ‘Let’s add the Pokédex number because that’s important.’ Every design is unique to that Pokémon and they all have a little type icon and their unique Pokédex number in there. That’s sort of Easter egg-like for me.”

“You should go and try and put a smart ring into Jigglypuff, who wakes up slightly differently than the others,” Muthyala teased. “The same with Mewtwo If you try to feed Mewtwo, just see what happens!” 

Are there others? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see. 

In addition to watching demos and participating in training and battling on our own, we had the gift of seeing Pikachu in many forms, including an adorable furry with Eevee by his side. And, of course, he was in SMART play LEGO brick form as well, complete with a sandwich to feed him. LEGO and Pokémon are the perfect collaboration to take builds to a completely new level.

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Multibillionaire and bigoted conspiracy theorist Elon Musk spent millions to support Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign—even endorsing him at a cringeworthy campaign rally. Since then, Musk has gone from a Nazi-saluting high in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s win to a much lower profile in 2026 after a bumpy year of failures and embarrassments. But Musk is still an…

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