The Verge’s entertainment section collects the latest news from the worlds of pop culture, music, movies, television, and video games. Whether you want to know what to watch on Netflix or how to make the most of your streaming service budget, the entertainment section acts a reliable source. There’s simply too much to read, watch, hear, and play. Let us be your tour guide.
A satisfying conclusion to a bloody mess of a show.
A satisfying conclusion to a bloody mess of a show.
“I’m very much in favor and in awe of the easy access that we have now to films to be able to immerse ourselves in films and film history,” he told 60 Minutes.
Jared Leto’s band Thirty Seconds to Mars is (for real, this time?) using Sam Altman’s World eye-scanning orb to stop bots, reports The San Francisco Standard:
So does Leto have a World ID?
“That’s a really good question. I actually don’t know,” Sada said.
Puzzmo just added Ribbit — an adorable anagram game — to its permanent rotation. I’ve been playing the game for months and it’s become part of my morning routine; it straddles a nice line between being challenging and brief, a nice way to spend a few minutes with a cup of coffee.
Pixel users can now AI-generate disco ball-style icons for their entire phone. Haters, shield your eyes.
The company asked the judge to rule that, as a matter of law, it could not be found an illegal monopolist, despite the jury issuing a verdict against it. If that fails, it’s asked the court to grant it a new trial altogether.
Why would you disrespect your favorite artist with an AI remix?
“Power under capitalism comes from capital itself, and we need to figure out how to have collective control of that.”
Critterz — AGC Studios’ animated feature that was produced using OpenAI’s tech — was originally scheduled to make its debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. But that’s no longer the case following OpenAI’s decision to shut Sora down back in March.
It’s been a surprisingly busy week for new releases. Here’s some stuff to check out across film, TV, and gaming:
Catch it on CBS at 11:35PM. The episode has been shrouded in secrecy, but Deadline has some potential spoilers about who makes an appearance.
If you want something fun to watch before the finale airs, check out Colbert’s interview with Jon Stewart from earlier this week. I also strongly recommend this interview Colbert did with People — he seems like a great human being.
It’s “exploring” a sale and has “approached entertainment companies as potential buyers,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Wonder who might end up buying it.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Employees also want to pitch and start work on new games, but Bungie hasn’t greenlit anything yet, Bloomberg reports.
Destiny 2 will get its last major update on June 9th, Bungie announced Thursday.
You can make your own right here.
Marketing for the game will spin up this summer, and the company won’t share a price as part of its earnings announcements today, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told Variety. Zelnick told Bloomberg that preorders should begin alongside marketing.
To both, Zelnick indicated that the game is indeed coming out on November 19th, which was a delay from May 26th (which itself was a delay).
A handful of supporters showed up to a pretrial hearing with New York City-issued press passes.
The new Atlas tool lets users “build a fully interactive world,” and to encourage people to use it, Hidden Door will pay the creators of worlds that meet its guidelines — 30 percent of the platform’s subscription revenue will go to creators.
I tried Hidden Door last year, if you want to read more about it.
[Hidden Door]
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Verge Score
I don’t hate Polyend’s Endless, but I’m not putting it on my pedalboard.
Amazon launched AI-generated audiobooks last year, and now Spotify is launching its own AI audiobook narration feature, Audiobook Creation Tools. Starting in June, self-published authors will be able to use the beta feature to create audio versions of their books using AI voices from ElevenLabs.
This summer, Spotify is launching its Prompted Playlist feature, which it is beta testing for music and podcasts, for audiobooks. The company says audiobooks listening hours on the platform are up 60 percent year over year.
The Major League Soccer match between the LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo FC will stream live on Apple TV this Saturday and will be the first “major professional live sporting event broadcast” captured entirely using iPhones, according to Apple.
iPhones were first used to capture parts of a live MLB game between the Red Sox and Tigers last year. Here’s what their setup looked like then.
The tags, introduced as part of the cross-company Accessible Games Initiative effort, will initially show up on listings for four games, including Rayman Legends, Ubisoft says. The tags will be added to more games throughout 2026 “and beyond.”
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The animatronic leader of the Decepticons is joined by Soundwave who captures and launches pinballs from his opening cassette deck. The machines also feature clips from the ‘80s animated series, custom recordings from Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) and Frank Welker (Megatron and Soundwave), and Stan Bush’s “The Touch.”
There is no war in Ba Sing Se in the new trailer for season two of Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series. But there are plenty of action shots showing off how much more intense the elemental bending will be when the season premieres on June 25th.
I was on Vox’s Today, Explained podcast to talk about why our feeds are just clips now — what we’re calling “the clippening” of content online. You’ve probably seen these videos of podcasts, musicians, TV shows, livestreams and more. Underneath it all is an economy of clipping companies pumping out mountains of paid content.
As one of many updates to Steam store tags, Valve has added “Bullet Heaven,” which it defines as: “The opposite of Bullet Hell; Focus on upgrades while automatically attacking hordes of enemies”.
I’m fine with it, but Aftermath has a great argument about why it doesn’t work. What do you think?
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Starting in June, your progress in ebooks and audiobooks will automatically sync to your StoryGraph account, including updating reading streaks, challenges, and book clubs. Kobo is also highlighting StoryGraph’s stat-tracking and recommendation algorithm, saying:
Kobo users can leverage StoryGraph’s sophisticated analytics to understand their reading habits better. From personalized recommendations based on your unique tastes to detailed charts about your reading moods and pace.
Fellowship Entertainment has rights for brands like The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider, and Embracer believes the spun-out company will “thrive the most by becoming its own standalone business.” It’s Embracer’s latest big shift, of which it has had a few in recent years.
It’s been a long time since Far Cry 6 released in 2021, but Ubisoft says it expects new releases in the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon franchises in its 2027-2028 and 2028-2029 fiscal years. Still, that could mean a new Far Cry game is still a ways out —the company only just started its 2026-2027 fiscal year in April.
Joe Rogan accidentally asked a hard question! He noted that Andreessen has said that the people who are running AI haven’t done a good job explaining AI’s benefits. He asks Andreessen to do it. Andreessen’s pitch appears to be “thinking is too hard.” Well, increasingly, I do believe thinking is too hard… for Andreessen. The rest of us — you know, normal people — are thinking just fine.
Warhorse Studios is developing an “open-world Middle-Earth RPG” and a “new Kingdom Come adventure” The company says it will share more about both when “the time is right.”
It’s another way to remember your journey in what’s already a very memorable game.
You can bring over your Hulu watch history, watchlist, and recommendations to Disney Plus if you subscribe to both services. This comes as part of Disney’s plans to create a unified streaming app, though the company tells Variety it has “no current plans” to get rid of the Hulu app.
It’s already available on iOS, and coming to Android soon. Google is also adding granular editing tools for changing portions of an AI-generated song, tweaking beat drops, or rewriting lyrics. It’s also adding the ability to generate “covers” and music videos, so you can countrify that punk song you prompted.
