Barely Related: Star Wars wakes up the Force
This week was full of little geeky goodies. Om nom nom.
Welcome to Barely Related, a conversational Friday column that presents the non-gaming news stories that we, the Joystiq staff, have been talking about over the past week. And no, we're not stopping our focus on industry and gaming news. Think of this as your casual weekly recap of interesting (and mostly geeky) news, presented just in time to fill your brain with things to discuss at all of those weekend shindigs.
Grab a fresh drink, lean back in your armchair, and get ready to talk nerdy with us.
JJ Abrams' Star Wars: Episode 7 is called The Force Awakens
Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens. How's that sound? Roll it around your tongue; breathe it in; shout it. Feel it in your bones.
Not bad.
Related (more than barely), filming on The Force Awakens has officially wrapped. The film is due out on December 18, 2015, so you have a little longer to make sure you're fully awake for the premiere.
Trailer time!
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (December 17, 2014)
Into the Woods (December 25, 2014)
Chappie (March 6, 2015)
Archer season 6 teaser (Premieres in January on FX)
The Newsroom Sloan character mashup for Season 3 (Premieres November 9, 2014 – Sloan played by noted nerd Olivia Munn)
Toy Story 4 hits theaters in 2017
To infinity – and 2017! Toy Story 4 is a thing that's happening, and it's due to release on June 16, 2017. The film opens "a new chapter in the lives of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the Toy Story gang," the official Disney fan club site, D23, says.
Original Toy Story director and Pixar Chief Creative Officer Jim Lasseter is on board to direct Toy Story 4, alongside Toy Story series storytellers Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Lee Unkrich. Also on the team is screenwriting duo Rashida Jones and Will McCormack.
Also, Toy Story 3 came out in 2010. Where has the time gone, guys?
Attack on Titan crossover is weird, we'll take it
Attack on Titan is getting a crossover with the Marvel universe – Spider-Man, to be specific. Why? We may never know. This could be cool, though. The crossover is heading to Japan first, though of course there may be a stateside release in the future.
The Sriracha keychain you didn't know you needed
This is a portable, airplane-legal bottle for sriracha that you can refill and can carry around wherever you go without looking like a spicy nutbar. Yes, you could technically put anything you wanted in the bottle, and yes, you could have bought a tiny bottle ages ago and just put sriracha in it, but this has the word "sriracha" on it. And a dragon. Yeah.
Sriracha2Go comes in packs of one bottle for $7, three bottles for $15, or 10 bottles for $35, and those last two come with free shipping inside the US. Please enjoy responsibly.
Christian Bale is not Steve Jobs
Just in case any conspiracy theorists were wondering.
Christian Bale decided that he wasn't the right man to play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the coming biopic from Sony Pictures, writer Aaron Sorkin and director Danny Boyle, and he's left the movie, THR reported this week. It's unknown who's on deck to play Jobs, but word has it that Boyle is running around Hollywood looking to cast someone. Seth Rogen is in negotiations to play Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
The film was supposed to start filming this winter, so let's hope Boyle can run quickly.
The Pirate Bay co-founder arrested in Thailand, to be extradited to Sweden
Fredrik Neij, 36, is slated to join his fellow Pirate Bay co-founders in Swedish prison after his arrest at the border of Thailand and Laos this week. In 2009, a court in Sweden convicted Neij and his cohorts of aiding copyright infringement, and Neij fled the country during his release on bail.
Neij and the other founders were each sentenced to one year in prison and $6.5 million in damages to the entertainment industry. Regarding his life after fleeing, Al Jazeera America reports the following: "Neij has been living in Laos since 2012 with his Laotian wife, police said. He owns a property on the Thai resort island of Phuket, has a Thai savings account and has entered Thailand nearly 30 times over the past two years."
[Images: Disney, Marvel, Sriracha2Go]
