HBO’s Harry Potter series has cast its three main characters: Dominic McLaughlin will star as titular hero Harry Potter, alongside Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger and Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley.  Executive producers Francesca Gardiner and Mark Mylod spoke of finally finding actors for Harry, Hermione, and Ron for the anticipated show in a news release on Tuesday. “After an extraordinary search led by casting directors Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockmann, we...

If Disney wasn’t already rethinking its Disney Plus streaming business before the gargantuan four-day holiday-weekend opening of Lilo & Stitch, it certainly will be now. The live-action remake — originally intended to bow on Disney Plus — crushed at the U.S. box office, grossing $183 million over the Memorial Day weekend (with a haul of over $304 million worldwide). It’s a staggering number for a Disney character who has, through...

Fifteen years after Emmy-winning Samurai Jack, Primal, and Star Wars: Clone Wars creator Genndy Tartakovsky sold his raunchy animated comedy Fixed to Sony, the movie will finally be released on Netflix on Aug. 13. The long journey to make the film, which Tartakovsky describes as an R-rated version of Lady and the Tramp, involved changing production studios — and fighting for the prominence of his canine characters’ genitals. Fixed was produced...

The past couple console generations have seen truly spectacular solo superhero video games — but they mostly all star Spider-Man or Batman.  Comic books are so full of engaging heroes, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has proven that people are willing to ride with lesser-known heroes. So I think it’s about time more superheroes get the starring spotlight in video games. We’ve seen superheroes pop up in crossover games, like...

A typical episode of Rick and Morty is larger-than-life pandemonium. If Rick isn’t using laser swords to slice up hordes of insectoid aliens, he’s whisking his nephew Morty through multi-dimensional portals that make the stargate from 2001 look like an airport people-mover. But underneath that flurry of animation is still a family sitcom about life’s minor gripes. In the season 8 premiere, that includes the annoyance of someone stealing your...

[Ed. note: This story contains major spoilers through The Last of Us season 2 finale.] By now, it’s hopefully not much of a spoiler to know that gaming’s gruffest dad suffers an untimely death early on in the latest season of HBO’s The Last of Us. You’d think, like the games, that this would mean the end of Joel as a character in the show. But according to the showrunners,...

After spending several months doing not much besides watching Tom Cruise movies, I now spend a lot of time wondering about Tom Cruise running. The Mission: Impossible star is a high-cadence runner. He’s famously short of stature, low to the ground and with short legs. But that build is perfect for cinema, because those arms swing and those legs churn and convey a viscerality, a violence, a constant labored activity...

Rick and Morty remains a staggering work of chaotic creativity. Previewing a handful of episodes from season 8, which premieres Sunday, May 25 with a Matrix-themed story inspired by phone charger theft, I still had that brain-melty “How do they think of this stuff?” feeling from when the show premiered more than a decade ago. The characters aren’t all the same as they were back in 2013 (voice actors aside):...

This weekend is a major one for new movies, with the release of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch remake in theaters. But even if you carved out two days for two major blockbusters, good news: Monday is Memorial Day. So why not spend your three-day weekend sneaking in one more movie? Per usual, a handful of worthwhile titles are leaving Netflix on June...

Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home. This week, Mickey 17, the science fiction comedy from Oscar-winning Parasite writer-director Bong Joon Ho, starring Robert Pattinson as an expendable clone, gets copied onto HBO Max following its March theatrical debut. Netflix has a full slate of releases, with the...