Den of Geek https://www.denofgeek.com/ Mon, 20 Oct 2025 20:37:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/favicon.geek_.purple.swirl_-1.png?fit=32%2C32 Den of Geek https://www.denofgeek.com/ 32 32 169204069 How Bruce Springsteen Stole the Title of His Hit Song From Paul Schrader https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/bruce-springsteen-title-hit-song-paul-schrader/ https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/bruce-springsteen-title-hit-song-paul-schrader/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 21:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980836 These days, when maverick director Paul Schrader talks about pop music, he’s usually praising Taylor Swift as “the light that gives meaning to our lives.” But back in the early ’80s, Schrader had the Boss on his mind. And in a new conversation with Deadline, Schrader reveals how an aborted movie project starring Bruce Springsteen […]

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These days, when maverick director Paul Schrader talks about pop music, he’s usually praising Taylor Swift as “the light that gives meaning to our lives.” But back in the early ’80s, Schrader had the Boss on his mind. And in a new conversation with Deadline, Schrader reveals how an aborted movie project starring Bruce Springsteen led the pride of New Jersey to swipe from him.

According to the story, Schrader wanted to make a movie about blue collar rock and roll bands, something very much in line with his directorial debut Blue Collar, and thought of Springsteen as the lead. “There was a moment there when Bruce was being courted by the studios. Paramount had it, and they would have given anything to star him in a movie,” Schrader recalled. “I met with and gave the script to [Springsteen’s manager Jon] Landau, and he got back about a month later and said, ‘Bruce has been thinking about it and he’s not going to be in movies. He thinks it’s a trap and that he’ll end up like Elvis.'”

Schrader took the response at face value and went on to Japan to make his 1985 movie Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. But when he returned to the States, Schrader heard Springsteen’s new hit record and recognized its title as the same one he used for his bar band script: “Born in the U.S.A.”

While Schrader got a credit in the liner notes of the album, he didn’t get an explanation until later. “We met in Los Angeles and [Springsteen] said, look, I never did read your script,” Schrader told Deadline. “I was working on this song called ‘Vietnam‘ and I thought that was a bit too-on-the-nose. Your script was on the coffee table, and I kept walking past it every day. And finally it caught in my head and, I stole it.”

Like the voice of the working man that he is, Springsteen immediately tried to make things right with the director, offering to let him use the song whenever Schrader got around to making Born in the U.S.A. Instead, Schrader asked Springsteen for a new song for the film, and the Boss obliged, writing the tune “Light of Day.” And, sure enough, when Schrader finally produced the film, it came out under that tile, Light of Day.

Today, Schrader looks back at Light of Day, which finally saw the… movie theaters in 1987, with some disappointment, but not because of the song. Instead, he blames himself for casting Michael J. Fox and rocker Joan Jett as the leads (“Fox and Joan Jett were never meant to be in a movie together,” he admitted).

But he does not regret letting Springsteen have the song title without trouble. “I suppose there could have been some financial advantage for me, but I just didn’t want to be that kind of guy, who would milk Bruce’s head for X amount of dollars. And he didn’t ever forget it. This shows you that there is such a thing as karma, and that if you do the right thing, sometimes people remember,” he stated.

Turns out, some people remember better than others. Because when the upcoming Scott Cooper-directed movie Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere recreates the scene of Bruce (Jeremy Allen White) getting a script from Schrader, it has a map of Ohio drawn on the front. “I’d completely forgotten I’d done that,” he told Deadline. “I talked to Scott Cooper afterwards and asked him, where did you find the actual script? He said Bruce kept it all these years.”

Thus, there’s one more great credit in Schrader’s career, alongside credits for writing Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and directing First Reformed. Now we’ll just have to wait for the inevitable Taylor Swift biopic to see if he was also responsible for the title The Life of a Showgirl.

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Scott Derrickson Reveals the One Thing He Won’t Do for Black Phone 3 https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/scott-derrickson-one-thing-he-wont-do-black-phone-3/ https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/scott-derrickson-one-thing-he-wont-do-black-phone-3/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 20:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980822 Scott Derrickson has killed a lot of people. And a surprising amount of them have been children. Okay, no, Derrickson hasn’t actually killed people, but he has imagined many deaths and put them on screen, including the three mutilated tykes murdered by the Grabber in his most recent movie Black Phone 2. Black Phone 2 […]

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Scott Derrickson has killed a lot of people. And a surprising amount of them have been children. Okay, no, Derrickson hasn’t actually killed people, but he has imagined many deaths and put them on screen, including the three mutilated tykes murdered by the Grabber in his most recent movie Black Phone 2.

Black Phone 2 is off to a pretty great start at the box office, which means that there’s already talk about a third entry in the series. And with it, Derrickson is setting up his boundaries, indicating the lines he won’t cross for his next movie. When asked about Black Phone 3, the director told Variety, “What would be important to me in considering any ideas is that it’s just not a retread.” In particular, Derrickson rules out building the sequel around new lore. “Oh, now we establish this new rule for the Grabber. So let’s just do that again,” he mused, by way of example. “That’s the only thing I couldn’t do.”

Derrickson’s comments might strike some Black Phone 2 viewers as surprising, given the way the sequel reimagines the Grabber, the killer played by Ethan Hawke. In addition to establishing more backstory about the character’s connection to leads Finn (Mason Thames) and Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), Black Phone 2, which Derrickson based on the Joe Hill story and co-wrote with C. Robert Cargill, also brings the Grabber back from the dead and imagines him as a Freddy Krueger-like killer. That’s a pretty different set of rules from the first film, where he just kidnaps and kills children.

However, there is a difference between establishing a new status quo for a character and changing the rules. Examples of the latter include the late Hammer movies featuring Christopher Lee’s Dracula, in which a character randomly declares that the Prince of Darkness cannot pass through woods or cross over running water, and, lo and behold, the movie ends with the Count caught in the woods or stymied by running water. An example of the former includes the Friday the 13th franchise, in which Jason is a (very resilient) flesh and blood human in the first four movies, and an unkillable zombie after his resurrection in the sixth film.

Whatever direction he decides to go in, Derrickson is adamant that he must improve on what’s come before. “My attitude toward a sequel is that there’s really no justification for making a sequel unless you are genuinely attempting to make a movie that’s better than the first movie you’re making a sequel to,” he explained, before pointing to a few, rare examples.

“Very few films do that. Looking back on the history of cinema, I think Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead trilogy are probably the only two trilogies of movies where they’re all three great movies and get progressively better.”

Of course, Romero went on to make three more movies in the Living Dead series, movies that are okay (Land of the Dead) to terrible, which perhaps only proves Derrickson’s point. Because he’s already done enough terrible things on screen. He’s not about to add to it by doing a bad sequel.

Black Phone 2 is now in theaters.

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Even Martin Scorsese’s Life-Changing Bad Movie is Pretty Good https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/martin-scorsese-life-changing-bad-movie-boxcar-bertha/ https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/martin-scorsese-life-changing-bad-movie-boxcar-bertha/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 18:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980807 The new Apple TV documentary series Mr. Scorsese contains many wonderful anecdotes and insights into the legendary filmmaker’s history. Unsurprisingly but nonetheless refreshingly, we’re reminded that Martin Scorsese didn’t arrive fully-formed, making masterpieces like Taxi Driver and The Age of Innocence right away. Rather, he had to struggle for a bit and experience his share […]

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The new Apple TV documentary series Mr. Scorsese contains many wonderful anecdotes and insights into the legendary filmmaker’s history. Unsurprisingly but nonetheless refreshingly, we’re reminded that Martin Scorsese didn’t arrive fully-formed, making masterpieces like Taxi Driver and The Age of Innocence right away. Rather, he had to struggle for a bit and experience his share of ups and downs.

As is often the case with biographies about the director, Mr. Scorsese locates one of those downs early in his career. Between his feature debut Who’s That Knocking at My Door and his breakout Mean Streets (his first collaboration with Robert De Niro), Scorsese agreed to make a low-budget picture for Roger Corman, king of the fast and cheap feature, called Boxcar Bertha.

According to Mr. Scorsese and other sources, Boxcar Bertha was a mistake, a deviation on Scorsese’s development. And, like most biographies, Mr. Scorsese overlooks the fact that Boxcar Bertha is actually pretty good.

Boxcar Bertha stars Barbara Hershey as Bertha Thompson, a young woman who travels across Depression-era America after the death of her father, a crop-duster pilot. Along the way, Bertha falls for anarchist labor leader Big Bill Shelly (David Carradine) and, with gambler Rake Brown (Barry Primus) and her father’s former employee Van Morton (Bernie Casey), begins robbing people. The group runs afoul of Pinkertons, the police, and especially, railroad magnate H. Buckram Sartoris (John Carradine, father of David).

Although Boxcar Bertha loosely adapts the 1937 book Sister of the Road by anarchist Ben Reitman, its true inspiration is Bonnie and Clyde, the 1967 Arthur Penn movie that kicked off the New Hollywood movement. Corman made his name by making cheap knockoffs of more popular films, and Boxcar Bertha is no exception, trying to capture the spirit of the times and the box office returns it could generate. Of course, Corman was also an incredible judge of talent, giving early shots to not just Scorsese, but also Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, and others.

Thanks to that eye for talent, Corman produced cheap knock-offs could often be very good, as demonstrated by Boxcar Bertha. Scorsese gets incredible performances out of his cast, especially Hershey, whom he would later cast as Mary Magdalene in his passion project The Last Temptation of Christ. Although she’s tasked with playing a teenager (a point that makes the aggressive seduction style of grown man Shelly incredibly upsetting), Hershey gives Bertha an earnestness that never requires her to be naive.

Moreover, Boxcar Bertha includes elements that would become the defining features of Scorsese’s ouvre. No, none of the needle drops in Boxcar Bertha pack the punch of, say, “Layla” in Goodfellas, and Bertha and Big Bill are more righteous protagonists than Travis Bickle or Rupert Pupkin, but this remains a Scorsese picture. The characters live in a world dominated by violence, which can be wielded by men like Sartoris. Scorsese combines that violence with the religious longing always present in his work when Big Bill is killed by Sartoris via crucifixion.

At the end of episode two of Mr. Scorsese, Scorsese recalls what American indie icon John Cassavetes told him after watching Boxcar Bertha. According to Scorsese, Cassavetes came up to him and embraced him in a hug. “You just spent a year of your life making this piece of shit,” Scorsese recalls Cassavetes telling him; “Don’t do it again.”

Scorsese would never make another movie for Corman, nor would he ever take on another for-hire project like that. But he would do what he did in Boxcar Bertha again, making movies that are striking in their violence, sincere in their religious expression, and very, very good.

All five episodes of Mr. Scorsese are now streaming on Apple TV.

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Marvel Reportedly Won’t Let Tom Holland Be James Bond https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/marvel-tom-holland-james-bond/ https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/marvel-tom-holland-james-bond/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980792 His name is Parker… Peter Parker. And nothing else. At least, that’s the rumor being reported in The Sun. According to an unnamed source, the paper claims that Tom Holland has been ruled out of consideration as the next James Bond because of his contract with Marvel and Sony to play Spider-Man. It’s not so […]

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His name is Parker… Peter Parker. And nothing else.

At least, that’s the rumor being reported in The Sun. According to an unnamed source, the paper claims that Tom Holland has been ruled out of consideration as the next James Bond because of his contract with Marvel and Sony to play Spider-Man. It’s not so much that the studios are worried that the actor would be spending too much time ordering shaken martinis and playing baccarat. Rather, they worry that Bond would distract from Spider-Man.

“Tom can’t play two superheroes, it just won’t happen,” said the insider quoted by The Sun.

That’s a compelling statement, but not one that’s too surprising, given the complicated nature of the current state of Spider-rights. Famously, Marvel Comics sold the adaptation rights for many of its signature characters during a period of financial difficulties in the 1990s, well before the establishment of Marvel Studios and the company’s purchase by Disney. While Marvel and Disney have been able to get back many of those rights–sometimes by buying the rival studio outright, as in the case of 20th Century Fox and the rights to X-Men and the Fantastic FourSony remains committed to holding onto Spidey. Thus, Marvel had to negotiate with Sony to get Spider-Man into the MCU, which he finally did with 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.

The insider doesn’t reveal which of the two studios have the contract requirement, but whoever it is may not have reason to worry. After all, Spider-Man is not just the most famous superhero in the world, but he’s also one of the most famous characters in the world. Bond may predate Spidey by about a decade, but it’s been a long time since the super-spy has matched the level of popularity enjoyed by the superhero.

Then again, times are clearly changing for James Bond. It may be four years since Daniel Craig ended his run with 2021’s No Time to Die, but he still left the series better than he found it. Moreover, Amazon seems ready to throw its substantial weight behind the property since they purchased adaptation rights from Eon Productions, who had been shepherding the Ian Fleming character since Sean Connery first took on the part for 1962’s Dr. No.

Amazon has hired a big name director in Denis Villeneuve to make the next entry, which he plans to do after finishing Dune 3. Moreover, the casting of a new Bond always garners a lot of attention, which will help the new film debut to lots of buzz. More buzz than a Spider-Man movie? Probably not. But clearly, someone at Marvel or Sony isn’t willing to take that chance.

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First Set Pics of Sadie Sink in Spider-Man: Brand New Day Spark Fan Theories https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/sadie-sink-spider-man-brand-new-day-set-pics-theories/ https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/sadie-sink-spider-man-brand-new-day-set-pics-theories/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980788 As filming on Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues apace, Marvel fans who have been waiting for Stranger Things star Sadie Sink to appear on set have finally got their wish. But a first glimpse of Sink in the MCU has only led to further fan speculation about the character she’s playing in the wall-crawling fourquel, […]

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As filming on Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues apace, Marvel fans who have been waiting for Stranger Things star Sadie Sink to appear on set have finally got their wish. But a first glimpse of Sink in the MCU has only led to further fan speculation about the character she’s playing in the wall-crawling fourquel, with Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures yet to reveal any details. 

The first set photo to surface shows Sink in costume and chatting to director Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) during a break in filming. It reveals that Sink has maintained her usual red hair for the part. She also appears to be dressed in boots and camo pants, but her oversized jacket obscures the rest of her costume.

In the second image, we can see that Sink is dressed in an alternate outfit – baggy blue jeans and a jacket. 

“They wanted to subvert expectations so bad through out (sic) the MCU Spider-Man films I can’t even say she’d be playing the actual MJ even though she would’ve been perfect for it visually,” commented one person over on X, while another weighed in with “She is obviously Peter’s daughter, Mayday Parker. She will be taking over the Franchise from Tom.” Meanwhile, other fans still hold out hope that these pictures confirm Sink as the MCU’s Gwen Stacy somehow.

Prior to the leak of these set pics, plenty of rumors have circulated about Sink’s Brand New Day character. Reddit chat has suggested that her character’s codename is Annabelle Adams, an obscure character from the Scarlet Spider comics who becomes romantically involved with a clone of Peter Parker. Fans have also speculated that Sink might play Carlie Cooper, a police officer and romantic interest of Peter Parker in the Brand New Day comic book storyline.

Others are sure that Sink will be playing a multiversal Variant of Mary Jane Watson, Firestar, or that she is even being soft launched as Marvel’s new Jean Grey, though there may be a more realistic option on the table: Rachel Cole, an ally of The Punisher in the pages of Marvel Comics who also happens to have red hair. Since we already know that Jon Bernthal will be reprising his role as Frank Castle in Brand New Day, this would make sense.

Rachel Cole aka Rachel Cole-Alves has been a compelling comic book character since she made her debut in The Punisher Vol. 9 #1. Created by writer Greg Rucka and Marco Checchetto, she’s a former U.S. Marine turned vigilante who shares objectives with Castle and became a solid partner by utilizing her military training and tactical expertise.

For now, Sadie Sink’s exact role in Spider-Man: Brand New Day remains a mystery. Fans will have to wait for an official announcement for confirmation. 

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is set for release on July 31, 2026.

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This Is Why Your Favorite Marvel Disney+ Show Never Got a Season 2 https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/why-favorite-marvel-disney-show-never-got-season-2/ https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/why-favorite-marvel-disney-show-never-got-season-2/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980770 Unless you’re a Loki fan, you may have at some point wondered why your favorite Marvel Disney+ show didn’t get a second season. Thankfully, Marvel Studios’ Head of Streaming, Brad Winderbaum, has the answers. The studio’s early Disney+ shows, from WandaVision to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, were clearly never intended to continue beyond […]

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Unless you’re a Loki fan, you may have at some point wondered why your favorite Marvel Disney+ show didn’t get a second season. Thankfully, Marvel Studios’ Head of Streaming, Brad Winderbaum, has the answers.

The studio’s early Disney+ shows, from WandaVision to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, were clearly never intended to continue beyond one season. They existed in part to set up new Marvel movies. That’s why WandaVision directly led into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier set up Captain America: Brave New World, and Ms. Marvel paved the way for The Marvels.

From a business standpoint, that model occasionally worked, but from a fan perspective, it left us wanting more. Since we know Marvel will feed fan appetite wherever possible, there was another factor in play that stopped us from spending more time with some of our favorite superheroes and their inner circles: money. The budgets for those shows were already massive, and they had huge production values. The studio, its producers, and various other stakeholders all have to define how those projects are financed, controlled, and even how profits are shared, which is pretty tricky when you’re trying to extend a pricey project that was never supposed to be extended.

“The original shows were created as limited series with characters that could bounce back and forth between the movies and TV shows.” Winterbaum explains (via EW). “That made it challenging to make season 2s because the deal structure became really expensive, frankly.”

Although most key characters’s stories continued in subsequent movies or other Disney+ shows, Moon Knight’s lack of continuation in particular has often been a sticking point for fans who were left on that series’ cliffhanger, with none of those characters spotted in the MCU since.

The good news is that Winderbaum is aware of the situation. “We started developing shows that could last for multiple seasons. Daredevil, we’ve now greenlit the third season, that’ll come out annually. X-Men ’97, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, they’ll come out annually for a number of years. But there are shows that were caught in the middle.” 

This marks a major turning point in Marvel’s streaming strategy. Instead of one-and-done stories, we can expect ongoing character arcs and deeper world-building. Y’know, television! However, the shows still “caught in the middle” between the old and new strategies are Marvel Zombies and the upcoming Wonder Man which Winterbaum calls “one of my favorite things I’ve ever been a part of.” He says both shows could still get a season 2 if people watch them.

So, next time you finish a Marvel show, don’t assume it’s over when the final post-credits scene hits. The new MCU streaming model finally includes second seasons. Only audience numbers stand in the way of them materializing.

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Star Wars? “I’ve Got a Life,” Says George Lucas https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-wars-got-life-says-george-lucas/ https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-wars-got-life-says-george-lucas/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 14:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980776 For Star Wars fans, George Lucas’ name will always be synonymous with galaxies far, far away. But more than a decade after selling Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion, Lucas has officially moved on from the juggernaut space opera media franchise. He’s unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In his lane. Focused. Flourishing, as the kids might say. […]

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For Star Wars fans, George Lucas’ name will always be synonymous with galaxies far, far away. But more than a decade after selling Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion, Lucas has officially moved on from the juggernaut space opera media franchise. He’s unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In his lane. Focused. Flourishing, as the kids might say.

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Lucas says he’s fully left Star Wars in Disney’s hands. “[They] took it over and they gave it their vision. That’s what happens.” 

It might be bittersweet to hear Lucas describe stepping back from the saga he built, but he hasn’t retired from creating, he’s just shifted focus. “Of course I’ve moved past it. I mean, I’ve got a life. I’m building a museum. A museum is harder than making movies,” Lucas said as he discussed his current passion project, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.

The museum’s 11-acre campus has cost over a billion dollars and is set to open its doors in 2026. Curated by Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, it aims to show how narrative art influences societies by shaping beliefs, communicating values, inspiring imagination, and creating communities.

However, moving past Star Wars doesn’t mean a complete lack of it in this new project. A 33-foot model of the N-1 Starfighter will loom over the museum’s south wing, and there’ll be an exhibit focusing on vehicle designs from the franchise. But Lucas didn’t even want to do that.

“It’s one gallery out of 33. And I did it grudgingly,” Lucas said. “I didn’t want people to come to the museum and say, ‘Where’s the Star Wars?’”

Instead, visitors to the museum can expect to see works by Norman Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith, Maxfield Parrish, and N. C. Wyeth, along with art by comic book legends like Frank Frazetta, Jack Kirby, and Robert Crumb.

It’s kinda comforting to know that Lucas is off building a space where stories, much like the ones he created, can inspire future generations, and he’s clearly found peace in watching the massive project come together. One suspects it is not quite as peaceful over in the halls and offices at Lucasfilm.

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The Boys Spinoff Likely Dead at Prime Video https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-boys-spinoff-likely-dead-amazon/ https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-boys-spinoff-likely-dead-amazon/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980781 Animated anthology series The Boys Presents: Diabolical may have been a delightful detour into the chaotic, satirical world of Vought International, but Amazon doesn’t seem very keen on exploring it further. In a recent interview with The Wrap, co-creator Eric Kripke revealed that a second season is unlikely. “I don’t think there’s going to be […]

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Animated anthology series The Boys Presents: Diabolical may have been a delightful detour into the chaotic, satirical world of Vought International, but Amazon doesn’t seem very keen on exploring it further.

In a recent interview with The Wrap, co-creator Eric Kripke revealed that a second season is unlikely. “I don’t think there’s going to be a season 2 of Diabolical.” Kripke stated. “It’s not for lack of us pushing. I think ultimately the viewer numbers weren’t there to justify a second season, sadly.” He went on to indicate that both he and showrunner Simon Racioppa were eager to make more Diabolical, but a renewal probably won’t happen.

Premiering in March 2022, the series featured eight standalone episodes, each with its own unique animation style and tone. Contributions from creatives like Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Awkwafina, Andy Samberg, and even Garth Ennis, the co-creator of the original The Boys comic, led to a typically irreverent spin on The Boys extended universe.

However, its bevy of talent and a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes didn’t give Diabolical enough of a boost in terms of viewing figures. Amazon was initially hopeful that a second season would materialize, but that hope has faded in the years since its debut.

This is certainly not the end of The Boys’ expanded universe, though. Live action spinoff Gen V continues to push the franchise forward, and The Boys: Mexico is currently in development from Blue Beetle writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer.

Mexico is just being developed right now,” Kripke confirmed. “The pilot script is being written. Gareth is a wonderful writer and I think it’s hilarious. I hope it gets made, but [it’s] just in that development phase.”

“Same applies to Vought Rising Season 1,” he added. “We have plans for a season 2, if we can. They’ve [Prime Video] been nothing but supportive, and they’re giving us our opportunities. But it’s a business and we also have to deliver. So hopefully the audience shows up.”

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Queer Eye Creator on Concluding a TV Institution in the Nation’s Capital https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/queer-eye-final-season-david-collins-interview/ https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/queer-eye-final-season-david-collins-interview/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980756 While combing through the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in the ‘90s, Queer Eye co-creator and executive producer David Collins stopped on one word that would ignite a decades-long franchise and redefine what reality TV could look like. “[The dictionary] said, ‘Queer: a unique perspective, a different point of view,’ and that’s really been the heart of [Queer […]

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While combing through the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in the ‘90s, Queer Eye co-creator and executive producer David Collins stopped on one word that would ignite a decades-long franchise and redefine what reality TV could look like.

“[The dictionary] said, ‘Queer: a unique perspective, a different point of view,’ and that’s really been the heart of [Queer Eye],’” Collins says. “A unique perspective of each of our stories and each of the individual humanity we share with each other.”

Queer Eye is a reality show where five LGBTQ+ experts, known as the Fab Five, help individuals improve their lives through transformations in fashion, grooming, home design, culture, and food. Now, after two decades of makeovers, lifestyle transformations, and tear-filled moments, the show is coming to an end. Netflix announced that the Emmy-winning series will say farewell following the premiere of its 10th season. Before Scout Productions parts ways with the beloved feel-good reality show, the Fab Five head to Washington, D.C.; a politically contentious setting Collins says was “very much an intentional choice.”

In 2003, when Queer Eye for the Straight Guy premiered on Bravo, a title later shortened to simply Queer Eye because it was too long for TV guides, there was not much queer representation in mainstream pop culture. Most prominent examples were often reduced to stereotypes in shows like Will & Grace and Sex and the City. Queer Eye pushed boundaries by centering the show around five openly gay men in a primetime TV program, but still, audiences knew little about the personal lives of original cast members Carson Kressley, Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, and Jai Rodriguez.  

“[The original Fab Five] swooped in, they saved the day, and they swooped out. America didn’t really want to know about their lives,” Collins says. “That’s the main change that happened when we brought [the current Fab Five] to the table. We wanted real life, modern day gay men. Their ability to be much more authentic is what really drove the evolution of this series for Netflix.” 

When Netflix revived Queer Eye in 2018, it introduced a new Fab Five: Jonathan Van Ness, Antoni Porowski, Karamo Brown, Tan France, and Bobby Berk; later joined by Jeremiah Brent following Berk’s departure in season 8. Together, they’ve built a reputation for fearless authenticity and compassion, making them the perfect team to tackle the nation’s capital in 2025. 

Filming season 10 wasn’t the Fab Five’s first time in D.C. During the summer of 2024, both former and current Queer Eye cast members were invited inside the White House by Vice President Kamala Harris amidst her campaign trail to discuss LGBTQ+ progress in the U.S. Collins considers this experience one of the most “monumental visits” of his life. 

“There was this enthusiasm and zeal for what was coming next,” Collins says. “Come November, that hope got dashed. So we went to Netflix and said, ‘Let’s go to the source, baby. Let’s show up and knock on the White House door.” 

This time around, when the Fab Five traveled to the White House again they weren’t invited in. Instead, they stood outside the large gate with fellow tourists, sparking interesting conversations with both fans and critics. Collins noted the powerful imagery of the crew standing tall outside of the White House next to people protesting for various causes. 

Aside from groaning at the summer heat, the Fab Five worked with heroes from across the District, Maryland, and Virginia. Some subjects to look forward to include one of D.C.’s best tour guides, two sisters living together, a preacher, and a man who lives on a boat. Another interesting bit of information Collins provided ahead of the show’s premiere date was that season 10 will only be five episodes long.

Naturally, when people think of D.C., they associate it with the political atmosphere of its institutions; however, Collins says he wasn’t necessarily interested in making a “political statement.” Instead, Collins was focused on highlighting the area’s cultural and socioeconomic diversity. 

“The idea of handing the microphone to marginalized communities is a huge part of the heart of Scout Productions,” Collins says. “[Co-creator and executive producer Michael Williams] and I have dedicated the past 27 years to making sure that this story continues to be told, and that each of these guys has an opportunity to bring real transformation to the heroes’ lives.”

One hero Collins still checks in with now and again is Tammye Hicks, known to fans as “Mama Tammye” from season 2. That season, the Fab Five traveled to Georgia, where they helped Mama Tammye open a community center and reconnect with her son, Myles, who had drifted away from the church because of his sexuality. Collins says she was one of his favorite people the show has encountered, and he felt honored to bring her story to the forefront. Though the themes of sexuality and organized religion were sensitive and sometimes difficult to navigate, he’s proud that the episode sparked important conversations and helped reunite a family.

Though Netflix is parting ways with Queer Eye, Collins and Scout Productions aren’t ready to say goodbye to the franchise entirely. Rather than dwell on the show’s ending, Collins is focused on its future, envisioning ways to reimagine the series with even more diverse queer talent at the center. 

“We’re proud of all the recognition from the Television Academy, from our peers, from the other peers in the industry, and we’re proud to have won ‘Best Structured Reality Show’ nine years in a row,” Collins says. “Ultimately, we want the legacy of this to live on as a conversation that needed to happen, and by the way, [it needs to happen] even more so now.”

The post Queer Eye Creator on Concluding a TV Institution in the Nation’s Capital appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Doctor Who Producer Confirms What’s Holding the Show Up https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who-producer-confirms-whats-holding-the-show-up/ https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who-producer-confirms-whats-holding-the-show-up/#respond Sat, 18 Oct 2025 13:00:00 +0000 https://www.denofgeek.com/?p=980764 The current Doctor Who hiatus is hitting everyone hard. Fans, critics, former cast members, and previous writers have all weighed in on everything from Ncuti Gatwa’s regeneration and who former companion Billie Piper is meant to be playing at the end of the season 15 finale to whether we can expect to see the show […]

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The current Doctor Who hiatus is hitting everyone hard. Fans, critics, former cast members, and previous writers have all weighed in on everything from Ncuti Gatwa’s regeneration and who former companion Billie Piper is meant to be playing at the end of the season 15 finale to whether we can expect to see the show back on our screens again at all. (Maybe ever!) It doesn’t help that the flagship series is stuck in a weird limbo where it hasn’t been officially renewed yet, a new Doctor hasn’t been named, and all fans have to look forward to is a spinoff (The War Between the Land and the Sea) that it’s not clear anyone even really wants. Understandably, everyone’s on a hair trigger about it, but the drama of late has been particularly out of control. 

Former Doctor Who writer Robert Shearman, who penned the Christopher Eccleston episode “Dalek,” recently declared the show to be “as dead as we’ve ever known it”. To be fair, he was speaking about the fact that the lack of clarity surrounding the identity of Piper’s character and a clearly defined next Doctor has left the show in a strange limbo that the franchise has never really experienced before. But his words were definitely not appreciated by some of the folks behind the scenes at Bad Wolf, the production studio that makes the show.

“‘As dead as we’ve ever known.’ That’s really rude, actually. And really untrue,” executive producer Jane Tranter said during an interview with BBC Radio Wales

Tranter, who was part of the BBC team that brought the show back in 2005, and who returned along with showrunner Russell T. Davies and friends for the Disney seasons as part of the Bad Wolf team, went on to lay out an explanation of what most Whovians have likely guessed already. Nothing can happen in terms of announcements or news about Doctor Who’s future until the original terms of the BBC’s deal with Disney are met. 

“The plans for Doctor Who are really simply this: the BBC and BBC Studios had a partnership with Disney+ for 26 episodes. We are currently 21 episodes down into that 26-episode run. We have got another five episodes of The War Between the Land and the Sea to come. At some point after that, decisions will be made together with all of us about what the future of Doctor Who entails.”

Rumors have been flying for ages that Disney isn’t planning to renew this partnership, but what everyone seems to be forgetting is that the BBC has said, repeatedly, that the corporation is firmly committed to the show. (“Doctor Who is going nowhere” is a direct quote!). And Tranter’s comments reiterate that fact. 

“It’s a 60-year-old franchise. It’s been going for 20 years nonstop since we brought it back in 2005 [when I worked at the BBC]. You would expect it to change, wouldn’t you? Nothing continues the same always, or it shouldn’t continue the same always. So it will change in some form or another. But the one thing we can all be really clear of is that the Doctor will be back and everyone, including me, including all of us, just has to wait patiently to see when — and who.”

The plain fact of the matter is: It’s going to take some time to figure out what’s next for the show, and we all need to accept that fact. If decisions can’t be made (or at least announced) until after The War Between the Land and the Sea airs, then endlessly going around the same questions is deeply futile. The BBC and Bad Wolf seem to have been as direct as they can be that the show’s returning, while staying honest about the fact that we have no idea when that might be. And while it’s natural to feel nervous about all the uncertainty surrounding our favorite Time Lord, we’re probably just going to have to get used to dealing with it for some time to come.

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