Controversial or not, Emerald Fennell’s new adaptation of classic novel Wuthering Heights is hitting, well, heights at the box office for its opening weekend: a staggering $76 million globally.
The film, which stars Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in the iconic roles of Heathcliff and Cathy, managed to gross $34.8 million in the United States, which brings the worldwide total for the film’s debut to $76.8 million. Interestingly enough, though, those numbers do actually fall under the projections set for the film reported by Deadline. Warner Bros. expected the project to open to closer to $40 or $50 million domestically, but it still falls within their $70 to $80 million global projection.
That said, the movie’s opening weekend is technically a four-day one, with the day of this writing (Monday, February 16) being President’s Day — so there’s a chance that Wuthering Heights hits that initial domestic projection by the day’s end.
The competition is stacked right now at the box office with two other new releases on offer alongside Wuthering Heights: the animated kids comedy Goat, which is holding onto the second spot domestically under Fennell’s film, and Crime 101, a star-studded thriller that is also a literary adaptation, believe it or not, with a claim to the No. 3 slot at the box office.
There are several new and exciting titles coming in the next week, though — projects like Psycho Killer and How to Make a Killing — so those more recent additions might threaten a little of the profits of Wuthering Heights. But we won’t know until we see what happens at the box office next weekend.
Wuthering Heights was written and directed by Fennell, adapted from Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel of the same name. Alongside Elordi and Robbie, Hong Chau, Alison Oliver, and Ewan Mitchell star. It debuted in theaters in the United States and United Kingdom on February 13, just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
Remember the 2010 Robin Hood movie? The one directed by Ridley Scott with Russell Crowe in the title role? It struggled at the box office and reportedly resulted in a loss during its theatrical release. Now, 16 years later, Crowe has discussed its various problems, which weren’t helped by comparisons to Scott and Crowe’s blockbuster Gladiator.
IGN’s Robin Hood movie returned a 5/10. We said: “Robin Hood isn't a bad movie. But it is a frustrating, deeply flawed and wholly unnecessary one. Its problems were all on paper and in conceptualization not necessarily in execution. The film ends on an obvious sequel note, but it's equally obvious that this installment is simply too mediocre to ever warrant a sequel. By stripping the story of its core mythology, this Robin Hood will leave you wondering how the hell this legend has managed to survive for so many centuries. Where's the merry in that?”
Crowe took to social media to respond to one fan who said Robin Hood received “unfair” comparisons to Gladiator, which had been released a decade prior. The Master and Commander and L.A. Confidential star said that 17 minutes were cut for the cinema release, and that the director’s cut “is the movie we all thought we were releasing.”
“The director's cut is the movie we all thought we were releasing,” Crowe said. “However, 17 minutes were cut for the cinema release. A minute is a long time on screen. Imagine any of your favourite movies with 17 minutes of the most emotional connective tissue removed… watch the director’s cut.
Then, responding to another fan who said they felt the movie was more than a Robin Hood origin story, Crowe agreed, confirming the plan was to tell the character’s story in three parts.
“That was the idea. To be told in three parts,” Crowe said. “When I started digging in to RH, I found the story and its roots in Greene Man mythology deeply interesting. The tale of Robin lasted hundreds of years, how? It was my idea to show that RH was a title, passed down, not one man.”
Crowe's Robin Hood didn't put Hollywood off from making other movies based on the character. Indeed, another is coming up. Last month we got the first trailer for The Death of Robin Hood, giving us our first look at Hugh Jackman, star of Deadpool & Wolverine, The Greatest Showman, and The Prestige, as the legendary archer.
Photo by Fotonoticias/WireImage.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Disney Lorcana's 11th new set, Winterspell, is now available at local game stores and Disney Stores ahead of its wider launch on February 20 (see here for online orders). There is so much to look forward to in this snowy set, and the Lorcana team at Ravensburger sent us over Winterspell's Illuminier's Trove, its 24-pack Booster Box, and more to learn more and share what sets this expansion apart.
We'll start with what we got: the two items mentioned above, a Winterspell coffee mug, some cool stickers, a bag, and a promo Stitch - High Badness Level card inspired by his love of destroying things.
It feels only right to jump into the Illuminier's Trove first, which is a great place for beginners to start or those that like some fun collectibles. Alongside featuring some beautiful art of Stitch and Angel playing in the snow, this set includes 8 Booster packs, 1 storage box, 6 card dividers, 6 damage-counter dice, and 1 Spin-dial lore counter.
The Booster packs themselves feature either Angel, Darkwing Duck, or Tinkerbell, and each comes with 12 game cards. The card dividers are fun because they also give you a preview of which Disney films are heavily featured in this set, including Pocahontas, The Fox and the Hound, A Goofy Movie, Darkwing Duck, and Lilo and Stitch.
The packaging is all very well themed, and it matches the Booster Box in design as well, but it would have been fun if there was a special promo card or something else to enjoy! That being said, this is a really good way to jump into the world of Lorcana.
If you want to know which cards are the best to chase in Winterspell, we have you covered right here, but we also want to share that the top two chase cards are the Iconic rarities, which are Moana - Curious Explorer and Pocahontas - Peacekeeper.
Winterspell - Top Chase Cards So Far
Speaking of which, let's talk about what we got from the packs in the Illuminier's Trove and the Booster Box! All in all, we had 32 packs that contained a total of 384 cards. While we sadly didn't get any of the highest rarities - Iconic or Enchanted - we did luck out and get three Epic cards!
These are half-full art holo cards that remove the border on standard cards, and we got two Jiminy Cricket - Ghost of Christmas Past cards and one Goofy - Klutzy Skier. Just below Epic is Legendary, and we got 7 of those, including the Ohana Means Family Action card and three Tinker Bell - Snowflake Collector cards. These feature embossed images and can be holo or not, and the ones we got were. Elsewhere in the holo department, we got 1 Super Rare, 3 Rare, 8 Uncommon, and 16 Common.
I also wanted to discuss some of my other favorite cards I pulled, including the Do You Want To Build a Snowman? Song cards that we were able to exclusively reveal for Winterspell. I also loved the Mickey Mouse - Tiny Tim's Father card because it is just adorable and channels my love of being a parent. Oh, and I have to shout out the Pua - Disgruntled Pig card because it's just very funny and Pua is clearly missing the warmer weather.
I also want to give a special shout-out to the Snowball Fight Action card you can see in the image above, because it is also the puzzle you can get! You may find certain cards that look part of a puzzle in a Booster pack, and the ones in Winterspell create this card, which is pretty great!
There are also Lore cards to look out for that build out the universe of Lorcana. In the few I got, I learned about the ever-present snowball fight going on that sounds like a lot of fun, how we have to try Mrs. Cratchit's soup, and more about what's going on with Elsa and Anna.
For those unfamiliar, we had a chance to speak to the team at Lorcana and they shared a bit more about what's going on in on this set and these two sisters from Frozen.
"In Winterspell, we tell the story of a vine that’s growing out of control and sucking up flood ink," Jenna Giuffrida, co-lead on narrative design for Winterspell, shared with us. "In an effort to quell its growth, the Illumineers of the realm summon powerful glimmers to help deal with it. One of them, an Elsa glimmer, accidentally freezes the whole realm in her attempt to stop the vine."
Winterspell - Where to Buy
There is a lot to look forward to in Winterspell, and even more that's just on the horizon. Following Winterspell, Glimmers from Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Brave will join the roster in Wilds Unknown when it is reelased in local game stores on May 8 and everywhere else on May 15. And in th summer, Attack on the Vine! will arrive and features Glimmers of Monsters, Inc.'s Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan.
Last week, after years of hopeful speculation, Sony's Santa Monica Studio announced it will be remaking the original God of War trilogy. T.C. Carson, the original voice actor behind Kratos, stepped in front of the camera to reveal that the project is in the “very early” stages of development, and that we’ll have to wait a little longer for any of our questions to be answered. And there are a lot of questions.
Will this be a graphical facelift à la Bluepoint’s Demon’s Souls, or are we revisiting Greece with the Norse duology's controls and overhauled game design? If the latter, will Kratos have a companion accompanying him to Pandora’s Temple and the Isle of Fates? Will there be a blacksmith NPC popping up in expected places to provide armor and weapon upgrades? Will we be able to jump and fly, like in the original games? And what about those sex minigames?
That last one almost sounds like a joke, but fans who’ve brought them up seem to be deadly serious. “You better not edit out Aphrodite,” one of the top comments on the announcement video posted to the official PlayStation YouTube channel warns, referring to the particularly graphic minigame from God of War 3. “Do not censor original material,” reads one of the – as of the time I’m writing this article – 256 replies to that comment. “Dont ruin it.”
Fan fixation with these minigames makes sense, and not just because of the franchise’s initial target demographic. They are, for better or worse, as much a part of the Greek saga as the Blades of Chaos, appearing in every mainline title except for Ascension. Even the two handheld games, Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta, have their own versions of them: one in Attica, while fighting off the Persians, the other at a brothel back in Sparta.
They’re also a product of their time, one when both gamers and game developers were overwhelmingly male, little if any thought was given to the way women were represented, and hack and slashers generally relished in all things lewd and bloody and pubescent. But times have since changed, and changed profoundly at that. Once taken for granted, today the minigames stand out like a sore thumb. They are perhaps the only aspect of the Greek saga I could envision its developers regret adding in, and hence it’s unclear whether they will return alongside the togas, sandals, and cyclopes.
Personally, I’d be surprised if they did. Santa Monica Studio seemed to have soured on the minigames as early as 2013, when the team working on Ascension decided not to include one – maybe in response to backlash, maybe out of post-orgasm clarity after visiting Aphrodite. In that game, Kratos’ obligatory trip to the bordello plays out in a cutscene, and the women there turn out to be an illusion created by one of the Furies.
The minigames help convey Kratos' downward spiral into sadism and nihilism.
At the same time – and, please, hear me out here – I do think there’s a place for them in the Greek games, at least in concept. More than a crude joke, I always found that they contributed to the saga’s story and themes. In the first God of War, the sex minigame – like that part where you burn the caged soldier to progress through Pandora’s Temple, or condemn the ship captain to his death after taking his key – adds a welcome sense of moral ambiguity. It demonstrates that Kratos is not a conventional hero, and suggests there’s more to his quest to kill Aries than the desire to avenge his family. If visions of his dear, dead wife haunt him so, how could he lie with other women? At least, that’s what went through my head when I encountered the minigame for the first time.
Both God of War 2 and the trilogy’s final entry make clear what the first game only insinuated: that Kratos’ vengeance is not a crusade for justice, but an excuse to kill and destroy for the sake of killing and destroying. In both games, the minigames help convey his downward spiral into sadism and nihilism. In God of War 3, for example, you enter Aphrodite’s chambers right after killing her husband, Hephaestus; a tragic, ultimately well-intentioned character who, up until this point, acted as your only ally, Athena and her ulterior motives notwithstanding. At every turn, the developers stress that Kratos cares for nothing except the gratification of his own, basest desires. At this point, lust and bloodshed are the only things he lives for, and that won’t change until he meets Faye and fathers Atreus.
The horniness of the Greek saga also feels somewhat appropriate when considering its source material. The ancient myths woven into Kratos’ world are full of sex, as is the Greco-Roman visual culture that inspired Santa Monica Studio’s talented concept artists. The goddess of love and beauty is not the only one with her nipples out: Kratos, Zeus, Hades – everyone, man and monster, is bare-legged and bare-chested, their bodily features every bit as sculpted as the marble statues at the MET.
Most importantly, perhaps, the minigames help bring home the Greek games’ meta-commentary – a commentary present throughout the trilogy but most pronounced in its concluding chapter, where Kratos is at his ugliest, meanest, and most pathetic, and the franchise’s cinematic endorphin rushes pivot from tasteful indulgence into nauseating overindulgence. Where impaling Aries was uncomplicatedly epic and triumphant, Kratos’ actions in God of War 3 hit differently. Brutalizing Poseidon’s and Hercules’ faces, ripping off Hades’ mask, cutting off Hermes’ legs, snapping Hera’s neck, beating Zeus until the screen becomes completely covered in blood – each “victory” leaves the player feeling a little uneasy, ashamed, hollow. Boss battles in the first God of War and its sequel made you feel like David taking down big, mean Goliath; no matter how brutal the finishing moves, your opponents had it coming. In God of War 3, you’re more like a playground bully, kicking another student when they’re down.
The minigame with Aphrodite also veers into garish over-indulgence, but to a slightly different effect. Instead of making you feel like a bully, you just feel like an idiot. I certainly did when, playing with a childhood friend, we just sat next to each other in awkward silence, going through the motions to get all the red orbs while keeping an ear out for my mom walking up and down the hallway. Very manly indeed.
Some might think that the Norse games walked back on the Greek saga’s abundance of sex and nudity because the gaming industry decided to chase inclusivity, and Barlog and his team tried to stay on the good side of a culture that considered the minigames offensive and misogynistic. This is not the case. First and foremost, the Norse saga walked back on these things because they play no part in this leg of Kratos’ story. Once again, his wife has died. But this time, he channels his grief into something more constructive: rather than destroying the world, he tries to be a better parent to his son.
For the remakes to succeed, they have to communicate – as effectively, if not more effectively, than the original trilogy – how Kratos ends up at the personal low-point from which the Norse games set off. If the sex minigames are in any way included, this is the purpose they should serve. If they’re removed on account of being tasteless – not unthinkable, as that was kind of their point – no matter. Surely, Santa Monica Studio can think of other, more respectful ways to convey Kratos’ downward spiral, and for players to go down that spiral along with him.
Tim Brinkhof is a freelance writer specializing in art and history. After studying journalism at NYU, he has gone on to write for Vox, Vulture, Slate, Polygon, GQ, Esquire and more.
For PlayStation users, Amazon's been an excellent place to scoop up some new video games recently thanks to its big selection of discounted PS5 titles. At the moment, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is among the many options on sale right now at the retailer, but it's not just its PS5 version that's dropped in price.
Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions are on sale at Amazon for $29.99 (50% off) and $29.60 (51% off), respectively. If this RPG - which we even awarded as a runner-up nominee in our awards list of the best RPGs of 2025 - has been on your wishlist, now is your chance to grab it at a great low price.
Save on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
This is a low price worth taking advantage of while it's still live, too. According to price tracker camelcamelcamel, the PS5 deal marks a return to its lowest price so far at the retailer, and it's a brand new low for the Xbox Series X version. No better time to grab it if you've been waiting for an exciting discount to appear.
As mentioned before, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 was among our favorite RPGs of 2025, earning a runner-up nomination on our awards list. IGN's Michael Higham said it's "an investment that pays back multiple times over in its 120-hour runtime. It’s a commitment - a slow-burn game you have to want to live in. But it’s also an action-packed cinematic adventure that proves to have an emotional range that the original didn’t."
Writer Leana Hafer's review at the time of release also said it's "Armed with excellent melee combat and an exceptional story," and called it "one part sequel and one part coronation, bringing a lot of the original's ideas to fruition." So why not add it to your library now while it's still on sale?
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
The developer of Crimson Desert has confirmed that the upcoming open world action adventure game does not have a cosmetic cash shop or microtransactions of any kind.
Crimson Desert, due out March 19 priced $69.99, is set in a huge and seamless open world packed with enemies, NPCs, and all sorts of things to do. But one thing players won’t have to contend with is a cosmetic cash shop.
“I can say that definitively: there is not a cosmetic cash shop,” Will Powers, director of marketing at Pearl Abyss America, told weekly talk show Dropped Frames (via @Okami13_). “This is made to be a premium experience that you buy and you enjoy the world, and not something for microtransactions.
“It’s a monetization model. If you do free-to-play then you need to make up the revenue in a different way. This is a premium experience. That is the transaction. Full stop.”
So, that’s microtransactions ruled out, which is sure to go down well with gamers who are hoping for a traditional single-player experience from Crimson Desert. The game has been slowly gaining hype over recent years, but that’s ramped up significantly in the last few months as Pearl Abyss shared more gameplay footage.
Crimson Desert’s huge open world has been a topic of debate recently. Pywel is divided into five distinct regions: Hernand; Pailune; Demeniss; Delesyia; and the Crimson Desert itself. The main quest revolves around protagonist Kliff’s journey, but you’re free to explore the world in any order, taking faction-driven quests, large-scale battles, fortress sieges and smaller, character-focused missions.
Pearl Abyss confirmed that as the story progresses, two additional playable characters become available, each with unique combat styles, skills and weapons. Exploration is a big part of the game — you travel on horseback, climb terrain, glide across distances, and later access advanced traversal options such as a missile-firing mech and a dragon. You can even ride a bear.
Pearl Abyss said the world is filled with hidden treasures, ancient mechanisms, puzzles and points of interest “designed to reward curiosity and discovery.” As for combat, expect to face enemy soldiers, sorcerers, beasts and machines.
Speaking on the Gaming Interviews YouTube channel, Powers said that describing the size of Crimson Desert’s world in terms of numbers doesn’t do it justice, because doing so fails to capture the scope and scale of the game. But he did go as far as to compare it to two of the biggest open-world games around.
"I don't think numbers really do it justice because, how big is that in terms of scope and scale?” he said. “But what we can say is that the world's at least twice as big as the open world, the playable area, of Skyrim. It's larger than the map of Red Dead Redemption 2."
Powers went on to insist that the size of Crimson Desert’s open world wouldn't determine its quality. Rather, what you actually do in it is the key factor. "The continent of Pywel is absolutely massive, but size doesn't really matter if there's nothing to do,” he said. “Open-world games are about doing things, having activities, having distractions. So we wanted to create a world that's not only massive, but is also incredibly interactive."
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Barack Obama has clarified a recent interview in which he said aliens are “real,” insisting he saw “no evidence” that extraterrestrials have made contact with us while he was U.S. President.
Obama set the internet alight over the weekend when he told American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens are “real but I haven’t seen them” during a quickfire "lightning" round of questions.
"They're not being kept in Area 51,” he continued. “There's no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States. Obama then admitted his first question after becoming President of the United States of America on November 4, 2008, was where are the aliens?
Now, Obama has issued a clarifying statement on Instagram, insisting he issued the comment with "the spirit of the speed round" of questions. He then expanded on his prior thoughts.
"I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it's gotten attention let me clarify," he said.
"Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we've been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!"
This isn’t the first time Obama has spoken about aliens, of course. In 2021 he told late night TV host James Corden that once he became President, he asked whether there was a lab "where we're keeping the alien specimens and space ship." "They did a little bit of research and the answer was no," he added. However, Obama acknowleged footage and records of objects in the skies "that we don't know exactly what they are."
The Pentagon’s public attitude toward sightings of UFOs — now rebranded as UAPs — has shifted dramatically in recent years. Notably, in April 2020, the government made a surprise move to declassify three videos captured by instruments aboard U.S. Navy aircraft, which, having previously been leaked to the public in 2017, depicted encounters with fast-moving unknown objects.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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