Kraven the Hunter is Sony Pictures’ worst movie launch since current CEO Tony Vinciquerra took the job back in 2017, he has admitted.

The Sony Spider-Man Universe movie stars Kick Ass and Marvel Cinematic Universe actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the titular villain, a skilled hunter who sets his sights on Spider-Man after conquering all other prey in the animal kingdom.

Kraven bombed at the box office with a paltry $11 million domestic haul from 3,211 theatres during launch weekend. That figure was enough to set an unwanted record: the worst ever opening for a Sony Spider-Man Universe movie. The R-rated action flick came in under the similarly disastrous Madame Web, which brought in just $15.3 million during its launch weekend earlier this year, as well as all the Venom movies and 2022’s Morbius ($39 million). Kraven’s current $43,877,089 worldwide box office is especially awful given the movie cost an estimated $110 million to produce. When you add on marketing spend, Kraven is set for a big loss.

In an interview with the LA Times, outgoing Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra described Kraven the Hunter as “probably the worst launch we had in the seven-and-a-half years” since he took the job, before going on to express his surprise at the film’s disappointing box office haul: “so that didn’t work out very well, which I still don’t understand, because the film is not a bad film.”

In the same interview, Vinciquerra discussed Madame Web’s launch, blaming its box office on the press. Indeed, Vinciquerra suggested the press was to blame for all the Sony Spider-Man Universe failures, pointing to the Venom trilogy’s success as coming despite this apparent campaign from critics.

“Madame Web underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it,” Vinciquerra claimed. “It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix. For some reason, the press decided that they didn’t want us making these films out of Kraven and Madame Web, and the critics just destroyed them. They also did it with Venom, but the audience loved Venom and made Venom a massive hit. These are not terrible films. They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason.”

Sony's Spider-Man universe officially includes six films, listed here alongside their IGN review scores: Venom (4/10), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (7/10), Morbius (5/10), Madame Web (5/10), Venom: The Last Dance (4/10), and Kraven the Hunter (3/10).

The question now is, is Kraven the final nail in the coffin for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, a universe that, remarkably, does not feature Spider-Man? Earlier this month a leading talent agent told The Wrap that Sony had "developed what they want to develop for now" and was instead focusing on the next actual Spider-Man film under Marvel Studios, which is confirmed by star Tom Holland to begin filming in 2025. As a point of comparison, Spider-Man: No Way Home pulled in $587.2 million in its weekend box office debut.

Vinciquerra admitted Sony needs to “rethink” its Spider-Man universe strategy, but blamed the need to do that on the press, rather than any deficiencies at Sony Pictures itself. “I do think we need to rethink it, just because it’s snake-bitten,” he said. “If we put another one out, it’s going to get destroyed, no matter how good or bad it is.”

Overall, Vinciquerra insisted, Sony Pictures’ film effort has been “very successful” during his tenure as CEO, beating the company’s budgets each year since 2017. “It was a good run, and the film studio was a big part of it,” he said.

Sony has the aforementioned Spider-Man 4 to look forward to, at least. It arrives on July 24, 2026 as a continuation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe trilogy again starring Holland. It may even introduce Miles Morales into the MCU, something Holland is personally invested in.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Last week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Sonic the Hedgehog film co-writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller to talk about everything Sonic the Hedgehog 3. We’ve already published stories from this interview about Big the Cat’s almost-cameo in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Casey and Miller’s dreams of making a The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker film, but I had so much fun chatting with them it only seemed write to publish the full transcript of our Sonic banter.

Before I started recording, Casey noticed a Waluigi plush hanging on the wall behind me on Zoom and started telling me about how he had been in an “online sketch show” years ago where he played Waluigi “with prosthetics and everything.” I asked him if I could start recording immediately, so that’s where we began. This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Pat Casey: I mean I don't even know if the sketch is still online. I don't even remember who it was, but my next door neighbor was a costume-maker and she was working on these sketches.

IGN: You said you had prosthetics and everything?

PC: Yeah, it was almost like 20 years ago, but they had a makeup artist and they gave me the nose and the ears and they were like, ‘Can you do a Waluigi impression?’ I was like, ‘I don't know. I don't remember what he talks like’" So then I went and checked out some videos and I was like, "Yeah, I could do..." I mean it was just kind of like, ‘WAAAH,’ something like that.

Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for that delightful... just completely unrelated to Sonic, but still sort of tangentially related to video games of our childhood story.

Josh Miller: I wonder if that's even findable.

PC: Dude, it was like... the early 2000s, man. I don't know what has become of it.

Okay, so Pat, you clearly have a video game history and Josh, I'm guessing you might as well. Tell me a little bit about your video game history and especially your past flirtations with the Sonic franchise.

JM: I guess it was fortuitous in a way for us to, if we're going to do any video game thing to wind up on Sonic, we're both of the Sega Genesis era and I would say Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is probably the game I played the most growing up.

PC: Me, too. I have a little brother and we would trade off, but most of the time I would make him play Tails when we were really trying to beat the game.

JM: Because most two-player games it was like you played and then once you died you would hand the controller and your friend or sibling would play until they died. So it's like Sonic 2, it was kind of, not that it was the first game to do it, but it was certainly the first game I really had on a home console that was really easy and fun to play with two people simultaneously. I think that was-

PC: You got to use real teamwork because when you're fighting a boss, it's Sonic's job to stay alive and it's Tails' job to just fling his corpse at the bad guy over and over again and die as many times as it takes.

JM: It was great for if you had a younger sibling that they could be Tails and it was not as complicated for them to play.

PC: Maybe we should explore that in the movie sometime, the fact that Tails is immortal.

So did you two end up playing Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 when those games came out?

JM: We did, just not, it was more an age thing. We just didn't play them as much. I mean, I never owned a Dreamcast though, so anytime I was playing it had to now be at a friend's place. The Xbox was kind of my console of that era.

PC: The first time I played Sonic Adventure was actually, I had a friend from Japan and he got the Dreamcast early before I came out here. So I played Sonic Adventure in Japanese and I had no idea. I could not follow the story. I just knew I was running away from a whale. There was all sorts of great stuff going on. Later I played the English version. I was like, ‘Oh, this all makes sense.’

JM: Oh, yeah. I mean I remember visiting, I mean we both live in LA now, we're from Minnesota, but I was visiting a friend in college who lived out here and they had the Dreamcast and I remember my mind kind of being blown by what 3D Sonic games looked like, but I guess that's how older people felt when they saw the Genesis games. I do remember my mom walking in the room for Sonic 1 and 2 and just kind of being like, ‘How can you even tell what's going on?’

PC: Like, ‘This isn't like the games I played when I was a kid. This isn’t backgammon. Whatever happened to Shoots and Ladders?’

Did either of you have any core memories from playing Sonic that made it into any of the films, but especially Sonic 3?

PC: When we were writing the first Sonic, we were actually on a really tight deadline kind of for no reason. So we didn't really even have a chance to be like, ‘Oh wait, let's go play the games and then think of the story.’ We had to come up with the story immediately. So it was sort of like-

JM: It was all sense memories.

PC: The core memories is all that made it into the movie. It was like, there's rings, there's emeralds. That's all we were working with.

JM: You've got to go through a loop. I mean, maybe that's a good example. It's funny because that's such a rudimentary thing, but I feel like it was always like, ‘How can we get them to go through a loop de loop? I feel like we got to get that loop de loop back in there.’

PC: But we figured that was a good way to know if something was important was like, ‘Is this something that we just remember all these decades later?’ Like the things that we remember, that's the important part. It's sort of like, Lynyrd Skynyrd never wrote down the lyrics of their songs when they were writing. If they couldn't remember them, then they weren't good enough.

JM: Like Pat's saying, we were the Lynyrd Skynyrd of screenwriting. But also on the very first movie, too, it was kind of like the marching orders were a bit different from where the franchise has evolved. Sega wanted to view it as almost a prequel to what was happening with Sonic before we got to him in Sonic 1.

PC: For Sonic 3, then, it was sort of like, what are the important parts of the Shadow story from Sonic Adventure 2, which is really, what did we already remember moreso than going back and playing?

Yeah, Shadow being an edgy Sonic with jet-powered shoes.

PC: Jet shoes we never explain in the movie. But we wanted to get him on the motorcycle, give him guns, the iconic imagery. Even though, why does he need a gun? Why did he ever need one?

I understand that the story is a little bit darker this time around. I mean specifically because Shadow is involved. Is that correct?

JM: Yes. I mean, I know the internet wondered if this one was going to be PG-13. I think our producers and Jeff Fowler felt pretty confident the whole time that they could somehow do it justice and still have it be PG. But yeah, I mean from the get-go the conversations were like, ‘Well, this is the movie where a little girl is going to die.’

PC: We're certainly walking it right up to the edge of PG-13. But yeah, I mean it's like we're, I guess, four years into this franchise, three movies in, so it's like the franchise continues to grow up and our original audience is growing up. The kids who were little kids for the first one are a little older now. It’s a little along the lines of how Harry Potter grew along with the kids, even though our CG guys don't have to go through puberty if we don't want them to. We have control over that.

So I know that Dragon Ball was a huge influence on Sonic the Hedgehog, and I heard it had an influence on the films too. Can you talk about that, or any other non-Sonic influences you used?

PC: It is true. The Chaos Emeralds and going supersonic, all these concepts were introduced to America in the Sonic games, but the Dragon Ball manga was already out in Japan. So it's like Sonic was parodying Dragon Ball even at that time. But it's like we in America experienced it first in Sonic before Dragon Ball hit. So the influence has always been there. I mean, we talked about Dragon Ball in the writer's room on Sonic 1 even.

JM: But I mean, there's, trying to remember. I feel like I remember Jeff [Fowler, director] saying at some point that we're going to be in Tokyo and Shadow's going to get on a motorcycle. So he is like, ‘Well, we've got to do the Akira motorcycle slide.’ It's amazing. I found a YouTube video, so I hope somebody updates it now that Sonic 3's out, but somebody put together every TV show and movie that does the Akira Slide and it's long. It's kind of amazing.

PC: There's all sorts of references that we don't even know about, that we don't write in necessarily ‘And then they hit this pose from that thing.’ But there's all these pose and shot homages throughout all the movies, and there are probably a bunch that Josh and I don't even catch.

JM: I'm sure it'll be the same for 3... I feel like when 2 came out, a bunch of websites like, ‘All the Easter Eggs in Sonic 2,’ and I'm looking at it, I'm like, ‘Oh, I didn't even know about that one.’

So over the course of the films, first we just had Sonic and then we got Tails and Knuckles. Now we have Shadow, and I'm not going to spoil it for our audience who hasn't seen it yet, but I understand there is another character that is introduced at the end of this film potentially setting up more films to come. How do you two decide this progression? The Sonic cast is big!

PC: It's certainly not only the two of us deciding.

JM: That's above our pay grade.

PC: It’s a group discussion, but I think with Sonic 1, pretty early on, once we realized Tails wasn't going to be a main character, we were like, ‘Let's do the teaser with Tails. Let's make him our Nick Fury.’ When we were working on Sonic 2, we were like, ‘Who are we going to do at the end of this movie?’ And immediately Toby Ascher [producer] was just like, ‘It's going to be Shadow.’

JM: It’s got to be Shadow. And that I think is very much that the creative Powers That Be on the franchise are kind of trying to gauge what they sense the hierarchy is of who fans are most excited about next. That's who we'll do next.

PC: I'll say that the next character is one that we've been wanting to get in there. We know that there's a great public demand, so I hope when you see the movie later, I hope you're happy.

Are there any obscure deep cut characters that you're like, ‘Dang, I wish we could find a way to sneak this person in?’ I know everybody's clamoring for Big the Cat.

JM: Oh, yeah. I mean that's what we always say. That's our joke response. That's not even entirely a joke because it's so easy to imagine just kind of like a random joke you could use with him.

PC: In one draft of Sonic 2, we actually, when they're going through the snowy mountains to the cave, we had a bit, because Sonic 2 was sort of an Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones, it's a trope that at some point a skeleton pops out at you and scares you. So we were going to do that, but with a skeleton of a, I would say, a Big the Cat, not necessarily-

JM: Not necessarily the Big the Cat.

PC: But we ended up cutting it. It didn't make any sense.

The Sonic franchise over the years has been this magnet for all sorts of weird silly ideas over the years. But then you're also telling a story that has a little bit of emotional weight to it. How do you balance those two things to keep it just from being a humorous reference fest and make sure that there's a little bit of gravity to Sonic the Hedgehog?

JM: I do remember there was a phase where we were kind of all worried like, ‘Oh, is this too dark?’ But that was because we were really just trying to crack the Shadow story, and once you start dropping Sonic and Tails and especially Donut Lord in there, then if anything we're like, ‘Oh, we got to make sure that we aren't undermining the seriousness of Shadow's storyline with how silly the rest of the movie is.’

PC: And well, Doctor Robotnik is always going to be very silly too. We found some good pathos for him in this one as well. But yeah, I mean it is about just finding that character. Like, that was the hardest thing in creating this whole franchise was kind of figuring out what Sonic's deal was in the first movie, and what was going to make people connect to him as a person and not just a silly animal, and finding that need for family, and the themes of loneliness and family carrying through all these films. And now kind of the hitting upon the theme also of loss and revenge.

Well, you mentioned Doctor Robotnik, so tell me about writing for Jim Carrey, especially now that you're writing not just for one Jim Carrey, but a second Jim Carrey playing off the first one.

JM: Much like we're from the Genesis generation, we're from the rise of Jim Carrey generation and the Ace Ventura years. So just the fact that we have done three movies that he's in is kind of mind-boggling to us and it's super fun, because when we wrote the first one, we didn't know that Jim was going to be Robotnik, so that was its own thing. But with the sequels now, it's so fun because we kind of compare it to... you want him to take whatever you wrote and find something even better to do. That's why you cast Jim Carrey. So we almost view it as like you're putting him in a playground or something and what can we design? What can this scene be to let him go bananas and do his Jim Carrey thing?

PC: We're trying to give him a comic premise and roll out a box of toys for him. Him playing two characters in the same scene together so often, I mean, it was really interesting to watch how he did it even on set, because he would have to sort of build both performances at the same time, but he can only do one at a time because it took hours to get into his Gerald makeup, so he would do one side of it, and then come back the next day and do the other side, and it ends up cutting together so seamlessly. It's crazy.

JM: We just saw it, I guess this is the third time we've seen it. We saw it yesterday in 4DX, which was great. But yeah, the more I see it, the more I just marvel at how complicated some of the routines he came up for himself to be playing off himself. That's normally the kind of thing that you have those two actors there rehearsing and honing these bits, but it was just like, nope, it was all in his head that he had to figure out.

PC: I'm campaigning Jim Carrey, Best Supporting Actor nomination.

I understand there’s been a significant amount of improv done by the actors, and I was curious how you felt about that as writers, but it sounds like at least with Jim Carrey, you're like, ‘Yeah, that's what he does. This is great.’

JM: Yeah, I mean, the truth is, if the improv's good, you always welcome it. It's only a problem if it's bad. Fortunately, I think this is a good enough creative team that if someone does a bad improv, it's not like Jeff's going to put it in the movie. I mean, with Ben Schwartz, Adam Pally, people who it's like that's their whole bread and butter is improv.

PC: James Marsden is an underrated improviser.

JM: Yeah. I think Jury Duty showed his skills off to the world for the first time.

PC: And if an actor comes up with a great line and it makes the movie, we're always happy to take credit for other people.

This is close to my heart because the memory I have of Sonic Adventure 2 is the Chao Garden. I lost it when I saw the trailer of the cast in the Chao Garden, which is now basically the Chuck E. Cheese of the Sonic world, I guess. Tell me about adapting that. How did you come to this? Are Chao even real in this world, or are they... what's happening?

JM: You never know. Who knows how many sequels they'll end up doing? I think part of the logic was that Jeff has no immediate plans for the Chaos to really be in, and we already had that set piece, because that's a real type of restaurant that Jeff had encountered while promoting, I think, Sonic 2 in Tokyo. So we just thought-

PC: We thought it would be funny, yeah, that this is a place where Sonic and the other critters can go without a disguise because they just blend in. I mean, obviously in real life, would that work? Would people think they're people in giant plush costumes? Perhaps not. But with the suspension of disbelief with film, you can believe it. It's like, ‘Oh, we'll have a theme restaurant.’ And it's like, ‘Of course it should be a Chao Garden.’

PC: It could be based on the real Chao.

JM: Indeed. But yeah, I think in the context of this movie, Jeff just thought it would be a funny, funny nod to the Chaos and fans love or love-hate relationship with Chaos, I suppose, depending on-

Who hates Chao? Who's doing that?

JM: People with no soul.

PC: I tell you what, Josh, last night watching the movie, I realized they cut out a shot that we saw in an early cut that was, I thought was the funniest shot in the movie. It’s of the Chao, like on fire.

JM: Oh, you're right. Every time I watch it, I just, my brain puts it in the movie.

PC: We have to confront the team about this. What happened to that shot of the Chao getting killed?

JM: Maybe that's what was going to push us to PG-13. It'd be like, ‘You can't have a Chao on fire. Kids are going to run out of the theater screaming.’

Before the Sonic trilogy came out, there was a lot of talk, at least in video game spaces, about the fact that video game movies were sort of cursed to be not very good. I think that's largely been broken in recent years, not just by the Sonic movies, but we've had Detective Pikachu, there's been several other really solid video game films. And you two have been a big part of that, having these fairly successful, very enjoyable video game movies. Are there any other video games that you would want to adapt someday as films since this has clearly gone very well for you?

JM: I feel like unfortunately we can't actually answer your question because there's going to be a couple of things we're trying to get going next year.

Are there any that you're not working on at all that you can say?

PC: I was going to say, we've already written a script for It Takes Two, which hopefully we'll get some good news on moving forward in the next year.

JM: What's an old game that we're probably not going to adapt, that still would've been fun?

PC: We've talked about Golden Axe. Golden Axe was another good Genesis multiplayer game.

JM: A Boy and His Blob.

PC: Oh yeah, that could work. Or the 7-Up game about the dot having a platforming adventure. [Cool Spot]

JM: I think another easy one I think we can answer because the movie's already happening and we're already not doing it would be a Zelda. I remember always when we played Wind Waker, we were always like, man, I mean, it would probably be weird if they made a Zelda movie to start with Wind Waker versus the more classic Hyrule. But we both loved Wind Waker and it's so cinematic. Yeah. So after they make this Zelda movie, I guess we're putting it out there in the world, maybe we can do a Wind Waker spin-off.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Mat, Matt, and Jen are here to present the IGN UK Podcast Alternative Game Awards for 2024. Which game had the best animal? Which simply requires you to get gud? Listen to find out.

Remember to send us your thoughts about all the new games, TV shows, and films you're enjoying or looking forward to: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 780: The Alternative Game Awards 2024

• IGN UK Podcast 779: The Alternative Movie and TV Awards 2024
• IGN UK Podcast 778: The Game Awards Reveals and Ferry Fights
• IGN UK Podcast Special Episode: We Visited CD Projekt Red to Talk About The Witcher 4
• IGN UK Podcast 777: Indiana Jones and the Great Game
• IGN UK Podcast 776: Breaking Down the Top 20 PlayStation Games

Even with Christmas over, there are still many great deals available that you can score before they're gone. Here are the best deals for Thursday, December 26.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for $44.99

Choosing a tablet is tough, we know. On Apple’s side, there’s quite a wide variety of options to choose from, and it’s not always clear what’s so different between them. Unless you’re versed in all the jargon, the difference between a Liquid Retina display and a Ultra Retina Tandem OLED with Pro Motion might not be obvious. There are also major differences under the hood with Apple currently offering devices featuring an older A14 Bionic chip at the low end and an exceedingly fast M4 chip at the high end.

And all of that is just Apple. The Android tablet market only widens the field that much more. Where Apple tends to trim off the older, outmoded tablets in its stable, the Android tablet market will still readily show you devices you shouldn’t have bought when they were new, let alone years later. And just like Apple’s devices, there’s a considerable range of hardware options that go from severely underpowered to totally overkill — at which point a Windows tablet could make more sense. What makes Android tablet shopping even more complicated is the software support. Apple keeps its tablets running on the latest operating systems for a long time, but how long any given Android tablet will stay up to date is a much harder question to answer.

After looking at the market, considering the iPad and Android tablets we’ve tested, and weighing what actually makes sense when purchasing a tablet, we’ve narrowed down a handful of options that strike the right balance.

Additional contributions by Mark Knapp

Featured in this article

A combination of power, versatility, and portability has helped cement tablets place in the portables market. So, no matter your need, whether you just want a device to entertain you at the end of a busy workday or require something more robust for video editing on-the-go, there’s a tablet out there for you. To help you with your search, we’ve gathered the best tablets on the market. Check them out below.

Contributions by Danielle Abraham and Michelle Rae Uy

1. iPad (10th Generation)

Best Tablet

2. OnePlus Pad 2

Best Android Tablet

3. iPad Pro (M4, 2024)

Best Tablet for Creative Work

4. iPad Air (2024)

Best Thin and Light Tablet

5. iPad (9th Generation)

Best Budget iPadOS Tablet

How to Choose the Best Tablet

The first step when deciding on a tablet is setting a budget. Looking to just stream shows and scroll socials? A cheap slate should suffice. However, you'll need to up your spending if you’re after a productivity tool that performs similarly to a laptop. You can even slap a keyboard onto some tablets, essentially turning them into the best detachable laptops, albeit with the limits of their hardware and operating system.

Next, design should be taken into consideration. You want an option that’s lightweight but still durable for on-the-go use. A sizable, crisp, and responsive display ensures the best user experience, while OLED panels are a more premium option with deep blacks and richer colors over their LCD counterparts.

Of course, the internal components are just as important, as you don’t want a sluggish device that leads to you reaching for one of the best smartphones or laptops instead. To prevent that from happening, a solid processor and at least 4GB of RAM is a must. For gaming or creative work, upgrading those specs can make a world of difference. Beyond that, you’ll want to ensure your software is up to date. Android OS is in its 15th generation while iPadOS 18 is Apple’s latest.

Other features like long battery life, great-sounding speakers, crisp cameras, and stylus support can help improve your experience on a tablet. You may even want to consider getting a 5G tablet that can connect to your cellular network when you’re not on Wi-Fi.

Tablets FAQ

Are iPads better than Android tablets?

No. Both types of tablets have plenty of solid models to choose from; it’s more a matter of personal preference. If you already have the best iPhone and MacBook, it makes sense to grab an iPad for seamless integration into your Apple Ecosystem, including the ability to double as a second screen for a MacBook. iPads are known for their smooth, enjoyable user experience along with their wealth of apps and games, but the pricing is more restrictive.

Tablets running on Android OS come from various manufacturers using a wide variety of components and different versions of the Android operating system, meaning performance and the experience is all over the place. But there’s a wider selection of slates, from ultra-cheap to high-end. It’s just important to do your research, as there are some duds—iPads’ performance is a bit more consistent. The selection of apps optimized for an Android tablet is also more limited. Still, almost all Android apps should function, just not as well as on your phone.

Should you buy a tablet with cellular network support?

Most will find that a tablet with cellular network support is unnecessary unless you’re constantly on the go with no way to connect via Wi-Fi. Adding that extra line to your cellular plan can be expensive, and your smartphone can usually work as a Wi-Fi hotspot for your tablet when you’re in a pinch. However, should you decide you’d like cellular network support, many of our picks come in 5G versions, just know you have to make that decision up front.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

This article contains spoilers for Squid Game Season 2.

Easily one of the most anticipated shows of the year, and it feels like with the return of Netflix's smash hit Squid Game we've all received an extra gift this Holiday season. The intrigue-filled story of a kids game inspired death-match enraptured audiences in 2021 and its back with another wild season following Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) as he attempts to take down the wealthy madmen behind the brutally violent game show. Other returning cast members include a cop on a mission to stop the games, Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), and The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) AKA Hwang In-ho who both play key roles in the wild sophomore season. So, now that you've obviously binged the entire show we're here to answer all your questions and explain that wild ending and how it sets up Season 3 of Squid Game which will air next year.

Squid Game 2 Ending Explained

After a season of new and terrifying games, the penultimate season of Squid Game ended with a violent uprising and some shocking character moments which set us on a chaotic path into the third and final season. As Hwang Jun-ho led a crew to find the island where the games take place, it was revealed that there was a traitor among their ranks. The friendly

fisherman (Oh Dal-su) who had been helping Seong Gi-hun search the ocean for the islands was actually a killer. We saw him murdering one of the soldiers in order to hide the fact that he had sabotaged the team's drone, which was the main tool they'd been using to get a better look at the islands where they suspected the games may be taking place. The big question is whether he's a part of the game organization or has an agenda of his own.

On the island within the game compound the group vote whether to stay or leave — a big change this season is that they are given the opportunity to vote after every game, setting up larger conflicts between the group — and it comes to a tie. After a brutal fight in the bathroom reveals that killing your fellow players also ups the prize pot, a violent night ensues. Because he's already played the game, Seong Gi-hun predicts what will happen and gets his allies to hide under the beds and avoid the madness. The killings begin when the side who wants to keep playing waits for lights out and begins to slaughter those who want to leave. After a brutal battle that sees many players — including fan fave Se-mi (Won Ji-an) — killed Seong Gi-hun uses the chaos in the wake of the riots to ambush the guards playing dead and stealing their weapons. It's a smart gambit that enables many of the players to gain weapons and begin making their way to the top floor to find leadership.

Alas, the young navy seal Dae Ho (Kang Ha Neul) freaks out while on a mission for more ammo, hiding in bed and resulting in the group running out of bullets and eventually being captured by The Front Man. This leads to the murder of Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) in front of his best friend Seong Gi-hun, leaving our leading man's fate up in the air and the rebellion’s chances looking worse than ever. It's clear that this will directly lead into Season 3, which was filmed at the same time as the sophomore season, with the show then split in two. So, as we wait for that next entry here are all our burning questions about what we can expect from Squid Game 3.

Why Did the Front Man Enter the Games?

Nothing screams Christmas quite like gothic horror. In his first project since 2022's The Northman, Robert Eggers returns with cinematographer Jarin Blaschke for a remake of 1922's Nosferatu. The Lighthouse alum Willem Dafoe also returns for what Siddhant Adlhkada's review describes as "one of the finest, most viscerally exciting works of horror this year."

Whether you're planning a Babyratu double feature or want to stream the original silent film, here's everything we know about how to watch Nosferatu.

How to Watch Nosferatu: Showtimes and Streaming Status

Nosferatu just released in theaters. You can find showtimes near you at the main theater links below:

• Fandango
• AMC Theaters
• Cinemark Theaters
• Regal Theaters

Nosferatu (2024) Streaming Release Date

Nosferatu will eventually stream on Peacock (instead of Netflix or Max) because the film's distributor, Focus Features, is a subsidiary of NBC Universal. Previous Focus Features releases from 2024, The Bikeriders and Conclave, were in theaters for about seven weeks before streaming. Assuming the vampire follows a similar timeline, Nosferatu should arrive on Peacock by mid-February 2025.

What Is Nosferatu About?

The new Nosferatu movie is a remake of the German 1922 silent film directed by F. W. Murnau, which itself was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula trying to avoid copyright issues. Here's the official synopsis for the new Eggers adaptation:

Where to Stream the Original Nosferatu Movies

Besides the original 1922 silent film, there's also a (notoriously long) 1979 adaptation of Nosferatu directed by Warner Herzog. Both are available online for free, and you can check out your streaming options below:

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922):

Black and White:

• Philo (free)

In Color:

• Prime Video (free)
• Tubi (free)

Nosferatu the Vampyr (1979):

• Prime Video (free)
• Tubi (free)

Nosferatu Cast

Nosferatu was written and directed by Robert Eggers, with cinematography from Jarin Blaschke and a score by Robin Carolan. The movie stars the following cast:

• Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok
• Nicholas Hoult as Thomas Hutter
• Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter
• Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Friedrich Harding
• Emma Corrin as Anna Harding
• Willem Dafoe as Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz
• Ralph Ineson as Dr. Wilhelm Sievers
• Simon McBurney as Herr Knock

Nosferatu Rating and Runtime

Nosferatu is rated R for bloody violent content, graphic nudity and some sexual content. The movie runs for a total of two hours and 12 minutes.

What if Santa was buff and had a paramilitary security team? What if imaginary friends were real? What if someone gave… someone else scars… like, out in space? On a rebellious moon?

These are all great questions, and they can all be answered simply by watching some of the most critically panned movies of 2024. Yes, we’re taking a look back at the year that was in movies that were found wanting. Here you’ll see flicks that IGN rated a 4 out of 10 or lower. And 4 means “Bad” so - yes - you’re going to see what lies beyond just being plain bad and it’ll be up to you to decide the true difference between the slightly hyperbolic “Awful” (3), “Painful” (2), and “Unbearable” (1).

(Hopefully) The Last Dance

Getting raked over the coals by critics doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna be a total financial bomb, so we’ll kick off our 4’s with Venom: The Last Dance. It was a cinematic colonic in most aspects, sure, but also a humble winner at the global box office. When all is said and done Venom 3 will have garnered close to $500 million, which is not too shabby for a movie IGN’s Tom Jorgensen said had “two left feet.” Furthermore, despite a few moments of fun, Tom said in his review that this third Venom entry was “torn between its responsibilities to big-budget comic book moviemaking and a more-focused genre story of a boy and his alien,” ultimately delivering a lackluster Lambada (timely dance reference!)

Other 4’s include the newly released-to-streaming Dear Santa, which marked a reunion between Jack Black and the Farrelly Brothers while also marking, according to Jesse Hassenger’s review, a misguided mess full of “deeply questionable story choices.”

Blumhouse’s Afraid proved that you can’t just do M3GAN without M3GAN. This preposterous smart house thriller was Zillow Gone Mild. And you know what else isn’t scary? Ice. But that’s what the Ghostbusters – both generations of Ghostbusters, that is – squared off against in Frozen Empire. Everyone knows you don’t fight ice, you just bolt from it. Like Jake Gyllenhaal did in The Day After Tomorrow when he outran cold.

Both The Garfield Movie and Argylle proved that this was not the year for animated cats, whether they were staunch Monday haters/lasagna lovers or just terrible looking CGI caught up in a “sluggishly paced idea-dump” of a spy caper, as our review put it.

And if you’re longing for more computer-generated critters, then look no further than John Krasinski’s IF, which A. A. Dowd wrote in his review was full of “trite platitudes,” lacking “any real insight into the adventures of growing up.” So not even the all-star cast – including Ryan Reynolds, who had a blockbuster year otherwise – could win us over. IF almost did as poorly on Rotten Tomatoes as 1996’s Bogus, which had Gérard Depardieu as the kid’s imaginary friend. So if your $100 million kids movie isn’t any better than a film where Haley Joel Osment mourns his dead parent by palling around with an invisible French magician, then you need to take everything back to formula.

More 4’s here than you can shake a stick at: Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, Kevin Costner’s dream project, probably had its producers thinking Chapter 11 (amirite?), while Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate, My Spy: The Eternal City, The Union, My Oni Girl, Role Play, A Family Affair, and Wicked Little Letters all got blammo’d with the “Bad” label.

Meanwhile, Brad Pitt and George Clooney were unable to handsome their way out of Siddhant Adlakha calling their John Watts streaming movie, Wolfs, “half-baked” with “little humor or heart” in his review.

This holiday season you were unlikely to see Rebel Moon toys on store shelves. Not like last year when they were, basically, overstocked due to no one buying them. That’s because Zack Snyder’s two-part sci-fi epic not only failed to resonate on a pop-culture level but also, you know, critics s*** all over it. And the second half of the story, The Scargiver, which landed in April, got a 4, just like Part 1 did before it. As Hanna Ines Flint put it in her review, “The Scargiver delivers a half-baked conclusion to a well-trodden story with flimsy character studies and lackluster action.

Crisis on Infinite Ughh

Warner Bros. Animation also contributed heavily to our 4 rankings, dropping both Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part Two and Three in 2024. Both released on digital, 4K UHD, and Blu-ray, these two movies concluded this particular adaptation of the famous ‘80s DC Comics storyline, Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Part Two, reviewed by Jesse Schedeen, was called “a lackluster follow-up to an already flawed opening act” while Part Three, reviewed by Hayden Mears, was stamped with “messy,” “forgettable,” and a “poor send-off for Kevin Conroy’s Batman.” Damn, that’s harsher than when Joker called Batman “Fatman.” Honestly, I’d never recover.

BLANDora… nope. Wait! PanSNOREa! (Nailed it!)

The Borderlands movie didn’t get the lowest score here at IGN, as it kicks off our 3’s, but it’s gonna get the spotlight here for sure. Not just at IGN where stalwart soldiers have been covering the game franchise for a whopping 15 years, but in Hollyweird in general, where it now stands alongside famous flops that can be called out by name. Yup, it’s Waterworld levels of disaster.

And that just sucks because a good-ass movie could be mined from Borderlands. You wouldn’t even need A-listers and/or Oscar-winners to star in it (though that was a particularly odd cherry on top). You just need to keep the Vault Hunters as Vault Hunters and have them run around shooting everything while cracking wise and taking lives. Not the overcooked lore-blunder we got, featuring a miserably Frankenstein’d script, weeks of reshoots, two years of sitting on the shelf, and Cate Blanchett sounding like she’s in a different movie than everyone else. Or is she in the right movie and everyone else is wrong? Who can say? If there was ever a time to do one of those hypothetical “one character is human and every other character is a Muppet” movies, this was it.

“An abysmal waste of a beloved franchise that takes a kooky band of murderous misfits and drains the life out of their first adventure together,” is what Matt Donato wrote in his review. The franchise’s trademark gallows humor gets steamrolled while its “uniquely deranged themes are replaced by recycled blandness geared toward mass marketability.” Borderlands tried too hard to be Guardians of the Galaxy but that’s never what the games were, despite some similarities on paper. And now we’re left with a “catastrophic disappointment that plays like hacked-to-pieces studio slop.”

Red Three

Speaking of studio slop… Red One. The Rock’s big holiday dud that, well, may get forgotten and forgiven quickly because of how HUGE Moana 2 is. So while Red One – which was originally supposed to be a streaming movie for Prime Video (and certainly feels like it) – is underperforming, Dwayne Johnson’s big animated sequel is kicking ass and taking names.

Still, Red One, our second 3 here, features “mismatched stars with a whole lot of shockingly inconsistent special effects, preaching a sentimental yuletide message even as it looks like the height of soulless commercialization.” A.A. Dowd also mentioned, in his IGN review, that “only those who find the thought of Santa needing a bodyguard or the North Pole becoming a high-tech compound inherently hilarious are guaranteed many laughs from this largely charmless holiday blockbuster.”

By the way, by the time this article goes up Red One will probably be on Prime Video. Where it should’ve entered the world to begin with.

The other 3’s from 2024 were Netflix slog Damsel, the haphazard Harold and the Purple Crayon, and horror prequel The Strangers: Chapter 1, which Lena Wilson called in her review a “mind-numbing reboot” with stupid main characters that pales in comparison to 2008’s The Strangers (and even 2018’s The Strangers: Prey at Night).

The Power of Christ Compels 2

Nothing was given a 1 this past year (fingers crossed for an “Unbearable” in 2025) but there are a couple 2’s, both coming from the world of horror. Tarot wound up making a nice profit despite being a “lazy Final Destination knockoff” and The Exorcism, starring Russell Crowe, was light on frights and high on “bewildering edits.” As Jarrod Jones wrote, “The Exorcism is compromised by its unfortunate postproduction saga” producing “undercooked genre crud.”

But let’s not forget, just last year Russell Crowe was in The Pope’s Exorcist, which was shlocky but fun, in an unlimited breadsticks kind of way. So if you simply must watch Maximus Decimus Meridius vanquish demons, that’s the way to go. Plus, he rides a scooter while Faith No More’s “We Care A Lot” blasts in the background and not much more is needed for true cinema.

What were the worst movies of 2024 in your opinion? Let’s discuss in the comments!