Paramount is looking to cast their spell on a Dungeons & Dragons movie. They're going ahead with it, and at least according to earlier reports, serious D&D campaigners will recognize the setting of this new movie as The Forgotten Realms. Paramount has dated the movie for July 23, 2021.
Nothing is really known about the project right now, which has been quiet for quite some time (and has apparently changed studios from Warner Bros. to Paramount since we last heard anything). Last year the word was that David Leslie Johnson, who has some fantasy experience from Wrath of the Titans would write, while Rob Letterman, who had fun with the Goosebumps movie, would direct, and the plan was that they would be looking for a lighter, Guardians of the Galaxy flavor in this one.
 The Tracking Board had some other details, saying they were looking for a "Vin Diesel type" and that that the film is about "a warrior and his band of mystical creatures – including a half-dragon and a cunning gnome – as they embark on a dangerous journey to find a mythical treasure." Deadline reported that the film was readying a character sheet and rolling up vital statistics for a lead roll for Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver). It's not clear if any of this still applies.
The Dungeons & Dragons movie from 2000 wasn't exactly anyone's favorite film of the year...or even that week (the Dungeons & Dragons animated series, on the other hand, is remembered far more fondly). There were two direct to cable sequels that you never need to watch under any circumstances. But there's a huge hole to fill in the fantasy franchise market now that Peter Jackson has left Middle Earth for good. Duncan Jones didn't exactly roll a natural 20 with Warcraft for Legendary in 2016, but there's enough genre action to go around.

Hope you like Will Smith in sci-fi/fantasy movies, because he's heading back to Netflix for Bright 2. Netflix is investing somewhere in the neighborhood of $90 million for Bright, which doesn't arrive on the streaming service until December 22. Despite the fact that they haven't even been able to gauge the audience reaction to their first major, blockbuster-worthy movie, they feel confident enough in what they have to move forward with a sequel, as they reportedly already have one lined up. Here's what a new report from Bloomberg has to say about it.
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"'Bright' is the company's first attempt at a big-budget Hollywood production, bringing together a bona fide movie star in a fantasy, buddy-cop tale that could have come from any studio playbook. Directed by David Ayer, who also made Suicide Squad, it's a warning shot to studios and theater owners that Netflix is targeting a big chunk of the $38.6 billion global box office. To underscore the commitment, the company has already ordered a sequel with Smith signed on."
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Bright, which is written by Max Landis (Chronicle) is set in an alternate reality and follows two cops from very different backgrounds. Ward (Will Smith) and Jakoby (Joel Edgerton) embark on a routine patrol night that will ultimately alter the future as the weird world they live in knows it. Battling both their own personal differences, in addition to an onslaught of various enemies, the unlikely duo must work together to protect a long-missing relic. In the wrong hands, this relic could destroy everything.

Given that we haven't seen the first Bright movie yet, it's almost impossible to imagine where Bright 2 could possibly go. It's also hard to figure how Netflix justifies something like this on their end. With a $90 million movie, most studios would expect massive box office returns. For Netflix, they're literally just trying to keep their current subscriber base happy and attract new ones. But can that really justify such a huge budget? Apparently so. And not only that, but Will Smith, one of the biggest stars on the planet, is embracing the new era of streaming movies enough to do another major movie with Netflix. This is a big statement from the streaming service that they can make big, flashy content with big stars.
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It's going to be very interesting to see how Bright is received later this week once it arrives on Netflix. The streaming service historically doesn't reveal ratings numbers, so we'll have no idea how many people actually watch this thing. As for Bright 2, almost nothing is known at the current time, but Bloomberg has confirmed it's absolutely happening. It hasn't yet been made clear if David Ayer will return to direct, but he and Will Smith seem to get along, so it seems likely he's part of the deal as well.

New Line Cinema has added yet another new cast member to Shazam!, with The Walking Dead fan favorite Cooper Andrews coming aboard. This new report doesn't reveal the character's identity, but does state that he will play, "the foster parent at the group home where Billy lives." In the comics, after the death of his parents, Billy Batson becomes part of a large foster family that includes five other kids, and foster parents Victor Vasquez and his wife Rosa Vasquez. While there is no confirmation that Cooper Andrews is playing Victor Vasquez, it's certainly possible.
In the New 52 reboot comics, Freddy Freeman is one of Billy's foster siblings, along with Eugene Choi, Pedro Pena and Darla Dudley, and Billy's real twin sister Mary Batson. Along with Freddy Freeman, the rest of these characters have also been recently cast, with Grace Fulton playing Mary, Ian Chen playing Eugene Choi and Jovan Armand playing Pedro Pena, so it certainly seems likely that this character is Victor Vasquez. David J. MacNeil has also been cast as Mr. Bryer, who was Victor Vasquez's chief rival in the comics. In the New 52 comics, the Vasquez foster home is in Philadelphia, although it isn't clear if that's where this movie adaptation will be set.
Regardless of who he's playing, Cooper Andrews joins a cast that includes Zachary Levi as Shazam!, the hero who Billy Batson turns into after simply uttering his name, with Angel Asher playing young Billy Batson. If this story is following the New 52 line, then perhaps we'll start hearing more about the rest of this on-screen foster family coming together. With an early 2018 shoot being eyed for Pinewood Studios in Toronto, we may certainly start hearing about more cast members coming together before principal photography gets started. While an exact production start date has yet to be confirmed by the studio, a production listing claimed the shoot will last from February 5, 2018 to May 4, 2018.
Director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out), who last month hilariously shut down Reddit rumors that he had been fired from the production, is working from a script by Henry Gayden (Earth to Echo) and Darren Lemke (Jack the Giant Slayer), based on characters created by C.C. Beck and Bill Parker. Peter Safran is producing with Jeffrey Chernov serving as executive producer. New Line has set an April 5, 2018 release date for Shazam!, which falls between Disney's Dumbo on March 29, 2019 and Universal's new Doctor Dolittle project on April 12, 2019.
While it remains to be seen when any story details will be given, star Zachary Levi called this movie DC's answer to Guardians of the Galaxy, which is certainly a bold claim, although time will tell if it's accurate or not. Cooper Andrews is best known for playing the gregarious Jerry, a faithful servant to King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) on AMC's The Walking Dead, and AMC fans may also remember him as Yo-Yo Engberk on Halt and Catch Fire. He will next be seen on the big screen in Den of Thieves, alongside Gerard Butler, 50 Cent and Pablo Schreiber. Deadline broke the news of this casting earlier today.

Holiday Guacamole
Recipe type: Appetizer
Cuisine: Mexican
Serves: 4 to 6
 
Add pomegranate seeds and queso fresco to your guacamole this year for a festive flavor fiesta!
Ingredients

• 2 large ripe Haas avocados
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 tablespoon minced green onion
• 2 tablespoons diced green chiles
• Dash of cayenne pepper sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Top with pomegranate seeds and queso fresco.

The vast release of new trailers this week with Star Wars, The Last Jedi seems to be never-ending.

As Mikah explained in his letter, he had first-hand experience of relying on the generosity of others when his family became homeless themselves 3 years ago and had to rely on an emergency shelter for several weeks. Despite being only 6 years old at the time, he clearly recalled having to give back the blanket he received at the end of each night at the shelter and felt the homeless should at the very least have a blanket of their own.
News of Mikah’s generosity reached local news channel Fox8 Cleveland, and then the attention of Microsoft, who decided such generosity at an early age should not go unrewarded and arranged for Mikah to pick up a brand-new Xbox One from the local Microsoft Store.
“When they called and told me I was just instantly crying on the phone and I couldn’t believe it,” said Mikah’s grandmother Terry Brant recalling when she learned about the surprise. “What’s harder was not telling him.”
“He knew what it was like to not have a blanket at night and have to give it back,” said a tearful Brant. “So the first thing he wanted to do is give a blanket that they could keep.”
At the store employees led him to the back, where he was presented with 2 large bags of gifts, including an Xbox One.
“It’s just amazing, it’s a blessing, Mikah is a blessing to our family and we thank you very much,” said Brant.

​“Instagram is a major distributor and redistributor of I.R.A. propaganda that’s at the very least on par with Twitter,” according to a report published last month by Jonathan Albright, research director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.
A Facebook spokesman said the company was committed to tackling the problem on Instagram.

“We take this issue very seriously and continue to fight efforts to stop foreign interference,” the spokesman, Tom Reynolds, said. “As part of our investigation, we found and removed around 170 I.R.A. accounts on Instagram that were responsible for approximately 120,000 posts.”
He added, “Our review of this activity is ongoing, and we continue to monitor for and remove fake accounts.”

Mr. Albright’s research documented how the photo-friendly service was widely used by Russian trolls, and how it continues to be a hub for those images to be shared and shared again. He analyzed 28 of the 170 accounts that Instagram removed from its platform after discovering that they had been created by the I.R.A., which is based in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Using publicly available information on sites that archive social media posts, Mr. Albright found 2.5 million recorded interactions with posts from the accounts, as well as 145 million likely interactions with people who had passively viewed them.
Mr. Albright said that those figures were not the complete picture — he was not able to account for how many people had shared images on Instagram by taking screen grabs or through a variety of third-party apps that allow for reposting of images.

The image of a woman in the hijab was originally posted by an account called Merican Fury. According to evidence presented during a congressional hearing in October, that account was part of a coordinated disinformation campaign run by the Internet Research Agency.
This month, it was shared to a popular Instagram account called Republican's, which says it represents “the Republicans and Conservatives of Instagram.” It has more than 100,000 followers.
An administrator of Republican's declined to answer why the account had shared the image, or if the person running the account was aware of the image’s Russian origin. When reached on Instagram, which allows users to send a message to any account they follow, the administrator said he or she had only recently taken over the account.
The person responding to messages refused to answer any other questions about who he or she is or who previously controlled the account and managed its posts. No information was provided on the Instagram account other than a brief description.
Mr. Albright said it was not unusual for accounts to share images without checking their source.

“Instagram has all the social aspects of Facebook, but it is more powerful for visual messaging than Facebook,” he said. “It’s all about sharing images from many different sources with a community. It’s more focused on the conversations sparked by those images, on the controversy around them.”
Nir Eyal, author of “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products,” said Instagram was expressly designed to make images quick and easy to share.
“Instagram is a much more intimate place than Facebook and Twitter,” Mr. Eyal said. “People on Instagram have a more targeted list of people they follow. It’s a tight network of people who share images with each other.”
Within Instagram, users often share one another’s posts, a process known as “regramming,” or copy and post images they have spotted from other social media platforms. That makes it difficult to entirely eliminate an image from the site, or guarantee that once it is eliminated from one person’s account, it does not resurface somewhere else on the service.
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The images created by the Russian accounts were designed to draw both interest and anger on divisive issues. In one image, a father and son hold guns, and the text asks whether all fathers wouldn’t choose to protect their families, given the chance. In another, a young child, presumably a Syrian refugee, holds a jagged knife. The text around his head suggests that Americans are being killed for “political correctness.”
In comments below the images, thousands weighed in on whether the United States should allow refugees from Syria to enter the United States. Mr. Albright said it was a typical example of how Instagram had become more than just a site for sharing images — and had become a hub for debate.

Destiny's new holiday event is called "The Dawning" and starts December 13th.
It brings back the Sparrow Racing League and adds a lot of new Sparrows and other Gear.
Along with new Quests, there will be new Bounties, a new Record Book with challenges, two new Sparrow racing tracks on Earth and Mercury, and a new game mode called Strike Scoring.
As always with these events, players will be able to find new Ornaments, consumables, Shaders, emblems, Emotes and so forth.

Matt Denomme has taken to the airwaves to talk about the TERA Online console project. In the new video, he details the forthcoming console technical alpha that will be taking place from December 14th through the 18th. While the pool for this particular test will be quite small, a larger test will be conducted in early 2018.
Bluehole has been working to rebuild the UI from the ground up to ensure that console commands easily and accurately provide players with all the interface tools they need to play. "All the action is at the tip of your fingers." Denomme said.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the scope of this technical test is limited—so don't be discouraged if you don't receive an invitation. We're planning to host a much wider Beta Test for the console version of TERA early next year.
Servers will be open 24/7 during the technical alpha, and the team has plans for fun events as well.

Following its release for PC back in March, PUBG is launching very soon on Xbox One. It debuts on Microsoft's console on December 12, and now the company has confirmed precisely when you will be able to start playing depending when you live.
In a blog post, Major Nelson also pointed out that players in New Zealand Australia might have a hard time finding matches early on, but this should improve as the game rolls out more widely around the world with new servers coming online. You can see the global release schedule below, as shared on Major Nelson's blog.