Entertainment
Jason Statham's Greatest Sequel Is A Streaming Hit On Netflix
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Jason Statham managed to carve out a niche for himself in Hollywood as the king of the B-movie. His action movies have been reliable hits for over 20 years, and yet, two of his largest successes have come when he’s left behind the martial arts action of everyday guy who is secretly a world-renowned assassin. Turns out, Statham versus a giant shark is where the real money’s been this whole time. 2023’s Meg 2: The Trench which features not only a multiple giant prehistoric monster sharks but a massive octopus is now a streaming hit on Netflix.
New Meg, Same Chum
The first film, 2018’s The Meg, was our introduction to Statham’s greatest character yet, Jonas Taylor, rescue diver. He doesn’t get to roundhouse kick a bunch of hapless goons, instead opting for stabbing a giant shark in the eyeball. Meg 2: The Trench fixes that problem by giving plenty of evil mercenaries for Statham to karate chop. It also includes gigantic prehistoric shark mating rituals.
Set five years after the first film, Meg 2 now has Taylor helping to combat eco-terrorists and criminals, while back at the Mana One base, the team is studying Haiqi, a juvenile Meg who has grown up in captivity. From the beginning, you can’t think too hard about the plot. When Taylor leads the team back down through the thermocline at the bottom of the Mariana Trench from the original and there’s an entire illegal mining operation complete, don’t ask yourself “How did they build this?” It’s not that kind of movie.
As with the first film, Meg 2 comes down to the gigantic shark terrorizing unsuspecting vacationers and only Jason Statham can stop it. If you’re wondering, “how is that water deep enough for a 75-foot shark” then you’re still thinking too hard. Stop that.
Mo’ Meg Mo’ Problems
What you will notice between both films is there’s a lot of Chinese actors on camera. Both movies were co-financed by China, and as a result, were megahits in the country. Meg was during the tailend of the period where Hollywood was shoehorning in scenes for Chinese edits as a way to appeal more to teh country. Meg 2 came long after the trend died, but it was still a success, with over $300 million of its total $397 million coming from overseas markets.
The Meg and Meg 2 are both adaptations of novels by Steve Alten, though they make some significant changes from the source material. For starters, Meg 2 spends a lot more time out of the Trench, there’s fewer sharks, and since Li Bingbing didn’t come back for the sequel, everything meant for Jonas’ wife went to her brother, Jiuming (Wu Jing) instead. One new villain, the gigantic crocodile-like reptiles the kronosaurs, were written out completely, likely for inclusion in the third movie.
A third Meg movie, adapting the next novel, seems like a no-brainer. Warner Bros. hasn’t given it the greenlight and Statham has been busy on a sequel to The Beekeeper. Not only have both of the “Jason Statham asserts dominance over giant prehistoric shark” movies been box office successes, but even on stream, both have become perennial hits always lurking right outside of the top ten, if not on it, no matter the streaming platform.
Meg 2: The Trench is now available on Netflix.
Entertainment
Grab a lifetime Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus license for just $54.99
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Monthly subscriptions make sense for some software. But if you use the same Windows PC every day and simply want Microsoft Office installed and ready to go, paying once can be the simpler option.
That’s what makes Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus worth a look. You can currently grab a lifetime license for $54.99 (reg. $249.99), giving you permanent access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Access on one Windows PC.
Mashable Deals
The important thing to know is that this version uses a device-linked license, not one tied to your Microsoft account. That’s the trade-off that helps keep the price lower. If you’re buying Office for a computer you plan to keep for a while, that may be a perfectly reasonable compromise.
You’ll also avoid recurring Microsoft 365 payments while still getting the productivity apps most people use every day. Whether you’re building spreadsheets, writing reports, creating presentations, or managing email, the core experience is designed for long-term stability.
It also includes Dark Mode and is built to perform well on a wide range of hardware without requiring an ongoing subscription.
If your goal is simple — a full Office suite on one Windows PC with no recurring fees — this is an easy way to get there.
Mashable Deals
Get Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus for a one-time $54.99 (reg. $249.99).
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Entertainment
R-Rated Director’s Cut Of The Worst X-Files Movie Is Streaming In Less Than A Month
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Possibly no TV series ever made has had such a meteoric rise and epic fall as The X-Files. The early seasons captivated ‘90s audiences with a potent combination of sexy lead actors and stories about alien abductions and government conspiracies. The franchise arguably hit a high point with the first movie, The X-Files: Fight the Future. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. Later seasons got progressively worse, and David Duchovny eventually left the show for good. He came back for the worst revival in television history, one that followed up on some of the revelations of the second movie, The X-Files: I Want To Believe.
Whereas Fight the Future advanced the complex mythology of the series, I Want To Believe was modeled more after the series’ monster-of-the-week episodes. Unfortunately, the monster was weaksauce, and the film’s vestigial ties to some of the stupider lore really dragged it down. But could this failed film be one good edit away from being a banger? Chris Carter seems to think so. Last year, he teased that he was working on an R-Rated director’s cut of the film, one that brings it to bloody life like never before. Now, fans will be able to judge for themselves: The X-Files: I Want to Believe Vrach Frankenshteyn will begin streaming on Hulu on August 14.
Somehow, Mulder And Scully Returned
The X-Files: I Want to Believe is a movie where Mulder and Scully have long since left the FBI; she’s a doctor, and he’s a hermit. But when an FBI agent gets kidnapped, and a Catholic priest starts seeing her in psychic visions, the Bureau gets Mulder to consult on the case because of his prior experience with all things spooky. Unfortunately, the PG-13 movie was a flop: it has a 32 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and audiences alike. It also earned only $68.4 million against a $30 million budget, with its box office likely suffering because it premiered only one week after Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.
It’s a movie so bad that most X-Files fans would rather forget that it exists. However, when Chris Carter appeared on David Duchovny’s Fail Better podcast last year, he said that he was working on an R-rated director’s cut and hinted that it would premiere on streaming. “Now I have a chance to go back and make the scary movie that I always intended to make,” he said. “It’s not just doing a director’s cut to do a director’s cut. It’s really kind of bringing to life something that for me was on the page and never got to the screen.”
It’s Alive!
For better or for worse, the teasing is over. Previously, the new cut (titled The X-Files: I Want to Believe Vrach Frankenshteyn) was set to debut on Disney+ in June, but it got quietly yoinked off that streamer’s schedule to make time for some last-minute tweaks. Now, the movie is set to premiere on Hulu on August 14. While Carter is excited to show us his original vision for this flawed sequel, it’s not yet clear how it will differ from the theatrical version. It’s also not clear what the weird new title is about, though many think it’s a hint that Carter has, Frankenstein-style, cobbled together a new film out of assorted footage that had been left on the cutting room floor.
Will this director’s cut from Chris Carter leave fans screaming “it’s alive,” or will we just want to burn the movie with fire? Like Mulder always says, the truth is out there. And we can find out together: The X-Files: I Want to Believe Vrach Frankenshteyn premieres on Hulu on August 14. Here’s hoping it can help to erase the stink of Season 11 from our collective minds!
Entertainment
The Greatest Star Trek Icon Just Created A Vulgar Heavy Metal Band
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
To this day, the greatest Star Trek icon is William Shatner. As Captain Kirk, he taught all of us the importance of boldly going where no man had gone before. In many ways, the actor has led his life by this philosophy: after dominating sci-fi, he killed it in other genres, including cop dramas, legal procedurals, documentaries, and so much more. Heck, he even headlined some infectiously charming commercials for Priceline. After a while, it looked like there might be no new worlds for Shatner to conquer. However, he’s about to boldly go into his own final frontier with the project of a lifetime: leading his own heavy metal band!
I’ll be the first to admit that this news feels like something out of a fever dream. But as William Shatner’s colleague Avery Brooks once said so memorably on Deep Space Nine, “it’s real!” Shatner has assembled a heavy metal band called The *uckers, and they will be making their debut on September 20th at Chicago’s Riot Fest. This will be the group’s first live performance, but in a truly bizarre twist, their appearance took nearly two decades to arrange.
Captain Kirk Gets Heavy
While Riot Fest is mostly about established musical acts, they have a charming tradition of trying to woo various celebrities into attending and performing. For example, after a decade of increasingly wacky invites, the festival eventually convinced Full House star John Stamos into performing alongside the Beach Boys. Similarly, Riot Fest has courted Shatner for the last 17 years. He finally said yes, but instead of performing with a well-known band, the Star Trek legend decided to assemble his own group, the equivalent of a musical away team.
Apparently, both the actor and the festival know how silly it is to have William Shatner playing heavy metal, and they collectively decided to lean into the humor by publishing a hilariously outlandish rider by the actor. The rider includes demands for Chicago to let Shatner co-anchor the local weather, name some local food after him, let him sing “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” at a baseball game, and name a boat after the actor that he can then captain.
Let’s Open Up This Pit!
Additionally, the rider requests a dressing room themed as “Shatner’s Shag Shack,” a bunch of adoptable puppies, an intro video from Gwar, and a bunch of Faygo that is not to be shared with the Insane Clown Posse. Oh, and he wants his artist’s golf cart replaced by a Delorean. Believe it or not, these are just a few of the winking, outrageous, and almost certainly fake demands.
Obviously, most of this is tongue-in-cheek, and as a Star Trek fan, it’s great to see Shatner playing along. But he also expressed some real sincerity in an official statement, writing that, “I’ve always believed that music, like space, is about exploration. Riot Fest is exactly the kind of place where anything can happen.” Continuing, he wrote, We’re bringing volume, intensity, and a few surprises. I can’t wait to share this experience with the fans.”
Somehow, Mr. Tambourine Man Returned
While Shatner is new to heavy metal, he’s not new to music, having released several albums in the past. Instead of taking on Riot Festival solo, the Star Trek actor assembled a band, The *uckers, consisting of several well-known musicians. This includes Marcus Nand on guitar, Phil Soussan on bass, Britt Lightning on guitar, and Fred Aching on drums. Together, they will play reimagined songs from Shatner’s musical history as well as songs from their amusingly titled debut album, What the F Is Heavy Metal. As he told People, “That’s the name of the album because I know nothing or didn’t know anything until I found out how little I do know.”
Want to see William Shatner make his inexplicable heavy metal debut? Be sure to save up your latinum and snag tickets to Chicago’s Riot Fest, which runs from September 18-20. On Instagram, the actor claims it will be an event that fans will want to tell their grandchildren about. We’re inclined to agree: one way or another, Shatner beaming into his metal era is something nobody will ever forget!
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