• 

  Lewis Tan stars as Cole Young. [credit: YouTube/Warner Bros. ]

Warner Bros. has released the red-band trailer for its forthcoming Mortal Kombat reboot, which had long languished in development hell. A Russian-dubbed version of the trailer initially leaked on reddit, according to Eurogamer , before being pulled . It's basically a nonstop, blood-soaked fighting fest, featuring all the fan favorites from the popular video game franchise .

(Some spoilers for the games and earlier films below.)

Midway Games released the first Mortal Kombat game in 1992, which proved hugely influential for many a teenager who frequented video arcades during that era. There have been 11 main games and multiple spinoffs in the franchise thus far, all set in a fictional universe of eight different realms. The greatest warriors from the various realms must compete in a series of Mortal Kombat tournaments to conquer other realms.

It's powerful Titan pitted against Titan in the first trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong , the fourth film released as part of Legendary Picture's " MonsterVerse " franchise, co-produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Directed by Adam Wingard, the film is not meant to be a remake of the 1962 Japanese classic, King Kong vs. Godzilla; rather, per Wingard , it will directly tie into the events of its 2019 predecessor, Godzilla: King of the Monsters , and feature a "more rugged" and aging Kong.

(Some spoilers for some prior films in the MonsterVerse franchise below.)

The MonsterVerse franchise started in 2014 with Godzilla , in which a soldier tries to return to his family while caught in the crossfire of the battle between Godzilla and a pair of parasitic monsters known as MUTOs . The studio followed up three years later with Kong: Skull Isla nd , set in 1973, in which a team of scientists and soldiers travel to the titular Skull Island and encounter Kong, the last survivor of his species. And in 2019, the studio released Godzilla: King of the Monsters , a sequel to the 2014 film, in which Godzilla and Mothra team up to defeat a prehistoric alien named King Ghidorah, who has awakened other ancient creatures (Titans) to destroy the world.

• 

  A flashback to Themyscira. [credit: YouTube/Warner Bros. ]

Count me among the many millions who likely logged onto HBO Max on Christmas Day to watch Wonder Woman 1984 , Director Patty Jenkins' hotly anticipated, oft-delayed stand-alone follow-up to her 2017 global blockbuster, Wonder Woman . I'm a major fan of the latter, which gave us our super-powered Amazonian's origin story, and had high hopes for the follow-up.

Those hopes weren't completely dashed, but they weren't really fulfilled either. While Wonder Woman 1984 still has a bit of the old magic, and its leads all turn in terrific performances, the film is hampered by a frequently nonsensical plot, extraneous showy action sequences, and it's way too heavy-handed with the moralizing. But it still delivers quite a lot of slick, 1980s-infused fun if you turn your brain off and just go with it—and you'll definitely want to stick around for a post-credits scene.

(Some spoilers below, with a couple of major spoilers below the second gallery. We'll give you a heads up when we get there.)

Capping off a long day of sneak peeks, panels, and teaser trailers at DC FanDome this past weekend, Warner Bros. dropped the first teaser for The Batman , starring Robert Pattinson (of High Life and the Twilight franchise) in the title role. It's directed by Matt Reeves ( War for the Planet of the Apes ), and—surprise, surprise—it's another dark, gritty take on the classic superhero—this time with more of a film noir /detective story vibe.

There is a long and tangled backstory to this latest incarnation of the classic comic book superhero. We all know that Ben Affleck was cast as Batman for a three-film trilogy in the DCEU: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016), and Justice League (2017), which had its own well-publicized production woes . Warner Bros. announced plans for a standalone Batman film in the fall of 2014, with Affleck set to reprise the role, as well as directing and co-writing the screenplay.

The original plan was to set the film within the DCEU, after the events of Justice League . But as Warner Bros. was rethinking the shared-universe model for its superhero films in favor of standalone films and franchises, Affleck announced he was stepping down as director, and the studio replaced him with Reeves. Affleck would eventually withdraw from the project altogether, following his divorce from Jennifer Garner and a stint in rehab for alcohol abuse.

Warner Bros. dropped the latest trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 today during the DC Fandome online event , giving us our first real look at Kristen Wiig's villainous Cheetah. Bonus: we get to see a miraculously revived Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) don parachute pants in an attempt to blend with the times, much to the amusement of Gal Gadot's Diana Prince.

Inspired by the comic book heroine created by William Moulton Marston in the 1940s for DC Comics, Wonder Woman made her big-screen debut in the DCEU with 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , followed by 2017's Justice League . As we reported previously, the first fell short of box office expectations; the second bombed outright. So when Jenkins took on Wonder Woman's origin story, she deliberately departed from the grim humorlessness and dark sensibility of those earlier films, bringing a brighter energy and wit to her tale, along with the usual action. That vision paid off: Wonder Woman went on to gross $821 million worldwide and earned critical raves, making it the most successful of the DCEU films thus far.

Since we're now in the 1980s, Diana is operating in a Cold War scenario, taking on Pedro Pascal's villainous Maxwell Lord , a shrewd and powerful businessman. Wiig plays Barbara Ann Minerva, a British archaeologist who will eventually evolve into her arch-nemesis Cheetah .