After just one weekend in theaters, Five Nights At Freddy’s is already breaking records and racking up an impressive $130 million at the global box office since releasing on October 27 to less-than-stellar reviews.
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ is Blumhouse’s biggest opening ever
Sodaronis all round for Blumhouse as the horror studio celebrates its biggest global opening with “Five Nights at Freddy’s”.
Blumhouse is going to be toasting hard with Sodaronis this week, as the horror-loving studio celebrates its biggest global opening ever with Five Nights at Freddy’s.
The Wind director Emma Tammi’s adaptation of the popular horror-survival video game is the biggest global opening ever for a Blumhouse film, selling $130.5 million in tickets, surpassing the 2018 reboot of Halloween, which made $91.8 million worldwide on its opening weekend.
Making a whopping $78 million at the North American box office alone, Five Nights at Freddy‘s is also the biggest ever domestic opening for a horror film directed by a woman. Tammi’s film follows Nia DaCosta’s 2021 Candyman reboot/sequel, which made cinema history as the first film directed by a Black woman to debut at the top of the U.S. box office, earning over $22.3 million domestic in its opening weekend.
The most surprising thing about these box office numbers is that Five Nights at Freddy’s isn’t just playing in cinemas, it’s also streaming on Peacock, having released on the platform simultaneously on Thursday.
Based on the first game in the series, the film follows security guard Mike Schmidt (Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson), whose job guarding the crumbling Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza becomes more or less focused on dealing with the pizzeria’s bunch of busted, murderous, animatronic band of mascots, who don’t take too kindly to unwelcome visitors.
Blumhouse regularly smashes it at the U.S. box office, now with a total of 19 films to open in the number one spot. In terms of global totals, M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, David Gordon Green’s Halloween, and Jordan Peele’s Get Out are Blumhouse’s most successful films at the box office to date. But with this kind of opening, Five Nights at Freddy’s looks set to join them.
It’s also the biggest opening for a PG-13 horror film since 2001, surpassing The Mummy Returns which made $68.1 million in its first weekend (of course it did, what, were you not going to turn up for a second round of Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz?).
Notably, the film is dividing critics and audiences, with a 26 percent Tomatometer score clashing with an 88 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Mashable’s Kristy Puchko writes of the film, “Five Nights At Freddy’s gets so bogged down in a soggy plotline about dream theory, guilt, and child custody that it forgets to be entertaining.”
Want to check it out? Here’s how to watch Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Best TV deal: Lifetime access to Curiosity Stream for $170
Lifetime access to educational content from Curiosity Stream is on sale for $169.97. This is 57% off the subscription’s regular price of $399.99.
TL;DR: As of October 30, you can get a lifetime of access to educational content with Curiosity Stream for only $169.97 instead of $399.99. That’s a savings of 57%.
While many of us love mind-numbing TV, it’s nice to throw some enriching content into the mix once in a while. But if none of the show selections in your streaming subscriptions appeal to your brain, check out Curiosity Stream.
Touted as Netflix for documentaries, Curiosity Stream is a multi-award-winning streaming platform dedicated to serving content to satisfy your inner nature admirer, science enthusiast, history buff, and technology geek. Through the month of October, you can score a lifetime subscription for only $169.97.
A Curiosity Stream subscription yields limitless access to thousands of films, series, and shows that will beef up your knowledge. Founded by Discovery Communications’ John Hendricks, the service offers on-demand streaming on a vast library of content spanning science, technology, history, nature, and art. It includes series like Planet of Treasures, Engineering the Future, Deep Time History, and Into the Jungle. In 2017, Curiosity Stream bagged its first Emmy Award for Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places, which clinched the News and Documentary Awards trophy for Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction.
You can watch world-class documentaries anytime, anywhere, using any device — multiple devices even. All content is downloadable for later viewing, so you can enjoy them even without an internet connection. They’re also all in high-definition for a more immersive experience. Plus, with regular content updates, you’ll never worry about running out of things to stream. Whenever you want to learn something new, just hit play.
Unlike most streaming services that demand a recurring fee to continue enjoying content, Curiosity Stream only requires a one-time payment for a lifetime’s worth of access to the library.
Instead of $399, you can get it for just $169.97, no coupon needed, until October 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Prices subject to change.
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Credit: Curiosity Stream
The best part of ‘Foe’ is how the world is ending
Garth Davis’ dystopian sci-fi thriller “Foe” shows the end of the world happening slowly but surely, thanks to climate change.
Garth Davis’ dystopian sci-fi, Foe, has been getting some lukewarm reviews. But there’s one surefire element of the film, based on Iain Reid’s 2018 novel, that actually deserves its moment in the burning, burning sun — and it’s not necessarily the beautiful people feeling all the feelings within it.
It’s the way the world as we’ve known it is actually ending, often incrementally but surely. And you’d better believe it’s all thanks to climate change.
How is the world ending in Foe?
Set in the year 2065, Foe is a work of speculative fiction that presents an Earth that has become almost but not entirely inhospitable, when fresh water and inhabitable land are scarce. They’re not human rights but instead the most important capital a human being can own. It’s Mad Max without the steampunk or gang violence.
Reid’s novel keeps specifics of the apocalypse off the page, but the film, which Reid and Davis co-wrote, gives details at the top. In this version of America, the government’s Federal Climate Alert System has become useless. Human displacement sits at the centre of the global climate crisis, with nations uprooted by extreme weather events. Air quality has declined and respiratory conditions have risen. People are encouraged to stay indoors to avoid the extreme heat. Folks live off-grid if they can, using solar panels and reusing their waste water, but it’s all a little too late. At the core of the narrative, humanoid AI robot substitutes have replaced human labour in many industries.
Quietly surviving on a barren, isolated Midwest property is married couple Hen and Junior, played by Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal. In this future, inhabitable land is mainly owned by companies or governments and used for farming; as for the rest, inheritance rules, as Junior’s property is fifth generation-owned. Above the dusty, cracked earth of the property, extreme weather events from intense dust storms to extreme heat are an everyday occurrence. Only one tree survives on the land, kept alive by the couple’s waste water. In fact, water is such a precious commodity that we regularly see Junior and Hen drinking cans of beer instead of water first thing in the morning — perhaps beyond mild hydration, beer doesn’t hurt for dealing with the end of the world, either. Though for someone trying to conserve water, Hen sure has some lengthy shower cries.
Credit: Amazon Studios
Foe shows the end of the world in an isolated, domestic silence for two people, but it’s also not quite ended. At every turn, it seems people are still working hard to keep surviving the harsh conditions. However, Junior and Hen’s quiet, rural life changes with the arrival of a man called Terrance (Aaron Pierre), who works for a government-backed company called OuterMore, wielding a plan to evacuate the planet — but notably slowly.
Plans to move people off-planet to a colossal space station near Earth are well underway, moving away from a “climate migration strategy” to simply getting the hell out of here. Terrance mentions that the moon, Mars, and other planets were possibilities built for the “first wave of temporary settlement”, but due to their distance from Earth and the time it will take to go back and forth to build a new colony there, OuterMore has instead built an enormous planet of its own near Earth and readies humans for permanent relocation to space through years of training.
Credit: Amazon Studios
People are chosen randomly through a lottery to participate in the first phase of the space program, known as The Installation, a two-year placement on the station to test its readiness for a whole planet to live on — but Terrance notes Junior’s physical strength as a positive attribute for it. Notably, the program isn’t optional for those chosen, instead functioning as a form of “fortunate conscription”. Through discussions of this station around Junior and Hen’s dining room table, Foe lightly takes aim at the billionaire space race and billion-dollar plans to terraform other planets like Mars. “Why should you be spending money up there when you should be fixing things down here?” Hen asks.
Hollywood disaster films love to cut to the chase.
By no means is Foe the only film to predict the end of the world through climate change and eventual human relocation to space — even in recent years, we’ve seen the likes of 2016 sci-fi Passengers sharing similar scenarios. But it’s something films have only started to really hammer home within the last few decades, with a notable rise in the 2000s. Though scientists had been warning of the coming threat for frustrating decades, and weather disaster films had long rampaged through cinemas, filmmakers finally seemed to harness these legitimate fears in the 2000s and 2010s, punishing earthlings’ blatant disregard for the planet with brutal, extreme weather-driven consequences in films like The Day After Tomorrow, Geostorm, 2012, and the Keanu Reeves remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Not simply allowing viruses and sentient machines to destroy the world as we know it, rising sea levels caused by a warming planet finally got their moment in the 2000s, notably with Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence — also aligned with Foe in terms of AI human replacements and self-aware robots in the coming apocalypse. In the film, set in the 22nd century, melting Arctic ice causes catastrophic flooding in coastal cities, meaning widespread human displacement, starvation, and death. New York is underwater. The global population plummets and humanoid robots step in for both human labour and companionship because they’re “never hungry and … did not consume resources beyond those of their first manufacture.”
In the book Hollywood Wants to Kill You, Rick Edwards and Dr. Michael Brooks write of Hollywood’s tendency to speed things up when it comes to planetary death by climate change, to get to the dramatically perilous stuff overnight instead of showing how it happens and how we could have stopped it gradually. The authors particularly skewer the films Geostorm and The Day After Tomorrow, which predict an overnight climate overhaul, a catastrophic tipping point that sees the planet plunged into every kind of extreme weather Hollywood can conjure at once.
“It turns out that governments, both Hollywood-imagined and real-life, aren’t really interested in long-term gains that involve short-term pain,” Edwards and Brooks write. The film 2012 also does this, cutting straight to the chase, but at least the movie consistently reiterates that scientists and world leaders have known what’s coming for years.
But one of the most realistic parts of the potential end of the world in Foe is not that we’ll all inevitably shack up with a smokin’ partner with an endless supply of PBRs. It’s that some things will happen slowly, the decline of the planet’s habitable spaces slowly increasing as CO2 levels skyrocket, climate science misinformation continues, and government inaction prevails. (Some impacts, like amplified Western U.S. wildfires and increased flooding, are happening rapidly.)
Foe isn’t a perfect representation of a future Earth, notably being the experience of two sad yet socioeconomically advantaged white people, citizens who by no means are on the frontline of the climate crisis. And notably, climate doomism itself gets us nowhere — we’re not completely up the bone dry creek yet. Despite how things appear, we haven’t passed a point of no return, and earthlings still have the power to either exacerbate the planet’s problems or seal them in stone.
Instead, Foe is a cautionary tale, a hypothetical endgame. One that’s slow but sure, and without action on climate change, could very well be what the end of the Earth looks like.
How to watch: Foe is now in theaters and will be streaming on Prime Video at a later date.
15 best action movies on Max for a little adrenaline bump
Fantastic fights, stupendous stunts, calamitous chases, and climactic spectacle so bonkers it’ll blow your mind — it’s the 15 best action movies on Max (formerly known as HBO).
Want to shake off the doldrums of a long day with something bone-rattlingly exciting? You need an action movie stuffed with fantastic fights, stupendous stunts, calamitous chases, and climactic spectacle so bonkers it’ll blow your mind.
Whether your interests lean to science fiction, fantasy, cop drama, disaster flicks, superheroes, heist thrillers, mythic monsters, family-friendly adventure, or R-rated violence, we’ve got you covered with a top-notch collection of awesome movies.
Here are the 15 best action movies on Max.
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Credit: Moviestore / Shutterstock
J.R.R. Tolkien’s high-fantasy novel is brought to vivid life by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which began in 2001 with this widely acclaimed first chapter. In the mystical realm of Middle-earth, a humble Hobbit known as Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) takes on an epic quest to destroy a mighty token sought by a powerful sorcerer. Hunted by dark forces, Frodo finds strength in the fellowship that surrounds him. Noble elves, brooding warriors, churlish dwarves, wise wizards, and hungry Hobbits join in the battle to save their world in a celebrated film series that had audiences and critics in awe. Best yet, you can make a DIY movie marathon by adding The Two Towers and The Return of the King to your watch list. — Kristy Puchko, Film Editor
How to watch: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is streaming on Max.
2. The Matrix
Can you see the world inside the code?
Credit: Warner Bros / Village Roadshow Pictures / Kobal / Shutterstock
Credit: Warner Bros / Village Roadshow Pictures / Kobal / Shutterstock
It’s the 1999 action movie that changed the game. Keanu Reeves stars as Neo, a hacker who tumbles down a digital rabbit hole to discover the world he knows is a simulation. Joining forces with a band of rebels (that includes Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss), he seeks to topple the robot tyrants that have enslaved humanity. This quest leads to eye-popping fights, breath-snatching escapes, and mind-bending reveals. Writing and directing duo Lana and Lilly Wachowski blew critics and audiences away with their incredible vision. Their disturbing sci-fi dystopia is snugly wrapped in a captivating cyberpunk aesthetic that’s as cool as Reeves is in a long black trench coat. On top of all this, the Wachowskis presented a ground-breaking visual effect dubbed bullet time, which slowed action down but gave a bevy of angles to make every hit land harder. You can keep the thrills going by completing the trilogy: The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions are also available on Max. — K.P.
How to watch: The Matrix is streaming on Max.
3. Birds of Prey
Credit: Warner Bros / Moviestore / Shutterstock
Max has a whole hub dedicated to DC adaptations, meaning you can enjoy everything from Justice League and Constantine to a slew of Batman movies and animated offerings. Subscribers are spoiled for choice. But our pick for the movie most jam-packed with bonkers action is 2020’s Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). The Suicide Squad sidekick finally gets her solo outing, and director Cathy Yan dreamed up an incredible three-ring circus of action scenes, ranging from bone-snapping bar brawls to glitter-bombed prison breaks, a maniacal musical number, a car chase on roller skates, and a team-up showdown that is explosively awesome. Margot Robbie stars alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Ella Jay Basco in an R-rated superhero movie that’s audaciously violent, unapologetically sexy, and as wildly fun as a Harley movie demands. (For bonus thrills, check out the TV-MA cartoon series Harley Quinn.) — K.P.
How to watch: Birds of Prey is streaming on Max.
4. Upgrade
Two years before Saw writer and actor Leigh Whannell made a name for himself as a director with his outstanding and celebrated freshening-up of The Invisible Man, he delivered a little cult actioner that not nearly enough people noticed at the time called Upgrade. A cybernetic spin on RoboCop, Upgrade stars Alien: Covenant‘s Logan Marshall-Green playing an auto mechanic named Grey who, after being paralyzed by a gang of thugs who also kill his wife right in front of him, accepts a hush-hush invite to test drive some future tech in the form of a computer chip implanted in his brain that will fix his motor functions.
Obsessed with catching and punishing his wife’s murderers, Grey makes an easy mark for a computer chip that inevitably begins revealing its sentience. Gifting him with the super-human ability to kick unholy amounts of ass in hand-to-hand combat, it turns out the tech has its own nefarious motives. Disgracefully ignored at the box office, Upgrade is sleek and hyper-violent and pretty much perfect. — Jason Adams, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: Upgrade is now streaming on Max.
5. Spy
Credit: Larry D Horricks / 20th Century Fox / Kobal / Shutterstock
Schwarzenegger. Stallone. Van Damme. And, uhh, Melissa McCarthy? Believe it or not, the Bridesmaids actress and Go scene-stealer made the case for herself as a terrific action star, albeit of the comic variety, with Paul Feig’s stellar spy spoof from 2015. A goof on the James Bond movies, Spy is as twisty and thrilling as anything Daniel Craig blue-steeled his way through, just with way more cat sweatshirts — which is to say everybody wins.
As Susan Cooper, a CIA agent on permanent desk duty who gets pulled into the action precisely because she doesn’t look like anyone anybody would think of as a spy, McCarthy revels in her fish-out-of-water fights with an evil Russian arms dealer and his crew, especially his daughter Rayna (a wildly funny Rose Byrne). The jokes stick as hard as the stabbings, and there are enough double and triple and quadruple-crosses to keep everybody guessing in between the rat-a-tat punchlines. And extra bonus points for Feig and co. letting Jason Statham flex his funny bone alongside his biceps. — J.A.
How to watch: Spy is now streaming on Max.
6. From Dusk Till Dawn
Although it’s practically impossible now to not know that this is a vampire movie, when Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn landed in 1996, nobody saw the second-act swerve into full-on horror territory ahead. Instead, this seemed like just another Pulp Fiction riff about wise-cracking criminals getting in over their heads, co-starring Tarantino himself no less. Tarantino, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rodriguez, brilliantly used that misdirection to the movie’s advantage, so it was truly a WTF moment when Salma Hayek’s character morphed mid-strip into a bloodsucker in stilettos.
Watching the movie now, it’s just a bloody good time, with a barnstormer of an ensemble cast that includes Harvey Keitel (playing the straight man!), Juliette Lewis, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Fred Williamson, genre icon Tom Savini, John Hawkes, and of course George Clooney at his Caesar cut-sporting, sleaziest best. Ludicrous fun. — J.A.
How to watch: From Dusk Till Dawn is now streaming on Max.
7. Immortals
Credit: Universal / Kobal / Shutterstock
Shoved aside as yet another rip-off of Zack Snyder’s 2006 blockbuster 300, Tarsem Singh’s Immortals has nevertheless in the 12 years since its release become my preferred destination for visually spectacular and mythologically inclined hyper-stylized action of the homoerotic kind. Starring Henry Cavill as mortal warrior Theseus, Immortals is a remix of myths similar to what Baz Luhrmann would do to musicals with Moulin Rouge.
With stunning costumes from Oscar-winning costume designer Eiko Ishioka lighting up Singh’s typically outrageous visuals, we watch as the deities (including Luke Evans as Zeus) reluctantly team up with the mortals to battle the scheming King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). It’s one spectacular spectacle sent down from Mount Olympus itself. — J.A.
How to watch: Immortals is now streaming on Max.
8. The Terminator
Who could have thought that a techno slasher starring a monosyllabic bodybuilder from the co-director of Piranha II: The Spawning would go on to become one of the most iconic sci-fi films ever? But that’s just what happened when director James Cameron hallucinated a terrifying robot skeleton during a literal fever dream, setting him off to plot out the relatively simple story of a cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) that travels back in time in order to kill a woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to the leader of the robot resistance.
While the story has grown more convoluted with each progressive sequel and reboot, this first in the series has a clear, horror-movie simplicity that never loses its appeal. Also appealing? Sweaty Michael Biehn as Sarah’s future-sent protector, as well as the gritty, neon-lit Los Angeles it’s all set against. It really doesn’t matter how many times that dastardly robot tells us he’ll be back, the first time remains the sweetest. — J.A.
How to watch: The Terminator is now streaming on Max.
9. Batman Returns
The best Batman movie of them all! Period. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 Miss Kitties. Max has all the other Bat-candidates streaming — Tim Burton’s original, the Nolan trilogy, the Schumacher one-off, plus Matt Reeves’s fresh 2022 take with Robert Pattinson — so feel free to test that assertion, but I stand by it. Where else are you gonna get Michelle Pfeiffer purring in patent leather? A soiled Danny DeVito biting a man’s nose off? A cascade of sexual perversions masquerading as a routine superhero flick, Batman Returns bewildered the unsuspecting public when it came out in 1992. But it was formative for an entire generation of queer kids to be, and we’re still cat-whipping ourselves to completion with umpteenth Christmas-time rewatch. Never forget: Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it, but a kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it, baby. — J.A.
How to watch: Batman Returns is now streaming on Max.
10. Predator
Credit: Moviestore / Shutterstock
This list could be nothing but Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, and we’d all leave satisfied. As is, we’ll make do with two, including John McTiernan’s glorious 1987 hyper-violent jungle thriller Predator here. Introducing one of cinema’s coolest and creepiest villains, a lizardy space hunter who has a thing for tearing out spines and turning invisible, Predator takes a page out of Aliens‘ playbook by introducing us to a ragtag gang of hard-ass soldier-types, each one cooler and harder-assed than the one before him. And then it shows them each getting sliced through like Velveeta cheese by an enemy that’s way outta their league. All until the final girl — in this case, the big, burly, cigar-chomping Dutch (Schwarzenegger) — and the monster finally go toe-to-toe in an explosive finale wherein the word “explosive” can barely contain the amount of charges these filmmakers detonated in the jungle. This is deliciously muscular stuff. Literally! — J.A.
How to watch: Predator is now streaming on Max.
11. Edge of Tomorrow
Groundhog Day on steroids is a good way to describe director Doug Liman’s ass-kicking Edge of Tomorrow, which stars Tom Cruise as a soldier trapped in a time loop while fighting some bad mother aliens from outer space. It turns out that every time the aliens kill him, he wakes back up at the beginning of the day before the big battle, which forces him to use what he learns each time through to get him further and further behind the enemy’s defenses. So yes, it’s explicit video-game plotting, but with the added benefit of watching one of the world’s most obnoxious movie stars die repeatedly.
Meanwhile, Emily Blunt struts off with the whole shebang (but then, she has a tendency to do that) as a much-heralded soldier who, it turns out, has been through the same experience. Her character, Sergeant Major Rita Vrataski, becomes vital to helping William Cage (Cruise) get his bearings — and also for laughing at him. Basically, this is a good movie for Tom Cruise haters, while also simultaneously highlighting all of the things he’s good at: running, leaping, smirking until he gets punched. We all win. — J.A.
How to watch: Edge of Tomorrow is now streaming on Max.
12. Blade
Credit: Bruce Talamon / New Line / Kobal / Shutterstock
Although it’s tough to choose between Stephen Norrington’s 1998 original and Guillermo del Toro’s excellent 2002 sequel, I give the edge to the first film because it’s got two things that del Toro’s lacks – namely, Stephen Dorff chewing the scenery as the villain Deacon Frost (and what a ’90s villain name that is), and that iconic opening scene where it starts raining blood at the vampire rave. (And what a ’90s concept that is!) The good news is that you don’t have to choose; they’re both streaming on Max.
But both films are fortunate enough to have Wesley Snipes in the title role, kicking unholy amounts of vampire ass as the Marvel creation of a half-vampire who hunts his vampire kind, way before “Marvel creations” in the movies were really a thing. Of course, we’re supposed to be getting a new Blade in the MCU eventually, starring Mahershala Ali, and I wish them well. But as dated as they may be in some ways, these two Blades remain as sharp as ever in others. — J.A.
How to watch: Blade is now streaming on Max.
13. Speed Racer
Unfairly maligned upon release, the Wachowskis’ live-action take on the 1960s manga and anime from Tatsuo Yoshida has gained cult status in the 15 years since it flopped in theaters. This kaleidoscopic creation begs to be beheld on the big screen, spinning and whirling and careening as it does with every candy color under the sun. If you’ve got a good set-up at home, you can’t go wrong watching the pop-saturated adventures of Speed (Emile Hirsch), Trixie (Christina Ricci), Pops and Mom (John Goodman and Susan Sarandon), and the whole gang as they rush us through a hallucinogenic wonderland of fast cars, thrilling races, and one adorable pet chimp. As usual with the Wachowskis, this movie was deeply ahead of its time and deserves total rediscovery. At least until I can see it again on a big screen as intended! — J.A.
How to watch: Speed Racer is now streaming on Max.
14. The French Connection
With the recent death of director William Friedkin, it’s the perfect time to revisit the movie that won him the Best Director Oscar in 1972. (Two years later, he got nominated again for The Exorcist… and then inexplicably was never nominated again.) Not just one of the greatest cops-and-robbers films ever made but one of the greatest films ever made, The French Connection stars Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as two NYPD detectives on the tail of some big-time heroin smugglers. Based on real-life detectives, the film has a gritty vérité quality that captures the essence of 1970s New York, especially in its second half, which is generally considered the greatest chase scene of all time. — J.A.
How to watch: The French Connection is now streaming on Max.
15. Superman
The ultimate comic book movie, bar none. Christopher Reeve will always be Superman to me, no matter how many square-jawed, hyper-muscular Brandon Rouths and Henry Cavills and David Corenswets they toss at the role. And the same goes for Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. So, credit where credit is due — a man named Lynn Stalmaster was the casting director on Richard Donner’s 1978 film, and the dude did his job and then some. Every actor in every role of this movie feels forever iconic.
And that feeling infects every corner. Long before comic book movies were a thing, Donner and his crew cobbled together the blueprint, and every single Marvel and DC movie since has been forced to borrow something from it. Although I tend to think of the first and second Superman films as one story, because a little kneeling-before-Zod is needed too. But Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor makes for a splendid (albeit goofy) villain, and every second of screen time that Reeve & Kidder share is movie magic. May we all find somebody to spin the world backwards for us when the time comes. — J.A.
How to watch: Superman is now streaming on Max.
UPDATE: Oct. 27, 2023, 1:57 p.m. EDT Updated to include the latest Max offerings.
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Credit: Max
Airbnb Horror Movie Barbarian Will Soon Be A Video Game
The 2022 horror movie Barbarian wasn’t on my short list of recent films I thought might get a video game adaptation. But it sounds like one is coming from the company behind the Friday the 13th and Evil Dead games.
How to watch ‘The Nun II’ — release date, streaming deals, and more
Is the ‘The Nun: II’ streaming yet? Here are the best ways to watch ‘The Nun: II’ on streaming, starting Oct. 27.
Quick links to watch ‘The Nun II’:
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The Nun II — the next chapter in the story of The Nun and the latest in The Conjuring universe — is now on streaming.
While we thought Valak, the evil demon that casually disguises itself as a nun, was defeated at the end of The Nun by Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and Father Burke (Demian Bichir), that is unfortunately not the case. The Nun II takes place four years later when mysterious deaths begin popping up throughout Europe. Once again, Sister Irene is tasked with taking on Valak and attempting to get rid of them once and for all.
Farmiga is joined again by Jonas Bloquet as Maurice, along with Storm Reid as Sister Debra, Anna Popplewell as Kate, and Bonnie Aarons as the titular demon nun. The film was originally released in theaters on Sept. 8 (and is still in select theaters nationwide) and met with mixed reviews. “The Nun II never quite reaches the terrifying heights of those early Conjuring films, but it does have more creepy moments than its predecessor,” Kimber Myers wrote in Mashable’s own film review.
If you’re looking for jump scares to add to your Halloween watchlist, The Nun II definitely delivers. Get a sneak peek at the sequel in the official trailer below, then read on to learn more about how to watch the newest addition to The Conjuring universe.
Where is The Nun II streaming?
You can still head to select theaters to watch The Nun II on the big screen, but as of Oct. 27, you can also watch the spooky flick from your couch. In order to stream it on the small screen, you’ll have to sign up for Max — HBO’s premium streaming service. Subscriptions start at $9.99/month and there’s currently no free trial, but we’ve rounded up your best options for saving money. Conveniently, every other film in The Conjuring universe (minus The Conjuring 2) is available to stream on Max as well, so you can plan a full movie marathon with a single service (which is more uncommon than you think).
Best Max streaming deals
Best for most people: save 17% on a Max With Ads annual subscription
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Credit: Max
A basic Max subscription with ads will cost you $9.99/month and let you watch The Nun II (as well as other films in The Conjuring universe), then be on your merry way. If you remember to cancel before your month is up, you’ll avoid auto-renewal charges the following month. While this won’t exactly save you any money, it’ll prevent unnecessary spending. If you want more bang for your buck, you can save 17% by signing up for an entire year at once for $99.99. That breaks down to only $8.33/month instead of $9.99 and lets you watch as much as you want all year without worrying about canceling by a certain date.
Best with no ads: save 22% on a Max Ad-Free annual subscription
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Credit: Max
For those who can’t stand dealing with ads, you can save even more if you opt for a Max Ad-Free annual subscription. It’s typically $15.99/month for the Ad-Free subscription, but when you sign up for a year instead, it’ll cost you just $149.99 (just $12.49/month). That’s about 22% in total savings and you won’t have to worry about canceling by a certain time to avoid automatic charges each month.
Best for Cricket customers: free Max with ads for customers on the $60/month unlimited plan
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Credit: Cricket / Max
Attention Cricket customers: you can score Max (with ads) for no cost if you’re on the $60/month unlimited plan. Just choose to connect with a provider when you log in to Max and select Cricket to enter your credentials. Then you’re free to stream The Nun II and the rest of the Conjuring films at your leisure. Cricket customers on a different plan can upgrade or change to the $60/month plan to get Max included.
Best for AT&T customers: free Max with ads for select wireless and internet customers
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Credit: AT&T / Max
Existing AT&T customers on select wireless and internet plans are eligible to get Max for free as well. If you haven’t already, go check your account to see if you’re eligible.
The following wireless plans give users access to Max (with ads) for free: AT&T Unlimited Elite, AT&T Unlimited PlusSM, AT&T Unlimited Plus EnhancedSM, AT&T Unlimited ChoiceSM, AT&T Unlimited Choice IISM, AT&T Unlimited Choice EnhancedSM, AT&T Unlimited &MoreSM Premium. Unfortunately, Max is no longer offered to new customers, so if you changed your plan recently or terminate your service, you’ll lose access.
If you purchased AT&T Fiber Internet 1000, 2000, or 5000 within specific date ranges, you also receive access to Max at no extra charge. The promotion ended on June 5, 2022, so if you’ve moved your service or changed your plan since then, your Max benefit is no longer valid. You can learn more about eligibility over on the AT&T Max Sign-in FAQ page.
Other ways to watch The Nun II
If you don’t want to subscribe to yet another streaming service, you also have the option to rent or purchase The Nun II digitally at the following retailers:
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Amazon Prime Video — rent it for $17.74, buy it for $22.74
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Vudu — rent it for $19.99, buy it for $24.99
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Apple TV+ — rent it for $19.99, buy it for $24.99
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YouTube — rent it for $19.99, buy it for $24.99
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