The best crypto casinos Canada has to offer, however, are racing ahead with faster transactions, better security, and exciting bonuses.

To help you upgrade your gaming experience, we’ve put together a list of the top 10 Bitcoin sites. Our top pick, Wild.io, stands out with its impressive welcome package, fantastic game library, and VIP perks up to $75,000.

Curious about the rest? Let’s see why these casinos are leading the way. 

Best Crypto Casinos Canada

• Wild.io: Best overall
• BC.Game: $20,000 welcome bonus
• Cloudbet: Over 3,000 provably fair games
• MyStake: Fantastic live dealers
• Jokersino: Top pick for online slots
• Skycrown: 12-minute payouts
• Metaspins: Exclusive crypto VIP club 
• Bitstarz: 5 BTC bonus + 180 free spins
• Bets.io: Daily 5.5M USDT contests
• 7bit: Excellent mobile compatibility

Heads up about our links! Adblock might get confused, so please disable it if you have any issues.

Now that you know the top 10 crypto gambling sites, it should be easier to pick the one that’s right for you. In the following sections, we’ll review each Canadian crypto casino and cover its standout features. 

1. Wild.io – Best Bitcoin Casino in Canada Overall

Pros:

• 400% bonus up to $10,000 + 300 free spins
• Over 5,000 slots from top studios
• Up to $50,000 in weekly cashback
• Loyalty club with rewards up to $75,000
• Supports 10+ popular cryptocurrencies

Cons:

• Jackpots not listed on thumbnails
• Geo-restrictions on some games

Wild.io is a top choice for Canadian players. It offers one of the largest game libraries, lightning-fast transactions, and exclusive bonuses. Is there anything more we could ask from the best Canadian crypto site? 

Crypto Casino Games: 5/5

This crypto casino site features over 5,000 slot games from 30 reputable software companies. Some of the most popular titles here include Sweet Bonanza 1000, Wild Tiger, and Coins of Ra: Hold and Win. 

The site is super intuitive, allowing you to filter Jackpot Games, Megaways, and Bonus Buys. You can also browse by provider, use the search function, or save your favorite games.

Fans of skill games can also find over 200 options. The table game selection includes many versions of blackjack, roulette, baccarat, and poker, plus unique options like Scratch Dice, 7 Piggies 5000, and Wild Wild Bet.

Bonuses and Promotions: 5/5

New players at Wild.io can enjoy a 400% welcome bonus of up to $10,000, plus 300 free spins. You can qualify for the offer with a minimum deposit of $20.

If you love live dealer games, you can get 10% cashback every day for two weeks with zero wagering. High rollers who deposit $1,500 or more can enjoy a 20% VIP weekly cashback.

Plus, you can claim up to 200 free spins every Monday, up to 50% reload bonuses every Wednesday, and enjoy exclusive deals like 20% weekly cashback. There are many more offers in the promotions section, so make sure you have a look. 

Supported Cryptocurrencies: 4.9/5

Wild.io accepts all major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Tether, Ripple, Cardano, and Tron, giving you plenty of options to choose from. 

However, not all game providers support every currency. If you want to play a specific game, you may need to switch to a different digital coin that unlocks that game provider.

All deposits are processed instantly, and withdrawals typically take about 5 minutes. Plus, all transactions at Wild.io are free of charge.

>> Grab a $10,000 bonus and 300 spins [Wild.io]

2. BC.Game – Top Canadian Crypto Casino for Bonuses

Pros:

• 1,000+ crypto casino games
• $20,000 welcome bonus
• 24/7 live chat and email support
• Shares codes for provably fair games
• Excellent responsible gambling tools

Cons:

• Cluttered desktop site
• A limited selection of live dealer games

Since 2017, BC.Game has been giving crypto players a full gambling experience, combining a real money casino app with sports betting options. You can expect daily contests, a ‘New Releases’ section, and personalized game picks based on your play.

Crypto Casino Games: 4.9/5

At first sight, you might feel a bit overwhelmed by all the options on the platform, but everything is neatly organized in the left-side menu. 

BC.Game offers 500+ online slots, including new releases like Lucky Little Devil by Pegasus, Money Stacks by Pragmatic Play, and A Big Catch – Hold & Win by Betsoft.

Yet, where this crypto casino shines is the table game section. Here, you can find many unique titles like Baccarat No Commission, which removes the usual 5% commission on banker wins, or Texas Hold’em Bonus Poker, which adds an exciting bonus bet to the classic game.

Bonuses and Promotions: 4.9/5

At BC.Game, you’ll get a bonus on each of your first four deposits. Starting with a 180% bonus on a $10 deposit, you can earn up to 220,000 BC Dollars (BCD) across all four deposits, which is roughly equivalent to $20,000. 

We can’t think of any other Canadian crypto site that’s more generous.

After claiming a welcome package, you can opt for regular promotions like Mega Summer Drops with prize pools over $120,000, $25,000 weekly rewards on the Baccarat tables, $100,000 slot tournaments, and free spin offers. 

Supported Cryptocurrencies: 4.9/5

At BC.Game, you can choose from 20 of the most popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, Dogecoin, and many others.

You can typically expect transactions to process within 5-10 minutes or up to a few hours in the worst-case scenario.

The minimum withdrawal depends on the cryptocurrency, but it’s typically around $10, so you can cash out without getting huge winnings.

>> Claim a 360% welcome bonus [BC.Game]

3. Cloudbet – Best Game Variety of All Crypto Casinos in Canada

Pros:

• 5 BTC welcome bonus
• Over 3,000 provably fair games
• Cashback on every wager with no rollover
• Turbo feature for extra rakeback
• Tournament prize pools over $10 million

Cons:

• Limited access to info before registration
• No phone support 

When you first visit Cloudbet, you might find limited access to casino features. But don’t let that fool you – once you create an account, you’ll find thousands of games waiting for you – over 3,000, to be precise. 

Crypto Casino Games: 4.9/5

Cloudbet partners with over 100 software providers, offering over 100 online blackjack variants, 90+ roulette, and 50+ baccarat versions. You can also find thousands of slot games, including jackpot slots like Mega Moolah and a rich live casino with stakes and limits suitable for both casual players and high rollers. 

Each game provides information about its RTP, bonus features, or anything else that makes it worth playing. 

Plus, there are dedicated sections for ‘Trending Games’ like Gates of Olympus and ‘Highest Rakeback Earnings,’ which are perfect for players looking to maximize their rewards.

Bonuses and Promotions: 4.8/5

When you create an account at CloudBet, you’ll receive up to a 5 BTC welcome bonus which should be enough for all kinds of players, especially in the beginning. 

Canadians also love Cloudbet for its rewarding loyalty program. As you place bets, you earn Rakeback and can claim daily, weekly, and monthly bonuses based on your lossback, rakeback, and VIP tier.

Climb the tiers to unlock cash bonuses and promotions, with top rewards reaching up to $2.5 million. Top VIPs also enjoy exclusive real-world experiences and 24/7 access to dedicated concierges.

Supported Cryptocurrencies: 4.8/5

Cloudbet has one of the widest ranges of cryptocurrencies on the market. You can pick from over 35 coins, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Shiba Inu, BNB, and Dai.

If you don’t own crypto, you can buy it using your credit card or bank transfer through MoonPay, a fiat-to-crypto payment gateway. 

The minimum deposit requirement at this Bitcoin casino is 0.0000001 BTC or the equivalent amount in other cryptocurrencies. 

>> Get a 5 BTC sign-up bonus [Cloudbet]

4. MyStake – Best Cryptocurrency Casino Canada for Live Dealer Games

Pros:

• Over 340 live dealer tables
• 170% first deposit match up to C$1,000
• Weekly slot races with free spins
• Personalized gifts for VIP players
• 10% cashback on all crypto deposits

Cons:

• Smaller bonus compared to competitors
• Live chat only available to registered users

MyStake is a go-to destination for Canadian players simply because it features some of the most attractive live dealer games on the market. Let’s see what else is on offer. 

Crypto Casino Games: 4.8/5

You can find many exclusive titles at MyStake, including Gates of Mystake and Mystery of Eldorado, as well as new releases like Sweet Bonanza 1000 and Ze Zeus. 

There are separate sections for Popular Slots for easier navigation, and you can even create a personalized selection in My Favorites.

There’s a dedicated category for a live casino. Here, you will find titles from Evolution Gaming, Pragmatic Play, and Playtech. Some of our favorites include Crazy Coin Flip, Mega Ball, and First Person Dream Catcher. 

Bonuses and Promotions: 4.7/5

MyStake offers a 170% match on your first deposit for amounts between C$20 and C$600, with the potential to earn up to C$1,000 in bonus money. 

Deposits made over the weekend also give you access to 100 free spins. Plus, crypto users enjoy a 10% guaranteed cashback, social media giveaways, and tournaments offering prizes like free spins, free bets, and real money.

Supported Cryptocurrencies: 4.8/5

Unlike many crypto casinos, MyStake supports fiat payments, including Visa, Mastercard, Skrill, and MiFinity. This is, of course, alongside the most popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Dash, Monero, and Stellar.

Crypto payments are the fastest – funds will typically reach your wallet within minutes of your request. Fiat transactions, on the other hand, can take anywhere from 1 to 3 business days.

>> Unlock a C$1,000 crypto welcome bonus [MyStake]

5. Jokersino – Best Bitcoin Casino Canada for Slot Machines

Pros:

• 1,600+ games from world-class studios
• Welcome package up to C$2,500
• Low 5x wagering requirements
• High-RTP slot games
• Supports sports betting

Cons:

• Live chat is not 24/7
• Needs better filtering options for games

Launched in 2023, Jokersino is one of the newest online casinos for Bitcoin players. Here, you can enjoy high-end games, user-friendly interface, and a generous welcome package with low wagering requirements.

Crypto Casino Games: 4.7/5

Jokersino’s game library includes more than 1,600 casino games featuring high-RTP options like Starburst, Blood Suckers, and Book of 99, which are famous for their generous return-to-player rates.

Its live casino is powered by Evolution, Pragmatic Live, Ezugi, and TvBet. However, it only gets visible once you create an account. 

One visible drawback of this Canadian crypto casino is that it lacks filters – you can either use the search function or browse through pages of games to discover new favorites.

Bonuses and Promotions: 4.7/5

At Jokersino, you can claim a C$2,500 welcome package. It comes with just 5x wagering requirements, making it easier to meet the terms and enjoy your winnings.

You’ll also benefit from regular weekly offers like a 100% bonus of up to C$250 each Monday, C$500 each Wednesday and Friday, and up to C$1,250 on Saturdays. 

Supported Cryptocurrencies: 4.5/5

Like MyStake, this crypto gambling site also supports both fiat and cryptocurrencies. You can choose from Interac, Skrill, Neteller, credit cards, and vouchers.

While Jokersino supports fewer cryptocurrencies than its rivals on our list, it still includes the most commonly used ones like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, and Litecoin.

However, this casino can take up to 36 hours to process a transaction. After that, you’ll need to wait up to 24 hours for crypto payouts and 2-5 business days for traditional methods.

>> Redeem a C$2,500 welcome package [Jokersino]

How We Selected the Best Bitcoin Casinos in Canada

Crypto Casino Games

The best Canadian crypto casino sites have something for everyone. We selected online casinos with a great variety of games, including classic slots, table games like blackjack and roulette, and exciting live dealer games. 

Bonuses and Promotions

A crypto welcome bonus, regular promotions, free spins offers, and rewards for loyal players – all the Bitcoin gambling sites on our list provide these options with fair and transparent wagering requirements.

Supported Cryptocurrencies

More crypto options mean more choices for you. We reviewed the best Canadian online casinos for their range of cryptocurrencies, from big names like Bitcoin and Ethereum to newer altcoins. This helps you find the best fit and enjoy comfortable transactions.

Why is Wild.io The Best Crypto Casino in Canada?

The online casino industry is huge, so you might find it challenging to pick the right site for cryptocurrency gambling. We played at the most reputable crypto casinos and found Wild.io to be the #1 destination – here’s why:

Huge Game Library: Wild.io offers over 5,000 casino games from 30+ game providers. For comparison, our second-best pick “only” has 1,000 titles to choose from.

Awesome Bonuses and Promotions: Not only does Wild.io offer one of the best welcome bonuses on the market—up to $10,000 and 300 free spins—but it also provides regular promotions to reward you all the time.

Hands-On Customer Support: You can get assistance whenever you need it using the live chat feature. The team is friendly yet professional and can quickly resolve issues related to your account, games, payments, and more.

What to Expect at Canadian Crypto Casinos

Using crypto to play online casino games offers many advantages over traditional payment methods. Here’s what makes it better.

Cryptocurrencies are Much Faster: Traditional casinos might take a few days to transfer your winnings to your bank account. On the other hand, crypto deposits and withdrawals are usually instant. 

Extra Bonuses & Rewards: Many online casinos offer special bonuses for using crypto. You can get extra free spins, bigger deposit matches, or exclusive deals that aren’t available with regular payment methods.

Lower Transaction Fees: The fees for cryptocurrencies are usually much lower than those of credit cards or bank transfers, meaning more money stays in your pocket. After all, who wants to lose their winnings to unnecessary fees?

Traveling at the moment? You can also check this review for the best crypto casinos in Europe.

Types of Cryptocurrency You Can Use at Bitcoin Casinos in Canada

Crypto gambling Canada sites support many different types of coins. The one you choose to gamble online matters since each cryptocurrency has its unique set of benefits. 

For example, Bitcoin is widely accepted, and you can find it at almost every crypto casino. Meanwhile, Tether is stable and pegged to the US dollar, helping you avoid fluctuations in value. Here are the most common cryptocurrencies you’ll find at top crypto casinos in Canada:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Litecoin (LTC)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Tether (USDT)
• Ripple (XRP)
• Dogecoin (DOGE)
• Cardano (ADA)
• Tron (TRX)
• Solana (SOL)

Games You Can Play at Canadian Crypto Casinos

Canadian crypto gambling sites offer a wide range of options for all types of players.

A great place to start would be Canadian online slots. They are easy to understand and don’t require any special skills or experience. You can explore many different themes and plenty of bonus features like expanding wilds, cascading reels, and jackpots.

If you prefer a bit more strategy, you can try table games like blackjack, roulette, poker, and baccarat. The best online Bitcoin casinos in Canada offer many different versions of these classics.

Those who miss land-based casinos can enjoy live casino games or try specialty games, such as online bingo, scratch cards, keno, and crash games, for quick and exciting gameplay.

How To Tell If a Canadian Crypto Casino is Legit

Shady sites can compromise your info and make it difficult to withdraw your winnings. So, if you want to keep your money safe and play fair games, you need to find a reputable and secure crypto casino in Canada. Here’s how: 

• Reputable real money casinos accept Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and other well-known cryptocurrencies.
• Look for SSL encryption and blockchain transparency to protect your data and verify transactions.
• Ensure the casino supports fast and low-fee crypto transactions for your chosen coin.
• Confirm that the terms and conditions are clear, especially on crypto bonuses and wagering requirements.
• Test if customer support is available 24/7 and can handle crypto-related issues.

The Importance of Licensing When Choosing a Canadian Crypto Casino

Licensed crypto casinos have to follow strict rules to keep things fair and secure, so you’re less likely to face problems like rigged games.

These casinos safely handle your deposits and withdrawals and protect your personal data with advanced encryption technology. 

Say you run into a crypto payout issue. A licensed casino has to offer a way to resolve it, plus you can take your complaint to the licensing authority. This means there’s always someone to turn to if things go wrong, giving you extra peace of mind when playing online.

How You Can Tell That Canadian Crypto Casino Games Aren’t Rigged

No one wants to play rigged games because they take away the fun and fairness of online gambling. Here’s how to make sure you’re on a level playing field:

• See if the casino features games from trusted names in the online gaming industry. 
• Look for provably fair games so you can confirm the fairness of game outcomes.
• Check if the games are regularly tested by independent organizations like eCOGRA or iTech Labs.
• Make sure the casino shows the Return to Player (RTP) percentages for its games.
• Read player reviews – if a lot of people complain about unfair games, that’s a red flag.

Best Crypto Casinos Canada – FAQs

What’s The Best Canadian Crypto Casino?

Wild.io is the best Canadian crypto casino. It offers a huge game library with over 5,000 games, a generous welcome bonus of up to $10,000, fast transactions, and a top-tier VIP program.

Do All Canadian Casinos Accept Crypto as a Payment Method?

No, not all Canadian casinos accept crypto as a payment method. If you’re looking for such options, check out our 10 best crypto casino sites. They offer Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and other popular digital coins.

How Do You Deposit with Cryptocurrencies at Canadian Online Casinos?

Depositing with cryptocurrencies at Canadian online casinos is super easy. Just go to the cashier, choose your preferred crypto, and transfer it to the wallet address provided. It’s incredibly simple and only takes a minute or two.

Do Canadian Crypto Casinos Perform KYC Checks?

Not all crypto casinos perform Know Your Customer (KYC) checks. Some casino sites, like Wild.io, allow you to start gambling with basic information, meaning you can stay anonymous. 

What Canadian Crypto Casino Has The Best Bonuses?

BC.Game features one of the best bonuses among Canadian crypto gambling websites. You can get started with a 360% match up to $20,000 over your first four deposits. 

How Long Do Cashouts Take at Canadian Crypto Casinos? 

Cashouts using cryptocurrencies are typically processed within 5 minutes. Sometimes, it may take up to a few hours, depending on the cryptocurrency, an online casino, and network congestion.

Let’s Compare the Top 5 Canadian Crypto Casinos

Wild.io: This is the best crypto casino Canada offers. It provides over 5,000 games and lightning-fast transactions. New players can also enjoy a 400% welcome bonus of up to $10,000. 

BC.Game: Ideal for bonuses, BC.Game grants you a 360% deposit match across your first four deposits, totaling up to 220,000 BCD (equivalent to $20,000). 

Cloudbet: As the best Bitcoin casino for game variety, Cloudbet offers over 3,000 provably fair games. You can explore them with a 5 BTC welcome bonus available to all newcomers. 

MyStake: MyStake is the perfect crypto casino for live dealer games. Canadians can join over 340 tables, get a 170% match up to $1,000, and receive 10% cashback on all crypto deposits.

Jokersino: As a newcomer, Jokersino quickly became one of the top crypto gambling sites in Canada for slots. Players love high-RTP slot machines and a welcome package up to $2,500 with low 5x wagering requirements. 

How to Sign Up at the Best Crypto Casino in Canada

We’ve shown you the best crypto gambling sites where you can enjoy top-notch games and bonuses. Now it’s time for you to learn how to sign up at your favorite site. 

Step 1: Create an Account

• Visit Wild.io or another crypto site from our list
• Enter your email and password
• Accept the Terms & Conditions
• Click Create Account

Step 2: Verify Your Account

• Go to your email inbox
• Look for a confirmation message
• Can’t find it? Check the spam folder
• Follow the link, so your casino account is ready to use

Step 3: Make the First Deposit

• Go to the Cashier section
• Select one of the available coins
• You’ll get a unique wallet address
• Transfer your preferred amount of crypto
• Confirm the transaction

Step 4: Play Bitcoin Casino Games

• Explore the game lobby
• Choose your favorite titles
• Have fun!

How to Play at Bitcoin Online Casinos in Canada: Expert Tips

You can think of crypto gambling as upgrading from a standard car to a high-performance vehicle – faster, more secure, and loaded with extra perks. If you’re ready to take your game to the next level, here are some tips on how to excel. 

Pick the Right Site and Currency

The best way to start your online gambling journey is by picking a reputable site with proper licensing and positive user reviews. 

Make sure the casino supports the cryptocurrency you want to use. Each coin has its pros and cons – Bitcoin is the most popular, but Ethereum and Litecoin might offer faster payouts and lower fees. 

Make Sure to Secure Your Wallet

Your crypto wallet is your gateway to online gambling, so it’s crucial to keep it secure. Here’s how you can do that:

• Choose a well-known and trusted wallet provider.
• Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for an extra layer of security.
• Keep your private keys private—never share them with anyone.
• Consider using a hardware wallet, especially if you’re holding larger amounts of crypto.
• Regularly update your wallet to protect against new threats.

Watch Out for Crypto Price Swings

Crypto values can fluctuate significantly, sometimes within minutes. 

A good strategy to protect yourself from potential losses is to convert your crypto to a stablecoin like Tether (USDT).

However, this same volatility can also work in your favor, potentially increasing your winnings. So, make sure to gamble responsibly and choose the risk level that fits your comfort zone.

So, What Are the Best Crypto Casinos Online in Canada? 

That’s a wrap! 

We’ve guided you through the top crypto casinos in Canada, with Wild.io being our top pick thanks to its unbeatable game selection, generous bonuses, and top-tier VIP program. 

And now that you know the ins and outs of the best crypto casinos, you’re ready to choose the perfect pick for you. 

No matter where you end up, make sure you have fun and gamble responsibly!

DISCLAIMER: The information on this site is for entertainment purposes only. Gambling is risky and should not be used to resolve financial difficulties. The saying “the house always wins” is worth keeping in mind.

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, we firmly advise you to call the Gamblers Anonymous at 1-626-960-3500 to speak with an expert about getting assistance and making gambling safer. Remember that all gaming websites are for people aged 18 and above. Not valid in Ontario.

Some of the casino sites featured on our site may not be available in your location. Check your local regulations to see if internet gambling is permitted in your area.

Check out the following organizations for free gambling addiction resources:

• https://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/
• https://www.cprg.ca/
• https://www.responsiblegambling.org/

Content oversight and quality assurance provided by Den of Geek, whose advertising leadership oversees sponsored, native, and paid content on the site, ensuring its quality, relevance, and helpfulness for general audiences.

Articles attributed to this byline are authored by paying advertisers. The editorial team did not contribute to these pieces, and the opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the Den of Geek staff. The sponsor retains responsibility for the content and holds the copyright to the material.

The post Best Crypto Casinos Canada (2024): Top 10 Canadian Bitcoin Casino Websites appeared first on Den of Geek.

Last season, we watched Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) defy the orders of King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) and continue her search for Sauron. Her journey took her and the man she found herself shipwrecked with, Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), to the shores of Númenor, where she eventually convinced Queen Regent Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to send an army to Middle-earth and save the Southlands. They got there just in time to save Bronwyn (Nanzanin Boniandi) and her people, but too late to save the Southlands themselves, for the dark armies of Adar (Joseph Mawle) had their own plans to turn the area into a barren wasteland.

While all of this is happening, the young Harfoot Nori (Markella Kavanagh) has her own adventure involving a mysterious magical stranger (Daniel Weyman) that fell from the sky. After he finally starts to regain his memories and learn who he is, the two set off, leaving Nori’s nomadic tribe behind to start their own journey to fulfill this stranger’s destiny. 

In the Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm, Elrond (Robert Aramayo) has been tasked with convincing Durin IV (Owain Arthur) and his father King Durin III (Peter Mullan) to mine the mithril ores found in their kingdom, as it seems to be the only hope the Elves have for staying alive in this realm. Going against his father’s wishes, Durin IV is able to procure a small amount of mithril, enough to produce three rings for the Elves, but Durin III forbids the mining of the precious metal further, worried that doing so will disturb the balance of the mines.

With all of that said, here’s what you need to know about season 2 of The Rings of Power, including when and where to watch the season premiere.

What Time Does Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 Come Out?

While Prime Video hasn’t officially announced the release time for season 2, most sources are reporting that the first three episodes of The Rings of Power season 2 are set to premiere at 12 a.m. PT/3 a.m. ET/8 a.m. BST on Prime Video on Thursday Aug. 29.

Last season, the season premiere was made available to watch the night before for U.S. viewers, but there’s been no indication that Prime Video will follow that release schedule again this season. The remaining five episodes of season 2 will then be released weekly at presumably the same time, concluding with the season finale on Oct. 3.

The Rings of Power Season 2 Trailers

Check out the most recent trailer for The Rings of Power season 2 below.

And here are two earlier ones that show off different aspects of season 2:

We found plenty of story hints, clues, and easter eggs in the above trailers, which you can dive into here and here. Oh, and if you want to know more about the return of Shelob in The Rings of Power season 2, we have EXCLUSIVE details here.

Read way more about The Lord of the Rings here.

The post The Rings of Power Season 2 Release Time: When Does the Lord of the Rings Series Return? appeared first on Den of Geek.

While intended as a fun little diversion to incentivize exploring the main game for Chao stat-increasing items, the Chao Garden has taken on a life of its own with fans. To some, this mini-game is the MAIN feature of Sonic Adventure, not a side activity. As YouTuber JelloApocalypse joked in So This is Basically Sonic the Hedgehog, “(Shadow the Hedgehog) is pretty popular. Which is impressive considering the fact that his first appearance was in a relatively unknown side-game that came prepackaged with a pet simulator.”

While the Chao have always lingered at the edges of the Sonic franchise, they’re about to make a big return in the most unexpected place. A new live-action Sonic movie.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s trailer gives fans a tantalizing glimpse of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles sitting in what appears to be a kind of high-end performance cafe. The main attraction? Three Chao on stage. The context for this is unclear, though it should be noted that there’s a “Chao Garden” neon sign above them. Is this the movie universe’s version of this beloved location?

Or are the Chao some kind of animatronic band a la Chuck E. Cheese in the live-action movie universe? If you look closely, you can see several other Chao standing off stage, so maybe they’re just walk-around costumed characters. That, or Sonic’s powerful quills have really done a number on the evolutionary trajectory of animal life on Earth.

In all likelihood this will be no more than a fun easter egg for fans, as the live-action Sonic movies love to do, but who knows? Maybe Shadow, who lost his family, will find a certain kinship with these Chao. Shadow is way too cool to become an official member of Sonic’s extended family, but maybe he’ll make his own little group with these Chao. Hell, that’s the perfect premise for another Paramount+ live-action comedy series just like the Knuckles live-action show.

Whatever role they play in the film, Chao and Chao Garden fans have finally gotten a taste of what they’ve always wanted.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 releases on Dec. 20.

The post Sonic 3 Will Finally Bring Back a Game Location That Fans Have Requested for Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

Only Murders in the Building’s fourth season premiere opens, closes, and is titled in reference to one of the best Western movies in cinema history. 1968’s Once Upon a Time in the West was directed by genre pioneer and legend Sergio Leone and starred Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, and Jason Robards. The film is considered a landmark due to its incredible depth of moviemaking magic, from dense themes about loyalty to acute sights and sounds that give clues and foresight into the plot. But what does any of this have to do with Steve Martin, Selena Gomez, and Martin Short’s murder dramedy, and why did the Hulu series make One Upon a Time in the West a pivotal analogical vehicle in episode one, “Once Upon a Time in the West?” 

Both stories are about a group comprised of two men and one woman trying to avenge the death of somebody close to them. In the case of Only Murders in the Building, this would be Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) finding out that Charles’ friend and body double Sazz (Jane Lynch) is the most recent victim tacked onto the Arconia’s homicidal track record. In Leone’s classic picture, the trio is made up of the cowboys Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and Cheyenne (Jason Robards), and widow Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale) as they track down Jill’s husband’s killer. 

Unless you’re an old-school movie buff, you probably wouldn’t think about how these characters connect in any way, but the people writing the scripts for Only Murders in the Building didn’t decide to randomly pick a film to show scenes from and cross-reference throughout the episode. The similarities in both cast’s genders, backgrounds, and motives surely can provide some clues about where the story will be headed in the Hulu show during its fourth season. And why else would we watch a murder mystery if not to put on our sleuthing caps and attempt to play Sherlock Holmes ourselves as the weekly madness unfolds? Let’s take a look at a few more symmetrical corroborations between the two stories and see where our investigation takes us!

Who is the Killer in Once Upon a Time in the West? 

The biggest difference between Only Murders in the Building and Once Upon a Time in the West is that the audience is privy to the culprit of the murder right away in the latter. Frank (Henry Fonda) is the person who kills Jill McBain’s husband. The rest of the story is therefore about the vengeance that McBain and her two cowboy friends try to enact in taking Frank down. In Only Murders in the Building, the protagonists don’t know who killed Sazz. In fact, the audience knows she’s dead long before the characters do. We see the murder take place at the end of the third season, and Charles, Oliver, and Mabel only find out in the closing minutes of the season four premiere. 

Now that we know the difference in how the murders occur in both stories, we can look at the smaller, overlooked ties between the two. In the film, Frank tries to pin the murder of McBain’s husband on Cheyenne. In Only Murders, it appears whoever the killer is wants to pin the blame on Charles, or maybe wanted actually to kill Charles himself. Since Sazz is dressed up like Charles as his body double, and she was inside Charles’ apartment when she was murdered, she may have ended up being the accidental victim of a crime intended to take out Charles. 

What is the Killer’s Motive?

The murder in Once Upon a Time in the West is actually an accident. Frank whacks Mr. McBain in his attempt to frighten him into selling a plot of land to him. He doesn’t feel guilty about the crime, but it wasn’t a premeditated kill. He was trying to get something he didn’t have though. In Only Murders in the Building, perhaps the killer wanted something that Charles possesses. If the motives of both killers are the same, we can start looking at what Charles has that others would want and who would want those things.

Charles has had a semi-successful acting career. He starred in the TV series Brazzos, built a successful second career as a podcaster, and he’s now helping Oliver on Broadway, expanding his resume and fulfilling his own acting dreams in the process. He may get teased for relying on his past and being washed up, but Charles has lived a life many performers dream of. It’s not unbelievable for someone tow want Charles’ success, or at least a specific part of it. 

This leads to an early guess that Scott Bakula could be a main suspect this season. The real-life star of Quantum Leap makes a cameo at the end of the premiere where he discusses what Sazz could be up to. Sazz body doubles for Bakula as well as for Charles, and he claims he doesn’t know what she’s up to right before Charles finds out about her death. Bakula could have been coy about her whereabouts, hiding that he’s the culprit hiding in plain sight. Bakula also surely lost out on some acting jobs to Charles since their appearances are strikingly similar. 

How Does Once Upon a Time in the West End? 

If the mirroring between these two stories continues through the end of the season, we should take a look at how Once Upon a Time in the West concludes. Frank and Harmonica engage in a classic Western draw in which Harmonica gets his revenge and one-ups the antagonistic outlaw. Charles wouldn’t harm a fly, much less murder someone. 

Charles’s version of revenge would result in getting Bakula (or whoever the murderer is) to admit to the crime before seeing them off to prison. The movie hopefully proves that Charles will be the hero of this story, but we probably didn’t need any movie references to figure that one out! As it does every season, Only Murders in the Building loves to throw curveballs and create red herrings out of thin air. It’s likely that Once Upon a Time in the West was incorporated into the first episode to get us thinking, while also directing us in the opposite direction of the truth. The twists and turns never cease to exist in this modern mystery classic!

New episodes of Only Murders in the Building season 4 premiere Tuesdays on Hulu.

The post Only Murders in the Building: Will Once Upon a Time in the West Spoil Season 4? appeared first on Den of Geek.

“The name is Gambit,” the Ragin’ Cajun tells an massive Sentinel in X-Men ’97. “Remember it.”

With that declaration, Gambit won over even the most skeptical fans of the revived animated series, sacrificing himself to take out a major threat and doing it with style. At first, it seemed like Deadpool & Wolverine gave Gambit a similar fate, as he and his fellow multiversal escapees in the Void fell during their assault on Cassandra Nova’s stronghold.

But Ryan Reynolds just shared a deleted scene from the movie, which gives Gambit a more hopeful ending—and possible future. The scene opens on the body of antagonists Toad and Psylocke and then pans up to Gambit, striding through the carnage. The camera pushes onto Gambit as he looks up, an orange glow in his eyes. Accompanying the scene is a symphonic version of the theme from X-Men: The Animated Series.

The deleted scene certainly suggests that Tatum’s Gambit will be back for more adventures. The glow we see in his eyes is the reflection of a portal, the same type that everyone from Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man to the titular Deadpool and Wolverine use to travel across the multiverse. But where does that particular portal lead?

Gambit isn’t included at the dinner scene at the end of Deadpool & Wolverine, which closes by suggesting that the Fox X-Men characters still remain on a parallel Earth, as the heroes saved from the TVA’s pruning. But most of the other X-Men characters are also missing, as are Monica Rambeau, Binary, and the Beast, all of whom appeared at the end of The Marvels. These characters presumably exist in the same universe and get to continue having their own adventures, even if they don’t appear on screen.

However, the portal may also lead to the mainline MCU Universe (please don’t call it Earth-616), making Tatum the official Gambit. That, of course, would be a mistake. As enjoyable as Tatum was, he’s too connected to the Fox Universe and, as argued at Den of Geek before, the MCU needs its own set of X-Men.

That said, Channing Tatum’s performance as Gambit is an absolute highlight of Deadpool & Wolverine, even more so than actors such as Wesley Snipes as Blade and Jennifer Garner as Elektra. Part of that excitement stems from the fact that Tatum never got the chance to portray Gambit during Fox X-Men era, despite the actor’s frequent attempts to get a solo film made. The other part, of course, is Tatum’s game performance, in which he allowed himself to be the butt of every joke, complete with an outrageous accent that quickly went viral on social media.

So well-received was Tatum’s Gambit that fans have renewed hopes for a solo movie. Of course, it’s not just Deadpool & Wolverine that has reignited the popularity of one Remy LeBeau. The character’s arc in X-Men ’97 reminded everyone why the character was such a phenomenon in the ’90s. Gambit also has a central role in writer Gail Simone’s brand-new run on Uncanny X-Men, as the romance between Remy and Rogue drives the plot.

Whatever his destination, it’s clear that Gambit is more popular than ever and that bodes very well for his return to the big screen. Because we could never forget Gambit, no matter who is playing him.

Deadpool & Wolverine is now in theaters.

The post Deadpool & Wolverine Deleted Scene Just Set Up a Hopeful Future for Gambit appeared first on Den of Geek.

Only Murders in the Building season 4 is taking the murder-solving, podcasting trio of Mabel (Selena Gomez), Charles (Steve Martin), and Oliver (Martin Short) from NYC to Los Angeles as they try to solve the murders of Charles’ stunt double Sazz Pataki (Jane Lynch) and try to negotiate with a Hollywood studio that wants to make a movie about their podcast. They must uncover why Sazz was killed, and if Charles was truly the intended target, before it’s too late.

With a new murder to solve and two major cities full of clues and potential suspects, the now bicoastal trio has their work cut out for them this season. Only Murders in the Building season 4 has a stacked cast of returning characters and famous new faces. Here’s everyone you need to know this season.

Selena Gomez as Mabel Mora

Selena Gomez returns as Mabel Mora, who is trying to figure out her future now that her aunt’s apartment has been sold and she’s effectively homeless. When the movie deal offers Mabel a chance to take control of this next chapter of her life, she decides to take it, but not before she’s pulled back into another mystery that hits a little too close to home. Gomez has also starred in Wizards of Waverly Place, Spring Breakers, The Dead Don’t Die, and The Fundamentals of Caring.

Steve Martin as Charles-Haden Savage

Steve Martin returns as Charles-Haden Savage, who is feeling pretty empowered after the success of the Brazzos reboot and now his turn on stage in Oliver’s Death Rattle Dazzle. But now that the podcast has catapulted him back into the spotlight, it seems like that may have put a target on his back. This season’s murder is personal for Charles, as he must not only uncover who killed his stunt double and lifelong friend Sazz Pataki, but also why she was the target, and if the killer was actually after him instead. Martin has had a long, storied career, with most people recognizing him from projects like Little Shop of Horrors, Father of the Bride, Three Amigos!, and Cheaper by the Dozen.

Martin Short as Oliver Putnam

Martin Short returns as Oliver Putnam, who is fresh off the overwhelming success of his return to Broadway with Death Rattle Dazzle. Despite the death of the show’s star caused by the show’s producers, the show managed to scrape through to opening night. But between Loretta’s move to LA and the potential movie deal, Oliver is feeling pulled to the West coast and may have to decide if he’s willing to leave Broadway behind. Short’s career is an extensive one, with the actor appearing in many projects such as Three Amigos!, Father of the Bride, Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, and Saturday Night Live.

Meryl Streep as Loretta Durkin

The incredible Meryl Streep is back this season as Loretta Durkin, an actress who finally got her big break in Oliver’s musical Death Rattle Dazzle. She moved to LA at the end of last season with her and Oliver deciding to make their budding relationship work long distance. Streep has had a long and illustrious career, though most people know her from projects like The Devil Wears Prada, Mamma Mia!, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Big Little Lies, Sophie’s Choice, and Death Becomes Her.

Molly Shannon as Bev Melon

Molly Shannon joins the cast this season as Bev Melon, a studio exec keen on adapting Only Murders in the Building into a movie. It’s her invitation that draws the trio out to LA, and she seems eager to do whatever it takes to make this movie a success. Shannon is a comedy legend who is likely known for her roles in The Other Two, Saturday Night Live, Superstar, and Never Been Kissed.

Jane Lynch as Sazz Pataki

Sazz Pataki may be this season’s murder victim, but that doesn’t mean that Jane Lynch won’t appear as Charles’ stunt double and friend. Lynch is set to appear in a number of episodes in flashbacks as the trio works to track down Sazz’s killer, avenge their friend, and make sure Charles isn’t the next target. Lynch has appeared in a number of movies and TV shows including Glee, Wreck-It Ralph, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Party Down.

Eva Longoria as Herself

Eva Longoria is playing a version of herself this season as the actor chosen to portray Mabel in the Only Murders movie. Like the other actors chosen for the film, she follows Mabel around as they try to solve the murder of Sazz, hoping to get into her head and see what she’s really like outside of the podcast. Longoria is known for her roles in Desperate Housewives, Telenovela, The Young and the Restless, and Flamin’ Hot.

Eugene Levy as Himself

Eugene Levy is playing himself playing Charles in the Only Murders movie. Like Eva Longoria and Zach Galifianakas, Levy is tasked by the studio to shadow Charles and discover what makes him tick, getting him caught up in the murder investigation, and even potentially making him a target due to his proximity to Charles. Levy is known for his real world roles in Schitt’s Creek, the American Pie franchise, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, and Over the Hedge.

Zach Galifianakis as Himself

Zach Galifianakis is playing himself playing Oliver in the Only Murders movie. Oliver seems to like his movie counterpart even less than the others, making for an interesting shadow experience for the two. Galifianakis is a comedy legend in his own right, and is known for his roles in The Hangover films, Due Date, Baskets, and Between Two Ferns.

Jin Ha as Marshall P. Pope

Marshall P. Pope is the eager young screenwriter tasked with adapting Only Murders in the Building into a movie. He enjoys following the cast around and taking in all of their quirks and mannerisms for his work. Marshall is played by Jin Ha, who you might recognize from Love Life, Civil War, Pachinko, and Devs.

Siena Werber and Catherine Cohen as Trina and Tawny Brothers

Siena Werber and Catherine Cohen play Trina and Tawny Brothers, a.k.a. The Brothers, an auteur directing duo set to bring their unique vision to the Only Murders movie. You might recognize Werber from her role in the Netflix series Brand New Cherry Flavor and Cohen from her roles in Search Party, The Lovebirds, and Dating & New York.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Detective Donna Williams

Another murder in the Arconia means that the police are going to have to get involved eventually. And who better than Detective Donna Williams, who might as well be an honorary member of the trio at this point. Her keen eye and connections have helped them on more than one occasion, and it’s no surprise that they’d ask for her help once again. Da’Vine Joy Randolph is returning as Detective Williams this season fresh off her Oscar win for her role in The Holdovers. She has also appeared in the Hulu series High Fidelity, The Lost City, Dolemite is My Name, and The Idol.

Michael Cyril Creighton as Howard Morris

Michael Cyril Creighton returns as Arconia resident Howard Morris this season. Last season, Howard served as Oliver’s assistant director for Death Rattle Dazzle, but with the trio’s sights now set on Hollywood, it’s unclear where Howard will fall in this new dynamic. But what we do know is that Howard will likely still be an important part of the crime-solving team. Aside from Only Murders in the Building, Michael Cyril Creighton has appeared in Dash & Lily, Dexter: New Blood, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Spotlight.

Jackie Hoffman as Uma Heller

Jackie Hoffman is set to return as Arconia resident Uma Heller. Uma hasn’t always been fond of the trio, but even though she would never admit it, she might just be softening up to them a bit. It’s unclear what her role will be in the investigation this season, but her no-nonsense attitude will likely prove to be an asset once again. Hoffman has also appeared in Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, Glass Onion, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Melissa McCarthy as Charles’ Sister

As the trio gets closer to uncovering why Sazz was killed, they realize that Charles’ life might be in more danger than they realized. In need of a safe house, they decide to go visit Charles’ sister who lives on Long Island, played by the incredible Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy is known for her roles in Spy, Bridesmaids, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Gilmore Girls, Ghostbusters, and The Little Mermaid.

Kumail Nanjiani as TBD

While we don’t yet know who Kumail Nanjiani is playing, the trailer shows that he might be one of the Arconia’s residents we haven’t met yet. And a Christmas-obsessed resident at that. As with most new people we meet in this series, everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise, but that doesn’t mean that Nanjiani’s comedic talents won’t be a welcome addition to the series. You’ll likely recognize the actor from his roles in The Big Sick, The Eternals, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Lovebirds, and Welcome to Chippendales.

Richard Kind as Vince Fish

Richard Kind plays Vince Fish, who seems to be another resident of the Arconica that the trio comes into contact with during their investigation. Richard Kind has had a long career, appearing in projects like The Other Two, Big Mouth, American Dad, Young Sheldon, Gotham, The Carol Burnett Show, and Spin City just to name a few.

The post Only Murders in the Building Cast: Meet the New Characters of Season 4 appeared first on Den of Geek.

That man, they discover, is Gary Seven a 20th-century human and member of an alien peacekeeping force. Seven has been sent back to his home planet to prevent a rocket launch that would further enflame the Cold War, a mission that Kirk and Spock take too long to understand.

Such is the plot to “Assignment: Earth,” the 1968 finale to the Original Series‘ second season, which was also almost the last episode of the entire series. But even if that had been the end of Kirk and crew on television, it may not have been the end for Gary and his feline companion. After all, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had originally hoped to turn “Assignment: Earth” into an ongoing spinoff series, one that would have taken a slightly more grounded approach than exploring the final frontier.

A Missed Assignment

“Captain, we could say that Mister Seven and Miss Lincoln have some… interesting experiences in store for them,” says Spock at the end of “Assignment: Earth.” The line was intended as a tease for the audience, capping a backdoor pilot that Roddenberry hoped would lead to his next hit sci-fi series. But even before it was folded into Star Trek, the idea for “Assignment: Earth” began life as its own standalone show. Unfortunately, when none of the networks showed interest in ordering a pilot, Roddenberry and co-creator Art Wallace reworked the idea, instead launching “Assignment: Earth” via the also imperiled Star Trek.

For that reason, “Assignment: Earth” spends more time with Seven than it does Kirk and Spock. Played with stoic reserve by Robert Lansing, Seven goes about his mission to disrupt the launch at the (fictional) McKinley Rocket Base with utter seriousness. Along the way, we learn a bit about his backstory. The descendent of humans abducted by aliens in 4000 BC and brought to peak mental and physical ability, Seven has returned to his people’s planet to prevent Earth from destroying itself before they can achieve harmony.

Along the way, Seven dazzles audiences with his high-tech equipment, including a massive computer hidden behind a bookcase in his apartment, his voice-activated typewriter, and his “servo,” a pen-shaped device that operates as a multipurpose tool.

The episode also gave Seven two partners, the first was Isis, who may or may not also sometimes be a sexy lady (this is a Roddenberry show, after all). The second is a hip ’60s woman called Roberta, played by Teri Garr. In her first major role, Garr shows off the comic timing that will make her a star, playing Roberta as sometimes overwhelmed by the advanced technology, but with a strong moral core and moments of bravery.

But despite all of the pieces in place for a cool sci-fi series, in which Gary and his crew continue to protect Earth’s timeline from being altered, neither audiences nor networks wanted more of Gary Seven. And when we next saw the Enterprise crew, they had much more important issues to deal with, namely finding Spock’s Brain in the season 3 opener.

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The Assignment Continues

Even if Lansing and Garr never returned as Seven and Roberta, Trekkies didn’t forget about them. The characters play key roles in the Eugenics Wars novels by Greg Cox from the early 2000s. In those stories, Seven finds the boy Khan Noonien Singh in a secret lab in 1974 India. Seven rescues the boy and plans to raise Khan in the ways of the aliens who taught him, hoping that Khan will use his augments for the good of humanity.

But when Khan takes steps that lead to the Eugenics Wars, Seven and Roberta try to stop him, essentially becoming his first nemeses. Seven’s failure to prevent Khan’s rise leads to his retirement from his post, with the mature Roberta taking over in his place.

Seven and Roberta have also appeared in several Star Trek comics, including a 2008 five-issue miniseries Star Trek: Assignment Earth by IDW Comics, written and penciled by none other than comics legend John Byrne. The comic picks up three months after “Assignment: Earth,” and follows the duo on a series of adventures, which involve more nuclear facilities, secret cloning labs, and even a return trip to the Enterprise.

All of these stories present Seven and Roberta as secret agents, which makes sense, given that Roddenberry modeled the characters on popular British agents James Bond and The Avengers. However, sci-fi fans will notice quite a few similarities between the “Assignment: Earth” heroes and another popular franchise timey-wimey franchise following an alien protagonist: Doctor Who.

Like the Doctor, especially William Hartnell‘s first incarnation, Seven has a stoic demeanor, which sometimes clashes with his cool young female companion. He uses alien equipment to go where he needs to anywhere on the planet (not through time, but given how easily the Enterprise time travels, it’s hard to believe that Seven didn’t have a few tricks to pull it off).

Seven solves problems by pointing his pen-shaped servo at things, which allows him to open and unlock doors, turn on computers, and that can even be set to stun, just like the sonic screwdriver. He even gets past security with a wallet full of fake ID cards, which feels a lot like psychic paper. Of course, psychic paper wasn’t added to Who lore until the Russel T Davies reboot. And even the sonic screwdriver didn’t appear until the Second Doctor serial Fury from the Deep, which aired at the same time as “Assignment: Earth.” Clearly, Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln were onto something in 1968.

“I have never felt so helpless,” Kirk confesses in a supplemental log late in the episode. It’s a telling statement. Not only does Seven get most of the attention in “Assignment: Earth,” but Kirk and Spock spend the entire episode following his trail, confused and inert.

Had a letter-writing campaign not convinced CBS to produce one more season of Star Trek, “Assignment: Earth” would have been an ignoble end to the series but perhaps also the jumping off point for new adventures starring Mr. Seven and his companions. But even if Trek‘s legacy is more than secure in 2024, it would still be nice to see the characters of Seven and Roberta make some sort of return. After all, humanity still needs a lot of help.

The post The First Star Trek Spinoff Would Have Explored a Very Different Kind of Frontier appeared first on Den of Geek.

The rich mystery novels of Navajo lawmen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee have been entertaining readers for over 50 years, and in that time there have been several adaptations for the screen. In the early ‘90s, Lou Diamond Phillips, fresh off the success of Young Guns II starred as Jim Chee opposite Fred Ward. A decade later, PBS produced a miniseries entitled Skinwalkers: The Navajo Mysteries, which gave us a trio of Leaphorn & Chee stories starring Wes Studi and Adam Beach. 

Throughout all the adaptations of Tony Hillerman’s stories, there have been a few key pieces pushing for the onscreen success of the work. The icon Robert Redford has been there every step of the way, backing any adaptation as a producer and staunch believer in the franchise. Another important figure is director Chris Eyre, who directed those aforementioned PBS productions, and found himself returning for AMC’s hit adaptation Dark Winds, which debuted in 2022.

The show, starring the gifted Zahn McClarnon as Leaphorn and Kiowa Gordon as Chee, has suddenly become one of AMC’s sleeper hits. With the first two seasons now available on Netflix, and a third season in post-production, Eyre and showrunner John Wirth took some time to reflect on what makes this show so unique and sought after. 

Den of Geek: We’re seeing Dark Winds become even more widespread now because of its streaming availability on Netflix. What do you feel is the great appeal of the show and why do you think people are gravitating towards it?

JOHN WIRTH: I think it’s the only show of its kind being made in the United States. There are other shows about Natives or that have Native characters, but nothing like this and nothing like [Zahn] McClarnon. It’s a wonderful cast. 

Doing a story about the Navajo in 1970 is intriguing to people and everybody at large enjoys a mystery or a detective story. There’s been a rich history of that sort of story being told on television, and we’re continuing along that road. But my impression of Netflix is, it’s really an invitation to see things from other cultures. In my day, coming up in television, we never had access to any of this stuff. But now I can see things from South Korea. I can see things from Ireland. I can see things from France, Germany, whatever. And here’s a show that you can see now and is from a part of the United States that is underserved on television. 

CHRIS EYRE: Leaphorn and Chee have always been a great buddy cop dynamic, but it’s interesting, because it’s taken on a life that I didn’t expect with our show. It’s spread itself to include Sena [A Martinez] and Henry [Joseph Runningfox] – these gruff and tumble Western guys that grew up in the ’50s or ’60s, and they just have a different veneer to them. So even for those already familiar with the story, this whole idea of the buddy movie with Chee and Leaphorn has been expanded, and it’s much more of a community.

Chris, it’s a really interesting part of your career because you’ve been involved with the Tony Hillerman properties before, specifically about 20 years ago. Can you talk about how the environment of television has evolved in terms of representation and these stories becoming more mainstream? 

EYRE: It’s been a great evolution to see. I think what happened was that “streamers” take more risks now compared to what I was able to do on PBS. Then there was the DEI movement and public awareness post-Standing Rock, which was in 2016. I was at the DNC and heard Kamala Harris. It was just incredible. “We’re not going back” – that adage is also adapted by audiences. Audiences are not going back. The inclusion of things way back in the ’90s, it’s all come full circle in terms of the availability of voices. 

Dark Winds came at a time when I think the audiences were more amenable to this kind of thing. All of our main protagonists are Native American, and for me, that’s a watershed. These are the small hallmarks that make it. The fact that the principle four – Emma and Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee and Bernadette – are all Native is just an amazing milestone. 

With the end of the second season, to see Emma and Joe on the back of a motorcycle in Monument Valley, audiences realize this is just a drama about these characters and their lives, and you get to see a love story between two functional Native American people. I don’t think it’s ever been seen on screen, in television or film. So those small watersheds are the things that really make me think “Wow, this is such an opportunity.”

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You touched on it already but with early 2000s television, creators made an effort to increase representation and we saw characters who represented diversity, but they were often archetypes or caricatures. How do we battle pigeonholing these characters, but at the same still address the culture which is so important to speak about? 

EYRE: I think we do it with the writers. With our writers’ room, the majority are Native American, and to be a fly on the wall of the discussions between them is something that I will never forget, because it’s enlightening. 

The show is really a contemporary Western with Native American lead characters wrapped in a murder mystery. With those staples, you can’t go wrong, but also, when you talk about the characters, all of them have dimension. We’ve had that for two seasons, and we continue that into the third. Joe Leaphorn is debating the morality of his own choices in season three. Not to give anything away, but he really has to make moral and ethical choices, and I think that’s where we all are. 

It is about the three-dimensionality of these characters in the writer’s room, and then on set with the performers. Zahn [McClarnon], Kiowa [Gordon], Deanna [Allison] and Jessica [Matten], really give dimension to the characters. It’s a whole family here that really gives the dimension, and I think that’s what makes the difference. 

John, when you were named showrunner, what did you feel were the responsibilities you had to the source material and the culture we’ve spoken about?

WIRTH: Well, I was a fan of the Tony Hillerman novels. I read them when I was a young man, and I was a mystery and detective novel reader, so I was very familiar with the story. I had tracked Redford’s involvement and his attempts 40 years ago to try to make a go of it. 

When I talked to AMC about it in the beginning, [we recognized] these stories are challenging because, knowing what we know today, there’s some sense that Hillerman appropriated the Navajo stories to some extent. I’m not sure a white man could write this story today. So I see it as my responsibility to honor the books and the story that Hillerman wrote, and in a sense, reappropriate it back to the Navajo to make it palatable for a Native audience. That means approaching the story in a certain way, honoring the cultural sensitivities that that we run into. 

So it’s been a real learning experience for me, and I’m just trying to tell a story that the broader audience will enjoy in terms of a detective show, and that the Navajo people will embrace in terms of their particular culture.

The show gives you an opportunity, especially when you consider the specific time period of the Hillerman novels, to talk about things like the Family Planning Services Act. Are there other aspects of the history of First Nations people that you want to explore or that you’re going to explore in season three?

WIRTH: Well, we have to speak about season three in the past tense, because we’ve already written it and we’ve already shot it. So, without spoiling anything, I’ll say that we took a deeper dive into Navajo culture and cultural mysticism. In the first season of the show, we dipped our toe in the water of this kind of material. There was a witch in the show, and that came from a place of wanting to explore Navajo mysticism. So we’ve gone in that direction a little more for season three.

But to your larger point, there are so many aspects of Native life, particularly the Navajo. They live on a massive reservation. They’re a country unto themselves, but they’re overseen by the federal government, and there are many issues – water, uranium, just to name a couple resources – and these are areas that are ripe for commentary. 

If we have room in the story, we definitely will tap into some of those things, because I think it’s a great thing to use the show as a platform to inform and educate, even though the show is primarily for entertainment.

Listening Women and People of Darkness seem to be the novels that fed the first two seasons. Did the third season have influence from a specific work?

WIRTH: We drew from The Sinister Pig and Dance Hall of the Dead, and as a consequence, it’s a very ambitious story. It was quite a struggle trying to figure out how to connect the two so it didn’t feel like we were telling two independent stories, and I think we did a pretty good job of it. Dance Hall is widely viewed as one of Hillerman’s best novels, and Sinister Pig is widely viewed as one of his worst [Laughs]. 

I thought there were some very good things in Sinister Pig, which made it a good choice for us in season three, particularly because at the end of season two, Bernadette had left the Navajo Nation and the Navajo tribal police to go work for the Border Patrol. So Sinister Pig gave us a really good continuation of the story for this part of our series.

EYRE: I would say [season three] is more polished, it’s brighter, it’s bigger, there’s more excitement, more action. The performances are just electric, and we have scenes that are completely in Navajo between characters that go on for minutes. I think that’s enlightening, because you really get a sense of the language and culture.

Season three is great. I’m very excited about it.

Dark Winds season 3 is expected to premiere in 2025 on AMC. Season 1 and 2 are now available on Netflix and AMC+.

The post Dark Winds Producers on Season 3 and Why Leaphorn & Chee Stories Matter appeared first on Den of Geek.

“Everyone knew that whoever let the sadness overtake him would sink into the swamp,” the narrator Bastian (Barret Oliver) reads aloud during the fateful scene in Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story. As much else in the film, Bastian’s onscreen role as a modern child of 1984 reading a book—one titled The NeverEnding Story—acts as a framing device, providing literal storybook exposition and context for the viewer. In this moment, though, he is also a herald; a messenger offering grim warning before the generational trauma is inflicted.

And it was traumatic to watch Artax, the mythical horse and prized companion of the story-within-a-story’s boy hero,  Atreyu (Noah Hathaway), sink ever further into the Swamps of Sadness. A look of bewilderment and seemingly real fear seizes the animal’s face, and within seconds, Atreyu goes from gently teasing the beast for being stuck to pleading with it.

“Artax, please,” Atreyu begs into the animal’s ear. “You’re letting the sadness of the swamps get to you. You have to try. You have to care. For me.” But whether he cried, bartered, or eventually just screamed, Atreyu could do nothing as with each passing cut, the horse slipped further into its grave. The echo of “ARRRTAX!” reverberates again and again in the ear of the animal, and the watery eyes of bawling children. Finally, the film fades away from the horse’s panicked face and into black. With the next shot, all that’s left is a weeping child holding a rein to nothing.

Watching the scene even now well into my 30s, this jaded critic cannot be unaffected by a sequence which invites a level of visceral sorrow and anguish that’s virtually alien to modern family films. It also reawakens old memories on the playground of a rumor that lasted for decades until it became the stuff of urban legend: to film this scene, they really drowned a horse.

Anecdotally, I recall the whispers on an elementary school’s basketball court about how they killed “Artax” for real. It was almost as ubiquitous as the alleged “ghost” that you could see for half a second in Three Men and a Baby, or how the word “SEX” can be seen scrawled across the sky when Simba knocks a paw-full of flowers into the night air during The Lion King.

In the days before the internet, the pleasant thing about urban legends and conspiracy theories is that they stayed relatively local: unproven but also unserious; they were campfire gossip shared between friends in passing. And in the case of movies, they made the pictures seem larger and more mythical than really were.

Of course, thankfully in the case of The NeverEnding Story, not a single one of these rumors turned out to be true: there is no ghost in Three Men and a Baby, unless you count Steve Guttenberg’s career. The supposed specter is really just a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson’s actor-character within the movie, which had accidentally been left in the frame of that shot; the long since deleted easter egg slipped into the original cut of The Lion King (and which can still be found on original VHS printings) was “SFX,” amounting to perhaps an ill-advised pat-on-the-back by some of Disney’s special effects animators; and no horses were drowned on the set of The NeverEnding Story.

Nevertheless, the legend persisted for years, and even well into the early wild west days of the internet where in online forums like this one, strangers would say with utter conviction to one another that “the horse from ‘The Neverending story’ actually died while they were filming that incredibly sad scene where ‘Artax’ drowns… We all witnessed the real death of the horse.”

One of the benefits of the modern age is thus being able to refute these notions, as the filmmakers behind The NeverEnding Story did during a 2019 oral history with Entertainment Weekly.

“The horse did not really die despite what has been said throughout the years,” Petersen said before his own passing in 2022. “First of all, we had two identical horses that played Artax. They were so beautiful. They were trained for a long, long time by a professional horse handler with this impossible task for a horse to, without resistance, sink slowly down in the mud all the way up to their head. It did not go over their head, no horse would ever do that.”

It apparently took months to train one or both “Artax” performers to rehearse the scene, and if you notice the film does indeed never show Artax’s head go beneath the bog; we simply see it resist a boy trying to pull on its mouth with all his strength. Hathaway also vividly recalled filming that tug of war to EW.

“I feel like I sent people to therapy over that scene with Artax,” the actor said. “The horse they used was really wonderful and they spent a couple of months teaching her to be ok with being up to her neck with water. That’s something unfamiliar for them. So the way we did that scene was that they had this little elevator under the water that slowly dropped the horse lower and lower. When it got to its chin area, we’d cut the scene. That one scene took over two and a half weeks… [but] they were more careful with that horse than they were with me! I got hurt a hell of a lot more. The horse was definitely looked after well.”

Like so many urban legends and behind-the-scenes gossips that are shared like the holy word, the Artax tall tale is completely made up—almost quaintly so considering the movie noticeably cuts before showing the horse underwater.  Yet its enduring quality speaks to a few things both lost and gained by our collective culture today.

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In its own weird way, this rumor is a compliment to Petersen, Hathaway, and everyone who worked on The NeverEnding Story. The scene in the movie is so effectively sad and despairing that it left a permanent mark on the psyche of Gen X and “elder” millennial children everywhere. With the simplicity of a fairytale, the sequence provides a safe space to introduce the idea of depression, sadness, and even death to a child. While many of the film’s intended audience were hopefully too young to understand true mortality, the loss of Artax mirrors the death of a beloved pet they might be familiar with, and allows them to grapple with those emotions in a setting that also has a happy ending (spoiler: Artax comes back at the end!).

The scene engrosses the viewer in the stakes of Atreyu’s mission—his horse died!—while also providing a cathartic release of emotions in a fantasy setting. Even by ‘80s kids movies standards, the death of Artax is fairly brutal, but not that much more than when Old Yeller was put down a generation earlier, or when Mufasa died in the aforementioned The Lion King a decade later. But because it is near impossible to imagine a modern family film doing a scene like this speaks to something that has been lost.

Ironically, the same might be said of the scene’s ability to spawn an urban legend. In the modern world where the art and craft of moviemaking has been demystified by a thousand entertainment outlets and sites (ahem, guilt as charged), and even more so by social media, the once vast chasm between your everyday life and the day-to-day practicalities and procedures of filmmaking has been bridged. When a perhaps ghoulish rumor about dead horses starts to spread, a quick interview with EW or a dozen other publications can nip whisper campaigns in the bud.

But it has also, curiously, made movies smaller, and the rumors that remain hail from the most malignant corners of social media and the internet: areas where the goal seems to be to actively distort and misinform readers or viewers while generating clicks and engagement of the most malicious kind. Intriguingly, as information has become easier than ever to access, the only urban legends that are left are often created out of a willful desire to misinform; and the goal is no longer to make small talk on a playground or in a dorm room, but rather to feed neverending doom-scrolling in Elon Musk’s own Swamps of Sadness.

We’re not sure if it’s better or worse that it’s so easy to know the truth about what happened to Artax, but the best tribute we can give The NeverEnding Story is that the next time you watch it, you still will be bawling when Atreyu whimpers, “You’re my friend, I love you” to a swiftly vanishing horse.

The post The NeverEnding Story Scene So Traumatic It Damaged a Generation and Birthed a Legend appeared first on Den of Geek.

From movies to TV, Big Finish audio to theatre, find out what the Doctor Who stars have coming up next, and mark your calendars accordingly. In reverse chronological order…

Ncuti Gatwa: The Importance of Being Earnest (and Series 15!)

Gatwa’s Doctor has already filmed the 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special “Joy to the World”, plus the show’s eight-episode next season, which is due to arrive in 2025. And though a recommission starring Gatwa has yet to be officially announced, we’re crossing everything that he also sticks around in the TARDIS for another festive adventure and at least a third run of episodes after that.

In between his Doctor responsibilities, Gatwa also has an undisclosed role in the currently filming 2025 British comedy drama feature The Roses. It’s an adaptation of Warren Adler’s novel The War of the Roses, which was memorably made by Danny DeVito into a 1989 movie starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. This one has Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch as the married leads whose ‘perfect’ lives descend into bitter chaos.

Bigger than that though, is Gatwa’s leading role as Algernon Moncrieff in Oscar Wilde farcical comedy play The Importance of Being Earnest, which is running at the Lyttelton Theatre at The National in London from November 2024 to January 2025. Hugh Skinner also stars, alongside some Doctor Who alumni in the form of Sharon D Clarke and Julian “Davros” Bleach.

David Tennant: Rivals & The Thursday Murder Club

When Den of Geek welcomed you to “the year of David Tennant” in 2023, we may have jumped the gun – the actor’s no less booked and busy in 2024. In October, he’ll be seen playing TV producer aristo Lord Tony Baddingham in a new TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper 1980s bonkbuster Rivals coming to Disney+. He also has an as-yet-undisclosed role in the currently filming adaptation of Richard Osman’s mega hit cosy crime mystery The Thursday Murder Club, directed by Chris Columbus and produced by Steven Spielberg’s company.

On stage, Tennant will return to the role of Macbeth in October as the production in which he and Cush Jumbo starred at the Donmar Warehouse earlier this year comes to new venue The Harold Pinter Theatre.

Jodie Whittaker: The Duchess of Malfi & Toxic Town

Not since 2012’s staging of Antigone (alongside Christopher Eccleston) has Jodie Whittaker starred in a full-sized theatre production, and in October 2024, she’ll be doing it again with an 11-week run as the titular lead role in The Duchess of Malfi opposite Paul Ready.

Whittaker has already filmed her role in new four-part Netflix drama Toxic Town, written by Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials, Best Interests). In it, she stars alongside Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood and Bridgerton’s Claudia Jessie as three mothers fighting the power in a dramatisation of the true story of the Corby toxic waste poisonings. She’s also voiced a role in Richard Curtis-written Netflix animation That Christmas, due out this December. That’s as well as her and Mandip Gill’s return to the TARDIS for Big Finish audio drama series The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures, due out in July 2025.

Peter Capaldi: The Devil’s Hour & Criminal Record Season 2

The second season of Capaldi and Jessica Raine’s supernatural mystery The Devil’s Hour is poised to arrive in the next few months on Prime Video. In it, Capaldi plays Gideon Shepherd, a man with a peculiar ability that gives him a god-like perspective on the world. He is great in the part – unknowable, scary and captivating. And speaking of unknowable characters, Capaldi will also be back as DCI Daniel Hegarty in the second season of Apple TV+’s Criminal Record, opposite Cush Jumbo. The Twelfth Doctor actor also made a recent return to the directing world (he won an Oscar for his 1993 short film Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life, and directed Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan’s NHS comedy Getting On before taking on the TARDIS), with a parenting comedy pilot for Sky, starring Anne-Marie Duff and based on Sarah Naish’s memoir.

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Matt Smith: Starve Acre, Nick Cave, HotD Season 3

Fans have a lengthy wait to see Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen in the third and final season of HBO fantasy House of the Dragon, as filming isn’t due to begin until early 2025, which means the new episodes may not arrive until 2026. There won’t be a Matt Smith-drought, however. Following up from his run earlier this year in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at the Duke of York’s Theatre, he’s about to be seen in British folk horror feature Starve Acre, alongside The Rings of Power‘s Morfydd Clark, coming out in UK cinemas on September 6.

Smith has also been filming feature film The Death of Bunny Munro, the story of a twisted travelling salesman, which has been adapted from the novel by musician and writer Nick Cave. He’s also in Darren Aronofsky’s next film Caught Stealing, about an ex-baseball star in the dangerous 1990s NYC crime world, and stars alongside Elvis‘ Austin Butler and The Batman‘s Zoë Kravitz (whose directorial debut Blink Twice is excellent, incidentally). Finally, Smith is due to play one of the titular sons to Bill Nighy’s character in & Sons, the story of a reclusive novelist who attempts to reconnect with his estranged boys, based on the 2014 novel by David Gilbert and adapted by Women Talking‘s Sarah Polley.

David Tennant: Rivals & The Thursday Murder Club

When Den of Geek welcomed you to “the year of David Tennant” in 2023, we may have jumped the gun – the actor’s no less booked and busy in 2024. In October, he’ll be seen playing TV producer aristo Lord Tony Baddingham in a new TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper bonkbuster Rivals coming to Disney+. He also has an as-yet-undisclosed role in the currently filming adaptation of Richard Osman’s mega hit cosy crime mystery The Thursday Murder Club, directed by Chris Columbus and produced by Steven Spielberg’s company.

On stage, Tennant will return to the role of Macbeth in October as the production in which he and Cush Jumbo starred at the Donmar Warehouse earlier this year comes to new venue The Harold Pinter Theatre.

Christopher Eccleston: A God Amongst Men & Out of the Dust

May 2024 saw the release of the last of The Ninth Doctor Adventures, the Big Finish audio drama series that welcomed Christopher Eccleston back to the Doctor Who fold, on his own terms. No further adventures have yet been announced, but we’d love to hear more (a Rose Tyler return featuring Billie Piper? Pretty please). Still on an audio tip, Eccleston also appeared in BBC Radio 4’s adaptation of The Man Who Fell to Earth earlier this year. Before that, he gave an acclaimed performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in Jack Thorne’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic (the production is being restaged this winter, but with John Simm stepping into Eccleston’s shoes).

On TV, Eccleston has just been announced as appearing in new UK drama Out of the Dust, about an escaped prisoner and a cloistered Christian community, which co-stars Asa Butterfield, Molly Windsor and Siobhan Finneran, is filming now, and coming to Netflix. Film-wise, Eccleston is due to star opposite Nicholas Pinnock in A God Amongst Men, a British film based on the true story of Muhammad Ali’s 1977 visit to a Tyneside boxing club. He’s also playing a radio personality in 2025 picture Whispers of Freedom, which is based on the tragic true story of one man’s attempt to escape East Berlin during the Cold War. Prior to those screen roles, he was in multiple episodes of the most recent season of True Detective starring Jodie Foster, and appeared opposite Star Wars‘ Daisy Ridley in Disney+’s Young Woman and the Sea.

Paul McGann: The River and Live Big Finish Recording

This October, McGann will be appearing in a new production of The River, by acclaimed playwright Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem) at the Greenwich Theatre. It’s an eerie, slippery story about a man (McGann) who takes a woman to a remote fishing spot on a particular moonless night… Before that though, he’ll be part of a full-cast live recording for a Doctor Who audio adventure to celebrate Big Finish’s 25th anniversary on September 14. The Stuff of Legend recording is taking place at London’s Cadogan Hall, and will feature McGann as the Eighth Doctor alongside Nicholas Briggs, and India Fisher as companion Charley Pollard. There are more Big Finish adventures in the pipeline too.

On screen, fans should look out for McGann in two episodes of Bookish, the new 1940s-set murder mystery series co-written by Mark Gatiss and BBC Radio 3’s Matthew Sweet. That’s coming to Alibi in the UK in 2025.

Sylvester McCoy: The Seventh Doctor on Tour

81 years old and still a whirlwind, Sylvester McCoy is, at the time of writing, on a US tour and generously making appearances at fan conventions and celebrations. He’ll be following that up with an Australian tour at the end of 2024, too, so is showing precisely no signs of slowing down yet. Father Brown fans will have enjoyed McCoy’s appearance in an episode of the clerical cosy mystery earlier this year, and he can be seen on screen in Brit flick Dead Before They Wake, among various other in-development titles. There are more Big Finish audio adventures on the way for the Seventh Doctor too, with three further story collections planned for release this November, and then in June and November 2025.

Colin Baker: A Christmas Carol on Stage

There are more Sixth Doctor Adventures coming from Big Finish, from Trials of a Time Lord this month, starring Baker with Nicola Bryant, to two more as-yet-untitled stories arriving in March and August 2025 (in addition to The Sirens of Time re-edited remaster release, starring Baker alongside Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy). On screen, in addition to 2023’s Tales of the TARDIS appearance, Baker has various roles in development including British horror The Beast of Riverside Hollow. On stage, following on from the success of the Crime and Comedy Theatre Company’s production of Hound of the Baskervilles, he’s due to play Ebenezer Scrooge alongside Peter Purves in a touring production of A Christmas Carol this winter. Dates and more info available here.

Peter Davison: Kiss Me, Kate and more Big Finish Adventures

Following his appearances as the cad Richard Baxter on hit BBC spinoff Beyond Paradise, Peter Davison spent the summer as The General in Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate at The Barbican Theatre – you don’t have long to catch it, as the production wraps up in mid-September.

Another series of BBC crime thriller The Gold is on the way, which may feature the return of Davison’s seedy cop Assistant Commissioner Stewart, a recent role for Davison in addition to parts in The Darling Buds of May remake The Larkins, plus The Windsors, Good Omens and others. And of course, there are more as-yet-untitled Fifth Doctor Adventures on their way in April and May 2025 too, courtesy of Big Finish.

We’ll keep this list updated as more news and further roles are announced.

Doctor Who returns to BBC One, BBC iPlayer and Disney+ in December with Christmas special “Joy to the World”.

The post Doctor Who: What the Actors Who Played the Doctor are Doing Now appeared first on Den of Geek.