Paloma Faith is the last cast member to join the Epix Batman Prequel Pennyworth. The series starts production Monday, Oct. 22 at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in the UK and also stars Jack Bannon (The Imitation Game) as Alfred Pennyworth and Ben Aldridge (Fleabag) as Thomas Wayne. Set in the 1960s, Pennyworth joins Batman’s infamous butler after his departure from Britain’s S.A.S. (Special Air Service) and forms his own security company....

2016 marks a year where Batman fever has been rekindled and is sweeping across pop culture and social media. Four years after Christopher Nolan ended his phenomenal trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises, we’ve just witnessed the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It may have had mixed reviews, but it’s still breaking box office records and making hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. Then there’s Ben Affleck’s gritty, cynical and older take on the Caped Crusader, who looks like he could be getting his own solo outing penned by Affleck himself....

Earlier this month, Warner Bros./DC Entertainment unveiled the third trailer for their anticipated superhero film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it divided opinions. While the preview certainly had its merits, some were left bewildered by Jesse Eisenberg’s performance at Lex Luthor, and the reveal of what appeared to be the villain Doomsday upset many who felt the studio had just spelled out the entire movie....

Every movie needs a villain. Without a villain, a story lacks conflict and without conflict, that story will rapidly fade then die. When our villains are human, we audience members often have a tendency to forget that these characters are people who are more than just an evil pit stop on the way to the hero’s eventual redemption. It goes without saying that the more human a villain is, the more frightening they are....

Andrew Lincoln will reportedly leave The Walking Dead after season 9, while Norman Reedus has been offered a pay raise to step up and become the series’ lead. Big changes are coming for AMC’s long-running zombie drama The Walking Dead. After ratings dropped off significantly in seasons 7 and 8, the show will get a new showrunner for season 9 in longtime writer Angela Kang. Former showrunner Scott Gimple has moved on to oversee all Walking Dead-related properties at AMC....

Update: Bloomberg tech reporter Sohee Kim tweeted that the vote has been postponed due to extra time needed for a separate bill designed to tackle ‘fake news.’ Apple’s App Store commission is under threat from a new antitrust law in Korea that is “almost certain” to get the necessary votes today. It would allow developers to choose their own payment platforms, and avoid the 15% or 30% cut they currently have to pay to Apple for app sales and in-app purchases....

The long-running push for the launch of the new smart home standard Matter is taking a big step forward. The Connectivity Standards Alliance announced today that it, along with members of the alliance, are formally releasing the Matter 1.0 standard and certification program. This opens the door to official product certification for the first Matter accessories, and it comes as the latest iOS 16.1 betas add support for the technology....

Curious about how to set Apple Music sleep timers but haven’t noticed the feature in the app? Follow along for how to get the functionality on iPhone and iPad as well as using the feature with Siri and apps like YouTube. Even though it’s been a requested feature from users for years, Apple strangely hasn’t built a sleep timer directly into its Apple Music app. However, there is a way to do it natively with iPhone and iPad, you just have to make use of the Clock app....

Apple is offering a special holiday cashback deal for new Apple Card owners signing up between December 26 and January 31. Purchases eligible for the 5% cashback offer include outright hardware purchases of iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. The typical rate for Apple hardware and software transactions with Apple Card is 3%, so 5% is a decent introductory offer. However, the bonus is only available to new Apple Card accounts and not offered to existing customers....

Apple is set to make a monumental change to the App Store on the iPhone. In response to looming regulations in the European Union, Apple has software engineers and services employees working on a project to “allow alternative app stores” on the iPhone and iPad. This change could launch as soon as iOS 17 next year. According to a new report from Bloomberg, these changes will see Apple allow outside App Stores on the iPhone for the first time....

In an email from Apple to developers, it says that all Apple Search Ads campaigns running on the App Store in Russia are currently on hold. No new campaigns will be eligible to run on the App Store in Russia for the duration of the suspension. When the suspension will end is highly unknown. Apple has already made a number of moves in an effort to stand against the Russian invasion....

After Apple employees began returning to in-person work in April of this year, the company paused the rollout of its plans due to cases of COVID-19 increasing again. On Monday, Apple set a new deadline for its corporate employees to return to the office. Starting September 5, employees will need to work in person at least a few days a week. The news comes from Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman. According to the report, corporate employees will have to return to the office three days a week....

Reported by the New York Post today, NBC is in talks to stream Major League Baseball games on its streaming service, Peacock. This news comes after last month’s report that an Apple TV+ deal is in the works to stream live MLB games on the service. Neither deal is yet official, but both are expected to come about sometime this year. According to the article, the MLB is looking for a $100 million to $150 million payout to stream their games....

Apple TV+ will premiere a brand new Peanuts holiday special this year, entitled ‘For Auld Lang Syne’, in which the Peanuts gang will try and throw the best New Years party ever. Thanks to Apple’s exclusive deal with WildBrain, the classic holiday Peanuts specials for Halloween, Christmas and Thanksgiving are available to stream on the service. Like last year, they will also be aired on PBS. For Peanuts fans, ‘For Auld Lang Syne’ will mark the first time a Peanuts TV special in the franchise does not feature Charlie Brown or Snoopy in the title....

The first reviews of the new Apple TV 4K were published this morning with an overwhelmingly positive consensus. One interesting tidbit revealed in these reviews is that the Apple TV 4K has another trick up its sleeve coming with a future software update: better support for variable refresh rates. According to reviews from The Verge and TechCrunch, a future update to tvOS will add support for something called Quick Media Switching, commonly referred to as QMS VRR....

Arrow season 7 episode 6, “Due Process”, saw Felicity “Overwatch” Smoak continuing to develop a new vigilante group to bring Ricardo Diaz to justice. Felicity joined both Rene “Wild Dog” Ramirez and Diaz’s former ally Black Siren in the field in a bid to follow up on a lead to Diaz’s whereabouts. At the same time, Black Siren made good on her promise in the last episode to pursue a legal case to get Oliver Queen out of prison....

Though Warcraft may not have taken the U.S. box office by storm over the past weekend, there’s still another video game-based movie to come this year in the form of Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft Motion Pictures’ first big screen venture. Starring Michael Fassbender in dual roles, Assassin’s Creed is based on Ubisoft’s hugely successful series of historical sci-fi action games, in which modern day characters use a machine called the Animus to unlock the memories of their ancestors....

2016 will be known as the year virtual reality (VR) made the leap from sci-fi fantasy to mainstream consumer product. While many tech industry pundits agree that VR is the future, there is no consensus on exactly how the consumer market will adopt VR. Whether VR is best suited for gaming, home theatre experiences, or communications, the first step towards winning over consumers is getting devices into the hands of the public, and AMC Theaters will be doing just that to promote the upcoming release of Assassin’s Creed ....

After England’s NHS app brought support to a COVID-19 passport last week, the Australian government is doing the same via Express Plus Medicare for its iPhone users. Starting now in Australia, anyone that received two shots of Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines is eligible to add a digital certificate to the Apple Wallet. As first spotted by Tap Down Under, Australians just have to download the Express Plus Medicare app, which was recently updated with Apple Wallet support....

In a surprising announcement, it seems that NBC are choosing not to go forward with the Bad Boys TV Spinoff. L.A.’s Finest starred Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba as mismatched cops, and the network was generally expected to commission the show to go to a full series from the pilot. But whilst the show will now definitely not go ahead at NBC, there’s still a chance it might be picked up elsewhere, as producers are shopping it around....