Cross-media
The Best Panel at Comic-Con Is Not the One Everyone Camps For
San Diego Comic-Con runs July 22 to 26, Marvel takes back Hall H on Saturday, and every big reveal this week lands harder if you do one specific piece of homework first.
4 min read
San Diego Comic-Con opens Wednesday night and runs through Sunday, July 26, and by Saturday evening your feed will be nothing but trailers, gasping crowd videos, and hot takes. Here is the problem with watching Comic-Con from your couch: a…
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This Week in Entertainment
Wed
22
San Diego Comic-Con
EVENT · Hall H runs Thu-Sat
Fri
24
Music, Fashion, Film
MUSIC · Charli xcx's post-Brat album
Fri
31
petal
MUSIC · Ariana Grande's first album on her own label
Cover Story / The Long Read
Harrison Ford Never Wanted Any of This. That Was Always the Trick.
Harrison Ford turned 84 on July 13, and for once the timing of a Hollywood birthday feels like an argument. In March, SAG-AFTRA gave him its Life Achievement Award. He holds a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in…
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More this week
Movies
You Only Need Two Things Before Brand New Day
Tom Holland's forgotten Peter Parker returns July 31 with the Punisher and the Hulk in tow, and most of the 30-film homework lists going around are a waste of your eleven days.
Cross-media
The Correct Way Into Project Hail Mary Is the Movie First
Ryan Gosling's $684 million space hit has been streaming on Prime Video since July 3, and the Andy Weir novel behind it is topping Goodreads' most-read sci-fi list. Here is the order that ruins neither.
Games
Your First Halo Should Be the Remake, Not the Museum Piece
Halo: Campaign Evolved lands on PS5, Xbox and PC on July 28 with three new missions, four-player co-op and an optional sprint toggle, and it goes playable at Comic-Con this week.
Games
New World's Cash Shop Should Have Closed the Day the Shutdown Was Announced
The deadline to buy in-game currency lands today, six months after Amazon set the servers' demolition date of January 31, 2027. Most buyers get nothing back.
Books
Whitehead's Heist Novels Were Never a Detour
Cool Machine, out Tuesday, closes the Harlem Trilogy that Ray Carney has been fencing his way through since 2021. Five years of capers turn out to be the most ambitious project of Colson Whitehead's career.
Television
If You Only Know the Landon Version, You Don't Know Little House
Netflix's reimagining hit No. 1 in the US within a week of its July 9 premiere by doing what no adaptation has dared: taking Laura Ingalls Wilder's novels seriously.
Books
The Fanfic Pipeline Is Outwriting the Fantasy Shelf
Alchemised sold 145,000 copies in its first week and BookTok still will not put it down: a July verdict on what the app is actually reading, and who each book is for.
Music
Yes, Superfans Bought Madonna's Tenth No. 1. It Still Counts.
Confessions II moved 134,000 units in week one, and 114,000 of them were physical sales. The skeptics see a superfan stunt. We see the most deliberate form of fandom there is.
Music
Charli xcx Knows a Brat Sequel Would Be Surrender
Music, Fashion, Film arrives Friday: eleven tracks, a single called "Rock Music" from a woman who swears she never promised a rock album, and David Cronenberg as the tracklist's lone feature. Call it perverse. It is also the only smart move she had.
Music
Country Took the Charts. The Albums Are Better Than the Hits.
Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas just logged a 13th week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, the longest run ever for a woman in country music, and it is only the front door.
Cross-media
Nothing We Invented Beats July 1969
This issue lands on the 57th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. Here are the nine films, shows and games that understand why the true story still outdraws every fantasy franchise.
Cross-media
Stranger Things Was Never an 80s Show. It Was Horror Wearing One
Ten years of discourse filed it under nostalgia television. CrossBinge's cross-media embedding space puts Scream, FROM and Stephen King's Carrie among its nearest neighbors, while The Goonies, the comparison 2016 reviews reached for, ranks 162nd.
Television
The Gentlest Show in Adult Animation Is Also Its Biggest Hit
King of the Hill Season 15 drops all ten episodes on Hulu today. Skeptics say the revival lost its flint. 4.4 million first-week views for Season 14 say the audience wants exactly what it became.
From the archive
All issues →
The Week inEntertainment
No. 4
Disney Is Now Remaking Movies Your Kids Are Still Watching
Sam Neill Was Never a Movie Star. He Was Something Better.
The Week of July 13
The Week inEntertainment
No. 3
The Dead Are Working Again
GTA 6 Is Skipping PC Because It Can
The Week of July 6
The Week inEntertainment
No. 2
Hollywood Keeps Betting on Worlds, Not Stories
Supergirl Opens to $38 Million, a Third of Superman's Debut
The Week of June 29
The Week inEntertainment
No. 1
Spielberg's Alien Opus Is Eating Toy Story's Lunch
Toy Story 5 Opens to $312M Global
The Week of June 22