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Paramount has released five character posters for their upcoming film Terminator: Genisys. The posters feature Byung-hun Lee, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jai Courtney. This is the first of three films planed by the studio in this new re-launch / re-vamp… or whatever you want to call it. Time travel can be confusing.

Terminator: Genisys hits theaters July 1st.

Terminator: Genisys Character Posters Revealed

Harmonix are hard at work bringing back their flagship series with Rock Band 4, set to launch later this year. The game will let you play with all of your Rock Band 3 DLC, on top of adding new songs to the mix. That means you could potentially be starting the game with hundreds of songs ready to go.

But what goes into making all those songs? That is the focus of this video from IGN First. This is surprisingly technical, so you might well be as lost as I was as Harmonix show off the software they use to make their songs. It’s still pretty fascinating though, I must say.

Check it out here:

So What Actually Goes Into Making A Rock Band Song?

By Elizabeth Grey

Everyone knows that Bruce Wayne is a very rich man. With the substantial wealth of Wayne Enterprises behind him, Forbes placed him 6^th in their Fictional 15 rich list, with $9.2bn to his name. According to the economics blog Centives that was a conservative estimate as they valued Wayne at a massive $11.6bn.

So what’s a man to do with so much money? Wayne’s playboy façade would have to be maintained, but even the most frivolous would struggle to put a dent in that much wealth, especially when they’re spending time punching people in the face every night.

Bruce Wayne understands he will always need money to support his other life as Batman. Being one of the smartest men on the planet, Wayne would also know not to place all his eggs in one basket, so it’s unlikely he’d simply plough everything back into Wayne Enterprises. Warren Buffet, with his personal wealth of $71.2 billion, is proof that diversified investments are a good way to go.

The first thing to consider is what kind of investment style Wayne would take. With Wayne Enterprises backing him up, he could afford to take risks. The money he could lose would be unlikely to dent his wealth unless he was entirely reckless, while the returns could potentially be massive:

Image credit: Fidelity

Even average growth for a high-risk investor yields large returns. If he was successful in his choices it wouldn’t be long before he could build up enough money to sustain his bativities (bat activities) even if Wayne Enterprises went bust. Creating a decent backup of cash would be a good idea for Bruce as a number of his foes know his secret and could try to destroy him by ruining his company.

If Bruce went the high-risk route there are a few investments he’d be likely to make. Initial public offerings, venture capital funding and emerging markets would likely be at the top of his list, to appeal to his philanthropic and vigilante sides.

Then again, would Wayne be so risky? Would Alfred talk him out of any high risk investments? While it would be great for Wayne to achieve financial self-sufficiency outside of Wayne Enterprises, what if he wasted all his personal fortune only for Wayne Enterprise’s wealth to dry-up? That’s a pretty bleak future for Batman.

Image credit: JD Hancock

It’s worth remembering that we’re talking about a man who not only created a high-tech surveillance system just in case his super-powered friends got a bit dodgy, but also kept detailed information on them so he could defeat them if necessary. These are not the actions of a man who plays fast and loose with his future.

Knowing we’re dealing with someone who is concerned with everything going wrong and actively prepares for those scenarios, can it really be argued that high risk high return investments will be alluring to him? Probably not.

So if Wayne goes the safer route, where would he put his money? Luckily with such vast wealth he can still manage some pretty decent returns compared to the average person. A 3% return isn’t much on a £1,000 investment, but that return on £10,000,000 isn’t to be sniffed at. Spreading out large sums of his money would yield some pretty good results even if profits came in slower.

Unfortunately, investments on the safer end of the spectrum are a bit more humdrum. We’re talking things like savings bonds and utility stocks. Basic, fairly predictable and decidedly unexciting.

For a person who drives a Batmobile and fights supervillains on the regular, maybe it won’t be the returns on high-risk investments that entices Wayne, but the excitement of making them instead.

Elizabeth Grey is a British-based writer who started buying comics with her pocket money and never stopped. She tweets @ej_grey.

What Would Bruce Wayne’s Bank Account Look Like?

The CW has made it official. The Flash / Arrow spinoff series will be called DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow and will be in the network’s schedule for the 2015-2016 season. The series featuring a few familiar faces and some new ones was ordered directly to series.

The series will star: Victor Garber (Martin Stein), Brandon Routh (Ray Palmer), Caity Lotz (Sara Lance?), Arthur Darvill (Rip Hunter), Ciarra Renee (Kendra Saunders), Franz Drameh (to be named), Dominic Purcell (Mick Rory) and Wentworth Miller (Leonard Snart).

Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg and Sarah Schechter are executive producing.

CW Officially Announces Flash / Arrow Spinoff Series

Earlier today, Bleeding Cool passed on double-sourced gossip regarding the future of the X-Men in the post-Secret Wars Marvel Universe.

Obviously spoilers on, in case it’s true.

But Little Bleeder Patrick Gerard pointed out that we’ve been here before.

From Jim Valentino’s iteration of the Guardians Of The Galaxy, set a thousand years in the future. And featuring Haven, a planet that was founded by Magneto, who led Earth’s mutants into exile. And led by Wolverine’s great great grandaughter, Rancor.

I wonder… could this planet, if the gossip is true, be called Haven as well?

Could The X-Men Future Be The Guardians Of The Galaxy's Past?

Marvel has announced that Captain America: Civil War has begun filming in Atlanta, GA. Along with the announcement there was a synopsis and cast list.

Captain America: Civil War picks up where Avengers: Age of Ultron left off, as Steve Rogers leads the new team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. After another international incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability and a governing body to determine when to enlist the services of the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers while they try to protect the world from a new and nefarious villain.

The cast list is where we find a few surprises.

The film returns Chris Evans (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron”) as the iconic Super Hero character Steve Rogers/Captain America along with Robert Downey Jr. (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Marvel’s “Iron Man 3”) as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Sebastian Stan (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Captain America: The First Avenger”) as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) as Sam Wilson/Falcon, Paul Bettany (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Iron Man 3”) as The Vision, Jeremy Renner (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Marvel’s “The Avengers”) as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Don Cheadle (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Iron Man 3”) as Jim Rhodes/War Machine and Elizabeth Olsen (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Godzilla”) as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch.

After his debut in Marvel’s “Ant-Man” on July 17, 2015, Paul Rudd (“Ant-Man,” ”Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues”) will make his first appearance alongside the Avengers as Scott Lang/Ant-Man in “Captain America: Civil War.”

The film also includes outstanding additional cast, including Chadwick Boseman (“42,” “Get on Up”) as T’Challa/Black Panther, Emily VanCamp (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Revenge”) as Sharon Carter/Agent 13, Daniel Brühl (“Inglourious Basterds,” “Bourne Ultimatum”), Frank Grillo (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Warrior”) as Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, William Hurt (“A History of Violence,” Marvel’s “The Incredible Hulk”) as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and Martin Freeman (“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”).

Some of the surprise from this announcement are that Paul Bettany (The Vision) and Don Cheadle (War Machine) are listed but weren’t talked about much originally.

Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) will be part of the cast which also wasn’t mentioned before but was speculated about.

Daniel Bruhl and Martin Freeman are listed without characters… but most folks are expecting them to be Baron Zemo and Everett Ross.

This will be the first real connection back to the Incredible Hulk film with the inclusion of William Hurt as General Thunderbolt Ross.

And then the names not listed are also surprising. No Nick Fury, Maria Hill or even Phil Coulson.

Captain America: Civil War will be in theaters May 6th, 2016

Captain America: Civil War Starts Filming With Some Surprises

Hugh Jackman has confirmed that the next Wolverine film will be his last as the character. When asked on the Dr. Oz show, Jackman said that after 17 years as the character it seems like the right time to leave. He says he know what he’s going to do in the third film and it feels like the perfect time to go out.

He did not say if he was going to be in X-Men: Apocalypse or not.

The third Wolverine film is scheduled to be in theaters in 2017.

Hugh Jackman Confirms That Wolverine 3 Will Be His Last

Wolverine was created as a Canadian side character for The Incredible Hulk, was grabbed for an international version of the X-Men, survived threats to be killed off in that title because the artist was Canadian, launched an ongoing series and slowly grew in prominence, as the audience began to prefer their characters on the grimdark side, to become one of Marvels most popular character, challenging Spider-Man for the top spot. And then the X-Men films launched, found a whole new audience portrayed by Hugh Jackman, two spin-off movies and replacing Kitty Pryde in the lead for X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

Now take Harley Quinn. First introduced as an animated sidekick for The Joker, she was grabbed for other books as well getting her own title, rising in sales until her new solo title outsells everything at DC Comics but the main Batman title.

She is in toys, games, back in cartoons again and there is so much cosplay of her, you might as well just have Harley Quinn cosplay events and be done with it.

And now she’s appearing in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie, played by Margot Robbie.

Warner Bros have laid out their upcoming plans for DC Comics-based movies for the next few years. It does seem, based on fan response that there is a Suicide Squad Origins: Harley Quinn hole in that schedule.

Batman? He can go swivel.

Harley Quinn Is About To Be DC's Wolverine, Isn't She?

Via @BostonSportsBl1

Especially in the wake of Chris Borland’s retirement, people really want to know what current NFL players think of the long-term effects of repeated head trauma. Eventually, someone was going to ask Gronk about it, and that person was, for better or worse, Jim Rome.

Make no mistake, Gronk does not share Borland’s concerns. In fact, he gives what might be a dream answer for the NFL, tinged with special Gronk flavor.

Would he rather suffer a knee injury or a concussion
“Uh, so if we’re sitting here and I had choose would I want a concussion right now or my knee blown out, I’m going to say a concussion. Why would I want to sit there for eight months and not do anything, when with a concussion I’ll just wake up and I’ll be ready to go again.

Gronk isn’t worried about not remembering things later in life because “that happens all the time. I don’t even know how I got to my hotel last night.”

I’m sure a lot of other NFL players share his preference of a concussion over a knee injury that could, at best, keep a player out an entire season. They know their window to play the game professionally is short and a knee injury is more likely to immediately end that than a standard concussion.

As for the stuff about cognitive breakdown, yes, Gronk’s answer is jokey and very Gronk. It absolutely ignores a lot of other serious symptoms of brain injury that are very different than just being drunk. That said, I’m sure that’s something Gronk doesn’t want to think about, so I can’t especially blame him for being flippant about it. Anyway, just a reminder that as fun as Gronk can be, he’s probably not the best source for a reasoned take on a serious subject.

Well, we thought this might be coming. And it has. The Free Comic Book Day title from DC COmics, Divergence, gives three ways that the big DC comics will be changing. We see the new Batman – and an idea of what may have happened to the old one. We see Darkseid’s daughter and how her history is tied up with that of Wonder Woman. And we see exactly what has happened in Superman’s life to change it so.

Spoilers, obviously. Because Superman is having to deal with a very different world. We know that he revealed his identity to Jimmy Olsen. Well, it seems that someone else, at least, just can’t keep a secret.

Not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story.

Lois! What are you like! I suppose, like an actual journalist or something…

See more FCBD spoilerage coverage right here.

How Superman Will Be Seen By The World Now - FCBD Spoilers

The embargoes are off, the spoilers are out, the Free Comic Book Day news is circling the globe.

But while we got an early start on the Batman and Superman aspects of the DC Comics Divergence issue, available at all participating comic stores on May 2nd for free, I was rather surprised that the Justice League news didn’t break out further than it did.

Spoilers, obviously.

Because the story in question addresses the identity of the daughter of Darkseid, the figure he has been ransacking universe after universe through the history of the DC New 52 titles since Justice League #1, to find. A plotline written by Geoff Johns that has been been riven through Justice League, Earth 2, Forever Evil and more.

Well, on Free Comic Book Day, you not only discover who the daughter is. But also who her mother is. And it’s a rather familiar place on a rather familiar day.

This is Life Of Brian territory. Just as, elsewhere on Paradise Island, Hippolyta is giving birth to Diana, who will one day be known as Wonder Woman, fellow Amazonian warrior Myrina is doing the same to her progeny…

And yes, she does have a little of the dark side about her, doesn’t she? Yes, she has a name. And yes, she has a future. Welcome, to the daughter of Darkseid and Myrina. And her name?

Sorry, I thought we were doing Life Of Brian here. Turns out it’s the Holy Grail.

Can I be the first to call her Grail Simone?

Divergence #1 will be available on May 2nd, Free Comic Book Day, at all participating comic book stores.

Follow other FCBD coverage here later today. Be warned… spoilers kill.

And find more about Free Comic Book Day here.

Who Is The Daughter Of Darkseid? And Who Is Her Mother? FCBD Spoilers

I’ve been reporting rumoured plotlines and appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe a little of late. Warning, spoilers.

They were disputed.

Bleeding Cool’s rumors about AGE OF ULTRON and CIVIL WAR are untrue.

— Devin Faraci (@devincf) March 19, 2015

Well, those who have seen Age Of Ultron or have read Bleeding Cool’s post-screening spoiler tally will know one of them is true regarding Age Of Ultron. And now we know another is true about Civil War, thanks to CBM.

During the Meet The Filmmakers event at London’s Apple Store, Elizabeth Olsen was asked if she will be reprising her Avengers: Age Of Ultron role of Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch for the Marvel threequel and responded affirmatively, saying:”I guess I’m allowed to talk about that now”

Doesn’t mean anything else is true, but it is at least a good start. Two for two.

So here’s another from one of my similarly well connected sources, that it is planned that the character of Doctor Strange will make an appearance in Marvel’s Netflix shows.

Specifically Iron Fist.

Whether he will be played by Benedict Cumberbatch as he is in the upcoming movie scheduled for next year, or will be shown in a way that doesn’t need such a high profile actor to be on set, I don’t know. But odds are that the Cumberbatch will at least do the voice.

I may of course be putting the cart before the horse. Devin’s calling out of Bleeding Cool was based on an old script he’d read,not the finished film and equally, Iron Fist hasn’t been filmed yet. But, right now, it’s what I understand is being planned.

Benedict Cumberbatch To Appear In Netflix's Iron Fist As Doctor Strange?

*** This articles contains spoilers for the most recent episode of Arrow ***

So that happened. That was Felicity Smoak’s line but it may also sum up the events of the latest episode of Arrow called The Fallen. Just about everything this season has been building up to this moment and it all goes back to the moment that Sara Lance / The Canary was killed at the end of the season premiere. Makes you wonder what is going to happen with three episodes still to go and we know the executive producers like to end with a bang. Here are the six important moments from The Fallen:

1) The episode opens with a lot of emotional scenes. Oliver Queen discovers his sister Thea near dead on the floor of their loft. She has been run through with a sword by Ra’s al Ghul. Doctor’s efforts keep her alive but she is not going to recover. As Oliver grieves over his sister, Malcolm Merlyn arrives and is also devastated by the loss of his daughter. This scene shows us just how important Thea is to both men and how their love for her has forced them to work together this season. We also learn that saving Thea is what it would take to make Oliver accept Ra’s offer.

2) They are going to take Thea to Nanda Parbat which means they need a jet, which Ray Palmer has. But as I pointed out last week, Ray now sees that Felicity is still in love with Oliver. Its a tough scene because Ray is a really good guy and a great match for Felicity, but he knows it won’t work. And even though they are ending their relationship, he still loans her his jet to go somewhere with Oliver and doesn’t ask any questions. This is definitely the guy to lead the spinoff series.

3) Upon arrival in Nanda Parbat, Thea is prepared for the ceremony and eventually lowered into the pit. Multiple times prior to their arrival, Malcolm tried to convince Oliver not to do it. Suggesting taking her to STAR Labs or anything else, warning him that the Lazarus Pit changes the person in their soul. One Thea comes out of the pit, she is healed but her mind is confused. She knows Malcolm but not Oliver and wants to know where her mother is. Through the episode she seems to be getting better, but I have a feeling we are far from her getting back to “normal” and that may carry over into season four.

4) After it is all done and Oliver has accepted Ra’s offer, Felicity confronts the Demon’s Head and threatens to go to war against him to save Oliver. Ra’s seems to respect her fire and gives her advice, to take the time to say what is in her heart before Oliver is taken from her forever. This leads to her going to Oliver and the two speak from the heart that leads them into the bed. This has been going back and forth all season and it finally pays off well before the season finale. But it also gives Felicity a chance to slip Oliver a drug that knocks him out so they can try and sneak away with him.

5) John Diggle had a moment to speak with Maseo Yamashiro. We learn that Maseo was there when his son died, but John is able to push the right buttons so that when the go to escape, Maseo helps. They try going through the catacombs with Malcolm and Thea while John carries the unconscious Oliver. They fight a few of the League but when they get trapped by a half dozen, it’s Oliver who saves them. He calls himself Al Sha-Him (the Arrow), heir to the demon and orders them to obey, which they do. He then walks them to the edge of the base and says his goodbyes.

6) At the end, Ra’s spares Maseo’s life for betraying the League of Assassins, claiming it was the actions of his past self and that he will be needed to aide Oliver. They then start the process by branding him with his new name, the arrow head we’ve been seeing on commercial breaks all season. Oliver takes the branding and then takes on his new uniform as a member of the League. This would have been a very interesting place to end the season. But with three episodes left and we know he shows up in The Flash finale, there seems to be a lot more to come.

Executive producer Marc Guggenheim said that next week’s episode goes back to the villain of the week… except the villain is Oliver Queen and it looks like he’s supposed to kill Nyssa.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Six Important Moments From Arrow - The Fallen

It’s a Friday morning in early April, and Mark Cuban is limping through the underbelly of American Airlines Center in Dallas. He’s sore for two reasons: His surgically replaced hip aches after a pickup basketball game, and the Mavericks, which he owns, had lost a home game to their bitter rivals from Houston 12 hours earlier. Cuban hates losing, but he especially hates losing to the Rockets. As we arrive at his office, he keys in a security code on a number pad, and extends his busted-up hand for me to shake; one of his fingers is currently broken, and his pinkie is forever crooked from an old sports injury.

“I learned my lesson from not getting shit fixed. If you look at the AT&T commercial I did, it’s me shaking hands, right? But I can’t straighten out my pinkie finger, and people are like, ‘Are you giving a Vulcan sign or something?’ When I go to shake a hand, my finger is always going to be there like that. It’s pretty funny.”

Cuban’s basement lair is 80 percent man cave, 20 percent office. There’s a bar on one side, a huge TV in the middle, a leather living-room set, and an endless amount of memorabilia. Then there’s a small corner, glassed in, where he can work at a desk. When we enter, the only light in the dark room comes from CNBC, and there are children’s blankets all over the couch.

“You can tell my kids were here last night,” he says as he flips the lights on, resets the room, settles into a leather chair, and cracks open a diet soda. He’s still pissed about the Rockets loss. James Harden was just too much. To hear Cuban tell it, both teams — each on the second night of back-to-backs — were tired and the product wasn’t great. “You saw an ugly game.”

Cuban became a billionaire by understanding and investing in streaming media, long before almost anybody else. He foresaw the world of Spotify and YouTube years before those platforms changed how we listen to and watch music and video. In the summer of 1999, he and his partners sold their company Broadcast.com to Yahoo for over $5 billion. Sixteen years later, he’s become the quintessential tycoon of our time — a tech-loving, reality-television superstar who doubles as one of the most visible owners in pro sports. On the street, he’s known as “the Shark Tank guy,” but he still self-identifies as the Mavericks guy. He loves sports, and he believes their communal power in some ways usurps the value of capital or celebrity.

“The best way to describe it is … pick a company — in Austin, Dell Computers; in Dallas, AT&T or American Airlines,” he says. “They can have the best quarter in the history of quarters — Apple is on track to have a trillion-dollar market cap … a trillion-dollar market cap! Ain’t nobody throwing a parade in Cupertino.”

There was a parade for Cuban’s Mavericks in the summer of 2011, after they shocked the basketball world by upsetting the Miami Heat in the Finals. That celebration took place just over 11 years after he bought the franchise for $285 million.

Some believed Cuban had foolishly overpaid for one of the laughingstock franchises in pro sports. “People saw me and said, ‘This guy, he’s all talk,’” he remembers. “There were articles being written where people were like, The Mavs making the playoffs? There’s no chance — no chance! This franchise sucks and it always will, and we don’t care who this kid is.”

Fifteen years later, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would call him a fool. Professional sports ownership has undergone a sea change, and perhaps no one person symbolizes the NBA’s recent financial and analytical awakening more than Cuban. He’s helped steer the boom, and he’s benefited from it. Cuban loves to talk about his arc as an owner, beginning with the awkward state of the league that he bought into, back in January 2000.

Back then, the league was looking for its next Jordan, mired in a pre-LeBron down cycle. But even if it wasn’t the glory days, from an investment perspective it was the perfect time to buy a piece of the pie. Cuban lights up as he recalls his first few months as a bull in the NBA china shop, disrupting a beleaguered hive mind. “Literally my first meeting, I remember it was basically in silence where it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, rubber-stamped,” says Cuban. “I asked David [Stern] and I asked Jerry [Buss], ‘Are we allowed to talk?’ And David’s like, ‘Yeah!’ And that was it. The minute that door was opened, it was over.”

Whether the owners wanted it or not, those meetings were about to change; there was a new, loud voice in the room. Perhaps some of the animosity stemmed from the perception, among owners, that Cuban was nouveau riche.

“The big discrepancy with owners back then was: ‘Did you inherit it? Did you buy it for $10 million in 1975?’ And in 1975, $10 million is whatever it translates to now, $100 [million] or whatever. But you looked at things differently if you had paid $285 million. And that was the dichotomy in a lot of respects. I didn’t care so much about making a lot of money, but I wanted to run it like a business. Not a lot of teams did.”

In 2000, Cuban stood out, not just because of his age — 41 — but also because he was one of the first owners in American sports to emerge from the tech economy.²⁴ He brought a start-up mentality to his new gig, claiming the league needed to wake up, revitalize the brand, and realize that pro sports were selling more than just sports.

“It was heresy to sit in a meeting to say, ‘We don’t sell basketball. Basketball’s not our product. We sell fun. We sell good times.’”

Cuban wanted to prove that smarter marketing could help the league fill its gyms with more fans. “It’s not about the sound of sneakers,” he says. “The hardcore fan is not who fills our arena, not even close. The people that listen to sports talk radio aren’t the people paying our bills. It’s the signal versus the noise. They’re the noise, they’re not the signal.”

He wanted to prove to himself, and to the rest of the league, that pro hoops was a hot ticket, even in places like Dallas. He sensed that a lot of his fellow owners were apathetic about ticket sales. They “didn’t care if there were 6,000 people in the stands.”

Cuban set out to reimagine the NBA fan experience. His first project was selling out his arena by getting people in the cheap seats. “I wanted to fill [our arena] up because (a) I wanted to see if I could do it, and (b) when you have a full arena, your team plays better. It was part of winning.”

He recalls appealing to fans’ frugality. “I remember the first pitch when I came in was like, ‘Look, we have $8 tickets. It’s cheaper to go to a Mavs game than it is to go to dinner or a movie.’ You tell me you can’t get somebody out there to pay $8? I don’t care if we have nobody in the lower seats.”

It worked. Soon the Mavs were filling the top rung of the arena, but that wasn’t all — Cuban started to generate more revenue from the courtside seats, as well.

“I just jacked up the price so high, and in Dallas my center court seats immediately went from $200 to $2,000. Boom, like that,” he remembers. “Because those were the TV seats. You got free food, and you got to walk across the court.”

Go to a Mavericks game now, and you see Cuban’s imprint everywhere. The nosebleeds are packed, the courtside seats are filled with Dallas bigwigs, and the rims are miked up so that when Dirk hits a 19-footer, you can hear the sound of the swish, no matter how much you paid for your seat.

Those fans who hate the constant JumboTronning and everybody-clap-your-hands-ing that have become part and parcel of the live NBA experience have Cuban — at least partially — to blame. Eighteen months after he purchased the franchise, the team moved into the brand-new American Airlines Center. This was Cuban’s canvas.

“I didn’t design the arena, but when I bought the team, I immediately made changes. They didn’t want to have any video boards; it was all old school. I was like, Fuck that,” he recalls, colorfully. “In 2009, we had our JumboTron specially designed and made for us. At the time, it was the largest indoor screen in the world, the highest-resolution screen in the world. And that wasn’t because the first one broke. It was because we wanted to stay ahead, and the video was how we wanted to entertain people.”

The state of the fan experience wasn’t the only thing that Cuban fought to change. The players’ experience needed a makeover, too.

“I remember my first meeting with the players, we had stayed in [a] Holiday Inn. I remember Gary Trent [saying to me], ‘Mark, we get into Oakland, California, four in the morning, at the back end of a back-to-back, and we don’t have room service in the hotel. How do you think we get food? What do you think we do?’ So we immediately upgraded the hotels and got a better plane.”

While Cuban was working on the off-court issues, he also had to set about improving the on-court product. He had purchased an NBA franchise that had been a perennial loser for the previous decade — finishing below .500 every year in the 1990s. Dallas burned through six coaches between 1988-89 and 1997-98. One of the first things the new owner did was retain the old coach, Don Nelson.

Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images

The next decade would see vastly different results. Cuban’s takeover came one season after the arrivals of a young point guard named Steve Nash and a young German stretch-4 named Dirk Nowitzki. It’s hard to change the culture of an entire pro sports organization, but that’s exactly what the quartet of Cuban, Nash, Nowitzki, and Nelson did.

The Mavericks made the 2001 playoffs, and have gone all but one year since then. They’ve been to the Finals twice in the Cuban era, including once in 2006, when the Miami Heat beat them in six games. This isn’t one of Cuban’s favorite topics. When I asked him about his memories of that series, he said, simply: “We got fucked!” When I asked him if I could print that, he responded: “Yes. We. Got. Fucked.”

The fucking he was alluding to was official in nature. Along with marketing, officiating is another one of Cuban’s obsessions. The refereeing of the 2006 Finals was controversial, to put it mildly. The series will be remembered for Dwyane Wade careening through the paint and ending up at the charity stripe. You can almost imagine a young James Harden, watching, dreaming of his own future journeys to an NBA foul line. After winning the first two games, the Mavs dropped the next four, but not without a fight. Cuban got fined $250,000 after the Game 5 loss, and Nowitzki kicked the ball into the stands. It was neither guy’s finest moment — that would come about five years later.

In his 15 years as an owner, Cuban and the Mavs have seen it all — from upset wins to upset losses, Finals wins to Finals losses. The year after its bitter Finals defeat to Miami, the team rebounded by posting its best record ever, winning 67 games, only to get upset by the eighth-seeded Golden State Warriors.²⁵ The coach of that Dubs team just happened to be Don Nelson.

To most fans, that upset is one for the ages, but Cuban argues that Golden State should never even have had the chance to pull it off. Never one to shy away from controversy, he maintains that without the help of the league’s most infamous former official, the Warriors might never have made the playoffs that year. I’ll let him take it from here.

“So here’s how [Tim] Donaghy impacted my world. It’s the 2006-07 season, and the Warriors are playing the Bulls. It is February. It’s a tie game — 10, 15 seconds left. Whatever. Ben Gordon of the Bulls is dribbling the ball for the last shot. Andris Biedrins is just sitting in the paint, just standing still for the Warriors. But he’s in the paint! Four seconds, five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds. Tim Donaghy, instead of calling defensive three seconds, literally steps onto the court and pushes him out of the paint.”

“When it happened, I was watching the game, and I sent an email to the NBA saying, ‘Did you see this shit?’ Now, I had no idea at the time about the big [Donaghy] issue, although I had hints of it. After he pushed him out of the way, Ben Gordon misses the shot, and then the Warriors win in overtime. Had he sent Ben Gordon to the line, there’s an 85 percent chance he makes the free throw, the Bulls get the ball, and the Warriors have to foul. The Warriors made the playoffs by how many games?”²⁶

Cuban is obsessed with the league’s rules and its officials, and his distrust of the NBA’s regulatory oversight is a core component of his public basketball persona. While many of us know that refereeing can and does steer the outcome of plenty of NBA contests, perhaps nobody in league history has made more noise about it than Cuban. He is perpetually monitoring referee performances and constantly pestering the league office about how its rules and whistles affect his team’s fate. At times it looks unseemly, and costs Cuban money, but his agitating has effected changes that have benefited the league as a whole. And lest you believe this regulatory obsession is only about basketball, don’t forget that Cuban has also repeatedly sparred with the U.S. government about how it officiates the financial world.

Whether it’s lobbying the NBA to smarten up its clear-path foul, or filing briefs designed to affect how the United States federal government defines insider trading, Cuban is not afraid to challenge bureaucratic authority and received wisdom, and that is an admirable trait. If he sees what he thinks is a dumb rule or bad enforcement harming his team or his bottom line, you can be sure he won’t be quiet about it.

However, Cuban can only change the future, not the past. That shocking loss in the 2007 Golden State series is still in the books, and eight years later it’s an instructive reminder that the playoffs present us with a different form of professional basketball; seeds are worthless, strategy is king. The Mavericks ran into a hot team coached by one of the few men who knew how to slow down Nowitzki.

“We weren’t playing great basketball at the end of the season, and they were playing their best basketball of the season,” Cuban says. “They took away Dirk, and we didn’t have a countermove.”

Those Mavs were on the wrong end of a historic upset, but a few years later, they would get on the right side, combining fantastic coaching and execution and countless analytical countermoves to make arguably the most improbable championship run in recent memory. And while teams like the Rockets and guys like Daryl Morey get lots of love for their analytical thinking, the 2011 Dallas Mavericks were one of the first teams to successfully bridge the massive gap between wonky numbers and on-court success.

Yes, they had Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Tyson Chandler, and head coach Rick Carlisle. But thanks to a forward-thinking front office, they also had Roland Beech, a true pioneer in basketball analytics and someone with the ability to quickly identify which of Dallas’s lineups were most and least successful. J.J. Barea, a starter? Peja Stojakovic playing fewer minutes than Brian Cardinal? Those lineup moves seemed ballsy at the time, but through the lens of history, they not only look wise, they also reveal that the organization put faith in analytics way before most.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

If Cuban’s 2011 experience taught him anything, it’s that a team with a smart coach, or a hot player, can suddenly outthink or outplay a team with a much higher seed. Playing against the same opponent over and over again, with less travel and no back-to-backs, favors certain kinds of tacticians and certain kinds of players.

When coaches like Carlisle and Gregg Popovich have time to hone their game plans against a single opponent, suddenly that corner 3 that was there all year dries up, or that basic defensive rotation that was rock-solid all season is coming a second too late. In the playoffs, teams with limited game plans get exposed. Conveniently, Cuban believes that Houston, his team’s first-round opponent in this season’s playoffs, is one of the most one-dimensional teams in the playoffs.

“[The biggest difference is] practice time. There’s no more predictable team than the Rockets. You know exactly what they’re gonna do,” he says. “But James Harden is so good. That’s what analytics have begot. Right? Predictability. If you know what the percentages are, in the playoffs, you have time to counter them. Whether you’re good enough to do it is another question. Because they are very talented, and James Harden, I think, is the MVP. Because that’s not a very good team over there.”

In the NBA playoffs, checkers turns into chess. Last season, the Spurs swept the Mavs during the regular season, but that had absolutely no bearing when the teams met in the first round. Carlisle actually had time to implement an opponent-specific strategy, and the Mavs almost pulled off a shocking upset. It took the eventual champs seven games to oust Dallas — by far their biggest scare on the road to glory. Cuban credits San Antonio’s flexibility as the eventual difference in that series.

“We changed things up, but we didn’t have the manpower when they adjusted. They went through a whole season of doing it one way, and then they went to pick-and-roll with Tiago Splitter as their go-to bread and butter,” he says. “Those are the types of things where you have to have balance. They had somewhere else to go.”

Cuban’s current team has a lot of talent, but has yet to really jell into anything more than a collection of respectable NBA parts. Still, he thinks the team could make some noise over the next few weeks. To do so, the Mavericks will need a big performance from one of their newest faces.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

The night before we met, when the Rockets beat the Mavs, Dallas handed out Rajon Rondo bobbleheads at the gates. The Mavs acquired the mercurial point guard in midseason, and while many observers are quick to say that he hasn’t worked out, Cuban remains optimistic that, with some practice time, there’s still a chance things could pan out in the playoffs.

“He hasn’t been as good of a fit as we would’ve liked,” says Cuban. “And Rajon would tell you the same. I think that he is a guy that is built for the playoffs, and we haven’t had a lot of practice time together. He’s been here for maybe five or six practice days.”

The playoffs will not only allow Carlisle’s staff to engineer more thorough game plans, they will also enable Rondo to get into the practice gym with his teammates, something the regular season simply does not afford. Rondo is a huge X factor this spring. Although it may not look likely right now, if he can somehow channel “playoff Rondo” or “national-TV Rondo,” the Mavericks would immediately become scary. If he can’t, then the Mavericks will surely struggle to compete with their old familiar rivals from Houston.

When Mark Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks in 2000, the NBA was a 20th-century league. He was a T-shirt-wearing billionaire trying to find new ways to win games and make money while doing it. These days, it seems like all the wannabe celebrity billionaires and venture capitalists see sports teams as a way to freshen up their personal brands and apply what they learned in their other businesses to pro sports. Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers; Vivek Ranadive bought the Kings; Joe Lacob bought the Warriors. Whether they want to admit it or not, Cuban helped blaze this trail.

A funny thing happened on the way to being an NBA trailblazer, though. With this new influx of analytical general managers, arenas as entertainment venues, and owners from the world of tech, Cuban — the man who pushed the NBA into the 21st century — looks almost old school. As much as he presaged the arrival of the Ballmers and Marc Lasrys of the world, he may have more in common with icons like Al Davis, George Steinbrenner, and Jerry Buss.

At 56, Cuban can remember his early days as part of the league, and how, at his first meetings, only a few of his fellow owners really welcomed him with open arms. One of those guys was Buss, the iconic former owner of the Lakers. “Everything he tried was new and everybody was suspicious of it,” Cuban recalls. Sounds familiar. It makes sense that Cuban would lionize this lion of NBA ownership. Buss was the ultimate owner-as-showman. And like Buss, when Cuban arrived on the scene, he looked at the product on the floor, at the game being played, and thought, out loud: That’s entertainment. 

John Wesley Shipp, the actor who played the Flash in the 90s and plays Henry Allan now, was at Cape Comic Con recently and in a discussion… in what appears to be a class room… he let slip that the new Arrow / The Flash spinoff series was going to be called Legends and already has a 13 episode order from CW.

Legends was a crossover comic series from DC in the late 80s that pitted Darkseid vs the Phantom Stranger. There was also Legends of the DC Universe that ran 41 issues. There was recently a series on TNT called Legends starring Sean Bean… so that could be problem if Shipp is right..

The comments are in the second part… but I’ve included the first part as well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Did John Wesley Shipp Leak The Name Of The Flash / Arrow Spinoff

The Time 100 is a pretty big deal, as the world’s most recognizable magazine calls attention to the most influential people in the world. While she was already part of a Top 100 People on the Internet list from the organization, Anita Sarkeesian has now been drafted onto the overall Time 100.

In a a forward written by Wil Wheaton on Time’s website, he concludes:

Anita is a feminist for the digital age, using modern tools and platforms to engage thousands of people who want to hear her thoughts and respond to the challenges she raises. A lesser person may throw up her hands and unplug her game console, but Anita is determined to ensure that video games are inclusive and representative of everyone who plays them. As her detractors grow increasingly unhinged, we have proof that her efforts are working.

This is obviously a pretty controversial pick by the magazine, but I don’t feel it is unwarranted. Regardless of where you fall on your opinion of Sarkeesian, I think it would be tough to deny her influence over video games over the last year or so. I personally value her incite, even if I find myself disagreeing with her at points.

There is at least some irony here that she almost certainly wouldn’t have had such an influential rise if it weren’t for such a vehment backlash against most of her tame and reasoned criticism.

Anita Sarkeesian Has Been Inducted Into The Time 100

At some point, you have tonwonder when a company is offering almost too much. When Rock Band 4 was announced, it came with the news that not only will all your DLC carry over from Rock Band 3, but so might all your old instruments. That makes Harmonix’s new Rock Band and inticing offer.

However, the developer really seems to be bending over backwards to please everyone. In an interview with Business Insider UK, Rock Band 4 project director Daniel Sussman, said that you may well be able to use your old Guitar Hero controllers too.

We’re planning to support everything that we can: That includes all of the old ‘Rock Band’ controllers, and all the old ‘Guitar Hero’ controllers.

Our position is really all about respect for our consumers and for the money that they have spent to get into the game space in the first place. They spend a fortune on games: on consoles, on hardware, and we’re sensitive to that.

We play those games too. We buy all the same stuff. A world where you need to have three different guitars and two drum sets and all this stuff is…we don’t want to support that world.

This is a ludicrously bold move by the developer, deciding to use a competitor’s old hardware against them. I don’t know if there are any legal issues here, but if Harmonix pull this off, I’ll be incredibly impressed.

Harmonix Say Your Old Guitar Hero Controllers Will Be Usable In Rock Band 4

With the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron just around the corner and all the talk about Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel films… a lot of folks are asking about and still wanting a Black Widow movie with Scarlet Johansson. The actress talked with Collider about the possibility of a standalone film and just how long she is set to be with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

First on if the character could lead a standalone film:

I think that there’s room for a standalone movie. The character has a really rich origin story and I’ve been really fortunate to kind of place all these layers on top of one another and kind of build up this character to this point where I think I can now start to peel them away and reveal different sides of her and really focus on—I think I’ve been able to grow with the character, the character’s been able to grow with me.

On if there a possibility of a Black Widow film:

I’ve spoken to Kevin [Feige] about it. I mean, of course, of course we’ve had that conversation before, and I think Kevin would also like to see a standalone film. I think I can speak for him and say that. That’s all, really. Right now I think this character is used well in this part of the universe, but I think that Kevin—I mean, we’ve talked about it and we both share similar vision for what could be a standalone series.

On if her contract work if you were asked to headline a film:

My contract has changed. Marvel and myself didn’t really know how the fans were gonna react to Black Widow the first time and how she was gonna be—they couldn’t anticipate how they would want to use her or if they would want to use her. I mean we invested in that character, but the audience had a great reaction to the character, which has been so awesome. For instance, I wasn’t contracted into doing Cap movies, but that storyline worked out so well I kind of branched off and I found myself in that standalone movie. My contract is kind of mutating, I guess [laughs] or morphed to fit the demand of the character.

Black Widow will next appear in Avengers: Age of Ulron opening May 1st.

[Source: Collider]

Are We Going To Get A Black Widow Movie?

Marvel has announced that Thor #8 will reveal the identity of the current Thor.

A female character, her identity has been under wraps, as the comic has tore up the sales charts.

But what does the current comic book aftermarket think? Where are they placing their monetary bets?

Well, the market seems to have placed bets on Roz Solomon, who first appeared in the previous volume of Thor #12. All copies of that book have been snapped up and being flipped as we speak.

She certainly seems to have been set up for it. Environmental S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent who invited Thor to her graduation, who investigated Roxxon and whaling fleets with Thor Odinson, and who dragged an ice meteor out of space to stymie Roxxon plans and win a date with Roz.

Also, after Thor lost his hammer, she went to the Blue Area of the Moon to study it.

The market is currently stable on Thor #12 at about $15 to $25.

Once Thor #8 hits and this is revealed, it could get a large bump. Retailers are hitting the comic hard right now, it could be a $50 without too much difficulty…

Unless it’s all too obvious. And Thor is Crystal of the Inhumans. She commands winds and is also rather familiar with the Blue Area…

Say, is she commanding the wind without her hammer?

You know, a year ago, even before it was announced on the View, I did hear that Jane Foster was going to be the next Thor but  was told that Marvel and writer Jason Aaron, hadn’t decided yet….

Speculator Corner Places Its Bets On Female Thor

With the two previous attempts at making a Hulk film not going so well, it was a bit surprising how enthusiastic fans have reacted to Mark Ruffalo’s version of Bruce Banner and his monstrous alter ego. There has been a clamoring for a new Hulk solo movie… yet there are none on the horizon. Why?

Ruffalo revealed one possible reason in an interview with Collider. Seems that the original distribution deal to release the Ed Norton film is still in place and Marvel Studios would have to make a deal with Universal as the company still hold the distribution rights.

The actor also said he’s still under contract for four more movies. He speculated that could mean Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 and Part 2 and then either appearing in some other characters movie or doing a solo film. He has not been asked to be in Captain America: Civil War yet.

[Source: Collider]

Mark Ruffalo Talks About Why No Solo Hulk Film