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I want to discuss accessibility because it is the most important thing for making websites. Other A List Apart articles give you innovation and insight. This article will give you homework. These are just my personal views, but they’re pretty good.

I want to start off with a couple of statements, and you will agree:

1. Designers are good people. I have never heard a designer say, “I don’t care if somebody can’t read this text”, “Not my fault if somebody can’t use this device”, or “Who cares if this is confusing?”
2. Some designs exclude people. You have seen people unable to read the text on a website or app that somebody designed. You’ve seen people unable to use a physical device that somebody has designed. You’ve seen people utterly bamboozled while trying to use a service that somebody designed.

So what?

The first question is, “Is this life-or-death stuff?” The answer is, “Yes.” In my favorite essay, This Is All There Is, Aral Balkan makes the point that pretty much everything that we design can affect life events and death events. Aral gives the example of how even a straightforward bus timetable app can affect life and death events, if we design it badly:

• somebody might miss a life event, such as their daughter’s fifth birthday party; or
• somebody might miss a death event, such as the chance to say goodbye to a dying grandmother.

The next—and frustrating—question is, “Why do some designs still exclude people?” After all, we know that:

• not everybody can see perfectly;
• not everybody can hear perfectly;
• not everybody thinks the same way; and
• not everybody moves the same way.

I think the answer is that there’s too much to recall. Consider, if you will, the wide variety of topics that A List Apart articles cover. Designers are expected to remember all of that guidance, plus all of the accessibility guidance, plus so much more. It is too much.

Recognizing accessibility issues while designing

I’d like to point toward one possible solution, starting from Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. These are from the mid-1990s, and—although there’s a good chance that you, gentle reader, are a lot younger than that—please bear with me. 

Seeing as the problem is that there’s too much to recall, I want to look at heuristic № 6, “Recognition rather than Recall.” Jakob Nielsen said that for users, information required to use the design should be visible or easily retrievable when needed. I suggest we tweak that to make life easier for designers. Let’s say that the information required to produce the design should be visible or easily retrievable when needed. In other words, let’s make it easier to recognise accessibility issues while we’re designing.

How are we going to do that? I really like the book A Web for Everyone—Designing Accessible User Experiences by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery. I really like this book not only because it includes a quote from me—actually two quotes, but I don’t like to boast—but because it includes personas that are perfect for helping us to recognise accessibility issues. That’s the good news. The even better news is that these personas are available now for free on the companion website to the book What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility, again by Sarah Horton, with David Sloan this time.

Meet your users

I’m going to introduce you to these personas now:

• Vishnu, an engineer and global citizen with low vision says, “I want to be on the same level as everyone else”, “If I can adjust my screen, I can read comfortably”, and, “Translating in my head is easier with simpler sentences.”
• Trevor, a high school student with autism, says, “I like consistent, familiar places on the web”, “When I can learn the pattern, I can find my way”, and, “Reading is hard for me”.
• Steven, a deaf graphic artist and American Sign Language speaker, says, “My only disability is that everyone doesn’t sign”, and, “Without captions, it’s meaningless to me”.
• Maria, a bilingual community health worker, says, “I love this. It’s all here … when I can find it”, “When a site is confusing, I just leave”—fair enough, Maria!—and, “When I hear and see it, health information makes more sense”.
• Lea, an editor living with fatigue and pain, says, “No one gets that this really is a disability”, “Don’t make me work so hard”—please do not bombard this lady with drop-down lists—and, “Links at the top of the page make navigation easier for me”.
• Jacob, a blind paralegal and a bit of a geek, says, “The right technology lets me do anything”, and “This makes it possible to do my job”.
• Emily, who has cerebral palsy and is living independently, says, “I want to do everything for myself”, “Simpler screens are easier screens”—hell yeah, Emily!—and, “Tell me what I need in advance”.
• Carol, a grandmother with macular degeneration which affects her sight, says, “My grandkids are dragging me into the world of technology”, “I don’t understand what the screen is saying”, and, “Why can’t the text be just a little bit larger?”

I want to throw one more persona at you now, because, well, A List Apart readers are overachievers. One of my favorite authors, Cennydd Bowles—who literally wrote the book on Future Ethics—says to create Personas Non Grata. In other words, every time we design something, we have to think about what a bad guy could do with that thing, and whom that might affect.

To actually use these personas while designing, I like what Eric Meyer and Sara Wachter-Boettcher in Design for Real Life call the Designated Dissenter: for each project that you work on, one of your teams should be responsible for asking, “Will this work for Vishnu?”, “How’s Trevor going to get on with this?”, and so on. 

Then, once you’ve used the personas to recognise the accessibility issues, you can look up the guidelines for whichever platforms you’re designing for: 

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
• Accessibility designing — Material Design 3
• Accessibility — Windows apps
• Accessibility | Apple Developer Documentation
• Check your interface for accessibility (Ubuntu)

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

I told you in the introduction of this article that I would give you homework. You thought I was joking. So, here’s your homework: I want you to grab the personas from the Know About Accessibility website, and use them throughout every design project to help you recognise accessibility issues while you work—and reclaim design for everyone.

NOTE: This article is based on “Recognise,” my five-minute presentation from Interaction Design Association (IxDA) Dublin’s Defuse (Design for Use) event in 2025.

Every language app in your pocket inherited a teaching method built for Latin. Understanding why that happened is a more useful design lesson than anything the apps themselves will teach you.

In 1788, Prussia introduced the Abitur, a standardized national examination required for entry into universities and the civil service. To pass it, students needed to demonstrate measurable, gradable knowledge. The system needed to teach language to large classrooms, produce consistent outcomes, and do it with one teacher and thirty students. The educators responsible for designing this system reached for the only teaching template they had, one that had been used in European schools for two centuries: the method developed to teach Latin.

Latin, by 1788, was a dead language. Nobody needed to speak it. The scholars who studied it were reading Cicero and Virgil, not conducting conversations. The method built around it, memorizing grammar rules, constructing translations, analyzing written texts, reflected that reality exactly. Oral skills were irrelevant. Comprehension of written form was everything. The method was not designed to produce speakers. It was designed to produce readers of texts in a language nobody spoke.

When Prussia applied this template to French and German, living languages spoken by living people, the premise did not change. Johann Valentin Meidinger’s textbook Praktische Französische Grammatik, published in 1804, ran to 37 editions across Europe by 1857. Karl Plotz formalized the approach into what became the dominant model for teaching modern languages across Europe and eventually the United States, where it became known simply as the Prussian Method [1]. Each institution that adopted it trained teachers in it, who trained students who became teachers. The constraint that created the method, how do you grade language at scale with limited resources, became invisible inside the method itself. What remained was the assumption: language is a body of rules to be learned consciously and measured. It was a design decision dressed up, over time, as a pedagogical truth.

The observation that should have ended it

There are people in the world who cannot read or write a language and speak it fluently. There are children who hold full conversations years before they can read a single word. There are immigrants who arrive in a country knowing nothing of its language and come out, years later, speaking it naturally, not because they studied it, but because they lived inside it. Literacy and fluency are separate things produced by entirely separate mechanisms. The Grammar-Translation method, as it became known, assumed they were the same thing. That assumption was inherited from a method designed for a language nobody needed to speak, and it was wrong the moment it was applied to a language people actually used.

The evidence against it accumulated slowly. In the mid to late nineteenth century, reformers including François Gouin in France and Maximilian Berlitz in the United States argued independently that language should be taught the way it is actually acquired, through immersive exposure to real communication in the target language, not through analysis of its rules. Berlitz built an entire school network around this principle. The reformers were correct. They were also largely ignored by mainstream education systems, because the Grammar-Translation method had one decisive advantage that direct immersion did not: it could be graded.

In 1982, the linguist Stephen Krashen gave the argument its most formal articulation in what he called the Monitor Model of second language acquisition. His distinction was precise: language acquisition, the unconscious process through which children absorb their native language and through which adults succeed in immersive environments, is categorically different from language learning, the conscious study of grammar rules and vocabulary that classrooms deliver [2]. Acquisition produces fluency. Learning, at best, produces the ability to pass a test. The evidence supporting this distinction, and the observation that immersive exposure to real native-speaker communication is the mechanism that produces genuine fluency, has only grown since.

I went to Brazil without a word of Portuguese and came out speaking it. I studied French in a classroom for years and cannot hold a conversation in French today. This is not an unusual experience. It is the expected outcome, and it has been the expected outcome for as long as we have had formal language education.

The same decision, made again in a different medium

Prussian educators faced the question: How do you deliver language learning at scale, measure progress, and retain users over time? The answer it arrived at was structurally identical to the one arrived at in 1788. Duolingo gamified the grammar drill into a streak. Anki formalized the translation exercise into a spaced-repetition flashcard. Babbel organized grammar lessons into structured modules. The interfaces were new. The underlying assumption, that language is a thing you study rather than an environment you inhabit, was not.

This was not a failure of design skill. The products that emerged from these decisions are, in many respects, genuinely well-crafted. Duolingo’s retention mechanics are sophisticated. Anki’s spaced repetition is grounded in real cognitive science. They are excellent at what they actually do. The problem is what they actually do: produce measurable engagement with a proxy for language rather than the conditions that produce language itself. A streak is measurable. A vocabulary score is measurable. The moment a user walks out of an app and holds a real conversation in another language, that happens in the world, outside the product, and cannot be instrumented.

When the outcome a user needs is difficult to measure directly, the design process tends to reach for something that can be measured. The proxy becomes the goal. The interface optimizes for it. The gap between what the product delivers and what the user actually needed grows. This is not a pattern unique to language learning. It is a pattern that repeats across product categories whenever a design constraint—the need to measure, the need to scale, the need to produce a grade—gets built into a system so deeply that it stops being visible as a constraint and starts being mistaken for a truth about the problem itself.

What happens when the constraint changes

The constraint that made the Grammar-Translation method necessary in 1788 was real and rational. One teacher. Thirty students. A standardized exam. You cannot grade a conversation at scale. You can grade a translation exercise. The method was not chosen because it produced fluency. It was chosen because it produced a score.

That constraint no longer exists in the same form. Technology has made it possible to deliver immersive, real-time conversation practice to anyone with a smartphone, at a cost that continues to fall. The design problem is no longer how to make language learning gradable at scale. It is how to make the conditions of genuine language acquisition accessible to people who cannot move to another country or afford a native-speaker tutor.

The products that are now closest to solving the actual problem are not the ones that invented a new pedagogy. They are the ones that removed the access barrier to an old one. Praktika builds AI conversation partners with distinct personalities, regional dialects, and cultural context, replicating the specificity of a real native speaker rather than a generic language-learning voice. Langua clones native speaker voices so that the interaction feels like a real conversation rather than a lesson. Rosetta Stone’s foundational methodology, image association in the target language with no translation, was built on the same insight Berlitz arrived at in the nineteenth century: language is acquired through immersive exposure, not through analysis of its rules [3]. A 2025 meta-analysis of 31 studies found that AI conversation tools produced a statistically significant improvement in language learning outcomes, a result that no amount of flashcard optimization has consistently matched [4].

None of these products invented a new theory of language acquisition. They translated an existing one into something more people could reach.

The design question this leaves

The Grammar-Translation method persisted not because educators were wrong about design, but because a design decision made under a specific constraint became, over two centuries, indistinguishable from the thing itself. The constraint, how do you grade language at scale, was forgotten. The method it produced was inherited as if it were a description of how language works, passed from Prussia to Europe to America to the App Store, from the grammar drill to the streak.

Every time a design team optimizes for a metric because the actual outcome is hard to measure, they are making a version of the same decision. It is often the right decision given real constraints. The question worth asking is whether the constraint that made it necessary still exists, or whether it has simply become invisible inside the system it originally produced.

Before reaching for what can be measured, it is worth asking what the user actually needs to do, and what stopped them from doing it before. Sometimes the answer is a new solution. More often it is an old one that was always out of reach.

For a long time, nobody knew where Richard III was buried, what caused the strange sounds recorded deep in the Pacific, or how enormous rocks managed to move across the desert without anyone touching them. Some answers arrived through DNA testing, others through years of research, and a few came from discoveries nobody expected to make. The wreck of the Titanic, for example, spent more than seven decades hidden beneath the Atlantic before researchers finally located it. Other mysteries required scientists to reconsider ideas that had been accepted for generations. Here are 15 mysteries that kept people guessing until someone figured out what was really going on.

The post 15 of the Greatest Mysteries We’ve Finally Solved appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a total shocker, James Gunn and Peter Safran are no longer serving as co-heads of DC Studios. According to a news report from Variety, the duo “are stepping down as co-presidents of DC Studios” and will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Marvel Cinematic Universe entries such as Iron Man and The Avengers.

Of course, fans were worried about Gunn and Safran’s position at DC Studios when Warner Bros. was sold to Paramount owner David Ellison, who has close ties to Trump administration and previously oversaw an ideological staffing shakeup at CBS News program 60 Minutes. Moreover, much has been written about the sizable debt wracked up to buy Warner Bros. and combine it with Paramount to form a new company, Skydance.

At this point, we don’t know why exactly Gunn and Safran are leaving the position, especially after the duo were named as members of Ellison’s leadership team. A post on social media from Gunn makes it sound as though this was their decision as much or more than that of Ellison’s. However, we can say one things with some certainty: superhero movies are moving backwards.

from james on threads pic.twitter.com/5FVr3Nwokx

— juan (@JuanEditzs) November 9, 2026

Whatever one feels about Gunn as a filmmaker, no one can deny that he loved the weird parts of superhero lore. He turned a space tree who could only say its name and a gun-toting raccoon into fan favorites with Guardians of the Galaxy. He made the Polka-Dot Man into a rich, sympathetic figure in The Suicide Squad. He gave Z-lister Peacemaker two seasons of a prestige HBO series.

That’s a far cry from the earlier days of superhero movies, when only Superman and Batman could carry a film, and not even reliably then. Sure, the (then) D-lister Blade kicked off the second wave of superhero movies in 1997, an era that saw some lesser-known characters like Jonah Hex and the Spirit get feature films. But even that era was still defined by the big guns, Batman and Spider-Man. It’s only after Iron Man and The Avengers kicked off the third wave of superhero movies that the genre got weird. And, unsurprisingly, they got weird under James Gunn, starting with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

But it wasn’t just that Gunn loved the goofy side of superheroes. It’s also that he gave them meaning. Peacemaker isn’t just a show about a muscle man with a stupid silver helmet on his head played by John Cena. It’s also a show about toxic masculinity, about unlearning the hurt one picks up from childhood. Superman, certainly an A-lister if there ever was one, is about the power of kindness and peace, especially in light of those who would hurt others to compensate for their weakness, like Lex Luthor. Even the projects that Gunn didn’t directly make but greenlit show this adventurousness, namely the detective series Lanterns and the horror film Clayface. Obviously, Gunn saw superheroes as rich subject matter, suitable for all types of stories.

Surely, Gunn isn’t the only person in Hollywood who thinks this way. Moreover, he explicitly stated that he and Safran are not “immediately done with DC or superheroes,” citing both the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and another project that he’s writing. But the fact of the matter is that Gunn and Safran couldn’t make their vision at DC Studios work under the increasingly small studio system makes us wonder if anyone else can do it better. Surely, we’ll get more superhero movies from the DC Universe. But it’s hard to believe that they’ll be anything other than what we’re getting at Marvel, safe and bland retreads, as Avengers: Doomsday seems to be.

And so, even though it’s early, we can’t help but feel like the age of superhero movies has come to an end. It’s been 26 years since X-Men picked up where Blade left off, shifting from minor superheroes with some potential to the big name characters. With Gunn and his odd sensibilities pushed to the sidelines, it seems like we’re going back to that era, when studios wanted safe, predictable movies about the mainline heroes. Which is better than nothing, but not as good as it’s been.

The post James Gunn Exiting DC Studios Could Set Superhero Movies Back 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

Not every television show needs a finished script before the cameras start rolling. Some give their actors a basic outline and let them work out the dialogue, while others send people into situations they couldn’t possibly prepare for. Larry David spent years arguing with people on Curb Your Enthusiasm without memorizing traditional scripts, and the presenters of Top Gear regularly had to deal with whatever went wrong during their challenges. Of course, there’s usually more planning involved than viewers realize. The trick is leaving enough room for something genuinely unexpected to happen. Here are 15 shows that made improvisation a major part of their appeal.

The post 15 Shows That Always Just Figured it Out on The Spot appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a total shocker, James Gunn and Peter Safran are no longer serving as co-heads of DC Studios. According to a news report from Variety, the duo “are stepping down as co-presidents of DC Studios” and will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Marvel Cinematic Universe entries such as Iron Man and The Avengers.

Of course, fans were worried about Gunn and Safran’s position at DC Studios when Warner Bros. was sold to Paramount owner David Ellison, who has close ties to Trump administration and previously oversaw an ideological staffing shakeup at CBS News program 60 Minutes. Moreover, much has been written about the sizable debt wracked up to buy Warner Bros. and combine it with Paramount to form a new company, Skydance.

At this point, we don’t know why exactly Gunn and Safran are leaving the position, especially after the duo were named as members of Ellison’s leadership team. A post on social media from Gunn makes it sound as though this was their decision as much or more than that of Ellison’s. However, we can say one things with some certainty: superhero movies are moving backwards.

from james on threads pic.twitter.com/5FVr3Nwokx

— juan (@JuanEditzs) November 9, 2026

Whatever one feels about Gunn as a filmmaker, no one can deny that he loved the weird parts of superhero lore. He turned a space tree who could only say its name and a gun-toting raccoon into fan favorites with Guardians of the Galaxy. He made the Polka-Dot Man into a rich, sympathetic figure in The Suicide Squad. He gave Z-lister Peacemaker two seasons of a prestige HBO series.

That’s a far cry from the earlier days of superhero movies, when only Superman and Batman could carry a film, and not even reliably then. Sure, the (then) D-lister Blade kicked off the second wave of superhero movies in 1997, an era that saw some lesser-known characters like Jonah Hex and the Spirit get feature films. But even that era was still defined by the big guns, Batman and Spider-Man. It’s only after Iron Man and The Avengers kicked off the third wave of superhero movies that the genre got weird. And, unsurprisingly, they got weird under James Gunn, starting with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

But it wasn’t just that Gunn loved the goofy side of superheroes. It’s also that he gave them meaning. Peacemaker isn’t just a show about a muscle man with a stupid silver helmet on his head played by John Cena. It’s also a show about toxic masculinity, about unlearning the hurt one picks up from childhood. Superman, certainly an A-lister if there ever was one, is about the power of kindness and peace, especially in light of those who would hurt others to compensate for their weakness, like Lex Luthor. Even the projects that Gunn didn’t directly make but greenlit show this adventurousness, namely the detective series Lanterns and the horror film Clayface. Obviously, Gunn saw superheroes as rich subject matter, suitable for all types of stories.

Surely, Gunn isn’t the only person in Hollywood who thinks this way. Moreover, he explicitly stated that he and Safran are not “immediately done with DC or superheroes,” citing both the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and another project that he’s writing. But the fact of the matter is that Gunn and Safran couldn’t make their vision at DC Studios work under the increasingly small studio system makes us wonder if anyone else can do it better. Surely, we’ll get more superhero movies from the DC Universe. But it’s hard to believe that they’ll be anything other than what we’re getting at Marvel, safe and bland retreads, as Avengers: Doomsday seems to be.

And so, even though it’s early, we can’t help but feel like the age of superhero movies has come to an end. It’s been 26 years since X-Men picked up where Blade left off, shifting from minor superheroes with some potential to the big name characters. With Gunn and his odd sensibilities pushed to the sidelines, it seems like we’re going back to that era, when studios wanted safe, predictable movies about the mainline heroes. Which is better than nothing, but not as good as it’s been.

The post James Gunn Exiting DC Studios Could Set Superhero Movies Back 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

Being named valedictorian comes with some pretty big expectations. Teachers predict impressive careers, parents start talking about prestigious universities, and classmates assume the smartest kid in school has everything figured out. But a perfect GPA doesn’t tell you much about what someone will want at 35. In a Reddit discussion, people shared what happened to their former valedictorians, including a few who answered the question themselves. Some became doctors, researchers, and successful entrepreneurs. Others changed careers entirely, found happiness in quieter places, or discovered that being good at school didn’t necessarily make adulthood easier. Here are 15 stories about where those top students ended up.

The post 15 People Share What Happened to Their High School Valedictorians appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a total shocker, James Gunn and Peter Safran are no longer serving as co-heads of DC Studios. According to a news report from Variety, the duo “are stepping down as co-presidents of DC Studios” and will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Marvel Cinematic Universe entries such as Iron Man and The Avengers.

Of course, fans were worried about Gunn and Safran’s position at DC Studios when Warner Bros. was sold to Paramount owner David Ellison, who has close ties to Trump administration and previously oversaw an ideological staffing shakeup at CBS News program 60 Minutes. Moreover, much has been written about the sizable debt wracked up to buy Warner Bros. and combine it with Paramount to form a new company, Skydance.

At this point, we don’t know why exactly Gunn and Safran are leaving the position, especially after the duo were named as members of Ellison’s leadership team. A post on social media from Gunn makes it sound as though this was their decision as much or more than that of Ellison’s. However, we can say one things with some certainty: superhero movies are moving backwards.

from james on threads pic.twitter.com/5FVr3Nwokx

— juan (@JuanEditzs) November 9, 2026

Whatever one feels about Gunn as a filmmaker, no one can deny that he loved the weird parts of superhero lore. He turned a space tree who could only say its name and a gun-toting raccoon into fan favorites with Guardians of the Galaxy. He made the Polka-Dot Man into a rich, sympathetic figure in The Suicide Squad. He gave Z-lister Peacemaker two seasons of a prestige HBO series.

That’s a far cry from the earlier days of superhero movies, when only Superman and Batman could carry a film, and not even reliably then. Sure, the (then) D-lister Blade kicked off the second wave of superhero movies in 1997, an era that saw some lesser-known characters like Jonah Hex and the Spirit get feature films. But even that era was still defined by the big guns, Batman and Spider-Man. It’s only after Iron Man and The Avengers kicked off the third wave of superhero movies that the genre got weird. And, unsurprisingly, they got weird under James Gunn, starting with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

But it wasn’t just that Gunn loved the goofy side of superheroes. It’s also that he gave them meaning. Peacemaker isn’t just a show about a muscle man with a stupid silver helmet on his head played by John Cena. It’s also a show about toxic masculinity, about unlearning the hurt one picks up from childhood. Superman, certainly an A-lister if there ever was one, is about the power of kindness and peace, especially in light of those who would hurt others to compensate for their weakness, like Lex Luthor. Even the projects that Gunn didn’t directly make but greenlit show this adventurousness, namely the detective series Lanterns and the horror film Clayface. Obviously, Gunn saw superheroes as rich subject matter, suitable for all types of stories.

Surely, Gunn isn’t the only person in Hollywood who thinks this way. Moreover, he explicitly stated that he and Safran are not “immediately done with DC or superheroes,” citing both the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and another project that he’s writing. But the fact of the matter is that Gunn and Safran couldn’t make their vision at DC Studios work under the increasingly small studio system makes us wonder if anyone else can do it better. Surely, we’ll get more superhero movies from the DC Universe. But it’s hard to believe that they’ll be anything other than what we’re getting at Marvel, safe and bland retreads, as Avengers: Doomsday seems to be.

And so, even though it’s early, we can’t help but feel like the age of superhero movies has come to an end. It’s been 26 years since X-Men picked up where Blade left off, shifting from minor superheroes with some potential to the big name characters. With Gunn and his odd sensibilities pushed to the sidelines, it seems like we’re going back to that era, when studios wanted safe, predictable movies about the mainline heroes. Which is better than nothing, but not as good as it’s been.

The post James Gunn Exiting DC Studios Could Set Superhero Movies Back 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

Infidelity can destroy relationships, but some stories are so complicated that they sound like something written for a television drama. People have shared experiences involving secret families, elaborate lies, unexpected DNA results, and affairs that stayed hidden for decades. In some cases, the person being cheated on was the last to know, while everyone around them somehow knew what was happening. Others involved entire families being dragged into the mess, with consequences that lasted for years. These stories come from people who witnessed the situations themselves or knew someone directly involved, and some are genuinely unbelievable.

The post 15 People Describe the Worst Cheating Story They’ve Ever Encountered appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a total shocker, James Gunn and Peter Safran are no longer serving as co-heads of DC Studios. According to a news report from Variety, the duo “are stepping down as co-presidents of DC Studios” and will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Marvel Cinematic Universe entries such as Iron Man and The Avengers.

Of course, fans were worried about Gunn and Safran’s position at DC Studios when Warner Bros. was sold to Paramount owner David Ellison, who has close ties to Trump administration and previously oversaw an ideological staffing shakeup at CBS News program 60 Minutes. Moreover, much has been written about the sizable debt wracked up to buy Warner Bros. and combine it with Paramount to form a new company, Skydance.

At this point, we don’t know why exactly Gunn and Safran are leaving the position, especially after the duo were named as members of Ellison’s leadership team. A post on social media from Gunn makes it sound as though this was their decision as much or more than that of Ellison’s. However, we can say one things with some certainty: superhero movies are moving backwards.

from james on threads pic.twitter.com/5FVr3Nwokx

— juan (@JuanEditzs) November 9, 2026

Whatever one feels about Gunn as a filmmaker, no one can deny that he loved the weird parts of superhero lore. He turned a space tree who could only say its name and a gun-toting raccoon into fan favorites with Guardians of the Galaxy. He made the Polka-Dot Man into a rich, sympathetic figure in The Suicide Squad. He gave Z-lister Peacemaker two seasons of a prestige HBO series.

That’s a far cry from the earlier days of superhero movies, when only Superman and Batman could carry a film, and not even reliably then. Sure, the (then) D-lister Blade kicked off the second wave of superhero movies in 1997, an era that saw some lesser-known characters like Jonah Hex and the Spirit get feature films. But even that era was still defined by the big guns, Batman and Spider-Man. It’s only after Iron Man and The Avengers kicked off the third wave of superhero movies that the genre got weird. And, unsurprisingly, they got weird under James Gunn, starting with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

But it wasn’t just that Gunn loved the goofy side of superheroes. It’s also that he gave them meaning. Peacemaker isn’t just a show about a muscle man with a stupid silver helmet on his head played by John Cena. It’s also a show about toxic masculinity, about unlearning the hurt one picks up from childhood. Superman, certainly an A-lister if there ever was one, is about the power of kindness and peace, especially in light of those who would hurt others to compensate for their weakness, like Lex Luthor. Even the projects that Gunn didn’t directly make but greenlit show this adventurousness, namely the detective series Lanterns and the horror film Clayface. Obviously, Gunn saw superheroes as rich subject matter, suitable for all types of stories.

Surely, Gunn isn’t the only person in Hollywood who thinks this way. Moreover, he explicitly stated that he and Safran are not “immediately done with DC or superheroes,” citing both the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and another project that he’s writing. But the fact of the matter is that Gunn and Safran couldn’t make their vision at DC Studios work under the increasingly small studio system makes us wonder if anyone else can do it better. Surely, we’ll get more superhero movies from the DC Universe. But it’s hard to believe that they’ll be anything other than what we’re getting at Marvel, safe and bland retreads, as Avengers: Doomsday seems to be.

And so, even though it’s early, we can’t help but feel like the age of superhero movies has come to an end. It’s been 26 years since X-Men picked up where Blade left off, shifting from minor superheroes with some potential to the big name characters. With Gunn and his odd sensibilities pushed to the sidelines, it seems like we’re going back to that era, when studios wanted safe, predictable movies about the mainline heroes. Which is better than nothing, but not as good as it’s been.

The post James Gunn Exiting DC Studios Could Set Superhero Movies Back 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a recent podcast about The Suicide Squad‘s canonicity to the new DCU, James Gunn said something that felt like a bat-signal blazing in the sky: Batman will be cast soon. We’ve long known that Robert Pattinson’s version of the Dark Knight in The Batman exists outside of DCU continuity, and Gunn announced Batman movie […]

The post Batman: 5 Actors Who Should Don the Cape and Cowl in the DCU appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a total shocker, James Gunn and Peter Safran are no longer serving as co-heads of DC Studios. According to a news report from Variety, the duo “are stepping down as co-presidents of DC Studios” and will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Marvel Cinematic Universe entries such as Iron Man and The Avengers.

Of course, fans were worried about Gunn and Safran’s position at DC Studios when Warner Bros. was sold to Paramount owner David Ellison, who has close ties to Trump administration and previously oversaw an ideological staffing shakeup at CBS News program 60 Minutes. Moreover, much has been written about the sizable debt wracked up to buy Warner Bros. and combine it with Paramount to form a new company, Skydance.

At this point, we don’t know why exactly Gunn and Safran are leaving the position, especially after the duo were named as members of Ellison’s leadership team. A post on social media from Gunn makes it sound as though this was their decision as much or more than that of Ellison’s. However, we can say one things with some certainty: superhero movies are moving backwards.

from james on threads pic.twitter.com/5FVr3Nwokx

— juan (@JuanEditzs) November 9, 2026

Whatever one feels about Gunn as a filmmaker, no one can deny that he loved the weird parts of superhero lore. He turned a space tree who could only say its name and a gun-toting raccoon into fan favorites with Guardians of the Galaxy. He made the Polka-Dot Man into a rich, sympathetic figure in The Suicide Squad. He gave Z-lister Peacemaker two seasons of a prestige HBO series.

That’s a far cry from the earlier days of superhero movies, when only Superman and Batman could carry a film, and not even reliably then. Sure, the (then) D-lister Blade kicked off the second wave of superhero movies in 1997, an era that saw some lesser-known characters like Jonah Hex and the Spirit get feature films. But even that era was still defined by the big guns, Batman and Spider-Man. It’s only after Iron Man and The Avengers kicked off the third wave of superhero movies that the genre got weird. And, unsurprisingly, they got weird under James Gunn, starting with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

But it wasn’t just that Gunn loved the goofy side of superheroes. It’s also that he gave them meaning. Peacemaker isn’t just a show about a muscle man with a stupid silver helmet on his head played by John Cena. It’s also a show about toxic masculinity, about unlearning the hurt one picks up from childhood. Superman, certainly an A-lister if there ever was one, is about the power of kindness and peace, especially in light of those who would hurt others to compensate for their weakness, like Lex Luthor. Even the projects that Gunn didn’t directly make but greenlit show this adventurousness, namely the detective series Lanterns and the horror film Clayface. Obviously, Gunn saw superheroes as rich subject matter, suitable for all types of stories.

Surely, Gunn isn’t the only person in Hollywood who thinks this way. Moreover, he explicitly stated that he and Safran are not “immediately done with DC or superheroes,” citing both the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and another project that he’s writing. But the fact of the matter is that Gunn and Safran couldn’t make their vision at DC Studios work under the increasingly small studio system makes us wonder if anyone else can do it better. Surely, we’ll get more superhero movies from the DC Universe. But it’s hard to believe that they’ll be anything other than what we’re getting at Marvel, safe and bland retreads, as Avengers: Doomsday seems to be.

And so, even though it’s early, we can’t help but feel like the age of superhero movies has come to an end. It’s been 26 years since X-Men picked up where Blade left off, shifting from minor superheroes with some potential to the big name characters. With Gunn and his odd sensibilities pushed to the sidelines, it seems like we’re going back to that era, when studios wanted safe, predictable movies about the mainline heroes. Which is better than nothing, but not as good as it’s been.

The post James Gunn Exiting DC Studios Could Set Superhero Movies Back 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

Hollywood has spent more than a century turning performers into household names, but the stories behind its biggest stars are full of details that rarely make it into movie biographies. Some involve inventions, unexpected career milestones, or the strange beginnings of landmarks that now seem inseparable from the film industry. Others reveal how different the business was in its early decades, when awards were announced months before ceremonies and studios controlled almost every part of a star’s public image. The history is packed with moments that sound almost made up, yet every one of them actually happened in real life.

The post 15 Random Historical Facts About Celebrities and Hollywood appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a total shocker, James Gunn and Peter Safran are no longer serving as co-heads of DC Studios. According to a news report from Variety, the duo “are stepping down as co-presidents of DC Studios” and will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Marvel Cinematic Universe entries such as Iron Man and The Avengers.

Of course, fans were worried about Gunn and Safran’s position at DC Studios when Warner Bros. was sold to Paramount owner David Ellison, who has close ties to Trump administration and previously oversaw an ideological staffing shakeup at CBS News program 60 Minutes. Moreover, much has been written about the sizable debt wracked up to buy Warner Bros. and combine it with Paramount to form a new company, Skydance.

At this point, we don’t know why exactly Gunn and Safran are leaving the position, especially after the duo were named as members of Ellison’s leadership team. A post on social media from Gunn makes it sound as though this was their decision as much or more than that of Ellison’s. However, we can say one things with some certainty: superhero movies are moving backwards.

from james on threads pic.twitter.com/5FVr3Nwokx

— juan (@JuanEditzs) November 9, 2026

Whatever one feels about Gunn as a filmmaker, no one can deny that he loved the weird parts of superhero lore. He turned a space tree who could only say its name and a gun-toting raccoon into fan favorites with Guardians of the Galaxy. He made the Polka-Dot Man into a rich, sympathetic figure in The Suicide Squad. He gave Z-lister Peacemaker two seasons of a prestige HBO series.

That’s a far cry from the earlier days of superhero movies, when only Superman and Batman could carry a film, and not even reliably then. Sure, the (then) D-lister Blade kicked off the second wave of superhero movies in 1997, an era that saw some lesser-known characters like Jonah Hex and the Spirit get feature films. But even that era was still defined by the big guns, Batman and Spider-Man. It’s only after Iron Man and The Avengers kicked off the third wave of superhero movies that the genre got weird. And, unsurprisingly, they got weird under James Gunn, starting with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

But it wasn’t just that Gunn loved the goofy side of superheroes. It’s also that he gave them meaning. Peacemaker isn’t just a show about a muscle man with a stupid silver helmet on his head played by John Cena. It’s also a show about toxic masculinity, about unlearning the hurt one picks up from childhood. Superman, certainly an A-lister if there ever was one, is about the power of kindness and peace, especially in light of those who would hurt others to compensate for their weakness, like Lex Luthor. Even the projects that Gunn didn’t directly make but greenlit show this adventurousness, namely the detective series Lanterns and the horror film Clayface. Obviously, Gunn saw superheroes as rich subject matter, suitable for all types of stories.

Surely, Gunn isn’t the only person in Hollywood who thinks this way. Moreover, he explicitly stated that he and Safran are not “immediately done with DC or superheroes,” citing both the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and another project that he’s writing. But the fact of the matter is that Gunn and Safran couldn’t make their vision at DC Studios work under the increasingly small studio system makes us wonder if anyone else can do it better. Surely, we’ll get more superhero movies from the DC Universe. But it’s hard to believe that they’ll be anything other than what we’re getting at Marvel, safe and bland retreads, as Avengers: Doomsday seems to be.

And so, even though it’s early, we can’t help but feel like the age of superhero movies has come to an end. It’s been 26 years since X-Men picked up where Blade left off, shifting from minor superheroes with some potential to the big name characters. With Gunn and his odd sensibilities pushed to the sidelines, it seems like we’re going back to that era, when studios wanted safe, predictable movies about the mainline heroes. Which is better than nothing, but not as good as it’s been.

The post James Gunn Exiting DC Studios Could Set Superhero Movies Back 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

Early in his career as a young adult, Robert Pattinson made a name for himself by telling ridiculous stories to reporters on press tours, most famously one about seeing a clown die in an explosion. So it was amusing to see him get a taste of his own medicine when he and co-star Jennifer Lawrence […]

The post Robert Pattinson Would Be the Perfect Gen Z Bond appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a total shocker, James Gunn and Peter Safran are no longer serving as co-heads of DC Studios. According to a news report from Variety, the duo “are stepping down as co-presidents of DC Studios” and will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Marvel Cinematic Universe entries such as Iron Man and The Avengers.

Of course, fans were worried about Gunn and Safran’s position at DC Studios when Warner Bros. was sold to Paramount owner David Ellison, who has close ties to Trump administration and previously oversaw an ideological staffing shakeup at CBS News program 60 Minutes. Moreover, much has been written about the sizable debt wracked up to buy Warner Bros. and combine it with Paramount to form a new company, Skydance.

At this point, we don’t know why exactly Gunn and Safran are leaving the position, especially after the duo were named as members of Ellison’s leadership team. A post on social media from Gunn makes it sound as though this was their decision as much or more than that of Ellison’s. However, we can say one things with some certainty: superhero movies are moving backwards.

from james on threads pic.twitter.com/5FVr3Nwokx

— juan (@JuanEditzs) November 9, 2026

Whatever one feels about Gunn as a filmmaker, no one can deny that he loved the weird parts of superhero lore. He turned a space tree who could only say its name and a gun-toting raccoon into fan favorites with Guardians of the Galaxy. He made the Polka-Dot Man into a rich, sympathetic figure in The Suicide Squad. He gave Z-lister Peacemaker two seasons of a prestige HBO series.

That’s a far cry from the earlier days of superhero movies, when only Superman and Batman could carry a film, and not even reliably then. Sure, the (then) D-lister Blade kicked off the second wave of superhero movies in 1997, an era that saw some lesser-known characters like Jonah Hex and the Spirit get feature films. But even that era was still defined by the big guns, Batman and Spider-Man. It’s only after Iron Man and The Avengers kicked off the third wave of superhero movies that the genre got weird. And, unsurprisingly, they got weird under James Gunn, starting with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

But it wasn’t just that Gunn loved the goofy side of superheroes. It’s also that he gave them meaning. Peacemaker isn’t just a show about a muscle man with a stupid silver helmet on his head played by John Cena. It’s also a show about toxic masculinity, about unlearning the hurt one picks up from childhood. Superman, certainly an A-lister if there ever was one, is about the power of kindness and peace, especially in light of those who would hurt others to compensate for their weakness, like Lex Luthor. Even the projects that Gunn didn’t directly make but greenlit show this adventurousness, namely the detective series Lanterns and the horror film Clayface. Obviously, Gunn saw superheroes as rich subject matter, suitable for all types of stories.

Surely, Gunn isn’t the only person in Hollywood who thinks this way. Moreover, he explicitly stated that he and Safran are not “immediately done with DC or superheroes,” citing both the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and another project that he’s writing. But the fact of the matter is that Gunn and Safran couldn’t make their vision at DC Studios work under the increasingly small studio system makes us wonder if anyone else can do it better. Surely, we’ll get more superhero movies from the DC Universe. But it’s hard to believe that they’ll be anything other than what we’re getting at Marvel, safe and bland retreads, as Avengers: Doomsday seems to be.

And so, even though it’s early, we can’t help but feel like the age of superhero movies has come to an end. It’s been 26 years since X-Men picked up where Blade left off, shifting from minor superheroes with some potential to the big name characters. With Gunn and his odd sensibilities pushed to the sidelines, it seems like we’re going back to that era, when studios wanted safe, predictable movies about the mainline heroes. Which is better than nothing, but not as good as it’s been.

The post James Gunn Exiting DC Studios Could Set Superhero Movies Back 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

Godzilla Minus Zero made its much-awaited debut this weekend, and once again, the King of the Monsters reigns supreme. Not only has Minus Zero received positive reviews, but it also took the top spot at the box office. Surely that means that a third movie is in the works, but writer and director Takashi Yamazaki […]

The post Where Do The ‘Godzilla Minus’ Movies Go From Here? appeared first on Den of Geek.

In a total shocker, James Gunn and Peter Safran are no longer serving as co-heads of DC Studios. According to a news report from Variety, the duo “are stepping down as co-presidents of DC Studios” and will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Marvel Cinematic Universe entries such as Iron Man and The Avengers.

Of course, fans were worried about Gunn and Safran’s position at DC Studios when Warner Bros. was sold to Paramount owner David Ellison, who has close ties to Trump administration and previously oversaw an ideological staffing shakeup at CBS News program 60 Minutes. Moreover, much has been written about the sizable debt wracked up to buy Warner Bros. and combine it with Paramount to form a new company, Skydance.

At this point, we don’t know why exactly Gunn and Safran are leaving the position, especially after the duo were named as members of Ellison’s leadership team. A post on social media from Gunn makes it sound as though this was their decision as much or more than that of Ellison’s. However, we can say one things with some certainty: superhero movies are moving backwards.

from james on threads pic.twitter.com/5FVr3Nwokx

— juan (@JuanEditzs) November 9, 2026

Whatever one feels about Gunn as a filmmaker, no one can deny that he loved the weird parts of superhero lore. He turned a space tree who could only say its name and a gun-toting raccoon into fan favorites with Guardians of the Galaxy. He made the Polka-Dot Man into a rich, sympathetic figure in The Suicide Squad. He gave Z-lister Peacemaker two seasons of a prestige HBO series.

That’s a far cry from the earlier days of superhero movies, when only Superman and Batman could carry a film, and not even reliably then. Sure, the (then) D-lister Blade kicked off the second wave of superhero movies in 1997, an era that saw some lesser-known characters like Jonah Hex and the Spirit get feature films. But even that era was still defined by the big guns, Batman and Spider-Man. It’s only after Iron Man and The Avengers kicked off the third wave of superhero movies that the genre got weird. And, unsurprisingly, they got weird under James Gunn, starting with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

But it wasn’t just that Gunn loved the goofy side of superheroes. It’s also that he gave them meaning. Peacemaker isn’t just a show about a muscle man with a stupid silver helmet on his head played by John Cena. It’s also a show about toxic masculinity, about unlearning the hurt one picks up from childhood. Superman, certainly an A-lister if there ever was one, is about the power of kindness and peace, especially in light of those who would hurt others to compensate for their weakness, like Lex Luthor. Even the projects that Gunn didn’t directly make but greenlit show this adventurousness, namely the detective series Lanterns and the horror film Clayface. Obviously, Gunn saw superheroes as rich subject matter, suitable for all types of stories.

Surely, Gunn isn’t the only person in Hollywood who thinks this way. Moreover, he explicitly stated that he and Safran are not “immediately done with DC or superheroes,” citing both the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and another project that he’s writing. But the fact of the matter is that Gunn and Safran couldn’t make their vision at DC Studios work under the increasingly small studio system makes us wonder if anyone else can do it better. Surely, we’ll get more superhero movies from the DC Universe. But it’s hard to believe that they’ll be anything other than what we’re getting at Marvel, safe and bland retreads, as Avengers: Doomsday seems to be.

And so, even though it’s early, we can’t help but feel like the age of superhero movies has come to an end. It’s been 26 years since X-Men picked up where Blade left off, shifting from minor superheroes with some potential to the big name characters. With Gunn and his odd sensibilities pushed to the sidelines, it seems like we’re going back to that era, when studios wanted safe, predictable movies about the mainline heroes. Which is better than nothing, but not as good as it’s been.

The post James Gunn Exiting DC Studios Could Set Superhero Movies Back 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.