WIRE Buzz: Rogue One's Tony Gilroy boards Cassian Andor series; Arrow drops S8 Batman tease; more

Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor will have some Rogue One company as the prequel series gears up for its landing at Disney+. Tony Gilroy, one of the writers behind the gritty Star Wars spinoff movie, has reportedly joined the live-action show’s creative team.

Variety reports that Gilroy, who co-wrote (with Chris Weitz) Rogue One’s tale of a desperate and tragically-fated Rebel mission, has signed on for the still-unnamed streaming series, which follows Cassian before his team-up with Rogue One’s Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) to track down her father’s well-concealed schematics for the Death Star. Gilroy will pair his talents with current writer and series showrunner Stephen Schiff. 

 Gilroy will write the series’ pilot episode, and also is slated to direct “multiple episodes,” according to the report. He brings screenwriting chops honed in the Jason Bourne film series, including The Bourne Legacy (2012), which he also directed. Gilroy also earned a pair of Oscar nominations for his writing and directing work on the 2007 law thriller Michael Clayton, the George Clooney-starring corporate corruption story that marked Gilroy’s directing debut. 

Lucasfilm and Disney haven’t yet revealed a release date for the Cassian Andor series, but so far it’s shaping up to return at least one more of the movie’s core cast, with Alan Tudyk on board to supply the droid voice of fan favorite robot K-2SO. 

If you’ve been going back and bingeing a straight shot through Arrow’s early-days catalog in anticipation of The CW’s flagship superhero show’s eighth and final season, then the teaser that just arrived for Season 8’s first episode may jog your distant memory — but with an intriguing twist. 

In an opening sequence that bears a strong resemblance to the series’ very first moments, The CW’s new Episode 1 teaser finds a castaway Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) scrambling the distant (but by now familiar) shores of the South China Sea, only to stumble upon a very different mask than the one he encountered all those years ago. This time, it’s not Deathstroke who’s leaving artifacts behind. Rather, it appears to be a certain Caped Crusader.

Check it out:

Notice the hair? This isn’t the same setup that started it all, with our hero’s clean-shorn head and an arrow through Batman’s mask. Are we staring down the barrel of an alternate timeline? A vision in Oliver’s head? Something that’ll set up a bombshell revelation when the Crisis on Infinite Earths event series arrives later this year? 

Expect the speculation to only ramp up as Arrow kicks off its final batch of episodes. Season 8 of Arrow debuts tonight (Oct. 15) at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.

After months of hype and more than a few questions about how Google’s first foray into console gaming will work with its always-connected Stadia platform, the tech giant is inching closer to giving fans their first real-world experience with its answer to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. 

Via The Verge, Google is planning to debut the Stadia next month when the Stadia Pro games streaming service goes live on Nov. 19. Google is easing its way in for the full launch of Stadia services, offering only the paid, Stadia Pro access tier at first, with the free Stadia Base subscription set to launch sometime next year. 

Priced at $10 per month, Stadia Pro is expected to launch with more than 30 day-one games (so far), according to the report, and Google is apparently more focused on offering game titles as standalone purchases (much like Steam or the Epic Store) rather than as an open-access, Netflix-style smorgasbord (like PlayStation Now). As of now, only Destiny 2 is included in the Stadia subscription price, with big-name games like Red Dead Redemption 2, The Elder Scrolls Online, Mortal Kombat 11, Borderlands 3, and — when they release — Cyberpunk 2077 and Marvel’s Avengers becoming available as individual game purchases. 

Stadia Pro will be available, initially, only for customers who’ve bought a $130 Founder’s Edition bundle — which includes a “Night Blue” Stadia controller, three months of Stadia Pro cross-platform streaming, a Chromecast Ultra TV stick, and a buddy pass to share your gaming experiences with a friend. Pre-orders for the Founder’s Edition have just gone live, and you can check out all the tech specs and complete details at Google’s landing page.