What’s happened this week in the realms of film, series, gaming, comics and pop culture events? You’ll find the standout stories and trailer reveals below.
Lifestyle
Set for 1– 4 May, Comic Con Cape Town 2025 is officially less than 50 days away. With the countdown under way, two more international guests have been added to the event’s line-up.
The first is comics industry veteran, Adam Kubert, son of Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame inductee Joe Kubert. Not only is Adam famous for his work on Marvel books like Wolverine, but, along with his brother Andy, he’s an instructor at the comic art-centred The Kubert School, which was founded by their father. Andy will be at CCCT on all four days.
On the cosplay front, Sweden’s Mayo Cosplay can be engaged with on all four days of CCCT 2025 as well. With over 15 years’ experience in cosplay, and several notable appearances as both a cosplay competitor and judge, she will be on hand to select South Africa’s next representatives for the World Cosplay Summit, and first ever participation in ECG.
Series
Black Mirror is back, baby. Well, almost. You have until 10 April to wait for the next six stories in the dystopian science fiction anthology series, which is returning to Netflix.
Look out for familiar faces, including Awkwafina, Peter Capaldi, Emma Corrin, Paul Giamatti, Rashida Jones, The Penguin’s Cristin Milioti, Chris O’Dowd and Issa Rae.
Some notable things about this next Black Mirror run, which is once more penned by creator Charlie Brooker: there’s going to be a sequel episode to the fourth season’s Star Trek-esque “USS Callister” installment, and Will Poulter is reprising his Bandersnatch role.
Film
We honestly have live-action Disney adaptation fatigue at this point. That said, the cartoon-to-live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch looks incredibly entertaining, probably thanks to the fact it can feed off its source material’s chaos energy. If you don’t know the story of Lilo & Stitch, it’s a tale of messy found family as a lonely little Hawaiian girl (Maia Kealoha) befriends a fugitive alien on the run. Also starring Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Tia Carrere, Hannah Waddingham, Chris Sanders, with Courtney B. Vance, and Zach Galifianakis.
The movie is out 23 May.
Even if you don’t like Motorsport, it has a tradition of making for cracking big screen entertainment. Think of Rush, and Ford v Ferrari in recent years. Now Top Gun: Maverick’s Joseph Kosinski is behind the camera for Formula 1 (AKA F1), which sees Brad Pitt’s “greatest that never was”, Sonny Hayes, pulled out of his racer-for-hire life by a former teammate (Javier Bardem) in a last-bid attempt to save his F1 team. Hayes’s job is to deliver the cool-headed experience that the team’s hotshot rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) is missing, but that means overcoming his own demons.
F1 has been shot for IMAX and hits cinemas worldwide starting 25 June this year.
One tiny piece of movie casting news: Stranger Things and Fear Street star Sadie Sink is the first new announcement for Spider-Man 4. She’ll be joining a returning Tom Holland for a Spidey tale that promises to be very different from its three predecessors, especially after the conclusion of No Way Home cleared the board for the franchise narratively.
Gaming
The biggest gaming story of the week? PowerWash Simulator 2 is coming. One of the most popular relaxing games of recent times, where you literally clean up a filthy town and its surrounds, is getting a follow-up later this year, also from makers FuturLab.
The campaign mode will continue straight on from the ending of the original PowerWash Simulator, with more kooky Muckingham mysteries to unravel. Meanwhile, new features include a customisable home base between missions, more powerful cleaning options, shared campaign progress for online multiplay, and the introduction of split-screen couch co-op.
PowerWash Simulator 2 is coming 2025 to PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. No word yet if it will be available through subscription gaming services PS Plus or Game Pass, but that seems unnecessary given the franchise’s success at this point.
Okay, okay, one more big gaming story. The Silent Hill resurgence continues after the critical and commercial success of Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake last year.
Now we have an all-new full-length Silent Hill experience on the horizon. Set in 1960s Japan, Silent Hill f centres on school girl Shimizu Hinako, whose rural town of Ebisugaoka is consumed by a sudden fog, transforming it into a nightmare populated with deadly, disturbing beings. Struggling with fear and the threat of madness, Hinako must navigate the twisted paths of Ebisugaoka, solving complex puzzles and confronting grotesque monsters to survive.
Konami’s psychological horror tale is being made by Taiwan-headquartered NeoBards Entertainment. As yet it doesn’t have a release date, but the game will be coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store.