We start this week’s pop culture news recap with the announcement yesterday that filmmaker (as well as artist and musician) David Lynch has died aged 78. Lynch had been suffering from debilitating Emphysema after smoking since age 8, and the Los Angeles wild fires, which forced an evacuation from his home, reportedly contributed to a quick health decline on his part.
The director was behind such cult movie standouts as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive in the 80s and 90s, along with the original troubled Dune movie adaptation and Oscar-nominated The Elephant Man. He is also responsible for highly influential oddball mystery series Twin Peaks, which originally ran from 1990 to 1991. RIP, David.
Series
The small screen is where the biggest news is this week, primarily in the form of the full trailer reveal for upcoming Disney+ MCU superhero series Daredevil: Born Again. Actually following the three seasons of Netflix’s original Daredevil series, and returning to its predecessor’s R-rated nature, Born Again sees the feud between blind attorney Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and crimelord Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) reignite as the latter steps up as New York mayor. Also forcing Murdock to once more don his horned suit as Hells Kitchen vigilante Daredevil is the appearance of villains Bullseye, White Tiger and Muse.
With Daredevil: Born Again’s well publicised overhaul, the show enjoys returning faces like Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, and Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Murdock’s friends and business partners. Jon Bernthal is also back as The Punisher.
The nine-episode first season of Daredevil: Born Again premieres on 4 March. A second season is already set to film.
Closer to home, South African (and African) streamer Showmax has announced that, following the news last year that it’s making an Afrikaans-language version of workplace comedy The Office, it’s also licenced Superstore for local treatment.
The original American Superstore follows a group of diverse employees at Cloud 9, a super-sized mega store. There, they tackle the day-to-day grind, and insanity, of life in retail. The South African version of Superstore will be made in Zulu, making the adaptation the second non-English version of Superstore, following Mexico’s Supertitlán.
As a side note, if you’re unfamiliar with Superstore, you can watch Seasons 1-6 on Showmax.
Still talking Showmax, the streamer has confirmed some 2025 release dates for popular returning series:
- The White Lotus S3 | Express from the US from Monday, 17 February
- Yellowjackets S3 | First on Showmax | February
- The Last Of Us S2 | Express from the US from April
- Also on the cards are new seasons of Hacks, Peacemaker, Poker Face, The Cleaning Lady, and The Righteous Gemstones, as well as IT prequel Welcome to Derry.
Film
We knew the Until Dawn movie was coming, adapting the cinematic horror game from Supermassive and Sony. However, the first trailer has revealed a big surprise, and that’s the form this film is taking: Instead of simply retreading the game’s story, the movie expands the universe, as this First Look clip explains, and sees its young leads forced to relive the same nightmare evening over and over, making different choices as they try to survive a different killer each night. With only a limited number of deaths, their only way to escape the abandoned visitor centre is to last until dawn.
Honestly this has more of a Dead by Daylight feel than Until Dawn, but hey. For the record, Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation’s David F. Sandberg directs, while Peter Stormare returns from the game, bringing his mo-cap performance to real-life.
The movie version of Until Dawn comes to cinemas on 25 April.
Still talking horror, you may want to check out this trailer for Universal and Blumhouse’s The Woman in the Yard, which sees, in a still rare depiction for horror films, a black family in peril.
Keeping things dark and bloody, here’s the trailer for Netflix anime movie The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep. Led by Korean animation studio Studio Mir, Sirens of the Deep is the second animated film set in the Witcher universe, following 2021’s The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, which was focused on Geralt of Rivia’s mentor Vesemir.
Geralt is front and centre in Sirens of the Deep, though, which is based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s short story A Little Sacrifice, and sees everyone’s favourite Witcher caught up in a conflict between coastal dwellers and Merpeople. Doug Cockle, who has voiced Geralt in CD Projekt Red’s game series, returns here, while bard Jaskier and sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg are voiced by live-action series stars Joey Batey and Anya Chalotra, respectively.
The Witcher: Sirens of The Deep debuts on 11 February on Netflix.
Taking a break from horror and dark fantasy, prestige cinema fans will likely be interested in the BAFTA Film Award nominations for this year. Overall, it’s not too much of a deviation from what’s been seen already this award season, although British made Conclave (which Kervyn raved about this week) is the front runner here with 12 BAFTA nominations.
The other films with multiple nominations are, in order:
- Emilia Pérez – 11
- The Brutalist – 9
- Anora – 7
- Dune: Part Two – 7
- Wicked – 7
- A Complete Unknown – 6
Gaming
After months of rumours, supposed leaks, real leaks and more, Nintendo has finally provided a first official look at the Nintendo Switch 2, a successor to the record-breaking handheld console that is the Switch.
While the Switch 2 will release in 2025, some had been hoping for a drop by April. However, with a “closer look” at the system scheduled for a Nintendo Direct stream on 2 April, and exclusive hands-on experience events overseas starting around the same time, and running into June, it may only be out for the 2025 holiday season. But don’t quote us on that.