The past week has certainly been packed full of announcements from the worlds of TV, film and gaming. That said, sometimes the hype machine has come to a grinding halt in the face of underwhelming reality. Read on to find out what has excited fans, disappointed them, or left them ambivalent.
But first: In terms of celebrity passings, this week the world lost The Right Stuff, Tremors and Remo Williams star Fred Ward. He was 79. Also 79 was legendary musician and composer Vangelis, whose synth-led sounds are behind the iconic Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner scores.
Television
The biggest buzz in South Africa this week has been the official local launch of Disney+. Unfortunately, we may as well call it Disaster+ based on how the launch played out. Users took to social media to point out a multitude of issues like not receiving their registration links as promised, despite having pre-registered (two days later we still haven’t received ours), a terrible base app (the Hotstar version of Disney+ seen in India, Malaysia, Indonesia etc. which uses mobile authentication as opposed to the US-based app which is username/password based), no gaming console app availability (due to the aforementioned authentication method and no clear indication when console apps will launch), and a slew of error messages, bad audio-visual quality, no 4K support and inconsistent playback.
If you’re rightfully upset over this bungled launch and want a refund, htxt.co.za has the how-to.
Sadly overshadowed by the above, we got our first look at Marvel’s new She-Hulk series, titled She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. The trailer was released a day before the Disney+ failure to launch, which has left locals less excited for the new series than they would be if they knew they had a reliable, premium-quality way to watch it.
The trailer itself also has the global public divided, with some looking forward to the comedy focus and always stellar Tatiana Maslany, while others are puzzled by the slightly dodgy looking CGI which is not up to the usual Marvel standard. We’re just hoping that it’s still a work in progress, and we’ll have a more polished show by the time She-Hulk makes her superhero landing on 17 August 2022.
On the other hand, one show we will always be excited about is The Umbrella Academy. Every season has exceeded our every expectation and it looks like Season 3 is no exception. Taking the sibling rivalry concept to the next level, our beloved Umbrella Academy come face to face with a new team, The Sparrow Academy, in an alternative timeline, after the time-travel shenanigans of Season 2 completely upset the natural order.
We can look forward to a new season filled with big fight scenes, paradoxes, humour and chaos, airing on Netflix from June 2022. Along with the trailer below, 14 images were revealed from Season 3. Find them in a Twitter thread here.
Speaking of wibbly-wobbly, timey wimey… stuff, there was some casting news for Doctor Who that has fans very confused. Ahead of the 60th anniversary celebration, it was announced via press release that Heartstopper’s Yasmin Finney is joining the new season (alongside Ncuti Gatwa’s new Doctor) as a character known as Rose. We have no idea if this is a version of Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler we’re seeing, or another Rose, and unless we get some leaked information, we’re going to be waiting until 2023 to find out.
Closing off the television section with some news tidbits:
We haven’t seen the last of Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, a blind Hell’s Kitchen lawyer by day, and superhero vigilante Daredevil by night. A Disney+ Daredevil series is in the works; though there’s been no indication yet whether it will be treated as a continuation of Netflix’s three very gritty Daredevil seasons, or an entirely fresh project.
Hulu and Twentieth Century Fox have plans to reboot The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in film format (presumably going straight to television). Alan Moore’s comic series about a team-up of the greatest fiction heroes of Victorian literature was last adapted back in 2003, and was so disastrous that it led to Sean Connery’s retirement from acting.
For all matters Star Wars on the small screen, check out Vanity Fair’s mega feature on Disney’s master plan for The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka, and more upcoming series set in that galaxy far, far away.
It’s been a brutal few weeks for show cancellations, especially over at the CW. Check out everything that hasn’t made the cut for renewal. In short, it includes a lot of reboots and superhero shows.
What did make the cut (phew!) over at Netflix is Season 3 (AKA Volume 3) of animated sci-fi anthology series Love, Death & Robots. The nine-episode season drops on 20 May, TODAY, but even non-subscribers can share in the excitement as right now you can watch one of the Vol. 3 shorts in its 10-minute entirety on YouTube.
Finally, a Gremlins animated series is coming to HBO (no release date yet, though). The 10-episode CGI-animated series will serve as a prequel to the two live-action Gremlin movies that established the franchise, and will be set in 1920s Shanghai. Check out the star-studded voice cast, plot synopsis and character descriptions here.
Movies
Coming to Netflix on 17 June is sci-fi thriller Spiderhead, based on short story “Escape from Spiderhead” by George Saunders. This week the trailer dropped for the twisty tale, which centres on a scientist (Chris Hemsworth) who experiments on prison inmates with emotion- and mind-altering drugs at his special island penitentiary. In this dystopian context, two inmates (Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett) form a connection while grappling with their pasts. Spiderhead is directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick, Tron: Legacy).
It’s just a 45-second teaser, but it’s still the first non-static look at 20th Century Studios and Hulu’s Predator prequel, Prey. Debuting on the streaming service on 5 August, Prey rewinds the human vs. alien hunting action 300 years and shifts it to the Great Plains and the Comanche Nation. There, a young woman warrior Naru (Amber Midthunder) must defend her people against a murder-minded, technologically advanced Predator. The film features an almost entirely Native American/First Nation cast, and is directed by 10 Cloverfield Lane’s Dan Trachtenberg.
The biggest casting news of the week is that Christopher Walken has joined Dune: Part 2. The acting veteran will play Emperor Shaddam IV, whose paranoia about the ascendant power of House Atreides contributed to the bloody events on desert planet Arrakis in Dune: Part 1. Also joining the cast for Denis Villeneuve’s highly anticipated Part 2, as a reminder, are Florence Pugh as the Emperor’s daughter Princess Irulan, and Austin Butler as House Harkonnen heir apparent Feyd-Rautha. More here.
Gaming
The video below doesn’t provide any information that we don’t already know about the new PlayStation Plus, PlayStation’s answer to Xbox’s Game Pass. It’s still an easily digestible look at the gaming subscription service and its different tiers, though. Probably of greater interest is this official blog post, which outlines the games coming to the service at the different tier levels, as well as other benefits for Extra and Premium/Deluxe members – including timed game trials and a curated set of Ubisoft+ Classics.
South African PS owners can expect the local launch of PlayStation Plus around 23 June.
Seems like Ubisoft is going all in with its family-friendly multiplayer sports games. Roller Champions is a free-to-play PVP game inspired by the world of roller derby. Players compete in two three-person teams to reach five points first. Points are achieved by throwing the game ball through the arena’s goal hoop. Where things get more strategic, and challenging, is that the more laps you make around the arena with the ball in your team’s possession (your opponents can attempt tackles and other obstructions), the more points you’ll earn.
Featuring platform cross-play, Roller Champions releases next week on 25 May, for Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows PC. The game is coming to Nintendo Switch, Stadia and Amazon Luna at a later date.
We always pay attention to what Remedy, the makers of chef’s kiss single player experiences Alan Wake, Max Payne, Control and Quantum Break, are up to. This week, in their latest business review announcement to investors, the Swedish studio revealed the status of several of their upcoming projects. You can read the report for all the detail, but here’s an at-a-glance summary:
As a side note, AMC is working on a TV series adaptation of Remedy’s paranormal-flavoured action adventure Alan Wake.
Gaming news tidbits:
Release dates don’t mean much these days but the Dead Space remake has just been pegged for 27 January 2023. More here, with 15 new pieces of concept art for the return of EA’s extremely visceral space horror series.