There’s no better way to start a new week than quickly caught up on the major stories from the previous period. So below you’ll find the major film and series news, plus trailer debuts, of last week.

Before we get started though, one notable celebrity death needs a mention: boxing legend and media personality George Foreman has passed aged 76, on Friday, 21 March. No cause of death was given. Though he made far more money punting his grilling machine than fighting in the ring, Foreman’s against the odds retaking of the Heavyweight World Champion title at age 45 was the subject of a 2023 biopic.

Film

Disney was happily dropping various trailers and announcements this past week (probably due to the annual Shareholders Meeting), starting with Pixar’s Elio, an all-new animated adventure. In Elio, the title character is lonely 11-year-old outcast with a space obsession. All he wants is to escape Earth, but when that dream comes true, he finds himself mistakenly identified as our world’s leader. Some of the stars lending their voices to the film include Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, and Jameela Jamil. Elio hits cinemas from 20 June.

As a side note, on matters of Pixar sequels, Coco 2 has been confirmed as being in the early stages of development, and is looking at a 2029 release.

2003’s body swap comedy Freaky Friday is getting a sequel in the form of Freakier Friday, in cinemas from 8 August. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reprise their roles from the original as mother-daughter Tess and Anna Coleman, but complicating the unwanted physical trades this time are the inclusion of a new generation: Julia Butters as Anna’s daughter, and Sophia Hammons as Anna’s soon-to-be stepdaughter.

Speaking of decades-later sequels, Netflix has unveiled a trailer and streaming release date (25 July) for Adam Sandler’s golfing comedy Happy Gilmore 2.

Video game adaptation Mortal Kombat 2 is coming to cinemas in October this year. There’s still quite a wait for the follow-up to 2021’s fantasy fighter reboot, but a handful of images have been released via Entertainment Weekly to stoke the hype fire. Included in the set are first on-set looks at Karl Urban as cocky action star Johnny Cage, and Adeline Rudolph as Kitana, the fan-wielding Outworld princess who aligns with the heroes of Earth.

For the record, the likes of Hiroyuki Sanada (Scorpion), Jessica McNamee (Sonya Blade), Mehcad Brooks (Jax), Tadanobu Asano (Lord Raiden), Ludi Lin (Liu Kang), Lewis Tan (Cole Young), and more, are all back, while Martyn Ford joins the action as Shao Kahn, and Tati Gabrielle is Jade.

As for other movie news tidbits:

  • South African-born Neill Blomkamp, of District 9, Chappie, Elysium and Gran Turismo fame, is attached to direct a Starship Troopers reboot. Reportedly, this new version will be a more conventional, military-centric adaptation of the Robert A. Heinlein novel, as opposed to Paul Verhoeven’s viciously satirical 1997 movie. Clearly these are times when vocal anti-fascism, or any strong opinions, are discouraged by corporate types, which include movie studios.
  • In some good news, maybe just maybe audiences will get a chance to see hybrid live-action and animated comedy Coyote vs. Acme after all. Warner Bros. shelved the completed Looney Tunes film as a tax write-off, and though the film was shopped around to other major media companies, like Netflix and Amazon, no deal was reached. Now, though, it looks like indie distributor Ketchup Entertainment will release the film, just as they did The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie earlier this year. Warner Bros. has evidently decided to “depriotise children’s viewing” as, in addition to dumping Sesame Street in recent months, just this past week it removed its entire classic Looney Tunes archive from Max.

Series

Plans are afoot for a Power Rangers series made for the new generation. Percy Jackson and the Olympians showrunners Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz are apparently being courted to revive the high school “morphing” superheroes series that earned a passionate fan following, starting in the 90s.

With Saban having sold the Power Rangers franchise to Hasbro in 2018, it’s the latter calling for the new project, which is being made for Disney+ and 20th Century TV.