The flipside of the Easter break has been pretty eventful in terms of pop culture announcements, from a long-awaited teaser trailer for an upcoming Marvel movie, to the return of an iconic South African convention. Catch up below.
Film
After long relying on toy lines to get a sense of filmmaker Taika Waititi’s second Thor film – and fourth solo movie outing for Marvel’s Asgardian hero – fans finally got a taste of what to expect from Thor: Love and Thunder this week, with a teaser trailer drop.
In Love and Thunder, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) embarks on a quest for inner peace across the cosmos until he encounters Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods. This forces Thor to team up with King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), old gladiator buddy Korg (Taika Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who now wields magical hammer Mjolnir as the Mighty Thor.
Thor: Love and Thunder hits cinemas on 8 July.
On the opposite end of the entertainment spectrum, there’s arty and disturbing Crimes of the Future, from master of body horror David Cronenberg. Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart star in this near-future tale of a celebrity performance artist who showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde exhibitions. Except a mysterious group wants to use the artist’s notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.
Crimes of the Future will debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival before screening in US cinemas from early June.
Finally, a trio of short movie announcements; one disappointing, the other two surprising.
Fans have a bit longer to wait for the two-part sequel to universally acclaimed animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Part 1 of Across the Spider-Verse has been pushed back to 2 June 2023 after initially being set for release in October this year. Part 2 is due 29 March 2024. More here.
Rumours of a film adaptation of 2021 Game of the Year winner It Takes Two have been circulating for some time. Now we know it’s happening at Amazon, with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson executive producing, and the writing team of Sonic the Hedgehog on board. It Takes Two tells the story of a divorcing couple who are transformed into dolls and must work together to escape their bizarre situation. More here.
Speaking of big burly action men, it looks like Jason Momoa is going to star in Warner Bros’ Minecraft movie. Not sure how a live-action adaptation of the voxel-art sandbox game is going to work, but the director of Napoleon Dynamite is leading the project. More here.
Television
It hasn’t been a good week for Netflix. At all. The streaming service revealed that its growth bubble has finally burst, with a loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. Netflix’s stock value plummeted as a result and the company has been making some drastic moves to revive its fortunes. These include introducing a cheaper subscription option with advertising included; cracking down on password sharing; and slashing away at its animation department. High profile casualties there have already included the long-in-development Bone animated series, based on the beloved comic book, and a cartoon adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Twits.
This talk of animated cuts is ironic because just this week Netflix dropped the teaser trailer for Volume 3 of animated sci-fi anthology series Love, Death & Robots, which is returning 20 May.
Netflix’s fortunes have no doubt been hurt by the explosion of rival streaming services. These include Disney+, which has been rolling out in batches worldwide. Disney+ finally comes to South Africa on 18 May, and has just revealed a special introductory offer: 12 months of Disney+ streaming for the price of 8 months. In monetary terms, that means you’ll pay R950 for a year instead of the standard R1,190 for an annual subscription (or R119 per month).
To claim the launch deal, fans must pre-register their interest before midnight on 17 May 2022, ahead of launch day. Thereafter, from 18 May, those who registered will receive an exclusive offer link. Find out more (including terms and conditions), and register here.
Gaming
The news bizarrely dropped over the holiday weekend, but South Africa’s original gaming, tech and geeky lifestyle event is back! rAge, the Really Awesome Gaming Expo, returns for the first time in physical form since 2019, and will take place from Friday, 9 December – Sunday, 11 December. As the Northgate Dome is no more (boo!), rAge’s new location is the spacious Gallagher Estate in Midrand. Learn more, and get your Phase 1 tickets (R160 for a day pass, R360 for the full weekend) here.
Xbox and Ubisoft have always seemed to have a healthy relationship, and it’s reflecting via subscription service Xbox Game Pass. With Rainbow Six Siege and sci-fi spin-off Rainbow Six Extraction already playable for XGP subscribers at no extra cost, it turns out that they’ll soon be joined by Ancient Egypt-set Assassin’s Creed Origins, and long-running historical melee title For Honor: Marching Fire Edition. Both games have been described as “coming soon” to Game Pass. More here.
Naughty Dog veteran Amy Hennig has another shot at making a Star Wars game in her signature narrative-driven cinematic style. Three years after EA pulled the plug on Hennig’s first Star Wars project at Visceral Games (no doubt in the Uncharted mold), Lucasfilm Games has announced its partnership with Hennig’s own company, Skydance New Media, to make a “richly cinematic action-adventure game featuring an original story.” More here.
Finally, here are two very different sci-fi indies to keep an eye on – both of which made headlines this week.
Based on the hard sci-fi novel of the same name, there’s The Invincible from Polish devs Starward Industries. The Invincible is described as “Firewatch meets Alien Isolation,” and is set in a retro-future timeline where you must find the missing crew of your spaceship on a hostile planet full of secrets. The Invincible is slated for a 2022 release on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
If you love old timey point-and-click adventures, and time travel, there’s Old Skies from developer Dave Gilbert’s Wadjet Eye Games. No release date for this one, but the darkly comic Old Skies is a a time travel adventure spanning two hundred years, with a 90’s animated style. You play as time agent Fia Quinn as she embarks on seven trips through time that take her across 200 years, from the speakeasies of Prohibition to the vicious gangs of the Gilded Age to the World Trade Center on September 10, 2001. Time loops are a big part of the puzzle solving. More on the project here, and you can follow its progress on Steam.
