The return of Comic Con Africa this weekend (well, since yesterday) after a three-year pandemic-impacted break, is the biggest local pop culture news of the moment. Don’t forget to plan your visit now that the 2022 programme of events has been revealed.
As CAA is a Johannesburg-only event – Comic Com Cape Town is happening in April next year – let’s do our usual thing for our global readerbase and look at movies, TV and gaming announcements that should be of interest to everyone.
Film
Just two weeks to the release of Hellraiser on 7 October. And now we have our first full trailer for the horror remake, based on the work of Clive Barker. In Hellraiser, a young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites, a group of sadistic supernatural beings from another dimension. They’ll make your wishes come true for a price: feeding the box with unsuspecting victims’ blood. Odessa A’zion and Goran Visnjic are in the cast, with Sense8’s Jamie Clayton playing the androgynous Pinhead. Catch Hellraiser on Hulu and Disney+, depending on your territory.
You never really know with M. Night Shyamalan (Split was such a great return to form, while Old was terrible), but his upcoming thriller Knock at the Cabin looks intense and intriguing. While vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her same-sex parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand that the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. Cut off from the world, can the captors be believed? The cast features Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn and Rupert Grint. Knock at the Cabin releases in cinemas from 3 February.
Coming to Netflix on 5 October is Mr Harrigan’s Phone, a PG-13 horror tale based on the novella of the same name by Stephen King. It’s Jaeden Martel and Donald Sutherland star in this tale of a boy, Craig, and an aging billionaire, John Harrigan, who form a close friendship. But when Mr Harrigan dies, Craig discovers that he can communicate with his friend from the grave via the mobile phone he gave him. The problem is that Mr Harrigan has drastic ways in helping Craig deal with problems in his life. Also with Kirby Howell-Baptiste.
Television
Speaking of Netflix, its global fan event TUDUM is on the horizon again. Like, right on the horizon. Coming up tomorrow, 24 September, are five global events where 100 films and series will be featured. You can check out the full schedule of content here, but know that we’ll be getting updates on the likes of Wednesday, The Witcher, Shadow & Bone, Enola Holmes 2, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio.
Watch the TUDUM showcases on Netflix’s YouTube channel. Following Korean and Indian specific TUDUMs, the global fan events are happening at 7pm (Part 1) and 8:30pm (Part 2) in South Africa.
This one is out right now, having dropped with zero promotion. From the creator of American Crime Story comes Dahmer – Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story, with Evan Peters playing the notorious cannibal serial killer. Dahmer got away with the murder of 17 teen boys and young men for over a decade, largely thanks to systemic failures, before he was finally captured in 1991. Also in the cast of this grim, reportedly tough to watch 10-episode series are Richard Jenkins, Molly Ringwald and Niecy Nash.
Also dark, but with at least a touch of black humour, is upcoming British series The Devil’s Hour. Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine star in this six-episode psychological thriller about a woman who wakes up every night at exactly 3.33am, AKA The Devil’s, or Witching, Hour. When her name is inexplicably connected to a string of brutal murders, she’s drawn into the hunt for a killer who has a strange relationship to time. Executive produced by former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, you can watch The Devil’s Hour on Prime Video from 28 October.
Here’s a little known true crime story. Welcome to Chippendales tells the outrageous tale of Somen “Steve” Banerjee, an Indian immigrant who became the unlikely founder of the world’s greatest male-stripping empire—and let nothing stand in his way. That included hiring a hitman to kill his business partner. Banerjee is played by Kumail Nanjiani. Eight-episode limited series Welcome to Chippendales comes to Hulu and Disney+ on 22 November.
If you were cautiously optimistic about a rebooted Constantine TV series over at HBO Max, well the show – to centre on DC Comics’ cynical exorcist-detective – has become another casualty of the Discovery Warner Bros. merger. Also binned is a Madame X series, although both shows are now being shopped around to find a new home, as they’ve been developed for a long time by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions.
In related, if surprising, news, Constantine is returning to the big screen, with Keanu Reeves set to return to the role 17 years after the original 2005 film. Director Francis Lawrence will be back as well. More on the story here.
Gaming
In more news you probably didn’t expect, EA’s Montreal-based Motive Studio, in collaboration with Marvel Games, is in the very early stages of making an Iron Man game. The title has been announced as “an all-new single-player, third-person, action-adventure.” This will be the first non-VR Iron Man game since Iron Man 2 in 2010, with Iron Man VR released as a PlayStation exclusive in 2020. Read the EA press release here.
Netflix is doubling down on its promise to deliver more mobile games to its subscribers. Back in June, the streamer revealed its plans to bring loads of diverse titles to iOS and Android devices with no ads, no extra fees, and no in-app purchases. In October, that evidently includes the acclaimed indie hit Spiritfarer, a deeply moving experience where you where you play Stella, ferrymaster to the deceased. There’s no exact release date yet for Spiritfarer, but here is what you can look forward to in general.
Finally, if you’ve been curious about the Grand Theft Auto 6 leak saga, IGN has a guide to everything that has happened so far, step by step. The short version is that on September 18, close on 100 in-development game assets, including code, were uploaded to discussion board GTAForums, and quickly spread from there. Rockstar Games was forced to acknowledge the authenticity of the material and their network hack, and now the FBI is involved as the hacker is believed to be affiliated with a group that have infiltrated several corporates, including Uber.