South Africa may be enjoying a string of shorter holiday weeks, but that isn’t the case in the US, where the entertainment news is flowing thick and fast. Here are all the biggest announcements and reveals of the past few days.

Movies

Thanks to CinemaCon, we’ve got a load of movie-related news this week. It’s been confirmed, to no one’s surprise, that The Batman, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Venom and Ghostbusters are all getting sequels. In addition to all that, here are some more highlights:

Warner Bros. has given us a release date and first look at Greta Gerwig’s upcoming action rom-com, Barbie. Releasing in cinemas on July 21, 2023, the all-star Barbie features Margot Robbie as the titular character, who is looking on point with her hot pink convertible. No sign of Ryan Gosling’s Ken yet, unfortunately.

Also upcoming from Warner Bros. is Don’t Worry Darling, a horror/thriller starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles. The trailer hasn’t been revealed to the public yet, but director Olivia Wilde has confirmed a release date for September this year. The brief, unofficial synopsis for Don’t Worry Darling already has our curiosity piqued: A 1950’s housewife living with her husband in a utopian experimental community begins to worry that his glamorous company may be hiding disturbing secrets. Add the star power of Pugh and Styles and you have our attention.

The sequel to the biggest blockbuster of all time (with no staying power or cultural impact), 2009’s Avatar, finally has a confirmed title. Now known as Avatar: The Way of Water, the continuation of Jake and Neytiri’s story is set 10 years after the events of the first film (which was 13 years ago already) and will have its teaser trailer released exclusively in cinemas at screenings of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, from next week Friday, 6 May. More here on James Cameron’s looooong awaited, much hyped sequel, including a vague plot synopsis. The movie releases on 16 December this year.

Unrelated to CinemaCon, Justin Lin announced that he is leaving the Fast and Furious franchise as director, just two weeks into production on Fast X. Having helmed five of the ten Fast films so far, fans are shocked by the news, and Universal have to scramble to find a replacement to take the driver’s seat for their multi-million dollar cash cow. More on the surprising exit here.

A24 are having a very productive year. Alongside the upcoming folk horror Men (out in May) and coming-of-age mockumentary Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (debuting June), A24 will also be releasing Bodies, Bodies, Bodies – a Gen-Z black comedy slasher in August. What, nothing for July? Disappointing.

Also busy right now is stop motion animation studio LAIKA. LAIKA isn’t just working on an adaptation of YA dark fantasy novel Wildwood. This week, they also revealed that they’re in pre-production on The Night Gardener, “a gritty neo-noir folktale centered on a young man in rural Missouri fighting to keep his family together in the wake of a tragedy.” LAIKA head Travis Knight who previously directed Kubo and the Two Strings, is working with an original script from Bill Dubuque, creator of Netflix series Ozark. More here.

Television

Bittersweet news for Dune fans. Filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is too busy with his adaptation of Dune: Part 2 to direct the first episode of HBO Max’s limited prequel series Dune: The Sisterhood. However, Chernobyl miniseries director Johan Renck will helm the first two episodes of the spin-off, which explores the origins of the powerful all-women religious order known as the Bene Gesserit. Diane Ademu-John is The Sisterhood’s showrunner. It’s still clearly early days for the series, which is likely to only arrive in 2023 at the earliest. More here.

The Essex Serpent is ticking a lot of our boxes: the enticing pairing of Claire Danes and Tom Hiddelston; a Victorian England setting with Gothic leanings; and a provocative mix of faith, myth, hysteria and forbidden romance…

Based on the bestseller by British author Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent sees wealthy London widow Cora Seaborne (Danes) move to Essex to investigate reports of a mythical serpent. She forms an unlikely bond with the village vicar (Hiddleston), but when tragedy strikes, locals accuse her of attracting the creature. The Essex Serpent starts streaming on Apple TV+ from 13 May.

Books and Comics

If the slashery works of author RL Stine can experience a nostalgic resurgence, it makes sense that Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley series, which was monstrously popular among adolescent and teen girls in the 80s and 90s (and even resulted in an after-school TV series), should get the same treatment. Sweet Valley Twins is back in graphic novel format from Random House Graphic, with Sweet Valley Twins #1: Best Friends scheduled to release on 1 November this year. The second book in the series, Teacher’s Pet, will be published in 2023.

This comic adaptation, and update, of the first Sweet Valley novel comes from writer Nicole Andelfinger and artist Claudia Aguirre. The book focuses on twins Elizabeth and Jessica from Sweet Valley, California, as they take on the challenges of middle school, and embrace greater independence from one another.

Gaming

At the start of April, PlayStation revealed the name and tier breakdown of its gaming subscription service (to rival Xbox’s Game Pass). Now we know the tier pricing for the all-new PlayStation Plus, which kicks off on 22 June. Depending on your tier choice, you’ll be paying between R119 and R209 a month in South Africa. Forking out for an annual subscription upfront gives you a substantial saving.

As a reminder, top-tier PlayStation Plus Premium, with its game streaming capabilities, won’t be available in South Africa (at least for now) so the market’s highest subscription tier is the substituted, and slightly cheaper, Deluxe. Learn more on the official site.

Definitely something to diarise right now is the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase, which will be screened on multiple online platforms on Sunday, 12 June. The official event descriptor is “This show will feature amazing titles coming from Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, and our partners around the world,” so it’s fair to say fans should look forward to fresh looks at planned 2022 releases Starfield and Redfall, maybe a release date for Hellblade II, and some brand new game announcements.

The showcase starts at 10am Pacific Time, which is 7pm in South Africa.

Finally, we now know what the makers of first person puzzle adventure Call of the Sea have lined up as their next game. Developers Out of the Blue and publisher Raw Fury are releasing American Arcadia, a sort of hybrid between The Truman Show and Logan’s Run.

In 70’s retro-futuristic metropolis Arcadia, citizens enjoy a life of luxury and comfort… unaware that they’re part of the most watched reality show on the planet, and risk death if their popularity rating drops. American Arcadia features the voices of Yuri Lowenthal (Spider-Man 1 & 2, Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, Call of the Sea), Krizia Bajos (Cyberpunk 2077, League of Legends) and Cissy Jones (Firewatch, Life is Strange, Call of the Sea). The game offers players two experiences: a 2.5D action side-scroller including platforming, stealth and puzzles; and a full 3D first-person game, with hacking, exploration, and more puzzles.

Learn more about American Arcadia’s gameplay features and more here.