Again, it’s felt like a relatively quiet week for entertainment news. There hasn’t been much in the way of trailer debuts, but there have been multiple announcements about intriguing upcoming projects. Here’s what caught our eye from the headlines.

Film 

It’s not the first time one of his unhinged characters has brushed up against vampirism (see cult 1989 comedy Vampire’s Kiss), but Nicolas Cage is about to play the most iconic blood drinker of them all. Cage will be Dracula in Universal Pictures’ Renfield, where Nicholas Hoult assumes the role of the title character – the Count’s most loyal acolyte. Chris (The Tomorrow War, The LEGO Batman Movie) McKay directs what is being described as an adventure with comedic leanings. More here.

It’s been in development for 15 years, but we might actually, finally, cross your fingers, be getting Guillermo Del Toro’s take on H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror novella At the Mountains of Madness. Once upon a time, the tale of a disastrous scientific expedition to Antarctica was intended to be a massive 3D blockbuster starring Tom Cruise. The resurrection of the project is all part of Del Toro’s multi-year deal with Netflix, which was struck in 2020. More here on the history of the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s passion project.

Meanwhile, a certain masked vigilante is moving from the Wild Wild West to the World Wide Web. Zorro 2.0 will reimagine the classic pulp character as a present-day undocumented immigrant and hacker. The plot of Zorro 2.0? “While fighting back against a secret government unit that attacked his mother, Oscar de la Vega discovers a high-tech conspiracy that threatens not only his family but the world.” More on the project here.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is currently setting advance ticket sale records, so it’s not really surprising that Sony, with Marvel Studios, want to keep this particular profitable spidey wrapped up in their web. Producer Amy Pascal has revealed plans for a whole other Spider-Man trilogy tapped into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Tom Holland still in the title role. More here.

Streaming Television

Fan outrage has brought about change. Well, kind of. Viewers outside North America won’t have to wait until 2022 to watch Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery after all. Of course, the African continent is excluded, but most other markets can stream the sci-fi series now via Paramount+ and Pluto TV Europe. This was announced in a letter to fans from CBS, which you can read here.

The controversy kicked off when Star Trek: Discovery was yanked from international Netflix two days before Season 4’s release. Instead, Discovery was made exclusive to fledgling streaming service Paramount+, which has only launched in a few countries. Viewers outside the Americas were instantly shut out.

Jack Reacher fans can rejoice. After Tom Cruise’s pocket-size version of the character appeared in two movies, a more faithful depiction of Lee Child’s military-police-investigator-turned-drifter is coming to the small screen. Here’s the first trailer for Amazon’s Reacher, starring the suitably giant Alan Ritchson as the hard-hitting, anti-authority hero. The series starts streaming February 4.

Gaming

You know we’re fans of indie games publisher Annapurna Interactive. Anything released under their banner is almost always guaranteed to be innovative, eye searingingly stylish, thought provoking or any combination of the above.

So it seems like a good idea to spotlight 3D action platformer Solar Ash, which released yesterday (December 2) for PlayStation, and on the Epic Games Store.

Solar Ash, from developers Heart Machine – the creators of award-winning Hyper Light Drifter – sends players on a journey through a surreal, highly stylized world filled with mystery, wild high-speed traversal, endearing characters, and enormous enemy encounters. Sounding somewhat Silver Surfer-ish, you play as Rei, a Voidrunner who explores dangerous biomes in an effort to save her planet from the Ultravoid’s path of eternal hunger.