We’re keeping things tight today with the biggest pop culture announcements of the week. We’re also leading with gaming news for a change, as the midyear showcase season kicks into gear.
Gaming
FINALLY! Thanks to this week’s PlayStation State of Play address (which will get its own highlights post on this site), we have a release date for, and fresh look, at Stray, the third-person cat adventure game from developers BlueTwelve Studio and publisher Annapurna Interactive. In Stray, you play as a cat lost in a mysterious, long-forgotten cybercity. A small drone, B12, becomes your companion and helps you find a way out of the murky, neon-lit world populated by robots. Feline platforming and traversal puzzle solving ensues.
Originally set for “Early 2022” release, Stray is now officially out 19 July for PS5, PS4 and PC. Players on the higher tiers of subscription service PlayStation Plus will also be able to play it day one for no additional cost. You can already preorder Stray on Steam for PC for R175 (full price R195).
Arguably the other biggest gaming news of the week – well, in terms of the memes it immediately generated – was the fresh, deeper look at Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, the newest chapters in the Pokémon series, and the first open-world RPGs in the franchise. Announced back in February, Violet and Scarlet feature new Pokémon (plus Legendaries) and professors depending on which version of the game you pick up. The games are coming to Nintendo Switch on 18 November.
P.S. DONTNOD Entertainment, the indie studio responsible for Life is Strange 1 and 2, Tell Me Why and Vampyre, have a new name (well, more of a name tweak) and logo. Plus, six games in the pipeline. More here.
Television
This one crept up on us. The six-episode Ms. Marvel hits Disney+ this coming week, from 8 June, and the character posters have dropped. Unroll the Twitter thread below for a look at all the series players. With episodes releasing weekly, Ms. Marvel tells the story of Avengers fangirl Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old Pakistani-American high school student from Jersey City, who gains the ability to harness and generate constructs out of cosmic energy. We kind of miss her stretchy, polymorph powers from the comics and Avengers game though.
On matters of Marvel, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes to Disney+ on 22 June. That includes small screen debut in South Africa less than 2 months after cinema release.
Another out-of-the-blue reveal: Irma Vep from HBO Max. Alicia Vikander stars in this series remake of the 1996 French film with the same name. Original filmmaker Olivier Assayas is again behind the camera.
Highly meta, Irma Vep revolves around Mira (Vikander), a disillusioned American movie star who comes to France to star as cat burgler Irma Vep in a remake of a classic French crime thriller. With the pressures of being on an intense set, and in a foreign country, the distinction between Mira and her character begin to blur. Eight-episode Irma Vep starts streaming from 6 June, next week.
Two series renewals to get excited about, meanwhile. HBO Max’s queer-leaning pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death, and animated anthology series Star Wars: Visions, have both been approved for a second season. One further note about Visions S2 is that this time the series includes work by studios outside Japan, for a more global creative contribution. Expect episodes from Chile, the United States, France, Japan, Spain, India, Ireland, the UK and, yes, even South Africa.
Film
Ending with movie news, we have the first trailer – following a still reveal back in March – for Robert Zemeckis’s CGI-heavy live-action remake of Disney’s Pinocchio. Tom Hanks plays toymaker-turned-dad Geppetto in this tale of a wooden puppet who comes to life, and embarks on wild adventures in his quest to become a real boy. Pinocchio premieres on Disney+ on 8 September.
For movie entertainment of a more darkly comic and offbeat flavour, there’s upcoming The Menu. A couple (Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) travels to a coastal island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef (Ralph Fiennes) has prepared a lavish menu… with some shocking surprises. Also in the ensemble cast of this horror comedy are John Leguizamo, Judith Light, Janet McTeer, and Hong Chau. The Menu releases in cinemas on 18 November.