Even with the holidays looming, the pop culture news isn’t slowing down. At least not yet. Here are all the reveals, announcements and updates that caught our eye over the last week.
Please note that we’re devoting an entire post to the winners and announcements out of the 2021 Game Awards.
Streaming television
Speaking of the Game Awards, the live-streamed show did include the first trailer for Paramount+’s live-action Halo series, based on the iconic Xbox sci-fi franchise. Set in the 26th Century, Halo stars Pablo Schreiber as towering super soldier Master Chief, a key figure in defending humanity against the alien threat of the Covenant. Natascha McElhone also stars as Dr. Catherine Halsey, a scientist who creates the Spartan super soldier project. Halo starts streaming in early 2022.
As a sidenote, it’s been a good week for Halo, with Halo Infinite, the latest entry in the game series (and the first main title in six years), releasing to strong reviews.
We haven’t even seen Matt Reeves’ The Batman – which is only hitting cinemas in March next year – but a spin-off TV series is already in the works. Colin Farrell will reprise his makeup-heavy, unrecognisable role as The Penguin in an HBO Max series that explores the character’s rise to power in the Gotham underworld. More here.
Meanwhile, like the cult anime that inspired it, Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop will be capped at one season. After not-exactly-dazzling reviews, and a similar lacklustre reception from viewers, the series has been cancelled less than a month after release.
Film
We’re not going to post the latest The Matrix Resurrections trailer to dodge spoilers (it’s here if you must watch). Instead, why not check out the first trailer for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part 1), the sequel to animated smash-hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Across the Spider-Verse swings into cinemas in October 2022, and this is the official plot synopsis:
Miles Morales returns for the next chapter of the Oscar-winning Spider-Verse saga, an epic adventure that will transport Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man across the Multiverse to join forces with Gwen Stacy and a new team of Spider-People to face off with a villain more powerful than anything they have ever encountered.
Speaking of all things Marvel, it’s finally been confirmed that Charlie Cox remains the MCU’s hard-hitting Hell’s Kitchen vigilante Daredevil – and his alter ego, blind defence attorney Matt Murdock. Marvel boss Kevin Feige’s exact words on the topic? “If you were to see Daredevil in upcoming things, Charlie Cox, yes, would be the actor playing Daredevil. Where we see that, how we see that, when we see that, remains to be seen.” Cox played Daredevil in three seasons of Netflix’s Daredevil from 2015 to 2018, as well as the streaming service’s Defenders spin-off. More here.
It’s not just Michael Myers who has been resurrected (again). Like the Halloween franchise, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is being revived as well (again). Hitting Netflix on February 18 is Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which disregards all other films in the series and positions itself as a years-later sequel to the 1974 slasher original.
In the new movie, a young woman from San Francisco, her friends and her wheelchair-bound sister, head to the remote town of Harlow, Texas to start a new business venture. Naturally, they cross paths with deranged serial killer Leatherface, and the sole survivor of his 1973 massacre.
If you were looking forward to Ancient World biopic Cleopatra as another epic collaboration between actress Gal Gadot and her Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, sorry, we have bad news for you. While Jenkins is still producing the project, her commitments to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Wonder Woman 3 mean that she has had to vacate the director’s chair. Canadian filmmaker Kari Skogland, of Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, is Jenkins’s replacement. More here.
Comics
Upsetting news out of the comics world. This week, George Perez announced via Facebook that he has Stage 3 pancreatic cancer, with less than a year to live. The prolific artist and writer is probably best known for his work on Crisis on Infinite Earths – the multiverse event that reshaped DC Comics in the 1980s, and popularized the epic crossover concept. Perez also spearheaded the 1987 mythology-centred reboot of Wonder Woman, a title he oversaw for a now-unheard-of five years. Perez is 67.
