It’s been a week for big news making way for even bigger news, at least when it came to us curating the top pop culture announcements of the past few days. Here’s what stood out for us.
Television
The world has its fourteenth Doctor. The BBC announced this week that Sex Education star Ncuti Gatwa, who plays Otis’s flamboyant best friend Eric, will replace Jodie Whittaker as the frequently regenerating protagonist of the iconic British sci-fi series. Gatwa will make history as the first black actor to play the Doctor.
Departing along with Whittaker is showrunner Chris Chibnall. He will be superseded by Russell T Davies who spearheaded the original Noughties revival of the Doctor Who franchise (in the days of Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant playing the Doctor). Davies notably also created spin-off series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Expect the next season of the “blue phone box show” on screens at some point in 2023.
With that casting news out the way, it’s now time for some trailer drops.
Following a “we won’t show you anything at all” teaser last month, we finally received the official full trailer for LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS Volume 3. Netflix’s R-rated sci-fi anthology series returns on 20 May, and will consist of nine new shorts, told in an eclectic mix of animation styles.
It’s challenging to keep track of all the non-video game Resident Evil media in existence right now, between live-action movies, and animated adaptations of various lengths. Well, on 14 July, a live-action Resident Evil series also joins the mix.
This Netflix production bounces between 2036 – with the world overrun by the blood-thirsty infected and insane creatures – and 2022, the year it all starts, when a deadly virus escapes from the Umbrella Corporation’s facility in New Raccoon City. The series focuses on the Wesker family, with Jade Wesker fighting for survival in 2036, which she reflects on her father’s involvement in the catastrophe years previously.
It’s short, but the casting looks spot-on in this teaser (which dropped on Free Comic Book Day) for comic adaptation Paper Girls, which is coming to Amazon Prime Video.
Greenlit back in 2020, Paper Girls follows four young girls who, while out delivering papers on the morning after Halloween 1988, become caught up in a conflict between warring factions of time-travelers. As they travel between our present, the past, and the future – our heroines encounter future versions of themselves and must choose to embrace or reject their fate. Paper Girls is described by Image Comics as Stand by Me meets War of the Worlds – with a hefty dollop of Stranger Things we might add.
Comic creators Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang are executive producers on the Amazon series, which has no release date as yet.
Film
We’re limiting the movie news to one story this week, and that’s loooong-awaited sequel Avatar: The Way of Water. IMAX cinemagoers got to watch the trailer first last weekend, as it was attached to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This week that same trailer made its online debut, giving all fans their first proper look at James Cameron’s epic sci-fi adventure.
The Way of Water is the first of four planned sequels to Avatar – the highest grossing film of all time – with Avatar 3 shot back to back with Water. Set over a decade after the events of the first film, the Way of Water focuses on the efforts of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Ney’tiri (Zoe Saldaña) to protect their family and the Na’vi people. These efforts see explore other regions of Pandora.
Avatar: The Way of Water hits cinemas 16 December 2022. You can also find the first character-centred poster here.
Books and Comics
He made it to May. In early December 2021, comic legend George Perez announced that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer, with less than a year to live. The artist-writer passed on Friday, 6 May, one day before this year’s Free Comic Book Day. Perez was 67 years old. You can read more about his accomplishments here, but Perez is notable for his impact on 80s mainstream comics. He co-created DC’s The New Teen Titans; drew the entirety of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was to set the bar on epic crossover events; and successfully reinvented Wonder Woman for modern audiences from 1986.
As a side note, just one week earlier, fellow comic book artist Neal Adams passed away at age 80. Adams had an especial impact on the Batman universe, as he co-created such characters as Ra’s al Ghul, Talia al Ghul and the Man-Bat, along with Green Lantern John Stewart. His artistic style was massively influential, as was his campaign for comic creator intellectual rights, and his work with Dennis O’Neil to make comics reflect real social issues (such as racism and drug addiction) in the early 1970s.
Gaming
We were going to spotlight the Nightwing and Red Hood gameplay demo from Gotham Knights (and the poor reception of this preview).
We were also going to point out the announcements from Nintendo’s latest Indie World Showcase. Even if you don’t have a Switch, many of these titles are on, or coming to, other platforms, and we love the creativity and playfulness of indie developers.
Then, yesterday, news dropped from Bethesda that neither vampire-themed co-operative shooter Redfall, nor space-exploration RPG Starfield, would release this year. This despite Starfield already having a well-publicised release date of 11 November 2022.
The announcement came as a big surprise, but we would always rather wait for something polished, that developers are happy with, than receive a buggy mess. *cough* Cyberpunk, anyone?