Happy Friday the 13th! We’re going to jump straight into this week’s standout stories from the various realms of pop culture.

Film

The Hollywood Actors Strike continues. While the Writers Guild of America is back to work, having reached a favourable agreement after five months of downed tools, negotiations between SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) and AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) have broken off this week after a second round of talks.

While studios claim the gap between the wants of both sides is too big to even have a conversation, SAG-AFTRA released a letter to its members (and publicly) about companies’ bullying tactics, misrepresentation and, most disturbingly, “present(ing) an offer that was, shockingly, worth less than they proposed before the strike began.”

The Actors Strike is now three months in.

Our new trailer of the week is professional wrestling biopic The Iron Claw, which is coming to cinemas from 22 December.

Released under the A24 banner, The Iron Claw tells the true story of the Von Erich family, which made history in the sport from the 1960s onwards, but were plagued by tragedy even as they set a pioneering path. The Iron Claw stars Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Maura Tierney, Stanley Simons, Holt McCallany and Lily James. The film is written and directed by Martha Marcy May Marlene, and The Nest’s Sean Durkin.

Speaking of A24, the indie film powerhouse apparently now has ambitions to achieve mainstream success. Along with continuing to invest in arthouse fare, although in lesser quantity, it wants to make more “action and big IP projects” as prestige auteur film prove to be a financial gamble. The Wrap broke the story.

Series

Turns out an attitude of “We can fix it in post” is a terrible idea for Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe on the small screen. The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that after seven episodes were shot, it’s back to the drawing board for Disney+’s Daredevil reboot, which was not meeting expectations. In comparison to the first gritty Netflix Daredevil series, the new show, known as Daredevil: Reborn, was looking more like a legal procedural focused on attorney Matt Murdock out of costume.

Changes behind the scenes on Daredevil will be echoed on future TV projects, with Disney planning to hire showrunners (previously, creative leadership was not a priority); move away from a limited series format to longer multi-season runs; and change up its development process to include show bibles and pilots (instead of, you know, just filming 6 episodes of something straight-up). The Hollywood Reporter article is a wild read, and worth your time… especially if you were wondering why Secret Invasion was such a mess, and Moon Knight so disjointed.

In a similar vein, Netflix’s in-house animation division is about to undergo a dramatic restructure. Two films in pre-production are being put on hold or shopped out (one is sadly a project from Zimbabwe based on Shona mythology), and jobs shed. Netflix is also making a bigger shift to working with outside animation studios and companies that will see their content come to Netflix streaming instead.

Gaming

If you’ve been holding off on getting a PlayStation 5, you might want to wait just a little bit longer. At least if you want to get the console in its new “smaller form.” Launching in the US in November, and coming to other markets thereafter, the new slimmer PS5 has been reduced in volume by more than 30%, and weight by 18% and 24% compared to the previous models. Glitched has a handy visual comparison of this “now and soon” size difference.

In terms of features, the smaller PS5 design comes with 1TB storage for PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition (slightly bumped up from 825GB); and there’s now an option to add an Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Drive to PS5 Digital Edition, which is sold separately.

Once inventory of the current PS5 model has sold out, the new PS5 will become the only model available.

As for pricing you’re looking at:

  • PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive: 499.99 USD | 549.99 EUR | 479.99 GBP | 66,980 JPY
  • PS5 Digital Edition: 449.99 USD |449.99 EUR | 389.99 GBP | 59,980 JPY

A horizontal stand will be included with the new PS5 model. Sneakily, a new Vertical Stand compatible with all PS5 models will be sold separately at 29.99 USD | 29.99 EURO | 24.99 GBP | 3,980 JPY.

South African pricing has yet to be set.

Now here’s an upcoming game that caught our eye thanks to its intriguing original concept. A base-builder with a difference, sci-fi survival-themed The Alters comes from Polish developer and publisher 11 bit studios, the same company behind the likes of Frostpunk and This War of Mine.

In The Alters, you play as simple worker Jan, who finds himself stranded on a desolate planet that is turning towards a massive, radiation-spouting sun. In a desperate race against time, Jan must harness local Rapidium crystals to create multiple versions of himself, called Alters. While each Jan has distinct skill sets that makes them invaluable for maintaining Jan’s base, and completing tasks like cooking, crafting tools for surface exploration, and gathering essential resources, Alters are more than just utility beings.

They are sentient beings with their own emotions, problems, goals, and sometimes, existential doubts about their purpose. Building relationships among the various Jans, who have followed different life paths, will be crucial to their collective survival.

The Alters is coming to PC and current-gen consoles in 2024.