Two notable trailers. Some attention-grabbing casting. And behind-the-scenes shuffling. These stories make up the past week of standout pop culture news. That, and the revelation that Breaking Bad’s RJ Mitte has died aged 34 by suicide. Mitte played Walter White Jr., the son of Bryan Cranston’s main character, over the course of the drama’s five seasons, starting in 2008. Like the character he played, though to a milder extent, Mitte had cerebral palsy.
Film
The first of the week’s standout trailers belongs to Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, written and directed by Oscar-nominated Greta Gerwig (Barbie, Little Women, Lady Bird). Spearheaded by Netflix, this reboot of C.S. Lewis’s The Narnia Chronicles is the first on-screen adaptation of Book 1 (chronologically at least) in the series.
In The Magician’s Nephew, children Digory (David McKenna) and Polly (Beatrice Campbell) are recruited by Digory’s uncle (Daniel Craig) to venture forth into mysterious fantasy realms. In the process they encounter duplicitous Queen Jadis (Sex Education’s Emma Mackey), and ultimately bear witness to the creation of Narnia by Aslan the lion. You can read more about the upcoming film here.
Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew comes to cinemas on 12 February next year.
Still on matters of movie news, Steven Soderbergh has now officially stepped in to finish filming The Batman Part II after production paused due to director Matt Reeves stepping away to deal with a personal family matter.
Soderbergh is reportedly just helping the film to cross the finishing line principal photography-wise, while Reeves continues to be involved in the project.
Drawing a lot of inspiration from comic limited series Batman: The Long Halloween (which is centred on Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face), The Batman Part II is set for a 18 February 2028 cinema release.
Series
Well, this one came out of nowhere. Baywatch is coming back to the small screens, and it looks to be as straight-faced ridiculous as ever. Arrow’s Stephen Amell steps into the role of Hobie Buchannon, who now heads up Baywatch, following in the footsteps of his father, Mitch (David Hasselhoff). Things are going along swimmingly until Charlie (Jessica Belkin) arrives on Hobie’s doorstep, revealing herself to be the daughter he never knew he had – and eager to become a lifeguard too.
Bawatch returns in January on FOX, and Hulu – meaning South Africans should be able to watch it on Disney+.
One notable piece of series news this week:
Season 5 of HBO/HBO Max’s gritty crime anthology series True Detective will pair Nicolas Cage and Antonio Banderas. Production starts next year, with Night Country’s Issa López returning as showrunner. While most other details are under wraps, Season 5 will be set in the marshy region of Jamaica Bay, New York – a polluted estuary in Long Island.