It’s the week before Comic Con Cape Town, so please excuse us if we’re a tad quieter on the site content front. Con crunch will do that to you! Still, the pop culture news never stops, and below you’ll find a trio of trailers for upcoming movies of interest, and a few other notable announcements.

Lifestyle

Speaking of Comic Con Cape Town, good news for young aspiring animators.

While there is no dedicated Kids Con section at this year’s event (taking place 30 April to 3 May at the CTICC 2), partner event the Cape Town International Animation Festival, is returning to the show floor with a special animation workshop series for kids aged 12 – 18.

Included with your Comic Con ticket, these workshops explore topics such as building 3D gaming worlds, turning drawings into animations, and how to make comics. Two sessions take place daily from 10h00 to 12h00, and 14h00 to 16h00, in the Experience Hall upstairs, and there are daily screenings as well.

You can register for the free workshops here.

Film

Movie news time.

The last time they made a Street Fighter movie, based on the Capcom fighting game series – and embraced the video game’s colourful, stylised aesthetic – it was pretty terrible. But here we are, with a new all-star Street Fighter on the horizon. It could be cheesy, self-conscious fun or another overstuffed dud when it releases on 16 October.

Anyway, dialling up the story aspect, the film is set in 1993, and sees estranged Street Fighters Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) forced to reconcile their differences when they’re recruited for the next brutal World Warrior Tournament by the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang). Some more notable names in the packed cast include David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Balrog, Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i as Akuma, Eric André as Don Sauvage, and Jason Momoa as the monstrous Blanka.

Like Street Fighter, prequel The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping made the leap from teaser to official trailer this past week. Centring on the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell, this dystopian actioner, like the Suzanne Collins book of the same name, will focus on the Games that doubled its number of Tributes, and included a young Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada) from District 12. Haymitch, if you recall, was played by Woody Harrelson in the Jennifer Lawrence Hunegr Games movies.

The unusually star-packed cast of Sunrise on the Reaping includes Mckenna Grace as another District 12 Tribute, and Glenn Close as their Chaperone; while Jesse Plemons, Elle Fanning, Kieran Culkin, Ralph Fiennes, Maya Hawke and Lili Taylor all play younger versions of characters already featured in the film series. The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping comes to cinemas on 20 November.

Today we learned that Focker-in-Law is actually the fourth film in the Meet the Fockers comedy series (following the panned Little Fockers). Anyway, what makes this instalment stand out is that Ariane Grande joins the cast as a new generation of outsider poised to enter the clan. She plays Olivia Jones, a former FBI hostage negotiator, who is the love interest of Henry Focker (Skyler Gisondo), son of Greg (Ben Stiller) and Pam (Teri Polo). While Olivia easily wins over Henry’s grandfather Jack (Robert De Niro), Greg’s paranoia kicks in.

Focker-in-Law comes to cinemas on 25 November.

Two other movie news tidbits:

Filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller were at CinemaCon to unveil a new look at animated sequel Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, which releases in June next year. Read about the shown footage and check out official images here.

Still on matters of animation, here’s a hit of nostalgia for 90s kids. Remember environmentally conscious adventure FernGully: The Last Rainforest? Well, turns out that movie is getting a live-action remake, 34 years after the original released.