It’s a bumper crop of news highlights today as we cram in two weeks of catch up. Here are the biggest announcements that caught our attention. Also, RIP Meat Loaf. Check out the singer-actor’s life in pictures here.
Television
It’s not exactly a new announcement, but Disney+ is finally launching in South Africa during the period June to August this year. South Africa is one of 42 African, European and Middle Eastern countries included in the latest batch of roll-outs for the streaming service. No word on specific launch dates and monthly pricing yet.
Either way, right now we’re probably most excited to watch Marvel Studios’ upcoming Moon Knight series, starring Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke.
The plot synopsis:
The series follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.
We like that it appears different from other MCU series – particularly dark, unhinged and visceral. Moon Knight starts streaming on March 30. Here’s the first full trailer.
Taika Waititi is doing for pirates what he did for vampires (and Nazis to a lesser extent), in Our Flag Means Death. Created by David Jenkins, this period comedy series is loosely based on real-life 18th Century aristocrat-turned-pirate Stede Bonnet. Rhys Darby plays Bonnet, while Waititi is Blackbeard, and Leslie Jones makes recurring appearances. Our Flag Means Death is coming to HBO Max on March 31 (so South Africans should expect its appearance on Showmax after that).
Film
Announced all the way back in 2008, this December (14 years later) we will finally be able to watch Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, a stop-motion animated take on the classic children’s story. The project is coming to Netflix with an all-star cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Finn Wolfhard, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tilda Swinton and Christoph Waltz. Ewan McGregor is Sebastian J. Cricket.
This past week, a teaser dropped for the movie, which promises a darker, more twisted take on the tale. Del Toro’s Pinocchio draws on illustrator Gris Grimly’s designs from the 2002 Tor Books edition of The Adventures of Pinocchio.
We got our first look at Leslie Grace in Batgirl, a movie that marks the first cinematic universe appearance for the DC Comics superhero. Inspired by Gotham City vigilante Batman (Michael Keaton), Barbara Gordon, the daughter of police commissioner James Gordon (JK Simmons), dons a cowl and costume to fight crime. Brendan Fraser plays pyromaniac villain Firefly.
Batgirl is coming to HBO Max at some point in 2022.
In other news, work is under way at Disney on a live-action adaptation of The Aristocats, while, to nobody’s surprise, a sequel is being developed for Mortal Kombat (2021). Oh, and you can now watch the first ten minutes of The Matrix Resurrections online, plus buy the movie digitally through Google Play and Apple iTunes.
Gaming
There’s been no bigger news in gaming recently than Microsoft’s planned acquisition of troubled Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The move brings mammoth gaming franchises like Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, and many more, into the Xbox games stable. More on the deal announcement here.
In response to the news, PlayStation stock shares fell 13%, shedding $20 billion in value, before rebounding.
In other news, the long-awaited LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga finally has a release date. Available now for pre-order (with various pre-order benefits), The Skywalker Saga is set to release on 5 April 2022 for Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.
Still on matters of Star Wars, Respawn, the studio behind Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, is working on three Star Wars games, including a first person shooter set in the universe. More here.
On the indie game side, there’s been a slight delay for A Memoir Blue, the interactive poem from Annapurna Interactive and Cloisters Interactive. After initially being scheduled for a February 10 release, the game will now launch on March 24 for Xbox, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Oh, and as of yesterday, there’s a new pirate class in Ubisoft’s multiplayer action fighter For Honor. Outside of the existing factions, Pirates are the first of the Outlanders, an all-new group of Heroes. Additional Heroes from the Outlanders will join the game during For Honor’s Year 6: Lost Horizons, set to begin March 17.
Books and comics
The good (or bittersweet) news first. Coming September is A Life With Footnotes, an officially sanctioned biography of Terry Pratchett, written by Rob Wilkins, Pratchett’s former assistant and friend. The book will cover the beloved Discworld author’s life from childhood through to his struggles with Alzheimer’s.
Now the bad. Maus, Art Spiegelman’s seminal graphic novel about the Holocaust – which depicts Polish Jews as anthropomorphic mice – has been removed from the eighth grade curriculum in a Tennessee school. The school board voted 10-0 to ban the Pulitzer prize-winning book due to concerns about profanity and nudity. More here.
This isn’t the only recent case of high profile book bannings, for the record.
At the end of last year, Leander Independent School District in Texas banned over 10 books and comic series, including Y: The Last Man, V For Vendetta and The Handmaid’s Tale, for use in high school book clubs and classroom libraries. More here.