Bear with us while we ease back into the new year. To get started, here are the pivotal trailers and pop culture news stories that dropped during the festive season.

That includes the passing of iconic sex symbol Brigitte Bardot at age 91. The French Bardot starred in the directorial debut of filmmaker Roger Vadim (her then husband), the global smash hit And God Created Woman. Bardot enjoyed a 20-year acting career before retiring in 1973 to focus on activism instead. Complicating her legacy, Bardot (AKA B.B.) was a staunch animal anti-cruelty crusader, in addition to being a long-time outspoken supporter of the French Far Right.

Film

On the movie trailer front, it feels like it kind of got lost in the holiday season bustle, but the first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s mythological epic The Odyssey made its appearance online. Shot with new IMAX technology, and featuring an all-star cast, including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, and more, The Odyssey depicts the 20-year struggle of hero Odysseus to return to his home of Ithaca after the Trojan War. In that time, he and his men face gods, monsters, witches and despair. The film comes to cinemas on 17 July.

Disney, meanwhile, is drip-feeding fans character teasers for its next mammoth MCU ensemble – Avengers: Doomsday, which releases almost a full year from now, on 18 December. First up was the return of Chris Evans’s Steve Rogers (AKA Captain America), shown enjoying the quiet domestic life he dreamed of until the conclusion the last Avengers saga, Endgame.

Second up, Chris Hemsworth is back as Thor, with a short scene set after the events of Thor: Love and Thunder.

This week, dropping Tuesday or so, is a fresh teaser featuring the original movie X-Men, as Avengers: Doomsday fully embraces the multiverse.

Finally on the movie front there’s survival thriller Apex. This one is going straight to Netflix on 24 April, but in it Charlize Theron plays an adrenalin junkie who finds herself hunted in the Australian wilderness by Taron Egerton’s sociopathic killer. Something makes us think the role of prey and predator in this deadly game may not be as set as they first appear.

Series

A reprieve! It really got down to the wire, but Warner Bros. Discovery content on South African TV screens will be around for some time still.

Following the mid December story that MultiChoice and Warner Bros. had failed to reach a deal for content distribution rights, it looked like satellite television provider DStv was going to lose 16 channels (including the likes of CNN), in addition to all HBO/HBO Max content on MNET and streaming service Showmax.

However, literally hours before all this content was to vanish, on 31 December, new Multichoice owners Canal+ were able to achieve an agreement after all. Phew.

Still talking Warner Bros. and HBO, it’s been confirmed that Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon will end after four seasons. Season 3 is expected to debut this year with eight episodes in the Northern Hemisphere summer. The final season should be out in 2028.

If you need some Westerosi action before then, though, new spinoff series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – based on George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas – is set to premiere on Sunday, 18 January. No sign of it on the January Showmax schedule though.

Look, Netflix’s raunchy period romance Bridgerton isn’t really our thing, but it is a big deal. Season 4 is on the horizon, with Part 1 premiering later this month, on 29 January, and Part 2 on 26 February. Going the Cinderella route, S4 sees the second-eldest sibling, Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) give up his rake-ish ways when he falls for a masked woman at a ball. In reality, though, she’s spirited serving maid Sophie (Yerin Ha).

Gaming

If one of your most highly anticipated games of 2026 is 007 First Light, you may be slightly disappointed to hear that IO Interactive’s ambitious James Bond actioner has been delayed by two months. Initially set for a 27 March release, the game – which features a 26-year-old Bond just starting out on his espionage career – has shifted back exactly two months to 27 May for “further polish.” The game now occupies by the slot vacated by Grand Theft Auto VI thanks to that title’s most recent delay.

007 First Light comes to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.

Finally, influential game developer Vince Zampella has died aged 55 in a car crash just north of Los Angeles.

Zampella occupied leadership roles while making the likes of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Call of Duty 2 (2005), Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007), and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009), before going on to co-found Respawn Entertainment, the same studio responsible for Titanfall, Apex Legends and the Star Wars Jedi games. With close ties to EA, Zampella’s most recent title was the smash-hit Battlefield 6, considered a return to form for the seesawing franchise.