CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS II confirmed to be in production

CD Projekt Red, anime studio Trigger and Netflix have all confirmed they are working on a project called Cyberpunk Edgerunners II. This will be a sequel to their hit 2022 anime set in the same world as the video game Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) and the Cyberpunk tabletop roleplaying game franchise created by Mike Pondsmith in 1988.

The sequel series will again be 10 episodes in length. It will be directed by Kai Ikarashi, who worked on the first series, with writer/producer Bartosz Sztybor also returning. The creative team have confirmed this will be a new story in Night City, and there will be no retconning of the original series' ending, with the characters who died in that story staying dead in this new series. There was no confirmation if any of the surviving characters will be returning (some of them have already reappeared courtesy of a special mission added to Cyberpunk 2077 in later updates).

The new series is still early in production, with no confirmed release date as yet.

CD Projekt Red are also working on a sequel to the video game, with the working title Cyberpunk II. R. Talsorian Games are continuing to release new material for the tabletop roleplaying game, with The Edgerunner's Guide to Night City slated for release later this year.

Netflix and Wizards of the Coast put FORGOTTEN REALMS live-action show into development

Netflix and Wizards of the Coast have joined forces to put a Dungeons & Dragons TV project into development, tentatively called The Forgotten Realms. The show will be set in the D&D game's most popular world, the recent setting for hit video game Baldur's Gate III and the well-received movie Honor Among Thieves.

Shawn Levy, the producer of Stranger Things and director of movies including Date Night, Night at the Museum and Deadpool & Wolverine, will executive produce the show via his existing deal with Netflix, and will likely direct several episodes. Drew Crevello will write and showrun. Crevello previously worked at Fox on the X-Men franchise and the first two Deadpool movies, and co-wrote and produced the mini-series WeCrashed.

There have been multiple attempts to get a Dungeons & Dragons multimedia franchise off the ground in recent years. Baldur's Gate III has been the biggest success, selling over 20 million copies since its August 2023 release and becoming one of the highest-rated video games of the last decade, if not more (PC Gamer US gave the game its highest rating in over twenty years). Honor Among Thieves landed with impressive critical scores and rave audience reviews, but moderate box office; the film failed to recoup its costs at the box office, but a long tail on physical media and streaming has helped in the longer term. At various times, Hasbro and Wizards have looked at developing projects in both the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance worlds. Paramount+ was the logical destination for the project after the studio's collaboration on Honor Among Thieves, but the service's increasingly shaky performance led Hasbro to reconsider and start putting out feelers with Netflix.

Discussions with Netflix have been underway for some time, and at one point it was rumoured they were considering an adaptation of the Baldur's Gate video game trilogy. However, that idea seems to have cooled. The current proposal seems to be for an original story following new characters, with the door left open for popular franchise characters from the roleplaying source material, video games and novels to make an appearance.

The Forgotten Realms world was created by Canadian writer Ed Greenwood in the late 1960s as a setting for his own stories (the city of Baldur's Gate first appeared in a tale written to amuse his father in 1967). In 1978 he started playing Dungeons & Dragons and adapted the world for his home campaign. He started contributing articles to Dragon Magazine and quickly started referencing the world, its heroes, villains and iconic locations. In 1986 TSR decided to adopt a new "standard" fantasy setting to replace Greyhawk and Dragonlance, and agreed to purchase the Forgotten Realms from Greenwood.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting appeared in print for the first time as a boxed set in 1987. New editions of the campaign setting core product appeared in 1993, 2001, 2008 and 2015, with two new campaign books planned for later this year. More than 250 other sourcebooks, adventures, board games, boxed sets and gaming materials have also been released. Forgotten Realms is notable as the only D&D campaign setting to remain continuously in print since its first launch, and to have new products for it launched almost every year since its first release.

A range of novels simultaneously launched, with R.A. Salvatore's The Crystal Shard (1988) rapidly attracting huge sales for his iconic hero, the renegade dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden. More than 35 million Drizzt books have since been sold, and the Forgotten Realms novel line has reportedly sold almost 100 million copies. Greenwood himself became a bestselling author with his novels about the iconic wizard Elminster the Sage, with other bestselling authors in the setting including Troy Denning, Doug Niles, Jeff Grubb & Kate Novak, Paul Kemp, James Lowder, Elaine Cunningham and Erin Evans.

The first Forgotten Realms video games were released in 1988 from Strategic Simulations Inc., and were followed by a large number of successful titles. The most notable early success was the Eye of the Beholder trilogy from Westwood Games. In 1998 the Canadian company BioWare teamed up with Black Isle and Interplay to release Baldur's Gate. The game was an immediate smash hit, and was followed by Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn in 2000 and Neverwinter Nights in 2002. Black Isle themselves developed Icewind Dale (2000) and Icewind Dale II (2002), also set in the Realms and using the same engine as Baldur's Gate. After Interplay's collapse, Obsidian Entertainment (made up of Black Isle veterans) released Neverwinter Nights II in 2006. The online roleplaying game Neverwinter was released in 2013, followed by Sword Coast Legends in 2015. Baldur's Gate III, developed by Larian Studios and released in August 2023, is easily the biggest and most successful video game in the setting to date.

This new project is only in development for the time being, with a pilot written. It remains to be seen if Netflix chooses to move forward with a series order.

Netflix's THE SANDMAN to end with Season 2

Netflix has confirmed what has been strongly rumoured for a good two years now, that the upcoming second season of The Sandman will the final one.

Despite early reports that Netflix were eyeing three to four seasons for the show, the first season's just-good-enough performance (which saw an unusually long delay before the second season was commissioned) and the impending problem that main character Dream plays a smaller role in many of the storylines in the middle and latter part of the graphic novel series, barely appearing in some issues, saw Netflix move to make the second season the final one. The series will continue to adapt the primary story arc of the comics, but in an abridged format, with some of the middle-series storylines and episodes likely to fall by the wayside.

Extremely fortuitously for Netflix, they made this decision before filming and a long time before accusations of sexual misconduct were made against Sandman creator/author Neil Gaiman by eight women. These accusations, which Gaiman has strenuously denied, has seen both publishers and another production company, Amazon Studios, cutting ties with the author.

Netflix has not yet confirmed a broadcast date for Season 2 of The Sandman beyond "2025."

Franchise Familiariser: Cyberpunk 2077 / Red / Edgerunners (2024 update)

Back in December 2020, CD Projekt Red released Cyberpunk 2077. The game allowed players to create a character of their own design and then live a life of crime in the late 21st Century metropolis of Night City, California. After an infamously rocky launch, the game was rescued through updates and a well-received expansion, and has since expanded to include a spin-off TV show, graphic novels, art books and board games.

But did you know that the game and its attendant merchandise is merely the latest part of a franchise which is more than thirty-five years old? If you don’t know your rockerboys from your Arasaka corporate suits from your netrunners, a franchise familiariser may be helpful.

Note: this is an update of an article previously published in 2020.

The Basics

Cyberpunk is a science fiction franchise created by writer and games designer Mike Pondsmith, originally published by his company, R. Talsorian Games, in 1988. Pondsmith named the game after the science fiction subgenre of the same name, which in turn was named after a 1983 short story written by Bruce Bethke. This story was actually published somewhat late in the development of the genre, as several previous works had been important in establishing it, particularly Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and John Brunner’s 1975 book The Shockwave Rider, as well as the 1982 movie Blade Runner, loosely based on Dick’s novel.

Pondsmith and his fellow designers have cited Walter Jon Williams’ 1986 novel Hardwired as being extremely influential on the design of the game, along with Dick and Blade Runner (William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer, often arguably cited as cyberpunk’s codifying moment, was not read until later in the game’s development).

To make it clearer that the reader is not speaking about the short story or genre, it’s common for fans to refer to Cyberpunk by one of its edition subtitles: Cyberpunk 2013, Cyberpunk 2020, Cyberpunk v3.0 or Cyberpunk Red.

Each of the four editions of the game is set in a different decade and reflects the passage of time in the Cyberpunk universe. The original Cyberpunk (1988), now almost always referred to as Cyberpunk 2013, is set in that year and depicts a near-future dystopia where corporations have become as powerful as governments and fight one another for supremacy and where takeovers are more literally hostile than you might expect. The game is predominantly set in Night City, a custom-designed and built metropolis on the coast of Morro Bay, California, roughly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and sees players taking on roles such as mercenaries, corporate players, police officers and netrunners, as hackers are known in this world.

Cyberpunk 2020 is the second and most popular and well-known iteration of the game, to the point that “Cyberpunk 2020” is often used to refer to the entire franchise. It was originally published in 1990 and remained continuously in print for fifteen years, accumulating a vast array of supporting supplements and adventures. The game’s rule system, Interlock, was highly praised for being customisable and allowing players to much finely adjust their character’s development through skills rather than being tied into much broader levels (the approach favoured by the medium’s heavyweight game, Dungeons and Dragons, for which Pondsmith had worked on some sourcebooks). The setting was also praised for its attitude and punk ethos.

After experimenting with a spin-off project revolving around young characters who get superhero-like powers from technology, CyberGeneration, the game returned properly in 2005 with Cyberpunk v3.0. The game switched to the Fuzion system, advanced the timeline to the mid-2030s and also adopted a transhuman approach, with much more sophisticated SF ideas such as humans downloading their consciousness into robotic bodies and thus becoming immortal. The setting also dropped some of the aesthetics of the original setting, Pondsmith reasoning that fashion and styles would move on. However, despite some praise for trying to move past cyberpunk clichés and explore more advanced ideas, the game had some negative feedback for exactly the same reason, as well as the change in rules.

Cyberpunk Red (2020) tacitly omits v3.0 from the canon and instead serves as a direct sequel to Cyberpunk 2020, with the timeline now advanced to the 2040s but the old cyberpunk styles and ideas are still very much around. The newest edition of the game also acts as a prequel to Cyberpunk 2077 (the tabletop game and the video game developed in tandem), with Pondsmith confirming that a Cyberpunk 2077 sourcebook updating the Cyberpunk Red timeline and rules to 2077 will follow.

As well as the tabletop roleplaying game and the video game, the franchise consists of tie-in novels and graphic novels, several board games, the first edition of the popular Netrunner collectible card game and the Cyberpunk: Arasaka Plot mobile game.

In September 2022, CD Projekt Red collaborated with Mike Pondsmith, Netflix and the Japanese animation studio Trigger to release Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, a 10-episode animated TV series set about a year before the game. The show received critical acclaim, and was credited with spurring fresh interest in both the video game and tabletop roleplaying game. The former was updated with a tie-in mission exploring the fate of some of the characters from the show, whilst the latter received a new introductory boxed set based on the TV series. In December 2023, the franchise received a further boost in popularity due to the release of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, a sizeable expansion to the video game.

Future projects are in development. A second Cyberpunk animated show is in the planning stages, whilst a live-action television series has also been proposed. A full sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, codenamed Project Orion, is also in development. The Cyberpunk Red tabletop roleplaying game is also expanding, with a new setting based in the 2077 time period of the video game expected to launch in 2025, alongside the Night City sourcebook.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER renewed for two more seasons at Netflix

Netflix has renewed its live-action take on Avatar: The Last Airbender for two more seasons, which will also conclude the story. With each season mirroring that of the original animated series (2005-08), which also only lasted for three seasons, that's hardly surprising.

Avatar: The Last Airbender dropped two weeks ago on Netflix to a mixed reception from fans and critics. However, casual viewers seemed much happier, with the show jumping to the top of Netflix's "most-watched" list. The show has also maintained a healthy viewership for a second week, comparable to earlier animation-to-live-action hit One Piece.

The renewal will allow the team to complete the story in full, which is sure to be a great relief for viewers frustrated by Netflix constantly cancelling shows before their time.

Although the original series concluded after three seasons, spin-off show The Legend of Korra, set seventy years later, lasted for four seasons (2012-14) and could provide material for a similar adaptation. There are also substantial numbers of Avatar spin-off comics and novels, and the original creators are producing an original animated movie for release in 2025 featuring the original characters as adults.

Netflix releases trailer and release date for AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

Netflix have unveiled the trailer and release date for their live-action take on the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The original animated show ran for three seasons from 2005 to 2008 and won significant critical acclaim, which has only increased over the years through reruns and re-releases. It spawned a spin-off show, The Legend of Korra, which ran for four seasons from 2012 to 2014.

The main cast includes Gordon Cormier as Aang, Dallas Liu as Prince Zuko, Kiawentiio as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as General Iroh, Elizabeth Yu as Princess Azula, Daniel Dae Kim as Fire Lord Azula. Recurring castmembers include Ken Leung as Commander Zhao, Maria Zhang as Suki, Lim Kay Siu as Gyatso, Amber Midthunder as Princess Yue, Yvonne Chapman as Avatar Kiroshi, C.S. Lee as Avatar Roku, Danny Pudi as the Mechanist, Utkarsh Ambudkar as King Bumi, James Sie as the Cabbage Merchant, Arden Cho as June the Bounty Hunter, Momona Tamada as Ty Lee, Thalia Tran as Mai, Meegwun Fairbrother as Avatar Kuruk, Hiro Kanagawa as Fire Lord Sozin, George Takei as Koh the Face-Stealer and Sebastian Amoruso as Jet.

The first season consists of eight episodes. Original Avatar creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are listed as the writers of the first episode and the co-writers of the sixth episode, despite parting ways with the project early in development. DiMartino and Konietzko are developing new Avatar animated projects with Nickelodeon, including a new animated sequel movie to the original series.

Avatar: The Last Airbender arrives on Netflix on 22 February.

Marvel finally, officially canonises the Netflix Marvel-verse

After many years of speculation, Marvel has updated their websites and Disney+ pages to confirm that the six television series which aired on Netflix from 2015 to 2019 are now officially counted as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

As originally spotted by CanWeGetSomeToast here.

The six TV series have been unofficially called the "Netflix Marvel-verse" or some other derivative, due to Marvel's prior reluctance to rule on their canonical status. The shows aired as part of a deal between Marvel Studios, ABC and Netflix, but which did not include MCU guiding light Kevin Feige as part of the decision-making process. The line of shows did not stick around for very long - just four years - but produced a stunning amount of content in that time: 161 episodes airing across 13 seasons in six distinct shows. Although each season stood alone, there were some shared characters and motifs which culminated in the event mini-series Defenders, which saw Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist join forces against a mutual threat. The Punisher, which had not been originally planned, spun out of the character's well-received guest role in the second season of Daredevil.

With Disney planning to launch its own rival streaming service to Netflix in the shape of Disney+, the deal was cancelled in 2019. The contract required Disney to wait two years before developing their own versions of those characters, but when the time came they intriguingly used the same actors. Vincent D'Onofrio reprised his role as Kingpin in Hawkeye, whilst Charlie Cox reprised his role as Daredevil in the film Spider-Man: No Way Home and then the Disney+ series She-Hulk and Echo. D'Onofrio, Cox and John Bernthal as the Punisher will all reappear in Daredevil: Born Again, currently in production.

Despite this, some believed that these actors were nonetheless playing "new" versions of the characters, not necessarily the same ones we saw on Netflix. Fortunately, it appears that Marvel finally realised that was too weird and confusing. By officially canonising the shows and moving them into a more prominent slot on Disney+, they may also be hoping to pick up some fresh views. This also possibly opens the door to Krysten Ritter reprising her role as Jessica Jones, as well as Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, Finn Jones as Danny Rand (I mean, if you really want to), Mike Colter as Luke Cage and Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing.

The other pre-Disney+ Marvel TV shows which aired on ABC are still not listed in the official timeline, including Agents of SHIELD, Runaways and Inhumans (in the last case, that may be for the best). Their fans may hold out some hope that they may yet be reunited with the main timeline.

The Netflix Marvel-verse in Release Order

1. Daredevil: Season 1 (2015)
2. Jessica Jones: Season 1 (2015)
3. Daredevil: Season 2 (2016)
4. Luke Cage: Season 1 (2016)
5. Iron Fist: Season 1 (2017)
6. The Defenders (2017)
7. The Punisher: Season 1 (2017)
8. Jessica Jones: Season 2 (2018)
9. Luke Cage: Season 2 (2018)
10. Iron Fist: Season 2 (2018)
11. Daredevil: Season 3 (2018)
12. The Punisher: Season 2 (2019)
13. Jessica Jones: Season 3 (2019)

One Piece: Season 1

Monkey D. Luffy is pursuing his dream: of one day finding the One Piece, the mightiest treasure in all the world, and declaring himself King of the Pirates. There is a slight problem with this goal: he has no ship, no crew, no reputation and very limited pirating skills. What he does have is the ability to stretch his body, thanks to the magical effects of the Gum-Gum Fruit he ill-advisedly ate as a boy. When Luffy meets skilled thief and navigator Nami, and the pirate-hunter Roronoa Zoro, who wants to become the greatest swordsman in history, he is finally able to set about achieving his ambition.

One Piece is a live action Netflix adaptation of the biggest-selling manga of all time. Eiichiro Oda's original comic series has shifted over half a billion copies, meaning it is bearing down on the Harry Potter series' position as the biggest-selling fantasy work of all time with a vengeance. The comic has accumulated over a thousand issues in its quarter-century of publication and is still not finished, although Oda has confirmed that it has entered its final story arc.

This TV show has to overcome several significant problems: the lack of good manga/anime-to-live action adaptations; the enormous amount of material to adapt; and the source material's incredibly unique tone, which makes adapting it an almost ludicrous prospect.

Fortunately, the original creator is on board to help out. Oda acted as a consultant and producer on the show, approved (and even revised) scripts, and approved casting. The same studio that made the Cowboy Bebop adaptation (which I broadly enjoyed, but had some issues with) was behind this, but listening to fan criticisms about divergences from the source material, they decided to both be more faithful to that material and have the original creator more closely involved.

The result, rather easily, is the best manga-to-live action show we've seen yet. The show matches the original's zany energy and is able to deliver its tricky tonal shifts from comedy to action to something darker to the screen successfully. Iñaki Godoy has the tough job of playing Monkey D. Luffy but nails the role, portraying Monkey's optimism and ambition but also his sense of friendship and his rare bursts of anger when confronted by evil and oppression. Emily Rudd's Nami is an excellent co-lead, an unreliable ally with her own agenda (driven by past trauma) but who does appreciate her friends and allies. Rounding out the central trio is Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro. This is probably the most "stock anime" character in the show, the young swordsman with a taciturn attitude, a love of alcohol and the ambition to become the greatest warrior in the world, but also a strong sense of honour and fair play which is sometimes out of keeping with his cynicism. Mackenyu's deadpan live delivery and impressive action skills make him one of the most impressive members of the cast.

Two other key members of Monkey's crew also join the proceedings mid-season, with Jacob Romero Gibson playing Usopp, and Taz Skylar playing Sanji. Both are solid, although Usopp is perhaps a little let down by the writing (it's hard to sympathise with a grown-ass man constantly crying wolf about pirate attacks only to be let down by his friends when a real one takes place) and Sanji by joining the fray relatively late in the day. Hopefully both are developed better in Season 2.

The show also develops an extensive cast of additional allies, enemies and characters-of-uncertain allegiance. The season may be only eight episodes long, but they cover the same ground as the first forty-five episodes of the anime, and the first ninety-five issues of the manga. That means a fair bit of compression, but it also keeps the story moving at quite a crack, with little filler or downtime. Each episode (or two-episode sub-arc) builds on the last whilst also telling its own story, creating a somewhat old-fashioned mix of serialised subplots and stand-alone main plots. Each episode therefore needs to be structured more like a feature film than a TV episode, introducing and resolving storylines, introducing new characters and villains, establishing credible motivations and make it all entertaining.

It's certainly helped by the outrageous budget: a lot of recent genre TV has been blighted by horrible, plastic-looking CGI and rushed effects work. There's a couple of moments in One Piece that could be tightened up (including a very awkward CGI kick for Sanji in the season finale, although it's also quite funny) but overall the effects work is incredibly good, adding to the feeling of each episode being its own miniature epic of a storyline.

There are downsides to the series. The enormous number of names, magical concepts, locations and ideas being fired at the viewer can be hard to keep up with, but you don't necessarily want to tap any of the wikis or guides to the franchise for fear of spoilers. The geography could be perhaps a bit better depicted (the show has a fabulous map in its end credits, but sadly this does not appear to be available separately). Morgan Davies' portrayal of Koby is perhaps a tad too intense given the tone of the rest of the show. Several important characters very abruptly disappear from the story (like the axe-hand guy), although with our heroes travelling hundreds of miles from location to location by ship, that at least is realistic. Maybe each episode is so jammed full that it's not actually the best show for bingeing: I had to take breaks between episodes. One Piece is a veritable banquet of story: richly enjoyable, but it can also be filling..

Most of these are less than quibbles. The first season of One Piece (****½) is energetic, well-acted, impressively-written and flips between comedy, drama and pathos with assurance. The production values are outrageous, and the actors all seem to get the assignment, no matter how daft their costumes or dubious their hairstyles. I suspect the anime and manga are about to get a whole ton of new fans as well, and hopefully Netflix can find a way of delivering the already-confirmed second season in a reasonable timeframe. One Piece is available to watch globally on Netflix right now.

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Netflix offers a first look at its take on AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER, coming in 2024

Netflix have offered the first look at its upcoming live-action take on the classic Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Gordon Cormier plays Aang, a young member of the Air Nomads who discovered he was the reincarnation of the Avatar, a powerful "bender" or manipulator of the four elements. The Avatar is the only person who can wield all four of the elements. Frozen in ice for a century, Aang's return coincides with the machinations of the evil Fire Lord (Daniel Dae Kim), who sets out to conquer the world with his armies.

Kiawentiio plays Katara, a young member of the Southern Water Tribe and a skilled waterbender and healer.

Ian Osuley plays Sokka, Katara's older brother. He lacks any bending powers but aspires to be a great and skilled warrior. His sense of humour and constant quipping leads to him being underestimated by opponents.

Dallas Liu plays Prince Zuko, the young son of the Fire Lord. His father was unimpressed with his timidity as a youth and has sent him out into the world to learn military skills and discipline. Zuko realises that capturing the Avatar and bringing him to his father would allow him to regain his honour, and sets about that task with zeal. Zuko is given guidance and advice by his tea-loving uncle, Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee).

The show also stars Ken Leung as Commander Zhao, Maria Zhang as Suki, Elizabeth Yu as Princess Azula, Lim Kay Siu as Gyatso, Amber Midthunder as Princess Yue, Yvonne Chapman as Avatar Kyoshi, C.S. Lee as Avatar Roku, Danny Pudi as The Mechanist, Utkarsh Ambudkar as King Bumi, James Sie as the Cabbage Merchant, Momona Tamada as Ty Lee, Thalia Tran as Mai, Meegwun Fairbrother as Avatar Kuruk, Sebastian Amoruso as Jet, Hiro Kanagawa as Fire Lord Sozin and George Takei as Koh the Face Stealer.

Netflix also released a short clip, although it wasn't very informative:

The show filmed from November 2021 to June 2022. Netflix has indicated that the show will not air until early 2024, a significant delay that raises questions about how long it will take to air further seasons, given the young ages of the primary castmembers.

Meanwhile, the original creators are working with Nickelodeon on new Avatar: The Last Airbender material, with an animated sequel movie to the original TV series due for release in 2025 and several additional projects in development.

Shadow and Bone: Season 2

Ravka has descended into civil war as a result of the Darkling's attempt to seize power. Both the Darkling and Sun Summoner are feared dead, but they both re-emerge to form new alliances and raise new armies. Meanwhile, the criminal gang known as the Crows return home to Ketterdam to find some major changes have taken place in their absences, changes they cannot abide.

Shadow and Bone is an adaptation of the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, drawing on other books set in the same universe to add more details and more characters, and enlarge the scope of the story. The first season, released in 2021, was enjoyable and competent, gaining strength from its solid cast and, perhaps, the fact that many other fantasy TV shows that had hit the ground in the preceding few years had been quite weak.

The second season picks up where the first dropped off and immediately makes some bold choices. The most obvious is that whilst the first season only adapted Shadow and Bone by itself, with some additions from the novel Six of Crows, the second season adapts the latter two Grisha Trilogy novels, Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising. This immediately results in a faster-paced, punchier season with major events happening at a more frequent clip. Netflix also continue to tell the story of the Six of Crows characters, setting up their "big heist" story from that novel (although the heist itself sounds like it might be its own spin-off series, not part of a future third season for Shadow and Bone itself).

The show's trump card remains its cast, a mix of steely experience (Zoë Wanamaker has an expanded role this season, Ben Barnes gives great scene-chewing villainy) and younger up-and-comers. It's hard to fault any of the cast for their work this season, although perhaps turning Barnes into an outright villain does waste some of the nuance he brought to the role in the first season, when his character's motivations were more ambiguous. There's also a number of solid newcomers, with Jack Wolfe and Patrick Gibson doing solid work and Lewis Tan and Anna Leong Brophy adding some serious action chops. Amongst the established hands, Jessie Mei Li continues to be a good lead and Danielle Galligan arguably emerges as the MVP of the season with her dry, comedic observations on what's going on at any moment.

There's some excellent action setpieces, and a number of intersecting storylines. The quickened pace keep things moving along nicely. Occasionally this rapid pace and busy story means that motivations and travel times are neglected, and the way the Crows characters are drawn back into the "main" story cannot help but feel contrived. The world also feels extremely small, with characters flitting from one side of it to the other in less time than a between-episode break. The tone also distinctly remains YA-ish, with a strong focus on character romances but dialled-back on sex; the occasional, if fleeting, graphic violence of the first season occasionally returns, though.

To give a lazy review, if you enjoyed the first season of Shadow and Bone, you'll enjoy the second, whilst I doubt this season will do much to change the mind of anyone who wasn't keen on it. It is a stronger season, helped by the storyline only having two elements to it (Alina and her battle against the Darkling versus the Crows doing their thing) that intersect, rather than the three that had relatively little to do with one another in the first season. It also feels more confident, one wonders if because the fantasy shows that have emerged since the first season have largely been something of a letdown.

Shadow and Bone's second season (****) perhaps remains a little lightweight (not necessarily a bad thing, not everything needs to be wrought and grim), but its humor, strong cast, better pacing and more epic battles result in an improvement over its debut season. The show is available now worldwide on Netflix.

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Netflix releases trailer for DRAGON AGE: ABSOLUTION

Netflix has released a trailer for its animated series, Dragon Age: Absolution, and confirmed it will launch on 9 December 2022. The show is a tie-in with BioWare's Dragon Age series of fantasy CRPGs, the fourth of which is expected to be launched in 2023.

Mairghread Scott is producing and writing the show, which will consist of six 30-minute episodes. The show is set in the Tevinter Imperium, which is also the setting for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the new game in the series. To what degree the TV show ties in with the game or sets it up remains to be seen.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is apparently now feature-complete and has passed its alpha milestone, so hopefully it will launch in 2023 (or early 2024). BioWare has also begun teasing its new Mass Effect game a bit more, although that is still a few years off. BioWare has a steep hill to climb to restore player confidence after years of mismanagement and underwhelming game releases, so hopefully the two new games in its signature franchises will deliver.

SANDMAN renewed for a second season at Netflix

It's been a wait, but Netflix have renewed The Sandman for a second season.

Netflix released the first season of the show on 5 August, immediately garnering very strong reviews and solid streaming numbers. The streamer took the unusual step of releasing a bonus extra episode two weeks later.

Despite the rare mix of both critical and commercial success, Netflix have taken an unusually long time to renew the show, something attributed to the first season's budget of upwards of $15 million per episode. Although Netflix is no stranger to spending big on a show, they normally prefer to start lower and gradually increase the budget over time, such as Stranger Things' gradually building budget from $7 million per episode in its debut season to over $20 million per episode in the fourth, with some episodes reportedly hitting $30 million. Sandman was a bigger up-front investment and the streaming numbers were very healthy, but perhaps not a slam-dunk on cost. However, Netflix were in danger of acquiring a reputation as the company that always cancels even good shows prematurely, and word-of-mouth on Sandman was so strong that the streamer likely feels a second season should boost the whole show's numbers positively.

The first season adapted the first two graphic novels in the Sandman series (of ten in total, at least in the main series), Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll's House, as well as two of the stories in the third graphic novel, Dream Country. The second season will, presumably, complete Dream Country and adapt the fourth and fifth graphic novels, Season of Mists and A Game of You, bringing the story to its halfway point and allowing them to adapt the entire series in four seasons (a more enticing proposition than the 5-7 season plans being mooted by other streamers for their big fantasy projects).

The Sandman Season 2 will likely shoot in 2023 for release in 2024.

THE WITCHER renewed for a fourth season, but without Henry Cavill

In startling news, Henry Cavill has confirmed he is moving on from the role of Geralt of Rivia. He has played the role in two seasons of Netflix's The Witcher, and recently completed filming for the third season, due to air in the summer of 2023. However, he will not be back for the newly-confirmed fourth season. Instead, his role will be taken by Liam Hemsworth.

Cavill has played the role of Geralt since the first season of The Witcher aired in 2019. He is a noted huge fan of the character from Andrzej Sapkowski's novel series and the CD Projekt Red video game series. Cavill has since waxed lyrical about his love of science fiction and fantasy fiction and his addiction to PC gaming.

The critical reception to The Witcher has been mixed, but nobody can doubt Cavill's capability in the role, and he has been highly praised for his performance.

The reasons for Cavill's departure are vague, but he recently re-committed to playing Superman in the DC film universe under incoming new creative head James Gunn, and will apparently play the role in small doses in other films as well as a new solo movie, potentially clashing with the intensive filming schedule for The Witcher.

The news will likely fuel conspiracy theorists, as The Witcher writing team was recently criticised by a former writer who said that his love of the source material was not shared by some of his fellow writers, who instead mocked and belittled the books and video games. Cavill is a noted fan of the books and games.

Liam Hemsworth is seven years Cavill's junior and is best-known for playing Gale in the Hunger Games movie series.

It will be sad to see Cavill go, but at least we have one more full season with him in the role first.

Netflix's AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER remake in post-production, announces remainder of main cast

Shooting on Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender remake wrapped a few months ago and the series is deep in post-production. Netflix have now chosen to reveal the rest of the main cast from the series.

Source.

The full announced cast (including previously-announced roles) now comprises:

Main Cast

• Gordon Cormier as Aang, the Avatar.
• Kiawentiio Tarbell as Katara.
• Ian Ousley as Sokka.
• Dallas Liu as Prince Zuko.
• Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as General Iroh.
• Daniel Dae Kim as Fire Lord Ozai.

The Avatars

• Yvonne Chapman as Kyoshi, a prior incarnation of the Avatar.
• C.S. Leek as Roku, a prior incarnation of the Avatar.
• Meegun Fairbrother as Kuruk, a prior incarnation of the Avatar.

The Southern Water Tribe

• Casey Camp-Horinek as Gran-Gran, matriarch of the Southern Water Tribe.
• Rainbow Dickerson as Kya, Sokka and Katara's mother.
• Joel Montgrand as Hakoda, Sokka and Katara's father.

The Northern Water Tribe

• Nathaniel Arcand as Arnook, the chief of the Northern Water Tribe.
• Amber Midthunder as Princess Yue of the Northern Water Tribe.
• Irene Bedard as Yagoda, a Northern Water Tribe healer.
• A. Martinez as Pakku, a Waterbending master.
• Joel Outlette as Hahn, a Northern Water Tribe soldier.
• Sebastian Amoruso as Jet, the leader of the Freedom Fighters.

The Fire Nation

• Ken Leung as Commander Zhao.
• Elizabeth Yu as Princess Azula.
• Momona Tamada as Ty Lee.
• Thalia Tran as Mai.
• Ryan Mah as Lieutenant Dang of the Fire Nation Navy.
• Francois Chau as the Great Sage of the Fire Temple.
• Hiro Kanagawa as Fire Lord Sozin.

The Earth Kingdom

• Maria Zhang as Suki, commander of the Kyoshi Warriors.
• Tamlyn Tomita as Yukari, Suki's mother.
• Danny Pudi as the Mechanist, an inventor from the Earth Kingdom.
• Lucian-River Chauhan as Teo, the Mechanist's son.
• Utkarsh Ambudkar as King Bumi of Omashu.
• Arden Cho as June, a bounty hunter.
• James Sie as the Cabbage Merchant.

The Air Nomads

• Lim Kay Siu as Gyatso, an Air Nomad.

Spirits

• George Takei as Koh the Face-Stealer.
• Randall Duk Kim as Wan Shi Tong, the spirit who guards a great library.

It's notable that James Sie reprises his role as the Cabbage Merchant from the original animated television series, making him the only actor to play the same role in both versions. Daniel Dae Kim voiced General Fong and Hiroshi Sato on the original Avatar and The Legend of Korra, whilst George Takei memorably voiced the Warden on the original show ("Get me someone I haven't thrown overboard!").

Based on the characters announced, it looks like Netflix's Avatar will draw primarily on the first season (of three) of the animated series for its storylines, but some characters from Season 2 of the animated series will also be debuting early, such as Ty Lee and Mai. No casting has been announced for the fan-favourite role of Toph, making it more likely that, as in the animated series, she won't appear until a potential second season of the remake.

Netflix have not announced a release date for the show, but early 2023 seems like a reasonable bet at this time. Albert Kim is serving as showrunner and head writer.

The Sandman: Season 1

1916. English sorcerer Roderick Burgess, distraught over the death of his son at Gallipoli, seeks to bind and imprison Death itself. His plan misfires and instead he captures Dream. Dream is unable to give Burgess what he wants, and eventually Burgess leaves him to rot in a glass prison in his cellar. During Dream's absence, his realm, the Dreaming, falls into disrepair and many dreams and nightmares escape into the world of the living. Some people also fall into a permanent sleep, a sleeping sickness that lasts decades and claims thousands. Eventually Dream escapes, and finds he must return his realm to order and reclaim the dreams and nightmares...even those who are prepared to do anything to retain their liberty.

Adapting The Sandman for the screen is a Herculean task. Neil Gaiman's 76-issue comic series ran from 1988 to 1996 and was collected as ten dense graphic novels, telling stories spanning thousands of years and involving a cast running into the hundreds. At the centre of it all is Dream or Morpheus, a non-human anthropomorphic personification of the concept of dreams. In many issues Dream doesn't even show up, or only has a brief cameo. The series alternates between epic story arcs and self-contained fables, and the tone can spin on a dime from comedy to tragedy to outright horror to fantasy to historical drama. Very minor moments in earlier issues can have massive ramifications fifty issues later.

There is also the legacy that Sandman has accrued. The series occupies a space in comics similar to what The Lord of the Rings does in fantasy novels, a dominant force whose sheer name value and beloved following makes tackling an adaptation a humbling and challenging task. Fortunately, at least in this case the original creator was on hand to help tackle the adaptation and guide it to the screen.

Netflix's The Sandman is an unabashed triumph, something that is a relief to say after so many recent streaming adaptations of beloved fantasy works were underwhelming, if not outright terrible. The one-two punch in recent weeks of Sandman and Amazon's splendid tackling of Brian K. Vaughan's Paper Girls may make one wonder if streaming services are turning a corner and are now producing better adaptations, but I suspect we will continue to see variable results moving forwards.

The Sandman works because it combines a talented cast of actors, directors, vfx personnel and behind the scenes crew with excellent judgement over how to develop the source material. Some episodes are lifted from issues of the comic almost verbatim, with Gaiman's almost-thirty-five-year-old material still feeling as fresh and engrossing as when it was originally committed to paper. Other episodes see the source material reimagined or tackled in a different way due to practical concerns, or cost, or not having the rights to certain characters or ideas, and in every case the judgement is sound.

The first season of the TV series adapts the first two graphic novels in the series, Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll's House, constituting the first sixteen issues of the comic. In the former story arc, Dream is imprisoned, escapes and sets about repairing the Dreaming and recovering three of the symbols of office (a ruby, a bag of sand and a helmet), which involves confronting a murderous killer, tracking down a demon-hunter in contemporary London and descending into Hell itself for a tense audience with Lucifer. In the latter, Dream sets out to recover three missing inhabitants of the Dreaming who escaped during his imprisonment, as well as investigating the appearance of a "dream vortex" which threatens the fabric of reality.

The adaptation collapses these two stories into ten episodes (some of them surprisingly short by modern standards) and overlaps them a little bit more than in the comics, positing the Corinthian (a brilliant Boyd Holbrook) as more of an antagonist for the entire season. The result is a compelling pace, with excellently-crafted cliffhangers demanding you watch just one more episode. This is enhanced by brilliant casting: Tom Sturridge has a hard job playing the taciturn, oft-emotionless Dream, but he manages the impossible by nailing Dream's implacability but also giving him brief bursts of humour and charisma. Vivienne Acheampong is outstanding as the fussy librarian Lucienne, who keeps the Dreaming ticking over in Dream's absence, and Kyo Ra is superb as Rose Walker, the closest thing we have a to a "regular human" lead in the story.

Other actors appear just for one episode or so, but are fantastic: David Thewliss is chilling as John Dee, Jenna Coleman is suitably bedrazzled as walking human dumpster fire Johanna Constantine (a rights-enforced gender flip of John "Hellblazer" Constantine) and Gwendoline Christie is fire and ice personified as Lucifer Morningstar. Ferdinand Kingsley is also outstanding as Hob Gadling, an ordinary human whom is gifted immortality by the Endless on a whim to see how he handles it, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste imbues Death with the whimsy, humour, wisdom and depth of her comics counterpart.

Contained within the first season was the tricky mandate to adapt three of the greatest individual issues of comics ever published into live-action: "Twenty-Four Hours" (here realised as episode five, 24/7), "The Sound of Her Wings" and "Men of Good Fortune" (here combined into episode six, The Sound of Her Wings). "Twenty-Four Hours" had to be changed a fair bit, due to the absence of a narrating figure and limits on the amount of horror even Netflix can put on screen, but the end result is still fascinating (and horrific). But The Sound of Her Wings is flawless, taking the two vaguely related stories from the comic (the first in which Dream spends a day watching his sister, Death, at work, and the second in which Dream spends one day every 100 years meeting Hob Gadling, who may or may not be a friend) and combining them into a beautiful hour of drama.

Flaws are almost non-existent: Mervyn Pumpkinead's CGI feels a bit stiff compared to the flawless vfx elsewhere, and the utterly brilliant end credits (which vary from episode to episode) barely have a chance to start before Netflix forces them off the screen for the next episode. And that's really about it.

The first season (*****) builds to a suitably epic conclusion, with quiet moments that readers of the comics know will have a seismic impact further down the road, but ultimately leaves the viewer shocked that the team have managed the impossible: they have taken The Sandman and made a superb television series out of it. The hope now is that they can continue.

The first season of The Sandman is available to watch on Netflix worldwide right now and I recommend you avail yourself of the opportunity to catch up on it as soon as possible.

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Netflix releases trailer for THE SANDMAN

Netflix has dropped another trailer for it's imminent adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic series.

Sandman ran for 75 issues (collected as 10 graphic novels) from 1989 to 1996, ending its run as one of the most acclaimed comic and graphic novel series in history. It won a World Fantasy Award, two Bram Stoker Awards and multiple Eisner Awards, and was nominated for a Hugo Award. It also elevated Neil Gaiman into becoming an international superstar, one of science fiction and fantasy's most respected authors.

The comic tells the story of Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, one of the seven Endless. The Endless are godlike personifications of certain ideals, such as Death, Despair and Delight. Morpheus is imprisoned by a human sorcerer at the start of the series, leading to decades of chaos as his realm falls into disrepair in his absence. Escaping, Morpheus has to set his realm to rights and then deal with various adversaries, including serial killers, a living weapon and Lucifer themselves.

The Sandman launches on Netflix on 5 August.

Stranger Things 4

March, 1986. Six months after the Starcourt Mall disaster, the town of Hawkins, Indiana is still struggling to return to normal. The gang who have repeatedly defeated incursions into our world from the parallel universe of the Upside Down are split between Hawkins and a new home in California, whilst Sheriff Jim Hopper is missing, presumed dead. However, a trail of clues leads Joyce Byers to realise he is still alive and in prison in the Soviet Union. A new spate of murders in Hawkins leads the authorities to believe a satanic cult is at work in the town, but the truth is that the Upside Down has once again found a way of worming into our world...and this time it wants to stay for good.

Back in 2016, Stranger Things felt like a breath of fresh air. A show rooted in nostalgia that also remembered to bring to bear some original ideas, some great characterisation and a soundtrack to die for. When it came back for the sequel, it took a cue from James Cameron by ramping up the visual effects, the stakes and the emotional throughline of the story to make something outstanding. For its third go-around, the show faltered a little with some silly storylines and some iffy characterisation (remember when Hopper suddenly turned into a massive arsehole for a whole season for no reason?), and a vague sense that maybe the writers were running out of ideas, but rallied at the finish to deliver something very enjoyable.

Going to the well for a fourth time is dangerous. You might come up with something so terrible humanity as a collective whole might recoil from any memory of it existing (or worse, or even worse). You might come up with something that is clearly stupid but also highly enjoyable. Or you could strike out and make something genuinely terrific.

For its fourth season, Stranger Things has decided to really up the ante. Which is a tall order since for both previous seasons it already upped the ante quite a bit. So this time around they smash through the absurdity barrier with budget (several episodes cost more than $30 million apiece), cast size (there are 20 regular and major castmembers, and around a dozen more with important roles) and episode length (the season finale is a bum-numbing two and a half hours, and only one episode is under 70 minutes). If Stranger Things was a network show with 44-minute episodes, its fourth season would be 17 episodes long, but condensed down into nine. It's a lot of television and a lot of show to watch.

The show does its best to pull off its huge scale by emulating The Lord of the Rings, which to be fair if you're going big or going home is definitely a good template to use. The season sets up a new, powerful and singular enemy with "Vecna" (not his real or assumed name, but part of the ongoing Dungeons & Dragons IP-referencing approach which Wizards of the Coast is absolutely loving) and our titanic cast has to split into three subgroups to deal with him and other assorted subplots the show has been generating. Team 1, consisting of Eleven, Will, Jonathan, Jonathan's wholly superfluous stoner friend and a visiting Mike, is out in California where the Byers clan is desperately trying to pretend that everything is fine. Joyce and Murray soon abscond, forming Team 2, who decide to embark on a two-person rescue mission to Kamchatka in the Soviet Far East to rescue the missing Hopper, who was (somehow) captured by the Soviets and taken to a prison. This is actually far more ridiculous than even a brief plot summary can do justice to.

Then, back in Hawkins, Team 3 (Dustin, Lucas, Max, Nancy, Steve, Robin, Erica and New Guy Eddie) get involved in investigating a series of grisly murders which, thanks to a nice tie-in with the real-life Satanic Panic that gripped Americans over Dungeons & Dragons (albeit several years later than in reality), get turned back on them and they find themselves in the frame for it. Obviously new big bad Vecna is behind these events and, once everyone gets on the same page, they decide to take the fight into Mordor the Upside Down to try to vanquish him once and for all.

It's a classic structure and it gives us the prodigious cast of characters - which at times it feels like even George R.R. Martin would frown over and make him reach for the murder pen - plenty to do, especially because the writers also continue giving each character personal crises, romances, thwarted crushes and challenges to overcome. This is all laudable - character development is obviously a good thing - but it does tie in to making this season stealthily almost twice as long as the first, and contributes to sometimes stodgy pacing and some very weird plot transitions. At one point three of our heroes are imprisoned and being systemically choked to death by evil tendrils of doom, and it's a good twenty minutes before the writers have rotated between other characters to get back to them, which is not great for tension.

What remains great are the performances. Previous seasons had put the lion's share of work on a few players, like Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour, but this season everybody knocks it out of the park. Caleb McLaughlin, who was ill-served by the last season, has a great arc and a fantastic emotional moment in the finale, Noah Schnapp gets an equally brilliant moment of emotional catharsis, Natalia Dyer gets a crowning action moment of awesome and Joe Keery gets plenty of fanservice moments which threaten to topple over into cheese, but his charisma keeps it on track. The MVP of the season is Sadie Sink as Max, who gets easily the season's most powerful scenes (with backup from Kate Bush) and maybe the most emotionally bruising ride for a character we've ever seen the show pull off. Only Charlie Heaton as Jonathan is left really hanging with nothing to do, and I think bringing back Matthew Modine as Dr. Brenner was a mistake since he has nothing really major to accomplish except to reiterate his love of making Eleven go through trauma and whine about how it's justified (especially as it means less time for Paul Reiser as Dr. Owens, who was basically Brenner's replacement). Yeah, we got that in Season 1, thanks.

It's to the show's credit that it manages to spin all these plates and move things forward, but the pacing is uneven and sometimes stodgy. I'd have been happy dropping entire subplots and characters if they serve no role here (give Charlie a year off, say he's at college and bring him back for the final season), and certainly condensing others. The Soviet storyline in Season 3 was ludicrous and its sequel in Season 4 is only marginally more interesting, with new arrival Tom Wlaschiha (late of Game of Thrones) doing some heavy lifting to keep this story vaguely compelling. Also, we already have an American Murray, I'm not sure why we need a Russian clone of him as well, who's even more annoying. The fact that the Joyce/Murray/Yuri side of the Russian story is played almost entirely for comedy whilst the Hopper/Enzo side of is played for gritty prison tropes and outright horror is also grating. Stranger Things has terrific form for balancing comedy and horror, but Season 4 definitely feels like it drops the ball a few times with tonal mismanagement.

Stranger Things does a lot right with its fourth season but it also does a lot wrong, particularly as it winds up. It's bum-numbing finale in particular feels off, recursively pushing a character to the brink of death and then wimping out at the last minute (the exact same character they did it to earlier), making sure that only guest stars or people we hate are killed off for real, and then deploying the exact same method of plot resolution that we already saw in previous seasons (it's not a massive spoiler to say that Eleven is involved). The only big shift here is the producers knowing that they have a fifth and final season greenlit already, so we actually get a full-scale cliffhanger this time around, one that does promise to go really big...but that's for a while down the road.

Stranger Things' fourth season (****) is still a big-budget spectacle, watchable and often fun, with great characters whom it's fun to spend time with. It also struggles to balance its huge cast and myriad subplots satisfyingly, and when given the opportunity to do something new or shocking, it decides to fall back on safely emulating tropes and repeating plot points from earlier, better seasons. But if the shine is starting to fade on the show (and ending it after five seasons feels very wise), there's still a lot here to enjoy. The season is now available in full worldwide on Netflix.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

SANDMAN gets full trailer and release date

Netflix's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman will hit screens on 5 August this year.

The trailer opens with Sandman/Morpheus/Dream (Tom Sturridge) intoning, "I am the King of Dreams, ruler of the Nightmare Realm." We then meet Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman), occult detective, as meets Mad Hettie and is told that the Sandman is coming. Johanna says he's a fairy story, but Hettie disagrees. Two police officers are then shown shooting open the Sandman's prison releasing him back into the world after more than a century of imprisonment.

Morpheus then returns to his realm, the Dreaming, where he meets his librarian Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong), who warns him that the realm has gone to rot in his absence. We then briefly see a brace of characters: Death (Kirby  Howell-Baptiste), Desire (Mason Alexander Park), John Dee (David Thewlis) and The Corinthian (Boy Holbrook), who notes that "he's free, he's out of his cage." The trailer ends with Morpheus greeting a raven, who may or may not be Matthew (voiced by Patton Oswalt).

The show also stars Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, Charles Dance as Roderick Burgess, Asim Chaudhry as Abel, Sanjeev Bhaskar as Cain, Donna Preston as Despair, Joely Richardson as Ethel Cripps, Kyo Ra as Rose Walker, Stephen Fry as Gilbert, Razane Jammal as Lyta Hall and Sandra James-Young as Unity Kincaid, with Mark Hamill as the voice of Merv Pumpkinhead.

Gaiman is co-writing the new adaptation and has also served as showrunner.