STRANGER THINGS gets super-sized Season 4 release and confirmation of ending

Netflix has released some info about the future of Stranger Things, its 1980s nostalgia horror-SF show. Season 4 will be released in two parts in May and July. Season 5 has been greenlit and will be the final season of the show, although creators the Duffer Brothers have left the door open for spin-offs and more shows set in the same universe.

The show debuted in 2016, rapidly becoming the streamer's signature series (especially after original headliners Orange is the New Black and House of Cards concluded). The show aired additional seasons in 2017 and 2019, which were well-received. However, production of Season 4 was interrupted by the COVID19 pandemic, delaying transmission until this year. The Duffer Brothers have said since the beginning that the show will have a four or five-season arc, and have now confirmed that the show will end with Season 5.

The nine-episode Season 4 will be divided into two "volumes." The first batch of episodes will be released on 27 May this year and the second batch on 1 July. The episodes will be significantly longer than the previous seasons, with today's announcement confirming that the season will be almost twice as long as Season 3, suggesting episodes averaging around 90 minutes in length. Releasing the season in two batches will allow viewers to absorb the huge amount of material in a more leisurely fashion, as well as building up discussion and excitement in-between the two "volumes." However, industry watchers will be wondering if this marks Netflix exploring a move away from their popular-but-expensive binge-release format, following the batch-release system previously used for their mega-hit Arcane (which was released in three batches of three episodes at weekly intervals). Other streaming services, including Amazon, Apple TV+ and Disney+, have abandoned the idea in favour of a weekly release schedule which generates more coverage and attention.

The conclusion of Stranger Things comes at a point where Netflix has been successful in launching potential successor headline shows, such as Bridgerton, Squid Game and Arcane.

COWBOY BEBOP casts Radical Ed

Netflix have confirmed the casting of the last main castmember from their live-action take on Cowboy Bebop. Newcomer Eden Perkins - so new they don't even have an IMDB page - will play the role in the apparently provisionally-commissioned second season, and debuts in the closing moments of the first season (which started streaming today).

The character of Edward Won Hau Pepelu Tivruski IV debuted a third of the way through the original anime and became a key member of the Bebop's crew, serving as a hacker and general free-roaming agent of chaos. The character was easily the most "traditional anime-like" of the characters, a cause of both the character's popularity and also fears that translating them to live action would be extremely difficult.

It's fair to say that the character's live action depiction is a choice which hopefully will be toned down in the potential second season, because it turns out what is endearing in animation might be "extremely annoying" in live action, even if the actor is highly skilled.

Cowboy Bebop started streaming today, worldwide on Netflix.

Live-action AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER casts Uncle Iroh, starts shooting

Netflix has confirmed the casting of one of the most eagerly-awaited roles in its Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action TV adaptation. In a fan-pleasing movie, the role will by played by Kim's Convenience star and The Mandalorian guest star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee.

Lee has been one of the most common fancasts for the role since the show was announced. Iroh, the former heir to the Fire Nation throne until the death of his son and his subsequent grief-induced trauma rendered him unfit and ripe for usurpation by his young brother, Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim), is a mentor and companion to his rash nephew, Zuko (Dallas Liu). Zuko, in exile for cowardice when the show starts, seeks to capture the newly-revived Avatar to bring glory to his nation and restore his honour in the eyes of his father. Ozai wants Zuko to be a ruthless, amoral killer like himself, but Iroh tries to teach his nephew the ways of actual honour, kindness and inspiring troops through bravery and empathy. Iroh and Zuko's methods of dealing with the Avatar are in disagreement for most of the series.

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee rose to fame as the patriarch of the titular, convenience-store-owning family in Canadian comedy series Kim's Convenience, which ran for five seasons (2016-21). He also originated the role on the Canadian stage. Most of his work has been in on stage, but his success in Kim's Convenience has seen him break out into other roles. He has played guest roles on Dark Matter and Private Eyes, and played the role of New Republic Captain Carson Teva, an X-wing pilot, on two episodes of The Mandalorian. He was believed to be due to reprise the role in spin-off show Rangers of the New Republic, but that show was put on indefinite hold a few months ago, freeing him up for Avatar.

Veteran Singaporean actor Lim Kay Siu (Anna and the King, Night Watch) is playing Gyatso, a senior Air Nomad monk at the Southern Air Temple. Gyatso was the mentor, guardian and teacher of Avatar Aang (Gordon Cormier) before Aang was suspended in ice. Gyatso will, presumably as in the animated series, appear in flashbacks.

American actor Ken Leung has an impressive resume, having appeared in Rush Hour, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Vanilla Sky, X-Men: The Last Stand and multiple instalments of the Saw franchise, as Detective Sing. He also appeared in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (as Admiral Statura). In television he is best-known for playing the role of reluctant spiritualist con man Miles Straume on Lost, appearing in 45 episodes spanning the fourth through sixth seasons. His other TV roles have included The Blacklist, Industry, Inhumans, Zero Hour, The Good Wife, Person of Interest and The Sopranos.

Leung is playing Commander Zhao, an ambitious Fire Nation naval captain who learns of the Avatar's revival and plots to capture or kill him, sometimes working with and sometimes against Prince Zuko. Zhao is the primary antagonist of the first season of the original series.

From left to right (top row): Lindsey Liberatore (producer), Jet Wilkinson (director), JAbbar Raisani (director), Albert Kim (showrunner), Michael Goi (producer-director), Ian Ousley (Sokka), Dallas Liu (Zuko), Roseanne Ling (producer-director), Dan Lin (producer). Seated: Kiawentiio (Katara), Gordon Cormier (Aang).

Principal photography on the show began today, with Netflix releasing a group photo of the main cast and crew. Shooting is expected to run through the end of spring 2022, with the show to air in late 2022 or early 2023.

Daniel Dae Kim joins the live-action AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER project

Veteran actor Daniel Dae Kim (Lost, Hawaii Five-O, Crusade) has joined Netflix's live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Kim will play Fire Lord Ozai, the ruler of the Fire Nation and the primary antagonist of the series.

It's a reunion between Kim and the franchise, as he previously voiced the character of General Fong in the original series (and a spin-off video game), and also voiced recurring character Hiroshi Sato on the sequel series, The Legend of Korra.

Kim is a good catch for the project, as the actor-producer-writer is a hot Hollywood property these days in television, having recently acted in or produced The Hot Zone: Anthrax, New Amsterdam, The Good Doctor and The Premise.

The previously-announced cast includes Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio as Katar, Ian Ousley as Sokka and Dallas Liu as Prince Zuko, Fire Lord Ozai's son. Albert Kim is the showrunner and head writer, taking over from Avatar franchise creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, who quit the project in 2020 following creative differences with Netflix. Konietzko and DiMartino are now heading up Avatar Studios for Nickelodeon, which will produce new animated projects in the Avatar universe.

Kim's casting as a series regular hints that the adaptation will delve into the Fire Nation's politics and Zuko's complicated family earlier than in the animated series, where Ozai (voiced by Mark Hamill) did not appear until the end of Season 1. Fans are particularly keen to find out who is playing the role of Uncle Iroh, Ozai's brother and Zuko's uncle, who accompanies his nephew into exile.

Netflix's take on Avatar: The Last Airbender is expected to enter production imminently for a late 2022/early 2023 debut.

Paramount releases details for STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS

In addition to a lot of other Star Trek news, Paramount have released more information on their upcoming new series, Strange New Worlds.

In addition to returning castmembers Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock, the series will star Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Uhura, Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel and Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M'Benga, all of whom appeared previously on the original Star Trek series (with different actors, obviously). Additional actors include Bruce Horak as an Andorian named Hemmer, Melissa Navia as Lt. Erica Ortegas and Christina Chong as La'an Noonien-Singh.

Strange New Worlds is set on the USS Enterprise (OG Constitution-class, or at least the mildly-reimagined version which debuted in Discovery) some time after the events of Discovery's second season and some years before the events of the original Star Trek. According to both cast and crew, Strange New Worlds will be much more episodic than other modern Star Trek shows, focusing more on the original mission of exploring new worlds and getting into new adventures every week.

Strange New Worlds is expected to debut on Paramount+ in early-to-mid 2022.

Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall to depart DOCTOR WHO at the end of 2022

Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker and showrunner Chris Chibnall have announced their plans to depart the series at the end of 2022.

Both Whittaker and Chibnall joined the show in 2018, with Whittaker playing the Thirteenth Doctor (succeeding Peter Capaldi in the role) and Chibnall taking over the creative direction of the show from Steven Moffat, who had helmed the show since 2011. Whittaker is the first woman to play the role of the Doctor since the character's inception in 1963, whilst Chibnall is the third showrunner to helm the series since its return in 2005.

Whittaker's departure after the forthcoming thirteenth season (of the reboot) was widely anticipated; no actor has played the role of the Doctor for more than three seasons since Tom Baker departed the role after seven seasons in 1981. However, Chibnall's departure is more surprising; barring the one-off 1996 TV movie, no other showrunner has done less than five years in the role since Graham Williams (1977-80) and Philip Hinchcliffe (1975-77). Traditionally, most showrunners have since 1980 have stayed on for the run of at least two Doctors whilst Chibnall will have done just one.

Their tenure on the show has been something of a mixed bag. Whittaker's energetic performance has mostly been praised and her first full season in the role was something of a relief, with more of a focus on historical stories and comprehensible storylines with clear stakes and more logical resolutions than the preceding seasons, which often relied on hand-waved solutions and variably comprehensible plotting. The season was also notable for not having any kind of over-arcing storyline, for the first time since 2005. However, her first season failed to produce an outstanding, classic episode of note and there was criticism of the decision to give her three companions, making for an overcrowded TARDIS and there not being enough story to service four regular characters plus the guest star of any given week. 

These problems persisted into her second season in the role, but were also accompanied by some backsliding into the fast-paced but nonsensical plotting that characterised the worst of both the Davies and Moffat eras. Chibnall also put into motion a planned story arc that would retcon the Doctor's backstory and origins, a decision that would draw a very mixed response from hardcore fans and seemingly baffled more casual viewers, for whom one of the main draws of Doctor Who is much less of a reliance on long-running storylines and impenetrable background lore compared to other SFF franchises. Viewers would seem to agree, with ratings (particularly first-night ratings, although these have been in global decline as people switch en masse to streaming and timeshifting) slumping by almost 50% over the course of the two seasons (although, once the the initial bump caused by Whittaker's arrival is factored in, ratings remained somewhat comparable to Capaldi's run).

Although Chibnall's writing and plotting attracted a number of complaints, some commentators offered other explanations: Doctor Who is about to air its thirteenth season in sixteen years, a relatively high rate of output for the BBC and British television in general. "Franchise fatigue" was blamed for the Star Trek franchise flaming out in 2005 (ironically just as Doctor Who was returning after sixteen years off-air), after seventeen years of continuous production and it might be that Doctor Who has simply become over-familiar and safe, with kids no longer excited about the show as they were during the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant years.

Additionally, Doctor Who finds itself in a very different competitive landscape to when it relaunched in 2005. Back then, the BBC gave the show the budget to at least try to vaguely compete with procedural, network American series (Doctor Who reportedly was given a then-generous budget of around $1 million per episode, compared to the $2-3 million of an American network show like, say, Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek: Enterprise). Between 2005 and 2010 the show was given budget bumps to stay competitive, but it suffered budget cuts and freezes in the wake of the financial crisis. These have reportedly remained in place (especially as the amount of money the publicly-funded BBC spends comes under more scrutiny), which due to inflation means that the show has been effectively suffering continuous, annual budget cuts for the last decade.

These have resulted in the show taking increasingly obvious cost-cutting measures, including reducing the number of episodes per season and increasing the gaps between seasons to audience-infuriating levels. At the same time, the competition has started coming from streaming and premium cable, with shows like Star Trek: Discovery and The Witcher spending seven times the budget per-episode than Doctor Who. Amazon's even more expensive forthcoming Wheel of Time and Middle-earth shows could fund an entire season of Doctor Who for less than the cost of a single episode. Much like in 1989, when the BBC "rested" Doctor Who in the face of absurdly superior overseas fare, Doctor Who is looking increasingly threadbare compared to its contemporaries.

Officially, the BBC is saying that Doctor Who will continue and a new actor and showrunner will be announced in due course. Before then, the thirteenth season will air this autumn with six episodes (the lowest number in the show's history, due to COVID restrictions) forming one continuous storyline. Three TV specials will follow next year, airing on New Year's Day, around Easter and either at Christmas or New Year's Eve 2022, with the Fourteenth Doctor taking over at that point.

Amazon announces television adaptation of Neil Gaiman's ANANSI BOYS

Amazon has announced they are working on a television adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2005 novel Anansi Boys and have already greenlit the novel to series. The book, set in the same world as his 2001 novel American Gods, revolves around the apparent death of Mr. Nancy, in reality the trickster god Anansi, and the confused discovery by one of his sons of his true heritage.

Production of the series will overlap with the second season of Good Omens, with Gaiman co-writing and co-producing both projects whilst continuing to work on Netflix's Sandman TV series. Gaiman is also a producer on Showtime's prospective Gormenghast TV series.

The new TV show will have no relationship with the American Gods TV series, which aired on Starz for three seasons before being cancelled. Neither Starz nor the production company Fremantle are involved in this new take, and Orlando Jones, who played the role of Anansi on American Gods before being controversially fired, will not reprise his role for the new series.

Writer, comedian and actor Sir Lenny Henry, who co-produced the 1996 TV series Neverwhere with Neil Gaiman and who inspired Gaiman to write the novel of Anansi Boys, will write and produce for American Gods, though it is not yet confirmed if he will star in the show. Henry also has a recurring role on Amazon's forthcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series.

Anansi Boys will also be written by Arvind Ethan David, Kara Smith and Racheal Ofori, whilst Hanelle M. Culpepper will direct the first episode. Jermain Julien and Azhur Saleem will also direct. The six-episode limited series will start shooting before the end of this year to air in late 2022 or early 2023.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON begins production in Cornwall

HBO's House of the Dragon, a prequel series to Game of Thrones, has begun production in the United Kingdom. Filming is set to begin shortly in Cornwall, with locations around St. Michael's Mount and Newquay already being dressed for filming.

Warner Brothers-branded trucks were spotted setting up lighting and camera rigging near Penhale Camp, Holywell, Newquay, whilst major exterior set construction was seen underway at St. Michael's Mount. A giveaway is that the set at St. Michael's Mount was emblazoned with the sigil of House Velaryon of Driftmark, a major house in the new series.

It also appears that filming may be taking place at Restormel Castle, whilst casting for extra has also been underway in Cornwall for the series.

Based on this information, I would expect actual shooting to begin imminently, maybe this week.

Hugh Grant to play the villain in the DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS movie

In a high-profile bit of casting, Paramount has tapped British actor Hugh Grant (The Undoing, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually) to play the main villain in the new Dungeons and Dragons movie.

Grant is the quintessential British gentleman actor for his roles in 1990s romcoms, but has recently enjoyed a career resurgence thanks to HBO's The Undoing and Amazon's A Very English Scandal.

The film starts shooting in the next few weeks in Northern Ireland and has already tapped Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez and Justice Smith for roles, with Regé-Jean Page playing the protagonist. So far no character names or plot or setting details have been revealed.

Deadline have also confirmed that Sophia Lillis (IT, IT: Chapter Two, I Am Not Okay With This) has joined the cast in an unspecified role.

Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are writing and directing the film for a 2022 debut.

Sony confirm more previously PlayStation exclusive games headed to PC

Sony have confirmed that they will be bringing more first-party games to the PC platform, with post-apocalyptic survival game Days Gone (2019) next up in the rotation.

Sony previously ported Horizon: Zero Dawn to PC last year to critical acclaim (despite technical issues and bugs that took a few months to fully iron out) and reportedly strong sales. Days Gone will be the second game to make the jump "this spring" but Sony promise even more are on the way.

Games like the Uncharted series, Spider-Man, The Last of Us and, especially, Bloodborne have been eagerly requested by PC gamers, but it remains to be seen what other games will make the transition.

Bella Ramsey cast as Ellie in HBO's LAST OF US TV Series

HBO has found its lead for its forthcoming television adaptation of the video game franchise The Last of Us, and it did not have to look very far. Bella Ramsey, who has starred in both Game of Thrones and His Dark Materials for the cable network, has been cast in the role.

17-year-old Ramsey was a surprise breakout star on Game of Thrones, playing the role of the young Lady Lyanna Mormont in the last three seasons of the show. From there she moved to playing the lead role of Mildred in The Worst Witch and the voice of Hilda in Netflix's Hilda. Last year she played Angelica in the second season of His Dark Materials. In 2019 she won a BAFTA for her role on The Worst Witch.

Ellie is one of the two lead protagonists in The Last of Us, alongside Joel. Mahershala Ali, who previously worked with HBO on the third season of True Detective, was in talks for the role but ultimately declined. It's possible shooting dates may have clashed with his upcoming title performance in Blade, a Marvel Cinematic Universe-set reboot of the Wesley Snipes franchise.

Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin is writing and helping run the show, alongside Neil Druckmann, the writer and director of both games in the series.

The Last of Us (2013) and The Last of Us Part II (2020), set in a post-apocalyptic world, are two of the most critically-acclaimed games of the last generation, praised for their writing and character development. The two games have sold some 30 million copies between them.

Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman confirm new DRAGONLANCE trilogy

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have confirmed that a new Dragonlance trilogy is to be published by Random House, starting this year.

The news comes after a lawsuit between the authors and Dragonlance IP owners Wizards of the Coast (and their parent company Hasbro) in October revealed the existence of the trilogy. The authors, Random House and Wizards had negotiated a deal for three new Dragonlance books and were halfway through writing the three volumes when Wizards put the series on indefinite hold. According to the filings, Wizards were experiencing problems with PR and image after a string of controversies and had decided that pursuing another legacy project was something they didn't want to deal with. However, this meant them breaking their contract with Weis and Hickman.

With Weis and Hickman suing for $10 million and Wizards in hot water with various other controversies going on, the two parties reached an out-of-court agreement in December and the lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice (meaning that Weis and Hickman could renew the lawsuit later on if there are further issues; usually a sign that the other party has surrendered without argument).

Dragonlance is a campaign setting for the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game, which has seen a huge resurgence in popularity in recent years. Many of the basic Dragonlance concepts were created by Tracy Hickman and his wife Laura in 1983, then fleshed out by a team of writers and editors who turned the basic idea into a series of adventure modules for the D&D game. Hickman teamed with editor Margaret Weis to write the original Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy novels, followed up by numerous more books in the same world. The Dragonlance Chronicles (1984-85) and Dragonlance Legends (1986) trilogies sold over four million copies before the end of the decade, making them one of the biggest-selling fantasy series of the decade. To date, the Dragonlance novels penned by Weis and Hickman have sold over 30 million copies worldwide, making them the second-biggest-selling authors of D&D fiction (only slightly behind R.A. Salvatore and his Legend of Drizzt series) and among the top fifty best-selling SFF authors of all time. Weis and Hickman have also worked widely in other settings and with original material, including the Death Gate Cycle, Rose of the Prophet Trilogy and Darksword Saga.

The setting has previously seen some controversy. In 2008 urban fantasy author Jim Butcher was approached by WotC to spearhead a full reboot of the entire Dragonlance saga, including rewriting the original trilogy as a five-book series. Butcher would only proceed with Weis and Hickman's blessing and, when that was not forthcoming, the project was abandoned.

Dragons of Deceit (working title) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, will be published this year. Although ordinarily a new Dragonlance book or trilogy might not attract a huge amount of attention (the last few books were not well-reviewed), the combination of the lawsuit and a dearth of recent official D&D fiction (this will be only the fourth D&D-branded novel to be published in the last five years) should mean that this does rather well.

Sam Esmail adds to BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 3.0 confusion

Producer Sam Esmail has taken part in a video interview with Collider about the upcoming new Battlestar Galactica TV show, on which he is working as an executive producer.

This new project has been described by Esmail as a continuation, or at least set in the same universe, as Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica, the second version of the franchise which ran from 2003-09 and spawned two spin-off projects (prequel series Caprica and prequel TV movie Blood & Chrome). He reiterates in the new interview that he spoke to Moore (currently helming both Starz's Outlander and Apple+'s For All Mankind) and got his blessing for the project.

However, the new show's actual head writer and showrunner Michael Lesslie, has previously indicated that the new show will be a fresh reboot/remake of the original premise, something which NBC's publicity seems to have agreed with.

Although there is scope for further exploration of Moore's BSG iteration, it would probably not involve the titular Galactica starship herself and might involve a fairly deep dive of the mythology behind the show. It is unclear if NBC would be interested in a reboot of the show which did not involve the "classic" elements of the series, such as Viper fighters, Cylons and characters such as Adama, Apollo, Starbuck and Baltar.

NBC's parent company, Universal, are also simultaneously developing a totally fresh, ground-up movie version of Battlestar Galactica with X-Men movie ruiner Simon Kinberg and Planet of the Apes reboot mastermind Dylan Clark and it's unclear if they would want two versions of the same story airing simultaneously. It's also unclear if they'd want two different universes/takes on the same story going on at the same time, maybe feeling that might get confusing. However, it's not unprecedented, with both Netflix and Constantin Films developing two different takes on the Resident Evil franchise in different continuities, with both projects now greenlit and in pre-production.

The third TV iteration of Battlestar Galactica is currently in the planning stages and is due to debut on Peacock, NBC's new streaming service, in 2022 or 2023. Esmail hopes to start shooting the series this year, but notes that may not be possible due to various delays stemming from the global pandemic.

Lucasfilm Games returns from the dead

In surprising news, Lucasfilm have resurrected their defunct gaming division, Lucasfilm Games (known from 1990 as LucasArts). The division was shuttered in 2013 when Lucasfilm and Electronic Arts negotiated a ten-year agreement for EA to develop and publish video games based on Lucasfilm properties, particularly Star Wars titles. But now it's back.

Lucasfilm/LucasArts Games developed dozens of titles between 1983 and 2013, including: Maniac Mansion, Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders, Loom, The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island II: LeChuck's Revenge, The Curse of Monkey Island, Escape from Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Their Finest Hour, Night Shift, The Dig, Full Throttle and Outlaws. Their Star Wars games included beloved classics such as X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, X-Wing: Alliance, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Shadows of the Empire, Rebellion, Rogue Squadron, Republic Commando, The Force Unleashed and The Force Unleashed II.

At the time of LucasArts' dissolution, they were developing an ambitious game called Star Wars: 1313, set in the underbelly of Coruscant and featuring ambitious gameplay and narrative ideas.

The Lucasfilm Games "sizzle" video above heavily leans on the recent EA-published games Battlefront (2015), Battlefront II (2017), Jedi: Fallen Order (2019) and Squadrons (2020). This suggests that, for now, Lucasfilm Games is a brand that will be applied to further Star Wars titles as they are developed. However, it may also indicate more ambitious future gaming plans, including setting up new development teams in-house.

EA's handling of the Star Wars licence has been mixed. Battlefront and Battlefront II were heavily-criticised for nickel-and-diming players through shady reward schemes (although the two games have sold more than 30 million copies, a very healthy figure in the current market). However, Fallen Order and Squadrons have had a much warmer critical reception. It has been rumoured that EA are currently developing Battlefront III and Fallen Order II, with an option to fast-track Squadrons II should the game's sales be satisfactory.

Many more games have been cancelled in development. An attempt at BioWare to get Knights of the Old Republic III underway was apparently also shot down by EA management, to the irritation of fans.

EA's licence to publish Star Wars games reportedly expires in 2023, so it'll be interesting to see if they re-sign with Disney or Disney are putting plans in place to develop games internally once again.

More tantalising is the idea that Lucasfilm might also be considering reopening their vaults and developing new games from their immense stash of long on-hiatus IPs, such as the Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion series.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS to arrive in the UK on 22 January

Animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks will arrive in the UK on Amazon Prime on 22 January.

The animated show launched in the USA in August, but its release was brought forwards due to scheduling issues with the COVID-19 pandemic and the decision to delay the third season of sister show Star Trek: Discovery. As a result, negotiations for the show's overseas sales had not been undertaken.

After negotiations and discussions with several partners following the show's highly positive reception, Amazon Prime agreed to pick up the show as a companion piece to Star Trek: Picard. The classic Star Trek shows and Discovery all air on Netflix in the UK and most other overseas territories.

In addition to the UK, Amazon Prime have picked up the rights for Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and India.

Season 2 of Lower Decks is due to air in the US, and now presumably overseas via Amazon Prime, in 2021.

Lucasfilm and Disney confirm a further STAR WARS spin-off TV series to debut in December 2021

Lucasfilm and Disney have confirmed that a Boba Fett TV series, entitled The Book of Boba Fett, will debut on Disney+ in December 2021.

This show is in addition to the slew of new projects recently announced by Lucasfilm. The announcement was made in a surprise, post-credits sequence to the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, which sees Boba and associate Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) join forces to take over a familiar crime operation from the Star Wars movies. It is assumed the series will focus on Fett's new role as a crime lord.

It has so far not been confirmed if Ming-Na Wen will be a regular in the series as Fennec Shand, although the finale implies as match. It's also so far unconfirmed if the series will follow, precede or run alongside the third season of The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian's other direct spin-off shows, Rangers of the New Republic and Ahsoka, are not expected to debut until 2022 at the earliest. Disney are already filming Rogue One prequel mini-series Andor and in pre-production on event series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and are also developing a Lando Calrissian-focused series and The Acolyte, an original series set 200 years before The Phantom Menace. Disney are also developing animated series Visions and A Droid Story, and deep in production on The Bad Batch, a Clone Wars sequel series expected to air in 2021.

GAME OF THRONES prequel series HOUSE OF THE DRAGON gets three new castmembers, including a former DOCTOR WHO

Game of Thrones spin-off/prequel show House of the Dragon has added three new castmembers to its roster. Joining the already-announced Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen are Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, Emma D'Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen.

Olivia Cooke is an English actress best known for starring as Emma Decody on Bates Motel for five seasons. She also played Becky Sharp in the 2018 ITV mini-series version of Vanity Fair. She also played one of the leads in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One. Other roles include Modern Love, Blackout, Sound of Metal, The Quiet Ones and the frankly superb credit "Voice of the Loch Ness Monster" on Axe Cop.

Alicent Hightower is the intelligent and cunning daughter of Lord Otto Hightower, Lord of Oldtown and the Hand of the King. The ambitious Lord Otto advises his daughter to help comfort the widowed king and befriend his daughter Princess Rhaenyra, only a few years younger.

Emma D'Arcy is an English actress who started her career by making waves on stage, particularly for her role alongside Ben Whishaw in Against. Regular and recurring roles have followed on Wanderlust, Wild Bill, Hanna and, most recently, a more complex-than-it-first-appears role on the Nick Frost semi-comedy Truth Seekers.

Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen is the only child of King Viserys I Targaryen. Male primogeniture is the preferred method of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, but King Viserys has raised Princess Rhaenyra to be his heir, teaching her the art of rule and statecraft, inviting her to small council meetings and learning military strategy. Despite some grumblings from traditionalists, the king's decision has been accepted...whilst he still lives. Like many of the Targaryens of this time, Rhaenyra is a dragon-rider. Her dragon is called Syrax.

Matt Smith is an accomplished English actor best-known for his starring role on Doctor Who. He played the Eleventh Doctor for four years between 2010 and 2013, winning two National Television Awards for his performance. He remains the youngest actor to ever play the role. His other performances include Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart Mysteries, Danny in Party Animals, Skynet in Terminator: Genisys (2015) and Parson Collins in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016). In 2016-17 he played Prince Philip in the first two seasons of The Crown, for which he was nominated for an Emmy.

Prince Daemon Targaryen is the younger brother of King Viserys, both grandsons of the Old King, Jaehaerys the Conciliator. Whilst Viserys is diplomatic, restrained and thoughtful, Daemon is fiery and prone to action. He is intelligent, but also hot-tempered and passionate, who sometimes feels his brother acts too little, too late in response to provocations from the Seven Kingdoms' enemies. For his part, the king despairs of what he sees as his brother's inability to see the big picture and restrain himself in the short-term for future long-term benefits. Daemon would be his brother's heir if he had not named Rhaenyra, something he struggles with despite his general affection for his his niece. Daemon rides the immense dragon Caraxes, a fearsome beast and the largest of the Targaryen dragons apart from Vhagar (the only surviving dragon of Aegon the Conqueror's original three).

Based on the age of the actors being cast and the information released by HBO, it sounds like the series will start some time before the beginning of the Dance of Dragons, maybe as much as twenty years earlier (roughly 190 years before the events of Game of Thrones), when King Viserys is still relatively hale and trying to keep his brother under control whilst also training his daughter to follow him onto the Iron Throne. I suspect the timeline will either be compressed in the series or there'll be some hefty timeskips to take us into the Dance of Dragons by the end of the first season.

Update: The mostly-reliable Redanian Intelligence has indicated from casting material that the show begins in 105 AC with the death of Queen Aemma, and thus with King Viserys recovering from the shock of her death and Princess Rhaenyra from the loss of her mother.

Deadline is also reporting that Danny Sapani (Black Panther, The Last Jedi) is being considered for the role of Corlys Velaryon, the "Sea Snake," a superior sailor and naval commander who has become immensely wealthy by sailing to the ends of the earth and bringing him immense treasure.

House of the Dragon is currently in pre-production and is expected to start shooting in England in early 2021. It should air on HBO in early 2022.

BioWare release teaser trailer for DRAGON AGE IV and a return to the Milky Way for MASS EFFECT 5

BioWare and EA have released teaser trailers for new games in the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series.

The Dragon Age IV teaser hints that the game is still set in the mage-realm of Tevinter and will focus - once again - on a new hero arising to stand against the forces of evil, backed by familiar characters like Varric. The trailer ends with the name "Dragon Age," hopefully just a placeholder and not an indication that BioWare are going to rename the game just Dragon Age to confuse people. The game has been in development for some years, although the team was co-opted to help finish both Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem. The game now appears to be in full development at BioWare, but no release timeframe has been given.

The Mass Effect trailer features as Asari walking through a snowy wasteland with a destroyer Reaper in the background, after a camera pans across wreckage and the ruins of a Mass Relay, hinting that the game will take place after the events of Mass Effect 3 rather than following up on the other-galaxy shenanigans of Mass Effect: Andromeda. This new Mass Effect game is very early in development.

The move is hoped to restore confidence in the fanbases of both games after the heads of both franchises resigned from BioWare last week.

Marvel's third SPIDER-MAN film will be a live-action SPIDER-VERSE movie

It looks like the forthcoming third Spider-Man film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be effectively a live-action version of the popular Into the Spider-Verse animated film.

The film, a sequel to 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming and 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home, will reunite Tom Holland's Peter Parker with Zendaya as MJ, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, Jacob Batalon as Ned and Tony Revolori as Eugene. In addition, Benedict Cumberbatch will appear as Doctor Strange, reprising his role from several previous Marvel movies.

Where the casting gets interesting is the villains: Jamie Foxx will appear as Max Dillon, aka Electro. He last played that role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), but that was in a different continuity. Today it was confirmed that Alfred Molina will be reprising his role a Otto Octavius, aka Doctor Octopus, from Spider-Man 2 (2004), which was set in a yet another continuity.

According to Collider, the film will go further and will also incorporate appearances by Andrew Garfield, who played Spider-Man/Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and its sequel; and Kirsten Dunst as MJ from the Sam Raimi trilogy: Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). They also claim that Tobey Maguire is in talks to reprise his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man from the Raimi trilogy, and Emma Stone is being considered for a return as Gwen Stacey from the Garfield duology.

To be clear, it's unknown if this latter casting is for a barrage of cameos or for meatier roles in the movie. It's also unclear if CG or effects will be used to make the returning actors appear the same way they did in their films (in Maguire and Dunst's case, almost twenty years ago, somehow) or if they will be playing older versions of their characters in a similar vein to the animated movie Into the Spider-Verse (2018), which was surprise hit with its story of interdimensional Peter Parkers teaming up with Miles Morales and a number of other variations on the Spider-Man archetype to fight Kingpin.

The film is currently scheduled to open on 17 December 2021. Into the Spider-Verse 2 is also in production and currently targeting an October 2022 release date.

R.F. Kuang's POPPY WAR series optioned for television

 R.F. Kuang's Poppy War series has been optioned for television by Starlight Media.

The Poppy War series consists of the novels The Poppy War (2018), The Dragon Republic (2019) and The Burning God (2020). It centres on Rin, a war orphan from the provinces of the vast Nikara Empire which is reeling from a war it managed to win, but only at ruinous cost. Rin takes up military service as a way of escaping an arranged marriage, buts finds her choice will take her into great danger against powerful and ancient forces. The trilogy is noted for its dark subversion of traditional fantasy tropes, its Asia-like setting and its morally ambiguous protagonist. The trilogy has won critical acclaim and has won the 2019 Compton Crook Award, the 2019 Crawford Award and the 2020 Astounding Award.

Starlight, which produced Crazy Rich Asians and Midway, has picked up the television rights to the entire trilogy and is developing the project with SA Inc. No broadcaster has yet been attached.