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The Feywilde Returns to Dungeons and Dragons

Wizards of the Coast have announced that the next book for Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition will be called The Wild Beyond the Witchlight and it will be available from September 21^st 2021. It is primarily intended to be an adventure for Dungeon Masters to run for their players, but will contain plenty of setting information.

The book will showcase the wicked whimsy of the Feywild to fifth edition for the first time. Much like the other D&D books, two covers will be available; one will have the standard D&D Fifth Edition logo and a cover designed by Tyler Jacobson. The other will be more abstract and feature a Displacer Beast; the artist for the alternate art cover is the sublime Hydro74.

The Feywilde are part of D&D’s default setting, The Forgotten Realms. As the name implies, they are faerie like beings who lurk in a demi-plane just a cat’s whisker away from normal reality. The new book is likely to be similar in format to previous D&D adventure books such as Icewind Dale Rime of The Frost Maiden. Though it’s primary focus will be to present a flexible adventure that will take months to run and be different every time it’s played, it will also contain useful setting information for Dungeon Masters and players alike.

We understand that the senior story designer on the book is Chris Perkins, who has produced some of the most impressive RPG books to come out of Wizards of the Coast in recent years.

Christina Ricci Joins THE MATRIX 4 Cast

Currently scheduled to hit cinemas this coming Christmas (in a rare twist on what we’ve sadly become used to, the movie recently moved forward from its April 2022 slot), the anxiously-awaited fourth installment of The Matrix has quietly added another interesting name to its cast. Though never previously mentioned or even spotted in a set leak, Warner Bros’ updated press kit for The Matrix 4 has listed Christina Ricci as one of its actors. Ricci has many fondly remembered movies amongst her credits, with her most iconic role that of Wednesday Addams in Barry Sonnenfeld’s two Addams Family features in 1991 and 1993 respectively. Though not as ubiquitous as she was in the ‘90s, Ricci has barely stopped since first breaking on to the scene with Mermaids in 1990, with recent projects of note including her portrayal of the iconic Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald in the 10-part series Z: The Beginning of Everything, and famed ax aficionado Lizzie Borden in the mini-series The Lizzie Borden Chronicles.

Of course, die-hard fans of the Wachowskis and Ricci herself will recall they’ve collaborated before on the woefully misunderstood Speed Racer in 2008. The live-action remake of the popular Japanese property’s anime series from 1967 attempted to faithfully recreate the cartoon aesthetic for live-action, leaving most audiences confused by its unapologetically goofy tone. Perhaps this latest bit of casting will result in Speed Racer being reassessed by masses! (But probably not.)

It seems that secrecy is of the utmost priority on The Matrix 4, and with so many exciting mysteries surrounding the return of such classic characters as Neo and Trinity, and indeed new ones such as Ricci herself, we hope Warner Bros commits to its clandestineness in its forthcoming marketing blitz. If there’s one way the studio can try to recreate the magical audience experience of 1999, it’s by telling them as little as possible.

What we do know is that that alongside Ricci, the cast will consist of Keanu Reeves (naturally), Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Jessica Henwick, Telma Hopkins, Eréndira Ibarra, Toby Onwumere, Max Riemelt, Brian J. Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith.

The film is currently untitled, but rumours have suggested it might follow the bewildering new Hollywood trend of re-using the franchise’s original title (see Halloween, Scream, The Suicide Squad, The Batman, The Predator, et al), therefore simply going by Matrix, or be called The Matrix Resurrections. We hope it’s the latter but certainly won’t rule out the former.

If all goes according to plan in our new post-pandemic world, we’ll all be taking our red pills on December 22^nd.

New Synopsis and Premiere Date Unveiled for WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS Season 3

One of the finest comedies currently on air is returning for a third season later this year, and if you’re a US reader then you now know when to mark your calendars: September 2^nd will see the first two new What We Do in the Shadows episodes in over a year premiere on FX.

Here’s FX on what Season 3 has in store…

“After the shocking season two finale, we find the housemates in a panic about what to do with Guillermo after discovering that he is a vampire killer. This season, the vampires are elevated to a new level of power and will encounter the vampire from which all vampires have descended, a tempting Siren, gargoyles, werewolf kickball, Atlantic City casinos, wellness cults, ex-girlfriends, gyms and supernatural curiosities galore. Plus, Colin Robinson is turning 100. And Nandor, faced with his own eternal-life crisis, tries to inject his life with more meaning. Will he find love or is he destined to be an immortal bachelor with 37 ex-wives?”

Sounds great! But what about viewers in the UK, you ask. Will the BBC, in their infinite wisdom, hold the entire series back until its last episode has aired in the States, just like they did with Season 1 and 2? We don’t have the luxury of an answer sadly, so unfortunately we’ll have to wait until the BBC sees fit to disclose such things. And as we all know, disclosing things when appropriate isn’t exactly the broadcaster’s forte. Ahem. As Disney now owns FX, let’s hope the show migrates over to Disney+ so fans around the world can share the fun at the same time (how novel!) without having to duck spoilers on Twitter for two months.

STAR WARS: ANDOR Adds New Recruit

Though shooting is in full swing on Lucasfilm’s third live-action Star Wars TV show, Andor, that doesn’t mean we’ve heard the last of the cast, with Deadline reporting that British actor Robert Emms is the latest to board the project. Emms will be most familiar to genre fans for his appearances in Atlantis, in which he played Pythagoras, and His Dark Materials, as Thomas. While not quite genre fare it most certainly fell into horror territory, so it would be remiss of us not to also highlight his role as the senior reactor control chief engineer Leonid Toptunov in HBO’s Chernobyl. Details as to what character he’ll be tackling in Andor remains unknown at the time of writing, but all will be revealed when the series debuts on Disney + in 2022.

Robert Emms

Andor will follow the exploits of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) before the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (naturally) as he assists in the founding of the Rebellion. As hinted at in the aforementioned film, the freedom fighters often had to get their hands dirty behind the scenes in order to get their resistance movement strong enough to stand against the Empire, resulting in bloodshed of their own. While we know little of the series so far, we predict that Andor will be much darker in tone than its TV predecessor, The Mandalorian.

In other Rogue One-adjacent news, Donnie Yen, Chirrut Îmwe himself, has now been cast in the forthcoming John Wick: Chapter 4. The legendary actor/martial artist will be right at home in the franchise, which excels in its action set-pieces and fight choreography. Yen will play a former friend of Keanu Reeves’ assassin, who will undoubtedly be drawn into Wick’s messy world once again. Chapter 4 shoots this coming summer for a May 21^st, 2022 release.

The Mighty Nein Ends This Thursday

Dungeons and Dragons live-stream show and cult hit Critical Role ends it’s highly successful second campaign — The Mighty Nein — today.

With over 530 hours of adventures, more than 440 villains defeated and hours of combat, jokes and silliness, the entire thing comes to an end today in an epic finale. Of course, being an American live show, UK viewers may want to wait until Friday morning to catch up as the show starts at 7PM Pacific Standard Time, which is 3AM for those of us in the UK

The cult show has chronicled the story of Jester Lavorre (Laura Bailey), Yasha Nydoorin (Ashley Johnson), Caleb Widogast (Liam O’Brien), Beauregard “Beau” Lionett (Marisha Ray), Nott the Brave/Veth Brenatto (Sam Riegel), Fjord (Travis Willingham), Mollymauk “Molly” Tealeaf and Caduceus Clay (both played by Taliesin Jaffe) aka The Mighty Nein as they travelled the fantasy realm of Wildemont.

The show can be seen via Twitch (twitch.tv/criticalrole) and YouTube (youtube.com/criticalrole), with the replayable VOD of the show available on Critical Role’s YouTube channel the following Monday. What happens next? Well we are pretty sure we’ll see the same people do something equally fun and interesting; watch this space to find out.

Black Sunday Film Festival Announce 2021 Line-Up

The Black Sunday Film Festival is back after COVID forced a postponement of last year’s event. The festival takes place on June 26th and 27th at London’s The Whirled Cinema in Brixton (nearest tube: Loughborough Junction). We can exclusively reveal the line-up, which features four fantastic feature films and twenty-three amazing short films over the two days. You can check out the genre delights on offer below:

Saturday

GUEST (short – writer/director: Finn Callan)

WASH (short – writer/director: Kiggs)

THE STAIRS (feature – writer/director: Peter ‘Drago’ Tiemann)

Short Film Block 1

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE (director: Mitchell Tolliday)/BLOODSHED (writer/directors: Paolo Mancini and Daniel Watchorn)/LIVING AFTER MIDNIGHT (writer/director: Joe Mitchell)/ MIND OVER MATTER (director: Paul Cheung)/WHO WANTS DESERT (writer/director Venita Ozols-Graham), MEAT IS MURDER (director: Max Sobol)/CAGED (writer/director: Mark Nugent)/ NIGHTFALL (director: Jake Sanders)

NOM (short – writer/director: Angel Hernández Suarez)

KILTER (short – writer/director: Rob Stanton-Cook)

MY HEART CAN’T BEAT UNLESS YOU TELL IT TO (feature: writer/director: Jonathan Cuartas)

Sunday

THE WITCH HUNTERS ARE COMING (short – writer/director: James Atkins)

POSSESSIONS (short – writer/director: Zeke Farrow)

15 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT BIGFOOT (#1 WILL BLOW YOUR MIND) (feature – director Zach Lamplugh)

Short Film Block 2

FEARFULLY MADE (writer/director: Jamie Foreman)/UNMADE (writer/director: Steven Sheil)/SHOW ME JACK (writer/director: Sam Strong)/THE CATACLYSM (writer/director: Alexander Frasse)/PANIC ATTACK! (writer/director: Eileen O’Meara)/MISCONCEPTION (director: Richard Rowntree)/2COLOURS (writer/director: Shelley White)/WHERE THERE’S SMOKE (writer/director: Bea Santos)

Closing: Secret Short Film Preview and Secret Feature Film Screening!

To enable social distancing, there will be a reduced capacity at the festival and only full weekend passes are available. However, to celebrate the return of the live festival experience, tickets are completely FREE for 2021! Don’t delay in booking your place, as demand is expected to be high. Head over to Black Sunday Film Festival 2021 Tickets to grab yours.

EVIL DEAD RISE Finally Possess New Leads

The fifth Evil Dead movie is back on track after its development was scuppered by the pandemic (and we thought Deadites were nasty!), with news that it has cast its leads. (Sorry Ash fans – Bruce won’t be returning here. Or so they’re saying, anyway…)

Starring as estranged sisters reuniting in the city – no cabin this time – actors Alyssa Sutherland and Lily Sullivan will face off against a brand-new army of darkness in a rumoured high-rise setting.

Alyssa Sutherland

Lily Sullivan

Sutherland you will be familiar with if you’re a fan of either Vikings or the short-lived TV adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist, while Sullivan will be best known to most of us for the lavish retelling of Picnic at Hanging Rock in 2018. Campbell hypes the casting in a statement, saying “At its core, Evil Dead is about ordinary people overcoming extraordinarily terrifying situations. I can’t wait for Alyssa and Lily to fill the blood-soaked shoes of those who have come before them and carry on that tradition.”

While Campbell won’t be in front of the camera (again, so they say), he will produce this new franchise entry alongside the rest of the Evil Dead triumvirate, Sam Raimi, and Robert Tapert. Joining the crew will be director Lee Cronin, who impressed us (and Raimi) with 2019’s The Hole in the Ground.

The 2013 Evil Dead was a fine film that appealed to mass audiences but largely disappointed hardcore fans who craved a genuine continuation of the canon, while the three seasons of Ash vs Evil Dead that followed delivered that genuine continuation in spades… but failed horribly to find any audience, resulting in early cancellation. Could it be too much to hope for that Evil Dead Rise (to give this new film its full title) might straddle the line between both canons and clear that not-so-groovy 2013 post-credits Ash cameo up once and for all? Probably not, but it will be bloody fun nonetheless!

Evil Dead Rise will reportedly premiere in 2022 on HBO Max in the States, but we currently expect a cinema release in the UK.

Source: Deadline

BLACK PANTHER’s Okoye Set for Wakanda TV Series

It was always presumed a given that Danai Gurira would reprise her role as Wakandan general Okoye in Marvel Studios’ Black Panther sequel due next summer, but now comes news that fans will be getting even more of her in the MCU.

The actor, previously best known for the iconic Michonne in The Walking Dead, has been confirmed to have signed on for the aforementioned movie ‘and’ the secretive Wakanda-based TV series heading to Disney+ sometime in the near future.

Naturally, the plots of both the sequel – recently revealed to be subtitled Wakanda Forever – and the TV series are under wraps for now, but Gurira’s presence certainly points to more exploration of the mysterious Dora Milaje, the formidable royal security guards of the Black Panther himself. They were most recently seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, making the most out of their limited screen time with some sensational fight sequences and whetting fans’ appetites for more.

Both projects herald from Ryan Coogler, the director of 2018’s smash hit Black Panther, and will debut in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

What else has the MCU got in store for us true believers? Read on for our handy cheatsheet…

2021

Loki – (Disney+) June 9th
Black Widow – (in cinemas) July 9th
What If…? – (Disney+) August
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – (in cinemas) September 3^rd
Eternals – (in cinemas) November 5th
Hawkeye – (Disney+) TBC
Ms Marvel – (Disney+) TBC
Spider-Man: No Way Home – (in cinemas) December 17^th

2022

Thor: Love and Thunder – (in cinemas) February 11th
Moon Knight – (Disney+) TBC
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – (in cinemas) March 25^th
She-Hulk – (Disney+) TBC
Black Panther II – (in cinemas) July 8^th
Captain Marvel II – (in cinemas) Nov 11^th
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special – (Disney+) December

2023+

Secret Invasion – (Disney+) TBC
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – (in cinemas) TBC
Ironheart – (Disney+) TBC
Armor Wars – (Disney+) TBC
I Am Groot – (Disney+) TBC
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – (in cinemas) TBC
Blade – (in cinemas) TBC
Fantastic Four – (in cinemas) TBC
Deadpool 3 – (in cinemas) TBC
Untitled Wakanda Series – (Disney+) TBC

FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! Remake is a Go-Go

Russ Myer’s iconic cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! has miraculously survived more than 55 years without being remade, despite the likes of Quentin Tarantino being connected to the property as recently as 2008. It was a good run, but this week brings news that the ferocious go-go gang will return for more adventures of the criminal kind.

Working with his AMC overlords, The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus will develop a TV adaptation of the film through his bigbaldhead production company. Myer’s estate themselves are also on board, speaking highly of its new custodians – Janice Cowart is reported as saying: “I am convinced this team is special and can be entrusted to honour Russ Meyer’s iconic film. I am more than excited to collaborate with them alongside AMC.”

It’s early days yet, so there’s currently no casting or plot details to speak of, but we can’t imagine Reedus – who has been a fan of Myer’s movie since a young age – will be able to resist getting involved in front of the camera too. These women will need an abundance of male bones to break after all!

Are you looking forward to seeing this remake? Who would you like to step into the roles of Billie, Rosie, and – most importantly – Varla? Hit us up with your ideas over on our social channels!

Source: Deadline

Makers of HALLOWEEN and SOLAR OPPOSITES Rebooting GARBAGE PAIL KIDS

If you were a child of the ‘80s, then you’ll no doubt be familiar with the trading card series Garbage Pail Kids. If you were a giant weirdo child of the ‘80s like us, then you’ll have no doubt spent a sizeable chunk of your pocket money trying to complete a set. The gross-out collectibles created GPK junkies the world over, and while the bubble (gum) burst on their popularity in 1988, they’ve never really gone away, with makers Topps continuing to release sets and merch to this day. There was also a live-action movie in 1987 which has the dubious honour of being one of the few films to carry a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, a seldom-seen cartoon series the following year, and 2020 saw the launch of an illustrated book line written by none other than the acclaimed kid’s horror author and Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine! Fans would have been forgiven for thinking the latter marked the pinnacle in terms of GPK being validated by a mainstream talent taking the wheel of the franchise to steer it in the direction of a wider audience, but recent news from Deadline suggests that was just the beginning…

Everybody will be familiar with the work of creators Danny McBride & David Gordon Green, whether they’ve been following them from their first feature film collaboration in fantasy parody Your Highness or enjoyed any of their excellent small screen comedies – Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals, and, most recently, The Righteous Gemstones. To many readers though, the duo are best known for resurrecting Michael Myers for a brand new trilogy in 2018’s horror hit, Halloween, which will continue this October in Halloween Kills and conclude next year in Halloween Ends. Not content with rescuing just one of their childhood icons from increasing irrelevance (the duo were lifelong Halloween fans before securing the deal to write/direct the project), McBride and Green have struck a deal with the seemingly insatiable HBO Max to bring the Garbage Pail Kids’ world to life in a new animated series for the streaming service. Together, under their Rough House production banner, they’ll work with writer/producer Josh Bycel, who’s been impressing us of late with the hilarious animated series Solar Opposites (Disney+ if you’re a UK reader, Hulu in the States), on which he’s an Executive Producer. (He also wrote Season 2’s The Lake House Device episode, which was excellent!)

Danny McBride and David Gordon Green

While the new GPK show is being reported as aiming for “family-friendly” in tone, something Garbage Pail Kids has never been considered to be, it’s worth remembering how much attitudes to humour have changed drastically over the last 37 years. What was considered counterculture back then is very much the norm nowadays, with adult references and pop culture-skewing commonplace in pretty much every animated project, from Pixar to SpongeBob. And all the farts, snot, puke, and poop? Pfft. Kids eat it that stuff for breakfast nowadays. (Not in a literal sense we’d hope.)

We look forward to seeing how McBride, Green, and Bycel plan to honour their nostalgia for the property, and we’ll keep you abreast of developments along the way!

Relevant reading:

It’s the Ultimate Gross-over! Get Ready for MADBALLS vs. GARBAGE PAIL KIDS…