Sony’s FUNIMATION Group acquires CRUNCHYROLL

It had been rumoured for weeks but now the news is official – Sony’s FUNimation Global Group is set to acquire anime powerhouse Crunchyroll for a reported $1.175 Billion.

AT&T’s WarnerMedia group announced the sale today and it’s Chief Revenue Officer Tony Concalves made the following statement:

“The Crunchyroll team has done an extraordinary job of not only growing the Crunchyroll brand but also building a passionate community of anime fans. Crunchyroll’s success is a direct result of the company’s culture and commitment to their fans.

By combining with Funimation, they will continue to nurture a global community and bring more anime to more people. I’m incredibly proud of the Crunchyroll team and what they have been able to accomplish in the digital media space in such a short period of time. They’ve created an end-to-end global ecosystem for this incredible art form.”

Representatives from Crunchyroll were proud to announce their purchase by Sony and assured fans that “Until the deal closes, Crunchyroll and Funimation will continue to operate independently. Regardless of the big news, we’re still the same Crunchyroll we were yesterday and will continue to bring you more anime!”

This certainly is massive news in the anime world and with Crunchyroll continuing to produce more original content and with Sony now behind them, the future is bright for not only the company, but the aforementioned “incredible art form” as well.

Ready for KINGSMAN 4? How About 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10?

kingsman

Up for more adventures from the world of Kingsman? Sure, we all still have the postponed prequel The King’s Man to look forward to in 2021 and whispers of a Netflix series, but we’re talking even more than that. Try seven more movies.

Given that the box-office to Kingsman: The Golden Circle didn’t quite live up to the promise of its originator, 2014’s The Secret Service, it was somewhat of a surprise that fans were even getting another big-screen entry, doubly so when it was announced that it wouldn’t continue the story of the principal leads Eggsy and Harry, or any of the myriad other special agents it introduced from around the world. Suddenly switching to a prequel movie about the origins of the Secret Service when so much world-building had been set-up to pay off later (famous faces being introduced such as Pedro Pascal, Jeff Bridges, and Channing Tatum each only got a few minutes screen time) still appears to be a risky move. But it seems, like Harry Hart and Eggsy Unwin themselves, creator/director Matthew Vaughn and his MARV production company CEO Zygi Kamasa don’t sweat the small stuff. In fact, it sounds like they’ve never had so much confidence in their franchise, with the latter announcing during the recent Winston Baker U.K. Finance Summit that there are indeed a dizzying seven more films in development, and finally confirming that that rumoured Netflix series was a go!

Both films thus far have been incredibly inventive and wildly entertaining (their lame obsession with bum sex and Elton John’s inexplicable kung-fu credentials aside*), so we here at STARBURST are very much looking forward to plenty more spy shenanigans from this universe.

But up first, The King’s Man will finally hit screens in its new (hopefully) COVID-safe release date of February 12th, 2021.

* Seriously, if Elton John can out-karate kick or even ‘match’ a member of the secret service in fighting skills, it makes a mockery of the entire premise! Sure Mr Vaughn, it looked funny to see a bewigged old bloke in big bins doing a roundhouse but think about the damage to the narrative! (As you can tell, it may have been three years but I’m still sore about this scene.)

Source: Deadline

PIXEL JUICE [December 2020]

kate bishop

November brought with it the launches of both the PS5 and the Xbox Series. Microsoft enjoyed its largest console launch ever, with head honcho Phil Spencer taking to Twitter to say: “In 24 hrs more new consoles sold, in more countries, than ever before.” However, some early buyers have experienced problems with the console’s disc drives. Plus, there are a lot of videos doing the rounds of the console with smoke pouring out of its vents. These may well be fake, but Microsoft has announced that they’re going to look into the potential problem.

Sony’s console also seems to be experiencing some early issues. A few prominent YouTubers have had theirs die on them, while other players report controllers refusing to sync and databases getting corrupted. So, pretty standard console launch issues these days. It’s still a little too early to say if either console has managed to pull ahead of the other.

Switching our focus to games, industry reports suggest that the botched launch of Marvel’s Avengers played a big part in Square Enix announcing a £45 million loss for the third quarter of the year. The developers are still supporting the game though, with Kate Bishop set to join the cast of characters on December 8th.

Hitman developers IO Interactive announced that they’re working on a new James Bond property. Details are scarce at the moment, but this will be the first Bond game in about a decade. The developer claims the project will be the most ambitious in its history, which is a pretty bold statement given the depth of some of the Hitman games.

We also have a few more details about Bethesda’s plans now that it’s a Microsoft property. It seems that the developer’s games will still hit other consoles. However, Xbox owners will either get the first versions of new Bethesda games, likely meaning timed exclusivity, or the “best” versions. We’re not exactly sure what “best” means in this context but it’s interesting to see that Bethesda isn’t going full-on exclusive with Microsoft.

EA and BioWare announced Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which will launch in Spring 2021. The collection will feature remastered versions of the first three Mass Effect games and will come to PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Halo Infinite seems to be going through an increasingly troubled development. Already the subject of an unexpected delay, the game has now lost its director, Chris Lee. Apparently, Lee will remain with 343 Industries while stepping away from the game. Could we be seeing our first major hitter of this generation landing in development hell?

To add to the misery, Cyberpunk 2077 has also been hit with another delay. Thankfully, it’s only for 21 days, with the game now set to launch on December 10th. Again, CD Projekt Red claims this will allow them to add a touch more polish to the finished product, which is already in “Gold” status, meaning all of the content is complete.

To end on a happier note, Kojima Productions put out a job ad this month saying that it’s working on a new project. We don’t have any details beyond that but it’s always good to know that one of the industry’s foremost creative minds has something new in the pipeline…

John Carpenter Reveals New Track from LOST THEMES III

carpenter themes dead

The legendary John Carpenter has released a new track, The Dead Walk, from his upcoming album Lost Themes III: Alive After Death. The new album will be released on February 5th, 2021 on Sacred Bones Records. You can check the track out at the bottom of this page.

The release follows the success of the previous Lost Themes records and the world tours that the Horror Master has completed in recent years.

From the press release:

Lead single Weeping Ghost thrillingly conjures its title figure in a wash of synthesiser, making the listener’s neck hairs stand on end as the aural spectre stalks the halls of a dilapidated mansion. The pulsing The Dead Walk makes the zombie apocalypse feel like a rave. The gloomy, atmospheric closing track Carpathian Darkness casts shadow on the album with its strikingly effective minimal piano and splashes of twinkling synth. Each of the ten songs is a universe unto itself.

Underpinning Carpenter’s renaissance as a musician has been his collaboration with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. They’ve composed and performed as a trio since the first Lost Themes album in 2015: on studio albums, on soundtracks, and onstage. Here, the trio reaches a new level of creative mind meld. Richly rendered worlds are built in the interplay between Davies’ guitar and the dueling synthesisers played by the Carpenters.

“We begin with a theme, a bass line, a pad, something that sounds good and will lead us to the next layer,” John says of the trio’s process. “We then just keep adding on from there. We understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, how to communicate without words, and the process is easier now than it was in the beginning. We’ve matured.”

The track list for the album is:

Alive After Death

Weeping Ghost

Dripping Blood

Dead Eyes

Vampire’s Touch

Cemetery

Skeleton

Turning the Bones

The Dead Walk

Carpathian Darkness

You can pre-order the album now.

HANDIWORK GAMES LAUNCH HANDIMONSTER SERVICE

HandiMonster Knacker Reveal

If you run or play table-top roleplaying games, you know that having a supply of novel and interesting monster encounters is a pretty major thing. Handiwork Games, the people behind games such as Beowulf and The Forest Dragon have launched Handimonsters, a monster subscription service for gamers.

Designed by industry professionals Jon Hodgson and Jacob Rodgers, Handimonsters offers you a completely new, never-before-seen monster, every week, along with its artwork, stats and full, lore-filled description. Created to the high standards the Handiwork team are famous for, these creatures are directly downloadable and ready to go.

Top tier subscribers will receive additional content and benefits – not only a discount for the Handiwork store, but digital art cards, showing each creature in beautiful detail, home-printable paper minis, and virtual tabletop tokens in both portrait and top-down.

You can find out more on their website,  http://www.handimonsters.com

Five Films to Check Out on Horror Channel This Week – 071220

To save you getting lockdown blues, we’re going to be giving you our picks of what to watch on Horror Channel each week. Here are some of our favourites this week:

Tuesday December 8th, 9pm – The Stepfather (2009)

A remake of the 1987 film, this version has Dylan Walsh in the titular role of a serial killer who weaves himself into a family’s life. When suspicions rise, the bodies pile up.

Thursday December 10th, 9pm – Kill Command (2016)

Directed by Steven Gomez, this British sci-fi thriller is very impressive. A training mission goes wrong for a group of US Marines when the AI they are exercising against goes wrong. When will people learn that machines will always turn on their masters? Some great effects make this one not to miss.

Friday December 11th, 11pm – Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)

The sequel to the US remake of [REC] branches out on its own with an original story that puts the virus-filled action in an airport terminal. With the way the world is now, these films don’t seem as much like fantasy as they used to!

Saturday December 12th, 9pm – The Ninth Gate (1999)

Roman Polanski directs Johnny Depp as a book dealer who is tasked with confirming the authenticity of a rare satanic book. Frank Langella is the collector dabbling in the dark arts. Despite not doing well when released, it’s a film that has found its audience.

Sunday December 13th, 6.40pm – Robot Overlords (2014)

The second British sci-fi film to be recommended this week, and this one is a doozy! Ben Kingsley and Gillian Anderson star in a charming invasion story that packs a punch but is still family-friendly enough to be shown at tea-time. Directed by Jon Wright (Grabbers), it balances threat and adventure perfectly with some very impressive special effects.

Tune into Horror Channel on Sky 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 68, Freesat 138.

Tolkien House Causes Controversy

Courtesy of Breckon and Breckon. 20 Northmoor Road.

An old house occupied by JRR Tolkien and family 79 years ago has become the target of some controversy amongst fans of the JRR Tolkien’s work .


20 Northmoor Road near Oxford, England is a Grade 2 listed building which is currently on the market for £4.5Million. Newly formed charity Project Northmoor has launched a fund-raising campaign in order to purchase the property from the current owners. The charity is hoping to turn the building into a writer’s retreat, running short creative writing courses and the like. The bedrooms will be transformed to reflect aspects of his Middle-earth cultures and the garden restored. It will not be a museum as the house is in a residential area.

Celebrities such as Annie Lennox, Sir Ian McKellen, John Rhys-Davies and Martin Freeman have voiced their support for the campaign and a promotional video featuring these stars can be found on Northmoor’s website. The people behind the campaign are novelist Julia Golding and her husband Joss Saunders, a publishing and charity lawyer. Golding’s books are primarily murder mystery and children’s fiction.

Despite celebrity support this has caused some consternation amongst fans of Tolkien’s work. Tolkien’s legacy is well-established; substantial and highly successful efforts have been made to preserve his work and artefacts of his personal history. Academic organisations as well as groups as The Tolkien Society have worked hard to preserve all things Tolkien. It is for these reasons that fans have taken to social media to question the value of this project and how it serves Tolkien’s legacy.

The building’s Grade Two status means that the structure is in no immediate danger, regardless of who owns it in the future.

The campaign will run for three months, so we should know by March 2021 if Project Northmoor is successful.

Update added on 8th November 2020:
The Tolkien Society have released a statement in regards to the project. It begins “The Trustees of the Tolkien Society wish to make it clear to Society members, supporters and the public that it is not involved in, or affiliated with, Project Northmoor.”

The full statement can be found here: https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2020/12/statement-on-project-northmoor/

Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ METAL GEAR SOLID Movie finds its SOLID SNAKE

The long-awaited live-action Metal Gear Solid adaptation has reportedly found its lead as Deadline has announced that their sources have revealed that Oscar Isaac (Star Wars, Ex Machina) has signed on to play the legendary Solid Snake in the film which is being helmed by Kong: Skull Island’s Jodan Vogt-Roberts.

The film, which is in development by Sony Pictures, is based on the multi-award-winning video game series created by Hideo Kojima and developed by Konami. The game series first debuted in 1987 with Metal Gear but it wasn’t until 1998’s Metal Gear Solid on the Sony PlayStation when it really gained a worldwide audience.

With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging on and Isaac’s schedule seemingly fit to burst with his involvement in various other projects including the Marvel Disney+ series Moon Knight, it is still unclear as to when production will begin on the film. Vogt-Roberts is set to direct with Derek Connolly penning the script and Avi Arad and Peter Kang serving as producer and executive producer respectively.

More information to follow as it is announced.

Warner Bros Announce 2021 Films Will Be Theatrical and VOD

dune trailer

After the news that Wonder Woman 1984 will be released on HBO Max in the US as well as cinemas, the studio has revealed the rest of the 2021 slate will use the same release approach.

According to Variety, the entire release schedule will follow the plan of streaming and theatrical release. The Warner Bros films we can expect in the coming year includes Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, The Matrix 4, The Suicide Squad, Godzilla vs Kong, Mortal Combat, and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Whether this tactic will be replicated remains to be seen. Wonder Woman 1984 is still expected to hit UK cinemas on December 16th – ahead of the US release on December 25th. There’s still an issue of cinemas being closed in many parts of the country due to the tier system put in place by the UK government. How quick the film will be made available on VOD in the UK has yet to be revealed.

HBO Max was launched as a rival to Netflix and Disney+ in the US, and will have a 31-day exclusive window on digital rentals, before the films are released on the likes of Amazon and iTunes.

What is clear is the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to cause disruption to the entertainment industry for some time to come.

 

Hugh Keays-Byrne 1947 – 2020

hugh

STARBURST is saddened to learn Anglo-Australian actor Hugh Keays-Byrne has passed away.

The actor burst onto the burgeoning Australian exploitation scene with the 1974 film Stone, where he played Toad and the 1979 classic Mad Max, in which he was the memorable villain Toecutter. He would return to the George Miller’s franchise in 2015 when he once again played the main villain Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road.

Keays-Byne also had a regular role as Grunchik in the popular series Farscape. Other appearances include cult films Mad Dog Morgan (1976), Snapshot (1979), and The Chain Reaction (1980). He won a Logie Award – which celebrates Australian television – for Best Actor for the series Rush in 1977.

STARBURST sends our thoughts to his family and friends.