Sadie Sink Joins SPIDER-MAN 4

sadie sink as max in stranger things 4

Stranger Things star Sadie Sink will join Tom Holland and Zendaya in the long-awaited Spider-Man 4 MCU film. Director Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) is helming the film, which is still untitled, from a screenplay by Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna.

The plot of the film is, it goes without saying, being kept top secret. Spider-Man: No Way Home ended with the entire world forgetting who Peter Parker was after his identity as Spider-Man was exposed. Who Sadie Sink will play in the film is still unknown.

Her joining this project seemingly casts doubt on widespread rumours that she would portray the X-Men’s Jean Gray in upcoming MCU entries, but with the multiverse still at play, who’s to say?

Holland teased the fourth Spider-Man entry last year, saying, “The idea is crazy. It’s a little different to anything we’ve done before, but I think the fans are gonna really respond to it.” The film will be released on July 31st, 2026.

News of Sink’s casting comes as the last season of Netflix series Stranger Things nears. Up next for the young actress is the Searchlight film O’Dessa, and the Broadway play John Proctor Is the Villain.

Jaffe and Johnson Are The Weird Kids

Weird Kids, a podcast show about growing up in Hollywood as child actors, presented by two people who did exactly that, is coming to streaming later this month.

The show will feature Critical Role founders Ashley Johnson and Taliesin Jaffe. The former is known for their work on the TV show Blindspot, the latter on Hellsing, but both had long and interesting careers.

“We wanted to create a space where we could share the ridiculous, surreal, and deeply personal stories that come with growing up in the industry,” Ashley Johnson told the press. “Weird Kids is for anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t quite fit in—and we can’t wait for people to join us at the table.”

The show promises to mix personal stories with humour, nostalgia and the perspective one only gets by getting older. From voice acting to soap dramas, to turning playing Dungeons & Dragons into a stadium event, these two have had an interesting journey, so it should make for a fun show.

The show premieres on March 20th and can be found exclusively on the streaming platform Beacon, with clips on YouTube and Instagram. A VoD of the first episode will eventually come to other platforms.  You can find out more here

Critical Role’s Fresh Cut Grass Gets A Book Deal

Smiley Day Critical Role FCG

Fresh Cut Grass, aka FCG, a character played by Sam Riegel in the hit show Critical Role, is getting his own book. Critical Role: Smiley Day is an inspirational hardcover book with the wit and wisdom of Fresh Cut Grass, written by Riegel himself and illustrated by Thorn L. Knight, a regular artist for the show.

The book is named after Fresh Cut Grass’s catchphrase, “Smiley Day To You”. The character comes from the recently concluded Campaign Three: Bells Hells campaign. FCG is a cute-looking robot powered by magic, with a sunny disposition and a tragic backstory. The main ‘gag’ behind the book is that FCG loves to help others but is bad at looking after himself. The character is named after one of his creators’ favourite smells; presumably, FCG had a sibling named New Book somewhere.

Critical Role: Smiley Day will be the second ‘novelty’ stocking-filling book to come out in 2025. The other one is Tusk Love, the tale of a merchant’s daughter who yearns for adventure and gets more than she bargained for when she falls for a broodingly handsome stranger. The book’s title was a running gag in Campaign Two The Mighty Nein. A ‘real’ version of the book will be out in July and is written by bestselling fantasy author Thea Guanzon.

Critical Role: Smiley Day is available for pre-order now, and comes out in October, in plenty of time for Christmas.

Call of Cthulhu Live To Tour UK

A live show version of the classic table-top RPG, Call of Cthulhu, will tour the UK later this year, following a hugely successful run at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

This live show will take six performers into the world of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos as they take on the roles of investigators. Live shows like this are a mix of improv and storytelling, using traditional table-top RPG systems to keep the action going.

The show features an all-star cast of actors and performers who are no strangers to turning TTRPGs into improvised performance theatre. The ‘Keeper’ is Mass Effect actor Mark Meer, who is also a world-class Dungeon Master. Other players include Baldur’s Gate actor Samantha Beart, Jasper Cartwright of the 3 Black Halflings/Reslayer’s Take, Oxventurer Johnny Chiodini, Tiny Plastic Men’s Belinda Cornish, and horror movie star Josephine McAdam.

The tour starts on May 29th in Birmingham, conveniently the day before the UK’s biggest tabletop gaming convention, UKGE. It continues to Brighton for May 31st , before going to London for June 1st, Manchester for June 3rd and ending in Glasgow on June 4th.

The Call of Cthulhu RPG came out back in 1981 and is still produced by the Michigan USA-based games company Chaosium. It’s considered the ‘staple’ horror roleplaying, and it’s the dominant horror game in the hobby. It’s noted for its high stakes and tension building, and as such, is an excellent core game for horror theatre.

“This is something we’ve been cooking up since our hugely successful live shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year – in partnership with AEG, we’re excited to be taking Call of Cthulhu Live on the road”, said Chaosium’s Michael O’Brien, the show’s co-producer.

You can book tickets (and find out more) here.

Netflix Anime Series DEVIL MAY CRY Debuts Trailer

dante poster for devil may cry netflix series trailer

Demon hunter for hire Dante faces off against an army of monsters in the first trailer for the Devil May Cry Netflix anime series. Based on the Capcom video game franchise, the eight-episode first season will be released on the platform on April 3rd.

In Devil May Cry, “Sinister forces are at play at the portal between the human and demon realms. In the middle of it all is Dante, an orphaned demon hunter for hire, unaware that the fates of both worlds hang around his neck.”

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Akira’s Johnny Yong Bosch voices Dante. he also voiced Dante’s nephew, Nero, in the original video games. The series hails from Castlevania creator Adi Shankar, who also serves as showrunner, and is produced by The Legend of Korra and X-Men ’97 animation studio, Studio Mir.

Also joining the voice cast are Scout Taylor-Compton as Lady, Hoon Lee as White Rabbit, Chris Coppola as Enzo Ferino, the late Kevin Conroy as VP Baines, and Robbie Daymond as Vergil.

Created by Hideki Kamiya, the first Devil May Cry game was released in 2001. There are five main games, as well as several reboots, spin-offs, mobile games, and special editions.

Check out the trailer the Devil May Cry Netflix series, appropriately set to Papa Roach’s “Last Resort”, below:

THE DARK DOMAIN Horror Trailer Pits MICKEY VS WINNIE

steamboat willie inspired mickey mouse in the dark domain: mvw mickey-vs-winnie

There’s been a sharp rise in public domain-based horror flicks in recent years, from Winnie the Pooh’s Poohniverse films to Popeye getting a serial killer makeover, but the upcoming The Dark Domain: MVW Mickey-vs-Winnie is the first to pit the two icons against each other. Glenn Douglas Packard directs the film for Untouchables Entertainment.

The upcoming feature “follows two convicts in the 1920s who escape into a cursed forest only to be dragged and consumed into the depths of the dark forest’s muddy heart. A century later, a group of thrill-seeking friends unknowingly venture into the same woods. Their Airbnb getaway takes a horrifying turn when the convicts mutate into twisted versions of childhood icons Mickey Mouse & Winnie-The-Pooh, and emerge to terrorize them. A night of violence and gore erupts as the group of friends battle against their now monstrous beloved childhood characters and fight to break free from the forest’s grip. In a horrific spectacle, Mickey and Winnie clash, painting the woods in a gruesome tableau of blood—a chilling testament to the curse’s insidious power.”

Dark Mickey is played by Daniel Wilkinson, with Dark Winnie played by Chris Boudreaux.

“I love that we can take these iconic childhood characters from A.A. Milne’s original Winnie-the-Pooh and the 1928 Steamboat Willie version of Mickey and create a whole new wicked universe,” Packard said in a statement. “Our film is like the Upside Down World, with these public domain icons getting into a horror smackdown akin to Freddy vs. Jason.”

Check out the Variety-exclusive trailer for The Dark Domain: MVW Mickey-vs-Winnie below:

LGBTQ+ Magic School Inspired Festival Crushes Kickstarter

TheJoyWhoLived

The Joy Who Lived, an almost month-long theatre festival concentrating on work written by, featuring, and produced by members of the trans community, has crushed its crowd-funding goal. The festival is based in Los Angeles, running from Trans Day of Visibility (March 31st) through April 26th. 

The festival, which is partially available online, has been organised by Laser Webber, one-half of The Doubleclicks and creator of the show A Shark Ate My Penis.  The Kickstarter campaign is to raise funds to produce the show more effectively and also live-stream more shows, so you don’t have to travel to the US to see it.

Creators involved include Steven Universe’s Rebecca Sugar, stand-up icon River Butcher, Tony-winning theater-maker JJ Maley, Dropout. tv’sJiavani, Dimension 20’s Alex Song-Xia, DJ Mausner, Zack Binder, Griffin Kelly and many more.

The campaign ends March 13th at 1:00 AM, so run, don’t walk, to the Kickstarter page here.

The Lightning Thief Musical Casts New Percy Jackson

Back to the Future: The Musical actor Morgan Gregory is now the lead role in The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. He is joined by Frozen the Musical’s Lizzy-Rose Esin-Kelly as Annabeth Blippi’s Angus Benstead as Grover.

The show follows the journey of New York teenager Percy Jackson, who discovers that he is the half-blood son of the Greek god Poseidon. Wackiness ensues as he learns to master his powers while dealing with a legion of mythical monsters and trying to solve a crime committed by the gods themselves.

Based on the much-loved best-selling book series by Rick Riordan (with over 180 million copies sold worldwide), Percy Jackson’s story has been adapted into both films and TV series for Disney+. The musical first premiered off-Broadway in 2014 as part of the Theatreworks USA free theatre series.  The show quickly became a hit and went on to have two US tours, an off-Broadway run in 2017 and a 16-week limited run on Broadway in 2019.

You can book tickets to see the show at the The Other Palace Theatre in London via their website, and the show is running till August 31st, 2025. Tickets are selling fast, so book soon.

BBC Radiophonic Workshop Archive Opened To Public

The BBC’s groundbreaking archive of experimental music and sound, which made up a crucial part of shows such as Doctor Who and Blake’s Seven, is now open to the public as a virtual studio (VST).

BBC Studios worked with Spitfire Audio to make available an unprecedented package of samples from the pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop. This includes everything from the TARDIS engine sound to the work done for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

With exclusive access to the Workshop’s archives, tools, and hardware at the legendary Maida Vale Studios and guidance from Radiophonic Workshop archivist Mark Ayres and other Workshop members, Spitfire Audio has captured the essence of this sonic playground. The library features sounds from the original tapes, as well as new recordings and experiments by Workshop members and associates, including Mark Ayres, Kieron Pepper, Bob Earland, Dick Mills, Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb, Glynis Jones, and Peter Howell.

Mark Ayres told the press, “I’m the youngest member of the core Radiophonic Workshop – and I’m 64! We’re not going to be around forever. It was really important to leave a creative tool, inspired by our work, for other people to use going forward. I hope we’ve made an instrument that will inspire future generations.

“This instrument is all formed from the work, processes and equipment that the Workshop created and used. You know, sampling now really looks like sampling then, but with a few more twiddles. I’ve been saying for years that Workshop composers such as Delia Derbyshire and John Baker were really samplists.”

This modern system includes new patches and performances on precious EMS VCS 3 synths, choirs of the lampshades Delia Derbyshire famously sampled and composed with Skeleton Guitars, and tape loops.

The Spitfire Audio BBC Radiophonic Workshop VST can be purchased here.

Classic Fighting Fantasy Comes To Kickstarter

ForestofDoom fighting fantasy

The cult adventure gamebook series Fighting Fantasy will become available in the USA thanks to a crowdfunding campaign by US-based games company Steve Jackson Games, a company run by games designer Steve Jackson from the USA.

The popular fantasy series started in 1982 and are books that are also games. You read passages of the book and make choices based on the text, turning to the relevant pages as directed. Dice are used to adjudicate combat and other moments of action; it is essentially a tabletop roleplaying experience for a single person. The books have a cult following and have spawned audio versions, video games, magazines and even its own range of fantasy miniatures. This Kickstarter’s initial run of books will include those written by Sir Ian Livingstone and the UK’s Steve Jackson.

Sir Ian Livingstone says: “To have a new publisher in the USA is a special moment in the history of Fighting Fantasy. We have known Steve Jackson (US) for more than 40 years, having distributed Steve Jackson Games in the 1980s when we owned Games Workshop. Steve also wrote three fantastic Fighting Fantasy books, which caused a lot of confusion at the time when people didn’t realize there were two Steve Jacksons! We look forward to exciting times ahead in the USA for new and existing Fighting Fantasy fans.”

For years, UK and European fans of the Fighting Fantasy books have been able to pick them up via the publisher Scholastic. This campaign will mean that North American fans will be able to get the books. The new books will include the original artwork but have been designed to be easier to flip through while playing. The initial run will include Forest of Doom, Deathtrap Dungeon, and The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

The Kickstarter campaign is for the first five books in the Fighting Fantasy series, a range which is over fifty books long.

The campaign runs until Tuesday, March 18th 2025, and can be found here.