THE NATURAL ORDER Sci-Fi To Star Glen Powell, Barry Jenkins To Direct

twisters star glen powell to star in the natural order

Glen Powell is set to star in the Universal feature The Natural Order, a sci-fi thriller centring on the pursuit for eternal life from filmmaker Barry Jenkins. The film is based on author Matthew Aldrich’s unpublished manuscript. Jenkins is in talks to direct, and Jenkins and Aldrich will write the script. Plot details are scarce, but the project has been described as an “elevated sci-fi thriller”.

This is the first project to fall under Powell and Dan Cohen’s Barnstorm banner’s first-look deal with Universal. Producers on The Natural Order also include Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak for Pastel, along with Jewerl Keats Ross.

Jenkins’ most recent film was the Disney prequel film Mufasa: The Lion King, which released in cinemas late last year. He is best known for his Oscar-winning feature debut, Moonlight. Aldrich most notably wrote Coco for Disney and Pixar, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Warner Bros and DC Studios also recently greenlit his screenplay for Dynamic Duo, a Robin origin story.

Powell, meanwhile, is already set to have a busy year starring in the upcoming The Running Man from director Edgar Wright, appearing opposite Margaret Qualley in Huntington, and leading the eight-episode Hulu series Chad Powers.

Space Marine 3 Announced

Games Workshop and Focus Entertainment have announced that a sequel to the incredibly successful FPS video game Space Marine 2 is in the works.  It is currently titled Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3.

The first two games feature a Space Marine from the Ultramarine Chapter, who is called Titus. This same character also had its own animated short story as part of the Prime TV show Secret Level.

John Bert, Deputy CEO of Focus Entertainment Publishing, told the press, “We have been honoured by the incredible response from fans following the launch of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. We will continue to support the game with exciting content and regular updates in the coming years. Today, we are thrilled to announce that the adventure will continue with Space Marine 3. Players can look forward to an immersive campaign, a multiplayer mode, and innovations that will redefine the standards of third-person action games. Developed in close collaboration with Games Workshop, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 will take the genre to new heights by introducing large-scale battles that are even more spectacular.”

Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber Interactive added, “Space Marine 2 has proven to be a transformative game for Saber. It is the culmination of everything we have learned about game development in our 25 years in the business. We are now starting to develop Space Marine 3, a game that carries with it tremendous expectations from our rapidly expanding fanbase. While we will continue to support and grow the Space Marine 2 universe over the coming years, we will take all our learnings and apply them to an even bigger and more spectacular game for the third instalment. We view this as an opportunity to create a true love letter to the Warhammer 40.000 universe.”

Games Workshop have been working hard recently to bring cool spin-offs to the gaming public, and Space Marine 2 has been an excellent example of that. Though over at STARBURST towers, we’re still waiting for a triple AAA adaptation of the Troll-based bodybuilding board game Oi! Dat’s My Leg. In the meantime, we’re delighted to learn that there will be a sequel to the high-octane, bolter-shell fuelled game series that is Space Marine.

NYC’s Twenty-Sided Tavern Prepares For Tour

Officially Licensed Dungeons & Dragons Live Show, The Twenty-Sided Tavern, will be ending its New York City residency to tour North America later this year, it has been announced. The NYC run ends on May 11th, 2025, before touring the rest of the US.

The show uses a mix of actors, comedians, professional gamers and technology to present a fun stage experience.  Travis McElroy, Darin De Paul, Devora Wilde, Samantha Beart, Anjali Bhimani and Becca Scott are all guests for this final pre-tour run, with the Dungeon Master being the legendary Aabria Iyengar. 

“Bringing The Twenty-Sided Tavern to New York has been an unforgettable journey,” said Executive Producer and Co-Creator David Carpenter. “We’ve built an incredible community here, and we’re beyond excited to celebrate this chapter with some of the biggest names in the D&D and gaming world before taking the adventure nationwide. This is the Tavern at its absolute best – you won’t want to miss it.”

STARBURST randomly encountered The Twenty-Sided Tavern at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe back in 2022. The show has been selling out over in New York from 2024 through to this year, filling seats at the iconic Off-Broadway Stage 42 venue. The show is unusual for a D&D-themed improv theatre show because it uses live voting from the audience to navigate the story, using an app-based thing called Gamiotics. (Most shows use either a hat filled with suggestions or yelling.)

Twenty-Sided Tavern will then head to Washington to begin its tour. (You can find out more about future dates via their Discord ).  

Tickets are on sale now through May 11th, 2025, at thetwentysidedtavern.com and telecharge.com.

BAD KARAOKE Pits Cover Band Against Cursed Karaoke Machine

cruel summer star lexi underwood cast in comedy-horror bad karaoke

The horror-comedy Bad Karaoke is announced to begin shooting this month in Lost Angeles, from District 78 Films and Father Greg Productions. The film will star Cruel Summer’s Lexi Underwood, Monster High: The Movie‘s Case Walker, and Purple Hearts’ Kat Cunning.

It follows a group of friends in a cover band making their way from Portland, Oregon, to perform at a wedding in Napa, California. When they discover an abandoned karaoke machine in the back of a dive bar, the motley crew must find a way to defeat the cursed machine before it eliminates them.

Underwood plays songwriter Emily and Walker plays bassist Noah, with Cunning as lead singer Hannah, who has come to terms with a career as a cover band musician only to learn it might become the death of them. Bad Karaoke is the feature directorial debut of Chris Lightbody and Robert J. Steinmiller Jr. The script hails from Lightbody and Spencer Yaras. Producing are Yaras, Adam Bradshaw and Brendan Petrizzo.

Yaras said, via Deadline: “We knew we wanted to do something that paid tribute to our love of horror comedies as well as music, so we thought ‘what if karaoke killed you?’” Lightbody added: “Which happens a lot, actually.”

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: