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.
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.
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.
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.
Justin Lin, best known for reviving the Fast & Furious franchise, has been tapped to direct the action feature BRZRKR, the Netflix adaptation of the Keanu Reeves-authored comic. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news.
Reeves is starring and producing the film. Also producing are Stephen Christy for Boom! Studios, Stephen Hamel for Company Films and Ross Richie, as well as Lin via his Perfect Storm banner.
The Batman 2 co-writer Mattson Tomlin penned the script for BRZKRK, which is a “brutally epic saga about an immortal warrior’s 80,000-year fight through the ages. The man known only as ‘B’ is half-mortal and half-god, cursed and compelled to violence, even at the sacrifice of his sanity. But after wandering the earth for centuries, B may have finally found a refuge — working for the U.S. government to fight the battles too violent and too dangerous for anyone else. In exchange, B will be granted the one thing he desires — the truth about his endless blood-soaked existence … and how to end it.”
Reeves created the concept and the story, working alongside artist Ron Garney and comics author Matt Kindt.
The first issue remains one of the best-selling comics of the last decade, selling over 600,000 copies. The title itself has sold over 3.5 million worldwide. The 2024 BRZRKR novel, titled The Book of Elsewhere, written by China Miéville and Reeves, became a New York Times best-seller. There is also an anime spinoff in development to be written by Tomlin.
Get ready for a Riverdale/Archie Comics x View Askewniverse collision, with news that Kevin Smith is writing a crossover comic in which Archie meets Jay & Silent Bob. This title will take place in the continuity of Smith’s filmography, with the crossover set after 2022’s Clerks III.
“Archie plays a role in the healing,” Smith told The Hollywood Reporter, which features Archie landing a summer job at the Clerks Quick Shop and striking up a friendship with co-worker Randal Graves. As fans of the View Askewniverse will know, Smith is referring to the events of Clerks III, which saw the death of Brian O’Halloran’s Dante. “Not only is this my stab at a classic American franchise that existed long before me that I read as a kid … It’s a midlife crisis project about death and learning to deal,” Smith adds.
Kevin Smith Presents: Archie Meets Jay & Silent Bob will be released on July 9th. The comic has art from Fernando Ruiz and Rich Koskowski, colours by Matt Herms, letters by Jack Morelli and a cover by Ruiz, Koslowski and Rosario “Tito” Peña. It is a partnership between Archie and Smith’s Secret Stash Press.
Check out the preview artwork for the comic below:
The Black Sunday Film Festival returns to Colchester with a fantastic line-up of genre films from across the globe. Tickets are now on sale for the 6th edition, which will take place at Firstsite, Colchester from Thursday, May 1st to May 3rd.
The opening night boasts UK premieres for Kaye Adelaide’s lesbian influencer mockumentary The Rebrand and Mary Beth McAndrews’ indie revenge thriller Bystanders. This is followed by the Essex premiere of Steffen Haars and Flip Van der Kuil’s Krazy House, starring Nick Frost and Alicia Silverstone. This will be followed by the Black Sunday opening night party for all attendees and filmmakers, hosted at a local venue.
Friday kicks off with the Essex premiere of Jonathan Zaurin’s socially isolated Derelict, followed by the UK premiere of Danny Villanueva Jr’s eerie and traumatic found footage hit What Happened to Dorothy Bell. Then there are the Essex premieres of Joy Wilkinson’s 7 KEYS and Baskin filmmaker Can Evrenol’s harrowing revenge horror Sayara. The festival then hosts the UK premiere of Scott Goldberg’s The Forest Hills starring Edward Furlong and the late Shelley Duvall in her final big screen appearance.
Saturday is opened by the Essex premiere of Damon Rickard’s debut feature film Never Have I Ever. Then follows the UK premieres of Kati Kelli’s mesmerising Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape from producers Jordan Wippell and Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, I Saw the TV Glow) and Sergio Pereda’s found footage chiller Stream. Then comes Dean Puckett’s folk horror The Severed Sun. The festival will be closed out, as is tradition, with the Cult Film Secret Screening presented by Arrow Video.
There’s also a superb selection of 17 short films from all over the world, which will be shown ahead of each feature presentation. These include David Yorke’s Nervous Ellie, Panad Production’s Fisitor, Bastiaan Rook’s Citroen, Tony Hipwell’s Body Worn Video, and Lisa Ovies’ Sleep Tight. Other UK filmmakers making their Black Sunday debut are Ethan Evans (Outside Noise), Alejandro Alberola (Black Hole Barry), Livvy Edwards (Aetherium), Richard Rowntree (GORY HOLE), Olivia J. Loader (Hallowed), and Johnny Herbin (Cakes!).
There are also some great international shorts, with Venita Ozols-Graham’s The Ossan (USA), Javier Chavanel’s Nap (Spain), Simon Birman’s Fluids (France), Sami Ylönen’s Prettify (Finland), Michael Niels Køppen Kunov’s Fomo/Armageddon (Denmark) and Emelie Dahlskog’s The Mannequin (Sweden).
For more information on the Black Sunday Film Festival and its upcoming events, please visit: blacksundayff.com or follow the festival on X and Instagram @blacksunday_co.
It Feeds will tell the story of a young girl who insists that a malevolent entity is feeding on her. Greene portrays a clairvoyant therapist who must confront her own personal demons to save the girl before she is taken completely, aided by her own daughter. Ashmore takes on the role of the anguished father of the haunted girl, desperately struggling to protect his daughter.
Chad Archibald, best known for I’ll Take Your Dead and The Heretics, both writes and directs the feature. Mark Taylor also stars.
It Feeds is the first movie in a planned 10-movie production slate from Productivity Media Inc (PMI) and Black Fawn Films, described as a “unique brand of genre films that will not only engage and terrify but pull at the heart strings of our audience.” Archibald added: “This slate won’t just include horror films — there will be content specifically crafted for today’s audiences, blending genres to shock and surprise viewers.”
It Feeds releases in cinemas from April 18th. Watch the trailer below:
Acclaimed Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho has announced that he’s heading back into zombie filmmaking territory with his next project, titled Gunche. The announcement comes as the South Korean filmmaker prepares to release his Netflix film Revelations.
Jun Ji-hyun, Go Soo, Ji Chang-wook and Koo Kyo-hwan will star in Gunche, which has entered production. Distributed by Showbox, the film’s English title has yet to be announced, but “gunche” in Korean means “colony” in the biological sense of the word.
Distributor Showbox, via Deadline, refers to the upcoming film as “the culmination of Yeon Sang-ho’s universe, spanning from Train to Busan to Peninsula.”
Yeon Sang-ho’s hit zombie movie Train to Busan released in 2016, and was followed by the animated prequel Seoul Station and later, the 2020 live action sequel Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula. He returned to helm both follow-up projects.
Yeon has also been active in the television realm, working on a number of horror series including The Cursed, Hellbound, Monstrous, The Bequeathed, and Parasyte: The Grey.
Gunche is expected to land in cinemas sometime next year. Yeon will release Revelations via Netflix on March 21st, a film executive produced by Alfonso Cuaron. The film follows a pastor and a detective who team up for a missing persons case. The director will also premiere The Ugly later this year, which is based on Yeon’s own 2018 graphic novel of the same name.
With two Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey films and Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare already in the bag, the so-called Poohniverse is getting a new addition this year with Bambi: The Reckoning, the official trailer for which has just been released. According to Variety, who premiered the trailer, the film will release in summer this year.
Bambi: The Reckoningis described as “Cujo meets Jurassic Park,” and it looks like this one’s going full creature feature. In the film, “After a mother and son get in a car wreck, they soon become hunted by Bambi, a mutated grief-stricken deer on a deadly rampage seeking revenge for the death of his mother.”
Director Dan Allen has hinted that: “It’s gonna be terrifying. When people see a deer in the wild after this film they’re gonna run for the hills. This film is about the death of childhoods as much as it’s gonna ruin childhoods Expect bloodshed, tears and rabbits… and one mean killer deer. At last, the British countryside will finally get its Godzilla.”
Roxanne Mckee stars in the lead role as Xana alongside Tom Mulheron as her son. Nicola Wright, Samira Mighty, Alex Cooke and Russell Geoffrey Banks also star. Rhys Warrington wrote the feature.
