Daniel Craig And Luca Guadagnino In Talks For DC Studios’ SGT. ROCK

sgt rock dc comics character

Daniel Craig is reportedly in talks to star in the DC Studios feature Sgt. Rock, with Luca Guadagnino as director.

The film adaptation of the DC Comics character is in its early stages, and no deal is yet in place for Craig or Guadagnino. Justin Kuritzkes, who penned both Challengers and Queer for Guadagnino, wrote the script.

Plot details for Sgt. Rock are still unknown. The character is a World War II soldier who first appeared in comics in 1959, created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert.

The project would reunite Craig and Gudagnino, who collaborated on Queer, the A24 pic that premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is due to hit cinemas from November 27th.

Craig’s other upcoming projects include Netflix’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, which would see him return to the role of private investigator Benoit Blanc. Guadagnino has also been busy, having recently wrapped filming on Amazon MGM Studios’ After the Hunt, a thriller starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri. Also in the works is his new take on author Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho for Lionsgate.

Sgt. Rock does not yet have a planned release date, but stay tuned for further updates.s

STAR WARS: VISIONS Will Return For Third Volume

still from star wars: visions series

Disney and Lucasfilm have revealed that their animated anthology series Star Wars: Visions is coming back for a third season next year! The update was announced at Disney’s Content Showcase event in Singapore.

The premise of Star Wars: Visions was to create a collection of non-canon animated shorts produced by different Japanese animation studios, and thus featuring different animation styles. The freedom of expression led to some wildly imaginative interpretations of the Star Wars universe and mythos.

Volume three of Visions will see nine new animated shorts from anime studios throughout Japan: they include returning contributors Kamikaze Douga, Kinema Citrus, Production I.G, and TRIGGER. The next volume will also introduce five new anime studios to the world of Star Wars, including ANIMA (in co-production with Kamikaze Douga), David Production, Polygon Pictures, Project Studio Q, and WIT Studio.

The first volume of Visions debuted on Disney+ in September 2021. The season included nine episodes from Japanese studios Kamikaze Douga, Studio Colorido, Geno Studio, Trigger, Kinema Citrus, Production I.G. and Science Saru. Volume two, however, featured work from an international group of studios, including the UK’s Aardman, Spain’s El Guiri, Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon, Chile’s Punkrobot, South Korea’s Studio Mir, France’s Studio La Cachette, India’s 88 Pictures, Lucasfilm in the US, South Africa and Ireland’s Triggerfish, and Japan’s D’art Shtajio.

Live-Action HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON Drops Teaser

hiccup and toothless in live-action how to train your dragon teaser trailer

Meet the live-action Hiccup and Toothless in the first teaser trailer for Universal Pictures’ so-called “reimagining” of How to Train Your Dragon, the acclaimed DreamWorks franchise. Bear in mind that this reimagining is almost a shot-for-shot remake of the beloved animated film, as is made clear in the teaser. Writer-director Dean DeBlois helms the feature, which will be released in theatres on June 13th, 2025.

As an animated trilogy, How to Train Your Dragon centred on the growing relationship between a young, clumsy Viking teen and aspiring dragon hunter named Hiccup and Toothless, an injured dragon he saves. Meanwhile, the female lead, Astrid, progresses from someone prejudiced against dragons to a warrior bonded to one. 

Mason Thames stars as Hiccup and Nico Parker as Astrid. Also in the cast are Gerard Butler, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Ruth Codd, Peter Serafinowicz and Murray McArthur.

“Dad, I can’t kill dragons,” says Thames’ Hiccup in the trailer to his father, Stoick the Vast (Butler, reprising his voice role from the animated franchise). Hiccup’s dad responds, “But you will.”

This live-action feature is based on the 2010 animated film that DeBlois had co-directed with Chris Sanders, itself inspired by the book series from Cressida Cowell. DeBlois, Marc Platt and Adam Siegel also serve as producers.

Watch the teaser trailer for How to Train Your Dragon below:

LANTERNS Casts Poorna Jagannathan

never have i ever star poorna jagannathan

HBO‘s much-publicised Lanterns series is expanding its cast with the addition of Never Have I Ever actress Poorna Jagannathan.

Jagannathan will have a recurring part in the show, which hails from DC Studios and Warner Bros. TV. She will play Zoe, a character described as an effortlessly confident and poised woman in any setting, and as composed and cunning as the influential men around her.

Lanterns will star Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as Hal Jordan and John Stewart, respectively, in the series from Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and comic book writer Tom King. The show is being executive produced and written by the trio, with Mundy showrunning the eight-episode season. Kelly Macdonald and Garret Dillahunt have also been cast.

The synopsis states the series follows “Hal Jordan (Chandler), a legend amongst the space police force known as the Green Lanterns, as he reluctantly mentors Stewart (Pierre), a younger Green Lantern. The two intergalactic cops get drawn into a dark, Earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.”

Poorna Jagannathan starred in all four seasons of Netflix’s Never Have I Ever and was most recently seen in Apple TV+’s film Wolfs. Her credits include HBO’s The Night Of and the upcoming series Deli Boys. S

Josh O’Connor Boards Steven Spielberg Film

josh o'connor in challengers

Challengers star Josh O’Connor will star in Steven Spielberg’s mysterious, as-yet-untitled feature film for Universal Pictures. He joins Emily Blunt, Colman Domingo, Colin Firth and Eve Hewson on the project.

All we know thus far about this feature is that it has sci-fi elements and marks Spielberg’s first ‘tentpole’ since directing Ready Player One in 2018. It is based on a story by the filmmaker, with a screenplay by long-time collaborator David Koepp, whose previous work with Spielberg includes the scripts for Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The film also reunites Spielberg with The Fabelmans and West Side Story collaborator Kristie Macosko Krieger, who will be producing.

Josh O’Connor was most recently seen in the Luca Guadagnino tennis drama Challengers, starring opposite Zendaya and Mike Faist, a role which has put him in the awards mix these coming months. He is currently in production for Kelly Reichardt’s art heist drama The Mastermind, and has signed on to star in Rian Johnson’s upcoming Netflix murder mystery, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

Universal has set a May 15th, 2026 cinema release date for the upcoming film.

Sophie Turner In Talks To Star As LARA CROFT

sophie turner as jean grey in x-men dark phoenix

As previously reported, Lara Croft is expected to return to the small screen with a Tomb Raider series at Amazon Prime Video, and Deadline now writes that Game of Thrones and X-Men star Sophie Turner is in talks to star.

Fleabag icon Phoebe Waller-Bridge is developing and writing the upcoming adventure series, which Amazon has described as being epic and globe-trotting. Croft has been played in live-action by both Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander.

“If I could tell my teenage self this was happening I think she’d explode. Tomb Raider has been a huge part of my life and I feel incredibly privileged to be bringing it to television with such passionate collaborators. Lara Croft means a lot to me, as she does to many, and I can’t wait to go on this adventure. Bats ‘n all,” Waller-Bridge said in a statement. She will executive produce the project alongside Ryan Andolina and Amanda Greenblatt.

Never ones to pass up some cash-grab opportunities, Amazon also announced they were developing a Tomb Raider movie and video game, all intended to be set in the same universe.

Sophie Turner has recently been seen in a number of TV mini-series like Joan, The Staircase, and Survive.

JENTRY CHAU VS. THE UNDERWORLD Drops Series Trailer

ali wong in jentry chau vs. the underworld trailer

Netflix has debuted the trailer for their upcoming animated show, Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld, a supernatural action series starring Birds of Prey and Paper Girls‘ Ali Wong. Wong executive produces the 13-episode season alongside Aron Eli Coleite, which hails from first-time showrunner Echo Wu.

The series follows the titular Jentry Chau (Wong), a Chinese-American teen living in a small Texas town and nearing her sixteenth birthday, who finds out a demon king is hunting her for the supernatural powers she’s been working her whole life to repress. With the help of her weapons expert great-aunt and a millennia-old jiangshi (a Chinese hopping vampire), Jentry must now fight an entire underworld’s worth of monsters and demons while also balancing the horrors of high school and the pitfalls of teenage girlhood, from romantic interests to grappling for her independence.

Lori Tan Chinn voices Jentry’s aunt Gugu and Saturday Night Live alum Bowen Yang as Jentry’s sidekick, Ed. Additional cast includes Lucy Liu, Jimmy O. Yang, Sheng Wang, A.J. Beckles, and Woosung Kim.

Titmouse serves as the animation studio for the 2D animated series, with Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio, and Ben Kalina aboard as executive producers.

Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld premieres on Netflix on December 5th, 2024. Watch the trailer below:

WOLF MAN Trailer Promises Solid Body Horror

wolf man trailer christopher abbott

The full moon has things going awry for Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner in the first full-length Wolf Man trailer, which, word of warning if you like to be surprised, gives a lot away of the plot away. Leigh Whannell, best known for helming The Invisible Man, helms this reimagining of the classic monster film for Universal Pictures.

Abbott stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Garner), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.

Whannell directs Wolf Man from a script he co-wrote with Corbett Tuck, as well as Dumb Money’s Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo. The film co-stars Sam Jaeger, Ben Prendergast and Benedict Hardie. Blumhouse is producing the pic.

Watch the Wolf Man trailer below, ahead of its release to cinemas on January 17th, 2025.

Science Fiction Novel Wins The Booker Prize

Orbital, a science fiction novel

Science fiction novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey has won the Booker Prize.

The novel is set on the International Space Station and relates the experiences of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station as they contemplate the nature of existence and the current climate emergency. The novel also shifts perspective to more whimsical viewpoints, such as that of an alien and a robot. The book has been compared favourably to popular works such as Stanisław Lem’s Solaris and To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers. Orbital has also been described by critics as ‘beautiful’ and ‘free of plot’.

Orbital, a science fiction novel

Orbital was also nominated for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, which is for “book-length work of imaginative fiction written by a single author” and in honour of science fiction legend Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Booker Prize makes no mention of the winning work being science fiction. Samantha Harvey describes her works as ‘Space Pastoral’, which we at STARBURST will add to our list of ‘other ways to say slow-moving science fiction’.  

The Booker has a long history of lauding works of science fiction whilst pretending the genre doesn’t exit.  For example, previous Booker nominee, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is a novel set in a dystopian future (and inspiration for the science fiction TV show of the same name), was never labelled as science fiction when it was nominated, despite fulfilling the genre’s critical role in using speculative narrative as a lens to understand real-world concerns. These days it can be found in the science fiction section of your local online bookstore.

The Booker Prize is regarded as a serious and influential award, and winning The Booker Prize is a significant boon to sales of that book.  Harvey is the 21st woman to win since the prize’s inception in 1969. Congratulations to all involved.

Manchester Animation Festival 2024 Launches

Manchester Animation Festival (MAF), the only Oscar-qualifying animation festival in the UK, is currently underway.

Celebrating it’s 10th year, the MAF brings together the animation industry’s top talent, leading professionals, and a wide-ranging programme with fans of animation in mind.

Hosted across Manchester, festival-related events include HOME cinema, The Anthony Burgess Centre, YES, Gasworks, and Bridgewater Hall. 

This November’s lineup includes a special in conversation with legendary filmmaker Chris Sanders (Lilo and Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon). Sanders will discuss his latest film, Wild Robot, which will be shown afterward.

There will also be an appearance from the beloved Wallace & Gromit creators Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. As well as a special screening of Richard Williams animated marvel The Thief and the Cobbler, which will include a talk and book signing by Imogen Sutton, Williams’ wife and long-time producer. In addition to these highlights, MAF will offer a packed schedule of industry-focused events at their annual Animation Nation Forum, a family focused day, and the return of the marketplace at the Bridgewater Hall.

Find out more here.