Weird Mind News Room Episode 14: May 29th - June 4th 2023

 *play me the theme, piano man*

Hello again to all of you wonderful people to another new episode of Weird Mind News Room. You already know what you will read (as well as watch) with this weekly piece, I'm gonna talk on the new releases, I'm gonna talk new trailers and I'm gonna talk on some new news pieces that appeared this week. So lets not wait much longer and lets get to me rambling.

Media man: across the new release-verse

Movies

Spider-man Across the Spider-verse

Alright lets do this one more time and talk about what is probably my most anticipated film of 2023 (in a year with the 3rd GOTG, The Mario movie, Indiana Jones and John Wick). We are of course talking about Across the spider-verse, the long awaited sequel to the 2018 Oscar winning film. Now this new film is set a year or so after the events of Into the Spider-verse that saw us introduced to the first film version of Miles Morales and some other spider-people helping to stop Kingpins super collider, save the multiverse and get all of them back home and Miles has been Brooklyn's one and only Spider-Man. When a new powerful enemy make their presence known and soon becomes a danger to the known multiverse, he reunites with Gwen, Peter B. Parker and a new cavalcade of Spider-People in figuring out how to deal with the growing danger. Now to say that the hype is real is an understatement as the reception for this film is on par with the original Into the Spider-verse film and it seems to be getting a lot more excitement after better word of mouth from the first films release. All I know is I am super excited to see this and I already know that this film is in my eyes a perfect 10 (and I will be doing a full review of this in a full Spider-Man suit for the video)

The Boogeyman

If the multi style animated film is not suiting your mood just yet and are looking for something a bit more Spooky this week then you have the option of The Boogeyman. Based on the short story from the author of Horror Stephen King, this story follows High schooler Sadie Harper and her younger sister Sawyer trying to deal with the recent death of her Mom and their very distant father, Will,  not giving them much support through it all (even when he is a therapist). But when a desperate patient unexpectedly shows up at their house seeking help, he leaves behind a terrifying and supernatural creature that preys on families and feeds on the suffering of its victims. Now the film does seem to have some fairly decent reception to it and usually some stories from Stephen King tend to be a good watch and given it got changed from a streaming release to a cinema release may be a good thing, but if you're looking for something spooky then this should not be much of a problem choice

TV Shows

ICarly reboot: Season 3

Ok our only new tv show starting this week is one that I find a bit odd as this series just feels weird to have started as a kids show, that got a version made 10 years after the original finished where a good few cast members are not back for it, new ones with no explanation of how they met or where they come from and feels weird that they are the same characters who are now talking about drinking, who swear and talk about having sex (yet still gets nominated for a Kids choice award from what I heard). But anyway for this season they are building on the concept seen back in the old season about whether Carly and Freddie will become more then friends and become a couple and mixed in is all the hijinks that they try in the show. Whether I will watch this I do not know but I might look and see at some point

Video Games

We Love Katamari ReRoll + Royal Reverie

    The first of the 2 games of this week is a new remaster of a popular series of games playing as a small prince of the cosmos gaining the control of a ever growing ball and take on things from random object to people and even buildings and continents to create new stars in the galaxy for the king of the cosmos. This is the 2nd game to be remade after Katamari Demacy reroll and I enjoyed that first one and this will be one I will be giving a play of at some point.

Street Fighter VI

The final new release of this week is the long awaited 6th entry in this ever growing franchise (and most of the games in this franchise is a new variation of Street Fighter 2 or 4). This new one will bring some of your favourites back again to fight it out like Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Cammy, Zangief and many more to fight for whats right and all that good stuff. Now this game has been getting some pretty impressive reception and is one of the best reviewed games of this year, up there with the likes of Resident Evil 4 remake, Hogwarts Legacy and Jedi Survivor (but just under the praise of Tears of the Kingdom) and hopefully I will give this a fair try in the future and see what all the praise is about.

Into the Trailer-verse

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Now for a film that is taking an inspiration of the art styles from this weeks big film release and that is with the new Ninja Turtles film coming to us from producer and forever teenager Seth Rogen. This new film will focus on the turtles trying to win the hearts of the city of New york and want to become normal teenagers after they have been living in the shadows for the longest time. With the help of their friend April O'Neill, she helps them to take down a crime syndicate and soon find themselves taking on an army of other mutants. Now this does look really engaging, fast paced and exciting and the animation really helps it strongly and I will be checking this out when it comes out at the end of July or early August.

Black Mirror Season 6

After a fair few years since the last season (and the choose your own adventure style episode film released) we have finally gotten the announcement and new trailer for the long awaited 6th season of Black Mirror. This will have some new stories all separate to one another and include some big name faces like Aaron Paul, Salma Hayek Pinault, Zazie Beetz, Michael Cera and many more and you can start streaming them from Monday June 12th (even if a lot of the real world can feel like a Black Mirror episode) 

Hidden Strike

So the backstory on this was that this was made from a production in china with both Jackie Chan and John Cena of them stopping some terrorist group of stealing oil in a location known as the Highway of Death. This would've released earlier but was nearly canned due to the whole debacle with John Cena and the promotion of F9 or Suicide Squad 2 years ago where he had to apologize for making a mention on the state of Taiwan (and I think something with a distribution in the US), but now we finally have our first look at the film and I am sure we will get a release date for the movie sometime soon.

Jack Ryan Final Season

in the final trailer release of this week (it is a really slow release week) we have the official trailer for the final season of Jack Ryan Starring John Kransinski in the title role, which sees him taking on a mission of trying to find those responsible of the assassination of the President of America by any mean necessary. If you are looking for one final mission then check it out when it drops at the end of this month on June 30th

Beyond the media News-verse

Live action How to train your dragon find its leads

the first story of this week is that we have some news of a new live action film being made of an animated one and this time is not coming to us from Disney, but rather on a film from Dreamworks and this is with a Live action version of the beloved How to Train your Dragon film. Now this was announced a few weeks ago but we do have an announcement this week that we have the casting of the main 2 leads of Hiccup and Astrid. For Astrid she is being played by Nico Parker, who just recently played Sarah in the HBO adaptation of the Last of Us, and as for Hiccup, he is going to be played by Mason Thames who was Finney in last years horror film The Black Phone. Personally I think they are a good choice for the characters but I do not know if the likes of a live action version of How to Train your dragon is necessary at all.

But what do you think, do you think it is a good casting and would you go and see this live action iteration of the beloved Dreamworks film, let me know down below and lets start a discussion.

Some news from the side of the ongoing strike

Now this is one I want to give some bit of updates to the ongoing Writers strike that has been continuing a month strong as of writing. This is just going to list off a few different points that were brought up this week that would be affected by the strike (and hopefully these writers will get what they request and deserve for all of their work):

-First we have an update on season 2 of the Last of Us Tv series. Now initially it was projected for an early 2025 release with a plan to start filming sometime in early 2024 after writing on the season was complete but with the likes of the strike ongoing and no sign of any resolve, it may be likely the series will be delayed to late into the year or even to the following year, but once we get word on an update we will get back to the story.

-Next is with the MCU film of Deadpool 3. Now production has started on the film despite the ongoing writers strike and while they had some form of script before the filming began, there is one thing that can't be added and that comes from Ryan Reynolds himself as he is often known with these films to add improv lines and moments in these films and since he is in solidarity with the writers, he is unable to add them. Now this could cause a poor reception in the long run if the writing and jokes are not that strong when certain improv scenes could help it. Personally I think for the moment to delay production so that you can add bits in once that better deal is made so it can keep it fresh but I am sure we will learn more as production continues.

-Now for 2 brief news pieces of Star Wars news. First off is an update to season 4 of Mandalorian which does have its scripts written in advance while season 3 was in development but we have yet to receive an announcement a 4th season is happen and we will update once an announcement is made. The other is from the side of director Taika Waititi was is currently working and developing his Star Wars film with the only snag is stuck on with his co-writer is the middle part as he has a start and an end but confused on a middle. Now he could be also affected by the writers strike but once we have confirmation I will update the information

So what do you think, do you feel this strike will go on all the way to the end of the year or do you feel they will come to an agreement with the deals for better paid writers (as it has been talks that even the actors and even possible visual artists could end up striking too soon). I know I am in solidarity with all the writer and would love to know your thoughts down below.

The US office is going down under

Now this announcement is a bit of a confusing one but just with me here. Just we all know that the Office is one of the most beloved shows of all time, for the short length that it had from the UK of 2 season consisting of around 12-14 episodes. That soon spawned a longer running US based one that was also beloved to this very day and has had debates on which version is better. Well now there has been an announcement of another new version of the Office and this time we are going down under to an Australian version of the workplace mockumentary sitcom and that this one is also going to be a more female led Office version. Now we do not know who will be involved in the new series and if any of the show creators are involved or if the likes of David Brent or Michael Scott or anyone from the shows might make some cameo appearances but I am sure we will learn more as the series develops.

What are your opinions on a Australian Office? Let me know down below

Fast and furious: The Rock is back

And our last story comes to us on the Actor of the Rock or Dwayne Johnson. Now to say that his film release as of late have been a bit hit or miss as he appeared in the League of Superpets animated film as Krypto that did ok, then talked a big game with the release of Black Adam that was quite a mess in terms of reception and box office not doing very well and then this possibly leading to the complete poor box office and reception of the Shazam sequel that caused a bit of a rant from star Zachary Levi. An then finally announced that a new Live action adaptation of the Disney Film Moana was being made with him back as Maui and thinking this is a bad move considering the film Moana is less then 10 years old and released only in 2016 and yet a live action version is being made.Now moving all of them aside, there was one series that he was apart of for a good chunk of the last decade and that is with the Fast and Furious franchise and appeared in 5 (possibly 6) of the last 7 films released of the series with the reason for the disappearance being an ongoing beef feud with Vin Diesel. Well that seems to have resolved as it was announced earlier this week that Dwayne Johnson will be back in the Fast Franchise (if an appearance in Fast X is to be confirmed according to some sources) and will most likely return in Fast and Furious 11, but was also announced is getting their own spinoff film as well (the 2nd after Hobbs and Shaw). Now this will apparently explain and lead him into the next mainline film but whether this is made within the year and released before 11 we will have to see.

What do you think: Are you excited for Dwayne Johnson coming back to the series or do you feel he should be left out of this one. Let me know down below.

And with that we come to the end of a very quiet and short week of Weird Mind news room. I hope that you have enjoyed the content that I have rambled about here. If you want to check out the video version, I will upload a link to it once I get around to filming and editing it in the next day or so but until then I hope you stay and continue to be very wonderful people doing wonderful things, and goodnight and powering down.

Signing off

Sam H 

Video version

If you want to watch the video version of this check it out below: