Weird Mind News Room episode 20: July 10th - 16th 2023

 *epic theme music*

Well hello again to you one and all for the 20th episode of Weird Mind News Room. Now your mission, should you choose to accept it is to read through all of this weeks new releases, trailers and news as a lot has made up the media news this week so lets get right to it then

New Mission Releases

Movies

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1

The biggest release of this week is the long awaited 7th movie in the long running series of Mission Impossible with Dead Reckoning Part 1. This new movie will see Ethan Hunt and his team come back once again to stop a new dangerous threat of a sentient AI known as the Entity and find the important item to help stop it from taking over the world or from it falling into the wrong hands. Now the reception for this movie has been very strong as has every sequel to this series since Mission Impossible 3 and tied for best reviewed I believe with the previous entry of Fallout. Now these films are a great bit of entertainment and I will for sure give this a checkout in the next few days if I can.

Bird Box Barcelona

Now for a sequel I was not expecting was going to be released but here we are and it is with a solo sequel to the 2018 Netflix original film of Birdbox with Bird Box Barcelona. This new one follows a Father and his daughter trying to survive across a dangerous large city setting of Barcelona from strange unknown creatures that will make the person unalive themselves if they look at them. Now the first one was ok with an interesting concept and the reception for the sequel is a little mixed from what I have seen so far but I am sure if you are looking for something to check out on streaming then I am sure you can go with this option.

TV Shows

Secret Invasion episode 4

This week is the next episode in the starting 2nd half of the Secret invasion series which sees the ongoing battle of the Skrulls trying to take over the world and Fury and Talos trying to stop it before worldwide catastrophe. Now the episodes have been getting slightly shorter every week but even if some shorter runtimes I have enjoyed the series so far and hopefully there will be a big finale by the end of the final 2 episode over the next fortnight to check out

Sonic Prime Season 2

And the last of the new releases of this week is with the 2nd season of the Netflix animated series focused on Sonic the Hedgehog which sees Sonic in a battle with Dr Eggman cause the shattering of the Paradox Crystal that has some reality-bending powers and soon creates a Shatterverse of alternate universes created by the prism shards and it is up to Sonic to travel across this vast reality to restore his world and all the others from total destruction. Now the First season dropped back just in time for Christmas and I have heard some good things about both of these season so I am sure I will give this a watch on Netflix

Trailer reports

Napoleon

The first trailer that released this week is the first trailer for the newest film from Director Ridley Scott with his historical Drama of Napoleon which is played by academy award winner Joaquin Phoenix as the French general that led the army to victory in the war torn 16th century France. Now this is the newest war film following his overlooked previous film of The Last Duel and honestly this does look really good and I think it will be worth a watch when it releases in November around Thanksgiving time.

Wonka

The next trailer to release this week comes to us from Warner Bros with one of their 2 big Christmas releases of this year and this is with the first official trailer for the new Willy Wonka origin story film about the young chocolatier became the candy wizard he is known for in the world of those Roald Dahl stories and this time around the character will be played by Timothee Chalamet and from the trailer to me there is some sense of whimsy and wonder to the whole film (even with the weird uncanny valley Hugh Grant Oompa Loompa) and knowing this is by the director of the very charming Paddington films I am excited to check this out when it opens this Christmas on December 15th (I think it is also a musical form as well but I will have to learn more on this)

Twisted Metal

now for the last of the video game tv show adaptations of this year we have gotten a new look at the upcoming series based on the Twisted metal franchise and gives us a better concept of the story that focuses on Anthony Mackie's character known as "The Milkman" a delivery driver in the world that went to s**t 20 years earlier and caused all the big cities to wall themselves off and he is on a journey to bring packages and important items to these locations while getting trapped amongst deadly battles to the death and crazy locals including a sadistic clown names Sweet Tooth with his suped up Ice cream truck. Now initially I was a little skeptical on this series given the first teaser showed literally nothing and then the first clip from a month ago was a little here and there but now with clear ideas of what the show is about it doesn't look that bad and does look enjoyable and hopefully it is good when the series premieres at the end of the month on July 27th.

Barbie Just Ken Preview

I do not need to say much on this given I will talk more on this next week with the release of this film but from this trailer, we get a little of the big number from Ryan Gosling singing about how he is Just Ken and I am sure this will be tied with Jack Black's Peaches song from the Super Mario Bros movie as the best songs of the year and I am sure this will be a song on repeat whenever I hear the full thing in the next few days.

Blue Beetle

Now for some superhero footage that has released we have the new final trailer for the upcoming film on the character of Blue Beetle that sees Jamie Reyes suddenly come into possession of an ancient relic known as the scarab that gives him special powers and soon will become a super hero of the Blue Beetle as the host of the Relic and to fight against the powerful enemies that want it back. Now I do not know much on the character but it does look like it could be a good bit of fun and has been a mix of Iron Ma and Spider-Man Homecoming and I am sure I will check this out when it releases on August 18th.

Ashoka

Now to head to a galaxy far far away with an all new trailer look at the newest Star Wars series of Ashoka and will see her travel across the galaxy to try and stop admiral Thrawn and stop the rising threat after the fall of the empire. Now this is supposedly a Rebels sequel series as a lot of the characters from the Star Wars rebels series like Ashoka, Thrawn, Sabine, Ezra and many others in the series and it does look very stylized and action packed and I am sure I will check it out when it releases its 2 episode premiere on August 23rd.

Godzilla Minus One

Now to keep this brief, we have a new Toho based made Godzilla Movie that will have the famous Giant Lizard cause destruction and fear in a post war Japan and while it is a very brief teaser there is some very exciting content from these forms of Godzilla films and will be releasing before the next Hollywood based film of Godzilla and is out on December 1st, just in time for Christmas

Witcher Season 3 Part 2

And for the final trailer for this week we have the trailer for the 2nd Volume of the 3rd season for the Witcher which is showing some of the content for the final 2 episodes of the season and the last 2 episode for Henry Cavill as Geralt before he is changed into Liam Hemsworth. Now I need to check up on the first half of the season but the last 2 episodes will be available to stream in 2 weeks time at the end of the month on July 27th.

This news report will self destruct in 5 mins

The Merc with a mouth and the Claws of steel

(this is one of the best images to come out of this year)

Now for one of the big news stories of this weeks comes in relation to a story I brought up last week and that was with the news on Deadpool 3. Now we have known for a while that Hugh Jackman was back as Wolverine and filming had been going on for the last 2 months (I say had as we will get to that) and then on Monday of this week we have gotten the glorious image of Ryan Reynolds in full costume and Hugh Jackman in the full outfit of the classic Yellow outfit from the original comic books and animated 90s series (minus the helmet at the moment) and seeing this image is so cool and amazing and seeing all the comic accurate suits over the last 2 phases of the MCU has been very cool to see and hopefully we will see more in action by the films releases if it is delayed or not of its new May 2024 release

But what do you think of this image and the outfits of the characters and the likes of what the setting of the image may be telling us as well for this too. Also what has your opinion been on the comic accurate suits lately in the MCU. Do let me know in the comments down below

From Mordor to Wakanda

Now for some video game news that is also relating to some Marvel news as it was announced from a long rumour that a division of EA and the studio creators of Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor will be creating an all new game based on the character of the Black Panther, which will be a 2nd game based on the character after the upcoming Black Panther and Captain America game that is in development. Now it remains to be seen what exactly will be the focus of the game of it will be a tie in game, a brawler or an open world game or very similar in style to the Middle Earth games from those developers but I am sure we will get more info on the game when more development on it has been made and once word comes out the info will be presented to you here.

But what are your opinions on this, are you excited for a new game based on Black Panther or are you skeptical about it given it is being made by EA. Do let me known down below and lets start a discussion on it.

Emmys a plenty

In a week of big news in Hollywood, the nominations for this years Emmy Awards were announced earlier this week with many nominations in comedy, drama and animation were all given some nominations. As for how many, the four biggest nominated shows of this year are as follows:

Succession: 27 nominations

The Last Of Us: 24 Nominations

The White Lotus: 23 Nominations

Ted Lasso: 21 Nominations

Now it is also a few other big names including the Star Wars content of Andor, Obi Wan Kenobi and Mandalorian Season 3 collectively getting 20 nominations, Jenna Ortega and Bella Ramsey both getting their first nominations as Wednesday Addams from Wednesday and Ellie in the Last Of Us respectively and Zaddy Pedro Pascal has gotten 3 nominations this year I believe and many more big names getting nominations. I am sure I might make a separate blog and video like my oscar nominations one from earlier this year and give my thoughts on this years nominations and who will win each category.

But what do you think of all of the nominations if you have seen them and what are some of your own predictions of the winners. Let me know down below your predictions and we can discuss some of those choices.

Super-friends

Now to some more casting announcements in the world of superheroes, we are heading over to the DCU to talk once again on the upcoming James Gunn directed Superman Legacy. Now a week or 2 ago we talked about the announced casting of David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan as Superman and Lois respectively but now we have some more new Super-friends joining the Man of Steel in this new adventure with 4 new extra heroes and their castings are confirmed as well. 

First off is Isabela Merced (who you may have known played the role of a certain young cartoon explorer in a live action film) is taking on the role of Hawkgirl. Now it is not the only Hawk related character in the DC universe we have seen as Hawkman had made his live action debut in last years Black Adam. 

Next is Edi Gathegi (who has previously played a superhero in X-men First Class) will be taking on the role of Mr Terrific, a tech genius and labelled the world's third smartest man" after Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne. 

We have Nathan Fillion (who had appeared in 2 of Gunns recent films of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 and as TDK in The Suicide Squad) will be playing the role of a green Lantern, specifically Guy Gardener and the last time we saw a Lantern was briefly in Justice League and Hal Jordan in the poor 2011 movie).

And lastly we have Anthony Carrigan (who previously played the Batman villain Victor Zzasz in the Gotham tv series) will take on the role of Metamorpho, the element man who was cursed by an Egyptian relic and has the ability to change into any element or combination of elements (and also I learned has a very groovy theme song).

Now I am interested in seeing more obscure characters being brought into the Live action DCU films like they do with the MCU as well as mixing with some many know about and all of this is exciting. But what do you think of all of these character announcements? Lets have a discussion down in the comments below

What do a Gecko, a caveman and a woman escaping a man with Giant scissors have in common

Now for some more gaming news we are actually going back in time to the days of the original Playstation as just this week we have gotten the announcement of 3 collectors bundles about to make a return on the new systems of consoles with the Gex Trilogy, the original Clocktower and the Original Tomba games are all getting a new release with some new content and visual updates for modern consoles of Xbox series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5 and Nintendo Switch and PC. Now I have played or experienced a few of these and getting to play them now on newer hardware (and in the case of the switch or PC with stem deck on the go) and hopefully will see interest for these series to come back with all new titles in the future. Now no dates have been announced for them yet but Clocktower does have a window of early 2024 and the other could be later this year or by the end of next year so we will update with any new news on it

But what do you think of these announcements, are you excited to see them coming back again to consoles and have you played any of these before. Do let me known your thoughts in the comments below.

BIG STORY: Actors joining the picket front line

And Finally we have some BREAKING NEWS!!! Now we have known for the last 2 and a half months now the Writers guild has been on strike due to poor payment options on the amount of work they do and for the extra aspects of streaming and other media methods and have been protesting for a better deal. Well another group has also joined in on the this strike as of Thursday night at Midnight, the SAG-AFTRA or the actors guild have also come to the announcement they are joining in the strike as well for their own reasons similar to the writers and their unfair treatment by all the major heads of studios for unfair payment and for their stupid idea of wanting to implement AI into writing and acting (and showing how out of touch they are knowing that the likes of AI is not going to be at that level of working for a very long time) and has seen the likes of many other projects that were still being developed or filmed have now ceased production until further notice and some deals have been reached. Now personally I am totally fine with the likes of them going on strike as they have been working their asses off and yet they don't see much out of it when they make it compared to the demand the heads of the companies demand for all for them to make as much money as possible for them to line their pockets and release content that is not finished and personally hopefully they get a fairly decent earning for all the actors, films crews and especially the writers (and I feel the case that this won't be the only groups as there is this feeling like the Visual Effects artists will also get involved as well but will see how it goes)

But what do you think of all of this and do you think that it is time for the companies to actually listen for once and not only focus on themselves. Let me know what you think down below.

And with that that brings us to the end of another episode of the Weird Mind News Room and I do hope you enjoyed my ramblings of all that has went on this week. Now the question whether these strikes will affect my weekly pieces will have to see what happens but if it sees a drop in the amount of content then I will make a statement here and on my socials about it if there will be a hiatus with a mini blog just talking on what released in terms of releases (if any as most case anything already made and ready to go or for video games will the only ones left). But for now I hope you all enjoyed and let me know in the comments of what you think of all of this news as I would enjoy to have some discussions with all of you on the topics at hand. But for now I will leave it here and say to stay being wonderful people, good night, good news and powering down

Signing Off

Sam H