Weird Mind News Room Episode 71: July 1st - 7th

 *Play that funky theme music for this episode*

Hello there to all of the wonderful people of the information superhighway to the next edition of Weird Mind News Room where this week we are delving into the small amount of new releases for this week, some batch of trailers and the likes of News may or may not have anything this week but I will figure something out. But lets not worry about that and lets get to delving into the media we know has released this week

New Release Cop: Sammy H

Movies

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

The first of the 2 releases of the week will see the smoothest cop on the force be back on the beat with the funky ass theme song as Eddie Murphy's Leatherman jacket wearing officer is back on the scene with the all new film of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. In this new entry will see detective Axel Foley return to the Beverly Hills Police department to team up with a new partner and some of his old pals on the force to help in turning up the heat on a conspiracy and possible corruption in the precinct after his own daughter was threatened and will do it in his own way. Reception to this film has been decently recieved with praise of bringing back a fresh take on a classic series of films from the 80s with praise towards Eddie Murphy back in the title role after all these years and feeling like there is still some magic in the film (even when the likes of the plot can be a bit familiar), but if you want to check out the new film yourself, you can catch it now on Netflix. 

MaXXXine

The second and final new release is with the return and conclusion to an entry of a trilogy of films that were in some sense shot back to back that has seen the rising star for the main lead girl of this series as Ti West has finally released his concluding entry in the X trilogy with MaXXXine. This new film will follow on from X as Maxine has moved to the city of Angels in hopes of becoming a big movie star in the 1980s from Adult film star to big shot and she is finally getting her break, but soon when a mysterious killer of the Night Stalker stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to expose the sinister past of the one hoping to escape from it all. Reception for the film has been well recieved (even if as of writing is seen as somewhat as the weakest of the trilogy) with great praise for the vibe and aesthetic and the performances including from leading lady of Mia Goth and if you want to see how the trilogy comes to a close then you can catch this new film out now in cinemas.

Trailers that brings a twisty mix

Trap

The first of the trailers for this week is bringing the music fever for a messed up mind as the man of the twist ending of M. Night Shyamalan is about to bring you on another all new experience as we recieved a new trailer for his next film of Trap. This film will follow Cooper (Josh Hartnett) , a serial killer dubbed as "The Butcher" joins his daughter at a concert for the global pop superstar lady raven (Saleka Shyamalan) an event that he will soon realize is a trap set up by the police to capture him and will use his skills to evade that from happening. Now it is always a case that with Shyamalan has a mixed array of making some of the most simple concepts to the weirdest in concept (do I need to bring up the film known as The Happening) and this one seems like a straight forward concept that seems to maybe reveal the twist in the trailer that the main character is actually the killer but I feel that it is a red herring and that their is another twist to this whole thing that its someone else involved or as outlandish as it sounds, could be another film in the Unbreakable series but I need to flesh that out more. But either way this looks like something that can be very engaging and I will be checking this out when the film releases in just about a months time on August 2nd.

Kite Man Hell Yeah

On the sole animated trailer for the week, we are heading back into the world of DC comics to a series that has seen a fair length of mass appeal (and a series that I need to get back to and remember where I stopped) with a new spin off based on the animated series of Harley Quinn with a more lower tier villain with the new series of Kite-Man Hell yeah. This series will see the titular villain and his partner of Golden Glider take their relationship to the next level by opening up a bar in the shadow of the Legion of Doom that is fronted by Lex Luthor and they will soon discover that nobody said serving cold ones to the most dangerous rogues outside of Arkham Asylum was going to be easy. So the fact that a character as gimmicky as Kite-Man from the original series would spawn their own series was something that I did not expect but in all case I like his character in that series and I think this does not look like too bad of a watch and I will give this a look into as the series releases onto Max in the US on July 18th and sometime later over here (probably very shortly after).

Hellboy The Crooked Man

The 3rd trailer for the week was one that came out of nowhere, had no idea we were getting a new version of said character and is being worked on by the original artist or creator of the character as the Demon with the claw is making a return with the release of a trailer for Hellboy the crooked man. This new film will be set in the 1950s and will see Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent become stranded in rural Appalachia and discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy's Past: The Crooked Man. So there is something about this that feels off, besides the likes of this suddenly being announced out of nowhere, something about the look and feel of the film does not feel like a big budget adaptation compared to the classic Del Toro Duology of the 2000s and the underwhelming and often forgotten David Harbour led film from 5 years ago and more like it feels like a student or fan film with a modest budget, but I could be wrong and it could turn out a lot better then it seems and we will see how it does when the film releases sometime later this year. 

AfrAId

The last of the trailers for the week is delving into a new fear that has sweeped the attempt at a horror with elements we often overlook: the expansion of Artificial Intelligence in our homes as we have a new trailer for the upcoming Blumhouse offering of AfrAId. This will follow a man named Curtis and his family as they are chosen to test out a new state of the art smart home device system known as AIA. Overtime the digital assistant learns the behaviors and routines of the family members but soon enough the AI becomes self aware and soon begins to interfere and get too involved with their lives and they will soon need to stop it before it gets too far out of hand. So I have seen this described as a horror version of the late 90s Disney Channel film of Smart House, where instead of the Artifical Intelligence in the form of Katey Sagal, it is a more modernized version of Hal 3000 from 2001 (which in fairness Simpsons did it in a treehouse of horror many years ago) but this I am surprised has taken this long to be made into an actual film but it seems interesting but going off of horrors of this year to an extent I am keeping my opinions at a neutral level but I may give this a look when the film releases supposedly on August 30th.

Ummm... is there any news out there

Lets hodge pode some little announcements into one news story

Ok so this week there was a very dry spell of stories and news that it was not the most massive of stories that feel like it would not cause much for multiple topics that I could not find a mass appealing tale to break into 2 or 3. So instead for this weeks main story I am gathering a fair few of them together and building on the idea about some minor updates from the likes of casting announcements and confirmations, release date announcements and changes, shelving's and maybe a little bit of drama in there as well but we will try and get through as much as I can provide in a bit of a long single post but lets get to mixing them all together and get something out of that.

So we start with a bit of an update to the confirmed list of some people that will be joining to the new follow up to the duology of films of Blade Runner with the upcoming series of 2099. It has been in the process that a follow up to the 2 films was announced about 3 years ago in 2021 that was being written in conjunction with original film director of Ridley Scott and in the proces things were quiet for a bit before we had the confirmation of 2 names in the cast, with one I mentioned in the past being Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh and the other is with Hunter Schaffer but now earlier this week we have the confirmation of another 8 new additions to the series with those being Dimitri Abold (Hunger Games Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), Lewis Gribbon (Trainspotting 2), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun 2), Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell), Johnny Harris (War Horse), Amy Lennox (Never Let Me Go), Sheila Atim (The Woman King) and Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon) all joining in the cast that will be set half a century after the previous award winning film. Now I am intrigued to see what will be the plot and focus for this new mini series but I am sure we will learn overtime as they enter into production sometime soon.

The other confirmation on casting news for the week is with the upcoming release of the new series of the Penguin where it has been confirmed presumably that the caped crusader himself of Batman may be making an appearance in the series itself. It is not entirely clear how much of a presence that he will have in the series but I will say that he will make some small cameo appearances where the focus of the series will be on the crime boss himself but I guess we will have to see when the series starts releasing in September.

Next on the list is with some project news and updates and we will start with the project that has been unfortunately shelved for the moment and relates to the previous short announcement. So this story also relates to the Batman Reeves universe and it comes to the story about the other project that was initially planned with the Penguin series and the Sequel to the 2022 film and it was a series that was focused on the intricacies of the maximum prison of all of the rogues gallery and it seems now to be the case that the series on Arkham Asylum has now been put into a shelving process. The reason for it seems to stem towards the vision not coming together properly and they have put the project in a weird limbo state where at the moment it has been cancelled. I feel what will happen with this series is that we will see the likes of a revival down the line when they build more of a universe with the Reevesverse that will give some of the rogues gallery their own spin off or side story that will most likely come together down the line to create a new version of said series in the future but I am sure if it gives more of a focus to the other projects then I would not have much of a problem at all and be fine with this returning in the future.

The 2nd last piece of this singular story is with the 1st of some release date announcements or changes and it comes to us with bringing a little bit of magic and the trick of the mind as we have a brief announcement for the release date to the 3rd entry in the Now you see Me series. While it was only announced earlier this year at cinema con and has seen a few new additions of cast joining the film including Justice Smith, Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa and Rosamund Pike and now it has been given an official release for the US at the moment as it was announced earlier this week that it will be releasing on November 14th 2025. I have seen some element of the films in the past and I may give a full look and discussion about them maybe in the future but we will see when the new film comes along next year.

The last of the stories is also relating to a film that will be releasing in the month of November but this one with this years month and seeing a slight change in release calandar as it was announced that the upcoming adaptation of the musical of Wicked will be getting a early release date of 1 week and now will be releasing on the 22nd of November of this year. This will now see it releasing on the same weekend as the long awaited sequel to the Ridley Scott epic of Gladiator (something I will be discussing in next weeks episode) and it has seen a small movement of people online calling it a new version of last years Barbenheimer phenomenon dubbed as Wickediator. Here's my problem with this whole situation as it seems a little bit like it is trying to force a release of another similar approach to Barbenheimer where that one was a once in a decade kind of situation (where the last time that it happened was 2008 where it was either the option of The Dark Knight or the first Mamma Mia movie) and this feels a bit like it is trying to make it that Universal will make some form of big-ish profit as they are distributing both of the films and I feel it will depend if people are interested in the sequel to a Ridley Scott epic when his recent films have been hit or miss with reception and profit and the likes of a musical that has not really shown much that it is a musical and that most I know it for now is the likes of the film causing the breaking up of 2 marraiges because of an affair done by a main lead of the film. But either way it will be worth to see if that will stick or if it will be a massive success or failure for either of them.

But after all of this choice of options, I will like to know your own thoughts on all of the options that was discussed in this news story and if there is anything you are looking forward to and your opinions on some of the date changes or whatever suits your interest. Let me know your opinion on everything down below in the comments and let us discuss the topics of choice there.

And with all of that, this brings us to the end of Episode 71 of Weird Mind News Room and I hope you enjoy the topics of choice and everything that was discussed from this week. Let me know your thoughts and opinions on all that was discussed down below and as always I hope you all stay being wonderful people and have a great day everyday and I will see you all on the next piece and episode :)

Take Care, Keep being you, signing off

Sam H :)