Blade Runner 2099 first look

The highly anticipated Blade Runner TV series, coming to Prime Video, has revealed its first look during San Diego Comic Con.

The show will premiere on Prime Video on November 25, 2026.

 Today, at the iconic Hall H panel in front of more than 6,500 fans, Prime Video brought Blade Runner 2099 stars Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer, alongside showrunner Silka Luisa and executive producers Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson to the stage for a compelling conversation. All eight episodes will premiere on November 25, 2026, exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

 

Fifty years after the events of Blade Runner 2049, Los Angeles has been reborn, just not by humanity. Cora, a fugitive in a final bid to stop running, takes on one last identity: a Blade Runner. Forced to partner with Olwen, a Replicant days from dying, she hunts down a runaway hiding a truth that could collapse their fragile city,

 

Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) and Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy) are series regulars alongside stars Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer. Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell), Johnny Harris ("A Gentleman in Moscow”), Amy Lennox (Only Child), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon), Tom Burke (Furiosa) and Maurizio Lombardi (Ripley) are recurring guest stars.

 

Silka Luisa serves as showrunner and executive producer along with Ridley Scott, Alcon Entertainment co-founders Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson, Alcon's President of Television Ben Roberts, David W. Zucker and Clayton Krueger from Scott Free Productions, Tom Spezialy, Richard Sharkey, Michael Green, Cynthia Yorkin, Frank Giustra, and Isa Dick Hackett. Jonathan van Tulleken (Shogun) is an executive producer and directed the first two episodes of the limited series Blade Runner 2099. Steven Johnson is Co-EP.

Lanterns first look revealed

The first look at the brand-new DC series Lanterns has been revealed.

The series will debut on HBO Max on August 17.

The trailer for the series was revealed during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC). The panel featured stars Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan and co-creators Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King. The eight-episode season debuts Monday, 17 August, only on HBO Max. 

The series follows new recruit John Stewart (Pierre) and Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, Earth-based mystery with cosmic ties as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.

The series stars Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Laura Linney, Jason Ritter, Ulrich Thomsen, Nathan Fillion, J. Alphonse Nicholson and Jasmine Cephas Jones.

HBO in association with Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios. The Lanterns pilot is co-written by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King, who are co-creators for the series. Mundy serves as showrunner. The first two episodes are directed by James Hawes, with Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel and Alik Sakharov also tapped to direct. The series is executive produced by Mundy, Lindelof, King, James Gunn, Peter Safran, Ron Schmidt and Hawes. Based on the DC comic characters from Green Lantern.

The DC Studios drama series Lanterns premieres Monday, 17 August, only on HBO Max.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales: PS5 Review

Developed by Team Asano
Published by Bandai Namco and Square Enix
Platform: PS5

There's a refreshing innocence to The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, a game that's about venturing through your own kingdom and saving it, by helping others.

It's not a game for the cynical in many ways, and given how devastatingly insular our world has become, that's no bad thing.

You play the aforementioned Elliot, who must travel through the world of Philabieldia, a continent overrun by beast tribes, and try and stop it from falling. But after an incident involving a minister and his own death, Elliott suddenly finds himself hoping between time zones and facing different perils.

As a HD 2D game, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is beautifully presented, a game that feels as magical as the likes of Zelda but which gains itself its own personality and look and feel. Mixing hack and slash sentiment with RPG gaming, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales feels like a relative breath of fresh air into the genre, one that embraces its point of difference and gets on with engaging its audience.

However, given a lot of the engagement is done through text-heavy exposition, it does occasionally feel like it's slowing to a crawl, an unavoidable consequence of the storytelling that could have been tightened during play.

With access to a wide array of weapons, combat is never as boring as you'd worry and the game pushes on nicely because of that very fact - this is a game that recognises some of the slower turn-based JRPGs put many off, and the move toward countering that is very welcome.

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales won't sadly win any Game of the Year awards, but for casual players of the genre, worried about how heavy the lore of others can be, this is a welcome light touch that makes a great fist of its elements - but needs to learn a little how to shut up and get on with it.

Win a double pass to see Spider-Man: Brand New Day!

Win a double pass to see Spider-Man: Brand New Day in cinemas!

To celebrate the release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in cinemas July 30, thanks to Sony Pictures New Zealand, you can win a double pass!

About Spider-Man: Brand New Day

It's a Brand New Day for Peter Parker. Fighting crime full-time as Spider-Man in a world that doesn’t remember him—and the pressure of seeing his old friends move on without him—sparks a change in Peter he may not have the power to control. 

But that transformation might also be the only thing that can stop a shocking new threat to the city and those he loves - a powerful villain no one can even see.

The world may have forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn’t forgotten them.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando and Mark Ruffalo and is directed by: Destin Daniel Cretton.

Spider-Man is based on the MARVEL Comic Book by: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in cinemas July 30.

Nirvanna The Band The Show- The Movie: Disney+ Movie Review

Cast: Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol
Director: Matt Johnson

There's a warm goofiness to Nirvanna The Band The Show- The Movie that may be catnip to some and anathema to others.

Based on a cult Canadian comedy series that began way back in 2007, it followed the duo Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, a pair of would-be musicians desperate to score a gig at a local club - and concocting plenty of out-there plans to do so, rather than simply contacting their dream venue.

The film version of that series follows a template that mixes mockumentary with time-travel shenanigans riffing on Back To The Future while never holding back from acknowledging the fact it's directly like it.

When they end up back in 2008, the duo tries to work out how to get back - and if indeed, they can or should do so.

To say Nirvanna The Band The Show- The Movie is a little niche is perhaps to undersell it.

In parts, it feels like a fly-on-the-wall documentary that's in the style of hidden camera pranks as they bumble through their life - though, when the moments hit, they land with a conviction and a humour that's amusing, if not outright hilarious.

Perhaps more effective riffing on perceived Canadian politeness (a running gag literally sees Matt running through the streets and continually apologising to those in the way) and the Toronto way of life, Nirvanna The Band The Show- The Movie feels in parts like a series of sketches stitched together with the loosest of threads.

But there are audacious moments too.

One sequence early on which sees them apparently jumping from Toronto's CN Tower and skydiving into a local stadium (because it's their plan to get noticed) benefits greatly for a WTF feeling of "Did they actually do that?". 

And there's no denying a DIY storehand's comment of "I'm a Libertarian, but I wouldn't do that" when the pair talks of using pliers to cut wires is laugh-out loud funny - even if you're not sure whether it's been scripted.

It also has a huge heart too, capturing some of the uncertainties of mid-life male relationships and the ennui that comes with continual disappointment. Its deeply philosophical line of "if you got a best friend, you won’t even notice getting older", may be one of the cinema's truest ever moments, that will land with its core audience as the final third dips into maudlin melancholy and an examination of what life really is about.

Nirvanna The Band The Show- The Movie is one of those films that will benefit from fans poring over it and picking out the sight gags and running jokes. But it still can't escape the feeling of being overlong and for a certain core audience, rather than mass appeal.

Mortal Kombat II: HBO Max Movie Review

Cast: Karl Urban, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Lewis Tan, Damon Herriman, Chin Han, Tadanobu Asano, Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki Sanada, Adeline Rudolph Tati Gabrielle
Director: Simon McQuoid

Five years ago, the first Mortal Kombat delivered a movie that pitched perfectly to its core game audience, but did nothing to satiate a general audience and bring in new fans. So in terms of cinematic success, it's almost unthinkable to believe the sequel would double down on what made the first work and yet somehow also prove equally as unqualified in trying to garner a wider audience while threatening an Avengers: Doomsday style sequel at the end.

Yet that's exactly what McQuoid's follow-up does, despite mixing in a story of Kitana's creation (she saw her father killed before Shao Khan, an evil monster who enslaved her kingdom) and introducing weary former martial arts expert Johnny Cage (Urban) on whose shoulders the fate of EarthRealm rests.

With a side-story of a MacGuffin about an amulet that grants its bonded wearer immortality, the preposterous levels of Mortal Kombat are set in stone before the very first fight takes place.

Once again, the movie remains faithful to the gameplay and locations, even if some of its choreographed fights are more like dances around the subject. The brutality seems lacking this time around and if anything compared to what can unfold on TV screens these days, it almost seems tame in its execution - particularly for a game famed for its OTT Fatality final kills.

The action is serviceable enough, directed as it is in a perfunctory way by McQuiod as he swirls around characters and takes in the video game-style backgrounds. But in among the CGI fare and taunts, there's little that suggests flair and certainly little that's memorable.

More successful - though once again, very familiar - is the Cobra Kai-style arc of Urban's Johnny Cage, a washed-up fighter turned actor who starred in some questionably bad 80s and 90s movies, such as Citizen Cage, that became cult hits for the wrong reasons. Sidelined at a convention, Cage's weariness and cynicism is expertly captured by Urban, even if in truth, he's played a dialled down version of Billy Butcher from The Boys. 

The film's more enjoyable when it leans on the more humorous edges of the set-up and sequences where Cage has to fight against Baraka, a multi-toothed creature in a Mad Max-themed dustbowl show glimpses of what the franchise could be if it stopped taking itself just too seriously.

Once again Josh Lawson's Kano gets the best lines. From labelling an albino necromancer a "bleached dildo" to calling him "Pennywise", the chuckles are a welcome addition to a film that just doesn't want to appeal to everyone.

At nearly 1 hour 50 minutes, Mortal Kombat II is a test of patience in many ways. It's not a disastrous video game adaptation and takes what makes the fight series work and transposes it to a big screen. 

It's just that it now risks becoming the kind of movie franchise that Cage himself is mocked for doing - a dinosaur doing a bunch of karate poses - and the fact it looks likely to continue on to a third film is a fatality for any audience wanting some kind of thrill at the cinema.