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Netflix’s “Umbrella Academy” Adds To Season 2 Cast!

While the second season of Netflix’s gritty superhero drama Umbrella Academy is still at least a year away (at best), the show has begun filming in Toronto, Canada, with the main cast returning to their instantly-iconic roles. But alongside the Hargreeves siblings, there are three new faces to add to the mix.

Netflix has just cast Ritu Arya, Yusuf Gatewood, and Marin Ireland for what appear to be large roles on the show. So let’s break down who they’re playing, and what their inclusion could mean for the series, and the future of the Umbrella Academy.

First of all, are they playing new members of the Academy – a.k.a. any of the thirty-six other supernaturally-gifted children all mysteriously born on October 1st, 1989? Well, it’s most likely that Arya and Gatewood, who are both around the same age range as the other Hargreeves, could be some of those long lost kids.

Additional confirmation of this could come from the character descriptions released by Netflix: Arya’s character, Lila, is an unpredictable “chameleon who can be as brilliant or as clinically insane as the situation requires”. To my mind, that suggests she has the ability to either shape-shift or, more interestingly, drastically change her personality in such a way that she becomes an entirely different person to any but the most discerning eye. Lila also has a macabre sense of humor: this suggests a villain at first, but pretty much everybody in Umbrella Academy has a macabre sense of humor, so it’s not very telling.

As for Gatewood, his character Raymond sounds more than a bit like Emmy Raver-Lampman’s Alison Hargreeves – a “born leader” with the “innate ability to disarm you with a look”. He’s married, and devoted to his spouse, and seems to have a wide social circle who love and adore him. But what does it mean? Is he, like Alison, creating a perfect life for himself by mind-controlling his friends and family? Or is he just a really great guy? That seems way too good to be true on a show like this, where everyone is hiding a secret.

Marin Ireland’s “no-nonsense Texas mom” Sissy doesn’t seem as much like a possible Umbrella Academy child to me, but she sounds interesting: at forty, Ireland will be portraying a “fearless”, free spirited woman who seems to be getting past a stale marriage and moving on to the next chapter of her life with fervor. She probably lives in Texas, and she obviously has kids: other than that, we don’t know too much about her, but she sounds like she could be the moral compass of the next season, like Agnes (and, to some extent, Hazel) were in the first.

All in all, this sounds like a great deal of fun, and the characters each seem to have a lot of depth and layers already: we’ll just have to wait and see whether they turn out to be long lost siblings, time-traveling assassins, or maybe even more donut-shopkeepers.

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“Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance” Final Trailer!

The Darkening is upon us in the final trailer for Netflix’s Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance, the prequel series to Jim Henson’s cult-classic Dark Crystal. Personally, I never knew we needed a prequel to that film. But then again, I also never knew I would actually be interested in that prequel.

This series looks…good. It still looks kind of terrifying and weird, because it still relies on puppets – and these aren’t the types of puppets you see on Sesame Street: they’re slightly more realistic, in a weird, distorted sort of way, and some of them are huge lurking vulture-creatures called Skeksis, who want to control the magical world of Thra. None of them are particularly adorable or endearing, which could end up being a turn-off for some people. I’m trying not to get freaked out by them, though, because the story looks insanely epic. There’s amazing visuals, an incredible voice-cast, and a compelling message of hope, inspiration, and courage. At least, I think the message is one of hope – I can’t really remember anything from Dark Crystal except that there were lots of vulture Skeksis, so I’m going to assume that the resistance in Age Of Resistance possibly doesn’t eradicate them entirely? Honestly, I don’t know, so I’ll be going into this series pretty much blind. And yes, I will be watching it, no matter how frightening it is.

I was already sold when Lena Headey joined the cast, but this trailer has done a lot to cement my hopes for the show: this trailer is everything I needed it to be – the stakes are high, the thrills are intense, the range of emotion coming from these puppets is disturbing. I feel invested in the arcs of our protagonists, Deet, Rian and Brea…even  if I don’t know which is which yet. Maybe it’s the stirring music, or the beautiful narration about the fragility of hope, which “catches the light, splitting the darkness, revealing your destiny”. Maybe it’s just because I still feel shell-shocked and I’m not even realizing that I’m seriously considering watching an entire series about creepy puppet-people.

While I sort out my emotional trauma, I’ll pose the question to you: are you planning to watch Age Of Resistance when it debuts on August 30th? Are you scared of the Gelflings and the Skeksis? Are you totally comfortable with the idea of watching scary Muppets fight to the death for the freedom of their alien world, and if so, do you think you should seek help?

Trailer Rating: 8/10

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Millie Bobby Brown Joins Marvel’s “The Eternals”!

Millie Bobby Brown, the teenage star of the hit Netflix show Stranger Things is enjoying what is hopefully only the promising beginning of a long career in the entertainment industry: she is still best known for her work on the show, since her film roles have tended to…not go quite as well. This year’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a good example – Brown was supposed to be one of the film’s main selling points, but wasn’t enough to garner any critical or, crucially, financial success for the film, which flopped.

Now, as people begin to wonder how long Stranger Things can last (I’m going to guess that, as long as it keeps drawing in record audiences, it will last for a long time), Brown is turning her attention to the movie industry with new fervor. She’s already snatched up the lead role in Enola Holmes, a film about the crime-solving younger sister of famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who will be portrayed by Henry Cavill. And, according to one very peculiar reference in an article by Variety (I’ve noticed that Variety does this a lot), Brown might also be on her way to joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The article in question talks about what Marvel will be showcasing at their eagerly-awaited Hall H presentation for San Diego Comic Con. Obviously, the event will be huge, but the article itself seems, at first glance, to just recap what we already guessed. Marvel president Kevin Feige will be there, and will officially announce projects such as Black Widow, Doctor Strange 2, Black Panther 2, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Eternals – “which has been widely reported to star Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani and Richard Madden, as well as “Stranger Things” lead Millie Bobby Brown”.

Say what now?

Millie Bobby Brown Joins Marvel's "The Eternals"! 1
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It’s entirely possible that Variety has confirmation of this casting, and just decided, for whatever reason, to randomly drop it as an aside in an article about Comic Con. As I said, they do that sort of stuff a lot. But it is interesting that they don’t actually reference any sources, saying instead that these are just the cast-members “widely reported to star”. Is that confirmation or what? Considering that Brown is currently at the peak of her popularity, wouldn’t it have made sense to, I don’t know, address this major casting announcement in a separate article?

It doesn’t even seem possible that they would be basing this information off the rumors going around a few months ago that Brown had been cast in The Eternals, rumors which Brown herself strongly denied, claiming she didn’t even know what The Eternals was, and that the rumors were “a waste of time”. But, then again, this is not the first time Brown has been associated with Marvel – back in 2017, she was seen visiting Avengers directors Joe and Anthony Russo while they were filming Infinity War and Endgame: and interestingly, a lot of rumors were going around before Endgame‘s release that two characters from The Eternals would be in in the film, specifically in a post-credits scene. It’s important to note that one of these two characters was rumored to be a teenage female, known as “Piper”.

If Brown has been cast as “Piper”, whoever that may be, she will not be the first Stranger Things star to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe: David Harbour, who play Brown’s character’s father on the show, was cast in the upcoming Black Widow movie, also in an undisclosed role.

So what do you think? Is this a slip-up by Variety, or has Millie Bobby Brown actually been cast in The Eternals? How would you feel about this casting? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and be patient: all will be revealed at San Diego Comic Con!

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First Look At “The Witcher” On Netflix!

The war to fill the fantasy-adaptation void that Game of Thrones left has begun: HBO is racing around the clock to get Bloodmoon, a Game of Thrones prequel, up and running, while their adaptation of His Dark Materials will debut later this year (and has already been confirmed for a second season); Amazon Prime will drop Carnival Row, a moody Victorian-era paranormal thriller, in August, about the same time they’re supposed to start filming their five-season prequel to The Lord of the Rings – their Wheel of Time series has already cast Rosamund Pike in the lead role of the sorceress, Moiraine, and should go into production soon, while Conan the Barbarian is still in early stages of development, and the Ringworld project has been silent for a year or two now; BBC America will start adapting some of the works of late author Terry Pratchett, which is something I am very much looking forward to; Apple TV’s adaptation of the science-fiction epic, the Foundation Trilogy, is still…maybe…on its way to being greenlit. Netflix’s The Witcher, however, will arrive on screens sooner than most of these adaptations – the first look arrived today.

The photos and official poster that have been released are really exciting, so let’s check them out. First of all, we’ve got Henry Cavill, formerly known as Superman, in the role of Geralt of Rivia, scarred monster-hunter and Legolas look-alike, sporting the silvery wig that had him being ridiculed all over the internet just a few months ago: it looks…better now, even though it’s hard to believe that could be possible.

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A pretty good wig, if you ask me. I’m not a big fan of Cavill’s, but he looks better here than he ever did during his short-lived run as Superman in the DCEU: he looks gritty, weathered, harsh. He’s also, I believe, the only real star-power that Netflix can rely on for The Witcher: besides him, we have Anya Cholatra as the powerful sorceress Yennefer, looking stylish in a heavy fur-coat:

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thewrap.com

The outfits look to be very high-quality. Finally, we have Freya Allan as the secretive Princess Ciri, all shadowy and mysterious, lurking in the forest while the others are all posing dramatically by the sea.

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The images look quite good, and give me hope that this might be a pretty decent adaptation – granted, I’ve never read the Witcher novels, so I won’t be able to give you in-depth analysis of what’s different between the books and the show, but I know someone who can: check out Elliot Brooks on YouTube if you want to know more about the show, and the novels, and the accompanying video games that actually made the novels as popular as they are (her channel is awesome, but especially for stuff about The Witcher).

What do you think? Do you like these images? Netflix has announced that they will be heading to San Diego Comic Con with The Witcher, so expect many more updates – and probably a trailer! – there.