A new year means a new cycle of Geek TV News, and it's time to Round-Up the first batch.
Disney+ has renewed
The Mandalorian, which was confirmed by showrunner Jon Favreau on his
Twitter account. This comes with little surprise as Favreau had previously teased that S2 was already shooting and that Carl Weathers, who plays Greef Carga, was directing an episode according to
The Hollywood Reporter.
The Mandalorian released on November 12 of this year, and was clearly the stand out hit for the Disney+ streaming service in 2019 (see "
New 'The Mandalorian' Trailer").
Netflix took its year-end inventory of their top-streamers for 2019, and the most streamed TV series was
Stranger Things S3 according to
The Hollywood Reporter.
Stranger Things S3 was followed on the TV charts by
The Witcher,
The Umberella Academy, and
Dead to Me.
Stranger Things will be returning for S4, and its Dark Horse graphic novels have been hot on the charts (see "
Trends in the Graphic Novel Market 2019").
Netflix also revealed that they have ordered a new series called
The Midnight Gospel from Pen Ward, creator of
Adventure Time (see "
Adventure Time' On HBO Max"), and Duncan Trussell. According to
Variety, the new series will be eight episodes centering around a character named Clancy, a “spacecaster with a malfunctioning multiverse simulator [who] leaves the comfort of his home to interview beings living in dying worlds.” The production company providing animation for this new series will be Titmouse Animation, and it is scheduled to stream in 2020.
Amazon has added to the cast of their upcoming
Lord of the Rings series. Morfydd Clark will play one of the lead roles as a young Galadriel, previously played in the films by Kate Blanchett, according to
Variety. Amazon announced the blockbuster deal to produce TV series based on the Tolkien books back in 2017 (see "
'LOTR,' Roundup").
Anne Rice's
The Vampire Chronicles is on the move to find another studio. According to
Variety, a new package deal is being shopped to Warner Bros. after Hulu cancelled plans for a
The Vampire Chronicles series. The intellectual property package includes both
The Vampire Chronicles and
Mayfair Witches, which began with the novel
The Witching Hour in 1990. The rights for Rice's
The Vampire Chronicles has been bouncing from studio to studio over the last several years (see "
Bryan Fuller on Anne Rice's 'Vampire Chronicles'" and also, "
Universal, Imagine Get 'Vampire Chronicles'")
Netflix released a teaser for
Locke & Key which is set to come out on February 7, 2020 (see "
'Locke & Key' Gets A Date, 'Doctor Who' Premiere"). The new teaser was released on
Twitter, and can be viewed in the Gallery below.
