The geek showbiz news has been rolling in the past few days, and we round it up here.
Warner Bros. has decided not to move forward on two DC movie projects, including Ava DuVernay’s New Gods and James Wan’s Aquaman spinoff The Trench, according to Hollywood Reporter. DuVernay and DC writer Tom King had been slated to co-write New Gods (see "Tom King to Co-Write ‘The New Gods’"). An Aquaman sequel directed by Wan is still in the works, according to the report.
Randall Park (Fresh Off the Boat) will direct an adaptation of Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings as his first film, according to Deadline. The film will be produced by four from Roadside Attractions, Park, Michael Golamco, and Hieu Ho’s Imminent Collision. The work was original published in the Tomine’s comic Optic Nerve, and then collected in 2007 into a graphic novel that received a high profile review in the New York Times (see "’Shortcomings’ Reviewed in ‘N.Y. Times’"). Tomine has written the screenplay for the adaptation.
Crunchyroll and VIZ Media have announced the upcoming home video of five series on Blu-Ray, DVD, and VOD, including the hit series Jujutsu Kaisen (see "February 2021 NPD BookScan – Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels"); the three-episode movie Burn the Witch, the latest from Bleach creator Tite Kubo; and three Crunchyroll Originals: Tower of God, based on a Webtoon property, The God of High School, and In/Spectre.
Meanwhile, the planned acquisition of Crunchyroll by anime streaming competitor Funimation (see "Funimation Gets Crunchyroll for $1.175 Billion") is getting an extended antitrust review by the Justice Department, according to The Information via Seeking Alpha, which could slow or halt the transaction.
Disney+ has released the first trailer for Star Wars animated series The Bad Batch (trailer below), which will debut on May the 4th (of course) with a special 70-minute premiere, followed by new episodes on Fridays beginning on May 7.