The weather is getting colder, but the Hollywood news is heating up. It’s time for another round-up!
Ghostbusters: Afterlife grossed $44 million in its first weekend in the U.S., performing better than expected, according to Variety. While the film only scored 62% on Rotten Tomatoes’ review score, it scored a whopping 96% from audiences, indicating good prospects for a long tail at the box office. Eternals dropped to #2 in its third weekend, but still grossed $10.8 million, bringing its domestic total to $135.8 million (and international to $200.3 million).
Animated film and TV rights to Sergio Aragones’ Groo the Wanderer have been acquired by entrepreneur Josh Jones, the official Groo website announced. Jones’ Did I Err production company will produce, with Jones, his Did I Err partner Scott Nocas, Aragones, and longtime Groo writer Mark Evanier exec producing. The character first appeared in a story 40 years ago in Eclipse Comics’ Destroyer Duck #1, and has appeared in nearly 200 comic issues since then. Dark Horse Comics is the current publisher.
Paramount+ dropped the first teaser for Halo the Series (see teaser below). This original series, based on the hit video games, will be headed to exclusively to their streaming service in 2022. Paramount+ also recently renewed another sci-fi series, Star Trek Prodigy, for S2 (see “‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Renewed“).
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release a fully-remastered collection of all 65 episodes of The Batman: The Complete Series on Blu-ray and Digital on February 1, 2022. The series originally debuted on September 11, 2004 and ran five seasons on Kids WB and Cartoon Network. The box set will include numerous special features, including six featurettes. MSRP for the Blu-ray+Digital release is $69.99.
TKO Studios has signed a first-look development deal with New Regency. The deal gives New Regency the rights to exclusively develop TKO’s IP portfolio, and TKO’s founders Salvatore Simeone and Tze Chun will develop, produce, and package all shows alongside New Regency. TKO’s library features a variety of graphic novels and fiction, including Djeliya (see “Young Adult Graphic Novels“) and the D&D spoof Scales & Scoundrels (see “Kids Week: TKO Brings Back ‘Scales & Scoundrels’“).
Lucasfilm revealed that the Obi-Wan Kenobi series will hit the Disney+ streaming service in 2022. This series, directed by Deborah Chow and starring Ewan McGregor, revealed its full cast earlier this year and went into production (see “Full ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Cast“).
Lucasfilm also had Warwick Davis introduce the supporting cast of the upcoming Willow series, which is headed to Disney+ in 2022. The cast includes Ruby Cruz, Tony Revolori, Amar Chadha Patel, and Dempsey Bryk. This series had previously added Erin Kellyman and Ellie Bamber to the cast last year (see “‘Willow’ Casting“). Source: ICv2
