Netflix concluded its Geeked Week showcase yesterday with the release of the full trailer for director Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon : A Child of Fire . It's the first of two parts (with plans for a third film to make it a trilogy), and Snyder and the streaming giant hope the films will launch a new space opera franchise. There are already plans for a novelization of the film, a four-issue prequel comic, a narrative podcast, an animated series, and a four-player game for the Netflix gaming platform.

As we reported previously , years ago, director Zack Snyder had an idea for an epic Star Wars movie that he pitched to Lucasfilm. That project never panned out for a variety of reasons. But the idea continued to germinate until Netflix got on board. Apart from Star Wars, Snyder has said his influences include the films of Akira Kurosawa, especially Seven Samurai , and The Dirty Dozen . He has set his epic saga in a universe controlled by the ruthless and corrupt government of the Mother World (the Imperium) with an army led by one Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee). The rebel moon of the title is called Veldt.

Per the official premise:

Fresh off its critically acclaimed live-action adaptation of the hugely popular anime series One Piece , Netflix has released the first official teaser for yet another live-action adaptation: Avatar: The Last Airbender , based on the animated Nickelodeon TV series of the same name. As we've noted before , Netflix has a mixed track record for these anime adaptations, but if the teaser is any indication, The Last Airbender could join One Piece as another smashing success for the streaming platform.

(Some spoilers for the anime series below, but no major reveals.)

Created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the original anime series was set in an Asian-inspired world where certain chosen individuals have the ability to telekinetically manipulate one of four elements (earth, air, water, and fire)—a practice known as "bending." Each generation, there is one Avatar who can bend all four elements and is thus responsible for maintaining harmony among the four elemental nations, as well as being a link between the physical and spirit worlds.

Enlarge / A wealthy pharmaceutical dynasty faces a horrific reckoning in The Fall of the House of Usher. (credit: Netflix)

Halloween approacheth yet again, and that means it's time for another classic horror miniseries from Mike Flanagan and Netflix, the partnership that brought us The Haunting of Hill House , The Haunting of Bly Manor , and Midnight Mass. For his final (sob!) project with Netflix, Flanagan has gifted us with The Fall of the House of Usher . To say it's an adaption of the famous short story by Edgar Allan Poe wouldn't be doing the miniseries justice. What Flanagan has done is something quite extraordinary: it's more an inventive remix of the best of Poe's oeuvre , creating something that's entirely Flanagan's own while still channeling the very essence of Poe.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

In Poe's original short story, an unnamed narrator visits his old friend Roderick Usher, who has fallen ill along with his twin sister Madeline—the last surviving members of a once prominent family. The nature of their illness is never disclosed, but Roderick appears to be going mad, convinced his fate is tied to the Usher house—and there is an ominous crack starting from the roof running down the front of the house. Roderick accidentally entombs Madeline alive, believing she has died, and one dark stormy night, she re-emerges and attacks him in revenge. As the twins expire and the narrator flees in terror, the entire house splits in two and sinks into a nearby lake. It's pure Gothic horror , a genre that inspired Poe's many short stories and poetry in the early 19th century.

Doctor Who marks its 60th anniversary this year with three specials featuring David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor , with the first slated to air in November. The latest trailer shows the good Doctor reunited with his former companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and facing off against two classic adversaries from the Whovian archives: an alien race called the Meeps and a celestial being known as The Toymaker, played by Neil Patrick Harris.

(Spoilers below for prior seasons of Doctor Who .)

When the BBC announced that Ncuti Gatwa would succeed Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor as the new incarnation of Doctor Who , fans naturally expected Gatwa to make his first appearance in the traditional regeneration sequence. Instead, in the 2022 special " The Power of the Doctor ," Whittaker's Doctor regenerated into an incarnation bearing a striking similarity to the Tenth Doctor—both played by Tennant. It was a savvy marketing move, given the enormous popularity of Tennant's Doctor. With showrunner Chris Chibnall stepping down and Russell T. Davies re-assuming the reins for the show's 60th anniversary, what better time to revisit that character, along with my personal favorite of the companions, Donna Noble?

Major film franchises expanding into streaming television is officially a trend: Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Universe, and now Legendary Entertainment's MonsterVerse , which brought together Godzilla, King Kong, and various other monsters ( kaiju ) created by Toho Co., Ltd into the same fold. There have been four feature films thus far, with a fifth slated for a 2024 release, plus the animated series Skull Island , which debuted on Netflix earlier this year.  And now we've got the first teaser for Apple TV+'s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters , which picks up where the 2014 film Godzilla left off.

Set 15 years after a nuclear disaster in Japan, the 2014 Godzilla reimagined the classic monster's origins and featured the titular beast battling giant winged parasitic creatures called MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) that feed off nuclear energy and waste (and also warheads). San Francisco suffered quite a bit of major property damage as a result. That film also introduced us to Project Monarch, a secret organization established in the 1950s to study Godzilla and other kaiju —after attempts to kill Godzilla with nuclear weapons failed.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will further explore the history and aftermath of those events. Per the official premise:

Anticipation is mounting among Marvel fans for the October debut of the second season of Loki , starring Tom Hiddleston as everyone's favorite Norse god of mischief. We now have a new teaser showcasing a time-slipping Loki seemingly caught in an endless cycle of shuttling between the past, present, and future as he tries to restore order to the multiverse.

(Spoilers for S1 below.)

As I wrote in my review , the first season of Loki was "an excellent mix of action, surprising twists, canny exposition, and intimate character moments, all leading up to the final reveal: what is the TVA's true nature and purpose, and is there someone (or something) else behind the scenes pulling the strings of the sacred trio of Time Keepers?" The puppet master turned out to be none other than Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors, who reprised the role for this year's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ) —or rather, a Kang Variant known as He Who Remains.

We're eagerly counting down to the premiere of Netflix's live-action series adaptation of One Piece on Friday, a hugely popular manga and anime series created by Eiichiro Oda. And Netflix has given us one last trailer in anticipation of that release.

When the first trailer debuted at San Diego Comic-Con last month, I noted that Netflix has had a mixed track record when it comes to making live-action adaptations of popular manga and anime. But that trailer and this new one make me optimistic that One Piece will succeed where, say, Fullmetal Alchemist failed. Early reactions seem to bear that out, with praise for the camerawork, the VFX, Oda's respect for the source material, and the sheer scale of the series. Even if you don't want to believe in One Piece , Luffy's boundless optimism might just win you over.

As previously reported , the original One Piece manga debuted in 1997, following the adventures of one Monkey D. Luffy, who heads a motley crew called the Straw Hat Pirates. There's swordsman Roronoa Zoro, thief and navigator Nami, sniper and compulsive liar Usopp, and a cook named Sanji. They're searching for the legendary One Piece, a mythical treasure that would make anyone who possesses it King of the Pirates. Monkey wants to be the Pirate King, but so do a host of other pirates with their own ships and crews. As with the manga, so with the live-action series. Per the official premise:

Years ago, director Zack Snyder had an idea for an epic Star Wars movie that he pitched to Lucasfilm. That project never panned out for a variety of reasons. But the idea continued to germinate until it became Rebel Moo n , a two-part film for Netflix that Snyder and the streaming giant hope will launch a new franchise. Snyder unveiled the first extended teaser at Gamescom in Germany.

Apart from Star Wars, Snyder has said that his influences include the films of Akira Kurosawa, especially The Seven Samurai and The Dirty Dozen . He has set his epic saga in a universe controlled by a ruthless and corrupt government of the Mother World (the Imperium) with an army led by one Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee), and the rebel moon of the title is called Veldt. Per the official premise:

When a peaceful colony on the edge of a galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Mother World, Kora assembles a small band of warriors—outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a battle over the fate of a galaxy is waged, and in the process, a new army of heroes is formed.

Kora knows something about the oppressive nature of the Imperium, since she used to be an Imperium leader, and now seeks redemption from her past. The band of allies that Kora assembles includes a former Imperium general named Titus (Djimon Hounsou); her farmer friend Gunnar (Michiel Huisman); Tarak (Staz Nair), a blacksmith who can bond with animals to rally them to a fight; a cyborg sword master named Nemesis (Doona Bae); a warrior named Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher) and his sister Devra (Cleopatra Coleman); a spider warrior named Harmada (Jena Malone); and Jimmy, the last of a race of mechanical knights from a fallen kingdom, voiced by Anthony Hopkins. Ed Skrein plays Admiral Atticus Noble, right hand to the tyrannical Regent, and Cary Elwes has also been cast in an as-yet-unnamed role.

Of all the various TV spinoffs of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Loki was perhaps the most popular, largely thanks to the winsome bantering chemistry between stars Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson. The much-anticipated second season is set to debut this fall, and we finally have an official trailer. Good news: S2 promises to be just as much fun as the first, if the trailer is any indication.

(Major spoilers for the first season below.)

It has been a couple of years, so let's briefly recap. As reported previously , the launching point for Loki S1 was that scene in Avengers: Endgame when a 2012 version of Loki snagged the tesseract containing the Space Stone and vanished through a portal. Our trickster soon encountered a team of armed guards who "arrested" him on behalf of an entity known as the Time Variance Authority (TVA), the "custodians of chronology" in the MCU, monitoring violations of the Sacred Timeline. Catch the TVA's attention by trying to change history, and you just might meet the wrong end of the Retroactive Cannon (Ret Con) and have your entire history deleted from the historical timeline.