Media Sandwich

Hogwarts Legacy is finally releasing this week, and only IGN has  bothered to review it. How controversial, how brave of them. But that  means we can read through their review and draw our own conclusions  about the game...without any intention of playing it. This is not a game  journalism podcast. Elsewhere, the Avatar sequels are shaping up to be a  saga worthy of The Godfather...in spaaaace! Also, James Gunn is  actually driving up the sales of classic comic books with his DCU slate  announcements, and thanks to the guy who gave us the Yellowstone  Expanded Universe of high-priced spinoff shows, Showtime can eschew  fresh new material for bizarre new desperate squeezings of Dexter and  Billions.

Nothing can bother us this week, not on Goldeneye week! Intense online  mud-slinging against Forspoken, the new RPG from Square Enix, makes for a  debate on the state of comedic quips in movies and games. Oscar buzz is  in the air around Everthing Everywhere All At Once and Top Gun:  Maverick, and the star of NBC's "Chuck" becomes a problem for WB. Marvel  takes another comic book stab at the Alien franchise, and Fox's  Animation Domination block gets two more seasons. And guess what new  series from Amazon was totally predicted on this very podcast some  months back?

The holidays are long gone, and the big corporations are ready to lay  off huge portions of their workers. First Microsoft hacks away at 343  Industries, prompting a less than reassuring statement from the studio.  Amazon somehow finds a way to keep killing the already basically dead  Comixology, which we didn't think was still possible. Some new movie  trailers brighten up an otherwise dark movie industry week as Alec  Baldwin faces charges for the Rust tragedy, and while everyone else  tucks into The Last of Us, Kyle preferred the cheap nostalgia bait of  That 90s Show.

It's a week of strained relationships between media companies and their  audiences, with Wizards of the Coast dropping the dice under the table  while trying to install a few legal trapdoors with a new Open Gaming  License, Ubisoft cancelling games left and right while delaying Skull  and Bones yet again...anybody ever heard of a long-delayed disaster  called Duke Nukem Forever, by the way? No reason. Elsewhere, Gina Carano  enjoys her post-Star Wars free speech lifestyle to the tune of a  whopping $13,000 at the box office. Awesome. Speaking of Star Wars,  Marvel is celebrating Black History Month with ten cover variants  featuring Black characters from a galaxy far, far away. HBO Max has a  double-edged sword of a week between The Last of Us getting rave reviews  and Velma being almost universally despised. And Paramount  announces--at just the right time--that a Dungeons & Dragons  television show is on its way.

The first episode of 2023 brings some confusion about what kind of show  we're running here. But first, a preview of upcoming video games and  movies, along with a comic book that delves into the consequences of the  January 6 insurrection. Greg Berlanti is starting the new year with a  lucrative overall deal with Warner Television, while AMC and other TV  outlets are un-renewing and un-greenlighting shows like it's going out  of style. And what kind of memes and anime are finding their way into  Congress and the NFL?

On a special bonus episode, Kyle joins his dear old friend Gus at the local library to stack up literal Media Sandwiches that would make  Dagwood proud. While Kyle focuses on filling in Gus's Criterion movie blind spots and introducing him to Greg Rucka's comic book originals, Gus provides some required reading for an Intro to Manga and Anime for his clueless and uninitiated buddy. It's an entertainment recommendation fest for your remaining holidays!

Epic Games breaks the record for largest fine or penalty ever assessed  by the FTC thanks to their predatory microtransaction mechanics on  Fortnite, hashtag great job, crapburgers. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer and  Barbie will release on the same day in summer of 2023, what a  double-feature! Avatar: The Way of Water doesn't hit its projected  opening weekend numbers, but that might be a good thing? Henry Cavill  gets a real Charlie Brown football moment with Superman before  announcing his real passion project. The comic book industry crumbles  further into debt to freelancers who haven't been paid on time in  months, while Amazon announces a video game adaptation for streaming  television, Netflix symbolically repeats history by delivering a killing  blow to their lackluster Blockbuster sitcom, and the new Dr. Who gets a  brand new wardrobe that both cosplayers and Kyle will greatly  appreciate.

A genuinely pleasant surprise in the video game world helps take the stink off the continuing adventures of Microsoft and their fight to acquire Activision-Blizzard, while rumors swirl over James Gunn's massive shake-up of the DC movies. Mark Millar asks the question "what if you had to convince Willy Wonka you deserved superpowers?" And while some talk show hosts bid a fond farewell to their desk and their audience, others are dealing with a class action lawsuit related to ghastly digital paintings of monkeys, and their role in trying to sell URLs assigned to said ghastly monkeys. It's a salty, spicy stack of takes in this here sandwich, dear listener!

This foul year 2022 is almost at an end, and the entertainment industry  is revving up their marketing pushes for their 2023 content! First off,  EA and Respawn have little baby leak on Steam for Star Wars: Jedi  Survivor. Then a trio of big summer blockbuster movies dropped trailers  all on the same day: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,  Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy  Vol. 3. We explore the rapid deterioration of recently merged comic book  publisher Oni Press, then it's back to the teasers and millennial  pleasers with a look at That '90s Show on Netflix. Also, what famous  television mobster's son is being typecast for Disney's Daredevil  revival? All this and more!

What is it with all these big entertainment companies posting their Ls  all over the place this last week? First Microsoft and Sony compete to  see which of them has more reason to complain about their exclusive  titles, then Disney exchanges one Bob for another Bob in an effort to  prevent more Strange World levels of box office failure. Netflix leaves  tens of millions of dollars on the table with The Glass Onion, while  Paramount tries desperately to entice everyone's dad with more  Yellowstone content. On the bright side, DC Comics has a bright new  crossover event for 2023, and Marvel's holiday specials are winning the  battle of the warm and fuzzies. It's a post-mortem on the  Thanksgiving/Black Friday weekend, so put together a leftover sandwich  and put this pod in your ears!

Appropriately, the Thanksgiving week is rife with old guys you know and  love, all of whom are going on new adventures soon. Sam Fisher is  putting on the goggles for a remake of the original Splinter Cell,  Indiana Jones is apparently going to punch some space Nazis on the Moon,  and John Carpenter is getting more video game money because an Escape  From New York reboot is in the works. We also say goodbye to Jason David  Frank, dish on some casting news for the Percy Jackson series on  Disney+, and catch the ABC network pulling the rare un-ordering of a  series order for David E. Kelley's Catalina caper "Avalon."

How do you heal a broken heart? Well, for starters, you welcome back to  the show Chris Pranger! After some necessary talk about the pop culture  icons we lost this last week, Chris gives an extensive run-down on  Pokemon Scarlet/Violet that releases this week, while Kyle provides some  thoughts on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Also, Guillermo del Toro  teases us with a glimpse at one of his many unrealized projects, Studio  Ghibli did a Star Wars (kinda), and wait, hold on a sec...is this  Witcher prequel series going to actually be really good?

It's release week for God of War: Ragnarok, and Embracer Group kills off  a quality mobile gaming studio. David Zaslav gets confused as to what a  movie franchise is, but he's not confused about which money (and hate)  machine he wants to tie WB to for the forseeable future. The holiday  season is upon us, in the form of crappy sequels to questionable season  classics, as well as the Hallmark Channel joining forces with Peacock to  fill all your sweater weather viewing needs. Marvel is tackling the  Planet of the Apes in comic book form, while Bryan Fuller gets to work  on a prequel series to Friday the 13th. And did you see that Blockbuster  show on Netflix? What. A. Dog.

Welcome to the spookiest episode of Media Sandwich ever! It's got  everything a modern haunted house has...the reanimated corpse of the  Call of Duty franchise, Elon Musk's insidious alien plot to take over  the world (of social media), James Gunn and Peter Safran investigating  the DC haunted manor, Mike Flanagan's attempted séance to communicate  with the screen adaptation of The Dark Tower, and the elevated horror of  what's going to happen to "The Witcher" now that Henry Cavill has  traded his long wig for the tights and cape. All this and more from  Count Kyle, the Svengoolie of pop culture headlines...click play, if you  dare!

The word is out on Gotham Knights, and the word is...eh. Meanwhile, Silent Hill 2 gets a big next-gen remake, the Star Wars franchise flirts with the idea of maybe making feature films again sometime in the future, Amblin makes moves towards a sequel no one asked for, a comic book creator insists Matt Reeves stole his Riddler story and left behind a cryptic 3-hour movie, and Kyle finds out The Daily Show is still on the air, and in need of a new host. All this and more in the world of entertainment news!

It's a big week for easily avoidable flubs by big media companies. First off, Comcast abruptly pulls the lever on the trolley equation that is G4TV (yes, they brought it back, only a year ago), the video game industry treats voice actors like garbage, and Netflix offers an enticing new price tier that sounds like absolute trash. It's not all bad news, however! Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender have both a TTRPG and three feature films to look forward to, meanwhile big movie studios are bringing back some beloved 1990s comedy franchises. A full, healthy week in the world of entertainment. But what about the biggest movie at the box office right now, Halloween Ends?

Post-surgery blues glue Kyle to the couch so he can provide updates on some previously discussed headlines, as well as some interesting news out of New York Comic-Con and some recent movie trailers both delightful (Violent Night) and baffling (Super Mario Brothers). Then a brief meditation on the true crime genre and how it sometimes trivializes real tragedy, and the whole debacle of Kanye West's attempt to normalize hate.

A top-tier esports company steps right in it and loses an important partnership with Riot Games, meanwhile hotshot horror directors surprise execs on a special Zoom call, Star Trek has some major news about the Kelvin timeline going forward, a new comic book strikes Kyle's fancy, and the Super Bowl has a halftime performer locked in, which is what football is all about, right? Oh, and did you SEE that "The Last of Us" trailer?

Happy video game news arrives in the form of this last week's Nintendo Direct, and not so happy news in the form of one of the most massive data leaks in the video game industry's recent history. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures/Sony Entertainment is doing the release date shuffle on some of their biggest films in the next two years, Harvey Weinstein tries to do more dirty business from his prison commode, and this week sees the premieres of some intriguing new television programs along with the triumphant returns of some newly coronated Emmy winners.

It's a two-man sandwich this week, with the return of Chris Pranger! The guys try their very best to touch on every single item announced at Disney's D23 event, along with some spooky special screenings coming to Regal Cinemas, a legendary comic book artist's recent passion project, and Anna Kendrick's first time behind the camera to chronicle a game show psychopath.

The long Labor Day weekend results in some of Kyle's saltiest commentary yet. After a brief sidebar about the Steam Deck, we get some good news/bad news situations for Halo: Infinite and Splatoon 3, followed by a very Shia LaBeouf filled briefing on the Venice Film Festival. A hefty case against J.K. Rowling's newest stack of toilet paper scribblings transitions nicely into some vindication for the graphic novel Gender Queer, and what in the name of Tom Bombadil is going on with Amazon's television budgets?!

Rumors about EA being absorbed by even bigger business fish are less substantial than the rumors of Big Chungus becoming playable in WB's Multiversus. Meanwhile, Matt Shakman beams away from Star Trek 4 to helm another Marvel project, DC Comics trips over a bag of tamales while trying to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, and Kyle pauses his love affair with the latest movie from Laika long enough to remind everyone of a bygone rallying cry...#SixSeasonsAndaMovie.