Based on an original concept by none other than Bruce Lee, Justin Lin returns to the small screen with martial arts crime-drama, Warrior. Based on the Tong Wars around the turn of the 20th century, Warrior tells the story of one immigrant lands in the American Old West to become a gang hatchet man. Starring Jason Tobin, Andrew Koji and Olivia Cheng, Warrior debuts on Cinemamax early 2019.
Something of a surprise hit when it premiered July last year, Ozark returns for season 2 with Marty (Jason Bateman) and co. needing to get even deeper into the world of the cartel to keep them happy and take his business beyond simple money laundering. Don’t necessarily expect things to go according to plan when Ozark Season 2 premieres 31st August on Netflix.
Falling a little closer to Futurama than the Simpsons on the Matt Groening scale, Disenchantment is the new series by the lauded cartoon creator and his first series to debut on Netflix. Following the misadventures of Princess Bean (Abbi Jacobson), her companion Elfo (Nate Faxon) and a demon named Luci (Eric Andre), Bean wants to escape the simple life as the King’s daughter and get into her own scrapes outside the confines of the castle. Netflix are on a great run for animation of late, so hopefully this is the next homerun when Disenchantment premieres August 17th.
Made with clips from some 22 animators including Bendik Kaltenborn and Simon Landrein, Rick and Morty: Exquisite Corpse is a mind-bending trip into the multiverse after Morty accidentally drops a jar containing the result of Rick’s latest experiment, creating pure LSD. Kicked back and forth through a plethora of alternate universes, director Matt Taylor selected creators from around the world to create their own sequence before tying it all together to make this suitably wacky short.
With a taste-making crowd touching down in Austin every SXSW, the festival has quickly become synonymous with some of the most ingenious brand experiences around. Show the rest of this post…
While previous years have seen a mini-theme park for Mr. Robot, escape rooms for HBO’s Veep, Silicon Valley and Game of Thrones, and AMC flooding the streets with red-hooded handmaids, this year HBO won the festival again with an immersive, real-life recreation of Westworld’s Sweetwater town.
Meeting at a bar on the east side of the town for orienteering – and to pick up our Westworld hats – we were amongst the lucky first batch of guests to take the short bus ride out to Sweetwater town. Stepping off the bus, through the Delos reception and into the steam train we’ve seen Teddy take into town time, and time, and time again, out the other side, Sweetwater lay waiting for us all to explore.
Employing more than 60 local actors, acting out over 450 pages of dialogue to cover every interaction with other hosts and visiting guests, it was like walking into the real life park from the show. Welcomed into the saloon for a cocktail and a game of cards, for beans and jerky at the downtrodden restaurant, to hanging out at the local square while someone played the skiffle board, no part of the town was out of bounds.
With remarkable attention to detail, there were plenty of easter eggs to be found. Talking with hosts, we were given little tasks to find other hosts, get some information and report back. It led to us opening a secret door in a room at the back of the town, where inside a tecnician worked on an unfinished host. You could also drop by the local post office to pick up your hand-written mail; we found one of Maeve’s sketches of the white-suited techs inside. Show this to the hosts – or anything from the real world – and you’ll get the iconic Westworld line, “it doesn’t look like anything to me”, sending shivers down your spine.
Aside from a moody, solo samurai wandering the park looking for trouble, the best thing that happened inside the park was a set-piece involving some 15-20 characters. Where a mini-scuffle started at the side of the square, things quickly escalated into a shootout with a gang on one side, the sheriff on the other. With blood quickly spilt, a bunch of techs ran into scene to clear it up, “freeze all motor functions” they yelled, and with every host frozen in place, the audience stood back in awe at the incredible set play.
To attempt to recreate the central conceit of such a high-concept show as Westworld, must have taken a huge amount of courage (and budget) from HBO, and all credit to them for pulling this off. The whole experience was a remarkable real-life recreation of the show, and a real show of confidence in season 2, which hits screens late April. No doubt every guest left Sweetwater with their anticipation heightened for what’s to come, certainly that included us too.
With all the overtones of a Scandi detective thriller, Dark is a tense new 10-parter from Netflix. Set in the small German town of Winden, Dark follows the investigation into the disappearance of two local children, only the series takes a supernatural twist when the question shifts to not whom kidnapped the children, but when. Shot on location in the beautiful yet thoroughly eerie German woodland, Netflix’s run of hit shows looks like its set to continue. Created by Baran bo Odar and co-written by Jantje Friese, all 10 episodes of Dark premiere Friday 1st December.
Releasing 19 episodes over six short seasons, cult web series High Maintenance follows pot dealer, ‘The Guy’, as he bikes product across New York City. With each episode focusing on the lives of a different customer before The Guy shows up at their door, episodes were initially available for free on Vimeo, then through Vimeo’s On Demand service, and now creators Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld are making the jump to HBO for a new 6-episode run. Carrying its clever, witty dialogue across to network TV, the new episodes will run for 30 minutes rather than the 5-15 minute online webisodes, with the likes of Dan Stevens, Yael Stone and Hannibal Buress guest starring. High Maintenance debuts September 16th on HBO.
Inspired by the David Simon’s classic crime drama, The Wire, animator Elliot Lim has created a gorgeous homage to the show and it’s five seasons of grime, crime and double-crossing. Set to The Wire‘s iconic theme music, Way Down in the Hole as performed by The Blind Boys of Alabama, Lim’s animation encapsulates so many of the motif’s that made the show so great, such as the stellar storytelling that absorbed viewers right through to the end. You can also see Lim’s work on the titles of Jay Baruchel’s FX comedy, Man Seeking Woman.
After the runaway success of podcast Serial and HBO’s jawdropping finale to The Jinx, it’s no surprise Netflix is adding true crime to it’s ever-expanding roster of original programming. Examining the case of Steven Avery, a Wisconsinite who served 18 years in prison for rape before he was exonerated of the crime through DNA evidence, Avery was in the process of suing the state for some $36m when he was arrested again and this time convicted for the murder of Teresa Halbach. He again protests his innocence. Exploring both cases in minutiae detail, Making A Murderer will get under the skin of Avery and the injustice that may or may not have stricken him when all episodes debut for streaming on Netflix on December 18th.
Shot on location in Columbia, Narcos is the new series from Netflix about the growth of the Medellin drug cartel and its infamous leader, Pablo Escobar. Set in the 1980s and starring Wagner Moura in the lead, the series will explore Escobar’s battles with the authorities, with the US sending a Mexican DEA agent to Columbia to kill him. All episodes of Narcos will premiere August 28th on Netflix.
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