News Blade Runner 2049 Blade Runner 2099 Trailer Finally Reveals the Show’s Plot Hunter Schafer and Michelle Yeoh star in a bold new Blade Runner story By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 24, 2026 Photo Credit: Prime Video Comment 0 Share New Share Photo Credit: Prime Video The first teaser trailer for Blade Runner 2099 just dropped, and it goes a long way to making us feel pretty excited about a series that we’ve really known next to nothing about since it was announced nearly five years ago. Set 50 years after Blade Runner 2049 (I know, I know, work with us here), Blade Runner 2099 is set sometime during the aftermath of a successful replicant uprising. The replicants now have all the power and seemingly are not above treating humans the way they were treated for years. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Blade Runner 2099 showrunner Silka Luisa looked at the previous Blade Runner films and the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to find the show’s overarching theme. “The show is really imagining what comes after us, and what does it mean to be human in a world where humanity is no longer relevant?” Luisa explains. “There’s a tone to his novel. There is a zaniness to it, but at the same time, he has really dark themes and circumstances. And I think the juxtaposition of this kind of bubblegum tone with these dark ideas was something I really gravitated toward.” The show’s plot is quite fascinating. Michelle Yeoh stars as an aging replicant named Olwen who functions as a modern Blade Runner. Opposite Yeoh is Hunter Schafer: a human named Cora who must pretend to be a replicant Blade Runner in order to avoid capture. Set during the final days of Yeoh’s life (replicants know exactly when they will die), Blade Runner 2099 sees Olwen and Cora work together to hunt down a group of rogue replicants as the tension fuelled by their respective dilemmas and secrets threatens to boil over. Many of Blade Runner‘s core themes are certainly present in that story, as is the look established by the revolutionary Ridley Scott film. Simply put, Blade Runner 2099 visually looks pretty intriguing so far. There is definitely a murkiness to the look that may be a deliberate design decision meant to represent the fallen world that was or could simply be a sign of modern aesthetics. In any case, the stunning design of this universe is certainly present in many of the wider, grander shots. Standards are high for anything Blade Runner, to say the least, but between that cast (which also includes Tom Burke, Dimitri Abold, and Wil Coban), that premise, and what glimpses we get from this trailer, there is certainly renewed reason to hope for the best. Best of all, we finally have a release date for the show. Blade Runner 2099 will premiere on Prime Video on November 25.[end-mark] The post <i>Blade Runner 2099</i> Trailer Finally Reveals the Show’s Plot appeared first on Reactor.

News The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power The Rings of Power Season 3 Trailer Is All About Sauron Sauron-maxxing (sorry) By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 24, 2026 Photo Credit Prime Video Comment 0 Share New Share Photo Credit Prime Video The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power got a new trailer at SDCC 2026, and wouldn’t you know that it focuses on that kooky dark lord Sauron and the forging of the One Ring. The preview is actually quite generous in terms of new footage given how little we’ve seen of the show’s third season thus far. And though there are a few lovely shots of beloved characters wandering across scenic settings, the tone of the preview is, understandably, quite dark. After all, the previous season ended with King Durin III dying, Sauron obtaining the Nine Rings for Men after killing Celebrimbor, and the Free Peoples generally in disarray as Sauron gains more and more power. Things are looking grim, y’all. Set against what appears to be Sauron’s forging of the One Ring, this preview reveals an inevitable, but dramatic, conclusion: it’s time for everyone to unite or be conquered by the forces of Mordor. As an… on the nose line of dialogue puts it, “The Dark Lord… we have to stop him.” Visually, The Rings of Power remains a remarkable accomplishment. The seemingly militaristic nature of this season is certainly a fine way for the show’s costume designers to flaunt the incredible armor they have crafted, while the shots of Mordor capture the intensity and volatility of Sauron’s domain. So far as that goes, it’s easier than ever to see where the hundreds of millions of dollars the show reportedly cost to make went. Narratively, we of course have a slightly better idea of where things are heading as the series works its way towards some of the most notable events in Lord of the Rings lore. By many accounts, the series’ second season improved by utilizing a more driving plot that greatly increased the stakes of the series’ sometimes lackadaisical and meandering debut season. The drive demonstrated in this trailer certainly suggests the series will continue in that direction, though it remains to be seen if one of the more divisive series in recent memory finally finds its footing. We won’t have to wait too much longer to find out, though, as The Rings of Power Season 3 is set to debut on Prime Video on November 11.[end-mark] The post <i>The Rings of Power</i> Season 3 Trailer Is All About Sauron appeared first on Reactor.

News Dungeon Crawler Carl Peacock’s Dungeon Crawler Carl Series Has Found Its Princess Donut Princess Donut has been cast before Carl himself By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 24, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share At SDCC 2026, Matt Dinniman revealed that Jeff Hays has joined the planned Peacock adaptation of Dungeon Crawler Carl in the role of Princess Donut. Hays will undoubtedly be a familiar name to fans of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books. He not only narrates the series’ audiobooks but produces them as well. While this is the only confirmed bit of casting for the series so far, it at least suggests that the show is going to stick fairly close to its source material wherever possible. If so, that would hardly be a surprise given how much its fans contributed to this series going from an entry in the still somewhat obscure LitRPG genre to a full mainstream hit. And if you are not a Dungeon Crawler Carl fan, then just know that Princess Donut is a prized show cat (full name Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk) who accompanies Carl on his journey into the mysterious dungeon that appears following a transformative event. Much like Carl, Princess Donut undergoes quite a few changes in the Dungeon and emerges as one of the series’ best characters. The fact that Princess Donut was cast before Carl in the series kind of says something about the character’s fan-favorite status. On that note, we really still don’t know much about that series outside of what was initially revealed relative ages ago. It’s going to premiere on Peacock, Matt Dinniman is creatively involved, and the series is produced by Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door. It seems likely that the series will make it to production given how absurdly popular the books have become, but we’ve of course seen stranger things happen in the world of literary adaptations. So we’ll all be keeping an eye open for any updates on this one.[end-mark] The post Peacock’s <i>Dungeon Crawler Carl</i> Series Has Found Its Princess Donut appeared first on Reactor.

News Avatar: Seven Havens Avatar: Seven Havens Trailer Leaves Us Asking, “What Happened to Korra?” The series’ seemingly villainous take on Korra certainly feels like a red herring By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 24, 2026 Photo Credit: Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Photo Credit: Paramount+ A new trailer for Avatar: Seven Havens dropped at SDCC 2026, and while the show continues to look promising, it does raise some serious questions about what happened to Korra. See, Seven Havens is set after the events of the The Legend of Korra series (which, for reference, is a sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender). While much of the Seven Havens plot is still being kept under wraps, this trailer does emphasize that the show is set in a desolate, ruined world that is the result of an as-of-yet unnamed catastrophic event. It also notes that the event was seemingly related to the previous Avatar (Korra) letting everyone down. The show follows an Earthbender named Pavi who discovers she is the next Avatar. Unfortunately, her world is not only in a bad place but filled with people who still don’t trust the Avatar. It’s all fascinating, but what we know about the series really leaves us wondering what happened to Korra. Now, the easiest read of the trailer suggests that the implication that Korra somehow triggered the cataclysmic event or was somehow responsible for what ultimately happened is probably a false narrative spread throughout the years. Yet, even that implication doesn’t exactly help us understand what really became of Korra. You usually only get a new Avatar after the previous one dies, which (unless the show is really going to play with the series’ mythology) means that Korra died at some point. Given that Korra was very much alive at the end of The Legend of Korra and in the canonical graphic novels that followed, there’s clearly a pretty big missing piece of the puzzle here. Some had even previously speculated that Seven Havens must take place many years (and numerous Avatars) after The Legend of Korra given the number of questions the series premise raises. The somewhat awkward subtext here is Korra herself. The character drew an unfortunate amount of slander from certain sections of the Avatar fanbase, and the idea that she would be presented as a villain in this series raises some questions regarding whether or not Seven Havens will lean into that element of the franchise’s… fandom. It feels incredibly unlikely that the situation is anywhere close to being that cut and dry, though it’s hard not to be intrigued by the many possibilities. At least we won’t have to wait as long as we thought for answers. Avatar: Seven Havens is set to debut on Paramount+ on October 9, which was actually the original release date of the upcoming Avatar movie. There’s no word on what the series’ episodic release schedule will be, though.[end-mark] The post <i>Avatar: Seven Havens</i> Trailer Leaves Us Asking, “What Happened to Korra?” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV X-Men 97 X-Men ’97 Heats Up With New Mutants, New Uniforms, New X-Corp and More in “Danger.Exe” How is Xavier holding up given a certain someone’s death? Not well. By Ben Francisco | Published on July 24, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share The episode opens with Professor X (Ross Marquand) using the technology of the Danger Room to relive the death of Magneto again and again, a kind of holographic trauma therapy that ends with the professor nearly being injured. Xavier asks why the safety protocols aren’t working, and the Danger Room (Rachel Kimsey) responds that she was adapting to his repeated failures. Out on the ocean, Polaris, a.k.a. Lorna Dane (Carolina Ravassa), intercepts a cargo ship smuggling weapons for anti-mutant bigots. Val Cooper (Catherine Disher), director of X-Factor, orders Polaris to break off her attack, but she slices the ship in half anyway, saying that she’s not the one who needs to be controlled. In their debriefing, Cooper tells Polaris people are calling her the next Magneto and fires her for her impetuousness. At the X-Mansion, Professor X greets a new class of students, including Synch (Zeno Robinson), Quentin Quire (Thomas Dekker), Eye Boy, Chamber, Monet, Dust, Beak, Cerebella, Glob Herman, and many others. Xavier eulogizes Magneto as both a rival and an ally. He notes that although the U.S. government has outlawed the X-Men, the school’s work continues under the guidance of its new headmistress Storm (Alison Sealy-Smith).  Polaris reunites with her old teammates at the mansion and tells Professor X that she regrets working with X-Factor to control mutants. Xavier expresses hopefulness about continuing Magneto’s legacy, but Polaris says Xavier was the one who really raised her, disavowing any feeling of connection to Magneto even though he’s her biological father. Image: Marvel Animation The new students’ training takes a dangerous turn when Wing nearly dies in the Danger Room despite the safety protocols. Storm and Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) are able to save him with an improvised mutant-powers defibrillator, but then the Danger Room locks in all the students, with only Bishop and Polaris to protect them from a barrage of robots and other attacks. Polaris attempts to use her electromagnetism to disable the Danger Room, but it seems to feed on her power, taking on a new form as an anthropomorphic robot. The newly independent automaton (now referred to simply as “Danger”) steals a minijet and flies to Genosha. Since the X-Men have been outlawed, only Bishop and Polaris can follow, as neither are officially part of the current team roster. In Genosha, Professor X tours the ruins of the fallen mutant nation with Beast (George Buza), Cyclops (Ray Chase), and Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale)—all clad in new black and yellow leather jackets inspired by the uniforms from Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s legendary run on the comic books. Danger attacks, explaining that she has adapted and is no longer bound by the professor’s directives.  Polaris and Bishop arrive just as Danger is on the verge of overpowering Xavier. As Danger and Polaris confront each other, Danger explains that they’re both products of their creators, bound to them “like magnets.” The X-Men attack Danger with their various powers, but she re-channels the energy to heal herself. Professor X exhorts Lorna to summon all her electromagnetic energy to defeat Danger. He uses his telepathy to share his knowledge of her father Magneto so that Polaris can wield her powers as he did, while Bishop absorbs the excess energy. With their combined effort, they defeat Danger. Lorna feels connected to her father for the first time, and Xavier realizes what he must do next. Amidst the wreckage of Genosha, Professor X holds a press conference announcing that the X-Men are evolving in their quest by forming X-Corp—in front of a massive skyscraper bearing the X-Corp logo. Back in the U.S., Cooper announces that the X-Men can’t skirt federal law by operating overseas.   At the new X-Corp headquarters, Xavier tells the X-Men that he senses the threat of Apocalypse approaching. In an underground lab in Athens, Apocalypse (Ross Marquand) brings a new horseman to life—who electrifies Tarot cards with power and bears the face of the fallen X-Man Gambit! Image: Marvel Animation This was my favorite episode of the season so far. Professor X repeatedly subjecting himself to the trauma of Magneto’s death hit me harder than the actual death scene in the previous episode. It brought home just how much Xavier has depended on Magnus as a compass in his life—whether as an ally or rival, as he later says in his eulogy. It also shows Xavier’s tragic perfectionism—his belief that things would work out if he could just get everything perfectly right. I also appreciated the economy of storytelling of using Xavier’s Danger Room therapy as the trigger for Danger becoming an autonomous AI. In general, like many successful media adaptations, this episode did a great job of mixing and matching source material from different eras to create a new cohesive story. The story pulls from Joss Whedon’s Danger story, Morrison and Quitely’s story of X-Corp and the recovery from the Genoshan genocide, and even has the Generation X characters of the 90s in the background—to name just a few of the comics stories they’re pulling from. Speaking of Generation X, I was delighted to see these young mutants not only making brief cameos but joining the secondary cast as students! I’ve always found it odd that, in this version of the X-Men, the Xavier School for the Gifted seems to be a school with… one student (Jubilee)? This episode corrects that oddity, giving us a whole bunch of young mutants with diverse backgrounds and a wide range of mutations—including some, like Cerebella and Glob Herman, who fall way outside normative homo sapiens bodies. Plus, Quentin is wearing a “Magneto Was Right” T-shirt! Image: Marvel Animation This show has also done well when it spotlights a single character who hasn’t received enough attention previously, as it does in this episode with Polaris. I was so relieved that she finally left X-Factor and realized their abductions of mutants were only causing terrible harm (which seemed out of character for her to begin with). The climax of her arc in this story—learning to embrace her own power—was one of the most impactful character developments of this season, alongside Jubilee’s breakout moment in the second episode.  I geek out every time the show features a “mutant circuit”—two or more mutants using their powers in tandem. We got three of them in this episode: Bishops and Storm combining their powers to revive Wing, Jean and Scott combining optic blasts and telekinesis to attack Danger, and Polaris, Professor X, and Bishop all coordinating for the final take-down of Danger. Such fun, and all beautifully animated. The new uniforms were also a delight to see in animated form—and an apt fit for the recovery effort in Genosha, which was also the Morrison-Quitely storyline where they first appeared in the comic books. The debut of X-Corp is also an interesting and unexpected turn, drawing from the same storyline. The genocide in Genosha was an overwhelming tragedy that defies comprehension, so it’s appropriate that its consequences continue to linger for our heroes this season. The writers are setting up some interesting potential plotlines in this episode. Beyond the inevitable confrontation with Apocalypse, there are also simmering tensions with the X-Factor and X-Force teams and their different visions for mutantdom. It feels like the death of Magneto may help make space for some interesting conflicts beyond the usual Magneto-Xavier binary. I also noticed Storm is not in the final meeting of the team in the X-Corp building. Perhaps that’s because she’s back at the mansion, focused on training the new batch of students as headmistress? The only plotline planted here that gave me pause was Gambit’s resurrection as a horseman of Apocalypse. His death last season was so perfectly executed, I worry about any storyline that could detract from its poignancy. But let’s see how they handle it. Image: Marvel Animation This episode featured some of the quippiest dialogue of the season, perhaps partly because, at long last, all our dear X-Men are back in the 1990s where they belong. Below are a few of my personal favorite lines: “Please. They met Wolverine.” —Professor X, in response to Polaris asking if he’s sure he wants the new students to meet her “How many X-Men does it take to find an exit to their torture chamber?” —Quentin Quire “The streets were my Danger Room.” —Bishop “You do not need to be controlled, Lorna. You never did. You just need to embrace all of who you are and unleash it!” —Professor X[end-mark] The post <i>X-Men ’97</i> Heats Up With New Mutants, New Uniforms, New X-Corp and More in “Danger.Exe” appeared first on Reactor.