4 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Books

The Rings of Power season 2 is an even stronger expansion of Tolkien’s mythos

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show continues to be phenomenal in ways that only a truly wild budget could make possible.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
House of the Dragon’s second season was about the quiet moments that shape history

House of the Dragon ended its second season with a reminder that this is all just one part of a much larger story.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Audible tests a more specific way to search for audiobooks.

The feature, called Maven, lets you type prompts like, “show me fantasy audiobooks that I can complete on an 8-hour road trip.” Audible will then use AI to come up with matching audiobooks.

Audible is rolling out Maven as a beta to half of US-based users on Android and iOS. Amazon just debuted an AI-powered discovery feature on its Music app as well.

Image: Amazon
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Welcome to Derry, kids.

Even though you can’t see Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise in this new teaser for HBO’s It prequel series Welcome to Derry, it’s pretty obvious the clown’s going to be up to his regular, degular demonic tricks when he makes his small screen debut.

Batman: Caped Crusader is a pulpy throwback to the golden age of DC animation

Amazon’s new Batman show is a jazzy blend of style, substance, and nostalgia.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Vampire Lestat is headed for superstardom.

Interview With the Vampire’s second season finale closed out on Lestat (Sam Reid) getting together a band, and it looks like the group’s going to be the subject of a documentary when the show returns for season three.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The world of AMC’s The Walking Dead trudges on.

Ahead of the season two premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol in September, AMC has renewed the spinoff for third installment. The Walking Dead: Dead City, which debuts in 2025, has also been renewed for a second season, and a new trailer for the series teases how Maggie Green (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) reunite.

Kevin Nguyen
Kevin Nguyen
Open secrets.

If you’ve been wrestling with the recent revelations about Alice Munro, Michelle Dean might have put it down best over at The Cut.

This piece is many things: a close reading of Munro’s work, an argument for what we can separate between an artist and their art, and ultimately a personal struggle evoked with lucidity in the face of moral ambiguity.

When you move, what do you do with all those books?

If you have a large collection of hardcover and paperback books, it can be hard to get rid of them — but not impossible.

Barbara Krasnoff
Joanna Nelius
Joanna Nelius
Literary Theory for Robots is a compelling journey through generative AI’s analog roots.

In his latest book, Microsoft software developer turned literature professor Dennis Yi Tenen takes us all the way back to 17th-century apps for a deep dive into computer science and literature’s intertwined history — and, as Tenen says, why it’s important our understanding of AI “become more grounded in the history of the humanities.”

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Interview With the Vampire season 3 is a go.

Ahead of the season two finale of its Interview With the Vampire adaptation, AMC has renewed the show for a third season that will see Lestat become a touring rockstar trying to tell his tragic story through music.

AMC
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series now has a showrunner and director.

HBO is banking on a new Harry Potter adaptation to ensure its future success, and the network announced today that the project will be written / executive produced by Francesca Gardiner (Succession, His Dark Materials) and directed by Mark Mylod (Game of Thrones, The Last of Us).

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
What If...? crawled so the new animated Watchmen movies could walk.

Say what you will about Marvel’s What If...? Disney Plus series, but it has obviously had at least some influence on Warner Bros.’ new animated Watchmen films that are scheduled to debut some time in the near future.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Frank Miller’s star-studded documentary will hit theaters for one night only.

Comics legend Frank Miller has largely withdrawn from the public eye in recent years. But with the release of Frank Miller: American Genius — director Silenn Thomas’ new documentary — he’s opening his life back up to fans for one night only (June 10th) when the film hits Cinemark theaters across the country. New Yorkers can also catch an earlier screening on June 6th.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
A24 to its fans: “read a book.”

A24 has been selling physical copies of its films’ screenplays through its online store for a few years now, but the studio has just struck a deal with publisher Mack that will put its books in brick-and-mortar stores in in the U.S., Europe and Asia beginning this September.

A24
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The anjin is probably coming back for even more seasons of Shōgun.

Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks’ Shōgun adaptation was originally meant to conclude after its first season, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, FX and Hulu are keen on keeping the ball rolling with two more seasons.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
War, not winter, is coming to House of the Dragon.

Like Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon has alluded to how the great oncoming winter is the actually the biggest threat the people of Westeros will face.

But the prequel series’ latest season two trailer is firmly focused on the past at a time when all the matters is the war within the fractured Targaryen family.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Sauron’s done hiding in The Rings of Power’s new season two trailer.

Sauron (Charlie Vickers) was careful about keeping his true identity secret all throughout the first season of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. But the dark lord’s powers are on full display in the series’ new season two teaser, and it seems like he’ll be laying waste to Middle-earth when we see him next. Show’s back on August 29th.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Batman: Caped Crusader has a premiere date and a new Harley Quinn.

Batman: Caped Crusader jumping ship to Amazon Studios after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger made it seem like the project might never see the light of day. But the series now has an August 1st premiere date, and it seems like when the show drops, it will be introducing yet another new Harley Quinn riff.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
James Gunn is giving Superman a little wiggle room.

We already knew what Warner Bros.’ new live-action Clark Kent (David Corenswet) would look like out of costume, but now we know what to expect from a fully suited-up Superman. Seems like James Gunn has gone for an aesthetic that’s classic, if a little baggy in the shoulders.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Witcher is sending a bunch of new friends and foes Geralt’s way in season four.

Geralt is getting a whole new face season four of Netflix’s live-action The Witcher adaptation. But in addition to Liam Hemworth, the show has also added Sharlto Copley as Leo Bonhart, James Purefoy as Skellen, and Danny Woodburn as Zoltan to the cast.

1/3
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Gaga’s ready to paint Gotham red.

Sure, Joaquin Phoenix is in the movie, but we’re all showing up to see Joker: Folie à Deux for Lady Gaga’s turn as Harley Quinn. Every official photo of the duo in costume has looked promising so far, but after the musical thriller’s first trailer drops on Sunday, we’ll probably know what they sound like together.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Interview with the Vampire’s new season 2 trailer invites you to the Théâtre.

The second season of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire is just a few weeks away, and when it gets here, it looks like we’ll be following Louis, Lestat, and Claudia (newcomer Dalaney Hayles) to the Théâtre des Vampires to take in a show or two.

Barbara Krasnoff
Barbara Krasnoff
Vernor Vinge, science fiction writer and creator of the concept of the technological singularity, has died at the age of 79.

According to Ars Technica, Vinge, a professor and computer scientist who was well-known for his hard science fiction novels such as A Fire Upon the Deep and Rainbow’s End, passed away yesterday. A truly excellent author, he postulated that AI will one day surpass the understanding of its human creators; he described this singularity theory in a 1993 essay. But it is probably for his far-reaching and absorbing fiction that Vinge will be best known.

Image: Tor Science Fiction
Netflix’s 3 Body Problem adaptation channels the book’s spirit but not its brilliance

Though David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo’s 3 Body Problem is impressive, it really feels like just an introduction to Cixin Liu’s deeper ideas.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
All of Sony’s live-action Spider-Man movies are swinging back into theaters.

You can easily watch most of Sony’s live-action Spider-Man movies on Disney Plus if the mood strikes you. But if you’ve been yearning to see Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland’s Peters Parker back on the big screen, you’ll have a shot at catching all eight of the past Spidey films in select theaters beginning April 15th.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
James Gunn is making a Teen Titans movie.

Aside from Batman and Superman, we don’t really know which DC superheroes will make up the foundation of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new cinematic universe of cape projects at Warner Bros. Discovery.

But the studio’s just announced its plans to produce a new live-action Teen Titans movie from writer Ana Nogueira, which — for other films — could portend the arrival of characters like Wonder Woman and the Flash as the larger franchise continues to come together.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Robert Pattinson’s Batman won’t be back until 2026.

While Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II was originally slated for an October 2025 release date, Warner Bros. has reportedly bumped the project back by a full year.