11 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Streaming

Established streaming industry leaders like Netflix and Amazon are facing more competition than ever. Now legacy entertainment giants are in the game with their own subscription services, like Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and the Disney Plus / Hulu / ESPN Plus bundle, while Apple TV Plus attacks around the edges. Meanwhile, the rise of ad-supported free platforms like Roku Channel and Pluto TV has attracted enough attention that Plex, YouTube, and Amazon’s Freevee are trying to get a chunk of the action too.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Here’s Lara.

One day after announcing Kratos’ casting for its live-action take on God of War, Amazon has revealed the first image of Sophie Turner as Lara Croft in its upcoming Tomb Raider series. Not much else in the way of details about the show, but Amazon says “production is underway.”

A photo of Sophie Turner as Lara Croft.
Image: Jay Maidment for Prime Video
Game of Thrones shows its playful side in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

HBO’s new spinoff prequel takes a humorous look at the grimy lives of Westeros’ smallfolk.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
HBO Max and A24 renew their streaming deal.

With the renewed “multi-year partnership,” A24 films will come first to HBO and HBO Max after leaving theaters. The two sides initially announced a deal in 2023.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
The kids are breaking bad.

Well, they’re not kids anymore, but things are not looking good for the cast of Euphoria in the new season 3 trailer, which sees just about everyone involved in some kind of criminal enterprise or... content creation. The series returns to HBO on April 12th.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Netflix orders more from the Squid Game creator.

The Dealer will be a crime series following a casino dealer who starts gambling herself to fund her wedding. Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk will produce the show, though he isn’t writing or directing this time.

Photo of cast and crew of Netflix’s The Dealer
Hwang Dong-hyuk (left) will produce the new show, with Jung So-min (third from left) in the lead role.
Image: Netflix
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Netflix is reportedly considering an all-cash offer for Warner Bros.

As reported by Bloomberg, the revised deal would replace Netflix’s existing agreement to acquire WBD’s studio and streaming business in a cash and stock transaction. The rumored change comes as Paramount continues to press WBD to accept its “superior” $108 billion all-cash deal for the entire company.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Something huge is coming to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2.

A mysterious kaiju is stirring up trouble in this new teaser for season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. The new creature seems bigger than King Kong and more menacing than Godzilla, but we’ll have to wait for the season’s premiere on February 27th to learn the monster’s name.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
All 49 seasons of ‘Survivor’ will be free on Pluto TV ahead of ‘Survivor 50.’

If you have a few hundred hours to spare, you can watch every episode of Survivor for free starting January 24th, as reported by TheWrap.

Episodes will be available on-demand and air in order on a 24/7 Survivor channel before Survivor 50 premieres on February 25th on CBS and Paramount Plus.

Nilay Patel
Nilay Patel
Watch Hank Green interview Dropout CEO Sam Reich.

We’ve got something special for you today. It’s my friend Hank Green, longtime internet creator, science educator, and viral TikTok star, interviewing Dropout CEO Sam Reich, now in full video on our Decoder YouTube channel.

Hank did this episode as a guest host last summer while I was out with our new baby, and it’s a fan favorite, bringing together two internet personalities that’ve known each other for a very long time and who have a lot of inside knowledge about how the internet, Hollywood, and entertainment all intertwine. We think it’s one of the best episodes of Decoder we put out last year, and it’s honestly just a really fun conversation. Here’s the full transcript in case you want to read, rather than watch, the interview.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Baroques are coming to One Piece season 2.

The new teaser trailer for the second season of Netflix’s live-action One Piece adaptation introduces the show’s take on Baroque Works, the superpowered crime syndicate fixated on toppling the Arabasta Kingdom and taking out anyone who gets in their way. The new season drops on March 10th.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The Switch’s Hulu app is being discontinued.

“The Hulu app is no longer available in the Nintendo Switch eShop with support for the application ending on February 5, 2026,” Nintendo says in a support document. It originally launched way back in 2017.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Rinkside at the Olympics.

During the Winter Olympics next month, Peacock will expand on features like multiview and its whiparound Gold Zone show with curated “Rinkside Live” behind-the-scenes angles. For some figure skating events that will add a Coaching Cam view during the routines, as well as a view of team benches during some hockey games.

Images of screenshots of the Winter Olympics on Peacock.
Image: NBCUniversal
John Higgins
John Higgins
Peacock will be the first streamer to integrate everything Dolby has to offer.

Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos availability will be extended across Peacock’s live sports throughout 2026, and the streamer has committed to supporting Dolby Vision 2 and the Dolby AC-4 audio codec when they launch later in the year.

While there currently aren’t any Dolby Vision 2-capable TVs, we’re expecting to see some release in 2026.

A TV on a dark background displaying the How to Train Your Dragon movie on Peacock with a Dolby Vision Atmos badge superimposed.
Image: Dolby
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Boss refight.

The team formerly at Boss Fight Entertainment, which worked on Netflix’s Squid Game mobile game before being shut down last year, has formed a new studio called Sunwise Games. The studio is working on a new, original game.

“I created Sunwise because it’s the change I want to see in the games industry: clear scope, ethical monetization, and teams built to deliver reliably over time,” founder Irin Berry says in a statement.

The Sunwise Games logo.
Image: Sunwise Games
I went to the Stranger Things finale in theaters and the strangest thing happened

The secret to Netflix’s biggest hit wasn’t its love of the past, but how it spoke to the present.

Joshua Rivera
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Duffer Bros. say that rumors of cut or unseen Stranger Things season five footage are “obviously” fake.

If you believe internet rumors claiming the Stranger Things finale had “two hours” cut from its two-hour runtime, and have ignored actors and others saying that the claim is fake, the show’s creators have responded.

Asked about it by Variety, Matt Duffer said, “Obviously, that’s not a real thing,” while Ross Duffer added, “I don’t think there’s a single cut scene in the entire season.”

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Is it bad that I want to watch Wonder Man more than the next major Marvel movie after a single trailer?

Personally, I don’t have superhero movie fatigue. The powers aren’t the problem; I just think we need a little more comedy and a little less fate-of-the-world drama! This one is Wonder Man, an 8-episode miniseries coming January 27th to Disney Plus. It’s meta in more ways than one.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
The Strangest Thing.

The main Stranger Things series is coming to an end when the final episode is released tomorrow, on New Year’s Eve at 8PM ET.

Netflix released this new trailer for the finale, which is also going to be shown in theaters, where people can watch together regardless of their familiarity with “shipping” and/or fandom designation.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Wake Up Rick Astley.

Did the new Knives Out’s impressively ornate seminary gym seem a little familiar? It’s not just you, it was one of the world’s subtlest Rickrolls.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Forever the middle child.

Hulu has started promoting Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair, a four-episode revival of the original 2000s sitcom. You can watch the first teaser trailer below, with the show set to release on April 10th, 2026.

The best shows to watch on HBO Max from 2025The best shows to watch on HBO Max from 2025
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Here’s a look at Nicolas Cage playing Madden.

John Madden, that is, filling the shoes of the legendary NFL coach and commentator, in David O. Russell’s upcoming biopic for Prime Video. There’s only the briefest still of a video game shown in this short teaser trailer, and a quick glimpse of John Mulaney as EA exec Trip Hawkins.

Madden is scheduled for release on Thanksgiving Day, 2026.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Stranger Things fandom drama strikes one more time.

In an Elite Daily interview ahead of this week’s penultimate release, series star Gaten Matarazzo referenced the “Stonathan” pairing and said he liked the idea behind “Steddie” fanfics.

But saying the “Byler” shipping between Will and Mike, was “very funny. I see them as just very good friends,” seemingly went too far for some, with social media posts targeting the interviewer, and some even claiming it was a fake quote.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
“...like e pluribus unum.”

Once you’ve watched the Pluribus (or, actually, Plur1bus?) season finale and read through Andrew Webster’s review, it’s time for Apple TV’s 20-minute behind-the-scenes video with Vince Gilligan & Co.

How Last Samurai Standing adds kinetic action to the Battle Royale formula

Junichi Okada talks about the new Netflix series and how his role as action planner touches nearly every part of it.

Geoffrey Bunting