Comic Con makes clear Netflix's absence
Not every studio and streamer has a show to pitch the San Diego Comic Con crowd
What a weekend of television news. With the San Diego Comic Con taking place this past weekend, there is an abundance of news and trailers with networks and studios keen to use the convention as a launching pad for all sorts of genre-based TV and movies.
At the tail of Always Be Watching every day I publish the latest trailers for upcoming TV shows. Usually the list is very Netflix heavy as the streamer has a significantly higher output than its competition. But, scroll through today’s ‘Trailer Park’ section and you’ll find a single Netflix show listed at the very end – a South Korean romcom Our Sticky Love (great title).
It highlights how little Netflix invests in marketing at Comic Con (I assume not a cent is spent there). Netflix does have its own fan event each year, Tudum, where you will find news of titles like One Piece, Black Mirror, and Wednesday, its always just a bit strange to find next to no investment at Comic Con.
What is also strange is that Netflix doesn’t do anything like we are seeing with AMC and its Interview With The Vampire series. In season three it was rebadged as ‘The Vampire Lestat,’ with news coming out of Comic Con that season four will be badged as “Queen of The Damned.” Renaming each season with a soft reboot of sorts each times keeps a show feeling fresh and would help Netflix avoid the sophomore slump everyone has been talking about in recent months where viewership for second and third seasons diminish.
Oh, yes… the big news of the weekend
The news over the weekend that Paramount has agreed to a delay in the WarnerMount merger lawsuit that could see its closure delayed until June 2027 was a shock. Of course, it won’t stretch out that long.
This is a pretty major win for Rob Bonta and the other state AG’s who are pursuing the anti-competition case against Paramount. And, of course, Paramount tried to save face by suggesting a strategy which helps the company avoid a preliminary injunction.
As per Deadline:
Paramount “clearly saw the writing on the wall” after the judge initially granted and then extended a temporary restraining order pausing the deal, Abiel Garcia, partner at Kesselman Brantly Stockinger, told Deadline. Standards for a TRO and a preliminary injunction – the stage that would have followed the TRO – are similar, he said, noting that the judge’s TRO order contained a few key footnotes working against Paramount. They included cautions that the David Ellison-led company could not address streaming efficiency as an argument in the case; and that monies due (the ticking fee) was not a reason to accelerate the proceedings.
Had the AGs been able to win a PI, “that’s a bad look” that would have further emboldened the states, said Garcia, who began his career at the California Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general. “I think they had to do this to try to keep themselves afloat and not lose control of the schedule.”
This now delivers the trial a likely November/December timing, which is after the US midterms. The later this gets, the more Paramount is opened up to scrutiny over the deal by the Democrats should they take control.
There’s a lot of question marks in the air for all parties at this point with no certainties for anyone. Of course, that won’t stop every party invested in this from trying to establish a narrative around where this is all headed.
News Desk
Hosts at home-shopping network QVC have voted to unionize with SAG-AFTRA. Read: THR
Netflix executives considered pulling the docuseries Michael Jackson: The Verdict a week before its June release for fear of litigation from Jackson’s estate — which previously forced Leaving Neverland off HBO Max. Netflix denies changing course under outside pressure. Read: Variety
Paramount+ has mercifully cancelled Tracy Morgan comedy Crutch after one season despite a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. Clearly RT is broken because that show was quite awful. Read: Deadline
Pamela Anderson says she has no plans to reprise her Baywatch role in Fox‘s 2027 reboot.. Read: Deadline
Adult Swim has renewed Rick and Morty spinoff President Curtis for a second season before its first finished airing. Read: Deadline
Family Guy‘s Halloween and holiday specials return to Hulu this year, with Kieran Culkin voicing the Devil in Happy Hell-o-ween. Read: Deadline
Robin Givens has joined season three of Prime Video‘s Cross. Read: Deadline
Netflix’s live-action Gundam film has wrapped a three-ish month shoot in Queensland. Sydney Sweeney and Noah Centineo star as rival mech pilots. Read: Complex
Star Wars: Detours — the animated comedy George Lucas made with the Robot Chicken team and Disney shelved over a decade ago — will be shown publicly for the first time, with curated episodes screening at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art when it opens 22 September. Read: ScreenCrush
The BBC has acquired Kabul, a six-part drama set during the 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan, from France’s Mediawan Rights. Read: C21
Star Trek: Scouts, the franchise’s first preschool series, returns for a 30-episode second season on YouTube on 8 September. Read: Deadline
Hasbro is launching My Little Pony: Forever Friendship exclusively on YouTube in early 2027. Read: Variety
Supergirl hits digital on 28 July, just over a month after its theatrical debut. Read: Radio Times
Emily Kinney will reprise ‘Beth Greene’ — her character killed off in the original Walking Dead — in an alternate-reality episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City season three. Read: Radio Times
Trailer Park
Lanterns debuts August 16 on HBO Max.
The series follows new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery with cosmic ties as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.
Blade Runner 2099 debuts on Prime Video Nov 25.
Fifty years after the events of Blade Runner 2049.
The First Series Adaptation of Stephen King's Iconic Debut Novel, Executive Produced by King and Reimagined for Television by Showrunner Mike Flanagan, Will Premiere October 7 on Prime Video.
Neuromancer debuts on Apple TV Jan 22 on Apple TV.
"Neuromancer" follows a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case (Callum Turner) who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high-stakes crime with his partner Molly (Briana Middleton), a razor-girl assassin, as they pull off a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets. The ensemble cast also includes Max Irons, Dane DeHaan, Junia Rees, Jordan Kouamé, Emma Laird, Marc Menchaca, André De Shields and Isabella Pappas.
Reacher returns August 12 on Prime Video for season 4.
Matchbox The Movie debuts Oct 9 on Apple TV.
Inspired by the iconic Mattel toys, "Matchbox The Movie" is an action-packed, globe-trotting adventure about a group of friends since childhood who have their lives upended when undercover CIA agent Sean (John Cena), their long-absent former leader, returns to their small town and unwittingly gets them embroiled in a frantic international pursuit to save the world.
Silo returns for its fourth and final season in the US Summer 2027 on Apple TV.
Dark Matter returns August 28 on Apple TV for season 2.
YAGA debuts on AMC+ in October. The show has been acquired for international release by Sky in the United Kingdom and Ireland, HBO Max in the rest of Europe, AMC+ in the United States, Foxtel in Australia, and Sky New Zealand in New Zealand.
Based on the hit play by showrunner and writer Kat Sandler, YAGA follows Rapp (Noah Reid, Schitt's Creek, The Vampire Lestat), a private investigator who arrives in a small coastal town to investigate the disappearance of a young heir to a powerful fishery, Henry Park (Hudson Williams, Heated Rivalry). He finds himself at odds with an apprehensive local detective, Carson (Clark Backo, Venom: The Last Dance, Letterkenny), a charismatic university professor with a taste for younger men, Katherine (Carrie-Anne Moss, Matrix Films, Memento), and a labyrinth of enigmatic suspects, secret lives, and ancient magic.
Futurama debuts August 3 for season 14 on Hulu.
Avatar: Seven Havens debuts on Paramount+ Oct 9.
Set in a world shattered by a devastating cataclysm, a young Earthbender discovers she's the new Avatar after Korra. In this dangerous era, that title marks her as humanity's destroyer, not its savior. Hunted by both human and spirit enemies, she and her long-lost twin must uncover their mysterious origins and save the Seven Havens before civilization’s last strongholds collapse.
Our Sticky Love debuts on Netflix Aug 7.
An ambitious prosecutor loses her memory and moves in with a boxing coach who claims to be her boyfriend. Can this sticky situation turn into real love?
That’s the newsletter for the today.
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