Media Sandwich

How do you heal a broken heart? Well, for starters, you welcome back to  the show Chris Pranger! After some necessary talk about the pop culture  icons we lost this last week, Chris gives an extensive run-down on  Pokemon Scarlet/Violet that releases this week, while Kyle provides some  thoughts on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Also, Guillermo del Toro  teases us with a glimpse at one of his many unrealized projects, Studio  Ghibli did a Star Wars (kinda), and wait, hold on a sec...is this  Witcher prequel series going to actually be really good?

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

It's release week for God of War: Ragnarok, and Embracer Group kills off  a quality mobile gaming studio. David Zaslav gets confused as to what a  movie franchise is, but he's not confused about which money (and hate)  machine he wants to tie WB to for the forseeable future. The holiday  season is upon us, in the form of crappy sequels to questionable season  classics, as well as the Hallmark Channel joining forces with Peacock to  fill all your sweater weather viewing needs. Marvel is tackling the  Planet of the Apes in comic book form, while Bryan Fuller gets to work  on a prequel series to Friday the 13th. And did you see that Blockbuster  show on Netflix? What. A. Dog.

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Welcome to the spookiest episode of Media Sandwich ever! It's got  everything a modern haunted house has...the reanimated corpse of the  Call of Duty franchise, Elon Musk's insidious alien plot to take over  the world (of social media), James Gunn and Peter Safran investigating  the DC haunted manor, Mike Flanagan's attempted séance to communicate  with the screen adaptation of The Dark Tower, and the elevated horror of  what's going to happen to "The Witcher" now that Henry Cavill has  traded his long wig for the tights and cape. All this and more from  Count Kyle, the Svengoolie of pop culture headlines...click play, if you  dare!

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The word is out on Gotham Knights, and the word is...eh. Meanwhile, Silent Hill 2 gets a big next-gen remake, the Star Wars franchise flirts with the idea of maybe making feature films again sometime in the future, Amblin makes moves towards a sequel no one asked for, a comic book creator insists Matt Reeves stole his Riddler story and left behind a cryptic 3-hour movie, and Kyle finds out The Daily Show is still on the air, and in need of a new host. All this and more in the world of entertainment news!

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

It's a big week for easily avoidable flubs by big media companies. First off, Comcast abruptly pulls the lever on the trolley equation that is G4TV (yes, they brought it back, only a year ago), the video game industry treats voice actors like garbage, and Netflix offers an enticing new price tier that sounds like absolute trash. It's not all bad news, however! Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender have both a TTRPG and three feature films to look forward to, meanwhile big movie studios are bringing back some beloved 1990s comedy franchises. A full, healthy week in the world of entertainment. But what about the biggest movie at the box office right now, Halloween Ends?

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Post-surgery blues glue Kyle to the couch so he can provide updates on some previously discussed headlines, as well as some interesting news out of New York Comic-Con and some recent movie trailers both delightful (Violent Night) and baffling (Super Mario Brothers). Then a brief meditation on the true crime genre and how it sometimes trivializes real tragedy, and the whole debacle of Kanye West's attempt to normalize hate.

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

A top-tier esports company steps right in it and loses an important partnership with Riot Games, meanwhile hotshot horror directors surprise execs on a special Zoom call, Star Trek has some major news about the Kelvin timeline going forward, a new comic book strikes Kyle's fancy, and the Super Bowl has a halftime performer locked in, which is what football is all about, right? Oh, and did you SEE that "The Last of Us" trailer?

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Happy video game news arrives in the form of this last week's Nintendo Direct, and not so happy news in the form of one of the most massive data leaks in the video game industry's recent history. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures/Sony Entertainment is doing the release date shuffle on some of their biggest films in the next two years, Harvey Weinstein tries to do more dirty business from his prison commode, and this week sees the premieres of some intriguing new television programs along with the triumphant returns of some newly coronated Emmy winners.

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

It's a two-man sandwich this week, with the return of Chris Pranger! The guys try their very best to touch on every single item announced at Disney's D23 event, along with some spooky special screenings coming to Regal Cinemas, a legendary comic book artist's recent passion project, and Anna Kendrick's first time behind the camera to chronicle a game show psychopath.

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The long Labor Day weekend results in some of Kyle's saltiest commentary yet. After a brief sidebar about the Steam Deck, we get some good news/bad news situations for Halo: Infinite and Splatoon 3, followed by a very Shia LaBeouf filled briefing on the Venice Film Festival. A hefty case against J.K. Rowling's newest stack of toilet paper scribblings transitions nicely into some vindication for the graphic novel Gender Queer, and what in the name of Tom Bombadil is going on with Amazon's television budgets?!

Music: "Sweeter Vermouth" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/