Mike Flanagan's Warhammer 40K, Santa Testifies in Divorce Court, Blood and Bone Author Walks — Pop Culture Digest — July 29, 2026
Mike Flanagan is in talks to showrun Henry Cavill's Warhammer 40K series for Amazon. Jennifer Aniston and Peter Dinklage star in Olivia Wilde's 'Naughty,' a Christmas comedy where Santa testifies in a custody battle. The author of Children of Blood and Bone says she 'will not watch' the film adaptation. Jumanji: Open World trailer drops. Pedro Pascal's Behemoth! to premiere at NYFF.
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Mike Flanagan in Talks to Showrun Henry Cavill's 'Warhammer 40,000' for Amazon
The most interesting genre pairing of the year is quietly coming together: Mike Flanagan, the architect behind The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and the upcoming Carrie series, is in talks to executive produce, showrun, write, and direct Amazon MGM's adaptation of Warhammer 40,000 — the grimdark sci-fi tabletop universe that Henry Cavill has been publicly obsessed with for years.
Deadline broke the news Tuesday. Flanagan's involvement elevates the project from "Cavill's passion project with a big budget" to something genuinely intriguing. Flanagan doesn't do spectacle for spectacle's sake — his horror is psychological, character-driven, and deeply interested in the cost of belief and survival. That sensibility, applied to the fascist-theocratic nightmare of the Imperium of Man, could produce something far stranger and more compelling than the "Space Marines shoot everything" pitch the uninitiated might expect.
Amazon secured the global rights to Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 in December 2024 with Cavill attached to star and EP. Since then, the project has been in the development phase, with fans anxiously tracking every scrap of news. Flanagan's name changes the conversation: this isn't just a licensed IP play anymore, it's an auteur-level talent stepping into one of the densest, darkest fictional universes ever created.
The Warhammer series doesn't have a release window yet, but with Flanagan in the mix, the question shifts from "will this be any good?" to "how weird will they let him get?"
Jennifer Aniston and Peter Dinklage Star in Olivia Wilde's Santa Divorce Comedy 'Naughty'
There is a sentence you probably didn't expect to read this year: Jennifer Aniston is playing a mother in a custody battle who needs Santa Claus — played by Peter Dinklage — to testify in divorce court.
Universal Pictures announced Naughty this week, with Olivia Wilde directing from a script by Jimmy Warden (Cocaine Bear). Aniston stars as Mallory, whose last hope in her custody fight is to track down Santa and get him on the stand. Dinklage, who clearly enjoys playing against holiday type (see: Elf, where he played a children's author who hated being mistaken for an elf), is the Claus in question.
The film is set for a theatrical release on November 5, 2027 — and it'll have competition. That same weekend, Warner Bros. drops Margie Claus, an animated musical comedy with Melissa McCarthy voicing Mrs. Claus. Two very different takes on the North Pole going head-to-head during the holiday corridor.
Wilde's last directorial outing was A24's The Invite, and Warden's script sold on spec. The premise is gloriously absurd — somewhere between Miracle on 34th Street and a Coen brothers legal farce — and the casting of Dinklage, who can deliver deadpan gravitas or full-blown chaos depending on the scene, is inspired.
'Children of Blood and Bone' Trailer Drops — Author Says She "Will Not Watch" It
Gina Prince-Bythewood's adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi's YA phenomenon Children of Blood and Bone got a visually striking first trailer this week at CinemaCon — but the author wants nothing to do with it.
Adeyemi, whose 2018 novel became a #1 New York Times bestseller and launched a trilogy, told The Hollywood Reporter that she is "officially separating my name" from the film and "will not watch" the adaptation. The reasons aren't fully clear — the THR article sits behind a paywall — but the statement is unusually direct for an author whose book is being adapted by the director of The Woman King with a cast that includes Thuso Mbedu, Damson Idris, Amandla Stenberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Regina King.
The footage shown at Paramount's CinemaCon presentation depicts an African fantasy kingdom where magic has been violently suppressed. Mbedu plays a young woman on a quest to reclaim that power, allied with the children of the king who stole it.
"The Black girls deserve to see themselves in worlds of wonder, power and imagination," Regina King told the CinemaCon audience. Ejiofor, who plays the antagonist king, described it as "time for me to be a king."
The film doesn't have a release date yet, but the author's distancing — before the public has even seen a full trailer — creates an uncomfortable narrative that's rare for a major studio fantasy launch. Compare this to the carefully managed author relationships on Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, or even Percy Jackson. Whatever happened behind the scenes, it's now part of the story.
'Jumanji: Open World' Trailer Flips the Premise — Avatars Escape Into Reality
The Jumanji franchise's core trick has always been the body-swap: real-world people sucked into video game avatars. Jumanji: Open World flips it. Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan are the avatars, and they're the ones escaping into the real world this time.
The first trailer dropped Wednesday, showing the quartet bewildered by things like stairs, traffic, and the concept of consequences — the inverse of the fish-out-of-water comedy that made the 2017 and 2019 films massive hits (a combined $1.7 billion globally). Director Jake Kasdan returns alongside the core cast.
The December 11, 2026 release date plants the film squarely in the holiday corridor, right alongside Dune: Part Three and whatever else is brave enough to share breathing room. It's a bold slot — but the franchise has earned it.
Pedro Pascal's 'Behemoth!' Set for NYFF World Premiere
Tony Gilroy — the writer-director behind Michael Clayton and the architect of Andor — returns with Behemoth!, starring Pedro Pascal, which will world premiere as the Centerpiece selection at the 64th New York Film Festival.
Pascal plays Alex, a former cello prodigy fleeing a collapsed relationship with a manic ex (Olivia Wilde, pulling double duty — she's directing Naughty and acting here) who returns to Los Angeles to confront unfinished family business and record Hollywood film scores. The Searchlight Pictures drama reportedly features an extensive original score performed by leading industry musicians.
For Gilroy, this marks a return to the kind of morally complex, character-driven drama he built his reputation on before Andor made him the most respected writer in the Star Wars universe. The NYFF Centerpiece slot — previously occupied by films like Marriage Story, Roma, and The Fabelmans — positions Behemoth! as an immediate awards-season player.
Ryan Murphy says Glee "has come back around" and isn't ruling out a reboot. The co-creator told People that "so many young people now watch it" and he's open to "a new incarnation." Nostalgia cycles move fast: Glee ended in 2015, and it's already back in the cultural conversation — driven largely by Gen Z discovering it on streaming. Sources: Deadline
Star Wars VFX workers have unionized with IATSE. U.S.-based visual effects artists working on The Mandalorian & Grogu, Ahsoka, and Starfighter voted "overwhelmingly" to join the union. They join Marvel, Disney Pictures, and Avatar VFX workers who ratified their first IATSE contracts last year. The visual effects industry has been historically non-unionized — this is a slow-moving but significant labor shift inside the biggest franchise factory on the planet. Sources: Deadline
Evan Rachel Wood is "sad" about not returning for Practical Magic 2. The actress told Entertainment Tonight that not being asked back for the sequel — starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman — was painful because "something that can't be faked" is lost when the original child cast doesn't return as adults. She also noted that "it seems like they're not following the book," suggesting the sequel diverges from Alice Hoffman's source material. Sources: Deadline
Spider-Man: Brand New Day premieres to strong first reactions. The Tom Holland-Zendaya threequel had its red carpet premiere this week, with Deadline calling it a worthy follow-up. Holland told press he'll play Spider-Man "for as long as they'll have me" and "if this movie does good, I guess we'll see." Sources: Deadline · The Hollywood Reporter
Netflix overtakes the BBC as UK audiences' first choice. Ofcom's annual Media Nations report confirms the streaming milestone: Netflix is now the default port of call for British viewers, ending decades of BBC primacy. It's the latest data point in a global shift that's quietly reshaping which stories get told and who gets to tell them. Sources: Deadline
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