Welcome to Multiverse News, Your source for Information about all your favorite fictional universes

Marvel head of streaming, television, and animation, Brad Winderbaum, confirmed that a second season of Marvel Zombies is underway. While being interviewed on The Escape Pod podcast, Winderbaum said he had seen some animatics already and called it “crazy” and that it “delivers…an MCU thing that has never really happened before..”.

“Wowie zowie” - The Super Mario Galaxy Movie delivered huge numbers at the box office last weekend, opening to $372.5 million globally, making it the number one debut this year and the fifth largest all-time opening for an animated film. Project Hail Mary took a respectable dip of 43 percent, and A24’s film The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, came in third at $14.1 million.

The live-action Dungeon Crawler Carl TV series is now officially in development at Peacock, Variety has learned. Based on the book series of the same name by Matt Dinniman, the project was originally acquired by Universal International Studios in early 2025, though no network or streamer was attached at that time. As previously reported, Chris Yost will write and executive produce the series, with Seth MacFarlane set to executive produce.

Ryan Gosling has exited Daniel's upcoming event film due to scheduling conflicts. Gosling's casting in the lead role of the project had been announced last week.

Jake Schreier, who has been tapped to reboot the X-Men for the MCU, told Collider that he has enlisted “Beef” creator Lee Sung Jin and “The Bear” co-showrunner Joanna Calo to take a pass on the latest draft of the film. The move reunites Schreier, Lee and Calo after last year’s “Thunderbolts.”

On Easter, Robert Downey Jr. shared a piece of Easter-themed Avengers: Doomsday art, including a basket of painted Easter eggs adorned with Marvel logos via his Instagram.

Zach Cregger and Zach Shields will write the screenplay for the upcoming prequel to the critically acclaimed horror hit Weapons, which is officially in development. The New Line and Warner Bros. project’s current working title is Gladys.

According to Deadline, James Gunn began testing last week for the role of Maxima in the DCU, a warrior queen and love interest and antagonist of Superman. According to sources, Adria Arjona, Sydney Chandler, Grace Van Patten, and Eva De Dominici among those who tested for the role.

An Animorphs TV series is in early development at Disney+, Variety has learned exclusively. Bayan Wolcott is attached to write and executive produce the adaptation, with Ryan Coogler executive producing on behalf of Proximity Media. Animorphs was a popular book series that ran from 1996-2001 across 54 books.

Andy Serkis confirmed for the first time that the role of Aragorn will be played by a new actor in his upcoming The Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hunt for Gollum. Serkis also confirmed that he is currently in the casting process for the role.

Adult Swim has released a trailer for season 9 of animated series Rick and Morty exclusively to the Hollywood Reporter. After airing its season eight finale in July, Rick and Morty is set to launch season nine on May 24. After its latest pickup, the show has been renewed through season 12.

Netflix has officially titled One Piece season 3 as “One Piece: The Battle of Alabasta," and has announced that the season will begin streaming in 2027. On Sept. 29, the series will expand with a two-part animated Lego special that will retell the events of the first two seasons.

Peter Dinklage has joined the cast of FX’s Alien: Earth for its upcoming second season.

Welcome to Multiverse News, Your source for Information about all your favorite fictional universes

Super Trailer

Warner Bros. released the first full trailer for Supergirl, giving us our best look at Milly Alcock's hard-partying Kara Zor-El as she embarks on an interstellar revenge mission to save her poisoned dog Krypto after villainous Krem leaves him only three days to live. The June 26 release directed by Craig Gillespie adapts Tom King's Woman of Tomorrow comic, featuring Jason Momoa's Lobo as an unlikely ally and Eve Ridley as young Ruthye Marye Knoll, whose parents were murdered by Krem. With James Gunn's punk rock aesthetic and emotional animal stakes reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 all over, did this trailer deliver the goods in terms of hyping us up, up and away?

Trailer Who Lived

HBO unveiled the first trailer for its Harry Potter series last Wednesday, revealing an earlier-than-expected Christmas Day 2026 premiere for the eight-episode first season officially titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Showrunner Francesca Gardiner and director Mark Mylod lead the ambitious seven-season adaptation with each season dedicated to one book, reportedly costing around $100 million per episode, making it potentially the most expensive television production of all time. With the trailer becoming the most-viewed in HBO Max history at 277 million views in 48 hours, can this decade-long reboot justify its lofty budget and overcome the controversy surrounding the franchise’s creator?

Galactically Good Box Office

Ryan Gosling's Project Hail Mary crossed $300M globally to become the highest-grossing film of 2026 so far, but its reign might be short-lived as The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is projected to dominate Easter weekend with $175M-$180M domestically over five days and $350M globally. Tracking is running slightly ahead of 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which opened to $204.6M domestically and $377M worldwide before finishing with $1.36B. The $110M sequel reunites Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, and Jack Black while adding Donald Glover as Yoshi and Glen Powell as Star Fox in a recently announced surprise crossover cameo.With first reviews seeming to echo the first film’s middling critical reception, will its box office performance be as out of this world as expected?

Lightning Round

• This morning Amazon MGM released the official trailer for Masters of the Universe, slated for theaters June 5.

• Stephen Colbert revealed he's co-writing The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past with his son Peter McGee and franchise veteran Philippa Boyens, adapting six early chapters from The Fellowship of the Ring that were omitted from Peter Jackson's 2001 film

• Himesh Patel has been cast in writer-director Ryan Coogler‘s revival of the X-Files and will star opposite the previously cast Danielle Deadwyler.

• Ryan Gosling is set to star in Universal Pictures’ untitled event film directed by The Daniels, the Oscar-winning duo behind Everything Everywhere All at Once. At this time, all major plot details are being kept under wraps.

• Sonya Walger has been cast as Freya in Prime Video‘s God of War series.

• Filmmaker Tim Miller has tapped actor Stefan Kapicic to join the cast of his upcoming sci-fi movie starring Keanu Reeves. This reteams Miller who directed Deadpool and Kapicic who played Colossus.

• Filming has been halted on Amazon MGM Studios’ Tomb Raider series due to an injury suffered by series star Sophie Turner. Filming is expected to resume in about two weeks.

• A24 has released the official trailer for The Backrooms, an upcoming sci-fi horror film starring Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor, marking first-time feature director Kane Parsons' expansion of his viral YouTube found-footage universe. The screenplay, written by Will Soodik, is based on the online urban legend that originally inspired Parsons' series.

Sony didn’t wait long to release the Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer we’ve all been craving and oh, how it delivered! Unsurprisingly, the trailer now holds the record for the most-watched ever, garnering 718.6 million views in a 24-hour period. The new film shows Peter Parker banding together with familiar characters such as Bruce Banner and Frank Castle while he anonymously serves New York City as Spider-Man. Let’s not delay - who wants to take a bite out of this big apple first?

It’s a three-for-one MCU week, with the announcement that a second season of Wonder Man is beginning production, and a title plus release date for the Punisher special presentation. All of the creatives behind Wonder Man are returning for the second season, including Destin Daniel Cretton as director and executive producer. Marvel announced the news with a social media post of the front of the script for the next season. Today, the film studio let us know that the Punisher tv special will be called “One Last Kill,” and is set to drop on May 12 the week after the finale of Daredevil: Born Again season two. So much here to bite off, what are we chewing on the most?
Remember how all we can do is rave about Project Hail Mary? Well the box office agrees, as the Ryan Gosling-led film opened to $141 million globally last weekend, with $80.6 of that being domestic. In the era of sequel-verse, Hail Mary rivals only Oppenheimer for being the other film to pass this kind of benchmark that isn’t a continuation of a franchise. No one here is surprised, but is the industry?
Lightning Round

• Disney has announced release dates for Lilo & Stitch 2 which is coming out on May 26, 2028, Memorial Day weekend, and Pixar’s Incredibles 3, which debuts on June 16, 2028.

• Netflix has rounded out the main cast of the upcoming live action Scooby Doo series. Tanner Hagen will play Shaggy Rogers, Abby Ryder Fortson will portray Velma Dinkley and Maxwell Jenkins is set as Fred Jones, joining previously cast Mckenna Grace as Daphne Blake. Paul Walter Hauser has also joined the cast as a series regular in an undisclosed role.

• Sonic the Hedgehog 4 has added Ben Kingsley and Nick Offerman to the cast in undisclosed voice roles.

• Sony Pictures has tapped Wonka director Paul King to write and direct its upcoming live action Labubu project, a film based on the popular line of toys. King will write the film with Tony Award-winning writer Steven Levenson.

• Kirsten Dunst has joined the cast of the untitled Minecraft Movie sequel from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary.

• Chuck Norris, star of 1980s action movies like Missing in Action and the long-running CBS drama Walker, Texas Ranger, has died. He was 86.

• Netflix‘s live-action “Assassin’s Creed” series will be an original story set in Rome in 64 A.D., the streamer revealed last week. The hotly anticipated series, directed by Johan Renck, has started filming at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios. The series has also added Louis McCartney, Mirren Mack, Youssef Kerkour, and Sandra Guldberg-Kampp to the cast in recurring roles.

• “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” will end with its upcoming second season, Variety has learned exclusively.

• Disney has released the first full trailer for the upcoming live action adaptation of Moana which will hit theaters on July 10.

• Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali has joined the cast of season 2 of Task, a detective drama for HBO alongside Mark Ruffalo.

• Jumanji 3 has shifted release dates from December 11th to December 25th of this year.

• The HBO Harry Potter series showcased an official first look at the show via a photo posted to the show’s official Instagram page. The image shows Harry with his back to camera donned in his Quidditch gear as he approaches the field.