Superheroes & Supervillains
Who will save us from Big AI and *gasp* influencers???
Marvelous time
Tom Holland and Zendaya (and Jon Bernthal!) are reigning supreme at the box office, first with The Odyssey and now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is tracking the biggest domestic opening EVER, surpassing even Avengers: Endgame ($157.4M), with $167M+ in its first day + previews. Superhero fatigue will never be real.
Complex@ComplexTom really dropped two of the biggest movies of Summer 2026 😮💨 [📸: @venomhology ]
10:34 PM · Jul 31, 2026 · 339K Views49 Replies · 3.6K Reposts · 33.7K LikesAt San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel’s Hall H presentation saw Ryan Gosling finally being announced as Ghost Rider after years of speculation, and David Jonsson as the new Black Panther, the grown-up son of King T’Challa, played by the late Chadwick Boseman. Black Panther 3, with Ryan Coogler returning to direct, will release on December 15, 2028 in theaters. Ghost Rider is also slated for a 2028 release, directed by Shawn Levy. (We will be seeing a Gosling-Levy collab before that with Star Wars: Starfighter in 2027).
At the same presentation, when the cast of Doomsday took the stage, Ryan Reynolds in his Deadpool suit also made an appearance in the audience (he had been walking around, interacting with fans undercover beforehand), the suit being a specific shade of jean grey 👀
Samara Weaving has officially been cast as Emma Frost in the new X-Men movie. Drew Starkey and Cooper Hoffman are apparent frontrunners for the role of Cyclops. Cailee Spaeny and Charles Melton are rumoured to be playing Rogue and The Beast, and Inde Navarette, of Obsession fame, says she wants to play Mystique.
Mahershala Ali has said in an interview that he will no longer play Blade and redirected any further questions to Marvel. He was under contract with the studio to reboot the vampire franchise, but the project never took off despite much fanfare.
The Disney+ Marvel show, Wonder Man, has been cancelled after the first season even though a second season was announced back in March. The breakout show has been nominated for several Emmy Awards.
Insiders say that while some announcements were made at Comic-Con, Marvel is saving the juicier stuff for its Disney Expo D23, taking place the weekend of August 14.
Book ‘em
AI giants like Meta and Anthropic are hoarding and destroying rare and antique books. The books are fed into high-speed scanning machines that cut the spines off and shred or pulp the originals to build a searchable digital library used to train its AI models in what internal documents called “Project Panama” at Anthropic. An internal memo from Anthropic stated that their goal is to
“destructively scan all the books in the world.” The memo also mentioned their goal of keeping this project under wraps, saying “We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”
As for legalities, several authors filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that it illegally used millions of copyrighted books as training data without consent. In a California court, the judge issued a split ruling, deeming Anthropic guilty of piracy but not copyright infringement. Instead of continuing to fight the case, Anthropic chose to settle for a historic $1.5 billion, making it the biggest copyright payout ever.And as if we hadn’t had enough of AI this week, parliament legislators are straight up reading AI text,
YouTuber Hank Green, known for his educational videos, has put a pause on his content because of his overreliance on LLMs after being accused of using AI for his script by viewers. Additionally, AI slop has gotten so bad that LinkedIn, the most performative of platforms, has added a ‘Seems like AI slop’ button.
Screen time
First trailer for Wicker, starring Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård. The film centres on an ostracised fisherwoman who commissions a husband made of wicker, leading to social chaos in her conservative village. In theatres, 23rd October.
Teaser for Michael B Jordan’s The Thomas Crowne Affair, in theatres March 5, 2027. A second remake of the 1968 film, it follows a billionaire who steals priceless artworks while falling in love with the woman investigating him, played by Adria Arjona.
The first trailer for Jumanji: Open World has been released. In theatres on 25th December.
First teaser for AirBud Returns. In theatres on January 22, 2027. The panel for the movie at Comic-Con clarified that no CGI dog or AI dog was used, all golden retrievers are 100% real.
The first trailer for Mike Flanagan's ‘Carrie’ series, based on the novel by Stephen King, has been released. Releasing October 7 on Prime Video.
Ted Lasso’s season 4 trailer is here. Starts streaming on 5th August.
After the Elle prequel, a Clueless sequel series is in motion at Paramount, bringing back Alicia Silverstone as the iconic character, Cher.
Filming for Apple TV’s Severance season 3 is officially underway.
We might be getting a Barbie 2, as the salary asks of Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig and Ryan Gosling are currently being negotiated.
The 2010s seven-season sitcom, New Girl, may have a reunion in the works, according to actor Max Greenfield, who played Schmidt.
Celeb shenanigans
Singer Madison Beer is engaged to NFL player Justin Herbert.
Ariana Grande has released the petal music video and album of the same name.
BTS announces they will not submit their music for the 2027 GRAMMY awards, following the Recording Academy’s addition of an Asian-focused category, saying that “we hope music itself can be heard and loved rather than being distinguished by region or language”.
Brad Pitt’s kids have dropped the last name Pitt; Tom Cruise’s daughter Suri has also legally dropped the last name Cruise. No, neither has anything to do with relinquishing nepotism but everything to do with these big blockbuster actors being estranged and abusive (in Pitt’s case).
In other news
A small antiques store in Nantucket has caused controversy by displaying a sign reading “No Influencers” on its premises. Content creators are criticising the sign, accusing the shop of “mocking women” and delegitimising their professional work. Store owner John Sylvia explained the sign was a “tongue-in-cheek” joke and a commentary on influencer culture, where people use his shop for photos without making any purchases.
The owner of the OG social networking site, MySpace, have said that it may be making a comeback, as current social media has become too addictive.
