Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email our team at rundown@multiversitycomics.com.
– Former Marvel editor-in-chief and CCO Joe Quesada announced he is launching a Substack newsletter, called Joe Quesada’s Drawing The Line Somewhere. He describes it as featuring art tutorials, behind-the-scenes stories (including a feature called I’m Sorry, What?!?, dedicating to debunking “dumb-ass theories about the comic biz on the internet”), Q&As, process videos, interviews, and more. Drawing The Line Somewhere launches today, and will be available to subscribe to for free.
– Just days before its release, Sony have revealed Amandla Stenberg is voicing Spider-Byte/Margo Kess in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Andy Samberg is playing Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider. While Ben is one of the most notorious versions of Spider-Man in the comics, having been at the center of the controversial ‘Clone Saga’ in the 1990s, Spider-Byte is a far more recent addition, having been created by Nilah Magruder for 2018’s “Vault of Spiders” #1. Samberg previously worked with writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller on the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs films, the LEGO Movie soundtracks, and the pilot for Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Across the Spider-Verse releases this Friday, and will be followed by Beyond the Spider-Verse on March 29, 2024.
– Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem director Jeff Rowe confirmed Academy Award-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network, Watchmen) will score the film. “I can add that the score is absolutely AMAZING,” he said. “Exhilarating, terrifying, heartbreaking, full of sounds I didn’t know existed. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe it. I love it so much.” Mutant Mayhem releases in theaters August 2, and will mark Reznor and Ross’s second animated film score (after Soul). The pair are also working on another comic book adaptation this year, David Fincher’s The Killer, which will be released on Netflix November 10.
– Speaking of Netflix, the fourth and final season of Titans will be added to the streamer in the UK on June 25; and Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare’s latest animated series, This World Can’t Tear Me Down, will be released globally on June 9. A follow-up to his 2021 project Tear Along the Dotted Line, the six-part series sees the writer and lead voice actor (real name Michele Rech) reunite with an old friend after he moves back to their neighborhood in Rome. Rech tries to help him fit back into a place he no longer recognises, but soon “realizes that he is unable to [make] him feel at home again.”
– Via Disney TV Animation News, a Disney+ cartoon based on Sam Bosma’s graphic novel trilogy “Fantasy Sports” is being developed. The books, which debuted from Nobrow Press in 2015, follow teenage treasure hunter Wiz and her friend Mug, who get involved in magical sports games during their adventures. Aimed at a young adult audience, the show will be a co-production between Disney, 20th Television Animation, and Lebron James’s production studio SpringHill Company. The information was revealed in editorial reviews informing bookstores about a reprint of the books, which also disclosed Molly Knox Ostertag (“The Witch Boy”) has created an animated pilot for Disney+, similarly aimed at a YA audience.
– Toei released Japanese singer/rapper Daoko’s song for the Sailor Moon Cosmos movies, “Tsuki no Hana” (“Moon Flower”), on all music platforms; the company also paved the way for the film’s release by making the songs from the 1990s anime available internationally on those platforms. Sailor Moon Cosmos, a two-part sequel to Crystal and Eternal providing a more faithful take on the manga’s fifth and final arc than the original anime, will be released over the next month in Japan. A global release has yet to be announced. Until then, you can check out all the released footage on the official YouTube channel.
– Finally, BBC News reports Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch’s home in London was attacked by a former chef wielding a fish knife. Cumberbatch, his wife Sophie Hunter, and their three young children were present when Jack Bissell, 35, kicked through their front garden’s gate, hurled threats, and tore off their intercom before fleeing. He pled guilty to criminal damage in court on May 10, and was fined £250, before being given a three-year restraining order against Cumberbatch’s family and the area they live in. Bissell, who worked at a Mayfair hotel until 2020, was previously convicted for theft, and had multiple warnings for offences against property and public order, as well as a drug offence. Multiversity wishes Cumberbatch’s family all the best following this terrifying incident.
