The live attraction era is starting to take shape in streaming. After generating years of growth through on-demand scripted series and reality offerings, the major platforms are increasingly dipping their toes into broadcasting live events, whether it’s sporting matches or movie awards shows. Just last week Netflix paid $7.5 billion to secure 10 years of exclusive rights to WWE Raw, one of the signature weekly events in professional wrestling.
From Donald Glover and Maya Erskine in spy comedy Mr and Mrs Smith to Juliette Binoche in fashion world drama The New Look – and the final run of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
1. Genius: MLK/XThe fourth instalment of the series that focuses on a
different world-changing figure each time – Einstein, Picasso and Aretha
Franklin so far – gives us two towering figures in the US Civil Rights
movement. Kelvin Harrison Jr (Chevalier) plays Martin Luther King Jr and Aaron
Pierre (The Underground Railroad) is Malcolm X. Each was assassinated at just
39 years old, but had already made an immense impact on the country. The men
met only once, and the series follows parallel storylines. Their wives are played
by Weruche Opia as Coretta Scott King and Jayme Lawson as Betty Shabazz,
powerful women in their own right, whose points of view are included. The main
actors have some tough acts to follow, including David Oyelowo as King in Ava
Du Vernay's Selma and Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's Malcolm X, but this
series has been widely praised already. Variety said that its depiction of the
main characters "highlights their full and colourful humanity as
revolutionaries, fathers and husbands".
Genius: MLK/X premieres 1 February on National Geographic
Channel in the US and will stream from 2 February on Disney+ and Hulu; and
premieres 3 February on National Geographic in the UK
It has been a twisty road leading to this action-comedy
series, inspired by the fateful 2005 film that brought together Angelina Jolie
and Brad Pitt as married assassins hired to kill each other. Its co-creator
Donald Glover was set to star in and write the show with Phoebe Waller-Bridge,
who dropped out for that classic reason, creative differences. Well, Glover and
Waller-Bridge are both very creative. Maya Erskine (PEN15) now stars, and the
plot is a bit different from the film's. Here John and Jane Smith are
strangers, spies working for the same agency, posing as a married couple to
work on a case. The pretend Smiths do not get along. The supporting and guest
cast is enormous and impressive, including Sarah Paulson as the marriage
counsellor they desperately need, along with Michaela Coel, Parker Posey, John
Turturro, Paul Dano, Sharon Horgan, Alexander Skarsgård and Ron Perlman.
Mr and Mrs Smith premieres 2 February on Amazon Prime Video
internationally.
How many times have artists announced their retirements or
the end of a series, only to change their minds? Larry David might just be
contrary enough to mean it though. The 12th season of the show in which he
plays the crankiest man in show business, a fictional version of himself, will
apparently be the last, according to David and HBO. The trailer says Larry has
"one final act", adding the kind of line that has given Curb its
cult-like fandom: "Don't be mad he's leaving. Be mad he stayed so
long". The show's core group will return, including Cheryl Hines as
Larry's now ex-wife, Cheryl, JB Smoove as his housemate, Leon, Jeff Garland as
his manager, Jeff, and Susie Essman as Jeff's wife, Susie, the person most
likely to yell at Larry all the time. Jeff Schaffer, the series' executive
producer, has already tried to walk back the idea that it's ending, telling
Deadline, "Every season is the last season. It's been this way
forever." David, he said, is "the only one who thinks he's never
going to have another good idea".
Curb Your Enthusiasm premieres 4 February on HBO in the US
and 5 February on Sky Comedy and Now in the UK.
David Nicholls' 2009 novel still exerts a romantic appeal,
as Dexter and Emma hook up one night after graduating from university, then
meet on the same day each year for the next 20 years, their attraction to each
other simmering under the surface even as their lives diverge. She wants to
change the world. He climbs the social ladder. Now the novel is the basis for a
14-part Netflix series, with two engaging stars. Emma is played by Ambika Mod,
so memorable as Shruti, the stressed-out young doctor-in-training in This is
Going to Hurt. Dexter is played by Leo Woodall, the sleazy nephew in season two
of The White Lotus. The 2011 film version of the book, starring Anne Hathaway
and Jim Sturgess, was not well-received, but a series gives the characters more
room to come to life. Nicholls teased out another major difference in an
interview with EW, revealing: "There's a lot more sex in this than there
is in the novel."
One Day premieres on 8 February on Netflix internationally.
High fashion, history and wartime drama converge in this
starry series, set and shot in Paris, with Ben Mendelsohn as the designer
Christian Dior and Juliette Binoche as Coco Chanel. During the Nazi occupation
of Paris, they take very different paths to survive. Post-war, Dior becomes the
most influential designer in the world with what comes to be called his New
Look – dresses with nipped-in waists and often voluminous skirts – but Chanel
is determined to make a comeback. Maisie Williams (Arya Stark in Game of
Thrones) plays Dior's sister, Catherine, John Malkovich plays Lucien Lelong,
the couturier who once employed Dior, and Glenn Close is Carmel Snow, the
powerful editor of Harper's Bazaar. In an intriguing touch, Jack Antonoff has
curated the soundtrack, with new recordings of songs from the period, including
Lana Del Rey singing Blue Skies and Nick Cave doing La Vie en Rose.
The New Look premieres 14 February on Apple TV+
internationally.
This psychological thriller is the latest addition to the
bad-stuff-happens-in-space genre. Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo) plays Jo, an astronaut who is on a mission when a mysterious, explosive
accident sends everyone reeling. When she arrives back on Planet Earth – or
does she? – her entire life seems slightly off-kilter. Her young daughter doesn't even seem like her
daughter. Maybe Jo is mad, or maybe there's some body-switching going on, but
there seems to be a dark conspiracy behind it all. This is the kind of series
in which the less you know going in, the greater the shock and suspense, so
Apple has kept more details under wraps. Jonathan Banks (Mike in Breaking Bad
and Better Call Saul) plays a former astronaut who has a suspicion about what's
happening. Michelle MacLaren, best known for her work on Breaking Bad, directs
the first two episodes of the series, which was created and written by Peter
Harness, whose credits include Doctor Who and Wallander.
Constellation premieres 21 February on Apple TV+
internationally.
There is martial arts action and fire flying through the air
in this live-action variation on the hugely popular animated fantasy series
that ran from 2005-2008. The premise is the same. The four nations of the world
– Water, Earth, Fire and Air – are at odds, with the belligerent Fire trying
to take over. Only the "Avatar" – who can manipulate, or bend, all
four elements after which the countries are named – can restore peace. That
would be the young airbender Aang (Gordon Cormier) aided by his friends, the
firebender Katara (Kiawentiio Tarbell) and her brother Sokka (Ian Ousley).
Daniel Dae Kim joins the cast of young unknowns as the Fire Lord Ozai. Fans of
the animated series may be watching sceptically, given the creators of that
show left this project after having developed it for two years, complaining
that they didn't have enough creative control. Let's hope it's better than M
Night Shyamalan's 2010 live-action film, which now stands at an almost
impossibly low 5% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Avatar: The Last Airbender premieres 22 February on Netflix
internationally.
This adult animated comedy sounds like an echo of Futurama,
but the cast and creators might make it loopy and different enough to work.
Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) and Keke Palmer (Nope) play
best friends and surgeons in the galaxy Ergulon. Hsu is the voice of Dr Sleech,
who is purple and seems to perform surgery with a drill, and Palmer is Dr Klak,
who is blue and has three eyes. Together, they are challenged to find a cure
for anxiety, which apparently is still a problem in their day, the year 14,002.
Other voices include Maya Rudolph as the robot Dr Vlam and Sam Smith as the
red-faced Dr Azel, along with Natasha Lyonne and Kieran Culkin. Rudolph and
Lyonne's production company is behind the show, which was created by Cirocco
Dunlap, a writer on Lyonne's mind-bending romp Russian Doll. Any Russian Doll
connection is enough to at least hint at a smart, skewed comic style.
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy premieres 23 February
on Amazon Prime Video internationally.
Series don't get much more epic than this 10-episode
adaptation of James Clavell's 1975 novel, set in feudal Japan, full of battles
in opulent armour. In 1600, Lord Toranaga, played by Hiroyuki Sanada (John
Wick: Chapter 4) is engaged in a civil war. John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) a
stranded British sailor, becomes his ally as they fight some common enemies,
including Jesuits and Portuguese merchants. Anna Sawai (Monarch: Legacy of
Monsters and Pachinko) is their translator, savvy in more than languages. The
popular 1980 miniseries based on the book starred Richard Chamberlain and
Toshiro Mifune, and won an Emmy, but a lot has changed since then. This version
focuses on the Japanese characters, not the British intruder. And there seems
to be plenty of 17th-Century violence. One of its trailers, which comes with a
warning, includes two severed heads.
Shogun premieres 27 February on FX and Hulu in the US, Star+
in Latin America and Disney+ in all other countries.
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