So far, new voices joining the established voice cast of the Toy Story franchise for the fourth instalment have been revealed as Arrested Development‘s Tony Hale, Get Out director Jordan Peele, and his Key & Peele co-star Keegan Michael-Key, but news that Keanu Reeves has got a part in Toy Story 4 is brand new.

Tim Allen surprised everyone on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show this week by confirming that everyone’s favourite puppy death avenger and robot uprising knocker-downer might play a bit of a tough guy when his vocal talents appear alongside Tom Hanks’ Woody and Allen’s Buzz.

“New guys are in it,” Allen revealed of Pixar’s forthcoming animated tale. “Keanu Reeves has got a great part in it. Actually, little inside story, even he said, gentle, wonderful guy that he is, ‘This sounds too much like Buzz Lightyear.’ And his character does have an edge to that.”

Allen went on to confirm that although Reeves’ character in Toy Story 4 is a bit Buzz-y, he’s very small in stature compared to Star Command’s finest.

Toy Story 4 is heading for a 21st June, 2019 release date.

Everything we know about the film so far is kept here, for in-depth reading.

100 years ago, a girl called Hazel Drew was murdered, and the story of her unsolved death planted a seed in the mind of Mark Frost, the co-creator of relentlessly weird TV series, Twin Peaks.

Frost’s grandmother Betty used to tell him tales of Drew’s untimely end. The girl was found dead in a local pond, but there were whisperings of her having had a colourful romantic life. Sound vaguely familiar? If you’re a Twin Peaks fan, the answer is likely yes.

A new tome published by Metabook – Blonde, Beautiful And Dead: The Murder Mystery That Inspired Twin Peaks – is set to exhaustively cover Hazel Drew’s murder and its link to the creation of Twin Peaks, and where a juicy true crime journey begins, a documentary TV series is sure to follow – Part2 Pictures (Dark Net) has now optioned the forthcoming book, to turn it into a future TV docu-binge.

“This is one of those stories that you can just see and feel the second you hear about it. It has all the texture and twists of Twin Peaks but has the beauty of being true crime with a current-day investigation unfolding alongside the events of the past,” said David Shadrack Smith, President of Part2 Pictures, via The Wrap. “We’re excited to take a multi-platform approach to it with Metabook and create something that lives across diverse media.”

The book’s authors, David Bushman and Mark Givens, who have “spent years” going back over the facts and rumours surrounding Drew’s death, are on board to make sure the story is told properly. “We are beyond excited by this new partnership with Part2 Pictures that will allow us to bring the intriguing tale of Hazel Drew’s brief life and tragic death to a whole new audience.”

Twin Peaks was arguably the first TV show that managed to generate both a huge cult following and a die-hard obsessive fandom back in the 90s. Mark Frost may have provided the story, but it was Blue Velvet and Eraserhead director David Lynch who brought his signature surrealness to the project, with the duo both coming back to shepherd its 2017 revival series, The Return, into fruition.

Frost recently released his own book, The Final Dossier, which wrapped up all the dangling Twin Peaks storyline threads into a neat bow (narrator: “it didn’t”).

More on this new series as we get it.

In our era of too much TV, it’s almost impossible for a new show to get noticed. Throw in the highest of high-concept premises, and sci-fi infused Cold War thriller Counterpart grabbed us from the very start. Now, going into its second season, it’s vying for attention again without compromising on its smarts, fascinating characters and the complexity of its world.

“It’s a big pill to swallow – a very complicated, high-concept show,” Harry Lloyd, who plays Peter Quayle, told Den Of Geek. “The fact that people got on board meant we could have some fun with season two without making it simpler or trying to justify it.

“As with anything where you have a big fictional premise, our job is to sell it as seriously as possible. If Counterpart was just set in 1989 and it was a late Cold War thriller, we’d play it with the same detail and emotion. The fact that we also have to sell the fact that there’s another world actually just means we have to hunker down and take it even more seriously.”

Counterpart’s first season followed UN staffer Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons) as he discovered the existence of a mirror world – one which split from our own two decades prior and now blames them for the fatal plague that befell its citizens. Before long, another Cold War threatens to break out between the two parallel worlds.

British stars Lloyd, Olivia Williams and Nicholas Pinnock all play key roles in the ensuing mysteries, with Williams getting to sink her teeth into dual roles of Howard’s wife, Emily, across the first and second seasons.

“It all comes together so beautifully well so, as storytellers it’s just a dream to be involved,” said Pinnock. “As the audience will understand it’s such a pleasure to watch. There are a few fans out there who have been asking for season two. Things you didn’t think were going to be a point of reference for the audience, they have absolutely picked up on.”

Despite the dense mythology introduced during the first season, the cast said that picking up where they had left off – filming in both Berlin and Los Angeles – wasn’t too difficult.

“Within a few pages I was straight back in it,” Lloyd said. “Because season two starts off pretty much where season one ended, there’s no big recap or reset, people are still in the mess that they’ve made.”

Pinnock added: “We were lucky enough to know we had season two right from the beginning, so that made the transition from one to two a bit easier.”

In terms of grabbing an audience, it was a blessing for the show to have more than one season to tell its story from the get-go, removing some of the pressure and giving the characters room to breathe. Without that pressure, it could also be more considered with its central mysteries.

“It’s so wonderful to be involved in something where dumbing down was never an option,” Williams said. “To have a show that’s not afraid to make you really, really concentrate is an absolute pleasure.”

As proud as the team behind Counterpart clearly are of the show’s complexity and commitment to courting a smart, considered audience, it’s also true that the multi-season order meant that the actors were given enough information about their characters to turn in informed performances – a rarity when secrets are the name of the game.

“If a series doesn’t know where it’s going, as an actor when the camera’s on your face, you actually have to be blank because any interpretation will have to be subsequently imposed upon it,” added Williams. “You can never really act anything. Maybe the blank canvas is an interesting way to go, but as an actor to actually have some inkling of where you are means that you can properly play something.

“There are series I’ve done where you only ever found out five minutes before what you were doing. Everything had to be blank just in case you suddenly ripped your face off and were an alien.”

Of course speaking on future episodes, while the cast are sworn to secrecy, the hints towards plenty of unexpected doubles, twists and intrigue carried over from the first season are there. And if there were to be a season three, there is more than enough story left to tell.

“If season three, fingers crossed, happens then we know some big things that would happen that are so much cooler than anything on my wishlist,” Lloyd said. “People are trying to have it both ways, like these two sides don’t have to be at war. Season two is forcing everything to pick a side, and stop pretending.”

Counterpart season 1 is available to stream on STARZPLAY now, with season 2 arriving on December 9 – start your 7-day free trial here.

The Resident Evil team of Paul W.S. Anderson and his real life wife Milla Jovovich have now moved on to what Sony is presumably hoping will be a new hit franchise in the form of a film adaptation of Capcom’s Monster Hunter video games.

Jovovich is playing a character created especially for the film version, Lieutenant Natalie Artemis. She’s a hard-bitten miltary chief who somehow ends up in a world riddled with monsters, while Ong-Bak‘s Jaa is the titular monster hunter with a Giant Jawblade sword, a bloody big bow and what you’d imagine is a fairly decent plan, considering Milla’s at his side in this first image from the film:

That’s not a knife. THAT’S a knife.

Here’s yer official synopsis:

Behind our world, there is another: a world of dangerous and powerful monsters that rule their domain with deadly ferocity. When Lt. Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her loyal soldiers are transported from our world to the new world, the unflappable lieutenant receives the shock of her life. In her desperate battle for survival against enormous enemies with incredible powers and unstoppable, revolting attacks, Artemis will team up with a mysterious man who has found a way to fight back.

Monster Hunter is currently eyeing a 2020 release date.

More as it arrives.

The next Civilization VI expansion, Gathering Storm, will mix things up a bit by focusing on climate change.

In Gathering Storm, global warming will be a persistent threat that players must account for when making certain actions. For instance, you might be forced to rely on oil and coal for a time as you advance your civilisation, but continuing to do so when better options are available (or failing to achieve better options in a timely manner) may result in global warming levels rising.

As the global warming level threat rises, you may have to deal with a series of consequences. For instance, you may see water levels rise (which, over time, can consume seaside tiles and anything you may have built on them) and the melting of polar ice caps can cause trouble for anything you may have built near affected areas. Furthermore, you will eventually have to deal with a World Council who may diplomatically punish countries that are putting other nations at risk through pollution. The World Council also must be considered when making non-environmental decisions.

According to Civilization producer Dennis Shirk, the decision to add these features isn’t based on current events but rather the team’s desire to expand the series’ gameplay in a way that accounts for global scientific concerns.

“No, I don’t think that’s about making a political statement,” said Shirk in an interview with Eurogamer. “We just like to have our gameplay reflect current science.” Lead designer Ed Beach added to that by stating that “we can take the common wisdom of the vast majority of the science community and embed that in the game and that becomes something really interesting for players to be able to engage with.”

On top of all this, players will now have to account for natural disasters like volcano eruptions, blizzards, floods, and other extreme conditions that are based on timing and location. We’re getting a Sim City vibe from this feature and the way it sounds like such events can ruin your grand plans. Fortunately, players will be able to control how frequent these otherwise mostly random occurrences are.

All of this sounds pretty fascinating (and will certainly help expand the intrigue of Civilization‘s diplomatic path to victories). All the same, there’s still quite a bit we’d like to hear about Gathering Storm’s other features ahead of its currently scheduled February 14, 2019 release date.