'Death Stranding Isolations' anime unveils teaser, expands Kojima's haunting universe. The world may be reconnecting, but not everyone wants to be found. Death Stranding Isolations, the upcoming anime based on Hideo Kojima's video game franchise, has unveiled its first teaser trailer and visual at Kojima Productions' 10th anniversary event in Tokyo. The series is set to stream on Disney+ and related services in 2027. Set after the events of the original Death Stranding game, the anime moves into North America rebuilding itself after Sam reconnects the continent through the Chiral Network, a supernatural communication system created by Bridges to replace the collapsed internet. But new connections bring unforeseen consequences, and the story follows people charting paths different from Sam and his Bridges comrades. At its centre is a young girl whose mother's death in a catastrophic explosion leaves her isolated. Having grown accustomed to solitude, she turns away from human connection. Yet fate has other plans, as unexpected encounters pull her into a world she barely recognises. The story also introduces a wise old man who connects people through an unconventional method and a female soldier trapped in a cycle of war and destruction. Takayuki Sano, known for his work as an animation director on Attack on Titan, directs the series. Tow Ubukata of Psycho-Pass handles series composition and the screenplay, while Ilya Kuvshinov (Ghost in the Shell: Sac 2045) creates the original character designs. E&H production, the studio behind Ninja Kamui and Bullet/Bullet, produces the animation. The production team also includes executive producer Kojima, character designer Sayaka Koiso, colour script and art director Yann Le Gall, colour designer Ami Kutsuna, 3D department manager Tomohiko Kan, compositing director Jumi Lee, editor Keisuke Yanagi and sound director Shuhei Abe. The anime is the third Death Stranding adaptation currently in development. An animated film is being produced at ABC Animation Studio under director Hiroshi Miyamoto, while an American independent entertainment and media company A24 is developing a live-action Hollywood film directed by Michael Sarnoski. With hand-drawn animation bringing fresh life to Kojima's fractured world, Death Stranding Isolations looks set to explore a familiar question from a new angle: what happens when the connections meant to bring humanity together leave some people wanting to disconnect?

The 2027 Palm Springs International Film Awards will honor "The Invite" With The Vanguard Award. October 28, 2026 The Palm Springs International Film Awards has announced that A24's "The Invite" is the recipient of the Vanguard Award. The Vanguard Award is a group honor that recognizes a film's cast and director for their collective work on an exceptional film project. Confirmed attendees for the award presentation include director and actor Olivia Wilde, as well as actors Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton. The Film Awards will take place on January 7th, 2027, at the Palm Springs Convention Center, with the festival running January 7th-18th, 2027. Kering will present the event, and Entertainment Tonight will sponsor it. "With "The Invite," Olivia Wilde has made a film that is both comedic and deeply human. In addition to directing, she stars alongside three of the most compelling actors working today: Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton," said Festival Chairman Nachhattar Singh Chandi. "Each of them brings something irreplaceable to this story, and together they've created something that has stayed with audiences long after the credits roll. We are thrilled to honor this incredible team with this year's Vanguard Award." After its celebrated Sundance premiere, "The Invite" became a breakout cultural and box office success, winning over audiences with razor-sharp humor, an irresistible ensemble, and disarming emotional depth. The film has since earned four Gotham Award nominations, including Best Feature, Best Adapted Screenplay, Outstanding Supporting Performance for Penélope Cruz, and the Gotham Audience Award. Masterfully directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton, the film finds both hilarity and humanity in the complexities of marriage, intimacy, and the relationships that shape its lives. What begins as a dinner party between two neighboring couples spirals into an unpredictable evening of revelations, desire, and unexpected connection. Beneath its biting comedy is a heartfelt exploration of the messiness of human relationships, and the complicated, often surprising ways Next Best Picture love one another. The screenplay was adapted by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. Past recipients of the Vanguard Award include Academy Award Best Picture winners "Green Book" and "The Shape of Water" as well as Best Picture nominees "Belfast," "Emilia Pérez," "Hamnet," "Killers of the Flower Moon," "La La Land," "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Fabelmans," and "The Trial of the Chicago 7." What do you think of this news for the Palm Springs International Film Festival? Have you seen "The Invite" yet? If so, what did you think of it? Please let Next Best Picture know your thoughts in the comments section below or on its X account.

How A24 turned Elden Ring's silence into a record-breaking cinematic feat. A24 is producing a $200 million Elden Ring film directed by Alex Garland, marking a bold departure from the studio's indie roots into blockbuster territory. With Amazon distributing and a March 2028 release date, the project tests whether prestige filmmaking can scale commercially without sacrificing artistic integrity. Discover more Try New Games When a studio built on quiet, intimate storytelling decides to spend $200 million adapting one of gaming's most cryptically silent worlds, the question isn't whether it's a gamble - it's whether anyone else was ever bold enough to make it. A24's decision to produce a feature film adaptation of Elden Ring isn't simply a surprising pivot for a prestige indie powerhouse. It is a calculated, high-stakes declaration that the future of video game cinema belongs not to the franchises that shout the loudest, but to the filmmakers willing to sit with the silence long enough to understand it. Try New Games The studio that rewrote its own rules. A24 has spent over a decade building one of the most distinctive identities in modern Hollywood - a New York-based indie and prestige operation whose critically acclaimed catalog was forged on restraint, intimacy, and authorial vision. Films like Hereditary, Moonlight, and Everything Everywhere All at Once were made on modest budgets and carried outsized cultural weight. A production approaching $200 million is not merely a new record for the studio. It is a philosophical departure that forces a fundamental question: can artistic seriousness survive at blockbuster scale? The hiring of Alex Garland to direct and write the adaptation suggests A24's answer is a deliberate yes. Garland, whose filmography includes Ex Machina and 28 Days Later, has built a career on cerebral, atmospherically dense storytelling - work that prioritizes dread and ambiguity over resolution. He is, in almost every measurable sense, an auteur's auteur, and his attachment signals that A24 intends to carry its creative identity upward rather than trade it in. That threading of the needle - blockbuster economics, auteur credibility - is precisely the gambit few studios have attempted without losing one or the other. Discover more Preorder Games Video Games Adding further literary weight to the project is George R.R. Martin, who co-created Elden Ring's lore alongside FromSoftware. His involvement with the source material - framed in CBR's coverage as the genesis of his "new dark fantasy epic" - lends the film a narrative pedigree that extends well beyond gaming culture. For audiences unfamiliar with the game, Martin's name alone functions as a promise of world-building depth. For the industry watching A24's every move, it functions as a justification. Try New Games The architecture of an ambitious bet. At nearly $200 million, the Elden Ring film enters financial territory that puts it in direct competition with Marvel and DC tentpoles - a tier of Hollywood production where failure is public, expensive, and career-defining. A24 has never played at this altitude, and the industry is watching closely to determine whether prestige credibility is a durable advantage in a commercial arena that typically rewards franchise familiarity over artistic risk. Amazon's entry as a distribution partner fundamentally alters the film's trajectory. A standard A24 art-house rollout - limited release, awards-season positioning, gradual expansion - is no longer the template. Amazon's involvement transforms the release into a franchise-scale commercial launch, suggesting both studios are treating this not as a standalone prestige project but as the foundation of something considerably larger. The infrastructure being built around this film carries the quiet confidence of a shared bet. That bet has a hard date attached to it. The confirmed US theatrical release of March 3, 2028 moves the Elden Ring adaptation from industry speculation into active production reality, locking in a marketing and distribution timeline commensurate with its ambition. Dates matter in Hollywood - they signal commitment, trigger greenlight decisions, and set the clock on audience awareness campaigns that will need to span a player base and a general moviegoing public in equal measure. Adapting the silence - The creative challenge at the core. The central creative problem Garland faces is one no major studio adaptation has seriously attempted at this scale: Elden Ring's storytelling is deliberately, structurally environmental. Its lore lives in item descriptions, crumbling architecture, enemy placement, and conspicuous absence. It is a narrative designed to be assembled by the player across dozens of hours - never delivered, always discovered. Translating that into a two-hour linear dramatic arc is not a matter of selecting which cutscenes to adapt. There are none to choose from. Unlike prior video game adaptations that leaned on pre-existing dialogue and story scaffolding, Garland must construct emotional and narrative coherence from world-building that actively resists exposition. This is, paradoxically, where his strengths align most precisely with the material. His filmmaking has always rewarded patience over explanation, trusting atmosphere and visual language to carry meaning that dialogue would only diminish. The production's own creative silence - no casting announcements, no footage, minimal public-facing development - mirrors the game's philosophy of earned discovery. Critics have noted, with some fairness, that silence at a $200 million budget also carries real financial risk if audience awareness doesn't build sufficiently in the two years before release. The strategy is philosophically coherent. Whether it is commercially sustainable remains an open question. The Elden Ring film represents a genuine inflection point for A24 - a studio testing, in the most expensive possible terms, whether its reputation for artistic seriousness can scale into the blockbuster tier without diluting what made it essential in the first place. The stakes extend beyond one film. If Garland's adaptation succeeds, it redefines what a video game film can be, proving that fidelity to a game's spirit - not merely its plot mechanics - is commercially viable at the highest levels of Hollywood investment. That would be a more significant achievement than any box office record. It would change the conversation entirely. Your email won't be published No comments yet. Be the first to comment!