Tudum, Netflix’s Autumn-set global fan event celebrating its original content, returned Saturday with a bevy of special moments and a particular focus on trailers. But, of course, with all of the shows and films the service provides or distributes in any given month, Tudum covered a lot of things. Let’s take a look back at some of the news unleashed during the event.
(Photo by Susie Allnutt/Netflix)
The big premiere announcement of the day: The Witcher: Blood Origin debuts on December 25. According to star Michelle Yeoh, the program centers on “the Golden Age of Elven history” before humans and monsters ruined everything. Of course, as she plays an elf called Scian, that’s a reasonable point of view. Fellow cast member Laurence O’Fuarain said it is also about “the first Witcher.” Both are true as the series is about the convergence which brought elves, men, and monsters together on the Continent in the first place. And as the group — which included star Sophia Brown — revealed, Minnie Driver is also a member of the cast. Though she could not offer much about her character, she teased a “pivotal” role in connecting “The Witcher‘s past with its future.”
Another announcement during the event: the name of Noah Centineo’s upcoming series. The Recruit stars the actor as a lawyer dragged into the world of espionage. Although other details are still classified, Centineo offered a premiere date for the program: December 16. Also announced during the presentation: 1899 debuts on November 17, Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher’s Your Place or Mine bouts on Feb 10, 2023, Heartstopper fans can now use character portraits from the show as their Netflix account icon, and the second season of Squid Game is in development.
Back on the Continent, Henry Cavill revealed a release window for the third season of The Witcher: summer 2023. He also presented a behind-the-scenes video with Anya Chalotra and Freya Allan. This is the season Yennefer (Chalotra) and Ciri (Allan) will spend a lot of time together, and as Chalotra put it, “They’ve got a lot to learn from each other.”
Closer on the horizon, Wednesday debuts November 23. And in lieu of another trailer, star Jenna Ortega encouraged viewers to get ready for the “supernatural-infused mystery” with a clip featuring Wednesday Addams (Ortega) discovering Thing in her dorm room. “I’m not above breaking a few fingers,” she tells the creature. The discussion suggests Wednesday and her parents are not in agreement about anything. But when she forces Thing to become loyal, she announces a plan to escape Nevermore Academy.
Like this past summer’s Geeked Week, Tudum 2022 featured a lot of trailers. One that caught our attention was for Lupin Part 3. In it, Assane Diop (Omar Sy) promises to disappear even as the nation seems to cheer him on. But he also suggests that his apparent retirement requires “going out with a bang.”
You‘s teaser introduced Joe’s (Penn Badgley) new persona and the new characters he will encounter after becoming more “refined.” Will he really dedicate himself to “academic pursuits” or did we miss a pointed double-entendre? The program returns in the near future.
A trailer for The Watcher proved the limited series thriller is in no way related to The Witcher. Based on actual events, it stars Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale as a couple who move their family into a fabulous suburban home. But they soon begin to receive letters from a “watcher” obsessed with the house and anyone who lives there. The couple start to suspect everyone in the neighborhood of being the Watcher. It debuts on October 13.
Other trailers included a teaser for They Cloned Tyrone — stylish sci-fi mystery starring Jamie Foxx “coming soon” to the platform — and a brief glimpse of Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area.
The teaser for Outer Banks’ third season asks, “How far will you go to get your treasure?”
A teaser for The Crown‘s November 9 return makes it clear the focus will be on the dissolution of Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Princess Diana’s (Elizabeth Debicki) marriage. Although, it may also focus on the way the press portrayed that divorce, too.
Manifest star Melissa Roxburgh thanked the fans for their dedication, which led to Netflix offering the program a chance to complete its story. A trailer for that upcoming final run of episodes teased a few interesting things, like passengers getting murder and the black box being discovered.
A tease for Jennifer Lopez’s The Mother sees her as a highly trained agent defending someone from harm. It’s set for a May 2023 premiere.
Alice in Borderland also got the teaser treatment with a “Super Teaser Trailer” for its upcoming second season.
Introduced by James Marsden, a teaser for Dead To Me third and final season suggests Jen (Christina Applegate) will reveal all. But will she really?
And though Enola Holmes 2 debuts in the not-too-distant future (November 4), star Millie Bobby Brown presented a new trailer for the film, which sees Enola trying to start a detective agency while brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill) finds himself stymied in a new case.
Of course, not everything previewed during Tudum had footage for a trailer. In lieu of that, some productions offered a talk or silly stunt. Money Heist, for example, saw creator Álex Calafi discussing the next season. He suggested it will feature “the golden years” of heisting.
Although the Emily in Paris cast did in fact have a teaser to share — focused on Emily’s (Lily Collins) decision to cut her bangs — they spent much of their time debating the best way to talk about the upcoming season, which just wrapped production. But in lieu of any information, they got lost planning more grandiose fan events.
The cast of Never Have I Ever also put together a stunt of sorts — a very teasing discussion of the upcoming season, which revealed “Paxton’s back, baby,” as actor Darren Barnet announced. And via a Facetime call, Michael Cimino introduced himself as the new heartthrob. “What did you think senior year was going to be easy?” he asked the others. The program’s final season is coming soon.
Bridgerton also used its Tudum time for a stunt. Actors Luke Newton and Claudia Jessie (who play Colin and Eloise) attempted to paint portraits of one another while answering fan questions about their characters. Jessie’s turned out to be colorful and delightful while Newton’s looked, as Jessie put it, like the product of a “serial killer.” At the end, Nicola Coughlan appeared to tease the Season 3 premiere, which will apparently be called “Out of the Shadows.”
Slightly more straightforward was a clip from the Bridgerton spinoff, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. India Amarteifio stars as the younger Charlotte (played by Golda Rosheuvel on Bridgerton). The pair, alongside Adjoa Andoh, presented the clip, in which Charlotte tries to escape via a garden wall to avoid meeting the king. Naturally enough, she meets him during her attempted flight.
Shadow and Bone used Tudum to offer first looks at new characters Nikolai (Patrick Gibson), Tolya (Lewis Tan), Tamar (Anna Leong Brophy), and Wylan (Jack Wolfe). The costume test footage was not enough for stars Jessie Mei Li and Ben Barnes, though, who then presented an early sneak peak at the series’ return.
The Old Guard 2 stars Charlize Theron, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kiki Layne, Luca Marinelli, and Marwan Kenzari (the latter of two who play fan-favorites Nicky and Joe) introduced a behind-the-scenes video focusing on the action viewers will see when the film comes out. “We know how much you love the first film, and we’ve put to the work into [making it great],” Theron said.
Action was also the focus of Heart of Stone‘s behind-the-scenes package. According to star Gal Gadot, the story of spy and adrenaline junkie Rachel Stone (Gadot) is “super-grounded.” Granted, that statement was accompanied by a shot of a car racing down a public staircase. Co-star Jamie Dornan added that the film is “going to be huge.” We believe him. The movie debuts sometime in 2023.
And perhaps knowing two other action films would deliver behind-the-scenes video packages, Chris Hemsworth offered one as well for Extraction 2. As director Sam Hargrave claimed in the video, the sequel will bring “twice the action” with an “oner” sequence more extreme and complicated than the one in Extraction and a moment in which a helicopter will land on a train. Extraction 2 is also set for a 2023 release.
Over in the Latin America presentation, Mark Millar previewed Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of his comic book, American Jesus. As the writer explained, it centers on a 12-year-old kid on the US-Mexican border who discovers he might be the Second Coming. The video focused on its Mexico location shoot, which left Millar breathless at the detail. “Fans should be exited by the fact I’m excited,” he said. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s Tenoch Huerta also stars.
Executive producers D.B. Weiss, David Benioff, and Alexander Woo showed behind-the-scenes footage of their upcoming 3 Body Problem adaptation. Featuring Jess Hong, Liam Cunningham, Jovan Adepo, John Bradley, Alex Sharp, Eiza Gonzalez, Zine Tseng, and Saamer Umansi, the series, based on the novels by Liu Cixin, will tell (according to Woo) “the history of humanity from the point of first contact with aliens to the end of the universe.”
Guillermo del Toro also presented a behind-the-scenes clip of his upcoming Pinocchio. In the video, the director discussed his love of stop-motion animation and why he chose to utilize it for this production. “In the early days [of animation], where you had the moiré and flicker … the imperfection was so gorgeous to look at,” he explained. Additionally, the handmade nature of the format means each frame requires care, attention, and an artisanal quality. And for at least one scene, it meant making a giant Pinocchio head to act as a set for an stop-motion-animated cricket. “It’s a fable close to my heart and we want to make this a particularly beautiful iteration,” del Toro said.
In lieu of a trailer, Slumberland star Jason Momoa presented a clip from the upcoming film in which his character, Flip, introduces Nema (Marlow Barkley) to Slumberland and the rules they must follow to avoid the “dream cops.”
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery director Rian Johnson also presented a clip from the film, due out in December. As he explained, the scene begins innocently enough as several old friends receive puzzle boxes from a mutual bestie. Solving the puzzle, they discover an invitation to a private island getaway. But, Johnson said, “what starts as a game becomes more nefarious.” How Knives Out sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) fits into the scheme is anyone’s guess.
An extended clip from the upcoming documentary The Redeem Team delved into the late Kobe Bryant’s decision to slam into Paul Gasol during Team USA’s match against Spain at the 2008 Olympics. Usually on the same team, the pair squared off on the court that day. LeBron James, Gasol, and others discuss the moment, making their best guesses at Bryant’s strategy. The documentary, centering on Team USA’s basketball performance at the 2008 games, debuts October 7.
Additional clips presented during Tudum included scenes from the second season of Vikings Valhalla, the upcoming The School for Good and Evil film adaptation, and a previously unreleased scene from Squid Game’s first season.
