Bandwagon Nerds News Report (9/21/2026): Resident Evil Opens Big, Guy Gardner Arrives & Lufia Returns

Resident Evil opens to $60 million, Guy Gardner arrives on Lanterns and Lufia I & II return for modern consoles.

Resident Evil officially turned a promising opening into the biggest movie launch the franchise has ever seen.

Zach Cregger’s reboot opened to roughly $60 million domestically and more than $108 million worldwide, while HBO’s Lanterns finally brought Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner into the story. Gaming delivered its own surprise with Taito reviving Lufia I & II for modern platforms.

It’s the Bandwagon Nerds News Report for September 21, 2026!

Resident Evil Opens to a Franchise-Record $60 Million

Sony’s Resident Evil opened to approximately $60 million domestically and $108.3 million worldwide, setting new opening-weekend records for both the film franchise and director Zach Cregger. The previous domestic franchise record belonged to Resident Evil: Afterlife, which opened to $26.6 million in 2010.

The scale of the jump matters because this was not simply another installment attracting the established movie audience. Cregger’s version was marketed much more aggressively as horror and arrived with stronger critical and audience reception than the franchise usually receives.

Sony now has something the Resident Evil movies rarely possessed simultaneously: financial momentum and creative goodwill. The question shifts from whether the reboot worked to whether the studio can resist immediately expanding it faster than the material can support.

Guy Gardner Finally Arrives on Lanterns

Nathan Fillion made his full Lanterns appearance as Guy Gardner in Episode 6, bringing the larger DCU directly into HBO’s Green Lantern drama. The episode moves the story back to 2026 and reconnects John Stewart with the aftermath of Hal Jordan’s story while Guy operates as one of the current Lanterns.

Fillion described Guy as somebody who remains fundamentally the same regardless of whether he appears in Superman, Peacemaker or a much darker series like Lanterns. That consistency may become increasingly valuable as DC tries to make characters move between projects without every appearance feeling like a completely different interpretation.

Guy is particularly well suited to that role because his personality creates friction almost anywhere. A loud, arrogant Green Lantern can fit inside a superhero blockbuster or an uncomfortable drama precisely because he refuses to adjust himself to the room.

Lufia I & II Return for Modern Platforms

Taito announced Lufia I & II: The Sinistrals Saga for PlayStation 5, Switch 2, Switch and PC with a 2027 release planned. The collection brings the first two games in the classic RPG series back together for modern hardware.

Lufia II remains particularly beloved among 16-bit RPG fans because its puzzle-heavy dungeon design separated it from many of its contemporaries. Giving both games a modern release also solves a preservation problem for a series whose best-known entries have spent decades tied to aging hardware.

The announcement fits a broader pattern across 2026. Publishers are discovering that older RPG catalogs still have commercial value even when the property is not large enough to justify a full remake.

La Bola Negra Wins TIFF’s People’s Choice Award

La Bola Negra won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, becoming another major awards-season contender after its earlier success at Cannes. Netflix acquired the film and plans a theatrical release beginning October 16 before streaming it in December.

The Toronto prize matters because the festival has a long history of identifying films that remain significant throughout awards season. I Play Rocky and Being Heumann finished as runners-up, giving both projects additional momentum coming out of the fall festival circuit.

For Netflix, the victory creates a useful flagship title entering the end of the year. The service already has enormous volume, but awards season depends on convincing audiences and voters that certain films deserve to rise above that volume.

Honkai: Star Rail 4.6 Sets Its Next Update

HoYoverse revealed Version 4.6 of Honkai: Star Rail, titled Dance With the Beast Before Moonrise. The September 28 update will introduce Pearl and continue the game’s current story while adding the usual collection of events and rewards around the new version.

Star Rail has become extremely effective at treating updates like miniature launch cycles. Character reveals, livestreams and story teasers give each version enough marketing weight that the game rarely disappears from the conversation between major expansions.

That cadence is one of the reasons successful live-service games are difficult to compete with. A traditional release receives one giant marketing push, while Star Rail can manufacture another moment every several weeks.

Stellar Blade Shows Off Its Bayonetta Collaboration

Shift Up continues preparing Stellar Blade for Switch 2 with a Bayonetta collaboration that gives Eve four new outfits inspired by PlatinumGames’ witch. The collaboration accompanies the Complete Edition’s Nintendo launch as Shift Up broadens the audience for one of its most recognizable properties.

The crossover is almost aggressively obvious in the best possible way. Stellar Blade and Bayonetta already occupy similar spaces in action-game conversations, so putting the two together requires very little explanation.

It also gives the Switch 2 release something more interesting than portability alone. Players who already own Stellar Blade elsewhere need another reason to notice the new version, and recognizable crossover content accomplishes that cheaply.

Mycopunk Leaves Early Access in October

Mycopunk will leave Early Access and launch October 20 on PlayStation 5 and PC. The mission-based cooperative shooter has built its identity around bizarre robotic characters and fungal enemies rather than trying to imitate the visual language of every other squad-based shooter.

That personality matters in a category where games can become indistinguishable remarkably quickly. Cooperative shooters need enough mechanical depth to keep groups returning, but they also need an identity strong enough for people to remember which one they were playing.

October will reveal whether Mycopunk’s Early Access audience translates into something larger once the game reaches its full release.

Resident Evil provided the weekend’s clearest lesson. Familiar brands still matter, but audiences respond differently when the new version gives them a reason to believe the property has actually changed.

Lanterns is applying the same principle more quietly by letting familiar DC characters exist in different tones, while Lufia demonstrates the opposite approach: sometimes the thing people wanted was simply access to the old version again.

This report includes information from: TheWrap.com, APNews.com, Taito.co.jp, ShiftUp.co.kr, HoYoverse, Gematsu.com, and HBO-related reporting.