Bandwagon Nerds News Report (9/25/2026): Saw Reboots, Tupac Enters Stranger Than Heaven & AHS Goes All-In

Saw finds its new director, Tupac joins Stranger Than Heaven, Netflix renews The Beast in Me and AHS 13 launches its crossover.

Horror had a very busy Thursday.

The next Saw movie found the filmmaker responsible for rebuilding the franchise, while American Horror Story finally revealed why Season 13 assembled such an enormous collection of returning characters. Gaming provided the day’s strangest development, as SEGA offered considerably more detail on Stranger Than Heaven and confirmed exactly how Tupac Shakur will appear inside RGG Studio’s five-decade story.

Netflix also made two significant television moves, renewing The Beast in Me and expanding its relationship with Sesame Street into a new feature film.

It’s the Bandwagon Nerds News Report for September 25, 2026!

Saw Finds the Director for Its Next Reboot

The next Saw movie will be directed by Mike P. Nelson, continuing the franchise’s latest attempt to rebuild itself after the series changed creative direction again. Nelson previously directed the 2021 Wrong Turn reboot and the 2025 remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, while his latest film, Beware Boiúna, recently premiered at Fantastic Fest.

That résumé makes considerable sense for Saw because Nelson already has experience taking recognizable horror properties and trying to find a new entry point rather than simply recreating the originals. Saw has reached the stage where another numbered sequel probably matters less than establishing what the franchise is supposed to look like moving forward.

The series has survived reinventions before, including Jigsaw, Spiral and the return of Tobin Bell for Saw X. The challenge now is making another reset feel necessary rather than becoming just another version of the franchise trying to rediscover what made the early movies work.

Tupac Is Really in Stranger Than Heaven — And RGG Says No AI Was Used

SEGA revealed a much larger portion of the cast for RGG Studio’s Stranger Than Heaven, which follows Makoto Daito across five cities and 50 years between 1915 and 1965. The newly detailed characters include Snoop Dogg as merchant Orpheus, Tori Kelly as singer Suzy Day, Ado as wartime Osaka performer Keiko Shirai and the late Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara as crime boss Genzo Iwaki.

Then there is Tupac Shakur. The late rapper appears as a mysterious character named Amaru, with RGG Studio stating that his appearance was created with permission and ongoing supervision from the Tupac estate. The studio specifically says no AI is being used, with the character instead created through archival footage and photographs. Bunta Sugawara’s likeness is being handled through a similar archival process with permission from his family, while actor Takashi Ukaji provides the character’s voice.

This already sounded like RGG Studio attempting something significantly larger than another variation on Like a Dragon, but the scope keeps getting stranger. Following one man’s life over half a century gives the developers room to build several different versions of Japan around him, and the unusual combination of historical figures, musicians and actors suggests they are treating those eras almost like individual worlds.

Using deceased performers will inevitably attract attention, but explicitly stating that the estates are involved and that generative AI is not being used answers two of the biggest questions before they become distractions from the game itself. Stranger Than Heaven launches January 15, 2027.

The Beast in Me Is Coming Back for Season 2

Netflix officially renewed The Beast in Me for a second season, with Claire Danes returning as writer Aggie Wiggs. The first season collected 21 Emmy nominations, while writer Howard Gordon will return as co-showrunner alongside Daniel Pearle as part of a new creative partnership with Netflix.

The renewal is notable because the first season was structured like the kind of prestige limited series Netflix could easily have left alone. Bringing Danes and Gordon back indicates the streamer believes Aggie can become the continuing center of the show rather than simply repeating the Nile Jarvis story.

That is probably the right approach. Turning The Beast in Me into an anthology built around completely different characters would throw away one of its strongest assets, while forcing the original conflict to continue indefinitely would create an entirely different problem. Keeping Aggie and giving her another story offers a much cleaner path.

American Horror Story 13 Finally Reveals Its Crossover

American Horror Story returned Thursday with a three-episode Season 13 premiere built around characters and mythology from several earlier installments. Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd and others returned, with characters connected to Murder House, Coven, Hotel, Freak Show and additional seasons crossing into the new story. Ryan Murphy described the season as something resembling a combination of Murder House, Coven and Hotel.

Without digging heavily into spoilers, Season 13 appears determined to make its enormous returning cast part of the actual story rather than treating them as anniversary cameos. Cordelia Goode and the witches are involved, Constance Langdon is back, and familiar figures including Twisty the Clown and several Evan Peters characters begin resurfacing as the larger mystery develops.

American Horror Story has been around long enough that its own mythology is now one of the franchise’s biggest resources. The risk with a crossover season is producing three hours of recognition instead of three hours of story, but committing this aggressively to interconnected mythology at least gives Season 13 a distinct identity.

After several years of the series moving through completely different settings, this feels closer to AHS assembling its own horror-universe event.

Netflix Is Developing a Sesame Street Movie

Netflix is expanding its relationship with Sesame Street and developing a new feature film based on the long-running children’s franchise. The streamer is also extending its deal for additional Sesame Street seasons while expanding its broader preschool lineup with new projects connected to Gabby’s Dollhouse and several other properties.

Netflix becoming a larger home for Sesame Street would have sounded strange only a few years ago, but the company’s family-content strategy has increasingly depended on recognizable worlds that can support multiple formats. Sesame Street fits that model while bringing considerably more history than almost anything else in Netflix’s children’s catalog.

The movie is the more interesting part of the announcement because Sesame Street has rarely been treated as a theatrical-style feature property despite more than five decades of television. Netflix now has an opportunity to build something substantial without needing to completely reinvent characters whose appeal has already survived several generations.

Ace Combat 8 Opens the Door to Strangereal

Bandai Namco released the opening cinematic for Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, offering another look at the next trip into the franchise’s fictional Strangereal universe ahead of its October 2 launch. The game is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Ace Combat has always occupied an unusual space between military aviation fantasy and full-scale geopolitical melodrama. The planes may be based on recognizable real-world hardware, but the fictional nations and increasingly elaborate conflicts give the series room to do things that a conventional combat simulator cannot.

Showing the opening cinematic this close to release also reinforces that Bandai Namco understands the story is part of the attraction. Ace Combat fans are not simply waiting for another collection of fighter jets and missions; they are waiting to see what ridiculous international crisis Strangereal has created this time.

Johnny Depp Returns to Studio Thrillers in Day Drinker

Lionsgate released the first teaser for Day Drinker, director Marc Webb’s upcoming thriller starring Johnny Depp, Madelyn Cline and Penélope Cruz. Cline plays a bartender working aboard a private yacht who encounters Depp’s mysterious passenger before both become entangled with a criminal figure played by Cruz. The film is scheduled for theaters on March 26, 2027.

The teaser keeps most of the actual plot hidden, which is probably a smarter introduction than explaining every connection between the three characters. Depp’s character is clearly being positioned as the mystery at the center of the movie, while the yacht setting gives Webb an unusually contained environment to build around.

Day Drinker will also receive extra attention because it represents another major-studio project for Depp after several years largely outside Hollywood’s biggest productions. Whether the movie turns into something substantial will matter more than the comeback narrative surrounding it, but the first teaser at least gives Lionsgate a fairly easy hook to sell.

What to Watch This Weekend

Friday brings several releases worth knowing about. Netflix premieres Unabomber, starring Jacob Tremblay, Russell Crowe and Shailene Woodley, while HBO Max adds Kane Parsons’ Backrooms. Apple TV also launches Brothers, the comedy series pairing Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, and Netflix releases the next stages of Steel Ball Run: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

American Horror Story 13 is also now available through Hulu following Thursday night’s three-episode premiere, giving the weekend one unusually large horror option before the show settles into its weekly Thursday schedule.

That makes this a surprisingly strong weekend for television and streaming considering how crowded the theatrical calendar has become. Between AHS returning to its own history, Backrooms expanding an internet-born horror phenomenon and Netflix pushing several very different releases at once, there is considerably more happening than a typical late-September streaming weekend.

Saw is handing itself to another filmmaker experienced with horror reboots, American Horror Story has turned more than a decade of characters into the foundation of Season 13, and Sesame Street is heading into another format after surviving nearly every major change in children’s television.

Stranger Than Heaven might be the most ambitious example of all. RGG Studio is not merely recreating different eras; it is mixing fictional characters, historical imagery and recognizable cultural figures into a story spanning half a century. That could become an incredible mess, but it is certainly not playing things safe.

This report includes information from: TheWrap.com, Sega.com, Xbox.com, Netflix.com, Gematsu.com, Variety.com, APNews.com and DisneyPlus.com.