Bandwagon Nerds News Report (9/27/2026): Jon Watts Takes Star Wars, Minecraft Opens the Sift & Godzilla Goes R

Jon Watts lands Star Wars, Minecraft gets its first new dimension in 14 years and Godzilla Minus Zero makes franchise history with an R rating.

Saturday delivered one of the stronger nerd-news days of the week, particularly for franchises that have been around long enough to carry enormous expectations.

Lucasfilm has settled on a familiar filmmaker for its next Star Wars movie, Mojang revealed the first new Minecraft dimension in more than a decade, and The Last of Us added three notable names for Season 3. Godzilla Minus Zero also made its world premiere while officially taking the Japanese franchise somewhere its American ratings history has never gone before.

It’s the Bandwagon Nerds News Report for September 27, 2026!

Jon Watts Will Direct the Next Star Wars Movie

Jon Watts is set to direct Lucasfilm’s next Star Wars movie, with Simon Kinberg writing the project as part of the new trilogy he has been developing for the studio. Watts already has experience inside the galaxy after creating and directing episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, while his feature résumé includes the Tom Holland Spider-Man trilogy.

The project is reportedly intended to continue beyond The Rise of Skywalker rather than functioning as another standalone side story, although development remains early enough that Lucasfilm’s plans can still evolve. Star Wars has accumulated enough announced-and-abandoned movies over the last several years that production beginning will ultimately matter more than another development announcement.

Watts is at least a logical choice for what Disney appears to want. He has already handled massive franchise filmmaking, understands the Lucasfilm system and delivered a Star Wars series built largely around new characters rather than surviving on legacy cameos.

Minecraft Is Finally Getting a New Dimension

Mojang used Minecraft Live to reveal the Sift, the first new dimension added to Minecraft in more than 14 years. The dimension will debut first in Minecraft Dungeons II when the game launches September 29 before eventually coming to the main Minecraft game in 2027.

The Sift will introduce its own environments, mobs, hazardous blocks and shifting conditions that affect how characters interact with the world. Mojang showed biomes including Meadows and Carapace but is deliberately keeping parts of the dimension hidden until players encounter them.

That is a much larger Minecraft Live announcement than another collection of blocks or creatures. Minecraft’s dimensions define entire categories of exploration, so adding one after more than a decade changes the game at a structural level rather than simply extending what is already there.

Launching it through Dungeons II first is also smart. Mojang gets to introduce the visual identity and basic ideas behind the Sift without immediately revealing exactly how the full sandbox version will work.

The Last of Us Season 3 Adds John Goodman and Two Familiar Game Performers

John Goodman, Laura Bailey and Ian Alexander have joined The Last of Us for Season 3. Goodman will play Joey alongside Alexander’s Paco, with the pair described as the “Heroes of the Highway,” while Bailey will portray Elizabeth, one of the leaders of the Seraphites.

Bailey and Alexander have particularly interesting histories with the franchise. Bailey originally performed Abby in The Last of Us Part II while Alexander played Lev, although Kaitlyn Dever and Kyriana Kratter portray those characters in HBO’s adaptation.

HBO has repeatedly found ways to bring original game performers into completely different live-action roles rather than using them purely for recognition. Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, Jeffrey Pierce and others established that pattern earlier in the series, and Bailey and Alexander now get a similar opportunity.

Goodman is the bigger wildcard because Joey appears to be an original television character. The show has generally been strongest when its additions expand the world without disrupting the central story, and Goodman gives HBO somebody capable of making a new character feel immediately substantial.

Godzilla Minus Zero Makes Franchise History With an R Rating

Godzilla Minus Zero made its world premiere Saturday at the New York Film Festival, continuing Takashi Yamazaki’s story two years after the events of Godzilla Minus One. The sequel reunites Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe while returning to postwar Japan as another Godzilla crisis emerges during the country’s recovery.

The movie has also received an R rating for violent content and bloody images, making it the first Godzilla film to receive that classification from the MPA. Yamazaki has defended pushing the violence further, explaining around the premiere that sanitizing the destruction would have undermined the story he wanted to tell.

Godzilla Minus One worked because the monster was terrifying again, but the people underneath him mattered just as much. Minus Zero appears committed to pushing both elements harder rather than responding to the first movie’s success by simply making the sequel larger.

The R rating is especially interesting because Godzilla has spent decades existing simultaneously as nuclear horror, giant-monster spectacle and family entertainment. Yamazaki clearly has no interest in forcing this particular version of the character into all three categories at once.

The Simpsons Begins Season 38 Sunday Night

The Simpsons returns Sunday night on Fox for its 38th season with “The Children’s Book Job.” Emma Thompson guest stars as reclusive British children’s author Constance Clavinger, whom Homer is supposed to retrieve for a Springfield Elementary book fair organized by Marge.

The premiere also features Colin Jost, while showrunner Matt Selman has described the episode as having the structure of a high-concept movie rather than a smaller conventional sitcom story. Season 38 continues a run that has made The Simpsons the longest-running scripted primetime series in American television history.

There is something almost absurd about writing “Season 38 premiere” and realizing The Simpsons is still producing new episodes rather than simply existing as an enormous catalog. The series passed the point where longevity itself was surprising years ago.

The more useful question now is whether individual episodes can still find premises that justify another season. Starting with Emma Thompson as an eccentric children’s author and sending Homer into what amounts to a road-movie plot at least gives Season 38 something more specific than another routine Springfield story.

Kieran Culkin Is Playing the Devil on Family Guy

Family Guy released the trailer for its latest Hulu Halloween special, with Kieran Culkin providing the voice of the Devil. Family Guy: Happy Halloween will premiere October 5 as the series continues producing seasonal specials specifically for Hulu alongside its regular television run.

The streaming specials have given Family Guy another format without forcing Fox to restructure the regular season around holiday timing. After Halloween and Christmas installments in 2024 and 2025, the strategy has effectively become its own parallel branch of the series.

Culkin playing the Devil also feels like casting built around personality rather than simply attaching another celebrity name. Family Guy has always depended on guest voices being willing to lean into ridiculous material, and Culkin’s increasingly dry comic persona fits that better than a straightforward celebrity cameo would.

Saturday ultimately belonged to franchises deciding how much they are willing to change while remaining recognizable.

Minecraft is adding an entirely new dimension after 14 years, Star Wars is moving forward again with a filmmaker who has already worked inside the franchise, and The Last of Us continues expanding beyond the exact boundaries of its source material. Even The Simpsons is trying to begin Season 38 with an episode structured more like a miniature movie.

Godzilla Minus Zero may be the clearest example. Godzilla has survived because the character can be many different things, but Yamazaki appears determined to keep his version grounded in fear, consequence and human damage rather than sanding those edges down after Minus One became successful.

This report includes information from: Variety.com, StarWars.com, Xbox.com, TheWrap.com, FilmAtLincolnCenter.org, GKIDS.com, RottenTomatoes.com, FoxFlash.com, TVInsider.com and Deadline.com.