Bandwagon Nerds News Report (10/10/2026): Avatar Expands, Exorcist Returns & Ace Combat Soars

Avatar adds a Kuruk prequel, Mike Flanagan reveals his Exorcist, Ace Combat 8 becomes the series’ fastest million-seller, and DC Comics gets new leadership.

Avatar: Seven Havens arrived on Paramount+ and immediately brought news that the franchise is expanding again with both additional seasons and an entirely new series about Avatar Kuruk. Mike Flanagan offered the first substantial look at his very different take on The Exorcist, Blumhouse found a director for Something Is Killing the Children, and Ace Combat 8 reached an important sales milestone only a week after launch.

It’s the Bandwagon Nerds News Report for October 10, 2026!

Avatar Is Already Moving Beyond Seven Havens

Avatar: Seven Havens premiered its first three episodes Friday on Paramount+, beginning the first major animated chapter set after The Legend of Korra. The new series follows Pavi, an Earthbender who discovers she is the Avatar in a world where that title has become something to fear rather than celebrate.

Paramount also used New York Comic Con to confirm that Seven Havens has already been renewed for Books 3 and 4. The first two books contain 13 episodes apiece, with the remaining Book 1 episodes arriving in batches through October 30.

That would have been a substantial enough show of confidence on its own, but Avatar Studios went further by announcing Avatar Kuruk: Wave of Chaos. The new animated series follows a teenage Kuruk who rejects thousands of years of Avatar tradition and chooses to learn the four elements through a much more chaotic series of adventures involving pirates, spirits and an increasingly irritated teacher.

Kuruk is an interesting choice because Avatar mythology has historically treated him more like a tragic historical figure than someone audiences were allowed to know in depth. Giving him an entire series creates an opportunity to fill in another major piece of the Avatar cycle without simply continuing to move the timeline forward forever.

More importantly, Avatar Studios is beginning to look like what Nickelodeon originally promised when it was created. Rather than producing one revival and stopping, the franchise is becoming large enough to tell stories in multiple eras while Seven Havens establishes what comes after Korra.

DC Comics Gets a New Corporate Home Under Skydance

Skydance has placed DC Comics inside its newly formed Products & Publishing division, giving Josh Silverman oversight of the comics publisher alongside the combined Warner Bros. and Paramount consumer-products and publishing businesses.

Silverman, who joined Paramount Skydance in 2025 and now serves as Skydance’s president of global products and publishing, will oversee a portfolio that includes DC Comics, Paramount Global Publishing, Warner Bros. and Paramount consumer products, licensed publishing, brand partnerships, retail and e-commerce. Robert Oberschelp, who led global consumer products at Warner Bros. Discovery, is remaining with the company and will report to Silverman.

The scale of the new operation is enormous. Skydance says the combined company is now the second-largest media and entertainment licensor in the world behind Disney, with an estimated $22.5 billion in global retail sales. The division will handle licensing across properties including DC, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes.

For DC, the more important question is how much this restructuring actually affects the comics themselves. The publishing line is now sitting inside a larger organization built around licensing, consumer products and franchise management, which naturally raises questions about how aggressively Skydance intends to turn characters and stories into merchandise, partnerships and other commercial extensions.

That does not automatically mean editorial direction is changing, but the reporting line matters. DC Comics is no longer simply one publishing operation inside Warner Bros. Discovery; it is now part of a much broader corporate group explicitly designed to manage intellectual property across multiple business categories.

Mike Flanagan’s Exorcist Looks Like a Serial-Killer Nightmare

Universal and Blumhouse released the first full trailer for The Exorcist: Martyrs, Mike Flanagan’s new standalone entry in the long-running horror franchise.

Scarlett Johansson stars as New York detective Julie Miller, who previously captured a satanic serial killer known as Father Sunday, played by John Leguizamo. Thirteen years later, a new series of ritualistic crimes pulls her back into the case alongside rookie detective Gina Restrepo, played by Sasha Calle, and former prison chaplain Father William, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

The movie also features Diane Lane, Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Carla Gugino and Kate Siegel, with Flanagan writing and directing ahead of a March 12, 2027 theatrical release.

What stands out immediately is how little Martyrs resembles another attempt to remake the 1973 movie. Flanagan is combining demonic horror with a serial-killer investigation and building his own mythology around evil moving through generations of murderers.

That is probably exactly what The Exorcist needed after the planned trilogy surrounding The Exorcist: Believer collapsed. Trying to reproduce Regan, Father Karras and the original possession story again would leave Flanagan competing with one of the most influential horror movies ever made. Building a new story inside the same spiritual universe gives him far more room.

Something Is Killing the Children Finds Its Director

Craig Zobel will direct Blumhouse’s live-action adaptation of Something Is Killing the Children, the hugely successful horror comic created by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell’Edera.

The comic follows Erica Slaughter, a monster hunter who arrives in communities where children are disappearing and discovers creatures that most adults cannot see. Since launching through BOOM! Studios in 2019, the series has sold more than five million copies and expanded through the House of Slaughter spinoff.

Blumhouse is actually developing the property in two directions simultaneously. Zobel will handle the feature film while Tynion is also shepherding an adult animated television adaptation of the same universe.

Zobel is a strong fit after directing The Hunt and working on series including Mare of Easttown, The Leftovers and The Penguin. Something Is Killing the Children needs somebody who can make the monsters frightening without losing the quieter dread surrounding towns where children are vanishing and adults cannot understand why.

Developing both a film and animated series is more ambitious than simply adapting the first comic arc and hoping for sequels. Blumhouse clearly sees Erica Slaughter and the larger mythology as something capable of becoming a horror franchise rather than a one-off movie.

Ace Combat 8 Hits One Million Faster Than Any Game in the Series

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve has surpassed one million copies sold worldwide only a week after launching on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Bandai Namco says Wings of Theve reached the million-copy mark faster than any previous Ace Combat game. The title also debuted as the highest-selling new physical game in Japan during its opening week, with the PlayStation 5 version moving more than 63,000 retail copies.

That is a meaningful result for a franchise that occupies a very specific part of the gaming landscape. Ace Combat is not a traditional flight simulator, but it also does not fit neatly into the mainstream military-shooter space occupied by Call of Duty or Battlefield.

Its audience shows up for fighter jets, enormous superweapons, melodramatic international conflicts and a fictional world that takes all of those things completely seriously. Wings of Theve reaching one million this quickly suggests Bandai Namco has successfully grown that audience without sanding away what makes Ace Combat strange.

There was a time when a franchise like this could easily have been treated as too specialized for major investment. Becoming the fastest-selling installment after decades of releases makes a pretty compelling argument for keeping Strangereal in the air.

Ghost of Tsushima’s Anime Gets Pushed to 2028

The Ghost of Tsushima: Legends anime will no longer premiere in 2027. Aniplex and Crunchyroll have pushed the PlayStation adaptation into 2028 while also announcing additional cast and production details.

Mayumi Saco and Shinya Fukumatsu have joined the voice cast in undisclosed roles. Saco previously played Tomoe in the original Ghost of Tsushima, creating another direct connection between the game and the animated project.

Takanobu Mizuno is directing at Kamikaze Douga, while Gen Urobuchi is handling story composition and co-writing the scripts with Renji Oki. PlayStation Productions is involved alongside Aniplex, Sony Music and production company HAYATE.

A delay of this length is disappointing, but Ghost of Tsushima: Legends was always an unusual adaptation because it is specifically drawing from the game’s supernatural multiplayer mode rather than simply retelling Jin Sakai’s main story.

That actually gives the anime more freedom. Legends already embraces demons, mythology and exaggerated supernatural imagery that would feel completely different from the grounded samurai drama of the primary campaign, making animation an especially natural home for it.

Tekken’s Reina Invades Fatal Fury

SNK announced that Tekken 8’s Reina is joining Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves as a downloadable fighter in December.

The crossover brings another member of the Mishima orbit into South Town, with Reina entering the King of Fighters tournament after arriving under mysterious circumstances. Kate Clarke and Asami Seto will reprise the character in the English and Japanese voice tracks respectively.

City of the Wolves has become increasingly aggressive about guest characters. The game is already adding Manjiro “Mikey” Sano and Ken “Draken” Ryuguji from Tokyo Revengers on October 22, the same day the Switch 2 version launches.

Fighting games have always lived comfortably with crossovers, but SNK has pushed that idea particularly hard with City of the Wolves. South Town now feels less like a closed Fatal Fury roster and more like a place where almost anybody can plausibly wander into a tournament.

Reina makes more sense than some of the stranger collaborations because Tekken and Fatal Fury already speak the same basic fighting-game language. More importantly, putting a newer Tekken character into another franchise helps establish Reina beyond the shadow of the Mishima family she was created to extend.

Crazy Taxi Takes Its World Tour to Brazil

SEGA revealed Brazil as another major location in Crazy Taxi: World Tour, showing dense city streets, beaches and dramatically different environments in a new trailer.

Producer Kenji Kanno said the development team was drawn to the contrast between Brazil’s dense streets and modern urban spaces alongside its beaches and natural scenery. World Tour is scheduled for 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2 and PC.

The original Crazy Taxi worked because the city itself became part of the game’s personality. Expanding that structure into multiple international environments therefore makes much more sense than simply building a larger version of the same American-inspired map.

Brazil also gives SEGA exactly what a game called World Tour needs: somewhere immediately recognizable that still changes the driving rhythm. Narrow streets, open beachfront roads and heavily varied terrain create possibilities that would not exist if every location were another variation on the original game.

The key will be preserving the arcade mentality underneath the larger scope. Crazy Taxi should feel like somebody handed you a cab, turned the music up and told you every traffic law had been temporarily suspended, regardless of which country happens to be outside the windshield.

Friday’s biggest stories were all franchises realizing that expansion works best when the next project has a reason to exist.

Avatar is not simply producing another sequel; it is opening different points in its own history. Mike Flanagan is not recreating The Exorcist; he is using its mythology to build a new kind of horror story. Something Is Killing the Children is getting both film and animation because its world extends well beyond one storyline.

Even Ace Combat’s milestone fits that pattern from another direction. Sometimes expanding a franchise does not mean changing everything about it. Sometimes it means understanding the very specific thing people already love and discovering that considerably more people want it than anyone expected.

This report includes information from: Variety.com, Reuters.com, ParamountPlus.com, TheWrap.com, People.com, Gematsu.com and SEGA-related reporting.