WIRE Buzz: Hulu sets Animaniacs & Monsterland debuts; Rocksteady teases Suicide Squad game & more

Hulu is about to get zany to the max! The long-awaited (and highly anticipated) Animaniacs revival will be unleashed on the world this November, with Yakko, Wakko, and Dot (the Warner Brothers and their Warner Sister) bursting back onto television, er, a streaming service with new episodes for the first time in 22 years.

The animated series will follow the trio's adventures once again as they return to their old familiar stomping grounds, the Warner Bros. Water Tower and the general studio, bringing along their signature brand of chaos and fun. And not only will the trio be voiced by the original cast (phew!), but they'll be accompanied by a few other familiar fan-favorite faces in Pinky and the Brain — the latter no doubt continuing his quest for world domination once more.

This first 13-episode season will be followed by another one in 2021. 

Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds) returns as executive producer on the show, along with Warner Bros. Animation and Blue Ribbon Content President Sam Register, Amblin Television co-presidents Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, and Wellesley Wild. Gabe Swarr also serves as co-executive producer.

But it's not just havoc and mayhem over at Hulu this fall. Also premiering on the streaming platform is new original series Monsterland.

Based on Nathan Ballingrud's short-story collection North American Lake Monsters, the anthology series will feature episodes about mermaids, fallen angels, and all other manner of strange beasts as they drive people to commit desperate acts when pushed to the brink.

The eight-episode show's cast includes Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), Jonathan Tucker (Charlie's Angels), Charlie Tahan (Wayward Pines), Nicole Beharie (Black Mirror), Hamish Linklater (Midnight Mass), Marquis Rodriguez (Luke Cage), Bill Camp (The Outsider), Michael Hsu Rosen, Taylor Schilling (Orange Is the New Black), Roberta Colindrez (Vida), Adria Arjona (Good Omens), Trieu Tran (Altered Carbon), Kelly Marie Tran (The Rise of Skywalker), Mike Colter (Evil), and Adepero Oduye (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier).

Monsterland is created, written, and executive-produced by Mary Laws (Preacher) and executive-produced by Babak Anvari, Lucan Toh, Megan Ellison, and Sue Naegle. Ali Krug will also serve as co-executive producer.

Monsterland will premiere on Hulu on Oct. 2, with Animaniacs descending on the streamer on Nov. 20. 

DC FanDome won't just involve reveals for films and TV shows. Rocksteady Games, the studio behind the best-selling Batman: Arkham series, revealed on Twitter today that it's been working on a Suicide Squad game that will be a part of the virtual convention later this month.

While the title is named after the team of black-ops baddies, the teaser tweet shows off a picture of what looks to be Superman, leading some fans (like @johnnyjl96) to posit that the game will pit members of the Suicide Squad against members of the Justice League. In June, Eurogamer editor Tom Phillips wrote that Rocksteady was supposedly considering "SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague.com" as the website domain name for the project. Other possible names (per the rumor) included: "SuicideSquadGame.com" and "GothamKnightsGame.com."

The Twitter caption of "Target locked" (and the visual of a literal target resting on the back of Superman's head) does seem to indicate that the Squad is setting its deadly sights on the Man of Tomorrow and his super allies.

DC FanDome kicks off Saturday, Aug. 22. The 24-hour event will also feature our first look at James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, which unveiled its official logo artwork earlier this week.

Remedy Entertainment is bringing back a familiar face (and voice) and giving longtime fans what they've been hoping for.

The game studio is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its game Control by releasing a new expansion to the game — its second and final one — only this one will allow fans to cross over with another Remedy fan favorite: the 2010 cult hit Alan Wake.

A trailer for the upcoming DLC, titled Control: AWE, was released during the PlayStation State of Play stream on Thursday, teasing the return of the popular character. Wake's voice can be heard at the beginning of a trailer warning people to "stay in the light" and later glimpsed toward the end. (Sam Lake, the writer behind both Wake and Control, also tweeted a photo of that moment from the trailer, with the caption "Oh, hello old friend. So nice to see you after such a long time.")

"[AWE] is short for Altered World Event, which occurs when paranatural forces breach our world," explains Remedy Games Communications Director Thomas Puha in a PlayStation blog post. "Sometimes, AWEs are minor and go unnoticed. However, sometimes AWEs cause catastrophic events."

In AWE, players will once again play as Jesse Faden, a new officer working in the supernatural jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Control, who must continue to explore a building known as the Oldest House, the Bureau's headquarters in New York. Her explorations will take her to the Investigations Sector, which is where the Bureau's search for AWE cases was once co-ordinated from, before an incident caused it to be sealed off years ago. 

The crossover involves one of these such AWE cases, with Faden possibly investigating what happened in Bright Falls (the town from Alan Wake) while uncovering clues toward the mystery writer's disappearance. 

This isn't the first time Remedy has snuck a reference or two to one of their other games. Though, according to Puha, it may be leading up to something.

"Over the years, we have included Easter eggs in our games that related some of Remedy’s games to each other, as you have seen if you played Control … but what if they were not all just Easter eggs?" continues Puha in the same post. "What if there’s actually been a plan in place for over a decade on how some of our games are connected – a Remedy Connected Universe, if you will – and payoff for certain things is … down the line?"

There are currently no plans for a sequel to Alan Wake, though the game may eventually be adapted into a TV show. 

The AWE expansion will be available for download on Aug. 27 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.