WIRE Buzz: Tessa Thompson leads new sci-fi podcast; Rutger Hauer in The Sonata trailer; more

Scripted podcasts have landed another superstar as Marvel’s own Valkyrie has leapt into the world of audio storytelling. Avengers: Endgame star Tessa Thompson will produce and voice the lead role in the supernatural podcast The Left Right Game, ahead of her continued role in Thor: Love and Thunder.

According to Deadline, Thompson will be joined by W. Earl Brown, Aml Ameen, Dayo Okeniyi, Inanna Sarkis, Colleen Camp, Robin Bartlett, John Billingsley, Jojo T. Gibbs, Brian Greenberg, and Pat Healy as the cast helping Jack Anderson adapt his own blog post of the same name.

With 10 episodes each spanning at least 40 minutes, the show will comprise a TV season’s amount of content as Thompson’s Alice attempts to navigate the world of paranormal exploration and the “seemingly harmless pastime known as the Left/Right Game.”

The podcast comes from QCode, which has released a few recent fictional podcasts with stars like Rami Malek and Chloë Grace Moretz, but this one will be longer than either of those shows. With plenty of otherworldly sci-fi to explore, The Left Right Game will take Thompson and her expansive cast on quite a ride when it premieres in February of 2020.

Next, the late genre legend Rutger Hauer has a new horror film on the way, and its first trailer just dropped. Directed by Andrew Desmond, The Sonata tracks a violinist (Freya Tingley) whose long-lost composer father (Hauer) has just died. He left behind a mansion, a score, and a dark mystery. Now she’s got to explore the latter two while inside the former. Spooky!

Take a look:

The musical conspiracy is full of ghosts and seemingly Satanic rituals — and yes, if the titular sonata is played correctly, it could summon the Antichrist. The campy premise is matched by its trailer, sure to please midnight movie enthusiasts upon its release.

The Sonata hits theaters and on-demand Jan. 10.

Finally, a pair of horror films have found distribution. Horror-centric streaming service Shudder has snapped up the rights to Scare Me and La Llorona (not to be confused with The Curse of La Llorona, which released earlier this year) in North America, the U.K., and Ireland.

According to Deadline, these deals came ahead of the films making their premieres at Sundance Film Festival in January. La Llorona has appeared at a few international film festivals (Venice and Toronto), showing off Jayro Bustamante’s take on the classic scary legend.

Meanwhile, writer/director Josh Ruben’s Scare Me will make its world debut at Sundance. The horror comedy, which Ruben also stars in alongside Aya Cash and Chris Redd, is about a pair telling scary stories (that come to life) in a cabin.

“We are thrilled that the Sundance Film Festival has recognized the exceptional talents of Jayro Bustamante and Josh Ruben and their new films, each of which pushes the boundaries of genre cinema in exciting and surprising ways,” said Shudder GM Craig Engler. “We can’t wait to share La Llorona and Scare Me soon with Shudder members around the world.”

Neither film has a date to hit the streamer yet.