WIRE Buzz: Army of the Dead anime unearths voice cast; The Mandalorian hitches a ride on S2 poster; more

Netflix's anime spinoff for Army of the Dead is starting to resurrect its undead voice cast.

According to Variety, Christian Slater (Mr. Robot) and Joe Manganiello (Archenemy) are among 11 actors who have boarded the project, which will serve as a companion piece to the zombie-centric heist film directed and co-written by Zack Snyder. Harry Lennix (The Blacklist), Anya Chalotra (The Witcher), Ross Butler (13 Reasons Why), Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical), Jena Malone (Antebellum), Yetide Badaki (American Gods), Christina Wren (Man of Steel), Monica Barbaro (The Good Cop), and Nolan North (Star Trek: Lower Decks) have also been cast.

Titled Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas, the anime will center around Scott Ward (played in live action by Dave Bautista), leader of a rescue team during a mysterious zombie outbreak in Sin City. Snyder plans to helm the first two episodes of the series. Showrunner Jay Oliva is also directing installments. Meduzarts Animation (Injustice 2, Just Cause 4) has been tapped to handle the (what else?) animation. In the anime, Bautista is set to voice his character from the movie, as are Ana De La Reguera, Tig Notaro, Omari Hardwick, and Ella Purnell.

Written alongside Shay Hatten, Army of the Dead is expected to premiere on Netflix sometime in 2021. Matthias Schweighöfer is directing an untitled prequel, which centers around his character, Ludwig Dieter. 

This is the way ... that the Mandalorian shows that he has absolutely horrible parenting skills. (Seriously, for someone dedicated to keeping his charge safe, he appears to be doing a terrible job.)

Courtesy of the official Star Wars Twitter feed, we’ve been given a new poster for the upcoming sophomore season of the Emmy Award-winning series The Mandalorian. As you can see below, the eponymous bounty hunter is on a speeder bike with the show’s other (real) star, The Child, aka Baby Yoda (both names are acceptable, we’ve decided), in the way back — which is totally unsafe, given the speeds that those things can get up to. (Hello! They’re called speeders!) You know this is no place for a child!

Maybe we’re just being overprotective. We just can’t help but worry about the little guy. After all, a whole lot of bad people want him killed. 

Credit: Lucasfilm

Photo: Lucasfilm

But what do you think? He's fine back there, right? He's fine. 

Last time we saw the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and his young 50-something charge, they had just escaped the clutches of Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) and were headed on a quest to reunite Baby Yoda with his people. But while the lone wolf and his cub embarked on this journey, their enemy emerged from his wrecked TIE fighter, wielding his Darksaber. Season 2 will show us the further adventures of this “Clan of 2” as Mando tries to escape Moff Gideon while being expected to hand Baby Yoda over to a race of enemy sorcerers, otherwise known as the Jedi.

In addition to Pascal, Esposito, and B.Y. the O.G., the show also stars Carl Weathers, Gina Carano, and Bill Burr as well as newcomers Rosario Dawson and Michael Biehn. The new season of The Mandalorian begins streaming Oct. 30 (hey, that’s this month!) on Disney+.

And finally, IFC Midnight has released a trailer for the upcoming film Kindred, that proves that sometimes home is not where the heart is — especially when it comes to your in-laws.

The film tells the story of Charlotte and Ben, a young couple who are expecting their first child, when they go to visit Ben's mother Margaret in her mansion in the country. However, when they tell her of their plans to move to Australia, Margaret doesn't take it so well. As you can see from the trailer, tragedy soon strikes as Ben dies, leaving Charlotte and their unborn child alone in the care of Margaret and Thomas, Ben's stepbrother. Things then go from bad to worse as Charlotte begins to feel sick, suffering from strange hallucinations as Margaret and Thomas' behavior grows increasingly disturbing, on top of her already unsettling (and possibly supernatural) encounters with different birds.  

Joe Marcantonio directs the film, which he also wrote with Jason McColgan. The cast includes Tamara Lawrance (Assasin's Creed: Gold), Edward Holcroft (Kingsman), Jack Lowden (Dunkirk), and Fiona Shaw (Killing Eve). 

Despite sharing the title of a popular and well-known Octavia Butler novel, the upcoming IFC Midnight release is unrelated. 

Kindred will receive a limited theatrical release, along with a home release, on Nov. 6.