Morning News · Saturday 17 October 2026
Star Trek’s 60th-anniversary documentary is about to reach UK cinemas, and the residents of Button House are leaving the telly behind for the big screen. This morning’s edition also covers a new Deon Taylor horror that starts shooting this week, Hulu’s latest series order and a starry voice cast for Benny Safdie’s Lizard Music.
The News That Matters
Star Trek’s The Sixty-Year Mission reaches UK cinemas on Wednesday
- New development: The US cinema run has been extended by popular demand, and the UK release follows on Wednesday 21 October
- Film: The Sixty-Year Mission: How Star Trek Changed Television and the World, a 134-minute documentary
- Writer and director: Mark A. Altman, with William Shatner among the executive producers
- UK release: Selected cinemas from Wednesday 21 October 2026; Cineworld lists 19:30 screenings at sites across the UK
- US release: In cinemas since 9 October 2026
Mark A. Altman’s documentary opened in US cinemas on 9 October, and its limited run there has now been extended by popular demand, according to TrekMovie. UK fans get their turn on Wednesday 21 October, when it plays selected cinemas. Cineworld is listing 19:30 screenings at dozens of sites, from Aberdeen and Belfast to Cardiff, Brighton and Plymouth.
Rather than racing through six decades, the film concentrates mostly on The Original Series. It traces how Gene Roddenberry’s life and the upheaval of the 1960s led to Star Trek’s arrival in September 1966, and why the show endured after its cancellation in 1969. The official site promises more than 50 contributors, including William Shatner, Jonathan Frakes, Simon Pegg, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Walter Koenig, Robert Picardo, Ethan Peck and Christina Chong. Shatner, who appears throughout, is also an executive producer.
Altman co-wrote the oral history The Fifty-Year Mission, so he knows this ground well. TrekMovie’s review calls the film “the most comprehensive documentary ever made focusing on Star Trek: The Original Series”, while warning that it runs long at over two hours. It caps a busy anniversary month for the franchise, which we tracked in our Star Trek News Round-up.
Ghosts: The Possession of Button House haunts UK cinemas from Friday
- New development: World premiere at Curzon Mayfair, London, on Wednesday 14 October
- Film: Feature-length film based on the BBC sitcom Ghosts
- Director: Simon Hynd
- Writers: Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond
- UK and Ireland: In cinemas from Friday 23 October 2026, released by Lionsgate
- US release: Not yet confirmed
The big-screen Ghosts had its world premiere at Curzon Mayfair on Wednesday evening, ahead of its release in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday 23 October. The whole household is back: Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Mathew Baynton, Lolly Adefope, Ben Willbond, Jim Howick, Martha Howe-Douglas, Simon Farnaby and Laurence Rickard. The six writer-performers behind the series wrote the film, and Simon Hynd directs.
Lionsgate’s synopsis finds the ghosts adjusting to life without Alison and Mike. When protesters disrupt construction of the planned hotel, they need a way to reach their living friends. An amateur séance goes wrong, and Julian seizes the chance to leave the grounds in the body of teenage ghost hunter Jack. What was meant to be a temporary switch soon threatens permanent consequences.
Arriving just over a week before Halloween, it is one of the most British releases of the autumn. The challenge for any sitcom film is to feel like more than a long episode, and a story that finally takes one of the ghosts beyond the house suggests the team know it.
Deon Taylor’s horror Don’t Open the Door adds Ron Livingston, Beverly D’Angelo and Omar Benson Miller
- New development: Cast additions announced on Friday 16 October; filming begins this week in Mississippi
- Film: Horror from writer-director Deon Taylor, starring Tyrese Gibson
- Producers: Hidden Empire Film Group, with Shannon McIntosh and NFL star Cam Heyward
- UK release: UK date not yet confirmed
Ron Livingston (The Conjuring), Beverly D’Angelo and Omar Benson Miller (Sinners) will star with Tyrese Gibson in Don’t Open the Door, the new horror film from Deon Taylor, director of The Intruder, Black & Blue and Fatale. Principal photography starts this week in Mississippi, with Maxime Alexandre, cinematographer on The Nun, behind the camera.
Plot details are being kept under wraps, beyond word that the story will deal with “real-world trauma”. Taylor told Deadline the film “is going to scare audiences like they’ve never been scared before”. The producers, Taylor and Roxanne Avent Taylor’s Hidden Empire Film Group, are joined by Shannon McIntosh, the Oscar-nominated producer of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and NFL star Cam Heyward. They also plan a graphic novel-inspired universe to take the story beyond the screen.
Hulu orders Durango, with Cooper Hoffman and Kathryn Newton on the run
- New development: Series order announced on Thursday 15 October, seven months after the pilot order
- Series: Crime drama from Y: The Last Man showrunner Eliza Clark
- New cast: Merritt Wever, Mason Gooding and Abbey Lee
- UK release: UK date not yet confirmed; no UK platform has been announced
Hulu has taken Durango to series. Cooper Hoffman plays Mikey, a ski-bum townie chasing a buzz, and Kathryn Newton plays Bunny, a homeschooled runaway working as a greasy-spoon waitress. Together, in the show’s logline, they are riding an avalanche of bad decisions and falling in love while running from the police, criminals and Mikey’s wife.
Merritt Wever joins as Joni, a local detective deeply unimpressed by almost everything, until the case of her career lands in her resort town. Mason Gooding plays Miles, her sharp-tongued younger colleague, and Abbey Lee plays Irina, Mikey’s Russian wife. Eliza Clark writes and executive produces, The Bear creator Chris Storer has joined as an executive producer, and Jesse Peretz directed the pilot for 20th Television and Media Res.
The order comes just days after Hulu picked up Ryan Coogler’s The X-Files to series. Hulu originals often stream on Disney+ in the UK, as The X-Files will, but there is no UK announcement for Durango yet.
Colman Domingo, Jeff Goldblum and Rachel McAdams join Benny Safdie’s Lizard Music
- New development: Voice cast additions announced on Thursday 15 October
- Film: Live-action and CGI hybrid from Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists
- Writer and director: Benny Safdie, adapting Daniel Pinkwater’s novel
- UK release: UK date not yet confirmed
Colman Domingo, Jeff Goldblum, Rachel McAdams and David Krumholtz have joined Benny Safdie’s Lizard Music in voice roles. They join a cast that already includes Dwayne Johnson, who also produces, along with Theo Leber, Alicia Silverstone, Tim Heidecker, Arya Parvathi, Regina Hall and Andrew Dice Clay.
Safdie’s script, based on Daniel Pinkwater’s novel, follows a boy (Leber) who stumbles on a secret late-night broadcast of lizards playing otherworldly music. His search for answers leads him to an eccentric old man known as The Chicken Man (Johnson) and his companion, an 85-year-old chicken named Claudia. Their hunt for a hidden society becomes a journey through invisible worlds. Plenty of directors have tried to make whimsy feel strange again; few have Safdie’s instinct for oddballs.
Movieversalfilm Takeaway
UK audiences get the best of this morning’s news. A Star Trek history lesson for the big screen and a Ghosts film with its original household both open within days of each other. The rest is early but promising: a horror shoot under way, a crime caper with a strong cast and a Safdie fantasy that keeps getting more curious.
Will you be at the cinema for The Sixty-Year Mission, the Ghosts film, or both?