Your Entertainment Outlook 11/25/15

Disney is adapting T. A. Barron’s Lost Years of Merlin series for the big screen and now they’ve announced that Phillippa Boyens will write the script.

Marvel comic fans can look forward to a new series featuring Mockingbird. Chelsea Cain will write and Kate Niemczyk will illustrate the title, which will be released next year.

Brazilian scientists named a newly-discoveredarachanid Iandumoema smeagol  after Tolkien’s character Smeagol.  The harvestman lacks eyes and lives in caves, making for what was thought to be an apt comparison.  Stephen Colbert has since pointed out that perhaps the creature should really have been named after Gollum.

NBC continues its new tradition of airing live musicals on television with a production of The Wiz LIVE! showing on December 3.  Previous musicals were The Sound of Music (featuring Carrie Underwood as Maria) and Peter Pan.

Austen fans can now enjoy a poster for the upcoming film of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  The movie, based on the 2009 book of the same name, will be released in February 2016.
Jessica Day George fans can look forward to the next  Castle Glower book, Fridays with the Wizards, in February 2016, and the final installment of the series in 2017.  George also mentioned on her blog that she’s working on a new YA series about the children of fairy tale characters like Snow White and Cinderella.  When their parents are kidnapped, the children must go on a quest to rescue them.