Trailers of the week: Kiwi star for Pixar, a terrifying monkey, Daredevil and more

We get bombarded with teasers, trailers and promotional clips relentlessly – each weekend Steve Newall sorts through the best of the week for you to check out and get excited about.

Pixar’s new series takes anxieties out of the heads of its characters and into their (animated) real world. Not literally, but as a tool to let us see what’s troubling the varied crew in the lead-up to an early teens’ championship softball game.

That familiar voice at the start of the trailer? Aotearoa’s Josh Thomson, voicing one of the main characters alongside the likes of Will Forte, Jo Firestone and Rhea Seehorn.

OK, you can tell this from the image directly above, but this ain’t child’s play—even though it’s kind of about a toy, a demonically grinning monkey that causes what looks like outrageously gory shit.

Longlegs director Oz Perkins gets more gruesome here, adapting a Stephen King short story (itself riffing on the creepy classic The Monkey’s Paw). It all looks like a great fit, judging by the trailer—which also teases some Rube Goldberg/Final Destination fatal hijinks.

There are all sorts of weird and mysterious things going on in this new conspiratorial thriller, and you’ll never guess what—by the look of things, this goes all the way to the top! Literally, with James Marsden playing a US President and Sterling K. Brown the lead of his Secret Service detail.

Maybe a bit too much given away in the trailer above, but also teasing a lot more going on than the original logline which made this sound a lot more like a standard political thriller.

There are plenty of scammers to be found on Netflix, but Belle Gibson is a different piece of work entirely. Played by Kaitlyn Dever (Justified)—who sports a serviceable Australian accent—Gibson was a wellness guru/grifter who took that crock of shit to a new level.

Amassing a sizeable number of followers, she cons the world into believing she’s suffering from multiple cancers. Filmed in and around Melbourne, this true story looks like it’s got some bite.

Charlie Cox is back as Matt Murdock aka Daredevil (and it looks like Jon Bernthal has some more punishing to do, too), seven years after the Daredevil series was axed by Netflix. Vincent D’Onofrio returns as Kingpin, running for mayor while Murdock gets back together with his old crew of Karen and Foggy (Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson).

Daredevil is now part of the MCU, but more interestingly, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Sychronic, Loki) are lead directors here.

The iconic Liza Minnelli finally gets to tell her own story here, sharing her experiences a life lived in the spotlight. Privileged, yes, but as the daughter of Judy Garland and the subject of a million column inches and much tabloid speculation, Liza’s life came with its own challenges.

Focusing on a period of her life when the knocks came hard and fast, starting with the death of her mother, this doco looks to celebrate the talents and contradictions of this one-of-a-kind young entertainer.

Steven Soderbergh gets spooky here, with what you could call the first outright supernatural pic of his career. Shot entirely from the first person perspective of an entity inhabiting a suburban home, we watch from its point of view—whether we are literally a ghost remains to be seen.

Lucy Liu leads a cast that also includes Julia Fox, Chris Sullivan and Callina Liang.

What’s better than one De Niro? Double De Niros, at least that’s what this film is counting on as it casts Robert De Niro opposite himself. It’s the true story of 1950s mob bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, who cross each others paths violently, threatening to bring down the Mafia.

They’re not twins, and De Niro’s makeup and mannerisms look to differentiate his two characters from one another, so it’ll be interesting to see what director Barry Levinson’s going for here…

What would you do if you won the lottery? After learning the premise of this film, I think I’ve been inspired by Charles (Tim Key), who lives alone on a remote island, splashing his cash around to stage a concert by his favourite musician (for an audience of one—himself).

That’s what Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) discovers when he accepts the offer without knowing all the details—or that ex-girlfriend and former bandmate Nell (Carey Mulligan) is going to show up, too.