Netflix's TUDUM Takeaways

On Saturday night Netflix hosted their annual announcement even TUDUM. This was the first year that the event was streaming live on the platform for viewers around the world. Fun Fact: TUDUM represents the sound featured when the Netflix app is launched!

So many great things were announced at the event but here’s my top five takeaways:

Upcoming Movies: The Rip, Happy Gilmore 2, & Frankenstein

Lots of movies were announced with trailers premiering at TUDUM. Fans were treated to first looks at Happy Gilmore 2, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s The Rip, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. The trailers for all three of these films look so good (even though I’m a scaredy cat and probably won’t watch Frankenstein).

Happy Gilmore 2 is a sequel nearly 30 years in the making. Frankenstein is del Toro’s take on the Mary Shelley classic. And The Rip follows a team of Miami cops who just discovered millions of dollars in a stash house.

Happy Gilmore 2 releases on July 25.

Frankenstein releases this November.

The Rip releases January 16, 2026.

New Shows to Watch: Squid Game and One Piece

I am always looking for new things to watch on Netflix and these two shows have my attention.

I know what you’re thinking… “why are you just now considering Squid Game, it’s been out for a while?” I don’t really have an answer for that. I have always been interested in Squid Game but there were other things on my watchlist that usually took priority. Now that the third and final season is about the drop, it seems like a good time to start watching.

It was also announced that One Piece would be getting a season 2 and the trailer dropped for the season. To be honest, I hadn’t heard anything about this show before watching TUDUM, but I am invested now! The show is billed as an action/adventure show and that’s one of my favorite genres. Netflix has yet to announce a release date for season 2 but you can bet I will be watching season 1 sometime this summer.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

This movie deserved its own bullet point!

Knives Out 3 is on the way with another star-studded cast. Daniel Craig is back as Benoit Blanc, and he will be joined by Kerry Washington, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, and Glenn Close just to name a few. Not much is known about the plot, but it can be assumed that it will be a wild ride just like the two previous films.

Wake Up Dead Man releases on Netflix on December 12.

Wednesday Season 2

The cast of Wednesday made an appearance on the TUDUM stage to share the first six minutes of season 2. This clip featured a scene of Wednesday going through TSA at the airport which fans had already seen a few months ago when the teasers for season 2 were released. The clip also hinted at the overall plot of the whole season. Wednesday seems to be chasing a serial killer.

Lady Gaga performed on the TUDUM stage in a Wednesday themed performance and it was shared that she will guest star in season 2.

Season 2 will feature eight episodes dropping in two parts. Part 1 drops on August 6 and Part 2 drops on September 3.

STRANGER THINGS 5

This was the main reason I wanted to watch the event. Stranger Things is one of my all-time favorite shows and I’m so happy (and sad) that’s its finally back. I say that I’m sad because season 5 will be the last season of the show. I’m not ready for this 10-year journey to be over. I was a freshman in high school when the first season premiered, and I just graduated with my master’s degree. A lot has happened both on the show and in the real world since we first met these characters.

Season 4 of Stranger Things came out in 2022, so it’s been a minute since we’ve visited Hawkins, Indiana. The writer’s strike in 2023 is part of the reason it has taken so long to get this final season of the show. Production of season 5 had barely begun when the strike happened and it was months before the crew was able to resume production. Season 5 is expected to feature a time jump to account for the fact that many of the actors have aged significantly since filming of the last season.

The final eight episodes will drop on three different dates this holiday season. Volume 1 drops November 26. Volume 2 drops Christmas Day. The Finale drops New Years’ Eve. Each set of episodes will drop worldwide at the same time (8pm EST).

Netflix has quite the line up for the rest of the of the year and I will be one of the many watching many of these projects as they are released.