Following is a summary of current entertainment news briefs.

South Korea’s ‘Squid Game’ is Netflix’s biggest original show debut

Hit South Korean show “Squid Game” has officially become Netflix’s biggest original series launch, the streaming service said on Wednesday. The nine-part thriller, in which cash-strapped contestants play childhood games with deadly consequences in a bid to win 45.6 billion won ($38 million), has become a worldwide sensation for Netflix since its launch less than a month ago.

Bob Marley’s life story told in new musical in London’s West End

The songs and the life story of late Jamaican reggae star Bob Marley are coming to London’s West End in a new musical celebrating his legacy. “Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical,” which premieres at the Lyric Theatre this month, follows Marley’s rise from the Kingston ghettos to international stardom.

Half-shredded Banksy fetches $25.4 million on return to Sotheby’s

A Banksy picture which was half sliced by a shredder concealed in its frame when it was sold at auction fetched 18.6 million pounds ($25.4 million) when it went back under the hammer in the same room in London on Thursday. Onlookers gasped when the then-titled “Girl with Balloon” was sucked into a shredder as the hammer fell following a bid of 1,042,000 pounds at an October 2018 auction at Sotheby’s in London.

Branagh’s ‘Belfast’ gets UK premiere as Oscar buzz grows

Actor and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh takes audiences to the city of his birth and his childhood with the semi-autobiographical comedy drama “Belfast” which had its European premiere at the London Film Festival on Tuesday. The mainly black-and-white film centres around nine-year-old Buddy and his family, who live in a working-class neighbourhood of North Belfast where Protestants and Catholics live side-by-side.

‘Profound experience’: Star Trek’s Shatner becomes world’s oldest space traveler

Having made a career out of playing an explorer of the cosmos, William Shatner – Captain James Kirk of “Star Trek” fame – did it for real on Wednesday, becoming at age 90 the oldest person in space aboard a rocketship flown by billionaire Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin, an experience the actor called profound. Shatner was one of four passengers to journey for 10 minutes and 17 seconds to the edge of space aboard the white fully autonomous 60-foot-tall (18.3 meters-tall) New Shepard spacecraft, which took off from Blue Origin’s launch site about 20 miles (32 km) outside the rural west Texas town of Van Horn.

Jamie Lee Curtis channels mum’s ‘Psycho’ character at ‘Halloween Kills’ premiere

“Halloween Kills” actor Jamie Lee Curtis channelled her mother Janet Leigh’s iconic character in “Psycho” at the costume party premiere of the film in Hollywood this week. Wearing the same buttoned and belted light blue dress and a blond wig, Lee Curtis completed the look with a bloodied shower curtain over one arm.

‘We want our stories to travel’: Netflix launches Palestinian film collection

Palestinian director Ameen Nayfeh says he felt proud after bringing to life through film his personal struggle in crossing an Israeli military checkpoint to visit his dying grandfather. But he didn’t expect his short film to have a wide audience. That all changed for Nayfeh on Thursday, when Netflix launched a new Palestinian film collection, the first of its kind by a major streaming service, that includes his award-winning short “The Crossing”.

“Succession” TV series returns for third season of family power struggle

The cast of Emmy-winning “Succession” , the biting drama series about power struggles in a family media empire, celebrated the premiere of the show’s third season on the red carpet in New York on Tuesday. Actor Jeremy Strong, who plays media executive Kendall Roy, said he felt lucky “to be part of something that is such a sort of cultural lightning rod and part of people’s lives and at the center of the culture in a meaningful way.”

Matt Goss hopes new album will take him from Vegas to world tour

Lockdown provided singer Matt Goss the break from live performance that his body needed and the chance to write an album, which he hopes will take him back on a world tour. The British-born musician, who found fame with his twin brother Luke Goss in the late 1980s, has spent the last decade performing in Las Vegas.

Hollywood crews to strike next week unless deal reached with producers

Behind-the-scenes workers on Hollywood films and television shows will launch a nationwide strike next week unless contract talks with producers are resolved, their union said on Wednesday. If no agreement is reached by 12:01 a.m. PDT on Oct. 18, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) which represents some 60,000 off-screen workers, including camera operators and make-up artists, will launch a work stoppage threatening to devastate major studios, IATSE President Matthew Loeb said.

(With inputs from agencies.)