Entertainment predictions: Final season for ‘Walking Dead’ announced and more

Entertainment bloggers and journalists have weighed in with their predictions for 2016.
Here are some notable predictions covering movies, TV shows and music that caught my eye.

‘The Walking Dead’ final season will be announced

Joseph Lee, a writer for 411mania, thinks AMC will set an end date for its hit series “The Walking Dead,” currently in its sixth season, sometime in 2016.
“Regardless of what some people think, TV shows can’t go on forever,” he wrote. “‘The Walking Dead’ returned to lower ratings than we’re used to … and the lukewarm reception of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ tell me that maybe everyone’s getting a little tired of zombies.”
He doesn’t believe season seven will be the last, maybe not even season eight, but AMC will announce when the final season will be, he said. AMC is likely to announce the end of the show with a multi-season deal, Lee said.

‘Batman v Superman’ will beat ‘Captain America’

The website Moviepilot predicts that “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” will beat “Captain America: Civil War” at the box office.
“I think that ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ will be the real winner of the battle,” Moviepilot writer Luke Gordon Smith said in a post on Oct. 23, 2015. “Even though the Marvel Cinematic Universe has many movies to back it up and the DC Cinematic Universe only has one, ‘Batman v Superman’ pulls more weight in the superhero world, and will pull more fans at the end of the day.”

2016 will see a superhero movie bomb

Moviepilot’s Smith also thinks at least one of the big-budget superhero movies coming out in 2016 will be a box-office disaster.
“As there are seven superhero movies scheduled next year, I think that more than one of them will bomb,” he said. “In my opinion, seven is just too much. I know I will see them all, but your regular person will probably get tired of the constant comic book based genre. ‘Deadpool,’ ‘Gambit’ and ‘Doctor Strange’ all have things going against them. ‘Deadpool’ is rated R, and ‘Gambit’ and ‘Doctor Strange’ are relatively smaller superheroes. All of these things will lead to at least one superhero bomb.”

Frances, Jack Garratt and Nao are music artists to watch in 2016

The BBC and Google Play Music both announced their predictions for breakthrough music artists for 2016.
The BBC picked 15 artists and the Google Play Music list included 10 artists.
Three were on both lists: Frances, Jack Garratt and Nao.
Music discovery app Shazam also made its predictions for the breakout artists of 2016.
“According to its data, artists like Andra Day, who recently teamed up with Stevie Wonder for ‘Someday At Christmas,’ Tory Lanez and Post Malone are set for big things in 2016,” Revolt reported.

Disney buys a big video game publisher

Variety magazine’s writers and editors predict that Walt Disney will buy a big video game publisher like Electronic Arts in 2016.
“After spending big to buy Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm, Disney continues its trend of major acquisitions by purchasing a high-profile video-game company such as EA in order to exploit Disney’s wide-ranging library of costumed ‘Avengers’ and ‘Star Wars’ Jedis,” Variety says.

Summer Olympics in Rio will be a mess

“The Rio Olympics will be plagued by problems, in part a result of the political and economic turmoil plaguing the Brazilians. It will go down as the most poorly run and executed Olympics in history,” Andrew Klausner, founder and principal of AK Advisory Partners, a consultancy to the financial services industry, told Forbes.

Porn will invade virtual reality

With three major virtual reality systems set to hit the market, adult entertainment studios are making porn for the immersive experience.
Industry officials writing on XBiz.net predicted that the porn business will make waves the VR market in 2016.
Adult studio Naughty America will be at CES, aka the Consumer Electronics Show, next week to show off their VR porn.

Photo: Promotional art for “The Walking Dead” season six midseason premiere.