Amazon, Hulu, Netflix: We're going to need more bandwidth for these forthcoming shows and movies in 2019

Fans of this uproarious 1990 end-of-times novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are finally getting the live-action adaptation they’ve long clamored for, and judging from the onscreen talent alone, the wait was more than worth it. David Tennant and Michael Sheen star as, respectively, the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale, who join forces to cancel the apocalypse because they enjoy living on Earth. Gaiman wrote the six-part series, which also features Jon Hamm, Miranda Richardson, Nick Offerman, Michael McKean and narration from Frances McDormand.

Martin Scorsese labored for years to bring to screen this gangster flick centered on Bufalino crime family hit man Frank Sheeran and his purported involvement in the disappearance of Teamsters honcho Jimmy Hoffa. Robert De Niro is Sheeran. Al Pacino is Hoffa. And Joe Pesci, in his first live-action performance in almost a decade, plays Russell Bufalino. Netflix is on the hook for a budget that has reportedly swelled to $140 million (if not more), but this star-studded epic from our greatest living big-screen chronicler of mob life should be more than worth its eye-popping price tag.

Travis Beacham’s hugely admired screenplay about a detective attempting to catch a serial killer who preys on mystical creatures in a dystopic, futuristic metropolis was developed for years as a feature by director Guillermo del Toro. As is increasingly common in the entertainment industry, what’s too bold and original for the studios is just right  for the more daring (and content ravenous) streaming platforms. Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne lead an impressive cast that includes supporting turns from Jared Harris and Alice Krige.

Come on now, sugar! Bring it back, bring it back yeah! If those last two sentences mean nothing to you, you’re not the target audience for Hulu’s revival of the Rob Thomas-created teen private detective series that made Kristen Bell a star. Though “Veronica Mars” has one of the more vociferous fan bases out there, it’s somewhat surprising that Hulu pulled the trigger on a fourth season after the ho-hum 2014 movie. But with most of the cast returning and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar  on the writing staff (!), we’re down for more quip-heavy mystery solving in Neptune, California.

Netflix dropped the ax this year on a number of its beloved niche-appeal series (how dare you take “American Vandal” away from us), but it wisely spared Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch’s winning, and at times, heartbreaking account of the real-life 1980s women’s pro wrestling league. Ten Emmy nominations and critically acclaimed performances from Betty Gilpin, Alison Brie and Marc Maron combined to make the case for a third season, which should debut next summer.

Yossarian lives again! Previously adapted as a feature film by Mike Nichols in 1970, Joseph Heller’s satiric World War II classic is now a George Clooney-produced miniseries. Clooney appears in the minor role of the oft-promoted officer Scheisskopf, while “Girls” co-star Christopher Abbott as the flustered bombardier subjected to a seemingly unending run of dangerous aerial missions. Also along for the absurdist ride are Kyle Chandler (Colonel Cathcart), Hugh Laurie (Major de Coverley) and Daniel David Stewart (Milo Minderbinder).

Steven Soderbergh teams with Oscar-winning “Moonlight” co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney for this drama about a sports agent (André Holland) who makes an unconventional (and perhaps unethical) proposal to a rookie basketball player (Melvin Gregg) during a pro basketball lockout. Zazie Beetz, Kyle MacLachlan, Zachary Quinto and Sonja Sohn round out the impressive cast. This is Soderbergh’s first collaboration with Netflix. If it goes well, here’s hoping the streaming behemoth coughs up a rich budget for a third season of the director’s brilliant medical drama, “The Knick."

The nostalgia-driven TV revival craze has brought back many old favorites that were better off dead (e.g. “Full House”, “Murphy Brown” and “Will & Grace”). But with kids being increasingly drawn to the cruel-and-stupid content cluttering YouTube, we’re all for the return of the mischievously irreverent Yakko, Wakko and Dot. “Family Guy” veteran Wellesley Wild will oversee the animated sketch show that served as a gateway comedy drug for millions of millennials in the 1990s — and, yes, "Pinky and the Brain" are back, too.

“Drive” director Nicolas Winding Refn (the man pictured under the sheets) teams up with acclaimed graphic novelist Ed Brubaker for this hard-boiled tale of a guilt-ridden cop slugging it out with a multicultural assortment of unsavory underworld killers (e.g. Russian Mafiosi, Yakuza assassins and American hit men). Refn directed every episode of the series, which stars Miles Teller, Jena Malone, Billy Baldwin and John Hawkes.

This action-drama about a group of friends attempting to take down a drug lord in the titular crime-ridden South American territory was nearly Kathryn Bigelow’s big-screen follow-up to “The Hurt Locker." When Bigelow moved on to “Zero Dark Thirty," “All Is Lost” director J.C. Chandor took over the reins. After several false starts and multiple casting changes, Chandor has finally completed the film with a formidable cast including Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Adria Arjona and Charlie Hunnam. 

Oddball biopic mavens Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (“Ed Wood” and “The People vs. Larry Flynt”) have corralled Eddie Murphy for what’s certain to be a profanely entertaining journey through the life and times of comedian/blacksploitation pioneer/”ghetto expressionist” Rudy Ray Moore. The ludicrously cocksure, explosively funny Moore is wheelhouse casting for Murphy, who owes him as much to his off-color trailblazing as he does to Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor. If the film works as well as it should, this could earn him the Oscar he was inexplicably denied for “Dreamgirls."

With “The Crown” moving forward another decade and its characters into their 50s, producer Peter Morgan had no choice but to replace his fresh-faced cast with a more mature group of performers. Claire Foy and Vanessa Kirby will be dearly missed as Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, respectively, but Morgan couldn’t have found more talented successors than Olivia Colman and Helena Bonham Carter. Tobias Menzies will step in as Prince Philip, while Erin Doherty (Fabienne from Tom Hooper’s “Les Misérables”) will play Princess Anne.

Last August, Hulu announced it was booking a return trip to the Stephen King-inspired, J.J. Abrams-produced anthology “Castle Rock." And while no date has been announced yet for the second season, it’s expected that the series will resurface in 2019. Though the first season ended on an unresolved note, the writers have teased an all-new narrative arc for Season 2 — and most enticingly, an ongoing (if circuitous) journey to “The Dark Tower."

One of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in recent American history — the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of five black teenagers for the brutal rape of a female jogger — is the subject of this hotly anticipated miniseries from “Selma” director Ava DuVernay. Unsurprisingly, DuVernay has assembled a world-class cast that includes Michael K. Williams, Vera Farmiga, Felicity Huffman, John Leguizamo and Niecy Nash. Given Donald Trump’s role in the media smearing of these young men, this promises to be a powder keg of a program.

Richard Curtis’ beloved 1994 romcom holds up smashingly 14 years later, but when you think about it, the material is absolutely ripe for a streaming miniseries expansion. “The Mindy Project” writing duo of Mindy Kaling and Matt Warburton get the Curtis-approved honors, and purists may be relieved to know that their adaptation will stay put in England. Nathalie Emmanuel and Nikesh Patel head up the new cast, while Andie MacDowell is confirmed for a small role. 

The most consistently hilarious comedy series on television closes out its amazing run in January with the seven-episode second half of Season 4. It’ll be a bummer to bid farewell to the phenomenal ensemble of Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess, Carol Kane and Jane Krakowski, but the show’s place in television history as the first binge-worthy sitcom of the streaming era is irrefutable. Damn it. It was a miracle.

Emboldened by their small-screen success with “Preacher," Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg return to the rambunctiously violent work of comic book writer Garth Ennis with this series about an organization of human vigilantes whohunts down corrupt superheroes. Karl Urban, Erin Moriarty, Elisabeth Shue and Jennifer Esposito star in this show that was developed for years as a feature film at Paramount.

The random 1980s nostalgia generator for people who did not live through the 1980s is expected back in 2019 for a third season that — if the series holds to temporal form — will be chockablock with references to “Back to the Future," “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” and in an irritating pop culture singularity that could rend the fabric of time and space like a Fruit Roll-Up, “The Goonies." Or maybe it’ll skip ahead to 1986 for “Aliens," “Big Trouble in Little China” and Blake Edwards’ landmark Ted Danson/Howie Mandel two-hander, “A Fine Mess."  

Jill Soloway’s groundbreaking Amazon series about a transgender college professor who comes out to her family is back for its fifth and final season absent lead Jeffrey Tambor, who was fired in 2017 over alleged sexual harassment. The rest of the Pfefferman clan is back, however, and they’re going with a two-hour musical episode that, according to Soloway, will be influenced by “Jesus Christ Superstar”,"The Flight of the Conchords," “La La Land” and of course, “Yentl."

Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s sui generis animated comedy reached new heights in its fifth season with the “Free Churro” episode in which BoJack eulogizes his mother. There isn’t a series on television dealing with our rapidly changing culture more fearlessly than “BoJack Horseman," which makes the long wait for Season 6 (presumed to debut in the fall of next year) absolutely brutal for its fans. For those who’ve resisted the show due to its bizarro premise, that leaves you plenty of time to dig in. 

Special agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and Professor Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) are back for more brain-staining, fact-based tales from the early days of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. Producer David Fincher disclosed last year that Season 2’s narrative would be built around the Atlanta child murders. What then of the unnerving, on-the-fringes business with the dead-eyed ADT serviceman (Sonny Valicenti)? The real-life spoilers pertaining to that case are out there for the impatient among you.