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On Friday (Oct. 28), it was announced that Zayn has been cast in the upcoming animated kids film 10 Lives.
According to Deadline, the CG-animated comedy will tell the story of “a pampered and selfish cat who takes for granted the lives he has been dealt. After carelessly losing his ninth life, he begs to be given a second chance, an opportunity to show he can learn from his mistakes. Eventually, his wish is granted but with hilarious stipulations.”
Zayn will actually voice not one, but two characters, as twins Kirk and Cameron — a pair of boys whose ultra-tough exteriors hide a deep desire to please their mom. The rest of the cast includes Mo Gilligan, Bridgerton breakout star Simone Ashley, Sophie Okonedo and Dylan Llewellyn of Derry Girls. GFM Animation is expected to present first-look footage of the film at the American Film Market.
This summer, the “Pillowtalk” singer shocked fans by revisiting his One Direction days with an unexpected solo rendition of the group’s Four-era single “Night Changes.” (The moment was actually the second time Zayn had posted a 1D song to Instagram in as many months, having also dusted off the high notes to “You & I” from 2013’s Midnight Memories in June.)
Zayn’s a capella number even prompted Louis Tomlinson to comment on their strained history in a recent interview, saying, “For me, in those videos, it showed he was reflecting. It showed that he was thinking about those times. Of course, at the same time showing off his incredible voice. But that’s why it made me feel good, ’cause it was like, ah, maybe you’re thinking about good times in the band.” However, Tomlinson kept it vague about whether he considered Zayn a friend, tossing the decision on his old bandmate.
Read more about Zayn’s casting in 10 Lives here.
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Meta Quest Pro, the “most enhanced” VR headset yet from Facebook’s parent company, went on sale earlier this week — but it’ll cost you a pretty penny. The VR headset, which “enables full-color mixed reality” that blends “virtual experience with your physical world,” retails for $1,499.99.
Meta Quest Pro is the first in the brand’s line of high-end VR headsets. The multifunctional VR and MR device provides high-resolution, mixed reality and blends two worlds by allowing you to dip into the virtual realm without leaving your physical environment.
Features include high-resolution sensors that enable full-color, mixed reality experiences, along with advanced LCD displays delivering sharper visuals and “next-generation” pancake optics.
The Meta Quest Pro includes a headset, two self-tracking Meta Quest Touch Pro controllers, stylus tips, partial light blockers, and a charging dock. Each controller has three built-in sensors that track their position in 3D space (independent of the headset) to provide a 360-degree range of motion.
Meta Quest Pro controllers can be used with Meta Quest 2 as well. A standalone pair of controllers ($299.99) will be released later this year. Click here to pre-order the controllers.
Meta Quest Pro features a sleek design, complete with guided Fit Adjustment, eye tracking, and Natural Facial Expressions.
You can order Meta Quest Pro at Amazon, Best Buy, and Meta.com. Additionally, the Meta Quest Pro Compact Charging Dock ($79.99), Meta Quest Pro VR earphones ($49.99), and Meta Quest Pro Carry Case from Incase ($119.95) are on sale now. The Meta Quest Pro Full Lights Blocker ($49.99) will be out Nov. 22.
Meta Quest
Meta Quest Pro
$1,499.99
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
The NFL takes London! The Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars game will stream exclusively on ESPN+ live from Wembley Stadium at 9:30 a.m. ET on Sunday (Oct. 30).
A special edition of Sunday NFL Countdown will stream live on ESPN+ and simulcast on ESPN from 8:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. ET. Coverage from New York City will be anchored by Sam Ponder, Tedy Bruschi, Matt Hasselbeck, Randy Moss and Rex Ryan, along with Chris Mortensen and Adam Schefter.
Steve Levy, Louis Riddick, Dan Orlovsky, and Laura Rutledge will anchor live from London. Officiating expert John Parry will work the game remotely.
Keep reading for directions on how to stream the Broncos-Jaguars game from any device.
Broncos vs. Jaguars: How to Watch the NFL Game on ESPN+
The Broncos-Jaguars matchup will be the first NFL game to stream exclusively on ESPN+. Coverage begins with a special edition of Sunday Night Countdown at 8:30 a.m. ET. Progressive Kickoff will air on ESPN+ and ESPN from 9:15-9:30 a.m.ET.
The game will begin streaming at 9:30 a.m. ET and will be available in English and Spanish.
Not a subscribed to ESPN+? The platform is $9.99 a month to stream NFL games and other must-watch sporting events, including UFC fights, baseball, soccer, and more.
Upgrade to the bundle deal and add Disney+ and Hulu to your subscription for $13.99/month ($19.99/month to stream without ads). Download the ESPN+ app to stream from your TV, computer or smartphone.
ESPN+ features the entire 30 for 30 series and dozens of other sports programs, TV series, documentaries, and documentary specials such as Tom Brady: Man in the Arena and Derek Jeter’s The Captain. (use ExpressVPN to access ESPN+ and other streaming platforms from outside of the U.S.)
No plans for Halloween? The Monday Night Football game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns will stream exclusively on ESPN+ on Monday (October 31) at 8 p.m. ET.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
The Queen of Christmas is heading back to the stage! Mariah Carey will be ringing in the holidays with a four-performance run celebrating her “repertoire of classic holiday songs.”
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“Merry Christmas to All,” presented by Live Nation, will take place in December with performances in New York and Toronto. Tickets went on sale at 10 p.m. ET on Friday (Oct. 28).
General admission tickets are currently priced at approximately $85-$110 to $300, and over $3,000 for VIP admission. Carey added two additional shows to Madison Square Garden, which are among the higher-priced tickets.
The music icon posted a Halloween-themed Christmas video on Instagram on Friday with the caption, “See you in December! All 4 shows of #MerryChristmasToAll are on sale now!”
The concert event was initially scheduled for only two nights, but Carey added two additional performances beginning Dec. 9 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Carey will perform another show in Toronto on Dec. 11, before heading home to New York City for concerts at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 13 and Dec. 16.
In addition, buying passes, Carey’s “lambs” will be able to purchase an exclusive t-shirt and a copy of her illustrated holiday fairytale, The Christmas Princess, which drops next Tuesday (Nov. 1).
Carey opened up about writing the story in an interview last year. “I started writing that on a little DX7 or Casio keyboard that was in this little room in the house that I lived in at the time in Upstate New York lifetimes ago,” she told Parade.com. “Just writing down everything that I thought about. All the things that reminded me of Christmas that made me feel festive that I wanted other people to feel.”
With the holiday coming soon, Carey’s 1994 holiday hit, “All I Want for Christmas” is expected to make its seasonal return to the charts. After landing in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017, “All I Want for Christmas” has gone on to top the Hot 100 for the last three years in a row.
Purchase tickets to Carey’s Christmas concerts below.
Mariah Carey Merry Christmas to All! Concert Event
$from $84.85
Happy Halloweekend! If you’re looking for some new tunes to fill your party playlists this weekend, look no further: Billboard Pride is proud to present the latest edition of First Out, our weekly roundup of some of the best new music releases from LGBTQ artists.
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From Dove Cameron’s latest entry in her new era to Cat Burns’ excellent Estelle cover, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:
Dove Cameron, “Bad Idea”
Ever since releasing “Boyfriend,” Dove Cameron’s been hard at work promoting her “villain era” of music. But on her latest song, “Bad Idea,” the villainy takes a back seat to some poor decision-making based purely on lust. Cameron’s voice sounds effortlessly excellent throughout the entire track, while the bouncing, jazzy instrumentation gives us a slightly different flavor of her new sound — it may not be as nefarious as her latest music, but it certainly makes us want to hear more.
Cat Burns, “American Boy (Estelle Cover)”
UK singer-songwriter Cat Burns has been on something of a hot streak lately — and it’s not stopping now. The star’s Spotify Singles session, along with giving fans an acoustic version of her bubbly single “People Pleaser,” delivered a stunning rendition of Estelle’s “American Boy. (Before you ask, in light of recent events, no, she doesn’t include the Kanye verse). This gorgeous, slowed-down version of the iconic track shows off every inch of the rising singer’s voice, as she bathes in the rich sonics of the original song, while giving it her own delicious spin.
Cakes Da Killa, Svengali
If you’ve found yourself in a bit of a house music drought since Renaissance dropped, Cakes Da Killa is here to relieve your tension. Svengali, the sophomore album from the hip-hop innovator, is a tour de force of raw talent for the rapper, as he makes like the titular mesmirizer and hypnotizes listeners with the combined skills of stunning flow (specifically on standout track “Ball and Chain”) as well as some extra-dimensional production flourishes (like on the vibe-fueled single “Drugs Du Jour”). So give in and let Svengali send you down a blissful spiral immediately.
Kaash Paige, “Doubted Me”
If you’re in need of some additional Rihanna vibes after listening to “Life Me Up,” we have just the song for you. Fast-rising R&B singer Kaash Paige’s “Doubted Me” exudes the same breathless confidence and vocal acuity that you’d come to expect from the Bad Gal herself, but does so with a different flavor of unabashed flair. On this psychic, gas-powered anthem, Paige lets her haters know where they can stick their nasty comments — it’s her time to shine, and she takes up every inch of spotlight that she can find on this self-confident track.
Corook, “Smoothie”
Everyone has had plenty of moments of putting off self-worth — up-and-coming pop singer-songwriter Corook wants to remind you that it’s a practice. On “Smoothie,” the singer takes all the parts of her personality, good and bad, and blends them together (get it?) to find that she hasn’t “felt this good since I was 18.” Add into that the fact that the song is a deliciously fun pop-rock genre blend, and you’ve got a verified banger on your hands.
Nakhane feat. Perfume Genius, “Do You Well“
When you put two artists like Nakhane and Perfume Genius together, you’d be forgiven for expecting something slow and tragically beautiful as a result. Instead, the pair pivot in the opposite direction on “Do Me Right,” a bright-eyed, sex-positive anthem of hedonism and wish-fullfillment, backed by a beat that refuses to be denied. Nakhane channels their resonant voice into peak performance, while Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas backs them up beautifully. Dip your toe into this joyful noise, and you’ll find yourself diving back in for more in no time.
Taylor Swift once dreamed a dream of starring opposite Eddie Redmayne in Les Misérables, but unfortunately, that dream quickly turned into a nightmare.
The 32-year-old pop star was a guest on The Graham Norton Show episode airing Friday (Oct. 28). Also on the couch was Eddie Redmayne, whom Swift recalled meeting 10 years prior during a screen test for Tom Hooper’s 2012 film adaptation of the musical based off Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel.
“Basically I was up for two roles,” the “Anti-Hero” singer explained, according to People and Entertainment Weekly. “I had the look of Cosette and the range vocally of Éponine, so it was established I was there for a good time but not for a long time.”
She went on to say that she knew immediately she probably wouldn’t be cast, but still decided to go through with the screen test knowing she would get to meet Redmayne. The Fantastic Beasts star had already been confirmed for the part of Marius in the film, and Swift said he was one of her “favorite” actors at the time.
“I wasn’t going to get the role,” she told Norton. “[But] this isn’t an experience I am going to get again in my life.”
When she arrived in London to audition next to Redmayne, however, it wasn’t the glamorous cinema experience she’d been expecting. “When I got there they put me in full 19th century street-urchin costume and told me they were going to paint my teeth brown, and I was like, ‘You are going to do that after I meet Eddie Redmayne right?’” she joked.
“They made me look like death and it became a nightmare,” she continued. “When I met Eddie I didn’t open my mouth to speak!”
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the Theory of Everything actor either, though. “I thought we would just be singing off each other — I didn’t know we would be in each other’s arms,” he said. “My overriding memory of it is that I had pizza and garlic dough balls beforehand and all I could think about was my garlic breath while Taylor was dying in my arms and I was trying to show emotion.”
Suffice to say, Tay didn’t get the part. She did, however, end up getting cast in another of Hooper’s films just a few years later. When the director started working on his 2019 live action Cats movie, he immediately thought of Swift, who ended up starring in the project as Bombalurina.
“She rather brilliantly auditioned for Éponine. I didn’t cast her, but I got very close to it,” he told Vulture in 2019. “Ultimately, I couldn’t quite believe Taylor Swift was a girl people would overlook. So it didn’t quite feel right for her for the most flattering reason.”
“I knew she was curious to work on a musical,” he continued. “When [Cats] came up, I wrote to her and just said, ‘Would you like to meet? Would you like to see the world I’m creating?”
The Graham Norton Show episode featuring Taylor Swift and Eddie Redmayne — as well as U2’s Bono — airs Friday at 11 p.m. on BBC America.
Add Stephen Colbert to the increasingly lengthy list of people who are banning Kanye West. The embattled rapper (who now goes by Ye) has seen his once-formidable music and fashion empire crumble to dust, and on Thursday night (Oct. 28) he got the bad news that he will never be invited to visit the Ed Sullivan Theater, either.
In the midst of the outrage over West’s repeated amplification of hateful antisemitic tropes, Colbert tried to inject some levity into what is otherwise a not-at-all funny story about hate speech in the monologue to last night’s show. “After much thought and soul-searching I, Stephen Colbert, am banning Kanye West from the Ed Sullivan Theater,” the host announced grimly to hearty applause from the studio audience.
“Have to. I have to. Line in the sand,” Colbert said before getting serious for a moment and running down a list of completely fake “high profile collabs” the two men have (not) released. Among them: their collection of “spreadable jams” entitled “Strawbeezy Jelleezy,” as well as the now-cancelled release of their duets album, Ye & Phen: Sing Fiddler on the Roof.
“I know this has been too long in coming, I have no excuses for why I didn’t do this before,” Colbert said of the action he took to ban the rapper. Well, maybe one very good one. “Except, perhaps, that he has never been on the show, had no plans to be on the show, we’ve never asked him to be on the show and I am not sure he is aware that I have a show.”
But, Colbert said, he had to take immediate action for fear that Ye might “show up at any moment,” kind of like West did earlier this week when he arrived uninvited at Skechers headquarters and was summarily escorted from the premises. That move came after Ye lost his mega-lucrative deal with Adidas due to the company’s disdain for his hate speech against Jews, a decision that former billionaire West has claimed cost him nearly $2 billion.
“In five years the idea of an unannounced visit from Kanye has gone from ‘Amazing!’ to: ‘sir, you need to leave this Skechers,” Colbert joked. “It gets worse. Unlike with Adidas, Kanye never had any deal with Skechers, apparently Kanye is so desperate he’s just driving around searching Google maps for ‘shoes near me.’”
Watch Colbert’s monologue below.
Quentin Tarantino loves a good tall tale. But on Thursday night (Oct. 28) QT went on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to pour water on a recent stem-winder that Kanye West told in which the embattle rapper (now known as Ye) claimed that he originally conceived the idea for Q’s 2012 historical revamp tribute to Spaghetti westerns Django Unchained.
After West said in a recent interview that he pitched a similar concept to Tarantino while working up the treatment for the video for his 2005 hit “Gold Digger” — which features Jamie Foxx, later the star of Django — Tarantino told Kimmel that’s not exactly how it went down.
“There’s not truth to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of Django and then he told that to me, and I go, ‘Hey, wow, that’s a really great idea! Let me take Kanye’s idea and make Django Unchained out of it.’ That didn’t happen,” said Tarantino of the 2009 Ye video that feature the rapper and Foxx frolicking with scantily clad models.
“I’d had the idea for Django for a while before I ever met Kanye,” Tarantino continued. “He wanted to do a giant movie version of [his 2004 debut album] College Dropout the way he did the album – so he wanted to get big directors to do different tracks from the album and then release it as this giant movie – not videos, nothing as crass as videos, it was movies, movies based on each of the different tracks.”
That story differs significantly from the one West told British talker Piers Morgan in a recent interview. “Tarantino can write a movie about slavery, where actually — him and Jamie [Foxx] — they got the idea from me, because the idea for Django I pitched to Jamie Foxx and Quentin Tarantino as the video for ‘Gold Digger.’ And then Tarantino turned it into a film,” Ye said during the interview, in which he also continued to lean into his recent string of antisemitic comments that have caused his once sprawling business and music empire to crumble.
The Hype Williams-directed “Gold Digger” video consists almost entirely of West rapping the song in a raspberry-hued void while Foxx croons the refrain and buxom, lingerie-clad models dance with the men at a nightclub and pose for magazine covers. Tarantino’s controversial Oscar-winning film tells the story of a freed slave named Django (Foxx) who embarks on a killing spree across the South with a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) as they search of Django’s wife (Kerry Washington); there does not appear to be any obvious narrative correlation between the “Gold Digger” video and Tarantino’s film.
Which is exactly what QT told Kimmel, though he did reveal that he did have a meeting with Ye that didn’t amount to anything.
“We used it as an excuse to meet each other and and so we met each other we had a really good time. And he did have an idea for a video,” Tarantino said, adding that the kernel could have turned into something. “I do think it was for the ‘Gold Digger’ video, that he would be a slave. And the whole thing was the slave narrative where he’s a slave and he’s singing ‘Gold Digger.’ And it was very funny. It was a really, really funny idea.”
When Kimmel quipped that it sounds like it could have been a “funny slave video,” Tarantino responded, “It was meant to be ironic. And it’s like a huge musical. I mean, like no expenses spared with him in this slave rag outfit doing everything. And then that was also part of the part of the pushback on it. But I wish he had done it. It sounded really cool. Anyway, that’s what he’s referring to.”
Watch Tarantino on Kimmel below.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.Don’t Worry Darling is now streaming on Prime Video. Amazon’s streaming platform makes it easy for movie lovers to stream newer releases that are still in theaters from home.
To make things even easier, we did some of the searching for you and rounded up a handful of in-theater releases (and movies that recently left theaters) that you can rent on Prime Video and watch on your TV, laptop, phone or another compatible streaming device.
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Prime Video lets users access countless hours of content including action and adventure movies, dramas, comedies, documentaries, sci-fi, mysteries and thrillers, and kid-friendly programs. Not signed up for Amazon Prime? Join today under a free 30-day trial ($14.99 a month after the trial ends) and enjoy tons of great perks such as fast and free shipping, exclusive deals on millions of items and a free one-year subscription to GrubHub+. There’s also an option to join Prime Video by itself (free trial included, but you won’t get as many perks as you would with a Prime membership).
Movie lovers can rent Bullet Train, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, Nope, Orphan First Kill, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Jurassic World Dominion, The Black Phone, Everything, Everywhere All At Once and other films on Prime Video for around $5.
Not to be confused with Amazon Originals, which are free to Prime Video members, the majority of the releases listed below cost $19.99 to rent and $24.99 to buy, depending on the film. After deciding on a rental, you’ll have 30 days to start watching the film, and 48 hours to finish once your start.
See the lineup below.
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‘Don’t Worry Darling’
$19.99 (rent)
Don’t Worry Darling centers around a 1950s housewife living in a “utopian experimental community” but cracks in their seemingly blissful life begin to appear, exposing something more sinister lurking beneath the façade. The film is directed by Olivia Wilde and stars Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, and Chris Pine.
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‘Bros’
$19.99 (rent)
Billy Eichner, Luke MacFarlane and Guy Branum star in Bros, directed by Nicholas Stoller. Bros is the first gay romantic comedy from a major studio starring openly gay male leads. Eichner wrote, stars in and executive produced the film. Judd Apatow, Stoller, and Joshua Church are producers.
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‘The Silent Twins’
$19.99 (rent)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrence play identical twins in The Silent Twins. The film is based on real-life twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons, who became known as “The Silent Twins” because they only communicated with each other. The sisters endured constant racial bullying in school and were eventually locked up for nearly a decade in England’s notorious Broadmoor psychiatric hospital following a string of petty crimes. Jennifer Gibbons died in 1993.
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‘Beast’
$19.99 (buy)
A widowed father and his two daughters become prey for a rogue lion in Beast, starring Idris Elba, Iyana Halley, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Iyana Halley. Beast is also streaming on Peacock.
“Do you think rock stars are special people?” That’s the question that kicks off the trailer for Taurus, the upcoming music industry drama starring Machine Gun Kelly.
In the video, released Thursday (Oct. 27), the musician otherwise known as Colson Baker plays Cole, a depressed musician on the verge of self-destructing amid his seemingly glamorous L.A. lifestyle. As the events of the trailer get increasingly bleak, Kelly’s character begins writing new music. “I want it to sound far from everything,” he says while seated at the piano with a female collaborator. “Like everything’s upside down.”
The untitled song that then plays over the second half of the trailer finds the Mainstream Sellout singer intoning, “Life imitates art/ Bury me alive/ Disappear underground where they found me/ Before I ever had this career.”
Written and directed by Tim Sutton, Taurus also stars MGK’s real-life fiancée Megan Fox as well as Maddie Hasson, Scoot McNairy and Ruby Rose and will feature a soundtrack of new music by Kelly. The trailer didn’t offer a concrete release date for the flick.
The pop-punk rocker’s previous film roles include 2021’s Midnight in the Switchgrass and 2019 Mötley Crüe biopic The Dirt, in which he played Tommy Lee.
Earlier this month, MGK wrapped up the European leg of his Mainstream Sellout Tour with a show in Amsterdam. This December, he’s slated to play at Tampa, Fla.’s MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre before hitting the stage at Audacy Beach Festival 2022 in Fort Lauderdale.
Watch Kelly’s brooding turn in the trailer for Taurus below.
