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When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reveals its Academy Award shortlists in 10 categories on Dec. 16, it will constitute an early holiday present for the creators of 15 original songs and 20 original scores. Another round of voting will follow, preceding the nominations announcement on Jan. 22, 2026. A final round of voting will then occur before the 98th annual Oscars telecast on March 15.
Three top contenders for best original song — “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters, “Lose My Mind” from F1: The Movie and “Dying To Live” from Billy Idol Should Be Dead — are each the work of five co-writers. The academy will award no more than four Oscars in this category. Should any of those songs win, the songwriters must share a single statuette.
Best Original Song
“Dream As One”Miley Cyrus, Andrew Wyatt, Mark Ronson, Simon FranglenAvatar: Fire and Ash, 20th Century Studios
Wyatt and Ronson won in this category in 2019 for co-writing “Shallow” from A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga and Anthony Rossomando. They received a second nod in 2024 for “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie. Cyrus and Wyatt teamed with Lykke Li last year to write “Beautiful That Way” from The Last Showgirl. It wasn’t nominated (or shortlisted), but it generated some buzz. Franglen also scored the film.
“Dying To Live”Billy Idol, J. Ralph, Steve Stevens, Tommy English, Joe JaniakBilly Idol Should Be Dead, Live Nation Productions
This would be Ralph’s fourth nomination in this category and the first for the other songwriters. Idol has received three Grammy nods, including one for “Cradle of Love” from the 1990 film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. Billy Idol Should Be Dead was directed by Jonas Åkerlund, who has helmed concert and documentary films by such A-listers as Madonna, Paul McCartney, Beyoncé & Jay-Z and Taylor Swift.
“Salt Then Sour Then Sweet”Sara Bareilles, Brandi Carlile, Andrea GibsonCome See Me in the Good Light, Apple Original Films
Gibson, who died of ovarian cancer in July, would be the first person to be posthumously nominated in this category since Howard Ashman, who received four nods (including one win) in the two years following his 1991 death. Bareilles and Carlile executive-produced the documentary about Gibson and her wife dealing with Gibson’s illness. Carlile was nominated in this category at the 2025 ceremony for co-writing “Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late.
“Just Keep Watching”Tate McRae, Tyler Spry, Ryan Tedder, Amy AllenF1: The Movie, Apple Original Films
This year, McRae landed her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and her first No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. Could she earn her first Oscar nomination in early 2026? Allen is the reigning Grammy winner for songwriter of the year, non-classical. Tedder has three album of the year Grammys for his work with Adele and Taylor Swift. Spry is known for his credits with artists such as OneRepublic and McRae.
“Lose My Mind”Grant Boutin, Ryan Tedder, Amala Zandile Dlamini, Caleb Toliver, Hans ZimmerF1: The Movie, Apple Original Films
Although it’s rare for two songs from one film to be nominated, Emilia Pérez achieved the feat at the 2025 ceremony. F1: The Movie, Sinners and Wicked: For Good are among the films hoping to do the same early next year. If “Lose My Mind” is nominated, it will mark Zimmer’s first nod in this category. He has received 12 nominations (and won twice) in scoring categories.
“Highest 2 Lowest”Aiyana-Lee Anderson, Nicole Daciana AndersonHighest 2 Lowest, A24
Highest 2 Lowest, directed by Spike Lee, is an English-language remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 Japanese film, High and Low. The movie stars Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, A$AP Rocky, LaChanze, Princess Nokia and Ice Spice (in her film debut). Aiyana-Lee Anderson, the niece of David Ruffin of The Temptations, co-wrote the titular track with her mother, Nicole Daciana Anderson. This would be the first song from a Lee film to be nominated.
“Golden”EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, IDO, 24, TeddyKPop Demon Hunters, Netflix
“Golden,” which topped the Hot 100 for eight weeks, would be the first No. 1 since Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” from Trolls in 2017 to rule the chart and then land an Oscar nod. (“Shallow” from A Star Is Born hit No. 1 only after its Oscar win.) EJAE, IDO, 24 and Teddy would be the first South Korean-born songwriters to be nominated since Karen O, who was cited in 2014 for co-writing “The Moon Song” from Her.
“Dear Me”Diane WarrenRelentless, Greenwich Entertainment
Earlier this year, Warren tied Sammy Cahn’s record of earning a best original song nomination for eight consecutive years. If she is nominated again in 2026, she’ll stand alone. It would be her 17th nomination in the category, a total surpassed only by Cahn (26) and Johnny Mercer (18). Moreover, it would be her 13th nod as a solitary songwriter, tying Randy Newman for the most solo-written nominated songs.
“I Lied to You”Raphael Saadiq, Ludwig GöranssonSinners, Warner Bros. Pictures
Ryan Coogler produced, wrote and directed Sinners, which was No. 1 at the box office for two weeks in April. The last two films that Coogler wrote and directed — Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — both spawned best original song nominees. Saadiq and Göransson are past nominees in this category: Saadiq in 2018 for co-writing “Mighty River” from Mudbound and Göransson in 2023 for co-writing “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
“Last Time (I Seen the Sun)”Alice Smith, Miles CatonSinners, Warner Bros. Pictures
Caton, who turned 20 in March, would be the youngest nominee for best original song since Billie Eilish, who was just six weeks past her 20th birthday in 2022 when she was nominated for co-writing the title song to No Time To Die (which won). In addition to co-writing the song, Caton co-stars in the film. Smith was a Grammy nominee for best urban/alternative performance in 2008 for “Dream.”
“Train Dreams”Nick Cave, Bryce DessnerTrain Dreams, Netflix
Cave is vying to become the third songwriter from Australia to be nominated in this category, following John Farrar (for writing “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from Grease) and Peter Allen (for co-writing “Arthur’s Theme [Best That You Can Do]” from Arthur, which won). Dessner has won two Grammys. Train Dreams stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones and William H. Macy.
“As Alive as You Need Me To Be”Nine Inch NailsTron: Ares, Disney
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are submitting this as Nine Inch Nails rather than under their individual names. If the academy keeps it that way, it would be the first nominee in this category to be listed under their group billing. Reznor and Ross have received three Oscar nods for their scores, but this would be their first for a song. Jared Leto stars in Tron: Ares, the third installment in the Tron franchise.
“The Girl in the Bubble”Stephen SchwartzWicked: For Good, Universal
Schwartz has received five nominations in this category, winning the first two times for “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas and “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt. He was subsequently nominated for co-writing three songs from Enchanted. Wicked: For Good is the sequel to Wicked, which received 10 nominations earlier this year, but none in this category since it didn’t include any new songs.
“No Place Like Home”Stephen SchwartzWicked: For Good, Universal
If both of Schwartz’s songs are nominated, he’ll become the first individual songwriter with two songs in the running since Randy Newman accomplished the feat 16 years ago with The Princess and the Frog. Wicked: For Good adapts the second act of the 2003 stage musical by Schwartz and Winnie Holzman. Jon M. Chu directed both this film and its megahit predecessor.
“Zoo”Blake Slatkin, Ed Sheeran, ShakiraZootopia 2, Disney
Colombian superstar Shakira is vying to become the first songwriter born in Latin America to be nominated in this category since Brazilians Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown were nominated in 2012 for a song from Rio. Sheeran is a four-time Grammy nominee for song of the year, winning for “Thinking Out Loud.” Slatkin was nominated in that category for co-writing Lizzo’s “About Damn Time.”
Best Original Score
Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century Studios)Simon Franglen
This is the third installment in the Avatar franchise. James Horner’s score for the original film was nominated in this category in 2010. Horner was set to score the sequel, 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water, before he died in a 2015 turboprop plane crash. Franglen subsequently got the assignment for that film, though his work wasn’t nominated. This would be Franglen’s first Oscar nod.
Bugonia (Focus Features)Jerskin Fendrix
Fendrix was nominated in 2024 in this category for scoring director Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. Fendrix also scored Lanthimos’ follow-up, Kinds of Kindness, though that film didn’t receive any Oscar nods. The composer and director are back for a third go-round. Bugonia stars Emma Stone, who won the Oscar for best actress with Poor Things and also starred in Kinds of Kindness.
Captain America: Brave New World (Marvel/Disney)Laura Karpman
Karpman was nominated in this category two years ago for scoring American Fiction. If she’s nominated again, she’ll join a short list of women who have received two or more nods in scoring categories, following Rachel Portman and Angela Morley. (Hildur Guðnadóttir is also hoping to make that list with Hedda.) This is the fourth installment in the Captain America franchise. Alan Silvestri scored the first; Henry Jackman handled the second and third.
Fantastic Four: First Steps (Marvel/Disney)Michael Giacchino
Giacchino was nominated in this category for Ratatouille in 2008 and won for Up in 2010. Fantastic Four: First Steps, the 37th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, features an ensemble cast including Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn.
F1: The Movie (Apple Original Films)Hans Zimmer
Zimmer has received 12 nominations in this category, landing at least one in each of the last five decades and winning for The Lion King and Dune. He’s third on the list of living composers with the most score nominations, trailing only John Williams (who has amassed an astounding 49 in score categories) and Thomas Newman (14). F1: The Movie became the top-grossing auto racing film ever and the top-grossing movie of Brad Pitt’s career.
Frankenstein (Netflix)Alexandre Desplat
Desplat has received 11 nominations for his scores, winning for The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2015 and The Shape of Water in 2018. Frankenstein was directed, written and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro, who did the honors on The Shape of Water as well as a third film that Desplat scored, Pinocchio. Frankenstein, which stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Christoph Waltz, is based on Mary Shelley’s classic 1818 novel of the same name.
Clockwise from left: Erivo in Wicked: For Good, Pitt in F1: The Movie, Stone in Bugonia, Grandein Wicked: For Good, Jordan in a dual role in Sinners and Isaac and Elordi in Frankenstein.
Illustration by Klawe Rzeczy; Erivo: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures. Pitt, Stone: Everett Collection. Grande: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures. Jordan, Isaac, Elordi: Everett Collection.
Hamnet (Focus Features)Max Richter
Hamnet was co-written, co-edited and directed by Chloé Zhao, who won a pair of Oscars in 2021 for directing and co-producing Nomadland. Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, Hamnet follows the relationship between William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, and the impact of the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, on their lives. Richter has received two Grammy nominations — best score soundtrack for visual media for Ad Astra and best music video as a featured artist on Woodkid’s “The Golden Age.”
Hedda (Amazon MGM)Hildur Guðnadóttir
In 2020, when Guðnadóttir won best original score for Joker, the Icelandic composer became just the fourth woman to capture an Oscar in a scoring category. Lyricist Marilyn Bergman shared the award for original song score in 1984 for Yentl. Rachel Portman won best original musical or comedy score in 1997 for Emma. Anne Dudley won in that same category the following year for The Full Monty.
A House of Dynamite (Netflix)Volker Bertelmann
This would be Bertelmann’s fourth nomination in this category, following Lion (a collaboration with Dustin O’Halloran) in 2017, All Quiet on the Western Front in 2023 (for which he won) and Conclave earlier this year. A House of Dynamite is an apocalyptic political thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow. The film’s ensemble cast includes Idris Elba, Tracy Letts and Anthony Ramos.
Jay Kelly (Netflix)Nicholas Britell
This would be Britell’s fourth nomination in this category, following nods for the Barry Jenkins films Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk and Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up. Jay Kelly is a coming-of-age comedy-drama directed by Noah Baumbach that he co-wrote with Emily Mortimer. The film stars an ensemble cast that includes George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Billy Crudup.
The Lost Bus (Apple Original Films)James Newton Howard
This would be Howard’s eighth nod in a scoring category. He has also been nominated for two songs. The Lost Bus was directed by Paul Greengrass and stars Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera. The film is based on the true story of a bus driver who navigated a bus carrying 22 children and their teachers to safety through the 2018 Camp Fire, which was the deadliest fire in California history.
Marty Supreme (A24)Daniel Pemberton
Pemberton has yet to be nominated for a score, though he was nominated for best original song in 2021 for co-writing “Hear My Voice” from The Trial of the Chicago 7. Marty Supreme, which stars Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow, is a sports comedy-drama set in New York during the 1950s. It is loosely inspired by American table tennis player Marty Reisman and his at-all-costs pursuit of greatness.
Materialists (A24)Daniel Pemberton
If both of Pemberton’s scores are nominated, he’ll become the first individual composer with two films on the final ballot since Alexandre Desplat scored a double in 2015 with The Grand Budapest Hotel (which won) and The Imitation Game. Materialists, a romantic comedy-drama written and directed by Celine Song, follows a love triangle among characters played by Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal. It’s Song’s second feature as a writer-director following Past Lives.
One Battle After Another (Warner Bros. Pictures)Jonny Greenwood
This would be Greenwood’s third nod in this category, following Phantom Thread in 2018 and The Power of the Dog in 2022. Greenwood, the lead guitarist and keyboardist of Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails mainstays Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have yet to be nominated in the same year. One Battle After Another is an action thriller written, co-produced and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro star.
Sentimental Value (Neon)Hania Rani
This would be the first nomination for Rani, a Polish pianist, composer and singer. Sentimental Value, a comedy-drama directed by Joachim Trier, follows a fractured relationship between an acclaimed director and his two estranged daughters. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where it won the Grand Prix. It was selected as the Norwegian entry for best international feature film at the upcoming Oscars.
Sinners (Warner Bros. Pictures)Ludwig Göransson
Göransson has received two nominations for best original score for Black Panther in 2019 and Oppenheimer in 2024, winning both times. The Swedish composer has scored all five of director Ryan Coogler’s films — Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and now Sinners. Göransson also has an executive producer credit on this film, which stars Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as twin brothers.
The Testament of Ann Lee (Searchlight Pictures)Daniel Blumberg
Blumberg won this category earlier this year for The Brutalist. He is vying to become the first best original score winner to be nominated again the following year since Alexandre Desplat was nominated for Isle of Dogs at the 2019 ceremony after winning the previous year for The Shape of Water. The Testament of Ann Lee stars Amanda Seyfried as Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shakers religious sect in the 18th century.
Train Dreams (Netflix)Bryce Dessner
This would mark the first Oscar nomination for Dessner, who has won two Grammys — best chamber music/small ensemble performance in 2016 for producing Eighth Blackbird’s Filament and best alternative music album in 2018 as a band member and co-producer of The National’s Sleep Well Beast. Train Dreams stars Joel Edgerton as a logger who is working to develop the railroad across the United States.
Tron: Ares (Disney)Nine Inch Nails
As with their best original song entry, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are submitting this under their group name. If the academy keeps it that way, Nine Inch Nails will be the third group nominated in a scoring category as such, following The Beatles, who won best original song score in 1971 for Let It Be, and Son Lux, which was nominated for best original score three years ago for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Wicked: For Good (Universal)John Powell, Stephen Schwartz
Powell and Schwartz were nominated in this category at the 2025 ceremony for Wicked. Schwartz previously won in the defunct original musical or comedy score category for Pocahontas and was nominated in that category for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Prince of Egypt. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, who were Oscar-nominated for Wicked, reprise their roles in the sequel, as do Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum.
Additional reporting by Melinda Newman.
This story appears in the Nov. 15, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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After turning the Broadway smash Wicked into a blockbuster film, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, last fall, director Jon M. Chu and supervising music editor Jack Dolman are returning later this month with the second part of the musical adaptation, Wicked: For Good, to bring the story of Elphaba, Glinda and Oz back to the big screen once again.
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Successfully translating the songs and script of a beloved musical onto film is no easy feat, but the task was made even more challenging from Chu and his team when it was decided to bisect the story into two separate parts. It called for some creative solutions to build out Wicked: For Good into a story that can stand on its own, and as part of this retooling of the show’s second act, Chu and Dolman worked with composer Stephen Schwartz to craft two new songs — “The Girl in the Bubble,” sung by Grande, and “No Place Like Home,” sung by Erivo.
There were other challenges for Chu as well — famously, the director opted for all of the songs to be sung live while filming, presenting a number of technological challenges when editing the film in post-production, and while trying to make the songs larger than life, the sheer scale of the cast, choreography and sets made the ensemble numbers a remarkable juggling act.
But if anyone is up for the task, it’s Chu. He has had a lot of experience directing music and dance-focused films in the past, including his adaptation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. He also worked on multiple films in the Step Up franchise and Justin Bieber’s early concert film Never Say Never.
To walk Wicked fans through the process of adapting the songs of Wicked for the screen, the creation of two new songs, and what they’ve learned from working with top musicians like Grande, Erivo, Miranda and Bieber, Chu and Dolman joined Billboard‘s new music industry podcast, On the Record w/ Kristin Robinson, this week.
Below is an excerpt of that conversation.
Watch or listen to the full episode of On the Record on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts here, or watch it below.
There are two new songs in Wicked: For Good which were not included in the original stage production. How did you work with Stephen Schwartz to make sure the new songs felt like they still fit with the original ones?
Chu: All credit to Stephen Schwartz, he had to have such an open mind and not be precious about what he wrote, and be open to new themes [and songs]. Because I knew by splitting the movie into two — well, one, that was a big decision, but I needed the room, otherwise too many songs would be cut in a one-movie version and wouldn’t be Wicked to me.
I knew this was the first time Wicked was going to be crystallized forever, and so I really wanted to be true to the musical that I fell in love with. I felt the duty to make sure it was Wicked in whatever form. By splitting it into two, then you have to face more questions in the second act, because that’s where I wanted to get closer to these girls. I didn’t just want it to be about Dorothy dropping in and the plot moving. I wanted to understand, once they made the choice to go different ways after “Defying Gravity, how hard those consequences really are.
There was no scene or song yet that let’s us getting closer to Elphaba and understanding how it feels —how lonely it is — to be courageous and make a hard choice. She faces the question of ‘why defend a home that doesn’t even want you?’ The same thing goes with Glinda — we never get to see the moment [in the musical] where she decides to break out and to pop her bubble. So, I knew we wanted to either tackle this in new scenes or songs for those two moments, and of course, Schwartz was like, “It’s a song. I know what it is. Give me 48 hours.” And he started sending me voice memos, which is a really fun thing to get in the middle of the day.
I can’t imagine getting a voice memo from Stephen Schwartz.
Chu: It’s pretty epic. One thing about Stephen that I dont think people know is that he is a great storyteller — not just writing music and lyrics, which he’s always fantastic with — but he also prioritizes storytelling and character before anything else. t’s not about necessarily the melody for him, it’s about is this telling the story, the feeling that you need for this story. And I love that about him.
Jack, as music editor, I know it’s been said before that throughout the filming of Wicked Cynthia and Ariana were singing live, but what’s the mix between singing live versus doing some pickups to smooth things out in the record studio later on?
Dolman: There’s very little of that kind of pickup material at all. It was like being in a candy store all the time. You have these vocals and you have alternate visual takes. And John can speak to this, the alternate visual takes are going to be chosen for a variety of reasons by the director whether that’s performance reasons, for emotional reasons, but each one has these incredible vocals so how do you even begin to choose? Working with singers at the caliber of Cynthia and Ariana is something that I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to be able to do again. And it just meant that you had this embarrassment of riches. You could swap out one live syllable of a vowel in one word with another one, and it would, it would embolden the character in that moment, and it was just incredible to be able to work with that.
Jon, As you’re trying to edit the film and create that final product for Wicked, how did you make decisions based on the fact that sometimes one vocal performance might be your favorite for the music, but also a different shot might be your favorite for the visual?
Chu: It was always a give and take, but when you have the best singers in the world you have a lot of control because when I’m on set I’m not worrying about if they are a little sharp or flat, they are always on. It was great and freeing to let them be live and it is something that we didn’t necessarily expect in the beginning.
But if you look at the film as a whole, we all had to agree on what our philosophy is on a musical movie. Because, I think, anyone taking on a musical movie could do in different ways. Some people want to have such clean tracks, no footsteps, no door closing, like they just it want to feel like it’s an album when you go into songs, but that’s just not my philosophy. That’s not why I love music or musicals or movement.
So to me, it was like, “How do you make it feel like it is emerging from the character just as naturally as dialog?” So yes, it might be a little bit messier. You might hear the chair move, and yes, we have to decide, like, how loud that chair is, is it on beat? Is it off? Is it okay that it’s off beat? That’s all part of the fabric what we’re doing.
Jon, you’ve just worked with so many great musicians as a filmmaker, from Justin Bieber, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande. I’m wondering, has there been anything that has surprised you with how these people work?
Chu: I feel very lucky. I learned a lot from each of them. When I think about Lin-Manuel Miranda, I don’t believe in genius. I think people can make genius things, but I don’t think people are just geniuses. However, Lin is pretty as close as you can get. His voice messages of songs are amazing and insane. He has great understanding of language. I think that’s the thing I learned the most, is how important lyrics are. I had done dance movies, and I had done movement stuff and and so I knew how to find the lyricism and musicality in that, but lyrics were so important In The Heights, and I had to make room for that, and I had to understand that and he had to teach me a little bit.
I think I felt that similarly with even Justin Bieber, even at 14 years old — no matter what you say about him, he was doing big shows. And in the tour bus, he’d be alone playing video games after coming down from the show, and then he would go — just naturally, as a kid — to his computer, and he would start writing music in every city he was in. He had a folder from every city and in those folders were tracks and tracks of stuff that he was doing alone. None of this was ever going to be released. It was him as a 14-year-old doing some amazing stuff, but it wasn’t, quote, unquote, “part of his brand” or whatever at that moment. I knew very early, “Oh, this kid is, like, the real deal. He loves music. He’s going to do this for the rest of his life. This is not a performance. This is just what he does.”
I felt that with Ari and Cynthia as well. What I love about someone like Ariana is she’s also like a tech nerd — like, she gets in that Pro Tools and gets down. Like, she wanted to talk about craft with me and in the tech of it all. When she sees that computer and she sits down, it’s like — she is fast and she knows exactly where to go. I thought that was so beautiful.
And Cynthia obviously knows her stuff inside and out. She has such great taste and opinions about how her voice is. So all of them were different, in a way, but all of them were about craft. It was not about the performance of being a star at all. All of them [are doing what] fulfills them as a musician. They’re not focused on the red carpet — even though they do that very well, too.
Tell me about “No Place Like Home,” Elphaba’s new song in the film.
Chu: “No Place Like Home” is a nod to the L. Frank Baum book… Stephen really brought this to the table and said, “You know what happens when you start to question the thing that you’ve been fighting for? What happens when your home doesn’t even want you alive? Is home a place or is it an idea? And if it’s an idea, why do you need to be here for it? Should we just leave?” I think those questions, at least for me, I’ve always wondered about where Elphaba sits with this. Stephen already had an insight on that through this song. It was really cool to hear it for the first time.
When did you show Cynthia and Ariana these new songs?
Chu: The first time the girls had ever heard it was the first time we all got together at my house for dinner. I was about to leave for London to shoot the film so everything was moved out, but there was a piano in there because the person moving in brought their family piano and moved that in early.
So we all had dinner. This is at the end of COVID lockdown so we hadn’t all seen each other in person. And Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman and two girls are there the first time. And the girls are together in front of us — they never did chemistry read together — and Schwartz got on the piano and started playing their new songs for them. They got to listen to [“No Place Like Home”] in front of us, and they just, I mean, there was lots of tears. It was just one of those great moments.
And then he sang the other one for for Ari [“The Girl in the Bubble”], and then he started playing “For Good,” and he’s like, “Shall we?” And they just did it for the first time together. And at that moment, I took my kids out of their bedrooms, and I was like, “You better watch this thing right now. This is history.” When they sang, it was like a revelation — like, “Oh my goodness, the world does not know what’s about to happen.”
I didn’t realize those songs were written so early, during COVID lockdown. Did Steven Schwartz take into account Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s voices specifically when writing these extra songs?
Chu: Yeah, at that point, they had already been cast, but he we didn’t say anything to them yet. I don’t think, well, maybe they knew, but they didn’t know what the song was or how it was going to be. When they came over that day, I was sharing costume designs and some production designs with them, so they were getting a lot that day just dumped on them to get a sense of it all. Everything would evolve though. The songs and images would evolve over time, but this was a starting point to get us there.
Trending on Billboard Ariana Grande‘s time with the Fockers and Byrnes has come to a close. The singer/actress, who’s slated to appear in the John Hamburg-directed comedy Focker In-Law for Universal, shared a sweet message to her co-stars and photos from the set of the film on Instagram Friday (Oct. 31). Explore See latest videos, […]
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Many of us are familiar with the fact that Nick Cannon has fathered enough children to ensure his bloodline will remain on this Earth until the end of time, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the man continues to take on new jobs as children ain’t cheap and he’s making sure his babies eat well.
According to Variety, Nick Cannon will be adding a new hosting gig to his ever-expanding portfolio as he will now be taking on Lego Masters, replacing the show’s former host, Will Arnett. Though Will Arnett has been the show’s host for the past five seasons, the Fox network is looking to inject some new energy into the show and who better than the man who can’t seem to stop procreating and wildin’ out on a daily basis, right?
Per Variety:
“We’re thrilled to bring ‘Lego Masters’ back for another season,” said Michael Thorn, president of Fox Television Network. “Alongside our incredible creative partners, this beloved series continues to captivate audiences. Originally launched with the wonderful Will Arnett, the show now enters an exciting next chapter with Nick Cannon at the helm, who brings a new fun energy to the competition.”
Endemol Shine North America CEO Sharon Levy called Cannon “a proven entertainer with a fantastic rapport, and we’re eager to witness how his unique style will elevate the competition during the new season,” said Levy. She also saluted Arnett for five seasons of brick-building action.
While everyone seems excited to be bringing Nick Cannon on board for the show’s sixth season, Arnett was given his flowers for making the show the phenomenon it is today (amongst Lego enthusiasts anyway).
“Of course, none of this would have been possible without the phenomenal Will Arnett, who guided us through five truly superlative seasons. Will’s comedic brilliance and genuine passion for the show laid the perfect foundation, and we are immensely thankful for his incredible contribution,” Levy said.
Cannon for his part is excited to be taking on the new gig as he too is a fan of what Will Arnett has brought to the Lego game.
“I’m a huge fan of ‘Lego Masters,’ said Cannon. “It’s an honor to join the series and host another show with my Fox family. Season six we’re bringing an action-packed hour full of family fun, passion and for the first time ever, in-person audition episodes. I can’t wait to see the insane creations and give away a big bag of money to the best of the best.”
Don’t be surprised if someone builds Nick Cannon a baby crib made out of Legos or something.
What do y’all think of Nick Cannon replacing Will Arnett as the host of Lego Masters? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Concord Originals, the film and TV division of music company Concord, has acquired storied film studio RKO, giving the Nashville-based music company a wealth of opportunities to promote and capitalize on its publishing and recorded music catalog.
RKO is one of Hollywood’s oldest studios and produced numerous timeless films and TV productions from the ‘20s to ’50s, including King Kong, Citizen Kane, The Best Years of Our Lives, It’s a Wonderful Life, Suspicion and The Woman in the Window. Legendary industrialist Howard Hughes owned RKO for a brief stretch, buying the company in 1947 and selling it to General Rubber and Tire in 1955.
The acquisition covers derivative rights for remakes, sequels, stage productions and stories — “anything that someone with creative intent and with a little bit of sweat equity could theoretically turn into a project,” Concord CEO Bob Valentine tells Billboard. Concord’s deal for RKO gives it the opportunity “to develop new and interesting projects around that original IP,” Valentine explains. Turner Broadcasting System, now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, acquired the distribution rights to the original RKO library in 1987.
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RKO’s library includes what Valentine calls “some of the most seminal musicals” created in the mid-20th century, many of which have not yet been adapted for live performance. Among RKO’s musicals are films starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers such as Top Hat and Swing Time. “I wouldn’t underestimate the potential for theatrical development,” he says.
RKO will continue to operate as a standalone entity within Concord Originals after the transaction. Sophia Dilley, head of Concord Originals, and current RKO president Mary Beth O’Connor will run RKO has co-presidents. RKO chairman and CEO Ted Hartley will stay on as lead producer and chief storyteller of active RKO projects.
Dilley’s six-person team will expand to nine after the acquisition. RKO’s Brian Anderson will work across both companies as director of contract, administration and distribution, according to Dilley. As part of a recent restructuring at Concord Originals, Wesley Adams was upped to vp of production and distribution, Charlie Hopkins was promoted to vp of development and Imogen Lloyd Webber was given the new role of executive vp of marketing and communications of Concord Originals and Theatricals.
“Our plan will be to grow strategically, because a lot of these film companies grow too fast, they have overhead too fast,” says Dilley. “Our mission is to be really frugal and careful about how we put this together so that it’s set up for success long term.”
Concord Originals was founded in 2021 as an outgrowth of Concord’s realization that it could be “a more direct beneficiary” of derivative works that involved the company’s music rights, says Dilley. Among the productions by Concord Originals are Stax: Soulsville USA, a Peabody Award-winning, four-part HBO documentary that was co-produced with Polygram Entertainment and Warner Music Entertainment, and Let the Canary Sing, a documentary about singer Cyndi Lauper produced with Fine Point Films and Sony Music Entertainment. Concord Originals is also working on a biopic on blues legend Robert Johnson, whose publishing catalog is represented by Concord Music Publishing.
In addition, Concord Originals has a partnership with Skydance Entertainment and Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions to develop original projects. One such project is a limited series based on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Rogers & Hammerstein’s catalog was acquired by Concord in 2017 through its purchase of Imagem Music Group.
Source: Mike Marsland / Getty / Ryan Coogler
Sinners took a tremendous bite out of the box office, but don’t expect the story of Stack and Mary to continue unless something significant happens to get Ryan Coogler back in the director’s chair.
Speaking with Ebony, Ryan Coogler revealed that he never planned on making a sequel to his period vampire flick, throwing a splash of cold holy water on any speculation that Sinners would become a franchise, like his other projects, Creed and Black Panther.
Even though Coogler secured a historic deal by securing the rights to Sinners, meaning the rights of the film will revert to him after 25 years.
The director told the publication he “never” gave any thought to making a sequel to Sinners.
“I’ve been in a space of making franchise films for a bit, so I wanted to get away from that,” Coogler said. “I was looking forward to working on a film that felt original and personal to me, and had an appetite for delivering something to audiences that was original and unique.”
When watching his film, Coogler explained that he wanted to give audiences a “full meal.”
He continued, “I wanted it to be a holistic and finished thing. That was how I was asked all about it. That was always my intention.”
Coogler’s statement comes after false reports of a Sinners sequel in development flooded both Instagram and X, formerly Twitter, timelines.
‘SINNERS 2’ is rumored to be in development.
(Via: @prodweek) #Sinners pic.twitter.com/WprpwKF9vv
— CriticalOverlord (@CriticalOverlo3) May 29, 2025
Fans Seem To Be Happy A Sequel To Sinners Is Not In The Works
However, now that we know a sequel is unlikely, it seems most moviegoers are fine with the idea that Stack and Mary’s story ended with that post-credits scene.
Normalize not fucking things up with a sequel 🙏 https://t.co/gMVwFOjd5F
— bryo (@falloutbryan) June 2, 2025
We are not opposed to the idea of a Sinners sequel, but we want it to happen on Ryan Coogler’s terms, not the studio’s.
Hit the gallery below for more reactions.
6.
Why does everything have to have a sequel Sinners is brilliant it doesn’t need a cinematic universe.I can’t wait for Mr Cooglers next original film. Let the guy cook https://t.co/6XA1HxLXrb— Rich Brockwell (@richkbrock) June 1, 2025
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For Bono, music has always been an immersive art form. “When I was a teenager and stereo came, it was everything,” the rock legend tells Billboard. “U2 immersed ourselves in our audience — I jumped into the audience, and then our shows were always immersive in their instincts.”
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So when he got an early look at the Apple Vision Pro, the mixed-reality headset that the company launched in the U.S. last year, Bono says that he “was honored to be a lab rat in in their unusual mix of art and science.” On Friday (May 30), Bono: Stories of Surrender, a new documentary that captures and expands upon his recent one-man stage show, will be released on Apple TV+ as both a standard 2D film and as an immersive experience on the Vision Pro — the first feature-length project to be released in the format.
U2 has a long history of partnering with Apple, and Bono says that he was happy to be the one to break new ground for the company. “A lot of companies, when they get to that scale, they stop innovating,” he says. “And here they are again, ready to do it.
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“And for the first time, I got to see myself onstage, and realized, ‘What a big arse!’” Bono adds with a laugh. “That has gotta go! And by the way, are those nose hairs? I’m like, ‘Wow!’”
Indeed, Stories of Surrender offers plenty of extreme close-ups of the rock star, as the documentary (directed by Andrew Dominik) adds new dimension to a 2023 performance of Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief… The stage show itself was an extension of Bono’s 2022 memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, and mixed monologues detailing his upbringing, sparse visual props and stripped-down arrangements of some of U2’s biggest hits, all in a theater setting (the doc was filmed at the Beacon Theatre in New York City).
“I ended up in the stage play because I didn’t want to do a promotion tour for the book,” Bono notes, “and I thought I’d do something a bit more challenging and a bit more fun — for me, selfishly speaking, and perhaps for the audience.”
The 86-minute documentary flies by with heartfelt anecdotes about Bono’s relationship with his father, the earliest days of U2, run-ins with global celebrities and his legacy as an artist. Although the tasteful presentations of U2 songs like “Beautiful Day,” “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Vertigo” — by a trio of backing musicians, led by veteran producer Jacknife Lee — earn deservedly rousing reactions from the audience in the doc, Bono’s stories also received a reaction that startled him when the stage show launched.
“I went out onstage, and something happened to me that had never happened to me before onstage with U2, at least not in more than 30-seconds intervals: People started laughing!” Bono says. “And I started to [think], ‘Oh, is this funny? Wow, I like the sound of this.’
“And so I had the songs, and I’d found a different way of getting inside the songs to tell the story, and now I could be as silly and as serious as I wanted to be, and indeed, as I am,” he continues. “There’s a reason tragic comedy was a favorite of Shakespeare’s. People’s tears mean more after they’ve been laughing, or the other way around. And all our lives are these absurdities, aren’t they?”
Now that this extended look back — first with the memoir, then with the stage show, and now with the documentary — is wrapping up, Bono says that each project has made him feel closer to his father, Bob, who passed away in 2001. In the doc, Bono re-creates multiple conversations with his dad across time — playing both roles by turning his head from side to side, finding humor and heartache as the camera cuts between the sides of the discussion.
“It is a little opera that I was making, about … my father, and how his son had to go through various different stages before he’d fully appreciate his father,” says Bono. “And one of those stages was playing him onstage, with the turn of my head every night, and realizing that my father was funny. And not just that I loved him, but I started to like him, just by playing him.”
Source: Ethan Miller / Getty
It’s been three decades since us older heads had to endure that train wreck of a video game turned feature film, Street Fighter, and while it basically ended the short but successful career of Jean-Claude Van Damme, it seems like Hollywood will once again attempt to give the classic video game a proper live-action adaptation in the near future.
According to Deadline, a new Street Fighter film is in the works and though the good folks over at Capcom are remaining mum on the project, sources tell Deadline that some pretty big names are being floated around for casting in the upcoming project. Names like WWE superstar Roman Reigns and Hollywood action stars such as Jason Momoa, Andrew Koji, and Noah Centineo are being flown around to star in the feature film though no word on which characters each man would be cast to play as the video game has an illustrious list of fighters who’ve come and gone over the decades throughout the franchise’s numerous installment. Naturally OG characters such as Ryu, Ken, and Guile (whom Van Damme portrayed in the disastrous 1994 film) are expected to be in the film, but we’d really love to see other fan favorites such as Akuma, Vega, and Necro make their big screen debut.
Still, we know little to nothing about the upcoming film as the studio is playing everything close to the chest, but all we can do is hope that they don’t give us another lackluster adaptation as the one we got in the mid 90’s.
Per Deadline:
Reps for the studio declined comment, and the plot of the film remains under wraps. In February, Bad Trip‘s Kitao Sakurai boarded as director, inheriting the project from Talk To Me‘s Danny & Michael Philippou, who attached themselves in April of 2023, following Legendary’s acquisition of exclusive film and TV rights to the Street Fighter IP. The film adaptation is being co-developed and co-produced alongside Capcom, the developer and publisher of the video games. No word has emerged yet on who has written and who specifically will produce the actioner.
We would say it couldn’t be any worse than 1994’s Street Fighter, but truth be told, anything is possible these days.
Who would you like to see get cast in the upcoming Street Fighter film and for which character? Let us know in the comments below.
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So does Mad!, the title of Sparks’ new and 26th studio album, refer to brothers Ron and Russell Mael’s current temperament? Or is it simply a reference to their legendarily idiosyncratic creative comportment that’s made the pair a cult darling for the past 54 years?
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“Maybe a little of each,” Russell Mael tells Billboard as he travels from Philadelphia, where Sparks performed at NON-COMMvention the previous evening, to New York. “There’s the two general meanings of mad, being either angry or being crazy,” he says. “Just the overall ambience of the whole album seemed to lend itself to that title. But then you can exact from it, too, that it also is reflective of the general zeitgeist now, with what’s going on everywhere — in particular here (in the United States).”
The 12-song set, produced by the Maels and recorded with their regular touring band, comes as part of a particularly prolific period in Sparks’ career. It’s the group’s ninth studio album since the turn of the century and its third of the decade, directly following 2023’s The Girl is Crying in Her Latte. It also comes in the wake of Edgar Wright’s acclaimed 2021 documentary The Sparks Brothers and the 2021 release of the Maels’ long-gestating film musical Annette, which produced not only a soundtrack album but also last year’s Annette — An Opera by Sparks (The Original 2013 Recordings).
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All of that, along with touring, has kept Sparks’ profile high, and there’s an undeniably triumphant — as well as defiant — message conveyed as Sparks kicks into Mad! with the forceful opening track “Do Things My Own Way.”
“You don’t like to be heavy-handed with a message like that,” Russell explains, “but it is kind of that statement, in a way. It kind of applies to how we think — from day one, even when we did our first album [1971’s Halfnelson, also the band’s name at the time] with Todd Rundgren (producing). He always encouraged us to keep the eccentricities that we just naturally had and to not smooth over the edges, don’t lose your character and personality. Even on that first album, he thought we’d created our own universe he’d never heard before. He said it was something from somewhere else, which is a nice thing to say, especially with a band that was just a new group.”
Sparks was celebrated last year with an outstanding contribution to music honor at the AIM Independent Music Awards. And though the group has only intersected with the pop mainstream on rare occasions — “Cool Places” with Jane Wiedlin hit the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983, and “When Do I Get to Sing ‘My Way’” went top 10 on the Dance Club Songs chart in 1995 — the fact Sparks is still with us is proof that being a bit “weird” is not a bad thing.
“Things are on the upswing for Sparks,” Mael says. “I think there’s been this — especially in the last few years, since the Edgar Wright documentary, and since the Annette movie — whole new audience, some of whom didn’t even know the band at all but became aware of it through different channels than just us having our own album out. It’s not the typical career trajectory.”
Mad! was created in standard Sparks methodology, according to Mael, without a great deal of forethought — and, according to the vocalist, nothing held over from previous projects.
“Everything was done specifically for this album,” Mael says. “It’s a process where we’re pretty free to work however we want. Sometimes we’ll have a complete song that’s fully formed…or we come in with nothing at all planned and just sit down and see if something can come up from nothing. Having our own studio, you’re free to experiment in that way. We’ve been working together for so long now that we’re able to read what each other’s thoughts are regarding the songs or the recording process. That certainly makes it easier. It’s not starting off with any questions marks.”
The result on Mad! is unapologetically diverse — to its benefit. Musical and lyrical quirks about; “JanSport Backpack” is about just that, for instance, while “Running Up a Tab at the Hotel for the Fab” is a good-humored “mini-movie,” and “I-405 Rules” and “A Long Red Light” show the Maels are well attuned to traffic patterns in their native Los Angeles. The range of sounds, meanwhile, runs from the aggressive attack of “Hit Me, Baby” to the theatrical drama of “Don’t Dog It” to the string-fueled “I-405 Rules,” while a great deal of melodic pop floats through “A Little Bit of Light Banter,” “My Devotion,” “Drowned in a Sea of Tears” and the Mersey-meets-Bacharach majesty of “Lord Have Mercy.”
“I think we both have the same goal in mind… to try to come up with fresh approaches to the universe that Sparks has and has had since the very beginning and try to stretch that, or try to find new angles to be able to do in three-and-a-half-minute songs,” Mael says. “We both really like pop music, and we still feel there are ways to come up with stuff that will hopefully surprise a listener in this day and age. Pop music has been there a long time, so the trick is to see how you can take that form and still come up with something fresh — but not be weird just to be weird, or odd.”
Mad! also finds Sparks with a new label, Transgressive Records, after working with Island on The Girl is Crying in Her Latte. “Sometimes you just have to make moves,” Mael notes. “Transgressive heard the album; even referring back to ‘Do Things My Own Way,’ they told us they thought that was really a kind of manifesto of their label. They’ve all been huge Sparks fans for a long time. They really wanted to be involved not only ’cause they like us as a group, but they responded to this album and really felt a kinship to it. We’ve been lucky enough to work with people like Chris Blackwell at Island in the ‘70s, even Richard Branson at Virgin and of course Albert Grossman with Bearsville Records when we first started. It seems like in today’s musical climate there’s fewer and fewer of those visionary types. Transgressive shares that same kind of spirit, so it’s a good fit.”
Mad! will send Sparks back on the road, beginning June 8 in Japan and followed by an early summer trek through Europe before returning to North America starting Sept. 5 in Atlanta, with dates booked through Sept. 30 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Maels are also working on another movie musical that John Woo (Face/Off, Mission: Impossible 2, Silent Night) is on board to direct.
“We wanted to do another narrative project, ‘cause we really liked the whole process with Annette so much, really working and channeling our music in other ways,” says Mael, who describes the new piece as “really different in its approach than Annette.” The brothers read in an interview with Woo that he’s long wanted to make a musical and invited him to their studio to hear what they had.
“He said, ‘This is amazing, and I want to direct it,’ so we’ve been working with him to refine the story elements. He’s completely sold on the whole approach and all of the music. We have three really great producers now on the project; they’re out there trying to get all the financing together so we can start the production. We think it’s going to be something really amazing.”
Source: YouTube / DC Studios
We’re still months away from finally seeing what James Gunn has been cooking in his DC Studios when Superman: Legacy hits theaters on July 11, and with all kinds of rumors being thrown around as to who’ll be appearing or making cameos, it seems like we’ve gotten confirmation as to which villain will be involved in the film and we aren’t talking about Lex Luthor.
According to Newsweek, it’s been leaked that Superman villain Ultraman will be part of Superman: Legacy and for those that aren’t familiar with the villain, he’s basically an evil version of Superman from an alternate universe. Confirmation came as the action figure for the villain was revealed online and fans were excited to learn that Superman would be going toe-to-toe with an bad version of himself (not like in 1983’s Superman III though. That was just weird).
As for a little backstory on the villain, Newsweek breaks it down.
Newsweek reports:
In the comics, Ultraman is from an alternate universe in which most of people who we know as heroes in DC comics are instead villains. For example, instead of the Justice League of America, Ultraman is part of the Crime Syndicate of America. A villain named Johnny Quick replaces The Flash, Power Ring instead of Green Lantern, Owlman instead of Batman, etc.
So if the Ultraman of “Superman” is – like his comic book counterpart – a Superman variant, the question is exactly how A.R.G.U.S. finds him and gets him to help them out. The Ultraman of the comics would need a whole lot of convincing to help A.R.G.U.S. or anyone else to work for something other than his own selfish designs; not to mention doing it while hiding his identity.
Y’all already know Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) might’ve figured out a way to pull off such a feat. He’s an evil mastermind for Christ’s sake.
The only question is, who’ll be behind the mask of Ultraman? With rumors that Henry Cavill is somehow a part of this film (fingers crossed), imagine the theater reaction to a reveal that Cavill is the evil Superman? Heads would explode. Just sayin.’
What do y’all think about Ultraman being a big baddie in Superman: Legacy? Do you have any expectations for the film? Let us know in the comments section below.
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