MOVIE
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Beyoncé will host the dual premieres of her Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé concert movie in Los Angeles on Nov. 25 and London on Nov. 30, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The roll-out will happen just a few days before AMC Entertainment and Bey’s Parkwood Entertainment open the film in theaters around the world on Dec. 1.
The doc chronicling the singer’s highest-grossing tour to date was co-directed by the singer, who also wrote it and executive produced the project. Tickets for international territories — including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, South America and the Caribbean — will go on sale on Nov. 9 here; tickets are on sale now in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
A description of the film notes that it, “accentuates the journey of Renaissance World Tour, from its inception, to the opening in Stockholm, Sweden, to the finale in Kansas City, Missouri. It is about Beyoncé’s intention, hard work, involvement in every aspect of the production, her creative mine and purpose to create her legacy, and master her craft. Received with extraordinary acclaim, Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour created a sanctuary for freedom, and shared joy for more than 2.7 million fans.”
While locations for the U.S. and European premieres have not yet been announced, an invitation for London suggested a “formal opulence” dress code, while the L.A. premiere calls for “Cozy opulence,” a seeming reference to the Renaissance album track “Cozy.”
“When I am performing, I am nothing but free,” Bey said in the voiceover of the film’s two-minute trailer that also includes the singer casually walking to stage while flashing a peace sign, stretching pre-show with her kids — including rehearsing with backup dancer/eldest daughter Blue Ivy Carter — and having a cocktail in the green room. Husband Jay-Z also makes a cameo, pumping his fist and smiling from the crowd in the clip that also featured the couple’s twins, Rumi and Sir.
The two-hour-and-thirty-minute unrated film is the latest concert film from Bey, following on the heels of her 2019 Netflix doc Homecoming — which chronicled her 2018 Coachella headlining set — as well as her 2013 HBO movie, Life Is But a Dream, a hybrid live performance and video diary project, and 2009’s I Am… Yours: An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas.
Watch the Renaissance trailer below.
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In advance of Britney Spears coming back to the big screen in next month’s re-release of the singer’s movie debut in 2002’s coming-of-age road-trip dramedy Crossroads, a new trailer is getting fans hyped for the special event.
The 30-second trailer for the global fan event on Oct. 23 and 25 opens with Spears’ Lucy enthusiastically singing Madonna’s “Open Your Heart” into a spoon in her teenage bedroom, which just happens to have a poster of Madge’s debut album cover in plain view on the wall.
As Spears bounces around the room lost in music, she suddenly stops and hops under the bed when her dad (Dan Akroyd) yells from the other room. Cut to Lucy hopping in the car with her two estranged high school besties, Mimi (Taryn Manning) and Kit (Zoë Saldaña) for a cross-country road trip, where they’re joined by Mimi’s handsome friend, Ben (Anson Mount).
“So I’m going all the way to California,” Mimi says, as Spears’ Lucy counsels, “you can’t go by yourself with some guy.” We also see Akroyd berating Lucy for sneaking away in the middle of the night and ordering her to return right away. The clip ends with Spears crooning “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” one of the hits from the singer’s 2001 Britney album.
The two-night event from Trafalgar Releasing, Sony Music Entertainment and RCA Records will support Spears’ upcoming tell-all memoir, The Woman in Me (Oct. 24). The movie written by Shonda Rhimes (Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy) and directed by Tamra Davis (CB4, 13) will include bonus features never before seen in theaters — including a sing-along to two of Spears’ songs from the film.
“I recently rewatched Crossroads and was so enthralled with the time capsule of nostalgia that this incredible ensemble cast brings to the screen,” director Davis said in a statement when the re-release was announced last week. “Britney is absolutely breathtaking to watch, and Shonda is showing us her early expertise in writing complicated female characters.”
There will also be a new merch line featuring shirts, sweats, jackets and pieces inspired by the film’s wardrobe, as well as RCA Records’ Crossroads: Special Edition of the soundtrack, with three new Spears remixes: “Overprotected” (Richi Lopez Remix), “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” (Snakehips Remix) and “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” (Frank Walker Remix).
Watch the new Crossroads trailer below.
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Lil Nas X has always been unabashedly himself, never shying away from being out and proud in a genre that hasn’t always been accepting to the LGBTQ community. The “Industry Baby” rapper also reveals in his new documentary, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, that he helped his brother, Tramon Hill, come out as bisexual.
The film — which has its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday night — includes a scene in which Hill describes how Lil Nas, 24, made him comfortable discussing who he is as well, according to EW. “My brother really opened doors for a lot of people,” Hill says in the film, EW reported. “Yeah, he opened a door for me. What I mean by that, like, I’m not gay, though, you feel me? I’m bisexual. He helped me be real with myself. My brother made me more open to it.”
Later in the movie, Hill says that while he was worried about losing some of his cherished relationships after coming out, Lil Nas helped show him the way again. “If you f–k with me, you f–l with me. If you don’t, you don’t. Bye. Get out of my presence. I don’t need you,” Hill says. “At the end of the day, people are going to f–k with who they f–k with, so stop trying to chase a friend. A friend is going to always be there.”
The film also follows Lil Nas as he hits the road for his debut tour, 2022’s Long Live Montero, hangs with Madonna and faces off against homophobic protesters outside his shows. EW also noted that Lil Nas tells a funny story toward the beginning of the movie about running into How to Get Away With Murder star Viola Davis at the iconic L.A. grocery store Erewhon that did not go as expected.
“I met Viola Davis at an Erewhon, but I don’t think she knew who the f– I was,” Lil Nas says while showing directors Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel a photo of David taped to his bedroom wall, which also features images of Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Euphoria star Alexa Demie. “I was like, ‘I’m such a big fan,’ and she was like, ‘Oh, thanks,’ and she hurried out the store. It was kind of funny.”
At press time there was no release date yet for the film, whose debut this weekend was delayed by 20 minutes after a bomb threat was called in to the festival; authorities later verified that the threat was not credible.
If you missed out on Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour during the record-shattering 52-date U.S. swing, the good news is that you can play catch-up next month when the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour concert film opens in every AMC Theatre in the U.S., Mexico and Canada on Oct. 13.
Swift excitedly announced the 2 hr. 45 minute film on her socials on Thursday morning (Aug. 31), posting an 80-second trailer and writing, “The Eras Tour has been the most meaningful, electric experience of my life so far and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it’ll be coming to the big screen soon. Starting Oct 13th you’ll be able to experience the concert film in theaters in North America!”
The immediate question, though, aside from “how many times are you going to see it?” was: How was Swift able to film and promote the documentary in the midst of the ongoing Hollywood strike by actors and writers? The production-crippling strike began when the Writers Guild of America walked out on May 2 — followed by members of SAG-AFTRA joining in on July 13 — shutting down production on nearly all movies, TV and streaming projects in the U.S.
However, SAG-AFTRA has struck an interim agreement to cover individual non-AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) productions that meet the same standards the unions are seeking in their negotiations with the studios. A source close to the Swift film confirmed to Billboard on Thursday that the Eras doc had obtained clearance under that agreement before shooting the movie. Billboard also confirmed that the Swift film is included under an assumed name on the list of approved interim agreement projects.
The list of terms on the interim agreement covers everything from scheduled breaks to payment for fittings, meal and wardrobe allowances for principal actors and background actors, per diems, rest periods and more.
The Eras Tour film was shot over the first three nights of Swift’s six-night stand at L.A.’s SoFi Stadium from Aug. 3-9.
Selena Gomez appeared to take down a photo tagging her Hulu series Only Murders in the Building earlier this week after some followers accused her of breaking the SAG-AFTRA rules concerning promotion during the strike. The union rules prohibit members from promoting new or finished works being released during the strike in interviews, on their socials or on red carpets. Because the Swift film is covered under the interim agreement, Billboard has confirmed that the singer’s post promoting it does not run afoul of any strike rules and there are no restrictions on her promotion of the project.
In an example of the impact of the strike on another musician who also has a foot in Hollywood, when Troye Sivan recently spoke with Billboard, he was excited to plug his new single, “Rush,” but was unable to discuss his work on the recently canceled HBO drama The Idol, which had wrapped its run weeks earlier. “I am in total support of the strike and am holding strong with everyone in waiting it out and making sure that everyone gets treated fairly,” Sivan said, adding that he also couldn’t talk about his upcoming starring role in the coming-of-age drama Three Months.
Swifties already likely know everything they need to about getting tickets to the movie, but just in case: every U.S. AMC Theatre location will run the Eras film at least four times per day on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sundays, with tickets for priced at $19.89 plus tax for adults and $13.13 for children and seniors plus tax (except for AMC’s branded premium large-format screens.) The film will be available in AMC theaters in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with tickets on sale now here and here.
In light of the chaotic roll-out of Eras Tour presale tickets from Ticketmaster, AMC said it had upgraded its website and ticketing engines to “handle more than five times the largest influx of ticket-buying traffic” the company has experienced before.
Watch the Eras Tour concert film trailer below.
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If you were losing it in the theater watching Ryan Gosling turn the Kenergy up to 11 in the Barbie movie during his showstopper power balled “I’m Just Ken,” just wait until you see how director Greta Gerwig felt while watching her star ham it up on the beach. In a behind-the-scenes video chronicling the […]
Travis Scott‘s super-sized roll-out of his Utopia album continued on Tuesday (Aug. 15) with the free YouTube posting of his 75-minute Circus Maximus film, as well as four Utopia music videos.
The trippy film — which played in select theaters on the album’s July 28th release date — opens with a scene in which Scott dreams he is being enveloped by a gigantic sea creature before setting off on a quest across a desolate landscape that brings him to a lavish mansion where he meets up with producer Rick Rubin.
Seen through a keyhole, their interaction initially finds Rubin asking probing questions (“is the house half empty, or completely empty?,” “how are the kids?,” “are you still crying?,” “how about the drugs, are they still working, or are you just tired of them?”) as an exasperated Scott tries to gather his thoughts.
What unfolds over the next hour-plus is a head-spinning film — written by Scot and co-directed by the rapper, Andrew Dosunmu and Kahlil Joseph — that incorporates all 19 tracks from the feature-filled album in a series of colorful vignettes. It bounces from Scott rapping “Hyaena” in an African village, to the MC participating in a Catalan-style human tower build in “Sirens,” all intercut with bits of the Rubin interview.
Elsewhere, there is a futuristic taxi chase set to the Beyoncé-assisted “Delresto (Echoes),” a strobing underground dance party for “Modern Jam” and some fresh footage cued to “Hyaena” and a remix of “Jam” in which Scott stands in front of a massive wall of speakers in Rome’s Circus Maximus, which bleeds into an extended run of footage from the recent album release show in the ancient venue that drew 60,000 fans and a surprise Kanye West cameo.
The break-out videos for “Sirens,” “Modern Jam,” “Hyaena” and “Delresto (Echoes)” are all versions of the clips that appear in the Maximus movie. Utopia has ruled the Billboard 200 albums chart for two weeks in a row, earning 147,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. for the week ending Aug. 10, down 70%, according to Luminate, from its debut the week before with 496,000 units earned.
Check out the Scott videos below.
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On July 19, two days before Barbie and its soundtrack would arrive, over 150 independent record stores across the country were celebrating early with listening sessions of the star-studded Barbie: The Album.
“We’ve actually never done [that] for a soundtrack release before,” says Kevin Weaver, Atlantic Records’ West Coast president and the album’s co-producer (alongside Mark Ronson and Atlantic’s executive vp/co-head of pop/rock A&R, Brandon Davis). Meanwhile, the label’s international teams were making sure that retailers around the world were involved, too, resulting in an impressive global reach.
“This is the largest scale activation we’ve ever done for something like this,” continues Weaver. “And the feedback that I got from our teams internally was that this was the most successful activation of this nature that we’ve ever done.”
Barbie: The Album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, boasting the largest sales week on vinyl for a theatrical film soundtrack (33,000) since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. Overall, the album opened with the biggest week (by units earned) for a theatrical film soundtrack in over four years. (The last soundtrack to score a bigger week was Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born).
Weaver says he and his team thought about their vinyl strategy on day one of planning for the soundtrack. “We had identified the value and the importance of being able to deliver the music with enough time to be able to manufacture the vinyl and get it out into the world for street date. It was [one] of the most critical aspects of what we were doing.”
Nashville Record Pressing (NRP) began pressing the album in May (the plant says a 10-week lead time is typical), ensuring the physical copies would be ready by the album’s release date. The plant manufactured a total of seven variants, with five currently being offered on the soundtrack’s official web store: hot pink, sky blue, milky clear (Amazon exclusive), cotton candy (Barnes & Noble exclusive) and neon pink (Urban Outfitters exclusive). In all, the first run was estimated at 100,000. “That’s a good sized run for an [original soundtrack], and does indicate strong demand for the title,” says Drake Coker, CEO of NRP, which is owned by GZ Media. “Which makes sense, given the strength of the film.”
Given the months-long lead time, Weaver admits he and his team were “really nervous” about the music leaking. And while the label has a long track record of successful soundtrack releases, Barbie was its own beast. “We have songs from the biggest superstars in the world,” he says, noting a handful of whom were kept a secret until the last minute.
“Historically on these kind of projects – I’ve done The Greatest Showman, Suicide Squad, Fast and Furious – we’ve been able to get a physical product on day and date. Historically, that’s been a CD. Usually, we follow with the vinyl and it’s an afterthought,” says Weaver. “Here we just knew the critical importance of that not being the case.” While Barbie: The Album is also available on CD and cassette, he and his team identified early on that vinyl would be a key format for Barbie’s biggest fans.
“We knew that the core demo was ferociously out there buying up whatever merch and product they could get their hands on, and we were able to work very closely with Mattel to really understand their core consumer,” says Weaver. “It just felt like it was going to be so culturally relevant that the vinyl was going to be a collector’s item as much as an audio listening experience.”
As such, various versions kept coming — and might still. On Friday (July 21), the release date for both the film and soundtrack, an expanded version of the album also arrived: Barbie The Album (Best Weekend Ever Edition). It featured two bonus tracks, including Ryan Gosling’s cover of “Push” by Matchbox Twenty (which Gosling sings in the film) and a cover of the Indigo Girls’ “Closer To Fine” — which also plays an integral role in the movie — performed by Brandi Carlile and her wife, Catherine Carlile. Weaver says those two songs have been added to “various configurations of the physical product.”
Fans will also notice “Barbie Dreams” by FIFTY FIFTY featuring Kaliii is missing from the original pressing of the soundtrack. That, along with “Choose Your Fighter” by Ava Max (which appears on the hot prink variant) has since been added to a limited edition repress of the sky blue vinyl. It’s currently available for pre-order, with a ship date of Sept. 22.
“We tried to keep feeding what would be available on the physical side,” says Weaver. “There are definitely overarching conversations between myself and my creative partners — [director] Greta Gerwig and Mark Ronson and filmmakers and the studio — about what are ways in which we can continue to support the music brands here and the appetite within.” An exclusive Record Store Day release isn’t out of the question, with Weaver promising “cool new iterations” ahead. (Weaver says the coolest of all is the custom version called Kevin the Album, made with exclusive cover art in honor of his birthday.)
While it seems the Barbie hype won’t die down anytime soon, Weaver is allowing himself a moment to look back on what he and his team pulled off. “Having the vinyl and being able to deliver it to the consumer the way that we did was one of the funnest aspects of the whole project,” he says. “It’s something that I’m really proud of and something that I’m really glad we were able to figure out how to accomplish.”
When Duran Duran set out to play their first major U.S. show in March 2022 they knew it had to be epic and it probably had to be in Los Angeles. “When we kind of casually sauntered into the project built around a one-off show that we did there as we deepened the concept it seemed we naturally found ourselves talking about our experiences,” bassist — and 30-year-Los Angeles resident — John Taylor tells Billboard about the sky-high location for last year’s A Hollywood High docu-film.
The movie that premiered in November is moving to Paramount+ on June 21 and in advance of its streaming debut, Billboard spoke to Taylor about capturing the moment, the importance of paying tribute to the embattled people of Ukraine, the set list curation and why he thinks the English New Romantic band has been able to stick it out well past many of their peers.
A Hollywood High was filmed atop the Aster Hotel in Los Angeles and it opens with the band describing their first visit to Hollywood and the city’s enduring importance to their musical journey. The 12-song set opens with their 1985 James Bond theme, “A View to a Kill,” and features such classics as “Notorious,” “Come Undone,” “Ordinary World” and “Hungry Like the Wolf,” as well as a handful of songs from the band’s most recent album, Future Past.
Check out the chat with Taylor below (answers editor for clarity and length.)
Why was it important to open the movie with all that background on L.A.’s influence on the band and your enduring love affair with the city?
I don’t know that it was important… but as a guy who has lived there for last 30-plus years, my first experiences there were all in the 1980s and it never left much of an impression on me. I never could have imagined myself settling there. But I can’t see it any other way now… I had to spend real time there to appreciate its pleasures.
[Singer] Simon [Le Bon] says in the into that “Rio” was inspired by your first trip to America. I had no idea that’s what “from the mountains in the north down to the Rio Grande” meant.
For me the idea of “Rio” literally encapsulated a world, a culture we had yet to tap into, which is South America. That first year I was a kid who didn’t have a passport before the band began. My first experience of leaving my country was with the band in 1981 when we came to the States for the first time. But when we got back to Birmingham and toyed with ideas for the next record we talked about the next level of exotic. Simon had a working title, “Rio,” and we had to make a song out of it.
The iconic rounded Capitol Records building plays a big part in the movie and in the intro it’s noted that it looks like the Rotunda from your hometown.
I suppose it does. Birmingham is the one other city with a landmark circular building [laughs]. Being on Capitol Records was pretty cool at the time. It was fortunate and it definitely helped our cause. For me there’s a certain nostalgia for the first couple times we came into America, that innocence to what we were doing. We were still under the radar here, we could make friendships with guys you’d meet at a radio station and end up hanging out and listening to music.
What was it like setting up on that roof and then looking straight at the Capitol building? It being lit up in blue and yellow is a nice permanent reminder of the war in Ukraine.
My first thought was, “we gotta light that f–king building!” I wanted to light it with the Ukraine colors, so we moved very quickly to make it happen. Here we [more than a year later] and the war continues and every night we still dedicate “Ordinary World” to the people of Ukraine. At that moment it felt like a statement, a show of solidarity. Duran Duran has never been a political band, but to make that kind of statement halfway through the show… there’s something very cool about that. And with our old friend the Capitol building.
Why use this as a stunt to announce your U.S. tour?
We were looking to do something that was going to announce our [2022] U.S. tour and there were variable ways to do it. You got back to the Rolling Stones’ Fifth Ave. truckscapade [the Stones famously shut down New York’s 5th Ave. in May 1975 with a truck parade to promote their American tour], which was the greatest of launches. We talked about that, we talked about a truck at the Roxy and then everyone got nervous about setting up gear on a truck. So, we looked for a fixed position and this place came up that none of us knew about it. Our manager said if we perform here we’d have the Hollywood sign behind us and the Capitol building in front.
Was there significance to opening with “View to a Kill?”
I think because it’s a Hollywood thing, a movie thing. It’s a shake-and-bake opener, it’s easy to play, a here-we-are kind of thing. We hadn’t played a show in quite a few months and we wanted to start with something not too difficult.
You really leaned into the most recent album with five songs out of the 12 you played. Why did you push the new material so hard during this one-off?
I think at show like that.. You play in Nashville to 10,000 people who payed for a ticket, parking, a babysitter and they come to hear the hits. But the fans who were there are superfans and they’re more interested in hearing new songs than “Girls on Film.” It was fresh for us and easier because when we’re playing bigger venues you have to lean away from the new material, probably only two bathroom breaks there.
You are one of the few groups from your era to still be touring this much, recording music and films and staying super-active. Why do you think you’ve been able to endure for so long?
I think we have a very particular inner dynamic. We fire off each other in a way that drives our engine. It’s not a love fest when we’re on stage, but it’s a dynamic where we push against each other all the time and are very competitive with each other. That is what drives the engine which moves the machine. I think of Sting and Peter Gabriel, who have an extraordinary body of creative works. Where are they now? They’re both on tour but it’s one guy sustaining that kind of creative energy, which is f–king hard. There are some things that are easier for an individual, like social media. That’s definitely easier for one guy, but in the long haul I wouldn’t trade it for the band.
Duran Duran recently launched their 2023 U.S. tour. A Hollywood High will be released on DVD/Blu-Ray on August 4.
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John Williams surprised the audience at Wednesday night’s (June 14) Hollywood premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. According to Deadline, the five-time Oscar-winning 91-year-old composer was joined by a full orchestra for a performance of several movements from the movie, including the main title theme and “Helena’s Theme,” which he wrote for […]
Céline Dion is back in her love overload lane on the moving title track to the upcoming Nick Jonas/Priyanka Chopra romantic drama Love Again. The singer dropped the song on Thursday morning (April 13), in which she softly sings, “Cuz you don’t have to move a mountain, just keep moving/ Every move is a new emotion/ And you don’t have to find the answers, just keep trying/ The sun will rise again/ The storms subside again/ This is not the end/ And you will love again.”
The gentle piano and acoustic guitar track was written by Dan Wilson and Rosaileen Scher (and produced by Wilson) and it features Dion, 55, singing the emotional lyrics, “Summer rain, day by day, sadness fades, the wound is healing/ And time goes by, the eyes will dry and you will find someone to heal with.”
The track will appear in the upcoming film in which Chopra plays Mira Ray, a woman mourning the loss of her fiancé who uses texts to feel connected to him following his death. A trailer that dropped on Valentine’s Day showed Chopra’s Mira trying to move on by going on her first date since his death in which she’s set up with a character played by her real-life husband Jonas. “Maybe we should just take it slow,” she says as they try an awkward first kiss in the back of a cab. Dion also co-stars in the film as herself and acting as a guide to journalist Rob Burns (Sam Heughan), who connects with Mira after she accidentally texts him.
“Love Again” is the first new music from Dion since she revealed in December that she is suffering from the rare neurological disorder Stiff-Person Syndrome. “As you know, I’ve always been an open book. And I wasn’t ready to say anything before,” Dion said in a solemn clip in which she revealed her diagnosis. “But I’m ready now… ’I’ve been dealing with problems with my health for a long time, and it’s been really difficult for me to face these challenges and to talk about everything that I’ve been going through.”
Stiff-Person Syndrome causes muscle rigidity in the trunk and limbs and a heightened sensitivity to stimuli such as noise, touch, and emotional distress, which can set off muscle spasms according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Due to the severe muscle spasms that Dion said “affect every aspect of my daily life,” she announced that she could not re-start her tour in Europe in February as planned. Subsequently, all of her spring 2023 dates were moved to 2024 and 8 of her summer 2023 shows were cancelled.
Love Again is due in theaters on May 12.
Listen to “Love Again” below.