Movies
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Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham have returned with a brand new group of fighters for the highly anticipated Expendables 4 film, and the trailer released on Wednesday (Aug. 23) promises violence, action and lots of gore. That’s why, unlike the previous film, this one is rated R. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news […]
Something doesn’t quite add up in the first trailer for the upcoming Netflix murder thriller Reptile, in which detective Tom Nichols (Benicio del Toro) tries to figure out who killed a young real estate agent. With a handful of equally shady suspects, the nearly three-minute preview opens with a weary looking Nichols saying the case he’s working on is “a real nightmare.”
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After a montage of pictures from the crime scene, we see Nichols entering a room to speak to one of the four main suspects, Will (Justin Timberlake), who was the agent’s boyfriend at the time of her death. Looking shell-shocked and haunted, Will just stares blankly when Nichols asks him what happened.
“I walked in the front door, I called out for her… no answer,” Will says flatly. “And then what?” Nichols asks.
Cut to the medical examiner asking Nichols if he can show him something strange, which appears to be a bite mark on the victim’s hand, a wound Nichols tries to recreate by biting his wife Judy (Alicia Silverstone) on the hand as she helps him try to solve the case. The movie’s tagline hints at the twisty plot, promising, “A mysterious murder. A hardened detective. A truth more dangerous than they could have ever imagined.”
Later in the trailer — set to a haunting version of Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” — when Nichols asks Will who else he thinks may have been involved, he remembers that a shadowy man showed up at his house a few nights earlier “acting strange,” which leads the other investigators (Eric Bogosian and Ato Essandoh) to narrow down the suspects to four potentials: the boyfriend (Timberlake), a friend, the “weirdo” (Michael Carmen Pitt) and the woman’s ex-husband (Karl Glusman); Sky Ferreira, Frances Fisher and Matilda Lutz also star in the film, the first directorial effort from music video director Grant Singer (The Weekend, Troye Sivan).
Reptile, which will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month, will hit select theaters on Sept. 29 and Netflix on Oct. 6.
Check out the trailer for Reptile below.
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The three children of late conductor/composer/pianist Leonard Bernstein have defended Bradley Cooper‘s artistic choices amid criticism that the actor/director’s portrayal of their father in the upcoming biopic Maestro leans into an antisemitic stereotype.
After the first trailer for the long-awaited film starring and directed by Cooper dropped earlier this week, some commenters questioned the star’s choice to wear a large prosthetic nose, an image that they said amplified a hurtful Jewish stereotype.
“Bradley Cooper included the three of us along every step of his amazing journey as he made his film about our father,” Jamie, Alexander, and Nina Bernstein said in a statement; while Cooper is not Jewish, Bernstein was born to Jewish parents. “We were touched to the core to witness the depth of his commitment, his loving embrace of our father’s music, and the sheer open-hearted joy he brought to his exploration. It breaks our hearts to see any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of his efforts.”
They added that, “It happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose. Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well. Any strident complaints around this issue strike us above all as disingenuous attempts to bring a successful person down a notch — a practice we observed all too often perpetrated on our own father.”
The Netflix film co-written by Cooper as well, is focused on the beloved composer’s relationship with Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), who the conductor married in 1951; the film is co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, among others.
One of those criticizing the choice was Joel Swanson, a Jewish History PhD student at the Univ. of Chicago, who wrote, “This isn’t about making a non-Jewish actor look more like Leonard Bernstein; it’s about making a non-Jewish actor look more like a Jewish stereotype.” After his comment was picked up by a number of major news outlets — including in a Time magazine article that asked a representation question about whether “only actors of a certain ethnicity or marginalized group” should portray characters with that same background — Swanson clarified on Wednesday that he was not advocating for that position.
“I just think the nose is a little gross, that’s all,” Swanson wrote of the use of the nose prosthetics as other commenters noted that when Cooper starred in The Elephant Man on Broadway in 2015 he chose not to wear prosthetics to portray John Merrick, who suffered from severe physical deformities.
Maestro is slated to premiere at the Venice Film Festival later this month and hit select theaters on Nov. 22 and Netflix on Dec. 20. So far Cooper has not made a public statement about the controversy and a spokesperson for Netflix had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment.
Bernstein’s children also noted in their post that “at all times” during the making of the film they could “feel the profound respect and yes, the love that Bradley brought to his portrait of Leonard Bernstein and his wife, our mother Felicia. We feel so fortunate to have had this experience with Bradley, and we can’t wait for the world to see his creation.”
See Swanson and the Bernstein’s tweets and the movie trailer below.
Left: Bradley Cooper with his prosthetic nose, playing Leonard Bernstein.Right: The actual Leonard Bernstein.This isn’t about making a non-Jewish actor look more like Leonard Bernstein; it’s about making a non-Jewish actor look more like a Jewish stereotype. https://t.co/WrYWuweosW pic.twitter.com/WxspPtHktj— Joel S. (@jh_swanson) August 15, 2023
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It’s right there in the name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So, given that said bony-shelled reptiles are right in the demo, it’s fitting that in a new promo for the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem movie that is out on Wednesday (Aug. 2), Leo, Raph, Don and Mikey are unabashed members of the ARMY.
“This is it, guys,” Raphael laments in the 20-second clip in which the foursome are lashed to a giant bomb-like device that seems to spell their demise. “Oh, so many regrets,” he groans. “I just wish I could see BTS IRL,” says Donatello.
Leonardo, of course, has a creative idea, offering, “We could do some of the songs for you,” he says, with Michelangelo adding that he’d be down for a few bars. Leo then gets the gang started, singing the first lines of BTS’ global No. 1 smash “Butter,” while encouraging the others to join in. But, given their predicament — they are lashed to a wall by their wrists and ankles — the song comes out as more of a cry than a croon.
It’s all a bit sad, honestly and Don complains that they don’t even really know the words. To be fair, the tweet of the clip had a very stark warning message: “Jung Kook please don’t watch this.”
In addition to the four turtles (voiced by Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu and Brady Noon), the film also features the voices of Rogen, Hannibal Buress, Rose Byrne, John Cena, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Ayo Edebiri, Giancarlo Esposito, Post Malone, Paul Rudd and Maya Rudolph; Rogen and producing partner Evan Goldberg co-wrote and co-produced the film directed by Jeff Rowe.
Watch the trailer below.
Jung Kook please don’t watch this. Get tickets now for the best reviewed comedy of the year – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: #MutantMayhem is in theatres everywhere Wednesday. #TMNTMovie— TMNT (@TMNTMovie) July 28, 2023
Jamie Foxx surprised fans on Thursday (July 20) when he posted a picture from Las Vegas in which the actor posed on a Formula 1 race car while promising some exciting upcoming projects. Foxx, who has rarely been seen in public since his daughter, Corinne, announced on April 12 that her dad had been hospitalized for an undisclosed “medical complication“; to date neither Foxx nor his family have provided any additional information on the illness or the status of Foxx’s recovery.
Dressed in a sharp dark green suit, Foxx posed on top of a gold Formula 1 race car, his right foot resting on one of the vehicle’s front wheels, with a gold band black helmet resting next to him. “Thankful for my @BetMGM family and a great few nights in Vegas,” Foxx wrote in what appeared to be a product promotion post.
It was the next bit that got fans talking however, with Foxx promising, “We got BIG things coming soon,” followed by a fox emoji. Check out Foxx’s photo here. It was unknown at press time what project Foxx was teasing with the post.
According to E! News, daughter Corrine shared another picture from what appeared to be the same campaign shoot on her Instagram Story, writing, “Year 4 of @betMGM in the books.” The post also found the 29-year-old wearing a black t-shirt and denim shorts while seated next to her dad on the car. “So proud of you always Dad.”
It was Corrine who announced to the world three months ago that her dad had suffered a medical issue. “Luckily, due to quick action and great care, he is already on his way to recovery. We know how beloved he is and appreciate your prayers,” she wrote at the time. On May 12, the model provided an update, saying her dad had been discharged and was recovering at home. “In fact, he was playing pickleball yesterday!” she said at the time.
On May 3, Foxx broke his silence, thanking fans in a note for their support. “Appreciate all the love!!! Feeling blessed,” Foxx wrote. The next day, friend Nick Cannon also provided an update on Foxx’s progress. “I gotta tell you, there would be no Nick Cannon if it wasn’t for Jamie Foxx,” said Cannon, who stepped in for Foxx on the set of the Fox network game show Beat Shazam. “I love this brother and in a real family-type way, man. He looked out for me when I didn’t have a place to sleep as a teenager. This brother let me sleep on his couch…It was good times and those good times will continue ’cause I am expecting that my brother is gonna just recover fully.”
Last week Foxx was spotted waving from the deck of a boat cruising on the Chicago River, though he did not appear to stand up or speak in a short video of the ride. A day later it was announced that Foxx and Colin Firth will co-produce the first-ever official documentary on beloved late R&B singer Luther Vandross.
07/18/2023
Jacob Elordi will be the latest to star as The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Sofia Coppola’s upcoming movie ‘Priscilla.’
07/18/2023
Since the rise of digital music technology in the 1990s, royalties from online music have proved bountiful for star performers.
But back then, forward-thinking music industry executives and musicians helped make sure that non-featured performers on recordings, like session players and backup singers, could also share in digital music royalties. One of those income streams — the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution (IPRD) Fund, which marks its 25th anniversary this year — reports paying out $650 million to date to such artists.
For the 12-month period ending March 31, 2021 — the most recent full year for which its finances are available — the nonprofit fund has distributed $57.2 million to eligible performers.
Most of the fund’s revenue comes from SoundExchange, which collects royalties for every song played on digital radio like Pandora, webcasters like iHeartRadio and satellite radio services like SiriusXM. Those royalties are split: 50% to the record label, 45% to the featured artist and 5% to non-featured performers.
Fund participants span a spectrum of musical skills and styles. They include vocalists such as Carmen Carter (who has recorded with Beyoncé, Céline Dion, Whitney Houston and Luis Miguel), Wendy Moten (Carrie Underwood, Buddy Guy, Cece Winans) and Dan Navarro (Dolly Parton, Julio Iglesias, Neil Young), as well as musicians like guitarist Michael Landau (Enrique Iglesias, Diana Ross, LeAnn Rimes), keyboardist Greg Phillinganes (Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder) and drummer Abraham Laboriel Jr. (Paul McCartney, Sheryl Crow, Miley Cyrus), among many others.
But while collecting royalties from Sound Exchange is easy and many musicians are easy to find, tracking down every performer who should get a cut can be a challenge. Though the fund paid out royalties to some 27,000 non-featured musicians last year, many are still unaware of its existence — or that they might have royalties to be claimed, says fund CEO Stefanie Taub.
“The big thing for us is we really want to make sure that the non-featured performers are aware that we’re here and there is this money source for them,” says Taub, a 25-year AFTRA and SAG-AFTRA veteran who prior to leading the fund sat on its board of directors.
The SoundExchange royalties paid to labels and performers are the result of the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recording Act of 1995 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which between them amended copyright law so that, among other things, digital and satellite radio services pay royalties for recorded music. (Terrestrial radio doesn’t make any payments to record labels and performers but pays royalties to songwriters and music publishers.)
As part of the revamped copyright law, AFM (American Federation of Musicians) was designated to be the agent to pay out half, or 2.5%, of the 5% due to non-featured musicians on songs played on digital and satellite radio, while AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) was designated to oversee the other half (2.5%) of the royalties for non-featured singers.
The two unions agreed to collaborate on a single administrator to collect and pay out the royalties. Thus, the AFM & SAG-AFTRA IPRD Fund was born.
“Back then, it made sense to create this fund so they didn’t waste money with duplicate efforts,” Taub says. “So it’s very unique that these two completely separate unions came together to create this fund.”
Stefanie Taub
Courtesy of AFM SAG-AFTRA Fund
How do you view this anniversary of the fund?
We’re very proud of the fact that we paid over a half-billion dollars to non-featured performers in our 25 years. We’re in a unique space because many people are aware of how featured artists — name artists on recordings — get paid for their music. But there’s not as much awareness that our fund exists and that it pays the non-featured performers. People really don’t know we exist, especially when we first started out. Back then, we were collecting a very small amount: under $100,000 a year. Nowadays, we collect more than $50 million a year. So that is something we really want to promote: This money is there for these performers, and we are here to pay it to them.
Does a musician need to be in the union to qualify for funds?
That’s a misconception. Even though the unions created this fund, their executives sit on the board, and our name includes the unions; the fund distributes to all performers without regard to union status. We’re required by law to distribute to everyone [regardless of] status.
Where does the Screen Actors Guild, which represents and pays actors, come into the picture? Are its funds blended into what you collect?
SAG represents mostly actors but also other performers in film and TV, [so] if a singer did a song in a film, that would be represented by SAG; if they do a record, they are represented by AFTRA. But the SAG funds are completely separate, and what we collect is completely separate from anything that the unions do on their own.
Your financial statement for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, shows that the fund collected $63.1 million in royalties. How much came from SoundExchange?
It fluctuates, but it has been around $50 million or more for [each] of the past five or six years.
Foreign royalties also flow into the fund. What’s the source of those monies?
They are due to copyright treaties and to reciprocal agreements with collection organizations in other countries — and those royalties consist of many different things, including what they call “private copying”; in some foreign countries, they collect a royalty on devices like iPhones and iPads and things like that. Some countries do pay the U.S. [royalties] on broadcast terrestrial radio and even [on] what they call “communication to the public,” like songs played in nightclubs and restaurants. Every country is a little bit different in what royalties they pay to the U.S.
So, percentagewise, what would you say the breakout is from SoundExchange versus the other sources of income?
I would say SoundExchange is about 80% of what we collect. But we’re growing in the international space every year, and we’re hoping to increase that as time goes on. We had a very good year last year. Our financials are not showing yet for that, but we collected over $25 million internationally last year.
Are there other challenges your organization faces in paying out royalties?
When we reach out to people [eligible for payments], some don’t believe us because no one has ever gotten a secondary income stream from their recordings. Of course, we need to verify their identity and we ask for certain information. And these days, everybody’s concerned about their privacy, so they think it’s a scam sometimes. But the more we can get our message out, the more that creates awareness, so [that] people actually do sign up for us.
How do you reach musicians who might be due money?
We have a whole department called artist relations, and their only job is to either take incoming inquiries or to actively search for folks where we’ve seen their names on credits but need to find them. We use all types of resources, whether it’s the internet, social media or other publicly available information. We also try to get other participants who have been paid to let their friends know about our fund.
A big question for funds like yours is, how much of what you collect do you match with eligible recipients and pay out every year?
Our current percentage is about 82% payout, and we are reducing the unmatched number every year.
And your administrative costs are about 14% of your revenue.
We have an obligation to make sure we’re doing the right thing with other people’s money. It’s not my money, so I always look at the most efficient way to get the job done so that as much of what we collect as possible can go out the door to the performers.
What if the album credits don’t specify who played on what song?
When we get the money from SoundExchange, we do our research on a track-by-track basis and by individuals. It’s very difficult because, depending particularly on the age of the recording — or where it was done — sometimes there’s no information at all. That’s why we really encourage people to also look at the list on our website of all the recordings that we have money for. If they make a claim on a recording, then we always require proof that shows they are on the recording. That proof could be a union contract, liner notes or something printed somewhere on the internet. And we cross-check multiple sources to make sure that everything’s matching.
What if the featured artist says, “Yeah, he played on my track”?
We accept that, too. Or often there might be other side musicians on the track who vouch for the third, and we will accept that.
How many titles do you research and pay out on?
In April 2023, the fund distributed royalties on 50,000 titles. And we’re increasing that every day. But it’s very time-consuming to research non-featured artists, especially now when there is often no printed [credits] because there is no physical recording. But there’s a current drive to get more metadata to be included in a lot of [digital] tracks.
It’s the record labels that should make sure songwriters, publishers, side musicians and singers are listed.
Yes, and they’re not as driven to make sure that the non-featured artists are getting credit.
There have been some recent grievances with the fund, including a suit over $45 million in undistributed funds and another complaint about a data purchase and service fee paid to the unions. What has happened with those complaints?
The former was settled in November 2020, and the latter was resolved in March 2022. We welcome the resolution of these matters so we can focus our resources on what we do best, which is putting money into artists’ pockets.
Are there any other messages you would like to get out?
Just to let people know that they should take a look at our website and make sure that if they’ve done any non-featured work on songs, they should sign up and create an account so that we can find them and pay them. That’s the whole reason we exist — to pay performers. We want to make sure that we’re creating that awareness.
This story originally appeared in the July 15, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Imagine not even having to apply for your next job. Most of us don’t have that luxury, but then again, most of us aren’t Timothée Chalamet. According to Paul King (Paddington), who directed the upcoming reboot of the candyman story Wonka, his obsessive deep-dive into Chalamet’s high school rap videos was all he needed to know to confirm that the Dune star was his chocolatier of choice.
“It was a straight offer because he’s great and he was the only person in my mind who could do it,” King told Rolling Stone. Everyone from Donald Glover to Ryan Gosling and Ezra Miller were reportedly considered by Warner Bros. before Chalamet was cast in 2021. King, however, said he only had eyes for Chalamet, though he did do his homework to make sure the star could sing and dance.
“[But] because he’s Timothée Chalamet and his life is so absurd, his high school musical performances [singing “Sweet Charity” from the musical of the same name] are on YouTube [including his 2012 “Timmy Tim” rap] and have hundreds of thousands of views. So I knew from stanning for Timmy Chalamet that he could sing and dance really well. And I knew that was in his arsenal, but I didn’t know how good he was. When I spoke to him he was quite keen. He’d done tap dancing in high school and he was like, ‘I’d quite like to show people I can do that.’”
King’s origin story of Roald Dahl’s belovedly bonkers candy engineer Willy Wonka is due in theaters on Dec. 15, and the recently released first trailer teased Chalamet’s wide-eyed, whimsical take on the character first brought to life by Gene Wilder in the 1971 original.
“The 1971 movie, just because I’m as old as I am, was burnt into my eyeballs as a kid,” King said. “And I always loved the songs in that — Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley were incredible songwriters. The spirit of that and the joy of that seemed really important to the nature of this movie. Reading the book, there’s so much that Dahl writes in verse. So it felt like a no-brainer this should have songs in it.”
The director said having musical numbers was a no-brainer, even though he’d never done anything exactly like that before. “I’ve always had music and singing in things I’ve done, but to actually do proper musical sequences was a really fun challenge,” he said. “And because the film is set in the late ‘40s, it felt like a really fun hat off to the golden age of MGM musicals.”
The trailer only hints at the musical bits, with no sneak peeks at the original songs written by The Divine Comedy singer Neil Hannon and composer Joby Talbot (Son of Rambow). King, who co-wrote the script with Simon Farnaby (Paddington 2), told the magazine that the music in his film will pay homage to the Wilder Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory film directed by Mel Stuart, adding that he considers his take to be a “companion” to that film and Dahl’s 1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory novel it was based on.
The film also features Keegan-Michael Key, Rowan Atkinson, Sally Hawkins, Olivia Colman, Jim Carter and Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa.
Watch the Wonka trailer below.
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Billie Eilish released her simmering contribution to the soundtrack of the summer’s hottest must-see on Thursday morning (July 13), the Barbie movie soundtrack ballad “What Was I Made For?” In the video for the dreamy track Eilish sports a Barbie-like high blonde ponytail and poofy bangs and wears a yellow dress (with matching shoes and earrings, of course) while seated at a child’s desk to open a Barbie-themed box, whose contents she carefully examines.
“I used to to float/ Now I just fall down/ I used to know, but I’m not sure now/ What I was made for/ What was I made for?,” Eilish sings in a breathy whisper over a gentle piano backing on the track co-written and produced by brother FINNEAS. “Takin’ a drive, I was an idea/ Looked so alive, turns out, I’m not real/ Just something you paid for/ What was I made for?”
The Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe-winning singer directed the clip, in which she meticulously tries to arrange the Barbie clothes on a tiny rack in a green void as wind and rain whip them around to her frustration. “Cause I, I/ I don’t know how to feel/ But I wanna try/ I don’t know how to feel/ But someday I might/ someday I might,” she croons on the chorus.
According to a release, the “intimate and heart-rending track exists as the sonic background for pivotal scenes through-out the film, while beautifully and poignantly highlighting the film’s important message and sentiment.”
In a statement accompanying the video’s release, Eilish said director Greta Gerwig showed her and Finneas a handful of unfinished scenes in January, admitting that the sibling collaborators had, “nooooo idea what to expect at ALLL… we were so deeeeeply moved.. that the next day we were writing and COULDNT shut up about it lolll andddddddddd ended up writing almost the entire song that night. to be real with you this all seemed to happen in a time when i really needed it. i’m so so thankful for that.”
She added that the video she created for it, “makes me cryyyyy.. it means so much to me and i hope it will mean just as much to you. don’t have much to say other than that, i think it will speak for itself🫀 :’’’’) enjoy.”
The singer teased the emotional track earlier this week in a video in which a voice was heard telling Barbie (Margot Robbie), to “take my hand, close your eyes, now, feel,” backed by a gentle, melancholy piano and Eilish singing the title of the song. “absolutely over the MOOOOON excited for you to see this,” she captioned the post. Finneas and Eilish won the best original song Oscar in 2022 for their collaboration on the title track to the most recent James Bond film, No Time to Die.
The Mark Ronson-produced soundtrack for Gerwig’s candy-colored toy story will also feature contributions from Lizzo, Charli XCX, Karol G, Sam Smith, co-star Ryan Gosling (with Slash), Dominic Fike, Haim, the Kid LAROI, Khalid, PinkPantheress, Gayle, Ava Max, Fifty Fifty, Tame Impala and already released singles from Dua Lipa and Ice Spice with Nicki Minaj; the movie will hit theaters on July 21.
Watch the “What Was I Made For?” video below.
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Jamie Foxx and Colin Firth are teaming up to celebrate one of the greatest voices in R&B history. Sony Music Entertainment’s Premium Content Division announced on Tuesday (July 11) that Foxx’s Foxxhole Productions and Firth’s Raindog Films are teaming up for the first-ever full-length authorized documentary on late singer Luther Vandross. Production has already begun […]