TV/Film
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Tron is back. On Saturday (April 5), Disney unveiled the first trailer for Tron: Ares, the third installment in the Tron franchise, following the original 1982 film and its 2010 sequel Tron: Legacy. The new trailer offers a glimpse of a dark, brooding landscape where reality and the virtual world collide. The minute-and-a-half-long clip opens […]
Comedian John Mulaney won’t be seeing Bone Thugs-N-Harmony at the crossroads — at least for the time being.
During his monologue of a recent episode of his Netlfix talk show Everybody’s Live, Mulaney told the audience a ridiculous story about how the show tried to get the legendary group out of Cleveland to make a surprise guest appearance and ran into a scammer in the process. “Before we get to the rest of the show, motherf—ker, let me tell you about the week I had,” he began. “We had something very special planned for you this evening that we had to scrap very recently.”
He then explained that they planned to do a bit about actor Richard Kind’s fictional recently deceased tortoise and wanted to figure out how to give the little guy a proper send off. “Then we were gonna be like, ‘How can we possibly pay tribute to dead tortoise here on our show? Then, ding-dong, the doorbell would ring, I’d walk up there, I would open the door, and it’s Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and they were gonna say, ‘Our tour bus broke down and we heard you guys were sad.’”
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Adding, “The setup didn’t even make sense at all. But then, in honor of the tortoise, they were gonna perform ‘[The] Crossroads.’ If you’re not familiar with ‘Crossroads,’ it was an enormous hit that Bone Thugs-N-Harmony had in 1996 about their friend’s tragic death and I cannot overstate how hugely popular it was with horned-up junior high kids at Catholic schools to grind with each other during the Clinton administration.”
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The show then tracked down what they thought to be the group’s management and started the process of pitching them the idea. However, they quickly realized that they were being scammed.
They setup a Zoom call with the so-called manager where the individual told Mulaney and his writers that Bone loved the idea, but that Bizzy Bone would be too busy to be involved. Nothing out the ordinary, right? Well, they then tell the manager that the guys need to wear pants with back pockets so that they can pull out their wireless microphones after they ring the doorbell to which the fake manager responded: “The pants we bought don’t have pockets. If you want pants with pockets, you should get some yourself.”
And when the group hadn’t signed the contract to appear on the show, the manager requested $2,800 in cash for “running around money” because they were currently on tour — which was true — and their appearance would essentially constitute as a side mission. But once Mulaney talked his wife Olivia Munn into giving him the cash because he’s not allowed to have more than $300 in cash due to his past issues with substance abuse, the manager then requested $100,000 and finally the Everybody’s Live crew began to notice the red flags.
“I’m genuinely worried,” Mulaney admitted. “After a little investigating, I have come to believe that the man I was talking to was not the manager of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.”
Stereogum managed to get in touch with one of the members in Bizzy Bone, but when the outlet mentioned if he had came across the story, he asked: “Whose that?”
You can watch the clip below.
Sphere Entertainment Co. will launch The Wizard of Oz at Sphere this August, marking the $2 billion arena’s first foray into licensed content. The show will be based around the original 1939 film, in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery as well as technology partners Google and technology and experience firm Magnopus. Besides bringing technological upgrades to enhance […]
It’s always a bold move to perform one of the coaches’ songs on The Voice, but Divighn was up for the challenge — and he excelled.
For the Knockout rounds, the 33-year-old California native opted to perform Maroon 5’s “Harder to Breathe” in front of Adam Levine himself. He added choreography and amplified emotion to the Songs About Jane breakout hit, all while maintaining impressive vocal control.
His competitor, Kaiya Hamilton, followed up with a performance of Alessia Cara’s “Here,” an objectively difficult song to sing due to its pace. Hamilton had no issue, though, displaying flawless vocal ability and range as she delivered the track.
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Both performances were met with standing ovations by the judges, and Levine voiced his support for Divighn’s choice to perform a Maroon 5 song. “Divighn, you got great taste in music, man,” he joked, before adding more seriously, “I always secretly dread when people are going to do our songs, because it makes me nervous. I’m so close to it. I love what you did with it. You took it and did something that I actually liked, and that it wasn’t what I normally do. The way that you can get up there and move the way you were moving, and still just deliver a rock solid big vocal, that’s big.”
He also praised Hamilton, noting, “I love how you sing. You kind of gave the opposite clinic. Your’s was like, ‘I’m not going to worry about anything except singing my butt off.’”
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Though, as perhaps expected, he ultimately gave his pick to Divighn. “I would maybe go with Divighn, because he has all these other things that were really impressive but it’s no disrespect to you Kaiya because you did an amazing job as well,” he said.
However, the choice on who stays in the competition comes down to the duo’s coach, Michael Bublé, who revealed that he “made a mistake” putting Divighn and Hamilton against each other. “Divighn, your performance, your choreography was beautiful and so smooth and so fun to watch. You’re an overall entertainer,” he told his team member. “Kaiya, your voice is undeniable. You sang the heck out of this and I feel like you know who are as an artist.”
Watch the Knockout round performance below, and find out who Bublé chooses when the full episode airs on Monday (April 7) at 8 p.m. ET on NBC, before it streams the next day on Peacock.
An annual tradition on American Idol continues on Monday (April 7) – Hollywood Week, an integral part of the process of finding a winner, which has been part of the series since season 1 in 2002. But this year’s Hollywood Week is different from any previous edition, with the addition of Idol’s first artist-in-residence, Jelly Roll.
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“Hollywood Week is even more chaotic than what you see on TV. The episodes are pretty chaotic, but the camera can’t catch all of the chaos,” Jelly Roll tells Billboard during a sit-down interview. “I love it because it reminds me of the music business. It’s real. They’re not hazing these kids. This is stuff that happens in our business all the time. I can’t wait for the world to see this – the show brings me in when the kids are picking their head-to-head songs, so I am in the trenches with these babies. I watch them pick their songs. I give them advice and I catch them picking their partners. Some of them probably picked the wrong partner,” he shares.
“There was one group of singers who didn’t know how to communicate with each other, and I said, ‘This is the biggest decision you’re going to make because this is the last time the judges decide who goes forward. I’m going to give y’all my advice right now. Take it or leave it and I won’t be offended, but I think at this point your best bet is to pick a song that you feel safe doing together, not where one has to carry the other.’
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“Another group picked a song that the girl knew really well, and the guy didn’t know, and they thought it was the best for them. I said, ‘At this point, if y’all aren’t going to change the song, then there’s going to be a point where you’re going to have to carry this song,’ and that’s exactly how it shook out. She ended up having to carry the song and then, as happens in American Idol, there’s a plot twist, but I can’t give that away.”
Season 23 is not the first time the producers have shaken up the Hollywood Week format. “We refresh it here and there, year-to-year,” executive producer and showrunner Megan Michaels Wolflick explains over breakfast with Billboard. “The auditions are the auditions. The live shows are the live shows. Hollywood Week is the round that has the most flexibility, but I do think that it’s really important to keep the integrity of the challenges the same as far as actually giving them real experiences that they might have in the industry, like staying up all night, collaborating with someone you’ve never met before, learning a new song. Some years you have duets or groups. With Carrie Underwood coming back, it was important for me to maintain some of the things that she had experienced in her season.”
And what did Underwood think of that? “Hollywood Week for her was the biggest eye-opening experience,” says Wolflick. “She remembers so much about all of it and her group round with Vonzell Solomon singing ‘Please Mr. Postman’ and all the little things, like forgetting her words in the first round. She sang ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ by Candi Staton. She didn’t really know that song. It was a different era then with no original music and you couldn’t play guitar. So she’s definitely seen the evolution. It was nostalgic, yet she was still excited about it.”
Wolflick elaborated on adding Jelly Roll to the mix, following his appearance on the season 21 finale and his mentorship during the Hawaii shows in season 22. “He was so great last year. He sat with the panel and he brought so much charisma and excitement. When the show aired the feedback was very positive and we and ABC were eager to do something with him. I’m sure every other show, like The Voice, were asking him too. He’s very hot. He loves American Idol. He told me, ‘This is one of the biggest things to ever happen to my career.’ He literally watched every single tape. He watched every single bio. He took the kids off to the side before going on camera and made them feel comfortable. I’ve never experienced mentoring on this level. I think carving out his role on the live shows is going to be interesting, too.”
In a separate interview, Jelly Roll confirmed his feelings about the show. “I love Idol. I’ve been an Idol fan my whole life. Who doesn’t love watching a kid’s dream come true on national TV? That’s what we get to see. To come back this year and have a full-time position with the cast is really great.”
Expanding on his role on Idol this season, Jelly Roll’s enthusiasm was apparent. “It’s fun. I’m glad we’re talking about this, because I look at my role probably different than anybody else does. I think I am the bridge from these young artists to the people’s living room. I am a bridge between them and the judges. I’m a constant mentor and source of advice, but more than anything, my job is to try to make these kids feel as good as I know they sound.”
Wolflick explained why this new role was created for Jelly Roll. “The word mentor seemed a little cliché and I wanted something with some weight. An artist-in-residence matches the gravitas that he has. He’s there with us all season. Hopefully he’s here for the long haul. He’s invested above and beyond what we would really expect of him.”
The Bear star Jeremy Allen White had some pretty big shoes to fill when he signed on to star as Bruce Springsteen in the upcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere. But according to The Hollywood Reporter, the Emmy-winning actor proved that he was more than up to the task this week when theater owners got […]
It will be nearly nine months before fans can hold space on their calendars to see the anticipated Wicked sequel, Wicked: For Good. But in Las Vegas this week, director Jon M. Chu wowed the crowds of movie exhibitors in town for the annual CinemaCon convention when he gave them a sneak peek at the second part of the big screen adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical.
Stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo were, of course, on hand to help out, taking the stage alongside Chu and movie producer Marc Platt at the Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace on Wednesday (April 2), according to The Hollywood Reporter. “We took a shot, and we divided Wicked into two parts,” Platt told the thousands of theater owners about splitting the film in two, with the second part due in theaters on Nov. 21. “Now we have the privilege of doing it all again with Wicked: For Good in November.”
Platt added that in For Good the stars “go deeper to find more depth and more complexity and more profundity in those characters. What’s in store is going to astonish people.” Director Chu also noted that one of the most anticipated moments in the upcoming sequel will definitely include “where the girl from Kansas drops in.”
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THR reported that the first trailer for the follow-up to the nearly $750 million-grossing first part did not disappoint, describing a “rousing response” from the gathered theater bosses to footage including the first look at Dorothy — though her face was not shown — as well as “golden bricks, a wedding and flying monkeys galore.”
“This is between the Wizard and I,” Erivo’s green witch says in the trailer in a nod to the abiding friendship between Grande’s pink witch Glinda and Erivo’s green-skinned Elphaba, with Grande’s Glinda later warning, “Elphaba, they’re coming for you.” The trailer also features Glinda stepping out from her emerald castle and putting on her oversized tiara, a well as Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) racing through the forest with his men on the hunt for Elphaba, as well as a shot of the latter writing “OUR WIZARD LIES” in the sky.
According to Deadline, exhibitors also saw Glinda walking down a wedding aisle toward the Prince and Jeff Goldblum’s wizard at the control boards, ordering Dorothy, the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow to “bring me the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West!” The final image reportedly featured Elphaba reaching out for her hat as it flies into her hand, with her broom in the other as she exclaims, “I’m off to see the wizard!”
In a nod to the pair’s endless, tear-streaked, hand (and space) holding press tour for the first film, the Associated Press reported that Oscar nominee Grande told the crowd, “we already have our tissues packed,” with Erivo promising “less waterworks this time.”
Actor David Schwimmer has admitted the theme song to Friends haunted him for years due to its overuse.
Schwimmer, who began his acting career in 1989, rose to widespread fame five years later for his role as Ross Geller in the NBC sitcom Friends. A monumental hit and a cultural phenomenon across its ten-year run, the show’s ubiquity in the pop culture zeitgeist led to its theme song (The Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There for You”) becoming just as recognizable as its lead actors. For Schwimmer though, the omnipresence of the theme left a lasting negative effect on him that continued far beyond the show’s completion in 2004.
Appearing on the Making the Scene podcast with hosts Matt Lucas and David Walliams, Schwimmer admitted that the overuse of the song became a little too much. ”I’ll be really honest, there was a time for quite a while that just hearing the theme song would really…” he explained, letting out a sigh to reflect his exhaustion. “I just had that reaction, I just had heard it so many times.”
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“Anytime you would go on a show, a talk show, or an interview, that would be your intro song. I just didn’t have the greatest response to it,” he said.
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Written by Friends producers David Crane and Marta Kauffman, with songwriter Allee Willis and The Rembrandts’ Danny Wilde and Phil Sōlem, “I’ll Be There for You” was used as the theme song to the show after R.E.M. had rejected the use of their song “Shiny Happy People” as the opener. The track also became a commercial success off the back of its use in the series, reaching No. 17 on the Hot 100 and topping the Adult Contemporary, Radio Songs, and Pop Airplay charts.
Largely in part to the song’s constant presence in pop culture, Schwimmer admits that he didn’t manage to change his attitude toward the song until the last few years, when his daughter Cleo began to discover the series.
“At about age nine, my kid discovered it and started watching it,” he explained. “I’d be making breakfast or whatever, and I’d hear my kid’s laughter. My whole relationship to that song and that show changed again.”
Jack Black is hosting Saturday Night Live for the fourth time this weekend (April 5), and you’d think he’d be a pro by now. However, in a new promo for the show, the School of Rock star gets a little confused as to what “hosting” means.
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In the minute-long clip, cast members Ego Nwodim and Ashley Padilla discuss Black’s odd behavior on set. “I think he thinks hosting SNL is, like, literal hosting,” Nwodim explains. “Like, he’s having people over at his house or something.”
The scene then cuts to various moments in which Black treats studio 8H like his home, demanding that cast member Michael Longfellow take his shoes off before heading to the stage. “Sorry, I’m a stickler,” the comedian says.
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He then repeatedly tells Jane Wickline where the restroom is, offers some more cast members some of his roast for tasting, and makes a call for more ingredients due to the attendance of “more people than I was expecting.”
The clip then cuts back to Nwodim and Padilla, before Black appears behind them, holding a cooking tray. “Oh, great, the asparagus is soggy,” he says before angrily throwing the vegetables in the air. “I am blowing it!”
Black’s last time hosting was 20 years ago, in December 2005. Joining him in this weekend’s episode are Elton John and Brandi Carlile, who will be appearing as the musical guests.
Watch the promo with John and Carlile below, and catch the full Saturday Night Live episode on April 5 at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC, before it begins streaming on Peacock.
From concert films and documentaries to biopics, we review 10 other Bob Dylan movies available to stream online right now.