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Music by John Williams, a documentary exploring the career of legendary film composer John Williams, will have its world premiere at the American Film Institute’s 38th AFI Fest on Oct. 23 in Los Angeles.
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In 2016, Williams was honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award and became the first composer to receive this highest honor for a career in film.
The film — produced by Lucasfilm Ltd., Amblin Documentaries and Imagine Documentaries — takes a comprehensive look at Williams’ unparalleled career, which includes 54 Oscar nominations and five wins.
Williams’ movie themes have become iconic, including his work on Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars and many, many more. He won his first Oscar in 1972 for best scoring: adaptation and original song score for Fiddler on the Roof. His subsequent wins were for best original score for Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Schindler’s List. He was nominated as recently this year for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
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The documentary features interviews with Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Kate Capshaw, Gustavo Dudamel, J.J. Abrams, Chris Martin, Ron Howard, Chris Columbus, George Lucas, Itzhak Perlman, Lawrence Kasdan, Yo-Yo Ma, Ke Huy Quan, James Mangold, Alan Silvestri, David Newman, Thomas Newman, Seth MacFarlane, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Branford Marsalis.
“John Williams is an American icon with a true and timeless global impact,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO, in a statement. “One could say we are ‘over the moon’ to host the world premiere of the film, but that sentiment would hardly soar without the music of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”
Following the World Premiere at AFI FEST presented by Canva, Music by John Williams will have a limited theatrical release and will premiere on Disney+ on Nov. 1.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. After taking home the 2024 Academy Award for best actress for her stunning performance in Poor Things, Emma Stone reunited with […]
Wicked is set to hit theaters in just a few months, and a new behind-the-scenes teaser of the film dropped on Wednesday (Aug. 21) diving into the power of friendship throughout the story.
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Ariana Grande is set to star as Glinda the Good Witch and Cynthia Erivo as the iconic role of Elphaba, also known as the Wicked Witch of the West. In the film, the two become roommates at Shiz University and, while their relationship was rocky at first, the two eventually develop a loving and supportive friendship.
“Wicked, to me, at its every core, is about friendship, director Jon M. Chu explains in the nearly three-minute clip, as scenes of Glinda and Elphaba growing in their relationship weave throughout the video. “It starts with a really fun look at how these two young women are so different from each other, are forced to be roommates and don’t get along at all.”
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Erivo adds, “We have to learn about each other and get to know each other,” before Grande notes, “These two very different women just fall completely in love with each other, and that is mirrored experience of what happened with Cynthia and I.”
Erivo then noted that she and Grande “got each other immediately,” with Chu adding, “Their friendship is going to bring a humanity to this film that they both deeply understand.”
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The fourth-longest-running Broadway show of all time, Wicked pulls inspiration from both the stage musical and the best-selling Gregory Maguire-penned novel of the same name.
The rest of the principal Wicked cast will feature Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Olivier winner Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Tony nominee Ethan Slater as Boq, Emmy nominee Bowen Yang as Pfannee and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz.
The first part of Wicked arrives in theaters on November 22.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Make room for Wednesday Addams: The Addams Family character is officially entering Monster High. Mattel unveiled a chilling new collection of […]
It’s Travis Kelce‘s world, we’re just living in it. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end who has parlayed his on-field NFL prowess into an ever-expanding off-field portfolio has achieved one of his most sought-after extracurricular gigs.
On Tuesday night’s (August 20) Tonight Show, Adam Sandler confirmed that Kelce will appear in the upcoming Happy Gilmore 2 sequel. “Travis has… he mentioned it, so we have a nice something for Travis,” Sandler said of the gig that Kelce publicly pined over earlier this year. “He’s gonna come by. He’s a very nice guy. You guys would love him in real life. What a big, handsome guy. Funny and cool as hell. He’s a stud and he’s so funny.”
Though Sandler didn’t reveal any details about Kelce’s role in the anticipated follow-up to the 1996 golf comedy, the Kelce reveal is a bit of wish fulfillment for the Super Bowl champ. He seemed to manifest the cameo in May on his New Heights podcast with brother retired NFL great Jason Kelce, when Travis said he was a “huge fan of the Sandman” and would do “anything” to get a role in the film.
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“I didn’t even know there was a job opening on Happy Gilmore 2. I’ll be a f–king extra… anything to get around Happy Gilmore, an Adam Sandler film or set — count me in,” Travis said at the time. Jason quickly poured cold water on the idea, though, noting that there was “really no evidence to support” the conspiracy theory that his brother might make it into the film after a Reddit user noted that Kelce was wearing a Happy Gilmore baseball hat on the podcast shortly after the sequel was announced.
“[No evidence] other than the movie’s getting made and I’m looking for movie deals,” Travis teased at the time. “Who knows? Theories can come true. Theories can be true and people just don’t know about it. I might even be in the talking and nobody knows about it, but I could also not be in the talking. I’ll do anything in the movie. I’ll be part of it any way I possibly can.” Travis speculated that he could be the “jackass” crowd heckler from the original, or, perhaps given hs upcoming game show gig, he could take over the Bob Barker role.
Kelce has been beefing up his TV and film resumé this year, with upcoming appearances in Ryan Murphy’s upcoming FX horror series, Grotesquerie, as well as a gig hosting the Amazon Prime game show reboot Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? and a just-announced potential first lead role in the action-comedy Loose Cannons.
Sandler told Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon that the movie will start shooting in New Jersey in “a couple of weeks.” Kelce, of course, will likely be back on the field for the final Chiefs pre-season game against the Chicago Bears on Thursday night (August 22) before kicking off the regular season on Sept. 5 against the Baltimore Ravens.
When he does take the field, it will be with his new longer hairstyle, which Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes recently said is thanks to girlfriend Taylor Swift’s influence. “I’ve been trying to get him to grow his hair out and all of a sudden Taylor gets him to do it,” Mahomes said during a recent interview on SiriusXM NFL Radio.
Watch Sandler on the Tonight Show below.
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Travis Kelce is heading to the big screen.
The Kansas City Chiefs football star, and boyfriend of Taylor Swift, has landed his first movie project as an actor.
Kelce is attached to star in Loose Cannons, an action comedy that is in the process of being set up at Lionsgate. Chad Stahelski, the John Wick filmmaker who has a first-look deal with Lionsgate, is producing with Jason Spitz, his partner at 87Eleven Entertainment, as well as Alex Young. Tim Dowling, whose credits include Adam Sandler comedy Just Go With It, wrote the script.
The premise centers on how every police precinct, at least in this movie’s world, has a crazy, out of control, rule-breaking officer on staff. But rather than pair them with a straight arrow and by the book partner, the premise here is that unhinged person is paired with someone just as out of line as they are.
In Cannons, two loose cannons are forced to partner up after their precincts merge due to budget cuts and no one wants to work with them. The duo end up taking on the cases no one else can.
The script is described as having tones of Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys and Rush Hour, all landmarks in the buddy action comedy genres.
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Cannons is the latest major step in Kelce’s climb of the Hollywood ladder. The sports star has long wanted to expand his portfolio into entertainment, appearing in an episode of Showtime comedy Moonbase 8 in 2020 and hosting Saturday Night Live in March 2023. The drive into Hollywood become more focused when the tight end signed with CAA in spring 2023.
Since then, he’s signed on to host a reboot of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader titled Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity for Amazon, while his first major acting role is the upcoming Ryan Murphy FX horror show Grotesquerie, which started production in May.
Stahelski is deeply ensconced in Lionsgate’s feature projects, acting as overseer of the Wick franchise for the company. He is also working on a remake of Highlander, which is a franchise hopeful and is to shoot next year after years of development.
Dowling made a name for himself with several big studio comedies, among them Universal’s Role Models, starring Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott, and DreamWorks’ Office Christmas Party, starring Jason Bateman. On top of Sandler’s Just Go With It, he worked on the comedian’s big-budget 2015 entry Pixels. On the action front, he co-wrote the romantic spy movie This Means War, which starred Tom Hardy, Chris Pine and Reese Witherspoon.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix sang live on the set of Joker: Folie à Deux — not just because they’re staunch professionals, but also because they wanted their performances to feel as raw and unpredictable as their characters are.
In a new interview with Variety published Tuesday (Aug. 20), the pair — who play Harley Quinn and Arthur Fleck, respectively — opened up about the challenges of using live vocals during filming. A pianist was on site to provide accompaniment off camera, after which their takes were spliced together and occasionally rerecorded in studio as needed.
“We didn’t want vibrato and perfect notes,” Phoenix explained, adding that he and the pop star wanted to “let the emotion guide” their performances to stay “true to the moment.”
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“We asked ourselves, ‘What would need to be true for two people to just break into song in the middle of a conversation?’” Gaga added. “’Where does the music come from when no one can hear it but the characters?’ Neither Arthur nor [Harley] are professional singers and they shouldn’t sound like they are … We wanted to help tell the story of their shared madness in a way that felt real.”
“I think we all have an intimate and personal relationship with music in that there’s a score for our inner emotional lives,” she continued to Variety. “A score that no one can usually hear but us. That’s what we tried to capture for Arthur and Lee — the music inside them.”
The interview comes about a month and a half ahead of the Joker sequel’s theatrical release on Oct. 4. The film’s first full-length trailer dropped in July, promising a darkly chaotic storyline that finds Fleck and Quinn meeting in a psychiatric hospital and embarking on a joint musical journey as the former awaits trial for his crimes as Joker.
In another recent Q&A about the project, Phoenix revealed that Gaga — despite being a 13-time Grammy winner and vocal powerhouse in her own right — was quite supportive of his singing capabilities while working on the film. “I do seem to remember her spitting up coffee the first time I sang, so that felt good, that was exciting, and made me feel confident,” he told Empire in July. “Gaga was always very encouraging of just, ‘Go with what you feel, it’s fine.’ For somebody who’s not a performer in that way, it can be … uncomfortable to do that, but also very exciting.”
In addition to Folie à Deux, the “Applause” musician is also gearing up to release her seventh studio album, which she’s been teasing for weeks. While in Paris to perform at the 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony in July, she even played a couple snippets of the record for fans gathered outside her hotel.
In the meantime, listeners can enjoy the A Star Is Born actress’ new standalone single with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile,” which dropped Aug. 16. The pair also teamed up for a Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner-esque music video to accompany the cinematic ballad, which dropped on the same day as the song.
Selena Gomez is celebrating her wins. Ahead of the theatrical release of Emilia Pérez in France, the 32-year-old singer-actress shared an emotional video on Instagram showing the moment she found out she’d been cast in the Jacques Audiard-directed film, after which she could barely hold back tears. “I can’t believe I got the movie, I’m […]
The trailer for the six-part Apple TV+ documentary series K-Pop Idols has arrived, and it’s premiering exclusively on Billboard below.
Set for its global unveiling at the end of the month, the first-of-its-kind series offers an unprecedented and refreshing glimpse into the high-stakes, high-pressure world of K-pop while following the lives of Korean-American rapper-singer Jessi, chart-topping boy band CRAVITY, and global girl group BLACKSWAN navigating the intense realities of the industry.
With raw storytelling reminiscent of the honesty felt in 2012’s illuminating K-pop doc 9 Muses of Star Empire, the upcoming series follows the idols as they confront their careers’ euphoric highs and harsh lows. The K-Pop Idols trailer shows Jessi tearfully recounting her experience of being stranded outside during her European tour, while Allen of CRAVITY discusses the grueling schedules that leave K-pop idols sleep-deprived. BLACKSWAN’s Fatou shares the difficulty of not seeing her family for years and her bandmate Gabi tearfully questions her place in her girl group.
Filming took place across multiple countries, including the United States, South Korea, France, Belgium, Germany and Cambodia, capturing the global scope of the K-pop phenomenon and helping to resonate with both dedicated fans and a broader audience for a narrative that reveals the too rarely seen vulnerable sides of the stars that remain at the heart of the rapidly rising music scene.
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“With K-Pop Idols, our goal was to pull back the curtain on the highly competitive world of K-pop and reveal the human stories behind the stars,” said executive producer Elise Chung, who executive produced Bling Empire. “This series is a tribute to the relentless passion and perseverance of artists like Jessi, CRAVITY and BLACKSWAN who are shaping the future of music on a global scale. We’re excited for viewers to experience the challenges, victories and everything in between that comes with chasing a dream as big as becoming a K-pop idol.”
K-Pop Idols was produced for Apple TV+ by Matador Content, a subsidiary of Boat Rocker whose work includes shows like ABC’s Boy Band, Paramount’s Lip Sync Battle (Paramount Network) and Vice’s What Would Diplo Do? An Emmy Award-winning team contributed to the project including Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry executive producers Todd Lubin and Jay Peterson, as well as Chung, Jack Turner (Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields producer), Sue Kim (The Speed Cubers director), Bradley Cramp (Lord of War) and Eric Yujin Kim (Undoing). Fans can also look forward to famous friends of the different artists making cameos in the series too.
Apple TV+ will exclusively stream K-Pop Idols, set to premiere globally on Aug. 30. Take a look at the trailer and new photos until then.
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BLACKSWAN in rehearsal in “K-Pop Idols”
Courtesy of AppleTV+
Jessi with her family in “K-Pop Idols”
Courtesy of AppleTV+
BLACKSWAN in “K-Pop Idols”
Courtesy of AppleTV+
For those working behind the scenes, Amazon’s sprawling, stunning and spendy fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is marked by a secrecy not unlike the clandestine creation of the titular gold bands in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world.
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“I would come [home] after working for 12 hours and my wife would go, ‘How’s it going?’ And I’d go, ‘The project is going okay,’” recalls composer Bear McCreary of the show’s first season. “My daughter was seven at the time — she would [have gone] to school and said it. The secrecy was crazy.”
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The second season, which premieres on Prime Video on Aug. 29, was a similarly stealthy production. When woodwind and brass players gathered at London’s AIR Studios Lyndhurst (a deconsecrated Victorian church that producer George Martin turned into a top-notch recording facility in 1992) in late April to record part of its score, the TV show’s name was markedly absent from the sheet music.
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“Even though there’s a code name, they know when they see my name and hear these tunes,” admits McCreary, an Elmer Bernstein-trained composer who writes every musical cue for the show (save Howard Shore’s opening theme). “It feels like coming back to school after a summer off and seeing all your friends.”
If Rings of Power were a high school, you’d probably peg McCreary – with his black t-shirt, trim beard and long, dark mane of hair – as a metal kid. And sure enough, just days after that recording session, the 45-year-old unleashed The Singularity, an expansive, hard-rocking concept LP, into the world. But before he fell in love with Queen and Guns N’ Roses, McCreary was a little boy obsessed with film soundtracks, especially those for epic fantasies.
Now, after scoring Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead and a number of video games, he’s creating one of his own with The Rings of Power. Only for season two, the stakes are higher — arguably, this is the pivotal season that will cement the fan response to this latest adaptation of Tolkien’s beloved world.
McCreary is easygoing while giving notes to the trumpet section or chatting with visiting cast member Markella Kavenagh (who plays Nori) at the recording space, but when the French horns and oboes kick in, he is battle ready. Considering that season two ups the action quotient, his body language is fitting. Not only does heroine Galadriel battle with archnemesis Sauron (“We’ve been waiting for this fight,” McCreary says), but a mysterious region of Tolkien’s Middle-earth will be shown for the first time.
“I felt an initial shock when I read the script and realized we were going to Rhûn,” he says. “Here is a part of the map that we’ve never seen in an adaptation before.” After “using every trick in the book” to score season one, McCreary sold showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay on an unusual idea: bring in a Bulgarian’s women’s choir to complement the arid desert setting. “They let me run with it, and I have to say, it sounds beautiful — haunting and strange.”
Adds Bob Bowen, worldwide head of music at Amazon MGM Studios: “[Bear’s] use of innovative musical approaches, combined with his deep understanding of Tolkien, provides a unique world-building for this series.”
Though McCreary’s dramatic, nuanced score fills the hexagonal, high-ceilinged AIR Studios with a tense grandeur, he’s aware that most viewers will experience it in an entirely different setting. With that in mind, he sometimes spins the Rings of Power mixes on his cellphone to ensure the most salient melodic elements come through clearly. “I want to make sure the show and score sounds good, even in a terrible listening environment.”
Morfydd Clark in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”
Ben Rothstein/Prime Video
He’s also cognizant of social media responses to his score and was pleased when a few savvy fans figured out that his theme for Halbrand is the theme for the perfidious Sauron played backwards (Spoiler: the two were revealed to be one and the same in the season 1 finale). “I like to encode messages into the score,” says McCreary, who reveals that he’s burying the musical Easter eggs even deeper on season 2. “Now that I know people are digging, I can be even more subtle.”
The most rewarding fan response, however, has been at home. “My daughter has watched the show multiple times. She loved it,” he says, his tone growing as misty as the mountains of Moria. “I felt so proud that I could be part of the stories that bring my daughter into Middle-earth.”
Rory Kinnear and Daniel Weyman in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”
Ross Ferguson/Prime Video
A version of this story will appear in the Aug. 24 issue of Billboard.