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Friday box office with Thursday previews was an issue of now you see it, now you don’t.
Numbers failed to materialize for “Now You See It” Part 3, or for “Running Man.”
We’re looking at $12 million and $10 million weekends, respectively.
That is Deadsville.
The whole box office is asleep.No buzz on anything.
The wait for “Wicked: For Good,” and “Marty Supreme” is now getting tense.
There’s just nothing happening. It’s a snooze.
Small releases like “Bugonia” and “Deliver Me from Nothing” are not amping up.
Things are so bad that Universal has anniversary runs of “Back to the Future” and the original “Wicked” lodged in the theaters.
SPC’s “Nuremberg” should be doing more, but it’s just lying there.
“Frankenstein” is doing business or did, but Netflix doesn’t report numbers and now Guillermo del Toro’s fine film is playing on the streaming platform. So much for that.
I guess “Jay Kelly” is out there somewhere. A top film for the year, but again, it’s Netflix, so no reporting.
Last week’s horror film, “Predator: Badlands,” was down 78% from last Friday, so that novelty has passed as well.
Taylor Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl” run is pretty much over.
Having sold over 4 million copies in its first week, “Showgirl” will likely top out at 5 million when all is said and done.
It’s been a great run but this past week “Showgirl” sold just 109,000 copies, mostly of all it from streaming. Just 17,000 were paid downloads, CDs, or LPs.
“Showgirl” had one big hit, “The Life of Ophelia,” and one minor one called “Opalite.” Because Swift prevented downloading of individual tracks from iTunes for the first two weeks, all sales went to the total album.
But it’s all over now. Total Taylor sales including streaming for this year are 4.9 million. Of that only 1 million was anything other than “Showgirl.”
She’s literally exhausted the audience for number of copies that could be sold. And it’s likely her total is actually half, with many customers buying two versions of the album.
Swift has swallowed the record business whole, devoured it really.
The irony is, Morgan Wallen has outsold Swift this year — 7.8 million including streaming. His album, “I’m the Problem,” registered 4.5 million.
Of course, no one wants to give credit to Wallen for anything. He was “cancelled” long ago and didn’t get any Grammy nominations this year (Swift is eligible next year).
Elsewhere on the iTunes album top 50 album, there’s Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” Mariah Carey’s Christmas album, and Elton John’s “Diamonds” box set. The latter is the real winner, since it’s a box set and it never stops selling. God bless.
Coming November 21st: the Beatles’ Anthology set, remastered with a new 4th chapter. The sound is amazing, it’s worth buying again if you got it 30 years ago. Nothing “new” as in undiscovered, but terrific unheard versions of old songs.
Awards season is coming, and there are some issues and news.
First the Screen Actors Guild awards — known as the SAG Awards — are rebranding for absolutely no reason.
Now they’re going to be called The Actors Awards. Go figure. Jobeth Williams, head of SAG right now, says this is to match their statue. Makes no sense, but no one asked anyone.
Second, the Golden Globes. Even with the Hollywood Foreign Press gone, the Globes look for trouble. Both Puck and The Ankler newsletters are hot on their trail for adding a category called Best Podcast.
According to the reports, amplified today in Page Six, Penske Media is selecting nominees for this category based on popularity numbers from their own rankings. So it’s not independent. On top of that, the reports say that the nominees are encouraged to advertise in Penske publications to Golden Globes voters.
The Globes and Luminate are owned by Penske, as are Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline.
CBS is the Globes network now. They were years ago until CBS kicked them out for shenanigans with grift and swag. For decades after, the Globes were on NBC, until they ousted them for not having Black members and also financial mismanagement.
Now CBS is owned the Ellisons, so their standards might be lower. But the real CBS might have questioned this latest ripple. According to the reports, Penske has been heavily courting podcasters like Joe Rogan and Megyn Kelly so they will bring their conservative followers to the show. Imagine a room of Hollywood liberal heavyweights cheek by jowl with those types. LOL.
Page Six is also complaining that they’ve been cut out of press coverage of the Globes which now favor the Penske publications. I’ve already been told unofficially that I can’t cover them either. For years during the Hollywood Foreign Press Association run, only HFPA photographers could take pictures. The whole idea of the regime change was to open up the Globes and make them democratic. Now it seems it’s worse than ever.
Disappointing to say the least.
Anyway, the Critics Choice Awards are Sunday, January 4th on the CW Network.
Somehow, mediocre pop singer Alex Warren got TV and movie star Jennifer Aniston and actor Max Greenfield (from “The Neighborhood”) to appear in a commercial for his first tour.
Warren’s had one hit all year, called “Ordinary,” which pretty much sums it up.
In the courtroom drama video, Aniston plays a judge. Warren is being sued by a child resembling Little Orphan Annie who says he’s abandoning him to go on the road. She calls him a “little bitch” and drops an F bomb.
The whole concept is to play on the fact that both of Warren’s parents are dead in real life. It’s played for laughs! WTF? It’s not funny. The tour is actually called “Little Orphan Alex.”
The former movie star — now making straight to video “D” movies — has been doling out money to Scientology for years.
The known donations from his the not for profit he set up in memory of late son, Jett Travolta. The irony is that for years Jett was never treated for autism because Scientology dened its existence. Travolta and late wife Kelly Preston said Jett suffered from a disease caused by home cleaning fluids.
Jett fell, hit his head and died on January 2, 2009 on a boat parked in the Bahamas. He was being looked after by a male nanny who was also a wedding photographer.
According to the Form 990s for the Jett Travolta Foundation, the one time Vinnie Barbarino gave them $5,000 in 2023 and 2022, as well as the last several years. In 2021, the number rose to $15,875.
As the years have passed, Travolta’s charitable giving has dwindled almost to just sending money to Scientology from the Jett account.
So don’t think for a minute Travolta has hung up his Xenu shoes.
“Shame Shame Shame” was a hit by Shirley & Co at the height of the disco era in 1975.
The Rolling Stones recorded it but never released it before now. It’s part of their 50th anniversary edition of “Black and Blue.”
The song references to two prior classic R&B hits, “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show” by the Honey Cone, and William DeVaughn’s “Be Thankful for What You Got.”
The Stones’ version should get everyone out on the dance floor. I want to hear a mash up of this and the original ASAP!
Also included in the new box set is the unreleased “I Love Ladies.”
There are also four unreleased instrumental tracks featuring guitarists who were trying out to join the Stones after the departure of Mick Taylor. Ronnie Wood got the job, but you can hear the auditions of Harvey Mandel, Wayne Perkins, Jeff Beck, and Robert A. Johnson.
Jeff Beck could have been in the Stones!
There were two hit singles from the album: “Fool to Cry” and “Hot Stuff.” Plus “Memory Motel,” named for the still there and legendary Montauk motel. These days it’s a club and a living museum that hosts crowds of unruly young people all summer.
Viva the Rolling Stones! Videos below. And after that, all the track listing info.
Release Formats Include:
5LP Super Deluxe Box Set
4CD Super Deluxe Box Set
Limited Edition 5LP Marbled Vinyl Super Deluxe Box Set
2LP / 2CD (Album + Outtakes & Jams)
1LP / 1CD (2025 Steven Wilson Mix)
1LP Zoetrope Vinyl
TRACKLISTING
1CD – STEVEN WILSON REMIX 2025
Hot Stuff
Hand Of Fate
Cherry Oh Baby
Memory Motel
Hey Negrita
Melody
Fool To Cry
Crazy Mama
1LP – STEVEN WILSON REMIX 2025
Side A
Hot Stuff
Hand Of Fate
Cherry Oh Baby
Memory Motel
Side B
Hey Negrita
Melody
Fool To Cry
Crazy Mama
2CD
Disc 1: Steven Wilson Remix 2025
Hot Stuff
Hand Of Fate
Cherry Oh Baby
Memory Motel
Hey Negrita (Inspiration by Ron Wood)
Melody (Inspiration by Billy Preston)
Fool To Cry
Crazy Mama
Disc 2: Outtakes and Jams
I Love Ladies
Shame, Shame, Shame
Chuck Berry Style Jam (With Harvey Mandel)
Blues Jam (With Jeff Beck)
Rotterdam Jam (With Jeff Beck & Robert A. Johnson)
Freeway Jam (With Jeff Beck)
2LP
Disc 1: Steven Wilson Remix 2025
Side A
Hot Stuff
Hand Of Fate
Cherry Oh Baby
Memory Motel
Side B
Hey Negrita (Inspiration by Ron Wood)
Melody (Inspiration by Billy Preston)
Fool To Cry
Crazy Mama
Disc 2: Outtakes and Jams
Side A
I Love Ladies
Shame, Shame, Shame
Chuck Berry Style Jam (With Harvey Mandel)
Side B
Blues Jam (With Jeff Beck)
Rotterdam Jam (With Jeff Beck & Robert A. Johnson)
Freeway Jam (With Jeff Beck)
Miley Cyrus sings the theme from the new “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” James Cameron’s latest 3D blue period film.
Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, and the movie’s composer, Simon Franglen are all involved. The song plays over the end credits, so you have to stay til the movie is over to hear it. Or you can just listen here.
The song is very straightforward. It would have been more fun if they’d covered “Love is Blue,” frankly. But that wouldn’t get them an Oscar nom.
The movie hits on December 19th in 42 different formats.
The reluctant, scowling pop star has named Adele’s publicist, Benny Tarantini, in a kind of announcement apropos of nothing.
He’s also listed a set of affirmations, or “values,” as he calls them including “Rest as Worship” and “HEALTH and physical wellness as an act of stewardship.”
These are from a kid who is often red-eyed from smoking lots of pop.
The announcement, from his Bieber Family Office, cites his two upcoming performances next April at Coachella.
Also noted are reviews for his album, “Swag,” deliberately misquoting a New Yorker review omitting the word ‘messy’ from ‘messy improbably masterpiece’ and maybe misunderstanding the essay to be a send up of Bieber.
The reviewer summarizes Bieber succinctly, leaving out the time he wrote “Anne Frank would have been a Belieber” in the guest book at her museum in Amsterdam. “Controversy follows him, as does tabloid coverage of these controversies,” Brady Brickner-Wood wrote, “which often have a paternalistic bent: Is he back on drugs? Has his marriage to the model Hailey Bieber soured? Is he mentally ill? Is he spending enough time with his newborn son? He’s been charged with a D.U.I., acknowledged suicidal ideation, and berated paparazzi for bothering him at the beach.”
Bieber’s “Swag” album, which recently picked up a few Grammy nominations in the lightest year in ten, did not fly off the shelves. Total sales so far are 18,675 in paid downloads. But streaming brought it up to 730,900 largely pushed by sales of the singles, “Daisies” and “Yukon.” Now available as two vinyl discs — for $42.99 — “Swag” has finally entered the physical world, albeit not on CD.
If Coachella happens, there’s always the chance Bieber will announce a tour if not a residency in a place like Las Vegas, where Adele put down roots rather than go from city to city. For someone who is easily knocked off course, that would seem like the right idea for Bieber.
Here are the values of the Bieber Family Office which also includes his lawyer, his quasi-manager, and his wife, Hailey, now a cosmetics tycoon.
We value Rest as Worship.
We value Longevity and a sustainable pace of life.
We value Quality and excellence of production.
We value INNOVATION and moving the human experience forward.
We value HEALTH and physical wellness as an act of stewardship.
We value Sustainability and creating products that serve humanity.
We value Servanthood and making people feel like they can fly.
We value Generosity and graciously giving time, money, and respect to people on our path.
We value Life as a gift and practice daily gratitude for the day that has been given to us.
We value HUMAN beings and believe in their dignity and eternal worth.
The Thailand season of “The White Lotus” never ends.
On Tuesday night, the cast of season 3 of the hit HBO series was seated onstage at the DGA theater in NY following a screening of the fifth episode. Parker Posey, Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, Sam Rockwell, Walton Goggins, Tayme Thapthimthong, Jason Isaacs, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sam Nivola, and Sarah Catherine Hook gathered for a Q&A.
The audience was composed of Guild members, mostly actors.
Dressed in a lacy white gown with black trim evoking a Southern gothic look, Parker Posey revealed how showrunner/director Mike White prepared her for the role as Victoria Ratliff, who became famous for drinking, ignoring reality, and spouting memorable lines like “Piper, no!” with an impeccable Southern accent.
“Think Big Edie from Grey Gardens,” Posey recounted White telling her.
The episode that screened concerned the aforementioned Piper confessing she had conned her family into vacationing at the ultra-luxurious Thailand retreat so she can cajole them into letting her join a Buddhist meditation center. Drama queen mom knows best. Parker, a master at drug-woozy drawls, applied Big Edie parenting wisdom knowing one night in deprivation no matter the spiritual reward is too much for the privileged draws the line at poverty: “You go right ahead.”
SAG members were rapt hearing the ensemble’s take on living at the five-star resort in close quarters with one another in preparation for making a TV family. Leslie Bibb — wearing a baby doll dress — said she helped real life partner Sam Rockwell learn the lines of his super-calibrated monologue while they were on safari. That monologue, deeply troubling to Goggins’ Rick, reveals the actors’ shorthand. Rockwell as Frank admitting to living a very double life was one of the shocks of the season.
Hearing that, Jason Isaacs — who played Posey’s self medicating husband in financial peril — had monologue-envy. It’s easier to have lines, but all he does is brood, imagining killing his family and then himself. How did he prepare, he was asked? The actor said he just thought of his own children, who visited the set with their mother, his wife, in Thailand.
Isaacs recalled, “We were planning to go to dinner, and I said, Let’s ask the kids to join us.” His kids’ response? “We’re your kids.”
Sam Nivola called “The White Lotus” acting boot camp. He learned from everybody, he said. His character, Lochlan, stopped the series in an incestuous moment with elder brother Saxon, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger. Meticulous to the end, White insisted the brothers return to the family villa wearing each other’s shorts.
Catching up with young Nivola at the Russian Tea Room after party, where only those with yellow wrist bands were invited, I asked how his parents, actors Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer, reacted to the salacious scene. Sam, just twenty two, was anxious watching with them. “I’m lucky,” he said with diplomacy, “to have grown up in an actor environment.” They took it in.
“The White Lotus” is still in hunt for nominations and awards from SAG, the Critics Choice, and Golden Globes. The episode shown on Tuesday night featured Sam Rockwell’s speech as Frank, and deserves every award it can get.
I’m more than a little shocked tonight, and anyone who read Variety should be, too.
The Hollywood trade has given a platform to noted antisemite influencer Hasan Piker. It’s not just an interview with Tatiana Siegel. There’s also a costly photo shoot for this spewer of hate who says in the interview: “I abhor antisemitism, and I’ve spent my entire professional media career combating it. I just happen to be anti-Israel.”
Why would they do this? They let Piker call Israeli actress Gal Gadot “a dogshit actress”…who “should be banned from the Oscars.”
Piker says “I think she should be banned from the Oscars for being a dogshit actress. I think she has no business being there for the crime of what she has done to not only the DC franchise, but really any movie she’s been a part of. All jokes aside, Gal Gadot serves an important role in normalizing Israel as not a fascist ethno-state, but instead a place where a lot of beautiful women come from. And those beautiful women happen to serve in the IDF, because there’s also this weird sexualization of the forces as well that takes place, and it plays another role in normalizing Israel and its activities and actions, and whitewashing it.”
I’m repeating what Piker said in Variety just to illustrate how shocking and offensive this, and to underline how the trade — owned by Penske Media — felt no constraint about printing it. (I wonder how their Hollywood Reporter editor Maer Roshan, also Israeli, feels about that.)
Piker also claims that “Superman” director and DC Comics movies chief James Gunn made the violent fictional nation of Boravia is a stand-in for Israel. Gunn, of course, denies this vehemently.
He also goes after newly appointed CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss as “everything that I despise about access journalism brown-nosing to institutionally powerful people and a major advocate for Israel as well.”
I’d like to know what Variety’s readership thinks of Siegel’s interview, which is presented as declaration by Piker and not a criticism. Siegel, who is Jewish herself, gives no impression throughout that Piker is to be despised or what he’s saying is just pure hate. Siegel is not alone in her blame her. So is the photographer, someone named Dan Doperalski, who didn’t have any problem styling this POS and making him look a movie star.
Is this the tone the trades are going to take now? Frightening.
