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TMZ thinks it’s cool that she’s sold her “music catalog” for a reported $200 million.
But it’s not good news. Britney is 44 and likely broke. She doesn’t tour and she hasn’t had a hit record in 20 years. No money is being generated.
She also didn’t write any of her hits like “Baby One More Time,” “Oops I Did it Again,” “Toxic,” and “Criminal.” So she doesn’t own the publishing. Larry Mestel’s Primary Wave obviously paid for the rights to the recordings themselves since the 40 or so songs Britney has her name on aren’t worth much.
I would guess the number was less than $200 million, which is what Justin Bieber got in his fire sale. And he has the publishing on all his songs whether or not he wrote them.
If Britney were touring, and singing her songs, that would stimulate airplay, etc. But she’s not, so despite being relatively young for a sale, here she is.
Sunday’s Super Bowl was the second highest watched in history.
NBC says during the 2nd quarter, the Seahawks-Patriots Game reached a peak of 137.8 million viewers.
The result was Bad Bunny and friends set records for the most watched half time show ever.
The overall average for the entire presentation was 125 million. After Bad Bunny, some fans tuned out because the game was not exciting.
The Seahawks won the game. But Bad Bunny won the night. His record sales spiked like crazy. He has 18 singles on the iTunes top 100, and 8 albums on the iTunes album list including number 1.
One of the albums is an EP just of his halftime set. Everyone is downloading that one.
On Spotify’s top 50, Bad Bunny has the top 9 singles plus another dozen or so.
On Friday we will see the total numbers for records sold, and it will be huge.
So yeah, Donald Trump said no one liked or understood the halftime show, that no one speaks Spanish and the whole thing was “disgusting.”
Maybe if Trump ever visits Puerto Rico again (he won’t) Bad Bunny can throw paper towels at him — what Trump when he was there last for hurricane relief efforts.
The Keystone cops down in Tucson have a unique problem.
The media scrum parked outside Nancy Guthrie’s house are ordering Uber Eats and Door Dash.
The police are furious that their crime scene is being inundated with pizza and chicken wings. Cars are pulling up from various take out places.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Dept writes on Twitter:
“We can’t believe we have to say this, but media on scene: please do not order food delivery to a crime scene address. This interferes with an active investigation. Please also respect private property laws. Thank you.”
This whole episode has turned into a bad joke. The Guthrie family is sending videos to the alleged kidnappers. The police department says it has no leads. GrubHub is allowed on the street where the abduction took place. The FBI is releasing pictures of a would be kidnapper.
Meanwhile, is this a targeted attack on Savannah Guthrie or a random home invasion? Is Savannah’s brother-in-law involved? If he’s not, he’s got a bunch of lawsuits to file soon.
As for the media: try not to have too much fun out there!
Never seen something quite like this.
A Domino’s delivery driver just walked all the way up to Nancy Guthrie’s front door trying to deliver a pizza. Walking out now. Believe it was intended for someone in the media along the street. pic.twitter.com/u9GB2Gwptz
Is Jacob Elordi now type cast as a sexy beast? The new “Wuthering Heights,” as reinvented by Emerald Fennell, finds fatal attraction in its leading man Heathcliff played by Jacob Elordi, who seduced us as the Monster in “Frankenstein” this season.
Elordi should learn the old Halloween song, “Monster Mash,” because Heathcliff and Frankenstein’s invention are not far from each other.
While Guillermo del Toro found the sweet soul, the innocent child of the monster in the actor, Fennell, putting her perverse stamp on the character, plays his monstrous passion. Those eyes, smoldering yes, a veil of lashes, lush for outsized emotion. A swoon in every close-up.
In Emily Bronte’s creation, the character of Heathcliff is dark and brooding, called a monster, and brought into light by Catherine Earnshaw. Blond and blue eyed, Fennell’s child Cathy (look out for Charlotte Mellington) is simply naughty, the adult the humanized Barbie. She comes in the form of Margot Robbie bedecked in gaudy gems as opulent as her room. Cathy begins to live a false life in marriage to Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), the rich man next door.
With Heathcliff, she’s wild and open, the sex tender—even if played against the ocean, in nature, and in the rain. Being drenched is a thing. But everyone has to come in out of the elements.
Emerald Fennell is a master at exposing the claustrophobia of massive houses, and the boredom of those who live in them. See “Saltburn,” for example. Her double quote “Wuthering Heights” was a no-brainer for her talents at teasing out the untoward behavior nurtured in these vast estates.
Wanting to hurt Cathy for marrying Edgar Linton, Heathcliff marries Isabelle, Edgar’s ward. Barely a woman, she takes to Heathcliff’s brute abuse willingly, a substitute for her room full of ribbons. Mr. Earnshaw, once a man of wealth and social standing, drinks and gambles away his riches. Oh and, be wary of servants. Nelly (Hong Chau) wields her own hand at fate before Heathcliff, a dirty underling, desperate for love, turns the tables.
At its heart, “”Wuthering Heights””” is a sublime Valentine’s Day gift: Maddening love consummated. In this sick heat, someone has to die. But as we know from Elordi’s Frankenstein, death is not the worst of it. Just ask Lady Gaga’s minions. Being alone, without the other is far, far more tragic—and dark. If Bronte’s novel was influenced by the Gothic genre in her time, Fennell has defined a Gothic for ours. — with Roger Friedman
On its 11th day off release, the infomercial about Donald Trump’s model wife fell 33%.
The total yesterday was $330,147. That’s also down 67% from last week.
The whole bizarre story of a movie that sells tickets to ghosts and plays in empty theaters is almost over.
After increasing its run by 225 theaters this week, “Melania” will certainly be shedding venues for this coming Friday.
Of course, that means we’ll soon be seeing it on Amazon Prime. But it won’t be free. When “Melania” hits streaming it will likely cost 20 bucks.
Amazon has to make back that $75 million somehow! LOL. So far the total is $13.6 million, and just $158K abroad.
The best part of the infomercial moving to streaming is that we can host parties and play it for groups of 10 or 20 at a time. There should be some good drinking games coming out of that experience!
The FBI has released pictures of a masked man thought to be involved in the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie.
It’s been 10 days since the kidnapping and this is first evidence we’ve seen.
Many questions remain: was this a targeted abduction? A home invasion gone wrong? Is Nancy Guthrie still alive?
New images in the search for Nancy Guthrie:
Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to continue to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home that may have been lost,… pic.twitter.com/z5WLgPtZpT
The news, which had escaped attention up that point, caused Fox Searchlight to dump the film, which had been a potential Oscar contender.
What made the story worse: well after the rape trial, the accuser committed suicide. Parker seemed in the press unmoved by that news, and “Birth” died.
Now AMC Theaters has announced it will release “Newborn,” a psychological thriller starring David Oyelowo and directed by Parker. The two men are producing the movie under their partnership called Mansa Studios.
This isn’t Parker’s first film since “Birth.” In 2019, he went with “American Skin,” which was dumped itself and received little attention.
Obviously, Parker can’t go the studio route. Even after a decade he remains a controversial figure. But Nikkole Denson-Randolph, Chief Content Officer, AMC Theatres says: “Newborn is the kind of bold, provocative, and original storytelling that comes alive on the big screen. We’re proud to be the exclusive exhibitor supporting a release model that prioritizes theatrical.”
The movie follows Chris Newborn (Oyelowo) who, after serving seven years in solitary confinement, seeks to rebuild his life and reconnect with his family only to find that freedom has become a terrifying psychological battleground.
It’s an amazing turn of events especially since it involves Oyelowo, a great actor and director himself. It’s unclear if Parker can escape his past. But maybe 10 years is enough punishment for a talented director.
There’s a lot of griping, I’m told, about the Vanity Fair Oscar party next month in Hollywood.
This is the first one hosted by 36 year old editor Michael Guiducci, who was chosen by Anna Wintour to do her bidding.
This is also the first party away from the Annnenberg Center on Santa Monica Boulevard. Vanity Fair had a giant space there, and filled it with advertisers. The big stars were hitting the red carpet for a photo op, then taking off for parties held by Madonna and Guy Oseary, Jay Z, and others.
But the Conde Nast mag is downsizing, and moving to the almost opened David Geffen Galleries at the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The new building is smaller and weirder than the old Vanity Fair space, looking like a Spielberg space ship with a lizard sculpture outside.
The new space is also smaller than the Annenberg set-up. Because of that, sources say the magazine is cutting way back on guests, disallowing agents and publicists from accompanying their stars. Well, not all. Some top agents will get in, of course. But most will be left out on Wilshire Boulevard, far from the Dolby Theater.
“They’re wrecking the one good thing they have,” snarked an insider.
Those advertisers? Vanity Fair needs them so badly, they’ll be at the front of the line.
Some of the guests could include the members of the Trump Administration that the mag fangirled over recently. Now, that would be interesting. Maybe Stephen Miller will show off tricks from his planet. (That outdoor sculpture is him in his original form.)
Oddly, the main museum is selling tickets for the same day, March 15th, right through 6pm. It should be a madhouse!
Meantime, the magazine is rolling the dice on its next issue with cover subject actress Margaret Qualley. Her comedy with Glen Powell, “How to Make a Killing,” A24 will be released on February 20th, maybe the same day the magazine is out. Not much is known about “Killing,” but the trailer looks like fun. (See below.) If it’s not a hit, March 15th is a long three weeks away.
Qualley is a good choice for a celebrity profile if the interview covers her marriage to rock star music producer Jack Antonoff (which makes her Taylor Swift adjacent), and Qualley’s terrific mom, Andie McDowell. If it’s just another press release, forget it.
The whole redneck thing is a cleverly designed act to bring in right wing, Christian fans.
Sunday night, Kid Rock headlined the Turning Point alternative Super Bowl show and everyone mocked him, even me.
What we didn’t know was that he had other things in mind besides Bad Bunny and Donald Trump. He used the Turning Point show to rebrand himself and release new music. And it worked.
On the show, Kid Rock rebranded under his real name, Robert Ritchie. He also performed a cover of Cody Johnson’s 2021 country hit, “Til You Can’t” with strings and orchestration. It was all designed a while ago. When the show was over, Kid Rock dropped the single. And now it’s number on iTunes.
Kid Rock, aka Ritchie, hasn’t had a hit like this in decades. But he played off the Charlie Kirk audience for himself.
“Til You Want” by Cody Johnson was just a good country song about nostalgia for simpler times. Ritchie added lyrics about Jesus, turning the song into a Christian plea for the old days. It was a good move. Now his version and Johnson’s are in the top 5 on iTunes (although they don’t show up so far on Spotify).
And while Kid Rock will always remain identified with MAGA, the Ritchie version of “Til You Can’t” has nothing to with politics. It just pulls on heartstrings. The underlying message is “Make America great again,” but never explicitly says so.
A seismic shift is happening as we speak in Hollywood.
Pop star Chappell Roan has just posted notice that she’s left her management company owned and run by a heavyweight.
It’s all about Jeffrey Epstein.
Casey Wasserman’s very powerful firm is called Wasserman Agency. The grandson of MCA/Universal founder and legend Lew Wasserman has made his company into a huge deal in the music world.
Casey is also leading the LA28 Olympic organizing committee, a very glamorous position that entails all of Hollywood’s involvement with the 2028 international competition.
But Casey (whose real last name is Myers, it was switched when he was a child) has turned up in the Epstein files. It’s not pretty. His emails with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, now a convicted sex offender, are vulgar and disarming. More on that in a minute.
There are calls from all over Hollywood for Wasserman to step down as head of LA28 that have so far gone ignored. Chappell Roan isn’t the first client to leave the agency, but she’s the biggest. If the others bolt over this, Wasserman Agency will be in serious trouble. Casey’s clients include Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar, Phish, Raye, SZA, Joni Mitchell, Janelle Monae, newish hit band Geese (they were just on “SNL”) and leader Cameron Winter, plus performer and “Marty Supreme” actor Tyler the Creator.
Chappell Roan is about as hot as you can get right now. Her “Pink Pony Club” is one of those hits that will never go away. Roan wrote on Instagram: “No artist, agent or employee should ever be expected to defend or overlook actions that conflict so deeply with our own moral values. I refuse to passively stand by.”
Wasserman is in Milan right now for the Winter Olympics. But the pressure is building fast to get him out of LA28 ASAP. His newly discovered texts with Maxwell, for which he’s apologized, are being described as either racy or “flirty.”
Wasserman was married to his now ex-wife in 2003 when he wrote to Maxwell: “Where are you, I miss you…“can we book that massage now?” The next message to her reads: “I thought we would start at that place that you know of, and then continue the massage concept into your bed…and then again in the morning…not sure if or when we would stop.”
Maxwell answers: “Umm – all that rubbing – are you sure you can take it? The thought frankly is leaving me a little breathless. There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild -I suppose I could practise them on you and you could let me know if they work or not?”
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Of course, what went on between Wasserman — who ultimately was divorced by his wife and married a flight attendant on his private plane — and Maxwell — currently in prison — would just be their business ordinarily. They could never have imagined that one day all of their private correspondence would be published by the Department of Justice. Many businesses and careers have already been destroyed by the Epstein revelations. This could be another one.
