Month: April 2021

As part of his ongoing efforts to combat alleged systemic racism at WarnerMedia, Zack Snyder’s Justice League star Ray Fisher called out the studio after it issued a statement on the Derek Chauvin verdict. After experiencing what he felt was top-down racism from studio execs that enabled an allegedly abusive film set under director Joss Whedon, Fisher was not swayed by WarnerMedia’s message that was titled “The work continues.”

“While this verdict doesn’t bring back those we’ve so wrongly lost, we know that it brings us closer to significant change,” the studio wrote. “We reaffirm our commitment to be part of the solution by using our platforms, content, and resources to advance racial equity and social justice.”

Ever a persistent critic of the studio, which Fisher still believes is protecting Geoff Johns and other execs who pressured him into saying the “Booyah!” catchphrase while filming reshoots of Justice League for Whedon, the actor didn’t hold back his feelings on the WarnerMedia tweet.

“How fucking DARE YOU @WarnerMedia?!?!?!” Fisher wrote. “Oh, now I’m pissed….”

In a follow-up tweet, Fisher tagged WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar and told him, “you need to get on this asap.” Despite launching an investigation into allegations of abuse on the set of Justice League, which reportedly included Whedon threatening Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot’s career, Fisher has not been satisfied by the outcome. While Whedon has seemingly been ousted after exiting his new HBO series The Nevers, Fisher maintains that the studio is still “protecting” execs who enabled the abuse.

The ongoing disagreement between the two parties has resulted in Fisher being dismissed from The Flash movie, which would’ve seen the first post-Justice League appearance of his Cyborg character.

(Via Ray Fisher on Twitter)

Seeing as Miley Cyrus has been in the limelight since she was a preteen, the musician is used to the constant media attention she receives about her love life. Since divorcing Liam Hemsworth, outlets have been following Cyrus’ dating life closely, but she found a clever way to mock the rumors while also promoting her new music.

Cyrus is gearing up for the release of The Kid Laroi‘s “Without You” remix, on which she guest features. Teasing a 20-second snippet of the song in a TikTok, Cyrus lip-syncs her lyrics while headlines about her love life flash across the screen. Some of the headlines read, “Miley Cyrus Romance Retrospective: All the Men and Women She’s Dated” and “What Really Ended Miley Cyrus and Nick Jonas’ Relationship” while an unbothered Cyrus lip-syncs into the camera — and offers a surprise at the end of the video.

Ahead of his Cyrus collaboration, 17-year-old rapper The Kid Laroi has been making a name for himself with some high-profile features. He originally gained recognition for his friendship with the late Juice WRLD, releasing their joint track “Reminds Me Of You” on the one-year anniversary of the rapper’s death. More recently, The Kid Laroi was tapped by Justin Bieber to feature on his Justice track “Unstable.”

Watch Cyrus’ “Without You” remix with The Kid Laroi above.

You might think that El-P, a native New Yorker, would be ecstatic to be listed as a clue in the hometown rag’s fan-favorite crossword puzzle for the day. The New York Times used “Rapper who’s half of Run The Jewels” as its clue, referencing El-P’s duo with Killer Mike. So, he called his latest accomplishment “pretty cool” on Instagram, but he still seemed excited enough to share it. He shared space on the puzzle with other such standout celebrities as Patton Oswalt and Ryan Reynolds, so he was in pretty good company.

Of course, he’s El-P, a guy who’s experienced success across three separate decades of rap history, scored video games inspired by the Blade Runner franchise (along with submitting a score for the film itself), and was even quoted during Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Cool things happen to him constantly. Currently, he’s detailing some of those cool things — as well as many of his numerous contributions to the hip-hop canon — on a podcast with Open Mike Eagle, and in 2022, he’ll be joining Killer Mike to tour with Rage Against The Machine. They’ll be touring with their lauded 2020 album, RTJ4, which was hailed as one of the year’s best behind songs like “A Few Words For The Firing Squad” and “Ooh La La.”

Check out El-P as a New York Times crossword clue above.

Of course Snoop Dogg celebrated 4/20 yesterday and he kicked things off by dropping a new album, From Tha Streets 2 Tha Suites. Naturally, some of the songs include references to marijuana use, and on one, Snoop implies that he has smoked with a certain beloved former president.

On “Gang Signs,” Snoop raps, “Still sippin’ gin and juice while I’m smoking marijuana / I bet you never blew with Obama.” Presumably, he means Barack Obama.

Whether or not Snoop has actually smoked weed with Obama is up for debate, but he has previously claimed that he’s smoked in a White House bathroom. Speaking with Jimmy Kimmel on a 2014 episode of GGN: The Double G News Network, Snoop said, “I said, ‘May I use the bathroom for a second?’ And [White House staff] said, ‘What are you going to do? No. 1 or No. 2?’ I said, ‘No. 2.’ […] So I said, ‘Look, when I do the No. 2, I usually, you know, have a cigarette or I light something to get the aroma right.’ They said, ‘You know what? You can light a piece of napkin.’ I said, ‘I’ll do that.’ And the napkin was this [indicates blunt].”

From Tha Streets 2 Tha Suites is out now via Doggystyle Records/Create Music Group. Get it here.

Elizabeth Olsen took to acting later than her sisters, Mary-Kate and Ashley. Which is to say, she waited until she was all of five years old before making her first credited appearance in How the West Was Fun. Mary-Kate and Ashley, meanwhile, were six months old when they were chosen to play Michelle Tanner on Full House. By the time they were teenagers, they were millionaire moguls. Elizabeth is notoriously reticent to discuss her older sisters in interviews, but she revealed to British Glamour that being related to Mary-Kate and Ashley did have an effect on her growing up.

“I was 10 and I was curious about auditioning… and I realized very quickly it wasn’t for me because I was missing my sports teams, my dance class, and all the extracurricular activities at school. But during that time, I thought ‘I don’t want to be associated with [Mary-Kate and Ashley],’ for some reason,” the WandaVision star said. “I guess I understood what nepotism was like inherently as a 10-year-old. I don’t know if I knew the word, but there is some sort of association of not earning something that I think bothered me at a very young age.” Olsen even considered going by a different name:

“It had to do with my own insecurities, but I was 10. So I don’t know how much I processed, but I did think, ‘I’m going to be Elizabeth Chase [her middle name] when I become an actress.’”

In a twist that 10-year-old “Lizzie” couldn’t have seen coming, she’s now the Olsen most associated with acting. Mary-Kate and Ashley left the industry to focus on their careers in fashion, while Elizabeth was nominated for an Independent Spirit Awards for her performance in Martha Marcy May Marlene; she’s also been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2014, including playing the co-lead in the critically-acclaimed WandaVision. The three should reunite for How the West Was More Fun.

(Via Glamour)

While settling into her new, yet completely unsurprising career as a Fox News contributor, former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany criticized President Joe Biden for weighing in on the Derek Chauvin trial ahead of its verdict on Tuesday. In a brief meeting with reporters, Biden revealed he had spoken with George Floyd’s family. However, the president waited to comment publicly until the jury was sequestered, according to Mediaite:

“They are a good family, and they’re calling for peace and tranquility no matter what that verdict is,” Biden said. “I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict, which is, I think it’s overwhelming, in my view.”

Despite working for Donald Trump, who is famously known for tweeting his opinions on every topic under the sun and refusing to tell white supremacists to stand down as tensions built during the 2020 presidential debates, McEnany chastised Biden for commenting on the Chauvin trial.

“I’m glad he at least waited until the jury was sequestered, but I think that the country is such a tinderbox right now, especially in Minneapolis. There’s so much hurt and pain, and I think it’s the role of the president of the United States to stay back, to not inflame the tensions,” McEnany said via The Hill.

Again, this level of concern is rich coming from McEnany who continued to defend Trump even after the former president personally inflamed the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building. Of course, if McEnany acknowledged that she’s since learned from the mistakes Trump made, her words of caution might hit differently.

(Via The Hill, Mediaite)

Hayley Williams has spent the past year-plus focused on her solo career, which she kicked off in earnest with a pair of albums: 2020’s Petals For Armor and 2021’s Flowers For Vases/Descansos. As she has indicated lately, though, she’s ready to get back to working with Paramore, and now it looks like a new album, their first since 2017’s After Laughter, from the group is on the way.

At the very least, they’re talking about it. Last night, Williams shared a screenshot of a text conversation between Paramore drummer Zac Farro and herself. In it, Farro shared a trio of emojis, two old men and and old woman, and wrote, “paramore 6,” a reference to the band’s next album, which would be their sixth. The two then exchanged much written laughter. Williams captioned her post, “we! are! getting oooooold!”

Back in February, Williams made it clear that she’s ready for more Paramore. A fan asked if she has more solo songs that she might release and Williams responded, “there are more songs, yeah. but I’m not planning on another solo album. and I’m not sure if they’d be great for Paramore. I’m ready for the next Paramore album. let’s go.” In other responses, she said she’s excited to see how the band’s songwriting has evolved since their last effort and to see how the new songs sound.

Hayley Williams is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is still apparently being ignored by AOC, so she found the energy to tweet something not-great after the Derek Chauvin verdict. The former Minneapolis cop was found guilty on all three counts (second-degree unintentional murder along with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter) against him in the matter of George Floyd’s death. Greene’s position, unsurprisingly, is that Black Lives Matter was going to “riot” in the streets.

To this end, Greene decided to claim that “DC is completely dead tonight. People stayed in and were scared to go out because of fear of riots.” She added, “Police are everywhere and have riot gear. #BLM is the strongest terrorist threat in our county.”

While it is true that the U.S. capitol mobilized National Guard members to brace for possible unrest, none actually happened in D.C. on Tuesday night. So, people wanted to know what the heck Greene was talking about, especially since life seemed pretty normal, other than it being a Tuesday night when things weren’t exactly raging. Others were wondering what the heck Greene meant because things looked relatively active with people eating at restaurants and generally being out and about like usual.

Greene has yet to provide any photo evidence of these supposedly vacant D.C. streets.

After shocking the film world with it’s $469 million purchase of two Knives Out sequels from director Rian Johnson and star Daniel Craig, Netflix is making it clear that it will be dropping huge amounts of cash on content in 2021. In an attempt to significantly bulk up the back half of its content offerings for the year, Netflix will be spending over $17 billion, which is a considerable increase over last year’s budget of $11.8 million. Via Variety:

“As we’ve noted previously, the production delays from Covid-19 in 2020 will lead to a 2021 slate that is more heavily second half weighted with a large number of returning franchises,” said the company in its letter to shareholders. “And while the roll out of vaccines is very uneven across the world, we are back up and producing safely in every major market, with the exception of Brazil and India. Assuming this continues, we’ll spend over $17 billion in cash on content this year and we’ll continue to deliver an amazing range of titles for our members with more originals this year than last.”

There’s also a bit of urgency to Netflix’s increased spending. While the pandemic was initially a boon for subscriber growth, the streamer is reportedly in the midst of a “dramatic slowdown” for nabbing even more subscribers, according to CNBC. Netflix attributes the phenomenon on production delays weakening new content offerings, and it’s confident that wheeling out new films and movies will restart its subscriber growth.

To aid in that effort, Netflix recently won a multi-year auction that will give it access to Sony’s streaming library in 2022.

(Via Variety & CNBC)

Earlier this month, Pasquale Rotella — the founder and CEO of Insomniac Events, the company behind Electric Daisy Carnival — made the surprising announcement that EDC would host its 2021 festival soon, from May 21 to 23. Now, this year’s event will not be able to go forward as initially intended, as Rotella has revealed that the Las Vegas festival has been pushed back to between October 22 and 24, 2021.

Rotella shared the news on Instagram and in his message, Rotella indicated he expected Nevada’s social distancing guidelines to be lifted by the time the festival was going on, but plans changed:

“As we expected and were assured prior to announcing the festival for May, Nevada state officials announced they would lift social distancing requirements as of May 1, creating a path for EDC to happen with strict safety guidelines in place. We just had a meeting in Las Vegas this past Friday with police, fire, medical, and other agencies involved with EDC to plan out details surrounding the event.

However, today, Clark County (home of EDC & the Las Vegas Motor Speedway) passed a reopening plan that requires 60% of their residents to be vaccinated before restrictions over large scale gatherings such as EDC can be lifted. Unfortunately, the rate at which people get vaccinated before EDC is out of our control. It might happen in time, it might not. Either way, we can’t take that risk.”

He concluded his message, “I continue to believe it’s important we get back out on the dancefloor as soon as possible, and I won’t give up on trying to make that happen. I will be announcing an AMA on Reddit in the near future to address any questions.”

Check out Rotella’s full statement below.

“I am sorry to say that EDC Las Vegas needs to move to October. I want to thank everyone who has put their heart and soul into this show–the Insomniac team, artists, agents, managers, production crews, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway staff, the government officials who supported us, and most importantly, you, the Headliners.

As we expected and were assured prior to announcing the festival for May, Nevada state officials announced they would lift social distancing requirements as of May 1, creating a path for EDC to happen with strict safety guidelines in place. We just had a meeting in Las Vegas this past Friday with police, fire, medical, and other agencies involved with EDC to plan out details surrounding the event.

However, today, Clark County (home of EDC & the Las Vegas Motor Speedway) passed a reopening plan that requires 60% of their residents to be vaccinated before restrictions over large scale gatherings such as EDC can be lifted. Unfortunately, the rate at which people get vaccinated before EDC is out of our control. It might happen in time, it might not. Either way, we can’t take that risk.

Our team has been working around the clock to organize this event. We currently have over 40 trucks en route to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway from all over the country. The lineup is fully booked and was going to be announced tomorrow at 12pm PT. The team and I are heartbroken, as I know many of you are as well. For those who have stayed with us on this journey, I thank you. Your trust & loyalty is what gives us strength to keep moving forward.

The good news is that EDC Las Vegas will still take place on the new dates of October 22-24, 2021. Your ticket will automatically be transferred to the new dates, or you may elect to receive a refund by clicking the link in my bio. If you have already transferred your ticket to 2022, your ticket will also be transferred to the new dates unless you choose to receive a refund.

I continue to believe it’s important we get back out on the dancefloor as soon as possible, and I won’t give up on trying to make that happen. I will be announcing an AMA on Reddit in the near future to address any questions.

Love & Light,
Pasquale”