Month: July 2021

While more than 56 percent of Americans over the age of 12 have been vaccinated for COVID, getting jabbed is still a personal choice. But Hollywood holdouts who are looking to keep those paychecks rolling in may need to soon their way toward the pro side of being vaccinated against a virus that already killed more than 4 million people worldwide. In the past few days, the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon and Netflix’s Matilda have both put a pause on production due to positive COVID cases—as did filming on season 2 of Bridgerton, just one day after production resumed following a previous positive COVID test.

While all of Hollywood is understandably anxious to get back to work following a year of closed sets — not to mention shuttered movie theaters — the heads of various studios and creative guilds also want to mitigate the health risks of heading back to work too soon. As such, they’ve entered into a short-term agreement that will allow them to require that cast and crew members be vaccinated, which will in turn allow them to relax some of the social distancing restrictions they’ve had in place.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new agreement was announced in a joint statement issued by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and some of the industry’s premier guilds, including SAG-AFTRA, the DGA, IATSE, and the Teamsters. According to the statement:

The modifications center on workplace practices for fully vaccinated cast and crew, including changes to outdoor masking requirements and updated mealtime protocols. Producers will also have the option to implement mandatory vaccination policies for casts and crew in Zone A on a production-by-production basis. Additional changes, such as adjustments to testing frequency, are included for certain areas in the United States and Canada where COVID-19 incidence is, and remains, very low.

The Agreement will remain in effect through September 30, 2021. The parties will continue closely monitoring COVID-19 developments and will consider further modifications at that time.

“Zone A” cast and crew are those people who regularly work in close proximity to each other and cannot always wear PPE — as filming a sex scene with full-on face masks would probably be a lot less sexy.

According to THR, the question of whether vaccines would be mandated is a question that’s been swirling around Hollywood for several months now. When asked about it back in March while appearing on “The Business” podcast, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was taking a wait-and-see approach. “We’re not going to take a position on whether we mandate or not,” Sarandos said. “I think people are pretty enthusiastic about getting back to normal life, and so we’ll play it by ear and see how the adoption of the vaccines goes.”

My, how times change.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

If you were under the impression Jurassic Park 3 couldn’t get any more wacky, meme-worthy, and — let’s be honest — cringe-infused, storyboard artist Dave Lowery just took to the wild world of podcasts to prove you very, very wrong. According to Lowery during his recent appearance on the Jurassic Park 3-centric Stuck on Sorna podcast, the film almost featured a scene in which one of the film’s iconic raptors rode a motorcycle off a cliff and to their own demise — and we’re so bummed it didn’t.

According to Lowery the scene in question took place as the pack of raptors entered a high-speed chase with a character riding a motorcycle. In an effort to escape the scaly predators, the cyclist takes a parachute out of a backpack, leaps from a motorcycle, and glides off a cliff to safety. However, following the character’s departure, one of the raptors then leaps onto the still running motorcycle and remains on it as it goes flying off the edge of a cliff. After explaining the scene, Lowery playfully remarked it didn’t make it in the film “for some reason,” but honestly we can’t think of a single good one, as everything about it sounds both cool and campy as hell.

For those who are dying to know more about the magical moment we could have had, here’s a clip podcast host Daniel Stephen shared in which Lowery discussed the absurd scene:

Always fun to hear about moments that never made the film. Storyboard Artist Dave Lowery talks about the raptors chasing the kids off a cliff. And then…the raptor rides the dirt bike to its death. #JurassicPark3
Listen here: https://t.co/2shu3BaB0X pic.twitter.com/rYNGZKM7x7

— Daniel Stephen (@StuckOnSorna) July 19, 2021

Not too late to put this in a new Jurassic World. Or any other movie, really. F9 just sent Tyrese and Ludacris to space. It’s just a short leap from there to a raptor on a motorcycle.

via /Film

Along with making his own music as Bleachers, Jack Antonoff has earned a reputation as a producer for some of today’s biggest pop stars. He worked with Taylor Swift on a number of songs, and also produced recent works for Clairo, Lana Del Rey, and Lorde. Of course, working with such big names is going to teach him a thing or two about the art of crafting a pop song — and it definitely did.

Antonoff described working with Lorde and Del Rey in a recent digital cover interview with Billboard. Detailing what he learned from the two acclaimed musicians, Antonoff said:

“You’re always learning from everyone around you. Lana taught me that sometimes that thing that just comes out of thin air is the thing, and you don’t even touch it. Ella [Lorde], on the other hand, teaches me what can happen if you keep chipping away at something over and over. The idea of the process is these big egos and big attitudes [colliding], but once you get into that very vulnerable place of working and writing, everyone’s just a half-broken sponge. There’s so much being passed around, and there’s so much information and so much emotion, and that’s why I love it so much. It’s really this rarefied space.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, the producer noted just how groundbreaking it is that Taylor Swift has opted to re-record her first six albums. “[It] is monumental. People approached it with so much cynicism, and then, just like everything she does, there was no f*cking bit,” he said. “And people love to be like ‘This changes the game!’ about so much sh*t. This actually changes the game. And good! Let people who want to put artists in antiquated deals feel some fear about the power of artists. It’s a classic tale that is representative of the assumption that people suck, and they don’t.”

Read Antonoff’s full digital cover interview with Billboard here.

Jason Momoa’s a busy dude, to say the very least. He’s got a Netflix film coming soon, his Apple TV+ show is gearing up for Season 2, and of course, he’s still Arthur Curry. The Justice League star recently bid farewell to his dark locks (which will soon be blonde) while preparing for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom filming to begin this week. And he’s got more on the way in the Warner Bros.-tangential universe because Momoa will be bringing us a rock-climbing competition series (The Climb) for HBO Max.

There’s no word on exactly how much climbing that we’ll see the outdoorsy Momoa doing (while he also operates behind the scenes through his On the Roam production company, which is teaming with the executive-producing Intellectual Property Corporation), but rest assured that the man is excited. In a press release, he declared, “It’s a dream come true to create a show with one of my idols, my good friend, and legendary climber Chris Sharma.” Momoa added that rock climbing is his “favorite sport,” which suggests that he shall participate at least a smidge. Here’s the series’ logline:

The Climb is a visually-arresting and life-changing adventure that represents the foundations of rock climbing and the exploration of the human spirit. In this all-encompassing competition, amateur climbers are put through a rigorous series of mental and physical challenges, utilizing the most intimidating ascents in the world to crown the world’s best amateur climber.

On the HBO Max front, Executive VP of Non-Fiction and Live-Action Family Programming Jennifer O’Connell describes this show as taking a “cinematic approach to a physical competition show.” Also, the obstacle courses will provided by Mother Nature herself. There’s no anticipated release date yet for The Climb, but audiences will surely be ready to tune in when that happens.

Coldplay announced a new album, Music Of The Spheres, today. Perhaps the most notable takeaway from the news is that some of the songs are titled only with emojis, which looks like it will cause problems with streaming services.

As shown on Coldplay’s website, Track 1 is titled with a Ringed Planet emoji, Track 4 is titled with a Sparkles emoji, Track 6 is titled with a Red Heart emoji, Track 9 is titled with a Globe Showing Americas emoji, and Track 11 is titled with an Infinity emoji. However, that may not be how the songs appear on streaming services, as the current Apple Music page for the album shows titles written with Unicode characters instead of emojis.

(To explain it simply, an emoji is a graphic that can take the place of a corresponding Unicode character. For example, the Grinning Face emoji corresponds to Unicode character U+1F600. In other words, the Grinning Face emoji is a representation of Unicode character U+1F600.)

The Apple Music titles for the aforementioned songs (on both the Apple Music website and in the Apple Music app for Mac), respectively, are “⦵,” “*✧,” “♡,” “❍,” and “∞.” Interestingly, while those are fairly accurate visual representations of the emojis, none of them actually correspond to the Unicode characters represented by the emojis used in the actual song titles (as seen on Coldplay’s website). So, technically speaking, Apple Music’s titles look similar to the real titles but are actually wrong.

Back in May, Chris Martin revealed that the band was having issues with streaming services and emoji song titles, saying, “We’re trying to figure this out right now: We’re trying to have the first album ever with some tracks that are just called emojis, but it’s proving tricky because of all the service providers. Some of them say, ‘We can’t do that.’ You literally have ten million songs in one box. Let us have a picture of an apple for a song or something like that.”

Music Of The Spheres is out 10/15 via Atlantic. Pre-order it here.

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

Basketball fans everywhere have been eagerly anticipating the upcoming NBA 2K22. After unveiling three covers it became clear that this 2K game was going to attempt something bigger than any game had before.

It turns out that big thing will depend on what console generation the player has. The MyPlayer experience has always been a big part of playing 2K, creating your own player, going through an NBA career, and exploring “The Neighborhood” is how many people exclusively play the series. This year though instead of just going through the typical neighborhood, 2K is giving owners of the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One the opportunity to play out their MyPlayer experience on a sailing cruise ship.

ALL ABOARD THE 2K CRUISE [PS4/XB1/NSW/PC] – On the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC platforms, NBA 2K gamers will show out and compete in an all-new, dedicated basketball community – a Neighborhood built on the spacious decks of a sailing cruise ship. Explore and hoop in nautical luxury, and when the cruise docks in exotic locales throughout the Season, make your way to the Excursion counter to participate in shoreside Events – all taking place completely off the ship!

Meanwhile, owners of the new generation of consoles, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, will be going even bigger. MyPlayer has escaped the confines of the neighborhood and grown out into a huge city that players will be able to explore. This exploration will be less of an empty hub world and feature more parts to interact with such as NPC’s that give out quests. For years, the MyPlayer experience has felt more and more like a basketball RPG series and the addition of quests feels like them embracing this once again.

A LIVING, BREATHING CITY [PS5/XBS] – Step into an all-new City teeming with life, activity, and interactivity. NPCs (non-playable characters) populate the fresh City layout, while MyPLAYERs from all over the world compete in the highest level of playground basketball. An all-new Quest system for 2K22 engages MyPLAYERs with creative content while offering new ways to level up and earn rewards in this reenvisioning of the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S basketball communities.

One aspect of MyPlayer that some players love, and others dread, is the narrative from MyCareer that it is frequently attached to. Usually, players are forced to go through a cinematic tutorial or play in one throughout their career with cutscenes and story segments. The quality of these stories has ranged from bizarre but fun to painful and grating. 2K is teasing that both console generations will have a narrative of some kind in the game, but how involved that narrative is right now is anyone’s guess.

While it’s great to know that MyPlayer and MyCareer will be getting the same level of attention it’s always gotten, there are many questions about how 2K plans to improve the WNBA portion of their game. While they didn’t unveil much in the current preview they did tease that new information will be available in September for MyPlayer, MyCareer, and MyWNBA. Considering they put Candace Parker on one of the covers it feels like a safe bet that we’re going to get even more WNBA involvement in 2K22. Hopefully, we’ll learn what exactly that involvement is by the September 10 release date.

On Tuesday, the first official images from NBA 2K22 were released and they show Candace Parker, the game’s first female cover athlete, looking more like herself than in previous editions.

That’s pretty spot-on! Down to the (probable) glare at a referee.

This is just the third time in the franchise’s history that WNBA players will be featured in the game. In NBA 2K20 and NBA 2K21, there were several issues with player appearances, shot mechanics, and skillsets. Now, with the cover athlete featuring one of the league’s best-ever players, there’s reason to be confident that women’s basketball in video games is set for a major leap.

Here’s what Parker looked like in 2K21:

And here’s a side-by-side of her in 2K20 and 2K22:

Parker’s 2K22 image has also quickly become a meme. Please indulge as WNBA Twitter does what is always does.

Watch out, 2K Shaq.

In a release, the 2K franchise said more details about the game’s MyWNBA mode would be available in September. Hopefully, every player and coach will get the same treatment the Chicago Sky star has. WNBA fans have long been waiting for a realistic version of their favorite sports league.

‘NBA 2K22’ is set to release on September 10 on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

Ludwig Dieter is back in the first images for the upcoming Army of the Dead prequel Army of Thieves, and he’s bringing a whole lot of romance, thievery, and pictures of vaults with him. In addition to the aforementioned safes, the first stills from the film also provide us with a better look at the Netflix original movie’s main cast of misfit thieves, which includes Matthias Schweighöfer reprising his role as Ludwig Dieter, Nathalie Emmanuel as Gwendoline, Guz Khan as Rolph, Ruby O. Fee as Korina, and Stuart Martin as Brad Cage. As of right now, Army of Thieves is slated to hit Netflix late 2021, giving you plenty of time to watch Army of the Dead if you haven’t yet.

However, if you already caught Army of the Dead and are expecting more of the same zombie-filled action, producers Zack and Deborah Snyder have stated the upcoming prequel has a fairly different tone than the first entry in the series According to Deborah, Army of Thieves is best described as “a romantic comedy heist film.” She then further elaborated on the film, stating the following:

“It stands alone, and [while] you could watch it because it’s the history of our safecracker, it’s also just this really sweet, funny film. It’s set in our same timeline, but it’s not like a zombie movie…. It’s more like ‘The Italian Job,’ but it takes place in a world where these zombies exist in America and it’s causing instability in the banking institutions. They’re moving money around, so it’s the perfect opportunity for a heist.”

As of right now, not much else about Army of Thieves is known, though rest assured you can catch more information about the film during its Comic-Con panel Sunday, July 25 at 2 PM PT. Until then, here’s some first-look images from Netflix:

(Via Netflix & Indiewire)

Shortly after celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Since I Left You, Aussie electronic pioneers The Avalanches have announced a 2022 North American tour kicking off early next year and running through March. This news also follows the band’s third studio album, We Will Always Love You, which was released late last year. Likewise, the duo — Robbie Chater and Tony DiBlasi — released a deluxe reissue anniversary edition of Since I Left You just last month.

Last month, Chater had this this to say about recording their debut album: “I remember very clearly a few things. We decided to not have any of our voices on it, which made it last because it’s a kind of transmission; nothing date-stamps it to that time.” He added, “Looking back, I’m proud of this record as a pure expression of joy and love, heart on its sleeve and is free from irony.”

Check out the tour dates below.

02/17/22 — Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
02/18/22 — New York, NY @ Terminal 5
02/19/22 — Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre Of Living Arts
02/20/22 — Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
02/22/22 — Toronto, CA @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
02/23/22 — Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
02/24/22 — Chicago IL @ Metro
02/25/22 — Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theatre
02/27/22 — Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre
03/01/22 — Vancouver, CA @ Commodore Ballroom
03/02/22 — Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre
03/03/22 — Portland, OR @ Roseland Theatre
03/06/22 — San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield

Since I Left You (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) is out now via Modular Recordings. Get it here. Tickets to The Avalanches’ 2022 tour go on sale 7/23. Grab yours here.

After dropping his sixth studio album No Pressure last year, Logic announced he would be stepping away from music. His son had just been born and the rapper wanted to focus on his new role as a father. While Logic did end up taking an extended hiatus from his music, it wasn’t long before the rapper returned to announce new songs. Logic unveiled “Vaccine” earlier this month to mark his return to the limelight, and he’s now followed up the song with a rowdy visual.

Directed by Mike Holland and Justin Fleischer, Logic’s “Vaccine” video is a fitting return for the rapper. The quick-paced visual shows the rapper and his crew hitting the streets to have a good time while sporting shirts that aptly read “vaccine.” The video occasionally cuts to share behind-the-scenes videos and photos from Logic’s personal life, depicting him both in the studio and playing with his son. The song itself speaks to Logic choosing to prioritize his family as he fires off verses about spending time at home. “I got happiness, ain’t no need to repeat, I got number ones / Ain’t got time for these rappers, I only got time for my son / Him and his momma the one,” he raps.

In addition to sharing the “Vaccine” video, Logic has teased a few potential project. The “Vaccine” single features some vague lyrics about the impending release of Bobby Tarantino 3, the third installment of his mixtape series. On top of that, Logic has continued teasing a joint project with Madlib.

Watch Logic’s “Vaccine” video above.