Category: News

The live music industry took one of the biggest hits, on a financial front at least, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Festivals and concerts of all sizes were shut down last spring and they’re just now making a return more than a year later. With that being said, it can be expected that these live music platforms will need a little help getting back into the swing of things and that’s where Foo Fighters, Radiohead, and other acts stepped in. Through a recent auction, a number of artists helped raise $142,000 for Live Nation’s coronavirus charity.

The money was raised through an auction of one-of-a-kind Brampton bikes that were designed by the artists and the proceeds went to Crew Nation, a global relief fund that was created by Live Nation to support live music crews that were affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Pheobe Bridgers, Rise Against, Enrique Iglesias, LCD Soundsystem, Khruangbin, and other artists also designed bikes for the auction.

The bikes were auctioned were through Greenhouse Auctions and Radiohead’s design turned out to be the most expensive Brompton ever sold, as it was purchased for the price tag of $24,000.

“We are blown away and incredibly appreciative of all the amazing artists who designed bikes and showed their support for Crew Nation, and to our friends at Brompton who made it all possible,” Nurit Smith, Music Forward Foundation’s executive director said according to NME. “This collaboration and the money raised is truly valued as we continue to lend our support to the crew members around the world who still need our help.”

You can view a recap clip from the auction above.

Like Tiger King, Quibi was one of those pop culture phenomenons that essentially lived out its entire life cycle in the middle of a pandemic. The portmanteau may have been a product of the pre-coronavirus world, but the platform designed to watch stuff on your phone while commuting debuted amid worldwide lockdown, struggled to gain a foothold despite more than a billion spent on original content, and eventually shut down mere months after it officially launched.

That pandemic is still ongoing, of course, but things are different now. And the new owners of Quibi’s intellectual property says they got a good deal when they ponied up for the now-defunct streaming service’s library of “quick bites.” In fact, according to Roku the newly-branded Roku Originals have gotten more eyeballs in mere weeks than they ever did on the fledgling mobile platform they were designed for.

According to Deadline, Roku did not share specific streaming details but said its library of content got much more use from its user base on the ad-supported platform than Quibi ever got, even with all those free trials they had at the onset of its launch.

Roku Originals launched on May 20, with a lineup of about 30 shows initially made for Quibi, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s mobile streaming service. From launch through June 3, more Roku active accounts streamed a Roku Original than the number of Quibi accounts that streamed Quibi shows during the start-up’s entire run.

That’s a similar line Roku executives have given reporters as well. Speaking with reporters on Friday at Tribeca, Roku CEO Anthony Wood said the company plans to invest in more original content in the future after the success they’ve seen with Quibi’s leftovers.

“To be honest we just got a good deal,” Wood said. “It was great content, high production value at a price that was quite reasonable.”

And the company says the purchase was a successful one. Roku says more people streamed a Roku Original in the first two weeks on the platform than the number of Quibi accounts streamed the content in the lifetime of that service. Roku did not give any specific numbers or figures, but said that the originals launch led to a record number of accounts viewing Roku Channel, and that the top 10 most-watched shows on Roku Channel were all Roku Originals.

For many with smart TVs or streaming devices, Roku had long been the thing that had other streaming services on it like HBO Max and Netflix. But the attention Roku’s channel has gotten here is good news for the Pluto enthusiasts and the like out there in the streaming space that don’t mind a few ads playing in between intended commercial breaks.

And, in a way, it’s just nice to know that someone is finally watching all that stuff that cost investors a billion-plus to make. So congratulations, again, to anyone who managed to secure the bag during that gold rush for finally getting viewers to actually watch what you created.

[via Deadline, THR]

For the second weekend in a row, Manifest remains the most-watched movie or television show on Netflix, even after NBC canceled the series last week after three seasons. Fans were devastated by the cancellation and immediately took to social media to launch the #SaveManifest hashtag, which quickly began trending on Twitter.

Fans have been asking Netflix pick up the series, and those efforts are might be underway. In fact, a story about its potential resurrection was one of the most popular stories on Deadline over the weekend. Fans are clearly passionate about the series, despite ratings that put it on the bubble over on NBC, where the average number of viewers fell from 6.5 million in its first season to 3.1 million in its third.

What’s interesting, however, is how much interest there has been in the broadcast network series, despite the fact that it has essentially been ignored by critics since its opening season. Neither the second nor third seasons even have enough reviews to merit a Rotten Tomatoes score. Full disclosure: both season 2 and season 3 have only one rotten review a piece, and they were both written by me. In fact, in 17 years of writing reviews, I’ve probably received more hate mail from Manifest fans than I have about any other show for which I have written. I’m not complaining, and though I do not like the show, I do appreciate the passion exhibited by the show’s fanbase.

It’s hard to say what’s so compelling about the series, however. It does have an intriguing pilot, but as other critics noted during its first season, the “dialogue is wooden,” and it “might be the most laughably bad show of the pilot season.” Nevertheless, the series gets consistently high audience scores from Rotten Tomatoes viewers, and over on IMDB, the average viewer rating was higher than that of the most recent season of The Walking Dead.

There is something about Manifest with which audiences clearly connect. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what that is, however. The dialogue is wooden, the writers tend to abort storylines when it is convenient, and the series seems to have only a superficial understanding of its own themes. Moreover, it’s almost impossible to write about it at length without drawing comparisons to Lost, although the series seems happy to lean into those comparisons. Showrunner Jeff Rake is on the record stating that he has a six-season plan for the series, but it’s not entirely clear to me that the series even knows where it’s going from one episode to the next, much less a full six seasons.

And yet, viewers clearly have a huge affection for the series, and many of those who love the show have even acknowledged its many problems. In fact, I have received emails from a few people who have told me they like my hate recaps, acknowledged that things I have written are accurate, and yet still really enjoy watching the series.

The bigger reality is this: I think Manifest is bad, and yet I have continued to watch it for three seasons because I still enjoy it all the same. It’s not good, but there’s also nothing else like it on television. It is absolutely bonkers, and yet every character on the series confronts its ridiculous plot turns with complete dead-faced seriousness. No one on the series bats an eye when, for instance, they zap a piece of driftwood from Noah’s Ark that surfaces from a crack in the ocean floor with something called Dark Lightning, which is weirdly a real thing. When three meth heads rise from the dead after being frozen in a lake for months and decide to … rob an ice cream shop, no one scoffs at the absurdity of such a decision. There is a character played by Holly Taylor (Paige Jennings from The Americans) who at one point lights a bedroom on fire and waits for an infant named Eden to save her to demonstrate that the baby is her guardian angel. It is crackers!

Honestly, it’s exactly what makes it so much fun to watch (and write about). There’s no real internal consistent logic, so viewers never know from week to week what insane twist it’s going to take. But no matter how absurd the obstacle they face, the series leads, Josh Dallas and Melissa Roxburgh, will confront it with grim determination. It’s hard not to appreciate their dedication to something so bad, and it is likewise difficult not to get swept up with curiosity. I am dying to know showrunner Jeff Rake’s six-season plan. What could possibly tie all of these outrageous storylines together? I have no idea, but I sure hope that Netflix (or someone else) gives this car crash another opportunity to slide off the road and land in a ditch three years later.

Manifest is dead! Long live Manifest! #SaveManifest

Either the novelty of returning to movie theaters faded the weekend after A Quiet Place Part II opened, or the studios haven’t given moviegoers a big enough incentive to return en masse since, as this weekend’s entire box-office looks to be around $45 million. That’s not only less than last week’s $57 million but less than the $47 million that A Quiet Place Part II opened with over Labor Day weekend.

This weekend’s middling debut was The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, the sequel to the surprise 2017 hit, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which opened with $21 million and went on to earn $176 million. Recall, however, that the original Ryan Reynolds, Sam Jackson, and Salma Hayek film made its money during one of the slowest months of August in years, at least until the pandemic came along. Back in 2017, however, it felt like moviegoers would take any excuse to go to theaters, which is not a knock against the original The Hitman’s Bodyguard (which I enjoyed), but a reflection of the lack of competition that month (remember the cinematic adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower? No one else does, either).

In any respect, it’s four years and a pandemic later, and now moviegoers need a bigger incentive to return to theaters, especially when there are more options (and less hassle) at home and the theatrical window on so many movies has narrowed (A Quiet Place Part II, for instance, will premiere on July 12th on Paramount+ after its Memorial Day opening). Plus, the biggest movie of this weekend was probably Pixar’s Luca, which premiered — for free — on Disney+.

The end result: A fairly lackluster $10 million for The Hitman’s Wife Bodyguard over the three-day weekend and $15 million since it opened on Wednesday. That’s not great, although to be fair, reviews for The Hitman’s Wife Bodyguard were not great, either (25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the 43 percent of the original). Audiences, however, liked it more than critics (79 percent audience score but a soft B Cinemascore).

The $10 million total was enough to make it to the top film of the weekend, although not by much, as A Quiet Place Part II came in with $9.4 million to bring its total to $125 million after four weeks, easily making it the biggest movie of the pandemic. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, meanwhile, held OK, dropping 53 percent in its second weekend to earn $6.25 million and bring its total to $20 million.

Disney’s Cruella, which is also available for a $30 surcharge on Disney+, is holding much better, earning $5.1 million in its fourth week to bring its theatrical total to $65 million. That, on top of its premium access receipts, is clearly enough to warrant a sequel, which is already in development. In its third weekend, Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It earned another $5 million to bring its total to $53 million.

Finally, the box office of In the Heights, continues to disappoint. It earned $4.5 million to bring its 10-day total to just under $20 million. However it’s still available on HBO Max where it’s apparently not doing great on the streaming service, either. That’s a shame, because — colorism controversy aside — it is a fantastic film.

Next weekend we will finally find out how well the post-pandemic box office can really do, as the highly anticipated F9: The Fast Saga finally opens, which may signal the true arrival of the summer box office. The film has already earned $292 million overseas, including $200 million from China alone.

Source: Deadline, Box Office Mojo

Sports just mean more when you’re younger, and sometimes in very different ways. Which is why Joey Votto getting thrown out of a Reds-Padres game on Saturday was a disaster for a young Votto superfan named Abigail whose plight went viral online.

On Saturday night, Votto was ejected in the top of the first inning along with Reds manager David Bell for arguing a called third strike when the third base umpire said he offered at a 1-2 pitch outside of the zone.

Votto was heated, and had to be restrained by his manager as he yelled at multiple umpires. It was quite a scene. Getting ejected that early over balls and strikes is rare, and it happened to be the worst possible time to get tossed for a fan attending their first major league game.

The face of the young girl really says it all, as she’s clearly upset that the guy on her shirt had an extremely short outing at Petco Park. The Reds social media team reached out to the family on Twitter in an attempt to make things right, and Votto himself did the job before the game was over. A few innings later, the young girl had an autographed baseball with a very special note penned on one side.

“Joey Votto is SO KIND- he signed this amazing ball for her!!” the tweet said. And the note is pretty succinct: “I am sorry I didn’t play the entire game.”

It’s a hilarious message out of context, but the perfect gift for someone who — despite the ejection — got an extremely special moment with their favorite player on Saturday. Votto probably is very sorry, both for Abigail and the fact that he didn’t get to finish what was a 7-5 loss to San Diego. But at least Abigail got some popcorn and a signed baseball. Pretty good night at the ballpark if you ask us.

The Daily Show is taking a summer break, and show host Trevor Noah bid a heartfelt farewell to fans until the show returns on September 13. How the show looks when it comes back, though, is a bit of an unknown. But before we fast-forward to fall, Noah said goodbye in what may be his last show from his home studio after more than a year of filming remotely.

“As for me, on the TV show, we’re going to be taking a little break,” Noah said on Friday. “Why? Because it’s time to go outside. It’s been a crazy time we’ve spent together and when we started it was going to be 21 days.”

It was, of course, far longer than 21 days. And even with large parts of the United States slowly finding a bit more normalcy in the still-ongoing pandemic thanks to vaccinations and the return of summer, Noah remained inside for The Daily Show. And in an emotional monologue, he said there was plenty to learn from all that time making the show from home.

“Every single month we carried on, never knowing when the thing was going to end because we were never really warned when the thing was going to begin. During that time, we found new ways to do things, we found new ways to make a show, we found new ways to communicate with an audience and we found new ways to live as human beings,” Noah said. “Now, as the future comes, I wanted to take a moment to think about what that new will be. I don’t know if the world will go back to normal tomorrow, but I know I’m striving for a certain sense of normalcy, but I don’t know what that will be. I do know it will be shaped by what I’ve experienced during this time.”

Noah will stay busy in the summer, with a stand-up tour traveling across the United States. But after more than a year making shows at home, he seemed both wistful and eager to get out of that same room and start living again. As Deadline noted, Noah has already spoken about some changes that may be in store when the show returns in September, though he isn’t exactly sure what those changes will be.

Earlier in the week, Noah told Arsenio Hall that he had a “few surprises” in store when he does eventually go back to the studio.

“I’m going to take a bit of time to figure out what the new show is going to be. This conversation we’ve been having over the past 15 months made me realize that people are too angry and too happy being angry. We don’t have conversations anymore, we distil every idea into black and white, there’s no nuance, we don’t leave room for conversation and I don’t want to be a part of that.”

We’ll have to wait and see just what the show looks like after the summer, and if Noah returns with The Daily Show as well.

[via Deadline]

Things could be going better in the world of Ben Simmons right now. While the Philadelphia 76ers are one game away from the Eastern Conference Finals — they’ll take on the Atlanta Hawks in a Game 7 in the City of Brotherly Love on Sunday evening — Simmons has struggled mightily, to the point that he’s been taken off the floor at times by Doc Rivers.

His scoring has completely cratered in the last two games, scoring 14 total points while shooting 4-for-10 from the field across both contests. He’s not shooting in the second half of games at all, and in this series, Simmons is 14-for-44 from the free throw line, which comes out to a 32.6 percent clip. Perhaps Philly can outlast the Hawks, but any hopes of winning a ring will depend on Simmons finding his form on the offensive end of the floor.

In an attempt to get Simmons back on track, Shaquille O’Neal used Inside the NBA and the fact that they both went to LSU to get a message across.

“Camera!” Shaq said, alerting the camera to focus on him as he took off his glasses. “Ben, you went to LSU. Man up, man. Man up. Stop messing around. Come on, now. You know better than that.”

Some trash talk came via Charles Barkley about LSU, then he and Shaq had a back-and-forth about the university. But hey, if Simmons does bounce back in a big way in Game 7, I guess you can say it’s because he has the eye of the Tiger(s).

Kevin Durant has hit a whole heck of a lot of incredible shots in his NBA career. In terms of difficulty and the moment in which it came, one of his best came on Saturday night against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, but it came with a major catch: it did not lead to the Brooklyn Nets winning the series.

With one second remaining in regulation, Durant hit an absolutely ridiculous turnaround jumper over PJ Tucker to tie things at 109. It was an impossibly difficult shot, but Durant’s toe was just on the three-point line, so instead of winning the game, the jumper led to the teams playing an overtime period.

The Nets struggled mightily in the extra frame, and the Bucks came out on top, 115-111. After the game, Durant was asked about the jumper, and blamed his size 18 sneakers for being the reason that the Nets’ season is over.

Obviously there are dozens of far more pertinent reasons why Brooklyn lost this game than Durant’s shoe size, but the margins were so tight that this really does illustrate how even the tiniest thing was going to come back to bite them. Having said that, Durant scored 48 points, which is a Game 7 record, so this was an all-time performance regardless of his size 18s.

The Boys is currently filming its third season in Canada right now despite, well, everything. And given the excitement fans have had through two seasons of the Amazon Prime series, the matter of when they actually get to watch the show is a hot topic on social media. But if fans are smart, well, they should maybe stop asking the show’s Twitter account when that release date is coming.

The show’s official Twitter account, apparently tired of getting questions about a release date that has yet to be announced, issued a warning on social media on Friday night: stop asking or else it never comes out.

“Every time you ask when season 3 is coming out the release date moves back one day,” the tweet said. “See you in 2033!”

This is almost certainly not something that has any bearing on the actual release date of the show, but it certainly fits the cheeky presence it has had on social media throughout its run. And even star Jack Quaid couldn’t help but troll a bit in a reply to the tweet.

Meanwhile, Quaid and Erin Moriarty got their vaccinations while up north in between filming scenes.

That’s good news all around for keeping things on track for a third season, and the Twitter account doesn’t have anything to do with when Amazon decides to let the world see Season 3.

Kevin Durant did everything in his power to get the Brooklyn Nets to the Eastern Conference Finals, although ultimately, the team came up just short. Durant was spectacular, scoring an NBA Game 7 record 48 points with nine rebounds and six assists, but it was not quite enough, as the Milwaukee Bucks picked up a thrilling 115-111 overtime victory.

Still, Durant is going to receive a ton of praise for him performance, both in this game and throughout the series against the Bucks, where he gave Milwaukee every single thing it could handle. And after it ended, Durant shared a heartwarming moment with his mother, Wanda, known lovingly by NBA fans as “the real MVP.” The two hugged on the floor once the result became inevitable, with Wanda appearing to offer up some encouragement.

It wasn’t the only time the cameras caught Wanda on the night, as we got a wonderful clip involving herself and Bucks forward PJ Tucker. While he’s on the other team and needed to harass Durant all series, the two are friendly, and when Tucker realized the fan who was chirping at him was Wanda, he smiled amid the heat of the competition and told her he loved her.