Category: Worldwide

Back in August, the then-newly merged Warner Bros. Discovery made a shocking decision: They were shelving two films that were close to completion. One was Batgirl, which would have played a key role in the DCEU timeline. The other was Scoob!: Holiday Haunt, the sequel to the 2020’s animated take on the classic cartoon. The company made the rash decision for tax reasons, but they let at least the makers of Scoob! finish their film — even though they vowed it would never be seen.

In a recent interview with Variety, the movie’s director, Michael Kurinsky, who described his shock at working for nearly three decades in the business, only to have his directorial debut taken away from him. He estimates he and his team were 95% done, with only a “few hundred shots that needed to be finished, lit, rendered and then approved.” He was in a meeting for the film when he heard the news — not from Warner Bros. Discovery, but from someone who messaged him on Twitter, asking if it was true.

Thing is, Warner Bros. Discovery allowed them to still complete the film, just for posterity’s sake…sort of:

“The reason we were able to finish this movie is because it was already paid for,” he explained. “I can’t say it was [Warner Bros] saying, ‘Please finish this movie, we want you to.’ I think it was more like, ‘Finish the movie because we’ve paid to finish the movie.’”

He continued: “At the end of the day, I don’t care why and how it got finished. I’m glad it got finished because so many people worked so hard to make something so beautiful and really great.”

So what was the film about? Well, the gang were still kids, for one thing. Kurinsky explained the rest:

“The plot was basically Scooby-Doo’s first Christmas … The gang takes Scooby up to this [holiday themed resort] that Fred’s uncle owns. And of course, just like every other Scooby-Doo episode, they go up to a place, a mystery presents itself and the gang now gets involved in the mystery. And we’re off!”

Batgirl got a bittersweet send-off, with people holding “funeral screenings” on the studio lot, leaving them among the only people who may ever see it. Who knows? Maybe Warner Bros. Discovery execs will have an unpredictable change of heart and allow them to be released into the wild after all. Doing that just might get them back in the good graces of Brendan Fraser.

(Via Variety)

Today (November 13) marks 10 years since The Weeknd released his first three mixtapes to digital and streaming platforms, as well as physical discs, in the form of a compilation called Trilogy. The mixtapes — House Of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes Of Silence — were released to mixtape-sharing platfroms a year prior, however, “Wicked Games” from his debut mixtape, House Of Balloons became a sleeper hit in 2012, leading to fan demand for a proper project.

At the time of Trilogy‘s release, many of the samples and sound mixes from the 2011 mixtapes were changed for the 2012 compilations, as The Weeknd was unable to clear the samples for the release. In March of 2021, he re-released House Of Balloons with the original samples and sound mixes, and followed suit with the other two mixtapes on their respective anniversaries.

Today, The Weeknd shared that now that he has been able to clear the original mixes, he may remove the Trilogy compilation from streaming platforms.

“if y’all wanna hear the trilogy how it’s supposed to be listened to … listen to House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence individually,” he said in a tweet. “not all samples are on Trilogy and the mix isn’t the original mix. But shout out Trilogy but fyi, for the new fans, it isn’t an album.”

He followed this up, saying, “I might get rid of the compilation just so there’s no more confusion, now that ALL the samples are finally cleared since December 17, 2021.”

“But I also know there are fans of the compilation so I might not get rid of it,” he continued, “But just want it to be clear for all the new fans and weirdly older fans …”

At the time of writing, House Of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes Of Silence are all on digital streaming platforms in their original mixes.

The Minnesota Vikings looked like they were going to get blown out by the Bills in Buffalo for most of the day on Sunday, but after an improbable comeback in the second half from down 14, they found themselves with the ball and a chance to win the game.

However, on third down, Von Miller got home and sacked Kirk Cousins to seemingly seal the deal, forcing Minnesota to go for it on 4th and 18 from deep in their own territory.

On that play, Kirk Cousins would simply throw it up to Justin Jefferson for what appeared to be a sure interception, only for Jefferson to somehow reach one hand back and pry the ball away from the Bills DB for an unbelievable catch to keep the Vikings hopes alive.

I MEAN LOOK AT THIS!

It’s like the Odell Beckham Jr. catch but in traffic while ripping the ball away from a DB. It is legitimately one of the greatest catches I have ever seen in my life and it doesn’t even feel like hyperbole to say that. Jefferson would make two more incredible catches on the drive to set up a 4th and goal from inside the 1 with 54 seconds to play. The Bills got two stops, with the first negated by offsides but the second standing after a lengthy review, as they stuffed Cousins on a sneak attempt just shy of the goal line.

However, on the Bills attempt to sneak the ball off their own goal line, Josh Allen fumbled the snap in his own end zone and it was recovered by Minnesota for the go-ahead score in one of the most absurd endings of a game this year.

Drake has notched the 12th No. 1 album of his career with Her Loss, his joint album with 21 Savage, who now has three No. 1 albums. Billboard announced this afternoon (November 13) that Her Loss has debuted atop its albums chart dated November 19 “with the year’s biggest week for an R&B/hip-hop set and fourth-largest streaming week ever for any album.”

The publication relayed that Her Loss moved 404,000 equivalent album units, including 513.56 million official streams. That streaming number slots behind Taylor Swift’s Midnights (549.26 million), Drake’s Certified Lover Boy (743.67 million) and Drake’s Scorpion (745.92 million) as the fourth-best streaming week in history. Only The Beatles (19) and Jay-Z (14) have more No. 1s than Drake’s dozen.

Her Loss ends Swift’s Midnights reign atop the Billboard 200. Midnights debuted at No. 1 with the biggest first-week numbers since Adele’s 25 in 2015. Midnights maintained the top spot for a second consecutive week in which, you guessed it, the album netted the most significant second-week total since Adele’s 25 in 2015.

Drake and Savage have gone out of their way to attract attention to Her Loss, and it worked. The power duo conducted a full-blown fake promotional cycle, including a spoof Howard Stern interview, a staged SNL performance, and a photoshopped Vogue cover that resulted in a copyright infringement suit from Conde Nast. More seriously, Her Loss lyrics aimed at Megan Thee Stallion, DRAM, and Serena Williams have attracted scrutiny.

After a promising run this past summer with her Becky G collaboration, “Mamiii,” which peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Karol G is back with another hit. This time, she recalling fond memories of time she spent with a lover in Cairo on a song appropriately titled “Cairo.”

Inspired by her travels, “Cairo” tells the story of falling in love, while she was trying to keep her walls up. Karol delivers soft, sweet vocals over a rolling percussion beat by producer Ovy On The Drums.

In the video, Karol is seen in Cairo, walking through the streets, dancing in the streets, and surrounded by pyramids.

In a recent interview with Remezcla, Karol spoke about her experience as a Latina in music, and expressed how she envisions the future for herself and for other artists.

“I’ve always wanted to break that barrier,” she said. “Today, I feel I’m in a very special place. I can say that there is still a lot to do culturally, but I am very happy and feel very proud to be able to say that we are promoting women a lot more, so they respect what we do.”

Check out the video for “Cairo” above.

Swifties are impatiently awaiting Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour. Swift blessed them with a surprise appearance at the 2022 MTV EMAs today (November 13) — of course, it’s the 13th — in Dusseldorf, Germany. The global superstar is up for six awards.

Swift is nominated in the Best Video and Best Longform Video categories for her All Too Well: The Short Film, which celebrated its one-year anniversary yesterday. Her other nominations are for Best Artist, Best Pop, Biggest Fans, and Best US Act.

Swift last made a surprise appearance at August’s 2022 MTV VMAs, where she won the Best Longform Video and Video Of The Year awards. While accepting the latter, she revealed her “brand new album” was coming October 21. We now know that album was Midnights, the biggest release of Swift’s booming career — debuting at No. 1 and cementing Swift as the first-ever artist to monopolize the top 10 of Billboard‘s Hot 100.

Swift announced The Eras Tour on Good Morning America at the beginning of this month. The ambitious stadium run is slated to begin on March 17, 2023, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. It’s the same venue that hosted the first show of Swift’s 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour, her most recent tour.

The MTV EMAs will be available to stream on Paramount+ on Monday, November 14.

A hairdresser shared a heartwarming story about rapper Lil Baby. While Baby was in the hairdresser’s city during his “One Of Them Ones” joint tour with Chris Brown, the “Stand On It” rapper apparently paid her a significant amount of money for styling him and his team.

“I had a lot of stuff going on and it’s been a rough two months,” said the hairdresser. “He took care of me. I literally just took care of his whole entourage, and they were so nice and so cool. He literally took care of me.”

When asked how he took care of her, she responded, “He paid me, and he paid me a substantial amount.”

She revealed she cut Baby and his crew’s hair, and while she did not disclose how much Baby paid her, he showed the interviewer her bank account from her phone. As she admitted, it had been a rough two months for her, however, she indicated that Baby was unaware of her financial troubles.

“He didn’t know any of it,” she said. “He was just being genuine.”

According to the hairdresser, Lil Baby began counting up cash and handed her a huge amount after she told him how many members of the crew she helped.

She revealed she plans to use the money to help purchase school clothes for her son, and to get caught up on bills.

You can watch the clip above.

Elon Musk is the richest person on the planet — for now — which may be why he’s been so cavalier about how he runs the biggest social media service on the planet. Right now Twitter is a mess. Bigoted slurs spiked as soon as he took over. Advertisers and users are fleeing en masse. Then there’s that whole new blue checkmark debacle, which has led to impersonations that are already costing other companies billions — and may cost Twitter billions, too. How is Musk responding to this nightmare? By picking fights with people who shouldn’t.

The Washington Post recently ran a piece in which reporter Geoffrey A. Fowler created fake accounts of comedian Blaire Eskine and Senator Ed Markey (with their permission, of course). Doing so, Fowler reported, was disturbingly easy. Markey was livid, and demanded Musk “explain how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again.”

But instead of fixing the problem, Musk simply mocked Markey.

“Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?” he replied. Markey was not amused.

“One of your companies is under an FTC consent decree. Auto safety watchdog NHTSA is investigating another for killing people. And you’re spending your time picking fights online,” Markey wrote. “Fix your companies. Or Congress will.”

Musk may not be quaking in his boots, but he should be. As Rolling Stone notes, Markey sits on a lot of committees that regulate how he runs his businesses:

The senator sits on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and is on numerous subcommittees that have oversight not only into Twitter but also two other Musk-owned companies, SpaceX and Tesla. Markey is a member of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Communication, Media and Broadband, as well as the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, both of which could investigate Twitter. He is also on the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freight, and Ports. That subcommittee has oversight into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is currently investigating Tesla over the safety of its autopilot feature. And Markey sits on the Subcommittee on Space and Science, which has oversight over SpaceX.

What’s more, the Democrats just held Congress from the Republicans’ failed “red wave.”

Musk tried to play it cool. In response to another person, who listed some of the committees Markey is on, he wrote, “Are you suggesting the Senator will abuse his political power to attack me?”

This is likely far from over, but it’s probably not great that he’s trying to make people think lawmakers holding him responsible for his actions is the same as an “attack.”

(Via Rolling Stone and The Washington Post)

Who’s having a better November than Dolly Parton? The country icon was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame last weekend, and she followed that up this weekend by accepting this year’s Bezos Courage and Civility Award from Jeff Bezos and his partner, Lauren Sanchez, and $100 million to put toward philanthropic work.

“Jeff and I are so proud to share that we have a new Bezos Courage and Civility Award winner — a woman who gives with her heart and leads with love and compassion in every aspect of her work,” Sanchez wrote on Instagram. “We can’t wait to see all the good that you’re going to do with this $100 million award, @DollyParton.”

In Sanchez’s Instagram video, Parton joined them on stage and gave a speech: “Did you say 100 million dollars?! When people are in position to help, you should help. And I know that I’ve always said, I try to put my money where my heart is. And I think you do the same thing. I will do my best to do good things with this money. Thank you, Jeff.”

Parton has a long philanthropic history, including her COVID-19 Research Fund donating toward the Moderna vaccine. Earlier this year, she donated $1 million to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center to aid in research around pediatric infectious diseases. So, Parton will undoubtedly distribute this $100 million award responsibly. But Jason Isbell threw out a light-hearted joke about how Parton might be able to use it: “Dwitter,” an alternative option to Elon Musk’s Twitter.

It won’t happen, but a Dolly Parton-led social media platform is fun to fantasize about.

Last week the Indianapolis Colts fired Frank Reich after a disappointing 3-5-1 start to the season and then stunned everyone when they hired Jeff Saturday as their interim head coach.

Saturday has not ever coached at the college or pro level and wasn’t a part of the Colts staff, making him a bizarre off-board choice for the interim job, with Jim Irsay defending the hire with a variety of bizarre statements at a wild and defiant press conference. The hire has been widely panned and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone within the greater NFL community willing to defend it. Among those who have torched the Colts for the decision are former All-Pro offensive lineman Joe Thomas, who called it “disrespectful,” and, most recently, Hall of Fame coach Bill Cowher.

Cowher explained on CBS’ pregame show on Sunday why the hire is such an outrage, calling it a “disgrace to the coaching profession” and noting how Saturday is skipping all of the steps that every coach has to take to get to that level — and willingly did so by turning down multiple offers to become an assistant.

It’s a strong statement from Cowher and the point about the assistants who have been there the entire time is an important one. It seems impossible for Saturday to get complete buy-in, not just from players, but from the rest of the staff when he jumped them in line to take a job he’s not even remotely qualified for and will have to lean on them to try and make himself look good.