In the seemingly never-ending war between Marvel and “real cinema,” legendary director Martin Scorsese has been heralded as a champion of preserving cinematic integrity thanks to his willingness to call out superhero films. With that in mind, surely Marty must be a proponent of the theatrical experience. Not so much.
Doing a new interview to promote the Oscars campaign for Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese was asked if sneaks into public screenings of his own films, and his answer was pretty surprising. Turns out, the iconic director is well aware that going to the movie theaters can be a frustrating experience.
I don’t do that. People talk and move around a lot. I’m short and there’s always a big person in front of me. It’s the same with Broadway — I can’t go to theater. There’s someone in front of me, and I can’t see the stage or hear the show. I really enjoy Imax as I get older. You go in, you can sit up in the back and you’re sort of looking up. Regular screenings, I have found the audiences becoming a bit more raucous than they used to be.
While Marty being refreshingly blunt is par for the course, it is notable that he’s zeroed on a real issue that’s strangling the theater experience: it’s not home. You give up a whole evening — and if you’re a non-millionaire director, a sizable chunk of change — to sit inside a dark box with constantly talking patrons and a cavalcade of distractions from flashing phone screens to crinkling snacks.
And if you’re seeing one of Marty’s movies, you’re going to be there long time and don’t you dare expect an intermission for your poor bladder.
Killers of the Flower Moon is now streaming on Apple TV where no one will sit in front of you and there’s a pause button at your disposal.
Last year, after John Wick “retired,” it seemed like we would be left without a rugged hitman to cheer on, despite his overly violent ways. Luckily, Dev Patel decided to jump in and fill the Wick-shaped hole in our hearts with his new movie Monkey Man by knocking the lights out of everyone around him. He knows exactly what the fans want.
The film is inspired by the ancient legend of Hanuman and was entirely shot in Mumbai. It also marks Patel’s directorial debut.
The movie was originally set for a Netflix release after the streamer acquired the rights in 2021, but now it’s heading to the big screen thanks to Jordan Peele‘s Monkeypaw and Universal. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Peele caught an early viewing and was so impressed by Patel’s project that he decided it needed a wide release. Here is the official synopsis:
After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Monkey Man will hit theaters on April 5th. The cast also includes Sharlto Copley, Sobhita Dhulipala, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma, Ashwini Kalsekar, Adithi Kalkunte, Sikandar Kher, and Makarand Deshpande. Check out the action-packed trailer above.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – This is the best movie I have ever seen
I saw The Beekeeper and it was everything I hoped it would be. It lived up to everything the trailer promised, which is impressive because the trailer was a masterpiece. The movie was under two hours of Jason Statham wrecking comically evil bad guys with elbows and fire and I could not have loved it more. It was silly and fun and satisfying in a way I have not experienced since I saw The Accountant. There was a couple sitting behind me in the theater that appeared to be having the time of their lives on a weekend afternoon. A lovely time at the cinema for everyone.
I’ve discovered something fun since I saw it, though: I think I might enjoy explaining the plot of this movie to people as much as I enjoyed actually watching it. Maybe more. Like, here’s the official description.
One man’s brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after it’s revealed he’s a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as Beekeepers.
Which, yes, accurate. And here’s the trailer, once again, which fills things in a bit more.
But there is so much more happening here. Just a steady run of the wildest stuff you’ve ever seen slapped between scenes where Jason Statham murders evildoers. I have explained the plot of this movie to a handful of people since I saw it and I cannot remember ever being happier explaining anything to anyone with the possible exception of the golden toilet heist. I’m going to explain it all here in a series of bullet points. Yes, these are spoilers, wall to wall. No, I do not think it will ruin this movie even a little for you. I say this because I know all of these things and I still can’t wait to watch it on basic cable 45 times over the next five years. I will not be offended if you scroll past all of this on principle but… I mean, come on.
I promise all of this is true.
Phylicia Rashad gets scammed out of millions of dollars she managed for a charity that benefited kids by a snotty little dweeb in a shiny suit who runs like a Boiler Room for internet scams
Jason Statham — the character has another name, but whatever — has been living in her shed and making honey and comes in for dinner to discover she’s committed suicide after losing the money
Her daughter is an FBI agent who was already investigating the scam with no success
Jason Statham makes one phone call on an old cell phone that looks like a walkie-talkie and finds out who is behind it
He blows up their building
Jason Statham is not just a beekeeper, it turns out, but also A Beekeeper, an off-book group of top secret government contractors who “protect the hive” of society by doing whatever needs to be done — laws be damned — to maintain justice
Statham has retired but this is enough to bring him back
The scammers turn out to be a part of a huge operation run by a little snot who skateboards around his massive headquarters and gets massages and eats sushi all day
Jeremy Irons — again, the character has a name but whatever — also works there as the head of security
His character was the head of the CIA and is doing the job as a favor to the snot’s mother
Minnie Driver shows up for like 30 seconds as the current head of the CIA
Statham keeps murdering people to get to the bottom of it all
The snot is connected and protected in ways that seem odd aaaaaaaand guess what: his mother is the President of the United States
lol
He bankrolled her campaign with the scams, which use CIA technology meant to hunt terrorists
Jason Statham storms her Florida compound
He murders like 100 people and cuts through the whole Secret Service like butter that’s been softened in the microwave
I really can’t stress strongly enough to any of you how many things blow up in this movie
Jeremy Irons explains everything in one of those speeches where decades of backstory are covered in like four minutes
Statham gets into the President’s private office and puts a bullet in the snot’s forehead when he tries to hold his mother — THE PRESIDENT— hostage
Statham escapes out the window and scuba dives away safely despite the entire damn military being on high alert
There is more that happens. I didn’t even get to the lady with the mohawk who shoots up a gas station with a massive gun mounted to her truck. Or the guy with the neck tattoo and the unplaceable accent who literally says “to bee or not to bee” at one point. We can get into that another time. I will always be ready to talk about this movie. Come over and watch it with me sometime when it hits streaming. I will smile and giggle the entire time.
The Beekeeper. Great movie. I need at least three sequels.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – June Squibb rules
David Bolen
Hey, speaking of movies where senior citizens get scammed out of money by tech-savvy weasels, it brings me great pleasure to bring the upcoming movie Thelma to your attention. It’s a little different than The Beekeeper. For one, it’s a fun little Sundance romp instead of a mass market murder festival. And also, more importantly, this time the revenge tour is carried out by the old lady herself, not the mysterious honey purveyor who lives in her shed. Which is… cool.
Also cool: The titular Thelma in Thelma is played by 94-year-old June Squibb, who proudly declared to Variety that she did some of her own stunts for the movie. Look at June.
In one scene, Squibb hijacks an electric scooter and has a vehicular showdown in a retirement home with Ben, played by the late Richard Roundtree in his final screen performance. The two zoom into each other and crash, as Squibb plows Roundtree’s scooter out of the way.
“They weren’t expecting me to do the scooter work,” Squibb says. “They were so worried about me, they thought I was going to kill myself. They said, ‘Just tap his scooter,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, hell,’ and I just cowed into him.”
This is one of the more righteous things I’ve ever read, which I say both as a dude who uses a power wheelchair and gets annoyed when people overdo the caution around me and as someone who loves the idea of old ladies wrecking people in action movies. Put June Squibb in the next Fast & Furious movie. Hook her scooter up with NoS. Let Ludacris ride on the handlebars with a shotgun in his arms. This is how we should do movies from now on.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – A fond farewell to The Flight Attendant
HBO
The bloodbath at Max continues this month. First it was shows like Rap Sh!t and my beloved Our Flag Means Death getting the ax, now it’s The Flight Attendant, another fun little show I adored. This one I do kind of get, though. The first season was a bouncy blast with Kaley Cuoco as a party girl in the skies who gets twisted up with international intrigue. The second season was… messier. Just all over the place. I loved it very much because I’m a crazy person but I can understand how someone who cuts the checks might look at it and say “Hmm that’s about enough of that.”
But while you can cancel the show and stop making new episodes, you can’t take away the magic that already exists. And by that I mean “the thing where Rosie Perez’s character got bored in her marriage and kind of sold aerospace secrets to North Korea and spent most of the second season on the wildest journey you’ve ever seen.” I wrote about it at the time but I’ll just go ahead and blockquote the bullet points from that article to give you a short version.
She opens the season living in hiding in Iceland with a black market tuna smuggler played by Margaret Cho
She picks a bunch of mushrooms from a forest, which we later see her mashing up into a fine dust/paste
You guessed it, they are poisonous hallucinogenic mushrooms
She is running around dosing people with them to keep her secret and/or investigate other secrets
Her cover gets blown and she comes back to America using the pseudonym “Hildegard Bouffant”
She goes hunting for a lockbox she hid in her friend’s strip club, but the friend sold the contents of the room to some strange lady, so Rosie and her stripper friend track her down to a weird trailer in the woods and, yup, you guessed it again, dose the woman with mushroom paste and steal back the lockbox while the woman has a full-on mental collapse on the woods
It was a good show. That’s the point here.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Let’s go to Key West
What we have here is the trailer for the upcoming remake of Road House, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Williams and features lots of UFC-adjacent activity up to and including Conor McGregor as the bad guy. It looks fun. I was skeptical at first but… yeah. It looks fun. Jessica Williams should be in more things. She’s so great in Shrinking. I hope she gets to punch a goon or two. Here’s the official description via Amazon.
In this adrenaline-fueled reimagining of the 80s cult classic, ex-UFC fighter Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse, only to discover that this paradise is not all it seems.
I suspect it’s the weather-related January of it all but my biggest takeaway after watching this trailer where an absolutely shredded Jake Gyllenhaal wrecks bozos for three minutes is that I really want to go to Key West. Like, now. Maybe not to this bar. Maybe to a quieter one where they serve drinks with little plastic umbrellas in them. One with minimal fistfights. I can watch this movie in the hotel, though. With another umbrella drink.
My beloved/hated Philadelphia Eagles have been eliminated from the NFL playoffs
I love to see my favorite dudes thriving
Which brings us to two more things…
NUMBER ONE: The long-suffering Detroit Lions are still alive and no one is happier — as happy, maybe; but not happier — than Tim Robinson, star of I Think You Should Leave. I have pretty much decided to be a Lions fan for the rest of the season just for this. Put him in the booth for the Super Bowl. This is serious.
NUMBER TWO: With the Eagles eliminated, Jason Kelce is free to cheer on his younger brother Travis in his run with the Chiefs. And he is doing just that. Very well. Look at my guy.
It gets better, too, which is not easy when you already have “a shirtless maniac wearing sweatpants and slamming beers in a luxury suite because his brother scored a touchdown.” But it does. First, there’s the thing where this was apparently the first time he met his brother’s new girlfriend, a little-known musician named Taylor Swift. I would love to hear her take on all of this. I also love the idea that this charismatic grizzly could be the best man at her wedding. What a lovely family.
Speaking of the family, there’s also this, the thing where Mama Kelce was asked about it all and said this to People Magazine.
When asked if she was surprised when Jason stripped off his shirt and jumped into the stands to celebrate brother Travis Kelce’s touchdown, Donna — without hesitation — tells PEOPLE: “No, not at all. No.”
That’s because the Philadelphia Eagles center has “done it on occasion,” the football mom explains, citing the parade as another example of when Jason went topless. “He just saves it for special moments,” she says with a laugh.
Good for them. And me. And you. And Taylor Swift. Good for all of us, really.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Nick:
I know you’re bummed about Holey Moley being in limbo but maybe this will help: Maybe the reason there hasn’t been a new season in over a year is because they’ve been locked in a room the whole time trying to figure out how to top “the Muppets kidnap Steph Curry” and they just haven’t been able to crack it. That’s helped me at least.
A British wildlife park has hatched a new plan to rehabilitate its potty-mouthed parrots after they unleashed a tide of expletives.
Leave them alone.
“When we came to move them, the language that came out of their carrying boxes was phenomenal, really bad. Not normal swear words, these were proper expletives,” the park’s chief executive, Steve Nichols, told CNN.
This is… my favorite thing? Ever? I know I say that a lot but think about these guys going to pick up some parrots and just getting cussed up and down with filth for an hour.
I love these birds. We must protect them.
“We’ve put eight really, really offensive, swearing parrots with 92 non-swearing ones,” he said.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
If the new strategy works, the eight parrots could learn “all the nice noises like microwaves and vehicles reversing” that the other parrots in the flock favor, Nichols added. But if the other 92 instead pick up the expletives, “it’s going to turn into some adult aviary.”
I need updates on this story weekly. Daily, if possible. But weekly is fine. I would honestly pay money — like, at least $25 — to go to a zoo where 100 parrots sling curses at you like you’re a visiting player at a professional sporting event. I would pay for a regular ticket and then extra for this, like a premium option at a museum. I want to hear dozens of birds cuss at me and my idiot friends.
This is a good idea. We can be millionaires. If you own or know someone who owns a zoo, please consider it.
The park has installed large signs warning visitors about the parrots’ language, but Nichols said it hasn’t received a single complaint.
THIS IS WHAT I AM SAYING
For now, the park is hoping they will learn the sounds of the flock, and mend their potty-mouthed ways.
“I’m hoping that’s part of the settling-in period, but I don’t think they will ever lose the swear because as soon as somebody swears, they’ll be swearing as well.”
Snoop Dogg has a busy year planned. His new movie, The Underdoggs, is out now on Amazon Prime Video, he’s headlining the 2024 return of the nostalgic Lovers & Friends Festival, and he’s still working on that new album, which he first started teasing way back with the tentative title, Missionary, a spiritual sequel to his debut, Doggystyle.
Earlier this week, at the Underdoggs premiere in Culver City, Snoop told Good Morning America‘s Michael Strahan that the first single is coming very soon and revealed that he and Dr. Dre had been working on the album for the past eight months. “I can let the rabbit out the hat,” he said. “I’ve been working on a record with Dr. Dre for the past 8 months. We’re about ready to drop a single in a couple weeks, so that’s what I’ve been cooking up.” While that doesn’t necessarily mean the album will be out this year (especially with the notoriously perfectionist Dre at the helm), it’s a good sign that we could see the album sooner rather than later.
Snoop’s most recent album, Bacc On Death Row (or BODR) was released on February 11, 2022, and featured appearances from DaBaby, The Game, Lil Duval, Nas, the late Nate Dogg, Sleepy Brown, T.I., Uncle Murda, and Wiz Khalifa. It peaked at No. 104 on the Billboard 200. He also released the mixtape Gangsta Grillz: I Still Got It and the Mount Westmore album Snoop Cube 40 $hort that same year.
When Justin Timberlake held a free homecoming concert in Memphis, Tennessee, fans knew something larger could be coming down the pipeline. And they were correct. Today (January 26), the “Selfish” singer has officially revealed his plans for global domination.
Beginning in April, Timberlake will hit the road for his The Forget Tomorrow World Tour to support his forthcoming album, Everything I Thought It Was. So how can you guarantee you are present when it stops in a city near you? Your only way in is to grab tickets before they sell out.
When Do Tickets For Justin Timberlake’s The Forget Tomorrow World Tour Come Out?
According to Timberlake’s post on Instagram, the public sale will launch on February 2 at 10 a.m. local time. However, a special fan club presale is set to kick off on January 29, with Citi cardholders and Verizon customers gaining access to tickets as early as January 30 at 10 a.m. local time. Find more information here.
Justin Timberlake’s 2024 Tour Dates: The Forget Tomorrow World Tour
04/29 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
05/02 — Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
05/06 — San Jose, CA @ SAP Center at San Jose
05/10 — Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
05/14 — San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena San Diego
05/17 — Inglewood, CA @ Kia Forum
05/21 — Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center
05/29 — San Antonio, TX @ Frost Bank Center
05/31 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
06/04 — Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
06/06 — Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center
06/10 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
06/12 — Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
06/14 — Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
06/15 — Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
06/21 — Chicago, IL @ United Center
06/25 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
06/29 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
07/03 — Baltimore, MD @ CFG Bank Arena
07/04 — Hershey, PA @ Hersheypark Stadium
07/07 — Cleveland, OH @ Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
07/09 — Lexington, KY @ Rupp Arena
Justin Timberlake’s The Forget Tomorrow Word Tour poster
Everything I Thought It Was is out 3/15 via RCA Records. Find more information here.
So, remember how seemingly half the hip-hop world spent about three years making fun of Megan Thee Stallion for being shot, or calling her a liar and saying she wasn’t shot, or calling her a liar and saying the person who shot her wasn’t Tory Lanez?
Well, Megan remembers. She remembers, and she comes for literary revenge with her new single “Hiss.” While plenty of attention has been given to the obvious shot at Nicki Minaj, Meg reserves rhymes for just about everybody who threw dirt on her name. From Drake, who turned her trauma into a punchline, to her ex, Pardison Fontaine, who fueled a promo tour behind their recent breakup, Megan’s got plenty of targets on her latest, and she hits them all.
Absolutely. Here’s the line: “Bodies on bodies on bodies on bodies / Say he f*cked Megan and now he the topic / These n****s thinkin’ they lowered the value / All this free promo, I’m turnin’ a profit.”
DaBaby, with whom Megan fell out in the immediate aftermath of the shooting over his collaboration with Tory, made it a point to go around telling anyone who would listen that he smashed his “Cry Baby” collaborator, receiving a resounding yawn in return.
You better believe it. This one’s a little dicier and spread out, but we’ve got some juicy selections to choose from. “These n****s hate on BBLs and be walkin’ ’round with the same scars,” and “Cosplay gangsters, fake-ass accents,” both refer to rumors and accusations floating around about Drake. It’s not the first time the Toronto rapper has been accused of going under the knife, and his accents and mobsterisms have been the subject of ridicule for years.
Drake came for Megan unbidden in 2022, when his Her Loss track “Circo Loco” seemed to poke fun at Megan getting shot. “This b*tch lie ’bout getting shot but she still a stallion,” he raps, playing on the recent Brazilian butt lift trend and connecting it to the slang term for tall, thick women from which Megan got her name. There were two ways to read this, neither very nice to Meg: either he was using her shooting as the punchline of a sleazy dad joke, or suggesting that she too was lying about getting shot.
Meg wasn’t happy about it, especially considering he couldn’t wait to cozy up to her during her 2019 rise to stardom and doesn’t even seem to like Tory very much. An all-around bad look for Drake, who could have finally shook some of those soft misogyny allegations with a simple solidarity post.
Does Megan Diss Pardison Fontaine On “Hiss?”
Of course. While there’s some ambiguity to these. “I feel like Mariah Carey, got these n****s so obsessed…” and “He can’t move on, can’t let it go / he hooked, nose full of that Tina Snow,” are the most obvious, attributing Pardi’s recent slate of radio interviews and singles to the sense that perhaps he’s feeling a lack of closure. Meg also says, “I’m way too f*ckin’ cocky to take him back if he been cheatin’,” which could be about Pardi. While he denies cheating on her, Meg hasn’t exactly backed him up.
During a livestream on Instagram over the holidays, she responded to his interviews, saying, “If this man is saying, ‘I didn’t cheat on her. I didn’t do that’ — well then why the f*ck is you responding to me? Do you know how many n****s y’all claim I done f*cked with? Why are you answering? Why are you trying to make that shoe fit? Was it you getting your dick sucked in the same spot I was sleeping? If you said it wasn’t you, why the hell is you dissing me? Like what the f*ck is going on? Why are you talking to me? If you said I wasn’t talking to you. I wasn’t talking to you.”
Like the old saying goes, “hit dogs holler” — and Pardi has done some hollering.
Does Megan Diss Tory Lanez On “Hiss?”
Not directly. Instead, she reserves her vitriol for his online groupies, who’ve spent the last three years attacking her. “I don’t give a f*ck who think what,” she snarls. “You n****s is typin’ for nothin’ / On the internet typin’ this sh*t to me? Write him a letter or somethin’.”
This one seems pretty self-explanatory. If the guys want to be buddy-buddy with Tory, talk to him, not Meg. Stop being weird on Twitter.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Season four of True Detective is about halfway through, though it seemingly hasn’t stopped snowing the entire time, so it seems longer. This season takes us to the perpetual nighttime in Alaska, where Jodie Foster stars as Chief Liz Danvers as she investigates the mysterious circumstances surrounding eight missing men. These types of things never seem to work out.
Even though this season gives off a particular bone-chilling sensation, showrunner Issa Lopez says it’s all on purpose, and the location is even a callback to cult classic horror movies. “First of all, one of the biggest references for it is Carpenter’s The Thing, no doubt,” Lopez told The AV Club. “Tsalal [the research station in Night Country] has undertones, the way we shot it, to Kubrik’s The Overlook and a feel of Nostromo, even, from Alien,” she added. Even though there might not be a supernatural element to it, the cold is creepy enough to make this season terrifying.
Lopez added, “Some of the nights we were at minus 23 degrees Celsius, in conditions that I would never think of being in, but it just informs the story and feeds the feelings and the way you experience the series. A lot of people who have watched it are like, “I felt cold when I was watching it,” and that happened because we were there, because the actors were cold, because the filmmakers were cold. And it needs to happen to really transmit that physical sensation through the screen.”
When Will ‘True Detective’ Season 4, Episode 3 Arrive?
This season, subtitled Night Country, will consist of six episodes airing weekly on HBO. Episode three, which is conveniently titled “Part 3,” will arrive on Sunday, January 28th at 9:00pm EST (for both streaming and cable).
The rest of the season will arrive weekly on Sundays until February 18th. For now, you can catch up with past seasons of True Detective on Max. Stay warm out there.
Stephen A. Smith‘s podcast has, increasingly, become a place where he can talk about stuff that would never make it onto ESPN. Whether that’s something fun, like the time he got into a screaming match with a caller about the movie Cars, or whether that’s something like the time he expressed his distaste for Jason Whitlock, Smith (or, probably more accurately, his producers) use the pod as an opportunity to expand his horizons far beyond the stuff we see on television every day.
Here’s our latest example of this, which doubles as an opportunity to learn his answer to one of the defining questions of my lifetime. Smith wanted questions from listeners, so he got asked a simple one: Who ya got?
This ended up making its way onto the show, with Smith making very clear he is not an especially big Pokemon fan. His pronunciations of “Bulbasaur” and “Charmander,” in particular, are magical, and eventually, he picks Charmander for a simple reason.
“Know what I’m gonna say? Charmander,” Smith said after pronouncing “Charmander” like the word commander. “That’s who I would take. Cause it reminds me of me because of the forehead.”
Smith then stared directly into the camera while we got a split screen of him and Charmander. It was all pretty good.
With Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom officially bringing the SnyderVerse to an end, DC Studios chief James Gunn is now fully in the throes of launching his rebooted DC Universe with the highly ambitious Superman: Legacy. The writer/director has confirmed that the film will not only relaunch the Man of Steel, but introduce a full-fledged superhero universe that’s already in motion.
However, while Superman: Legacy will feature characters like Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho, and possibly even Lobo, Gunn is preparing DC Comics fans to not expect the mother of all appearances: The new Batman.
Gunn’s DC Universe will have its own version of the Caped Crusader (Read: Not Robert Pattinson), who’s set to appear in The Brave and the Bold alongside the Damian Wayne version of Robin. But if you’re expecting to see the new Bats in Superman: Legacy, think again.
“He can’t appear in Superman: Legacy because he’s not in the script,” Gunn told a fan during one of his frequent Q&A sessions on Threads.
While the answer may seem a tad blunt, it is fitting with Gunn’s views on what he calls “cameo porn.” Back in December, Gunn decried the practice of having a “character appear on screen for 10 seconds to mark a checkbox” while interacting with fans, as he often does.
“I call that ‘Cameo Porn’ and it has been one of the worst elements of recent superhero films,” Gunn said via Deadline. “If a character is in film, they have to have a reason to be there story-wise.”
Superman: Legacy flies into theaters on July 11, 2025.
If Chxrry22 (pronounced Cherry-22) established her artistry in 2022 with her debut EP The Other Side, then she strengthened and elevated it to impressive standards with her second EP Siren, released at the end of 2023. The Toronto-based singer, the first female singer signed to The Weeknd’s XO Records label, exudes a level of self-awareness, vulnerability, and honesty (for better or worse) that many of us could only dream of fearlessly having.
Chxrry22’s The Other Side presented all of this under a gloomy cloud of realization and acceptance that she played both the villain and victim in the realm of love. “Do It Again” craves the return of an expired love and “Call Me” hopes to re-spark a toxic flame. In the end, “Wasteland” is Chxrry22’s moment of recovery as she dusts herself off and takes a step forward with a newfound commitment to herself and peace within.
That very commitment is the launching pad into the dominating Siren that Chxrry22 presents herself as on her 2023 EP. The gloom of The Other Side is no more, and instead, we’re hit with the fiery passion that blares as loud as the warning signal that shares the name of her most recent project. Chxrry22 dares a partner to be as passionate as she is on “Ride 4 Me” and goes even further with a sultry request to put their words into action on “Never Had This.” For seven songs on Siren, Chxrry22 asserts he dominance and captivates with her euphoric energy.
Months removed from Siren, Uproxx spoke with Chxrry22 to learn more about her start in music, the one artist from whom she needs a feature, and the advice she’d give her 18-year-old self.
What is your earliest memory of music?
I feel like music was a part of me before I was even born. Both of my parents could sing and they were in a choir, so they would make my brothers and I sing Ethiopian songs and record us. I’m not even kidding when I say that in every single home video I have from my childhood, I’m singing. I don’t think they thought that one of their children would actually grow up to be a musician, but I think it was their love language and also a way to teach us our language.
Who inspired you to take music seriously?
My mom. She used to make me perform everywhere growing up. Birthdays, weddings, you name it — I’d do it. She would pass around a hat for people to put money in. When I saw people actually giving a child money to sing my brain went off like, oh this is lit.
Do you know how to play an instrument? If so, which one? If not, which instrument do you want to learn how to play?
I’ve actually tried learning how to play the guitar and keys multiple times but my schedule gets hectic and I never have a chance to see it through. I actually just ordered a keyboard on Amazon to my LA apartment so we’ll see how long it lasts this time. But I do wish I could, it’s one of my goals.
What was your first job?
A hostess at a restaurant. I’ve had a million jobs and I’ve been fired a million times.
What is your most prized possession?
My voice. My health. My ideas.
What is your biggest fear?
I actually have two. Having a painful death but also just having regrets in life.
Who is on your R&B Mt. Rushmore?
Whitney, Marvin Gaye, Anita Baker, D’Angelo, Keyshia Cole. I think that’s a few too many, but you get the point.
You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location where it would be held.
Dead or alive? Kali Uchis, Lana Del Rey, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and Nina Simone. Held in my hometown, Toronto, of course.
You get 24 hours to yourself to do anything you want, with unlimited resources: What are you doing? And spare no details!
Donate to every cause imaginable and use whatever’s left to buy every vintage bag in sight.
What are your three most used emojis?
. Classic.
What’s a feature you need to secure before you die?
Which celebrity do you admire or respect for their personality and why?
I don’t know, I don’t really pay attention.
Share your opinion on something no one could ever change your mind about.
That celery is disgusting. It actually makes me gag.
What is the best song you’ve ever heard in your life and what do you love about it?
Omg, I love this question. Also so hard to answer but for sentimental reasons I’ll say “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole. It’s so simple but heartfelt. It’s the soundtrack to my life.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform, and what’s a city you’re excited to perform in for the first time?
My favorite is always Toronto because I get the most love and it’s for me, duh! No, but in all seriousness it’s always so special looking into the crowd and seeing your friends and family. But, I have so many fans in London and Atlanta so I can’t wait to perform there. Atlanta actually holds a very special place in my heart because it’s where I really found myself as an artist. I lived there for a few years when I first got signed, and it’s actually where I wrote “The Falls” and the majority of my first project.
What would you be doing now if it weren’t for music?
I’d love to be a creative director and help other artists in some capacity! Or a hairdresser. I’m shockingly good at hair. Anything that lets me create freely would be a dream.
If you could see five years into the future or go five years into the past, which one would you pick and why?
The past was too traumatizing, so I’ll say the future haha. Also, I’m really nosey so I want to be ahead of the curb.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Don’t date him. Don’t date anyone until you’re 25 honestly.
It’s 2050. The world hasn’t ended, and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
I think like every other artist, I hope people can still connect and feel something when they listen to my music years down the line. I want to be remembered as someone who represented my city and my culture, and if I’m lucky, I’ll have said and done enough of the right thing that they know my heart.
Siren is out now via XO Records/Republic Records. Find out more information here.
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. Classic.