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On Sunday, Brendan Fraser took home a Best Actor Oscar for Darren Aronofsky‘s The Whale. Now, coming only two days later, Aronofsky wants to take you all the way back to 1998 to relive his first film (or, maybe more likely, watch it for the first time), back in theaters for one day with a newly remastered print, Pi.

It’s actually a very unique story. Back in 1998, with absolutely no leverage to do so, Aronofsky brokered a deal that would return the rights to Pi back to him after 25 years. What seemed like an eternity back then to a young filmmaker has, now, come to fruition. The rights for Pi returned to Aronofsky and he turned around and sold it again to A24, who are now putting it back in theaters for “Pi Day” on March 14th.

It’s interesting watching Pi today. It feels like a movie pulsating with every topic Aronofsky would explore with later films. As the protagonist, Max, becomes obsessed with numbers, it does feel like there’s a numerical formula from this film to follow that lays out Aronofsky’s entire career. When I mentioned I can draw a direct line from Pi to The Whale, at first Aronofsky poo-poos this notion, before actually conceding I may have a point.

Ahead, Aronofsky tells us how he negotiated this pretty unusual deal, and what it’s like trying to get back in the head of the filmmaker he was in his 20s.

You took a break from your never-ending press tour for The Whale to do press for a different movie.

[Laughs] I mean, it’s kind of slowed down, The Whale stuff. I haven’t been doing that much for a while. Just moderating a few Q&As with Brendan and Hong and the makeup department. But otherwise, just been getting ready for the next thing.

Is this more fun? Talking about a 25-year-old movie? As opposed to having to try and sell something new?

Sure. I mean, I’m happy to do this. I’m pretty happy to do the press at the beginning. It’s just that when you’re up to your 400th interview, it’s a lot. But this is one day of press and it’s happy to bring back the memories. This whole thing’s been kind of just a gas and a lot of fun the whole time.

So I re-watched this a couple of days ago. By the way, after this I realized I hadn’t seen The Fountain in a long time either. Both are around 90 minutes, which made that pretty easy.

I like the 90-minute movie! Pi is 79 minutes. I love that length.

So here’s what went through my head while watching Pi. This is my theory. It is like watching your Big Bang, everything condensed about what you make in movies just crammed into this first thing and then it explodes and informs all your other movies. The spiral from Pi is all your other movies coming out of Pi to this day.

Yeah, I don’t know… There are some original ideas that show up, but I can’t account for them. I just sort of follow what I’m interested in and have been lucky enough to make those types of movies. So that’s exciting.

I can make direct comparisons between Pi and The Whale.

Sure.

Two people who are both obsessed, addicted…

They’re both about two shut-ins.

And then someone offering religion shows up.

That’s true.

There are some parallels here. And that surprised me.

Yeah, no, well, you just surprised me. I never thought about it. Oh, yeah, the religion pushes through the doors and starts to try to make him more religious and stuff. So that’s funny.

How do you feel when you go back and watch something you made in your 20s?

I was happy after I watched it. Because we did this arduous task of going back to the original film. So, basically, the same film that passed through the camera is this film called Black and White Reversal…

Yeah, I was reading about that.

Yeah, it gets developed and it’s like a Polaroid thing and I had never seen that ever projected, because we treated that like our negative. And then when we cut it together, we actually cut those positives, and then we had to shoot it with 35-millimeter negative and then we had to print off that negative. So the only thing I ever saw was a third generation down. So, for me, it was so interesting because there was so many more details and the whole look of it was different when we went back and scanned it all at 8K. The IMAX people were like, “We’ve never seen anything like this. Most people want to get rid of the grain and they want to get rid of the texture.” They were nervous to show it to me. And I was like, “No, I love it.”

I am a fan of grain.

So finally, when I did watch it all together for the first time, I was like, “Oh, there’s some totally crazy ludicrous ideas in this.” But ultimately, it’s pretty nonstop interesting. And so I think it could play. People will actually enjoy it. It constantly keeps your attention.

I remember in the ’90s thinking it was a weird movie. It doesn’t seem as weird now.

It was weirder at the moment. It’s just the world has gotten really, really weird.

Maybe that’s it.

I think the world’s gotten more weird. But I think back then, people weren’t really doing sci-fi in independent films. And working in black-and-white reversal was kind of a fresh idea. So I think it was different to what was out there in the landscape. But anyway, just how it played out.

I read that a lot of the cost of this movie just went into buying the film. Are you envious of filmmakers in their 20s now that can just go out on their phone and start doing stuff and don’t have to worry about that?

Back then, there was no way to make a film except if you actually bought film and filmed something and cut it together. And then there was no way to distribute film unless you got a distribution deal. There was nothing to do. It’s so exciting right now. If I was a young filmmaker, I would definitely be using my smartphone and just going out in the streets and telling stories with that and trying to figure out how to use the different tools that are available now, which are expanding so quickly in such a crazy way at this moment. It’s a great time to be a storyteller.

Pi aged well. I completely forgot it takes place in the 90s except when a floppy disk shows up.

And the rotary phone.

Oh and that.

The thing is, there were at the time of course touchpad phones or whatever they call them, but I chose to go rotary to kind of confuse the time and the aesthetic a little bit.

It’s not a movie filled with cultural references that are dated.

There are none. And it’s set in Chinatown, which hasn’t changed at all. Actually, I had dinner last night on the corner where we shot a scene where Max comes out of the train station. I was like, “Oh, that’s weird to be right back here again 25 years later, or 26 years later.” But yeah, I think the ideas, they still work. I mean, even predicting the stock market and all those ideas and people looking for patterns and stuff, it’s all kind of still in culture here and now.

And the prediction that a recession was coming. You nailed that one. It came.

Well, you always know that’s going to happen.

I’m fascinated by this contract. So how did this work? Why did you get the movie rights back? What contract did you have where you all of a sudden own the movie again and you can sell it to A24?

Not me, but all the filmmakers. It happened because, it was very much like this socialist pact amongst the filmmakers where I, as the director, had the same amount of ownership as anyone who worked on the film for that length of time. So when we went to Sundance, I was really in awe of Jim Jarmusch, who always basically got his films back after seven years. He would finance them out of Japan in places and then just licensed them for under a decade. And so when we started making the contract, I was like, nope, we’ve got to get it back. We’ve got to get it back. And I was so annoying about it. Eventually, the head of the studio was like, “Fine, give it back to him in 25 years.” And so it was always in back of my head. So it was just that.

Well, yeah, but as your first movie, that’s a lot of…

Chutzpah?

Yeah, that’s exactly the word. You probably weren’t in much of a position to be making demands and yet you did.

I was in no position. No position. We only had one company, Artisan was bidding on it at the time. There was no one else that was bidding on it. So we didn’t really have any leverage. But it was just an important point. There were a few important points that we wanted to make sure would happen and we kind of stuck to our gun and we were lucky that they decided to honor them.

Is this the only movie you had that deal with?

Unfortunately, that’s correct.

So you don’t get Noah back in 15 years or anything?

No, I think once they start spending real money, there’s no way in hell you’re getting it back.

So you get the rights back, was the plan always to resell it?

Well, that’s why I teamed up with A24. We had such a great run with The Whale.

I didn’t know if there were other options before that.

Yeah, it’s all been very quick. We got the rights back in January. January 21st. And then we made the deal. We were already making the deal. I knew it was coming up and the one thing I really wanted to do was an IMAX screening because I thought it would just be a lot of fun to do it.

On Pi Day.

Yeah. I’m hoping that this becomes a yearly tradition where people can go check out the film at IMAX on Pi Day as a way of celebrating mathematics.

This makes me think you had a very nice experience with The Whale, working with A24.

Oh, they’re amazing people and they’re very honest. They’re very straightforward and it was a great journey with them. So I’m happy to be in business with them. The other thing I like about it is that they’re such a youth brand. There are so many young people who love them and I’m hoping that they can help introduce Pi to that younger audience.

I’ve wanted to ask you, especially after watching these two movies back to back, Pi and The Fountain: why do most of your movies have these pretty deeply religious themes? But you’ve never been pigeonholed as a director who only directs about religious themes, but yet they’re present a lot.

I don’t know… I think that the mythology… I’m more interested in religion, not for spiritual reasons, but I love the mythology of it. I love how they take on larger meanings because they are these stories that are so integral to our culture and to our reality that they affect people in lots of ways. So it’s like, I just think there’s a lot of power in story. And using the oldest stories we know to reinvent them and reinterpreted them is been always something I’ve been interested in.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Over the past year or so, elder millennials have been dismayed to learn that the 15-year sample cycle has finally gotten to some of our high school classics. Ice Spice, the rap it-girl of the moment, snatched a sample of Diddy’s “I Need A Girl, Part 2” for one of her latest viral favorite singles, “Gangsta Boo” with Lil Tjay, and now, another pair of rappers from the opposite end of the spectrum have hijacked the sample for their own use.

Jpegmafia, who is pretty well known for his love of unusual sounds and contrarian approaches to popular hip-hop, teams up with Danny Brown for “Lean Beef Patty,” a chaotic track that speeds up the 2002 hit and combines it with a pounding, electronic synth to truly unsettling effect. The self-produced track is set to appear on Jpeg and Danny’s upcoming joint project, Scaring The Hoes, Vol. 1, which is named after a popular meme about playing unusual rap music at parties and “scaring the hoes.” Both rappers know a thing or two about this sort of unfair characterization.

But if unconventional rap music is your thing, you could do worse than a joint album featuring the two hip-hop mischief makers. You can pre-order Scaring The Hoes here.

In the days leading up to the release of Black Adam, and in the weeks that followed, The Rock talked a very big game about bringing back Henry Cavill as Superman and building up to a film where the Man of Steel would go toe-to-toe with The Rock’s Black Adam. It certainly helped that Cavill announced he was back following his barely secret cameo in Black Adam, and The Rock made it a point to note that he personally fought Warner Bros. to make Cavill’s return happen.

And then it all fell apart.

A few weeks after Cavill touted his return, incoming DC Studios chief James Gunn announced that he’s moving forward with a new Superman movie. That film, now known as Superman: Legacy, would star a younger actor (a.k.a. not Henry Cavill), and just like that, it was over. Gunn would also meet with The Rock and the two would release cordial statements saying Black Adam 2 is still a possibility, but just not in Gunn’s Chapter 1 of the DC Universe.

Since then, The Rock has been quiet on the matter, but while attending Sunday’s night Oscar, he opened up about watching Cavill’s return as Superman fall apart despite the Black Adam star’s best efforts. Via Variety:

“All that I can do, and all that we could do when we were making ‘Black Adam,’ was to put our best foot forward and surround ourselves with the best people and deliver the best movie we could,” Johnson said. “Our audience score was in the 90s. Critics took a couple shots, but that’s just the business of it.”

“It’s almost like when you have a pro football team and your quarterback wins championships and your head coach wins championships and then a new owner comes in and says, ‘Not my coach, not my quarterback. I’m going to go with somebody new.’”

To his credit, Gunn has been candid about the Cavill situation, which he blamed on studio execs and possibly even The Rock himself.

“I like Henry, I think he’s a great guy,” Gunn said during the press event for his DC Universe Chapter 1 plans. “I think he’s getting dicked around by a lot of people, including the former regime at this company. But this Superman is not Henry, for a number of reasons.”

(Via Variety)

Shazam: Fury of the Gods director David Sandberg seems like he’s in limbo like the rest of us on the future of the Shazam movies. On one hand, that’s not that unusual. Even most superhero movie sequels aren’t announced until well after its predecessor’s release date. Though it’s just kind of assumed at this point any successful superhero movie will be getting additional installments. And the first Shazam was successful, both at the box office and with critics – a feat not achieved all that often with these DC movies. But since the production of Shazam: Fury of the Gods, James Gunn has taken over and Sandberg said there’s been no direct discussions about Shazam’s (and Sandberg’s) future at DC one way or another. In a video shared on social media, the only clue Gunn has given was he said the world of Shazam is kind of its own thing and that this new film can fit into the direction Gunn is taking the DC universe, but nothing about Shazam’s fate after that.

In Shazam: Fury of the Gods, as we left off in the last film, young Billy Batson (Asher Angel plays the young version; Zachery Levi plays the super-powered version, Shazam) and his adopted all now have the ability to turn into muscular, adult superhero versions of themselves. They are tested early on during a bridge collapse and … sort of spectacularly fail and become the laughingstocks of the greater Philadelphia area. Complicating things, three gods (Helen Miran, Lucy Liu, Rachel Zegler) have come to Earth in search of an ancient staff that will bring them immortal powers, while stealing the powers away from Billy’s family and capturing his foster brother, Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer, who is again terrific). And now Billy, as Shazam, needs to broker peace with the gods or try to destroy them.

Ahead, as stated earlier, Sandberg tries to tell us what he knows and what he doesn’t know about the future of these movies – and, frankly, after directing two of them if he even wants to do another. (At the very least, he does seem to want the time to do a small horror movie.) And he explains the tricky dynamic of having four actors play the two lead characters and having to use the plot to make sure Jack Dylan Grazer’s Freddy Freeman is on the screen a lot. Also, kind of surprisingly, the name Captain Marvel is actually mentioned during the course of Shazam: Fury of the Gods. Which is Shazam’s original character name from the comics, but is now an very tricky legal issue with Marvel’s character of the same name. Sandberg explains how that all happened.

How are you doing?

Doing good. Just starting the whole press thing and, yeah, finally getting the movie out there and getting people to see it.

So the name Captain Marvel is actually spoken in this movie, kind of as a joke. But with the whole issue with Marvel’s version, does that have to run through the legal department?

Well, I actually didn’t think we were going to be allowed to say it. When we were shooting that scene, he actually had a different line. But I was like, well, let’s do a take where you call him Captain Marvel. We’re not going to be able to use it, but let’s just get it. And then I was talking to the guys at DC and I was like, can we put it in the movie? Is that okay? And they were like, “Well, yeah, I mean, Marvel mentioned Superman and Batman, or whatever, in Eternals and different movies.

They do mention Superman in that, yes.

Yeah. So it’s like, why not? They can’t say anything.

That would be a funny lawsuit. I would enjoy it at least. I don’t think you would, but it would be entertaining.

Well, it wouldn’t affect me. I’d enjoy it too.

I was disappointed, once again, no Captain Hill-Billy.

Actually, at one point when we were figuring out what the story would be for this one, we actually had a version where Tawky Tawny would be in it, the talking tiger.

Wait really?

Yeah. There was a way. But that story didn’t really work, so we had to go with this story instead. And then there was no organic way to get him in there. Because you can’t just have a talking tiger show up and be a part of the gang without people going like, “Wait, how does that work?”

Don’t even explain it.

He’s just there.

Okay so Shazam is Captain Marvel in the books, but it works just calling him Shazam in the movie. But it doesn’t work for Captain Marvel Jr. And in this movie, he’s referred to as “Captain Every Power” a lot. Where did that come from?

Well, that was another thing because we were like, oh, he should make up some dumb name for himself. We had a lot of versions of Captain and some word or the thing. And what we found out was that they were all taken.

Really?

There are too many superheroes! Because it’s like there are thousands of them out there that you never hear of, but they’re still trademarked and copyrighted. So it’s like finally we got it down to just like, well, there’s no one called Captain Every Power, so let’s just use that. It was a real struggle to finding a captain or something that wasn’t taken.

That would be a funny headline. “The director of the Shazam movies: There are just too many superheroes.”

Yeah.

I know before the first Shazam there was talk of using Black Adam. Was that ever a plan for the second movie, before he got his own movie?

No, because we knew that they were doing a separate Black Adam. We knew that he wasn’t going to be a big part of the movie. So we got Helen Mirren instead.

She looks like she’s having a lot of fun. I hope that’s the case.

Definitely. I mean, she doing her own stunts and breaking fingers and stuff.

I didn’t know she did her own stunts.

She did a lot of stuff. We put her on wires and when she gets picked up by Zach and stuff like that, that’s actually her. That’s why we did an angle from the top. So we need to see your face so people see that we really did it. There were certain stunts that we had to tell her, no, you can’t do that. We need to do it with a stunt person.

So, with the new management at DC, have you talked to James Gunn? In his announcement, he said the Shazam movies worked because they are their own thing. Have you had conversations with him? Do these get to continue?

I haven’t had a big conversation with him and Peter [Safran] yet. He’s been a part of little marketing meetings and stuff, but no further conversations yet. He’s been pretty busy I think, for both of us.

I’m just trying to get into your head a bit. You finally cracked Shazam, made a movie that a lot of people liked. And now everything’s being redone. But I don’t know what you’ve heard or what you haven’t heard or what you can even tell me…

I don’t know what the exact plans are. I mean, for me, I take it just one movie at a time. When we did the first one, I didn’t expect to do a second one, but that still happened. So we’ll see. I mean, for right now, I’m just like I just want to make a little horror movie or something now. I just did two Shazams in a row. But, I mean, if they want to do more, hey, I’m open to it. Let’s talk. But we’ll see.

I didn’t even think about that aspect of it, that a lot of directors don’t want to do more than a couple of these because they take up so much time and energy.

Yeah, they’re very exhausting. It just takes a very long time. And it’s scary, putting all your sort of eggs into one basket. You work three years and then what if it doesn’t work? And it’s like, Oh. So, horror movies are nice because you can do one a year and get them out there.

The dynamic in the Shazam movies seems tricky, because you have four actors who play two characters. In the first movie, what worked so well was Zachary Levi and Jack Dylan Grazer. But now they both have powers. It did seem like the movie looks for plot excuses to have these two together.

Yeah. I mean, especially with Jack.

Yeah, he’s great in this.

You want to see him. So you kind of have to take his powers away. Because otherwise, he’d be a superhero all the time and you want to see Jack. And I think what worked out really well is the dynamic with him and the Wizard, to have Djimon Hounsou as the straight man and pair the two of them up.

Like Jack’s line in the dungeon, “Is this a tooth? There’s a tooth in here.”

That’s Jack. That’s what he wanted.

Oh, he did that?

Yeah, because I mean, the production designers, when they made that dungeon and everything, they put clothes, bones and teeth in there. But that’s genuine, him going, “What? Is this a tooth in here?” He actually picks one up and that’s like perfect. And that’s why it’s so great to work with people like Jack or Zach. They don’t stick to the scripts all the time, but it’s great because they come up with such fun stuff.

Asher Angel is really great as young Billy, but we’re going to see a lot more of Zachary in this movie than we do him. Is it weird to be like, “Hey, you’re really good, but it’s not going to be as big a part this time”?

Yeah, I mean, it is unfortunate. I mean, we try to balance this as much as we can. But, I mean, it makes sense that a lot of the movie they are in danger and they are fighting. So, of course, he would be in his superhero form. So it’s a tricky balance, but I think the cast was all okay with it and to do their different sizes of parts.

I know you said there haven’t been any meetings, and that you want to do a horror movie next, but what are you feeling with the future of Shazam?

There’s certainly much more you can do. I mean with the Shazam and the family. And there’s a lot of great villains from the Shazam universe as well. I’d love to see more with Mr. Mind, not just because I do the voice for him. But I mean, he’s just such a unique character because it’s silly in one way because he’s just a little worm. But he is really intelligent and dangerous and he has other forms as well. He can Hyperfly form and things like that in the comics.

So in the version I saw, there were no end credit scenes, but I was told they’re just not ready yet. But I can’t help but think, does that mean they had to be redone because of the new regime?

No.

Okay.

No. I mean, they exist. I think it’s more like wanting to save something for the fans on opening day and all that stuff.

I see, okay.

So it doesn’t all get out there.

Okay, I was wondering if there was a Black Adam tease that’s pretty obviously not happening now.

No. They’re mostly just fun little scenes. It’s not like, “Here’s the new Superman.” I can’t spoil too much, but you get to see some characters that are fun to see.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods opens in theaters everywhere on March 17th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band are touring for the first time together since 2017, an international run that began stateside in early February.

Uproxx reviewed the St. Paul, Minnesota stop earlier this month, a poignant take on mortality and “a kick-ass band” that is inevitably “closing a circle” on its eternal legacy. Springsteen and The E Street Band have grown into larger-than-life giants over the past five-plus decades, but make no mistake: They are still mere mortals.

There have been literal reminders of that over the past few days. On Saturday, March 11, Springsteen’s official Twitter account announced Sunday’s (March 12) scheduled show at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut was postponed “due to illness.”

An identical announcement was made on Sunday — this time, the postponed show is MVP Arena in Albany, New York originally scheduled for Tuesday, March 14.

No rescheduled dates have been announced yet, but fans are encouraged to “hold on to your tickets as they will be valid for the rescheduled show.”

Steven Van Zandt also chimed in to put fans at ease. “No need to be anxious or afraid,” he tweeted. “Nothing serious. Just a temporary situation. We will all be back in full force very soon.”

In a separate tweet, Van Zandt clarified, “Postponed. We don’t cancel.”

Shortly after the tour began, Springsteen performed without three E Street Band members in Dallas because Van Zandt and Soozie Tyrel tested positive for COVID-19 (as relayed by Billboard on February 13).

Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw Miley Cyrus’ recent run of domination continue and Calvin Harris reunite with a classic collaborator. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

For more music recommendations, check out our Listen To This section, as well as our Indie Mixtape and Pop Flash newsletters.

Miley Cyrus — “Muddy Feet”

Endless Summer Vacation has to have been one of the year’s most-anticipated albums so far, and now it’s finally here. If you thought “Flowers” was the only track where she appears to address ex-husband Liam Hemsworth, think again, as some think that “Muddy Feet” (a Sia collaboration, by the way) confirms a long-running rumor.

6lack — “Talkback”

It took nearly 6 years for 6lack to follow his 2018 album East Atlanta Love Letter, but he’s doing so soon with Since I Have A Lover, which is set to drop in a couple weeks. He previewed it last week with “Talkback,” a smooth number on which he refuses to let enemies get the best of him.

Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding — “Miracle”

Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding are something of a dream team, with successful collaborations like “I Need Your Love” and “Outside” already under their belt. Well, they’ve done it again, as they reunited last week on “Miracle,” which sees them pump out a banger in a throwback trance-like aesthetic.

Tame Impala — “Wings Of Time”

The Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie is getting a wide release soon and Tame Impala was thrilled to get involved by contributing a new song, “Wings Of Time.” In fact, hip-fracturer Kevin Parker said the invitation “seemed like an unmissable opportunity to indulge in my long-time love of fantasy prog rock.”

Angel Olsen — “Nothing’s Free”

It hasn’t even been a year since Angel Olsen dropped her latest album, Big Time, but new music is already on the way. She announced the Forever Means EP last week and also shared “Nothing’s Free,” a solemn track on which the singer reckons with getting older.

Fever Ray — “Even It Out”

After five years away in terms of albums, Fever Ray returned last week with Radical Romantics. Naturally, songs like “Even It Out” are as boundary-pushing as ever, and the video even has a nice surprise for Nine Inch Nails fans.

NLE Choppa — “Mo Up Front”

NLE Choppa has a hotly anticipated new album, Cottonwood 2, on the way soon, from which the rapper dropped “Mo Up Front” last week. Uproxx’s Alex Gonzalez notes of the tune, “Over a rattling percussion beat, he is fully aware of his rap superstardom, making it known that if he plans to make any sort of appearance, he’s going to need people to pay up.”

Meet Me @ The Altar — “TMI”

Meet Me @ The Altar stirred up plenty of anticipation for their debut album Past // Present // Future. Now, what was once the future is present and waiting for the album is in the past, as it’s here now. It came at a perfect time, too, as punk-pop-influenced music like this is in the midst of a renaissance and “TMI” is a shining, catchy example of it.

Twice — “Set Me Free”

With BTS temporarily out of the game, there’s more room for K-pop peers like Twice to shine even brighter and get some more deserved attention. They just dropped a new EP, Ready To Be, and a video for “Set Me Free,” and even just gave the upbeat jam a killer performance on The Tonight Show.

Blxst — “Passionate” Feat. Roddy Ricch

While Blxst continues to toe the line between singer and rapper, he’s had no trouble getting some of hip-hop’s elite in his corner. In “Passionate” (a highlight from his new Just For Clarity 2 EP), Roddy Ricch joins in on the sultry number.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Triangle of Sadness was Charlbi Dean’s breakout performance. It was also sadly her last. Dean died of bacterial sepsis last August at 32 years old. The sepsis was “complicating asplenia,” which is the absence of a spleen, due to “remote blunt force trauma to [her] torso,” a spokesperson for the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner told the Hollywood Reporter.

Her friends and family probably expected to see Dean, the star of a movie nominated for Best Picture, in the “In Memoriam” segment during Sunday’s Oscars. But she was left out of the live ceremony:

Charlbi Dean — who had a lead role in Triangle of Sadness, a film nominated for three Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture — was not featured in the segment during the live show on Sunday night… A rep for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences declined to comment on record about the absence of their names.

“It is an honor to have gotten to know and work with her. Charlbi had a care and sensitivity that lifted her colleagues and the entire film crew,” Triangle of Sadness writer and director Ruben Östlund wrote following Dean’s passing. “The thought that she will not be by our side in the future makes me very sad. At this difficult time, my thoughts go out to her loved ones, her family and her fiance Luke.”

Unlike the Oscars, Dean is being remembered on social media.

(Via People)

(Spoilers from The Boys will be found below.)

Amazon’s The Boys has put several iconic scenes to the screen thus far, but one would be hard pressed to find a more “hell yeah” moment than when Queen Maeve made this face ^^^^ while doing battle against Homelander. That physical clash had been a long time coming and probably sourced back way before Maeve had to witness him sending a plane full of civilians to their deaths. And Maeve was thrilled to finally push back at the baddest Supe of all, which also led to a wonderful outcome (aside from losing an eye) for her.

Well, in the eyes of the public, Maeve died after saving everyone from an exploding Soldier Boy, but this did allow her to finally retire from the Supe life that she hated so much. Even the greater Vought International entity didn’t know that she was still alive because Ashley (in a rare display of humanity) erased the footage that would prove that Maeve survived. So, Maeve got to head into private life with her partner. Fast forward to this years’s Oscars, and an unaware Vought International decided to pay tribute to the Dawn of the Seven and Her Majesty star on Twitter.

In response, The Boys‘ Twitter account honored Maeve by taking the p*ss, like the account is so great at doing on most occasions: “Loved when she said ‘It’s Maeven Time!’ and Maeved all over those guys.”

Maeve probably would have loved to see this, but hopefully, she wasn’t watching the Supie Awards.

The Boys‘ Season 3 finale is currently streaming on Amazon, and hopefully, we’ll see a Season 4 release date soon.

While it’s not that strange for actors to lend their voices to video games, it’s less common for a video game voice actor to reprise their role for an on-screen adaptation.

In 2013, Ashley Johnson voiced Ellie in The Last Of Us, which went on to become a cultural phenomenon. Of course, when the time came to adapt the hit game into a series a decade later, Johnson was not in the running for playing teenage Ellie on the HBO series, as she was well into her thirties. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be involved at all!

Johnson ended up guest starring in the season finale of The Last Of Us this week, portraying Ellie’s mom Anna in a flashback, who is forced to give birth while living in the terrifying Cordyceps–infected wasteland.

While there is talk of Ellie’s mother Anna in the game, this is the first time the fans are given some back story and context. Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter that she was shocked but delighted to be a part of the monumental series (after a quick cry):

I got a text from Neil and he said, “Hey, Craig and I were talking and would you like to play Ellie’s mother?” And I just burst into tears. Of course I would love to. It’s a shock because when video game adaptations move to film or TV generally, the voice actors or motion capture actors aren’t usually brought along to be part of that project. So I was just shocked, it’s not the norm. Being able to still be a part of this story and this world and to also be the first character that fights for this character to live means the world.

While Johnson admitted that it was “strange” to see her familiar characters played by new actors, she applauded Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey’s performances. “I feel like with Bella and Pedro [Pascal], I feel like they’ve elevated the characters. They’ve brought their own imprint and I’m so glad that they’ve had the space to make it their own and play the characters how they see them. I’m so blown away by Bella, I think she’s absolutely incredible. I think this would have been hard if it was someone that was not great.”

Johnson wasn’t the only original voice actor to join the show– Joel’s original voice actor Tory Baker also stopped by for a cameo this season, though his cameo involved some good old-fashion cannibalism.

We certainly have not seen the last of The Last Of Us, which was renewed for another season earlier this year, so Johnson could very well come back for another flashback or side plot. Maybe one where she isn’t in constant danger would be nice!

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Last year, Drake surprised fans with not just one, but two albums. The second, Her Loss, was a joint album released alongside 21 Savage and instantly became a fan favorite. As the new dynamic duo rolled out singles like “Spin Bout U” and generated memes thanks to “Rich Flex,” fans couldn’t help but wonder whether they’d eventually announce a tour for the project.

Those fans got their wish today as Drake and 21 announced their It’s All A Blur Tour, which kicks off in New Orleans in June and circles the US and Canada, leading to a final show in Glendale, Arizona in September. However, even though a press release said that more dates will be announced in the future, fans overseas might not get the opportunity to see the two perform together anytime soon.

Will Drake & 21 Savage Tour In The UK And Europe?

Unfortunately, that might not be a possibility this year. 21 Savage is still locked into a longstanding grievance with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which could prevent him from being able to travel outside the US. You may remember that he was arrested in February 2019 due to an expired visa; he immigrated to the US from the UK with his mom as a young teen and did not realize that his visa had expired. The case was still in limbo as of last April. While there are a few Canadian dates on the lineup, a UK tour might be riskier.

Savage’s fellow Brit MF DOOM faced a similar situation when he went on an international tour in 2010, discovering that he could not reenter the country afterward despite living and working here for most of his adult life. Unless 21’s immigration case can get sorted by the time the North American frame of the tour ends, it wouldn’t be a great idea for him to travel outside the US, lest he get stuck on the outside looking in.