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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 Brockhampton bid farewell (twice) and Roddy Ricch once again bless the end of the year. 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 Life newsletters. Also find our Uproxx HQ Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly with the best new music, at the end of this post.

Brockhampton — “RZA”

We have reached the end of Brockhampton and the group is going out with a bang. They dropped their supposed “final” album in The Family on Thursday, announcing at the same time that it’d be followed with another new project, TM. The latter album’s arrival was also accompanied by a gun-toting video for “RZA.”

Pharrell and Travis Scott — “Down In Atlanta”

Pharrell has a new album, Phriends, Vol. 1, on the way and it would seem that his new Travis Scott collaboration, “Down In Atlanta,” will appear on it. The tune has a slinky groove and vocals from Scott, on which he, as Uproxx’s Alex Gonzalaz puts it, “details a vivid, debauched account of an adventure in the ATL.”

Roddy Ricch — “Twin” Feat. Lil Durk

As has become tradition for Roddy Ricch, he’s blessed the final weeks of the year with a new project, with the 2022 installment being a new mixtape, Feed Tha Streets III. He prefaced the tape with “Twin,” an in-your-face tune featuring Lil Durk.

Saweetie — “Don’t Say Nothin’”

For a while now, Saweetie has been promising new music to wrap up 2022, and sure enough, she delivered some last week with a new EP, The Single Life. Before the project dropped, Saweetie shared “Don’t Say Nothin’,” which sure seems like it’s about Lil Baby.

Nicki Minaj, Maluma, and Myriam — “Tukoh Taka”

The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar is officially underway, and Nicki Minaj, Maluma, and Myriam’s contribution is a new song, “Tukoh Taka.” It’s the Official FIFA Fan Festival Anthem that inherently delivers a message of international unity, with lyrics in English, Spanish, and Arabic.

Weyes Blood — “God Turn Me Into A Flower”

Weyes Blood’s fifth album — And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow — is out now and a clear highlight is “God Turn Me Into A Flower.” The six-minute track is a warm and meditative tune, thanks in part to keyboards from Oneohtrix Point Never.

Phoebe Bridgers — “So Much Wine”

With Halloween a distant memory and Thanksgiving just days away, it’s time for the new Christmas recordings to start rolling in. Indeed, they have, including Phoebe Bridgers’ contribution, “So Much Wine.” The recording is a cover of The Handsome Family’s original and Bridgers’ latest in her annual drop of melancholy holiday tunes.

Romy and Fred Again.. — “Strong”

Shortly after dropping Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 2022), Fred Again.. is already back to putting new material out there, via the Romy collaboration “Strong.” Uproxx’s Adrian Spinelli notes of the tune, “Inspired by Ibiza house and trance, Romy’s vocals soar in familiar fashion, but they’re paired with beats that have that finger-on-the-pulse feeling of Fred Again..’s world-smashing electronica.”

Fousheé — “Spend The Money” Feat. Lil Uzi Vert

Uproxx cover star Fousheé has been a major up-and-comer in recent years and her debut album, Softcore, is finally here. It features the Lil Uzi Vert collaboration “Spend The Money,” of which Uproxx’s Lexi Lane notes, “The track brings a completely experimental beat, as it blends elements of electronic, rock, rap, and more.”

PinkPantheress — “Do You Miss Me?”

It’s hard to call PinkPantheress anything but obsessed on her latest single, “Do You Miss Me?” On the Kaytranada-produced tune, she sings, “I can’t let go of your hand / I can’t even breathe without you / I don’t think you understand  / I love to watch you as you speak / And you say the words ‘I love you’ / Tell me, when you fall asleep.”

With wealthy Russians all about finding those loopholes to escape Vladimir Putin’s draft and increasing reports of his inner circle plotting to find a successor, it sure sounds like the walls are closing in on the imperialistic president. This has followed an incredibly deadly war, which has encompassed most of 2022 and hasn’t turned out like Putin would have dreamed. That’s what happens when most Ukrainians, including grandmas with homemade explosives, stand up and push back while a majority of Russians seem to want nothing to do with heading to Ukraine to fight.

Such a difference in perspectives is to be expected when Putin’s forces are diminished due to death, grievous injury, and desertion, and all of that heavy artillery (including tanks) is simply left on the streets for Ukrainians to put to use. With all of that in mind, the Newsweek now passes on word from independent Russian news outlet Meduza, which reveals how Putin’s finally losing his country’s “elites,” who cringing like crazy over what looks like an undeniable loss:

Sources close to the presidential administration (AP) and the Russian Federation called recent events “very painful.”

“There is an understanding that we lost the real war,” said elites and entrepreneurs described as being part of Putin’s inner circle. “People begin to think about how to live on, what place they would like to take in the future, what bet to make, what to play. [On the one hand] there will be revanchist sentiments. On the other hand, there will be a request for normalization and stabilization.”

From there, Putin’s also facing the embarrassment for not even being able to provide medical care for deployed troops, long after word spread that soldiers grew so frustrated that they threatened to turn their general into smithereens. It’s not a great look when video emerges of Russians being told to raid tampon drawers because that’s the only way that they’ll be able to stop their own bleeding after being shot. Yep, no wonder this has turned into an undeniable disaster, but Putin keeps hanging onto the fight.

(Via Newsweek)

The 2022 American Music Awards was mostly a lighthearted affair last night (November 20), but it would have been negligent to overlook the overwhelming tragedy of Takeoff’s November 1 murder. Host Wayne Brady slowed down the proceedings to honor the beloved 28-year-old Migos rapper.

“During tonight’s show, we’ve celebrated the artists and songs we love, but we also wanted to pay our respects and show our gratitude to the artists who have left us with a beautiful legacy of their art,” Brady said, standing before a projected photo of Takeoff. “We recently just lost Kirshnick Khari Ball, better known as Takeoff. One-third of the groundbreaking hip-hop group Migos. On behalf of all of us that love hip-hop and music all around the world, we thank you, Takeoff, for your artistry. And tonight, we honor your memory.”

He added, “Guys, we have to stop this senseless and terrible gun violence. Just yesterday, there was a mass shooting in Colorado Springs, and our hearts go out to all of the victims’ families. That’s from the show. Personally, I just want to say, I love you all and my heart is with you, and God bless you.”

Late Saturday night (November 19), a gunman entered Club Q, an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, and opened fire. He killed at least five people with dozens more reportedly injured.

Takeoff was shot and killed while attending a private event at 810 Billiards & Bowling in Houston with Quavo, his uncle and Migos collaborator. Houston Police confirmed that shots were fired after tensions rose during a dice game. Two others suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The search for Takeoff’s killer is ongoing, as a suspect has yet to be publicly identified.

Takeoff’s celebration of life was held on Friday, November 11, at State Farm Arena in his hometown Atlanta. Chloe Bailey, Justin Bieber, Yolanda Adams, and Byron Cage each performed, while Quavo and Offset of Migos and Quality Control’s Pierre “P” Thomas and Kevin “Coach K” Lee all gave heartbreaking eulogies. Others in attendance included Cardi B, City Girls, Drake, Gucci Mane, Lil Yachty, and YG.

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

Jesse Eisenberg recently made the courageous jump to television to star in FX’s Fleishman Is In Trouble, a drama based on the 2019 best-selling novel of the same name. Eisenberg plays the titular Toby Fleishman, who is going through a messy divorce with Claire Danes when she suddenly disappears, leaving him a newly single dad of two in New York City, who relies on his two close friends for help while piecing together exactly what went wrong in his marriage.

While we are all used to Eisenberg’s fast-talking characters, Fleishman’s thoughts are actually narrated by someone entirely different: his friend Libby, played by (fellow Now You See Me alum!) Lizzy Caplan. Libby chronicles Fleishman’s story while also navigating her own personal life.

Caplan revealed earlier this year that she was drawn to Libby after becoming a mom for the first time. “In many ways, I identified with Libby more than I’ve identified with any other character I’ve played,” Caplan told Vanity Fair. “[Libby] feels very trapped in her life, and I started shooting the show when I was a new mother to my first baby…I was getting to have this very fulfilling acting gig at the same time that I was fulfilling these lifelong domesticity dreams that I kicked down the road for so long.” Caplan’s onscreen husband is played by Josh Radnor.

Fleishman is in Trouble airs new episodes on FX on Hulu every Thursday.

(Via CinemaHolic)

The craft beer world in the US has exploded over the past decade. But beer drinkers still aren’t shying away from cheap, easy-to-find, grocery store lagers. Sure, beer geeks might go crazy about their local microbrewery’s fruited sour, milkshake IPA, or barrel-aged stout. But walk into any grocery store from Olympia to Orlando and you’ll find the coolers filled with bargain-priced lagers — people drink them and occassionally even like them!

Since the holidays are upon us and gatherings are a pretty sure bet, the time is right to find a few great, easy-drinking lagers to bring to get-togethers. That’s why I decided to blindly nose and taste eight of the most popular, cheap lagers available pretty much anywhere. Keep scrolling to see how everything turned out.

Here’s the lineup:

• Corona Extra
• Coors Light
• Bud Light
• Miller High Life
• Natural Light
• Busch
• Heineken
• Pabst Blue Ribbon

Part 1: The Taste

Taste 1

Tasting Notes:

This beer smells kind of skunky. There are also notes of wet grass and cereal grains. Maybe a little citrus and floral aroma as well. The palate is a mix of skunk and sweetness with more earthy, herbal hops and sweet, caramel malts, and corny sugar. The finish is dry, crisp, and refreshing.

Taste 2

Tasting Notes:

This beer starts with a nose of bready malts, cereal grains, and citrus. That’s it and it’s all fairly muted. I had to try really hard to find anything. The palate is really sweet and sugary with just a little bitterness at the end. It doesn’t really taste like much.

It’s the epitome of barely yellow, fizzy water.

Taste 3

Tasting Notes:

Aromas of sugary sweetness, corn, cereal grains, and wet grass greet you before your first sip. The palate continues this trend. There’s a ton of sugary sweetness right off the bat as well as sweet corn, cereal grains, and herbal, grassy malts. There’s no bitterness whatsoever. This beer is sweet on sweet.

Taste 4

Tasting Notes:

Sweet corn, caramel malts, honey, lemongrass, and slight earthy, grassy hops are prevalent on the nose. The palate is centered on flavors like corn sweetness, bready malts, honey, citrus peels, cereal grains, and slightly bitter, floral hops. It has a nice mix of malt sweetness, corn, and piney hops.

Taste 5

Tasting Notes:

Notable aromas include sweet corn, cereal grains, caramel malts, and floral, herbal hops. Drinking it reveals a mix of sweetness and hops with sweet corn, toffee, citrus peels, and earthy, herbal hops making an appearance.

The finish is dry, sweet, and leaves you wanting more.

Taste 6

Tasting Notes:

The nose is sweet malts, cereal grains, corn, and nothing else discernable. It’s surprisingly fizzy for a beer. It tasted more like a malty, slightly hoppy hard seltzer or flavored sparkling water than an actual beer. It’s borderline flavorless.

Taste 7

Tasting Notes:

Sweet corn, cereal grains, wet grass, caramel, and floral, herbal, earthy hops were the overwhelming aromas on the nose. Sipping it revealed corn syrup sweetness, honey, citrus peels, and more earthy, herbal hops. The finish is crisp, sweet, and thirst-quenching. Not overly exciting, but it does its job.

Taste 8

Tasting Notes:

Sweet corn, sugar, citrus, and slightly bitter hops are found on the nose. Honestly, I couldn’t find anything else to mention. The palate continues this trend with sugary sweetness, sweet corn, cereal grains, and light citrus taking center stage. It’s fairly water and fizzy but refreshing.

Part 2: The Ranking

8) Natural Light (Taste 2)

ABV: 4.2%

Average Price: $12.99 for a 12-pack

The Beer:

It’s safe to assume people don’t drink Natural Light for the overwhelming flavor. They drink it because it’s refreshing, light, and low in alcohol, calories, and carbohydrates. It helps that it’s ridiculously inexpensive.

Bottom Line:

I’m convinced that Natural Light is popular because drinkers are trying to be ironic. It’s more a fizzy, flavorless novelty than an actual beer.

7) Bud Light (Taste 6)

ABV: 4.2%

Average Price: $6.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Bud Light is America’s favorite light beer. It’s a favorite of people who see that it’s the cheapest beer at the bar and think, “Sure, why not? It’s still technically beer, right?”

It’s low in alcohol and equally low in flavor.

Bottom Line:

Bud Light is a real head-scratcher of a beer. It’s almost flavorless, but it’s tremendously popular. You can thank over-the-top advertising for that.

6) Busch (Taste 8)

ABV: 4.3%

Average Price: $6.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Sure. I could have picked Busch Light instead of regular Busch, but I wanted to mix it up. This adjunct lager is brewed with (according to the official website) premium hops, barley malt, grains, and water, it’s known for its crisp, easy-drinking, no-frill flavor profile.

Bottom Line:

This is definitely not an exciting beer. It’s muted, watery, and boring. It does have a little more depth than some of the light beers on the market though.

5) Corona Extra (Taste 3)

ABV: 4.6%

Average Price: $8.50 for a six-pack

The Beer:

The most popular Mexican beer, this beach-centric lager is brewed with simple ingredients like water, barley, non-malted cereal grains, and hops. It’s known for its sweet, light, refreshing flavor without a ton of substance.

Bottom Line:

Corona Extra is always shown with a lime wedge sitting snuggly in the neck of the bottle and for good reason. Without this added citrus, it’s an overly sweet, sugary mess.

4) Heineken (Taste 1)

ABV: 5%

Average Price: $8.50 for a six-pack

The Beer:

One of the easiest-to-find, most popular imported lagers in the world, Heineken is the kind of beer that’s always there. This European pale lager from The Netherlands is known for its earthy, fruity, hoppy flavor.

Bottom Line:

Heineken has a rather unique aroma and flavor. Even the freshest bottle or can has a little dank, skunk flavor to it. If you can get past that, it’s a refreshing, malty, floral sipper.

3) Coors Light (Taste 5)

ABV: 4.2%

Average Price: $6.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

As light beers go, Coors Light has a little more going for it than most of its counterparts. This 4.2% ABV light lager is brewed with 2-row lager malt, hop extract, lager yeast, and corn syrup. It’s cold lagered, cold-filtered, and even cold-packaged. Everything about this beer is cold.

Bottom Line:

Coors Light doesn’t mess around. It lists corn syrup in its ingredients. It’s not concerned with what you think as long as you crack open one of its ice-cold bottles or cans. And, truth be told, they’re pretty okay.

2) Miller High Life (Taste 7)

ABV: 4.6%

Average Price: $6.50 for a six-pack

The Beer:

Miller High Life is one of those beers that you’re just as likely to find at a college party as you are at a retirement party. It’s a throwback in a glass bottle that never seems to go out of style. Plus, the beer inside is crisp, refreshing, and hits the spot every time.

Bottom Line:

Miller High Life is well-known for its crisp, refreshing, easy-drinking nature. It might not be the most complex beer in this world of over-the-top beers, but it serves its purpose and it does it well.

1) Pabst Blue Ribbon (Taste 4)

ABV: 4.7%

Average Price: $5.99 for a six-pack

The Beer:

This classic bowling alley beer has been brewed the same way since its inception way back in 1844. Its popularity rose a decade or more ago when hipsters and young people began drinking it ironically. There’s nothing ironic though about this smooth, crisp, Noble hop-driven lager.

Bottom Line:

PBR deserves all of the attention it gets. It’s a classic, crisp, no-frills throwback beer. It tastes exactly the way you expect it to taste when you see its iconic label.

Part 3: Final Thoughts

It’s not easy to blindly taste cheap, grocery store lagers. They’re either crisp, refreshing, and memorable or watery, bland, and highly forgettable. It feels like there is no in-between.

You’ll find the first part of the list is filled with forgettable, bland beer and the second half is populated by bargain bangers.

About midway through The Walking Dead series finale, I turned into the Leo pointing meme. To prevent a violent conflict among the living, as opposed to fighting the real enemy (zombies), Daryl Dixon gives a Rick Grimes-like speech. “What the hell you doing? We all deserve better than this. You built this place to be like the old world. That was the f*ckin’ problem,” he said. “We got one enemy. We ain’t the walking dead.”

Norman Reedus said the thing! But it took some convincing.

“I didn’t want to say it, I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t want to say it, and they kind of talked me into saying it,” he told Vanity Fair. “But if you remember way back when Rick says it, he was like, ‘We are not the walking dead,’ and he made such a big thing of it that I was like, ‘Well, I can’t make a big thing of it now because that’s what Andy did way back then.’ So I kind of just incorporated it into the dialogue, and I didn’t want to shout it from the rooftops, because that’s what he did.” Instead, Reedus “figure[d] out a way to just make it part of the sentence without making it a poster,” he added.

AMC may differ. There’s a 75 percent chance that you’ll be able to buy a “we ain’t the walking dead” poster at Hot Topic (are there Hot Topics in France?) by Black Friday.

(Via Vanity Fair)

Fleishman Is in Trouble is FX on Hulu’s latest star-studded limited series, one of those things the basic cable network does best. This one, which premiered on November 17, stars Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg, Emmy winner Clare Danes, the beloved Lizzy Caplan, and The O.C.’s Adam Brody (as a character named Seth who is absolutely not Seth Cohen).

Here’s the official show description from FX:

Recently divorced 41-year-old Toby Fleishman dives into the brave new world of app-based dating with the kind of success he never had dating in his youth, before he got married at the tail end of medical school. But just at the start of his first summer of sexual freedom, his ex-wife Rachel disappea<span class=”yZlgBd”>rs leaving him with 11-year-old Hannah and 9-year-old Solly and no hint of where she is or whether she plans to return. As he balances parenting, the return of old friends Libby and Seth, a potential promotion at the hospital that is a long time coming, and all the eligible women that Manhattan has to offer, he realizes that he’ll never be able to figure out what happened to Rachel until he can finally face what happened to their marriage in the first place.</span>

You’re here because you’re wondering if Fleishman Is In Trouble is based on something. It is! Fleishman Is in Trouble is an adaptation of the New York Times best-selling book of the same name by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. The novel came out in 2019, and there was quickly a bidding war for the rights to adapt it. Brodesser-Akner, a journalist known for splashy profiles of celebs including Bradley Cooper and Gwyneth Paltrow, is the creator and an executive producer. She wrote seven of eight episodes. Brodesser-Akner, who is married, was inspired to write the fictional story after a plethora of friends started getting divorced once she hit her 40s.

“It almost felt like fan fiction, or like fan fiction with your Barbies — like, what if you got your Barbies to be these famous people? I can’t even describe it,” Brodesser-Akner told Variety about seeing her book get adapted to the screen.

You’d think getting absolutely jacked for Marvel’s Eternals or acting across from Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi would be one of the most daunting tasks in Kumail Nanjiani‘s career, but nope. The actor had the most trepidation over his latest role as Somen “Steve” Banerjee, the villainous founder of the iconic male stripper empire that’s the center of the new Hulu miniseries Welcome to Chippendales. Nanjiani opened up in a new interview about what it’s like playing a character who has absolutely none of the actor’s personal traits.

“Welcome to Chippendales is the role I’ve been most nervous to take on, because I never played anybody like [Somen],” Nanjiani told InStyle. “I’ve mostly played people who were, in some ways, different versions of myself. Generally they were funny or had some element of likability to them.”

After revealing that he was concerned about playing the role because he didn’t want to play “a bad guy from my part of the world,” Nanjiani ultimately dove into the project, but one thing he didn’t do is bring the character home. He’s not about that method acting life:

He learned how to break out of unpleasant emotions and turn things on and off between takes in order “to have a normal life and be a good husband and be present at home, and not bring it home with me,” he says, especially considering his wife was also a producer on the show. (“I want to have a good life, a happy life!” he says of actors who go full-on method).

Nanjiani also had another trick in up his sleeve: That new jacked bod.

“I really still enjoy working out. I get a lot out of it. It’s for me, mentally, been really good,” he told InStyle. “It grounds me in my body, it’s good for stress, I sleep better, and it makes me better at my job, you know, because so much of acting is about sort of feeling your body and being in your body.”

Welcome to Chippendales struts it stuff November 22 on Hulu.

(Via InStyle)

Anitta has an amazing evening at the American Music Awards last night (November 20). The Brazilian superstar won her first AMA and she also performed alongside hip-hop icon Missy Elliott.

Anitta was nominated for her first American Music Award this year and she won. She took home the award for Favorite Female Latin Artist in a category that included Karol G, Becky G, Kali Uchis, and Rosalía. In her Instagram Stories, she wrote, “And we wonnnnnn. Omg thank you SO MUCH. My fans I love yall so so so much. I’m so grateful.”

Anitta also made her AMAs performance debut at the show. She opened her set with a sensual performance of her global hit “Envolver.” Anitta wowed the audience when she executed the sultry dance move that helped the song go viral on TikTok earlier this year. She then brought the hotel to the AMAs to sing her love song “Lobby” alongside Elliott. Elliot made checked-in at the halfway point and made a grand entrance. She gave a fierce performance of her fiery guest verse with Anitta by her side.

Among the Latin artists, Bad Bunny was the big winner of the night with two AMAs wins, including Favorite Latin Album for Un Verano Sin Ti. Colombian singer Sebastián Yatra and Mexican-American trio Yahritza y Su Esencia won their first AMAs.

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

It’s been 34 years since the release of Willow, a fantasy adventure movie that was billed as the next thing from George Lucas after Star Wars and the Indiana Jones movies. Directed by Ron Howard, Willow wound up doing … okay. And the reviews were mixed. But considering this was a Lucasfilm property, it was treated as a failure and that was that for Willow.

Now, 34 years later, Willow returns with an all-new Disney+ series. Over the years, thanks to Willow being one of those movies that always seems to be on cable, it’s built up a pretty decent fan base. And, as executive producer and writer Jon Kasdan says ahead, it also helped quite a bit that the newly launched Disney+ was looking for content. So the idea hatched between Kasdan, star Warwick Davis, and Ron Howard on the set of Solo: A Star Wars Story was met by the executives with actual enthusiasm. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the fantasy genre is much more popular now than it was in 1988.

Unlike the movie, the series (I’ve seen seven of the eight episodes) has the time to really develop a group of characters who, led by Willow himself, head out on a grand quest. It’s during this quest that, over the course of a few episodes, a same-sex love story develops. As I say to Kasdan ahead, this isn’t some bullshit scene between two extremely minor characters. It’s as if, finally, a Disney/Lucasfilm property did this in a way that feels real and also serves the story.

Also, Lawrence Kasdan has made it clear he’d be open to another Solo film but isn’t too keen on the idea of a series. Now that Jon Kasdan has just made his own series based on a popular character from a movie, does he agree with his father?

You got Willow back. A thing a lot of people couldn’t pull off.

I know. I feel like the last time we talked I was probably quietly plotting this thing and too shy to say it. And now it’s a reality.

Warwick Davis said that this all happened on the Solo set.

It did. It all happened right while we were sort of shooting and on the beach there. We met and I told him I wanted this to happen, and he was enthusiastic. But we both thought like, Yeah, nice try. Good luck. And then a few months later, Ron Howard came on to help with the movie. And that was the moment when, really, the three people who could make this happen came together completely. That was the triangle of Willow.

By the way, “help” is doing a lot of work there.

[Laughs] It was a big… He filled big shoes and he came in with gusto. But one of the things that happened while he did that was that we would just be sitting on the set between set-ups talking about, “So Willow, man, how are we going to do this?” The most amazing part of it was it was right during that period when we were together every day, that Disney+ launched and it became clear that their first thing out of the gate was going to be Favreau’s Mandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars ever. And Ron saw it instantaneously. I’d say within 40 seconds of reading that news, he was like, “This is how we’re going to get Willow into the world.”

So let me pretend I’m a studio executive for a second. What I would be thinking is, ”Well, when Willow came out, it did okay, but not that well. The reviews were average. Why do you want to bring this back?”

Well, what was interesting about it was the moment Ron and I walked into – and you know, you walk into the sort of Seven Dwarves building at Disney and you have this meeting and it’s intimidating – but what we were greeted by was such warmth and enthusiasm. And I can only assume there was a mandate to generate as much content as they could.

That helps.

And so what I think they saw in Ron and I are two people who were passionate about magic and fantasy.

And to be fair, over the years, Willow has built a following.

They weren’t diehard Willow fans, but they knew that there was an opportunity here to do something that wasn’t Star Wars, that wasn’t Marvel, but was in the sort of wheelhouse of Disney and felt like something that should be in the Disney World.

And is in the fantasy realm, which has become a lot more popular since Willow came out.

Frankly, when we had that meeting in 2018 or 2019, well, we all anticipated that Game of Thrones had sort of changed the landscape of what was possible on television. And Stranger Things being equally influential, because I think that’s the show that each one of these streamers looks at and says, “I want one of those.” But I think even since then, in the last four or five years, the amount of fantasy content that has been made and produced has been surprising to everyone.

So going into this, you can’t just do what the movie did because it wasn’t a huge success. How do you build on what people did like, yet make it different?

The flip side of working in these beloved IPs is that you’re always sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place…

Well, this feels different because, yes, this is a beloved IP by a lot of people, but for the majority of people, it’s not.

Well, that’s right. So what I think you’re trying to do is you’re trying to figure out a way to satisfy the desires of fans of the thing – people who love it and have some expectation about where they’re going to go – but also acknowledge that you’re making a show in a different world and a different time. And the sense of humor and the sense of what’s cool is different than it was in 1988. And you’ve got to remember there was a lot of elements of Willow ’88 that, from a 1988 perspective, were very contemporary and hip and modern. And none more so than Val Kilmer himself, was just a totally unusual thing in a fantasy movie.

Yeah, it has the Iceman.

It was the Iceman. And he was basically like the Iceman just walked into the Robin Hood, Errol Flynn role.

He did.

And you were like, Okay, this is something I’ve never seen before. But for kids, it was like me, 43 now and 8 then, it was our Han Solo. I mean he just had all that swagger and coolness.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I was 13 when Willow came out and I remember seeing it in theaters and being like, “Yeah, that was fine.”

Totally.

But I watched this series and I really enjoyed it. I just cruised through all seven episodes I was sent.

Oh, I’m so glad. That makes me so happy.

There’s something about this series that the movie doesn’t quite have, and I can’t put a finger on it…

Well, I’m thrilled you felt that we give you that. I mean, you know, it’s funny, that I think that Ron would probably agree with you. And I think that one of his frustrations with the movie was that it didn’t give him the time or the space, frankly, the real estate, to do all the things he would have wanted to do to build out a Sorsha-Madmartigan romance the way I think he would’ve loved to. And to tell a deeper mythology the way Star Wars was so able to. So this is a dream come true for him. It’s an expansion.

I remember the way it was advertised. It was basically like, “Hey, from the guy who brought you Star Wars and Indiana Jones, here comes Willow.” And that’s really unfair.

It’s really unfair. And I think on the weekend it came out, they all thought, ”Well shit. Now what? We’re saddled with this. We’ve got to be on that tier of success. That’s impossible.” It was never going to be that. And what it provided for us was this extraordinary opportunity to just have this unspoiled little corner of a vast entertainment empire. In the emblem of it in the show is this old dusty book, which seemed to me the perfect metaphor for what we were trying to do, which was like there’s something lost in a library. You haven’t heard of it, but open it up. There’s more to read. You know?

You mentioned the love story from the movie, that it doesn’t get to be fleshed out as much as Ron Howard wanted it to be. I got to say, you and your team deserve a lot of credit. And I won’t say which characters, but I do want to mention that there is a love story that develops between two same-sex characters. And it’s not the bullshit we get sometimes where it’s two characters we’ve barely met. These are two main characters and it develops over the course of the series.

Well, I appreciate it. And I think there will be those who give us a lot of credit and those that give us a lot of flack for it too.

I’m sure that’s coming. I have no doubt that’s coming.

It’s a tricky thing. But the way that I’m finding that I am able to talk about it is that it felt totally organic to the story we were telling.

It does. It develops as the story goes on.

And the two actresses who were at the center of that story, they were both passionate about serving it right. About getting into the nuance of not really of a political landscape because the show takes place in a world that’s not our own, but into an emotional landscape that was really honest and sincere. And that’s what I’m proudest of about that is that you really feel the love between them.

When your dad was on the tour for the ILM documentary, he mentioned how he didn’t think Han Solo would work as a series. but now that you just did this series with Willow, which has worked really well, do you agree with your dad that Solo doesn’t work as a series? Or are you changing your mind?

Well, what’s funny about that is that I loved working on Solo. I love Alden.

I’ve written about how I still think that movie is a lot of fun.

What I think is making it increasingly difficult for me to imagine is the wealth of Star Wars content we’re getting over the next couple of years. The different places the universe is exploring. The corners of it that we’re going into. Andor being just the latest and most extraordinary example probably ever of just a direction Star Wars can go that I never thought it would. And when you put on top of that all the shows that are coming in the near future, I guess with all this stuff, and this really ties back to Willow, I think I saw a reason to do it. Which was there was this girl at the center of it and a story sort of promised in her magical potential. And with Solo, I think we’d all have to feel there was a reason to go back there that wasn’t being served in one of these other corners of the Star Wars universe.

Okay, so that’s a “no”?

[Laughs] But sign me up! I’m ready to go!

That’s a “yes.” All right.

It’s a very tough one because I really do love that thing and I love all the people who’ve been so supportive of more stories.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.