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Whether it’s on-screen or behind the curtains, there’s nothing the modern entertainment industry loves more than a good ol’ fashioned team-up. Luckily for us, the one Universal and sister streaming service Peacock just formed is pretty damn powerful, and great for those of us still hesitant to visit theaters. Earlier today, Universal Film Entertainment Group stated all their upcoming feature films will hit Peacock no later than four months after their theatrical release.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, this decision was made in an effort to “grow the streamer’s subscriber base” and accelerate “what’s traditionally referred to as the pay-one home entertainment window, which — in pre-pandemic times — didn’t kick in for six to seven months.” With all the extra income Universal and Peacock are anticipating from this move, the pair hope to work together to make original films for the streaming service. While no specific titles were announced, the report stated the projects are expected to begin debuting on Peacock sometime in 2022.

Now, while it might sound like this is all an attempt for Universal and Peacock to outdo the competition with their own collection of exclusive films, as of right now that’s not entirely the pair’s gameplan. Turns out, Universal isn’t resigning their films to solely existing on Peacock. According to reports, the studio is adopting an 18-month cycle. For both the first and last four months of a film’s cycle, they will be streaming exclusively on Peacock. However, during the ten months in middle, the films will be available on other services that have yet to be disclosed. Interestingly enough, HBO — Universal’s current pay-one partner — isn’t believed to be one of them.

If all goes according to plan, this partnership could help keep Peacock afloat. It’s no secret that since the streaming service launched just over a year ago, it’s struggled to compete with the likes of Netflix and Disney+. Whereas both Netflix and Disney+ have about 208 million and 103.6 million paid subscribers respectively, Peacock sits at just about 10 million. Just this past April, Peacock/NBCU’s parent company Comcast disclosed it is expecting losses of $2 billion in 2020 and 2021 as it invests in the streaming service.

As far as what else lies ahead for Universal, the studio does have quite a few big blockbusters scheduled for release in the next year. These titles include Jurassic World: Dominion, a new original film from Jordan Peele, DreamWorks Animation’ The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots, The Last Wish, and Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru. Here’s hoping we catch them on Peacock soon.

Midwestern alt-emo standard bearers Foxing have announced the limited run of their upcoming concert film, Draw Down The Moon In St. Louis. According to a press release, the film chronicles a 48-hour period of the band recording a companion to their upcoming album, Draw Down The Moon, at The Grandel Theater in the band’s hometown of St. Louis.

Draw Down The Moon, Foxing’s fourth full length, is “about the idea of your cosmic significance,” said frontman Conor Murphy in a statement when the album was announced. “The way you feel like a tiny speck in the grand scheme of the universe, that’s a feeling everybody has. You can get lost thinking about how small you are. Draw Down The Moon explores how our connections to people and places and ideas are what binds us to the universe and reality.” Press materials also noted that the band worked on the album in their St. Louis studio with guitarist Eric Hudson producing.

Draw Down The Moon In St. Louis will air on August 6 at 6:00 p.m. PT. After the initial airing, it’ll be available for on-demand replays for 24 hours only. Grab your tickets here, and look out for Draw Down The Moon when it drops on August 6 via Hopeless Records and the band’s own Grand Paradise.

The story of the making of Rocky is as heartwarming as Rocky itself. Sylvester Stallone, a struggling thespian with a few, not-so-notable credits, wrote a Hail Mary script about a struggling pugilist. He miraculously got it made, with him as the lead. The result was the biggest hit of 1976, and the rest, as they say, is history. (Which is to say that 15 years later we got Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.) But there’s an alternate timeline in which Stallone’s original script got made — and that sounds like an even darker film than a Rocky IV in which Paulie’s robot has been deleted.

The Hollywood Reporter dug up an old interview with Stallone, in which he admitted that the initial script for Rocky was a lot closer to the bleak-o-rama fare trendy in ’70s Hollywood. In fact, Rocky Balboa was less a sadsack than just another of the era’s antiheroes — a Travis Bickle with boxing gloves — who threw the big fight with Apollo Creed.

“The character was very dark. As a matter of fact, he throws the fight at the very end,” Stallone said in the old interview. “And Mickey [Burgess Meredith] himself turns out to be this very angry, racist man. And the reason Rocky throws the fight is because he doesn’t want to be involved in this kind of world. He says, ‘I would just rather be who I was and just have all this hatred around me and so on.’”

Luckily he had a fierce critic: his then-wife Sasha Czack. “And she goes. ‘Oh. I don’t like it. Rocky seems so nasty,’” Stallone recalled. “Because I had made him very street-like and unrepentant. He did not have the attitude that he eventually ended up with. So I went back and re-wrote and re-wrote.”

Had he not, would the darker Rocky had been a blockbuster that turned him into an instant megastar? Probably not. Rather than gift the world with another cinematic downer, Stallone went the other way, offering audiences beaten down by grim movies — not to mention even more grim times — a respite. Which they enthusiastically took. Indeed, along with the previous year’s Jaws and the next year’s Star Wars, it helped usher in a new, happier time at the movies, laying the foundation for the blockbuster future we live in today.

It’s worth noting, incidentally, that the original Rocky is still pretty dark. Balboa is a sadsack who no one believes in, except for Talia Shire’s Adrienne. And it captures Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia at its grimiest, before it had an icon, even a fictional one like Rocky, it could believe in. Still, things could have been worse.

You can watch the full, old interview below.

(Via THR)

For nearly two decades, Hugh Jackman kept his body shredded and those claws razor sharp as he took on the role of X-Men‘s Wolverine across nine 21st Century Fox films, and it looks he might be back at it again. While the actor stated his role in Logan would be the last time he reprised his arguably most iconic role, earlier this week Jackman shared two posts on his Instagram story that sent fans into quite the frenzy and might be foreshadowing his return to Marvel and (thanks to Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox) big debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first image Jackman shared was one Wolverine fan art created by popular artist Bosslogic. This post was then followed by a photo of Jackman standing next to Marvel Studio’s chief creative officer Kevin Feige.

While the first image doesn’t feel too unusual for Jackman to share — after all, who doesn’t appreciate some good fan art? — the second image raised several eyebrows. While the picture is merely a simple shot of reported friends Feige and Jackman standing next to one another, its lack of caption and context outside of following a picture of Wolverine is a bit incriminating. In addition, the MCU’s current trajectory makes the possibility of Jackman’s return feel not only possible, but pretty damn likely and seamless.

After acquiring 21st Century Fox back in 2019, fans have been waiting for the X-Men to be introduced to the current MCU. All throughout WandaVision, we got hints of how that might happen that led to us speculate just how the two universes will connect. As we learn more about Marvel’s fourth phase films, it seems plausible that the X-Men might make an appearance either in Shang-Chi‘s Madripoor scene or Doctor Strange in the Mulriverse of Madness. Regardless of how, there are certainly ample ways for Marvel to introduce Wolverine into the MCU — whether through cameo or major role — and it’s seemingly more likely it might happen soon.

Kayleigh McEnany is nothing but consistent. She lied about never telling lies while serving as press secretary — her upcoming book about “what really happened within the Trump administration” will almost certainly be filled with blatant lies and disinformation — and on Tuesday, she made one of her boldest inaccurate claims yet.

While appearing on Fox News, McEnany criticized Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) for tweeting, “When they say that the 4th of July is about American freedom, remember this: the freedom they’re referring to is for white people. This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free.” She said, “The haters never take a day off from hating, that is clear. And they never take a day off from getting the facts wrong. We know most of our forefathers, all of our main Founding Fathers, were against slavery, recognized the evils of it.”

There’s a lot wrong here, beginning with McEnany’s assertion that “the haters never take a day off from hating.” That’s maybe not the best way to get your point across (“The haters never take a day off from hating, yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth…”). More to the point, of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 41 of them owned slaves. McEnany might try to claim that by “main Founding Fathers,” she means George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, none of whom signed the Declaration of Independence, but Washington and Madison were not “against slavery,” and Hamilton may have been a slave owner as well. Thomas Jefferson, a “main” Founding Father who did sign, alone enslaved over 600 people.

We should expect nothing less from McEnany, but it was still an incredible, well, declaration.

As the dust settles from Donald Trump’s presidency, which culminated in a failed insurrection that violently breached the U.S. Capitol building, audiences’ interest in political news has been plummeting. In an effort to keep eyeballs, Fox News is turning to the one area that’s continue to grow while politics is fading: the weather.

Citing reports that The Weather Channel has seen a 7 percent boost as audiences at MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News have dropped almost 38 percent, Fox News is making an aggressive move into meteorology, according to The New York Times:

“All the networks are ramping up for this,” said Jay Sures, a co-president of United Talent Agency who oversees its TV division. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that climate change and the environment will be the story of the next decade.” One of his firm’s clients, Ginger Zee, the chief meteorologist at ABC News, now has 2.2 million Twitter followers — more than any ABC News personality besides George Stephanopoulos.

According to the Times, Fox is already poaching top talent from The Weather Channel, whose parent company welcomes the “competition.” But as the two monoliths prepare to go head-to-head over who tells America when it’s going to rain, people on social media are obviously concerned about how a right-wing, climate-change-denying network like Fox will cover the weather. The consensus? Probably not well.

In addition to rolling out his second album USee4Yourself, IDK also recently announced his partnership with athletic wear giant Nike, tweeting, “Im officially apart of the Swoosh family” ahead of releasing the album’s third single, “Pradadabang” featuring Young Thug. Although the details of just what IDK — who is close with Kevin Durant, a longtime member of Nike’s stable of endorsed athletes — will do with the Swoosh remain out of reach, he did put the new partnership to good use recently, sharing the wealth with his community by handing out free pairs of signed Supreme Dunks in his neighborhood.

So far, the PG County rapper has released two more singles from the album, the Offset-featuring “Shoot My Shot” (which also received a civic pride-fueled go-go remix courtesy of New Impressionz) and “Peloton,” which he released as he announced the new album’s release date, which is this Friday, June 9. IDK also launched a music business program at Harvard University aiming to teach students how jobs in the recording industry work.

Watch IDK give out free pairs of Nike’s above.

USee4Yourself is out 7/9 via Clue No Clue/Warner Records. Pre-order it here.

IDK is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson: Season 2 (Netflix series) — Get ready for more insanely absurdist (and almost therapeutically refreshing) sketch comedy from creator and writer Tim Robinson. He’s back with partner Zach Kanin for more of turning the most mundane and bizarre life moments into shouty hilarity, and guest stars this season include Bob Odenkirk, Sam Richardson, Paul Walter Hauser, Tim Heidecker, and many more. If you haven’t had the pleasure of digging into Robinson’s work, and you love Adam Sandler and Chris Farley’s exaggerated humor, yet crowned with an especially self-aware twist, you must plop this show into your queue.

Loki: Episode 5 (Disney+ series, releasing in the wee hours of Wednesday morning) — Tom Hiddleston has an absolute blast playing the mercurial trickster of the MCU, and we shall reap the benefits while he helps (or hinders) the Time Variance Authority during the process of cleaning up the timeline. This week, we’ll see more cleanup following Sylvie and Mobius and Loki, and there are too many Lokis, but hey, it’s all good. We’re also closing in on season finale time.

Motherland: Fort Salem: Season 2 (Freeform, 10:00pm) — In this world, witches not only enlist in the U.S. Army, but they also use their spells to rule the world and take down terrorists, who are (in turn) hell-bent upon getting witches out of the military. This week, Abigail’s adjusting to a new role, Tally’s struggling with bad dreams, and Raelle’s hoping to impress the top brass.

The Flash (CW, 8:00pm) — Barry receives a weapon from John Diggle in hopes of halting the Godspeed War while Allegra and Ultraviolet find their new bond tested.

Mental Samurai (FOX 9:00pm) — Is Rob Lowe on every show now? Not quite, but Season 2 continues with Mr. Handsome welcoming contestants and throwing out interactive questions and puzzles to challenge everyone’s memory. This week, expect to see a veterinarian, a valedictorian, an Army veteran, and a former NFL player going up against each other.

Mr Inbetween (FX, 10:00 & 10:30pm) — This season, Ray’s life is looking different while Brittany is growing ever-closer to discovering who Ray really is and what he does, which is doing the hitman thing while holding onto his own strict ethical code and balancing his family life. Meanwhile, severing ties with Freddy complicates matters when a criminal kingpin makes Ray’s struggle feel even more intense.

In case you missed this streaming pick from last week:

The Legend Of The Underground (HBO, 9:00pm) — This documentary film takes on Nigeria’s anti-LGBT climate [including 2013’s Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill, which did result in high-profile arrests] while showcasing a defiant, nonconformist younger generation that pushes forth to live life how they see fit. What follows is a vigorous cultural debate regarding human rights in Nigeria, which sees rampant discrimination against those who don’t adhere to gender-conformity ideals. John Legend co-executive produces, and the film’s directed by Nneka Onuorah and Giselle Bailey.

The Atlanta Dream announced on Monday that they’ve suspended star point guard Chennedy Carter until further notice for “conduct detrimental to the team.”

Carter played just five minutes and 34 seconds on Sunday in a 23-point loss to the Las Vegas Aces, not appearing at all after the first quarter. What exactly happened isn’t yet clear, though The Next’s Spencer Nusbaum reported that “a player tried to talk to Chennedy Carter during a timeout and Carter got mad.” Girls Talk Sports TV’s Khristina Williams reported that an “altercation occurred on [the] team bench.” The Dream reported mid-game that Carter would not return and specified that it was not due to an injury.

It’s noteworthy that the Dream didn’t suspend Carter for a set period of time — especially since the team plays just two more games before a month-long break during the Olympics. Nothing has indicated that the Dream are shopping Carter, but with a whole lot of downtime, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear teams working up trade offers for the 22-year-old 2020 No. 4 pick ahead of the August 21 deadline.

Teammate Courtney Williams has spoken about the Carter incident, forcefully denying a since-deleted report about a physical altercation in the locker room.

Dream owner Renee Montgomery also put out a statement on Twitter, too

In 11 games this season, Carter is averaging 14.2 points on 45.5 percent shooting from the field with 3.3 assists, 1.3 rebounds, and 2.1 turnovers. In her rookie season, she averaged 17.4 points per game on 47.3 percent shooting from the field and 37.5 percent shooting from 3-point range with 3.4 assists and 2.3 rebounds.

Just past the midway point, the Dream are 6-11, good for 10th place in a 12-team league. It’s been a rocky start for Atlanta, which saw its head coach, Nicki Collen, leave the team just two weeks before the start of the season to coach Baylor’s women’s team, and fired general manager Chris Sienko six days after the draft. Resolving the Carter situation, either internally or with a move, now takes top priority for a team still trying to build a foundation.

Keith Davidson, a 94-year-old retired district court judge lost Evy, his dear wife of 66 years in April 2016. The feeling of grief and loss was overwhelming.

“You just can’t imagine what it’s like,” he said. “You cry a lot. That’s just the way it is because she’s not here,” he told “Boyd Huppert’s Land of 10,000 Stories,” in a story that first appeared in 2017.

After living in a house that felt far too quiet for over a year, he decided to open his home to the kids of the neighborhood by building a pool. Davidson lives in the small town of Morris, Minnesota where there is no place for the community to swim.

“This spring when I saw him marking the yard, I told my husband, he’s really going to put a pool in his backyard,” his neighbor Jessica Huebner said. Davidson has led an active life, he’s a bass and tuba player with area musical organizations and was a radio operator for the Army in World War II.

Davidson went all out with his pool, it’s 32 feet long, 16-feet wide, and nine feet deep under the diving board, a pretty big undertaking for a man in his 90s.

94-year-old retired judge puts in pool for neighborhood kids

www.youtube.com

After the pool was completed in July 2017, neighborhood families flocked to Davidson’s backyard. “I knew they’d come,” Davison said, laughing.

“Now we’re going to be here every day,” said Jaime Mundal, a neighborhood mom.

The judge has three children, but no grandchildren. So the young company is more than welcome. His pool rules require a parent or grandparent to be present when children are swimming.

“You kind of adopted our whole neighborhood of kids, these are your grandkids,” Huebner told Davidson. “It’s him spreading joy throughout our neighborhood for these kids,” Huebner told “10,000 Stories.”

Now, instead of being stuck in the house on sunny afternoons, Davidson watches the kids splash around his yard, knocking around volleyballs, and sucking down fruit punch.

He takes it all in from his lawn chair.

“I’m not sitting by myself looking at the walls,” he smiled. Besides, Davison asks, “What else would you think of doing where you could have a whole bunch of kids over every afternoon?”

However, the kids aren’t the only ones having fun at Davidson’s house. He likes to jump in for a dip himself from time to time.

Davidson’s decision to open his home to the community at the age of 94 was a wonderful way for him to help his neighbors as well as himself. Grief experts say that one of the best ways for widows and widowers to overcome the tremendous feeling of loss is to get back into enjoying life by socializing and spending time with people who share the same hobbies.

Hanging around with children all day is also a great way for a nonagenarian to stay young.