The Netflix top-10 is always a wild ride, but its especially chaotic right now. Space Force is still up there at #9, which makes sense considering how popular The Office continues to be, as does the final season of 13 Reasons Why (#7), but how does one possibly explain the 2014 animated squirrel comedy The Nut Job at #6, or the Amy Poehler and Tina Fey-starring Baby Mama at #8, or something called Lost Bullet, which looks like a French Fast and Furious, at #4? The top two slots are particularly unhinged, with the previous #1, Polish erotic drama 365 Days (think: Fifty Shades of Grey with a lower budget, but more nudity), at two and competition series Floor Is Lava in the top spot, of course.

Much like Christian Grey in the bedroom, Netflix viewers’ tastes are very… singular.

As you can probably guess, Floor Is Lava is based on the game of the same name, where the floor is — and I cannot stress this enough — lava. (The Wikipedia entry helpfully notes that the “game is similar to the traditional children’s game ‘Puss in the Corner,’ or ‘Puss Wants a Corner,’ where children occupying the corner of a room are ‘safe,’ while the Puss, the player who is ‘It’ in the middle of the room, tries to occupy an empty corner as the other players dash from one corner to another.” Sounds like the 365 Days sequel.) How did Netflix get 10 episodes out of jumping from one thing to another?

Here’s how.

Oooh, now I get the concept. 365 Days was the most-watched title in the United States (and it reached the top-three in “Germany, Lithuania, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey, Sweden, Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Romania, South Africa, Portugal, India, the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain, Mauritius, Canada, and Israel,” according to TV Guide) for over a week, but the boat scene has finally met its match.

Honestly? I get it. Floor is Lava is good.

Weird to think that “Floor is Lava Tops Polish Erotic Drama to Become the Most-Watched Title on Netflix” isn’t even among the 500 wildest headlines from 2020.

(Via Forbes)

Disney+ decided to work a lot harder, like a certain infamous Hamilton line, to launch the cinematic version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original Broadway production way earlier than planned. Only a few short weeks remain before fans (many of whom were no doubt unable to secure hard-to-find tickets to the live show) can experience the Pulitzer and Tony award-winning musical in their living rooms, and July 3 should strike a celebratory tone in a year where one is welcomed.

To that end, Disney+ released the first trailer ahead of Hamilton‘s arrival on its streaming platform. All of this will look familiar to viewers, but it’s no less an exciting and spine-tingling sight to witness. Disney+ reportedly paid $75 million to acquire the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brainchild, and people are still wondering if curse words shall be censored, but whatever the case, this will be an experience for fans.

Pull out your wigs and get your Founding Father cosplay ready. Disney+ hopes to bring the excitement of a theater (while NYC is sorely missing Broadway productions) into living rooms by way of “live capture,” which aims to harness the power of streaming in an intimate manner. Given Hamilton‘s cultural impact and powerful, inspiring messages, its arrival near Independence Day couldn’t be more welcomed, especially in 2020.

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There was no doubt that the first four seasons of AMC’s Better Call Saul were about Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) transforming into Saul Goodman. Anyone who has seen Breaking Bad knew where Jimmy McGill would ultimately end up, and Saul basically filled us in on the detailed backstory. What no one saw coming — because we all underestimated her — is that the fifth season would be about Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) “breaking bad.”

It worked, however, because, while it was unexpected, it’s a story that Saul has been telling since the beginning. “I feel lucky that I did not think of this as one giant arc of this mask coming off,” Seehorn said this weekend during Deadline’s virtual Contenders Television event. “It was for me, filling in the jigsaw puzzle, taking the pieces that are there in these brilliant scripts that have as much loaded in not speaking as speaking. I don’t know where we are going, but I feel very lucky that I was allowed to play it honestly, incrementally, a step at a time.”

It may be one of the slowest burns in television history, but as Bob Odenkirk noted at the same event, the fifth season of Saul saw “the stakes of” McGill’s choice to become Saul Goodman, which included nearly getting Saul, Kim, and Mike all killed by Lalo. With Lalo still alive — and now angry that Gus Fring and Nacho tried to have him killed — the lives of everyone on this series are precarious. We at least know that Saul Goodman, Gus Fring, and Mike Ehrmantraut will survive the final season, because we see them in Breaking Bad. We cannot say the same thing about Kim Wexler, and as the series heads into its final batch of episodes, showrunner Peter Gould warns viewers of the potential heartbreak to come.

“We have a lot of ideas about where Jimmy and Kim are going,” Gould hinted at the Deadline event. “There’s some ideas which I am so excited about, but there is also a lot of sadness to where this is going.” Given the fact that we do not see Kim in Breaking Bad or in the Omaha flash-forwards with Gene Takovic, the sadness may allude to Jimmy and Kim’s break-up or worse. Should we be worried about Kim’s fate?

Vince Gilligan, who co-created the series along with Gould, noted last year that the ending of Saul will be “better” than that of Breaking Bad. Note, however, that he said “better,” not “happier.” In other words, yes: We should definitely be worried.

Production of the final season of Better Call Saul is expected to begin later this year, with the final 13 episodes airing in 2021.

(Via Deadline)

Social media was flooded with photos of dads and their children yesterday, since June 21 was Father’s Day. Many musicians weighed in, and one of them was Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl, who penned a lengthy and heartfelt tribute to his father.

Taking to his storytelling Instagram page, Grohl began:

“‘YOUR WRITING HAS PUNCH, DAVID. PUNCH IS POWER!’ After all these years, this simple message, my first words of true validation as a fledgling writer, has never left me. It echoes in my mind like a long canyon scream each time I sit down to a blank page, and inspires my to fill it with my true voice. […]  It only makes sense that this particular validation wasn’t given by any of the poor, frustrated educators I left in my wake. No, it came from a truly brilliant writer who shaped my love (and fear) of the written word. The man, the myth, the legend … my father, James Harper Grohl.”

He went on to explain his father’s upbringing and some of the conflicts he and his old man had over the years, and described his dad as “a true Renaissance man,” an “actor, writer, award-winning journalist, lover of art and food, and a ferocious, classically trained musician.”

After hundreds of words, Grohl concluded his post, “My father was my first, and best, reader. It was through him that I found my love of writing, filling me with the same sense of purpose and accomplishment that I felt that night at the Bethesda Community Center as a rebellious teen. So much that I’ve even contemplated trying my hand at writing a book someday. Imagine that. Just call it ‘kicking the apple back up the hill a bit. If only he were still around to read it.”

Find Grohl’s full post below.

During a re-election campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, over the weekend, Donald Trump risked thousands of lives to prove that he can drink a glass of water with one hand.

The heroic feat was part of a 15-minute story where the president described, in great detail, why the “fakers” were wrong to mock him for gingerly walking down a ramp at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and needing two hands to take a sip of water earlier this month. Or as the New York Times described it, “Mr. Trump held the glass with his right hand and brought it to his mouth, but appeared to momentarily have trouble lifting his arm farther. He used his left hand to push the bottom of the glass so that it reached his lips.” Here’s the Tulsa video, should you want to see the CGI-free spectacle.

Incredible stuff. To mock the president’s H2O-based grudge holding, actor Henry Winkler took to Twitter to prove that he, too, can drink a glass of water with only one hand. In the 13-second video, captioned “one hand,” the bearded Happy Days and Barry actor dramatically threw one hand behind his back while raising a glass and taking a sip.

It’s my favorite movie of the summer.

No wonder Winkler shares so much fish photos — my man loves his water.

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Justin Bieber was recently the target of a sexual assault allegation. Now, the singer has offered a response, and it’s much more than a simple “I didn’t do it” denial. Instead, Bieber provided detailed evidence about why what is said to have happened is “factually impossible.”

An anonymous woman claimed Bieber sexually assaulted her at a Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas in 2014, but Bieber said he was never there. Bieber began a series of tweets last night, “I don’t normally address things as I have dealt with random accusations my entire career but after talking with my wife and team I have decided to speak up on an issue tonight. Rumors are rumors but sexual abuse is something I don’t take lightly. I wanted to speak out right away but out of respect to so many victims who deal with these issues daily I wanted to make sure I gathered the facts before I made any statement.”

He continued, “In the past 24 hours a new Twitter appeared that told a story of myself involved with sexual abuse on March 9, 2014 in Austin Texas at the Four seasons hotel. I want to be clear. There is no truth to this story. In fact as I will soon show I was never present at that location.”

From there, he laid out his side of the story, sharing evidence of his claims. He wrote, “As her story told I did surprise a crowd in Austin at Sxsw where I appeared on stage with my then assistant side stage and sang a few songs. What this person did not know was that I attended that show with my then gf Selena Gomez.”

He also suggested why the accuser’s story said he was at the Four Seasons, pointing to a tweet about him being there that was later clarified to note that Bieber was at the Four Seasons restaurant, not the hotel. He also shared receipts for his stay at an Airbnb on March 9, 2014 and for his stay at a Westin hotel the next night.

After presenting his case, Bieber concluded, “Every claim of sexual abuse should be taken very seriously and this is why my response was needed. However this story is factually impossible and that is why I will be working with twitter and authorities to take legal action.”

Read Bieber’s tweets below.

In recent years, as studios and networks have all made the move toward streaming to take on the current undisputed leader, Netflix, the streaming service has continued to add to its own original catalogue by luring away showrunning talent from other networks, like Kenya Barris (Black-ish), Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story), and Shonda Rhimes. Shondaland’s first series hasn’t arrived to Netflix yet, but Kenya Barris has found some success with #blackaf, and Ryan Murphy has done well, so far, with The Politician and Hollywood. Netflix has also poached David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and Michelle and Barack Obama, too.

However, in the last 13 months, Netflix has released three series worldwide, all from the same moderately well known New Jersey mystery novelist. His name is Harlan Coben, and he may be the current King of Netflix. Coben has a five-year deal with the streaming network, in which he has agreed to 14 movie and television adaptations. The deal likely came about after Netflix discovered how popular The Five — a British adaptation of a Harlen Coben novel for Sky1 — did after it was licensed by the streamer.

Since then, we have seen Safe, starring Michael C. Hall; The Stranger, starring Richard Armitage; and The Woods, starring Grzegorz Damięcki. While the three series are not connected, they all share some common DNA: Someone goes missing or is murdered, there’s lots of twists, and the leading men are the strong, quiet, and brooding types. All three series are also insanely bingeable: It’s never taken me more than two days to watch an entire season. Each of the television series, in fact, share similar qualities with a good mystery novel: They’re bleak, but not too bleak, and each episode feels like a chapter ending. They are such good page-turners, moreover, that it’s impossible to put down the remote.

What’s interesting is that Coben is U.S.-based, and all of his novels are set in New Jersey or New York, but Netflix is plugging the same stories into other settings, which makes them more friendly to the streaming service’s international audiences. The Safe and The Stranger were set in Britain (and it’s strange to hear Michael C. Hall with a British accent), while The Woods is only the second original Polish series ever on Netflix. Meanwhile, Coben’s next one, The Innocent, will be set in Madrid. It really speaks to the universal appeal of Coben’s stories (in fact, the first film adaptation of a Coben novel, Tell No One, was French). It’s also why Coben is so popular on the streaming network: While Barris and Murphy’s series are more American-centered, Coben’s series can literally be set anywhere in the world where there is a city for the investigation and woods outside of it to bury the bodies.

He’s not a huge name, and his series are not splashy, nor do they feature huge celebrities, but Harlan Coben may be the most successful creative associated with Netflix over the last 13 months. With another 11 adaptations coming over the next few years, signing the mystery novelist may end up being a one of the biggest steals for Netflix of the streaming era.

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