While some movie studios weathered the COVID-19 storm by releasing movies to streaming services instead of theaters, Tom Cruise insists he was “never” going to do that with his latest project, Top Gun: Maverick.
“That was not going to happen ever,” the actor and producer tells The Hollywood Reporter. “That was never going to happen.”
The sequel — enjoying a sky-high 97% ratings on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes — was delayed several times by the pandemic, but will now finally land in theaters May 24.
He tells the trade even in the darkest days of the pandemic, when movie theaters were shuttered, he was optimistic. In fact, he explained he called each of his younger co-stars, including Miles Teller, Danny Ramirez, Monica Barbaro and Glen Powell, each time the film was delayed to say, “Don’t worry, this is going to happen.”
Cruise, whose career was just saluted at the Cannes Film Festival, also mentioned his drive to do his own stunts in each of his films. And yes, that includes flying in Maverick. “No one asked Gene Kelly, ‘Why do you dance? Why do you do your own dancing?'” Cruise said.
And speaking of Top Gun, fans can head over to WhatsMyCallSign.com and open your camera to get your own pilot callsign — and model your flight helmet via AR technology.
Train has released a new single from their upcoming album AM Gold: “Cleopatra,” featuring Mexican singer/songwriter Sofía Reyes, who’s also collaborated with Lauv, Michael Bublé and Jason Derulo, among others.
“It’s an HONOR for me to share a song with Train. They are LEGENDS and the fact that they chose me for this song is unbelievable,” says Sofía in a statement. “[I’m] very grateful!! It’s a fun one, I have a good feeling about it!”
Train’s Pat Monahan says of the Latin-flavored tune, “What began as a simple conversation, ended in love’ was something Mark Antony said, and that’s what happened with me and this song ‘Cleopatra.’ And then Sofía Reyes came in and made it that much better.”
A video for the song is coming soon.
AM Gold, which arrives Friday, also features the previously released songs “Turn the Radio Up,” featuring Jewel, “Running Back (Trying to Talk to You),” and the title track.
As previously reported, Train is touring this summer with Jewel and Blues Traveler. The trek gets underway June 8 in Mansfield, MA and is set to wrap up August 6 at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado.
Jane’s Addiction will no longer be playing Welcome to Rockville this weekend, but festivalgoers will still get to see Perry Farrell.
In a statement posted to the Welcome to Rockville Facebook page, Farrell shares that Jane’s won’t be able to play due to guitarist Dave Navarro suffering from a “long bout” of COVID-19. In their stead, Farrell is reuniting his band Porno for Pyros.
The PfP lineup for the performance will include original members Farrell, Stephen Perkins and Peter DiStefeno, as well as bassist Mike Watt of the seminal punk band Minutemen.
Porno for Pyros was founded by Farrell and Perkins, who also plays drums in Jane’s, after the “Been Caught Stealing” outfit broke up in the early ’90s. The group released two albums before calling it quits in 1998.
In 2009, the original PfP lineup — which also included bassist Martyn LeNoble — reunited to play Farrell’s 50th birthday party. The lineup featuring Watt then got back together in 2020 to play a couple songs on the Lollapalooza 2020 streaming concert, which was held in lieu of the usual in-person festival due to the pandemic.
The Welcome to Rockville performance will mark the first full, public, in-person Porno for Pyros show in 26 years.
Welcome to Rockville takes place May 19-22 in Daytona Beach, Florida. Headliners include Nine Inch Nails, Guns N’ Roses, KISS and Korn.
If you had your heart set on seeing Jane’s, you can catch them during their recently announced tour with The Smashing Pumpkins, which launches in October.
Special CMA Fest programming continues to roll out this week, as the calendar fills in for the multiday country music festival headed to Nashville this June.
Jimmie Allen will appear on the CMA Close Up Stage in a panel discussing his children’s book, My Voice is a Trumpet. Trisha Yearwood is also helming an event billed as Up Close and Personal, featuring artists Lauren Alaina and Caitlyn Smith.
Other special events happening on the stage center around artists like Lainey Wilson, Craig Morgan and Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley. The collective Black Opry will take the stage, and Lady A’s Hillary Scott is set to host a female-forward event presented by She is the Music.
Meanwhile, a large group of newcomers will perform on the Spotlight Stage. Among them are Jenny Tolman, Shelby Darrall, Miko Marks and Madison Kozak.
The 2022 CMA Fest will take place June 9-12 in downtown Music City. Luke Combs, Carrie Underwood, Kane Brown, Jason Aldean and many more big names will take the main stage at Nissan Stadium during the festival.
Travis Scott is giving out $1 million worth of scholarships to students graduating from HBCUs in 2022.
By way of his Cactus Jack Foundation — an organization launched by the rapper in 2020 to provide Houston youth with educational and creative resources to ensure long-term success — Scott will provide 100 Black students across 38 colleges and universities with $10,000 each.
“Excellence abounds in every Black household, but too often opportunity does not — and Black students are left behind or counted out,” Scott said in a release, as shared by Complex. “So that’s what my family and I set out to change. We congratulate all 100 scholarship recipients this year. I know we will see great things from them –and we are already looking forward to increasing our work next year.”
The fund is named after Scott’s grandfather Waymon Webster, who served as dean of the Prairie View A&M graduate school in Texas, for his dedication to Black excellence.
“My grandfather wanted me to take it all the way through college,” says a note by Scott on the foundation’s homepage. “I feel there is a power in education so to be able to give someone the opportunity to fulfill that dream as my papa thought for me is amazing.”
Students eligible for the scholarship must be a graduating senior with an average GPA of 3.5 or higher who is in need of financial assistance.
It’s been weeks since Kim Kardashian rocked Marilyn Monroe‘s infamous “Happy Birthday” dress at this year’s Met Gala, but the commentary just keeps rolling in, the latest from the dress’s designer, Bob Mackie.
The legendary fashion designer, who sketched the gown for the late icon, told Entertainment Weekly, “I thought it was a big mistake.”
“[Marilyn] was a goddess. A crazy goddess, but a goddess,” he continued. “She was just fabulous. Nobody photographs like that. And it was done for her. It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress.”
There was also concern over the preservation of the gown. Kim wore the exact gown Marilyn wore when she serenaded President John F. Kennedy on his 45th birthday in 1962.
Mackie sketched the dress early in his career while working under the French-born Hollywood costume designer Jean-Louis.
Muscle car met muscle when a shirtless Jason Momoagoofed around with Vin Diesel on the set of the in-production Fast X.
“Jason, what are you doing on this car?” Diesel asks his co-star in the selfie-style video, as a shades-wearing Momoa attempts to seductively slide around on the car’s hood.
“I’m trying to do the new Whitesnake video!” he jokes, referencing the late Tawny Kitaen‘s famous gyrating atop Jaguars in the video to the band’s 1987 hit “Here I Go Again.”
Vin and Jason, who play enemies in the upcoming film, were apparently blowing off steam before shooting a big action scene in the tenth Fast film. “I feel amazing!” Momoa said, jumping off the vehicle and enthusing, “I finally got a Fast car!”
This is gonna be a good one,” Diesel told his nearly 80 million Instagram followers.
Soundgarden has shared a tribute to Chris Cornell to mark the fifth anniversary of his death.
“Five years we have missed you,” the grunge rockers write in an Instagram post. “You have love. You have peace. You have eternity.”
The band adds, “Love and peace for all of Soundgarden’s brothers and sisters.”
Cornell’s widow, Vicky, also shared a statement, which reads in part, “[Five] years ago today, would be the worst day of our lives.
“It would be the last time Chris would hug & kiss us, the last time he’d walk out our front door. The last time he’d wave goodbye to use from the car. The last time we’d ever seem him.”
Vicky also thanks her husband’s fans, writing, “Please know he loved you as much as you love him.”
“He was so grateful to be able to make music, perform all over the world, have his music & lyrics touch your heart & impact your lives. He loved receiving love from all of you.”
(NEW YORK) — Women who play soccer for the United States will now earn the same amount as men in a landmark equal pay win.
U.S. Soccer and the unions for both the men’s and women’s national teams announced Wednesday they reached a new collective bargaining agreement that will achieve “equal pay and set the global standard moving forward in international soccer.”
Under the agreement, players on the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) and the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) will receive the same pay, including appearance fees and game bonuses, and be provided the same working conditions. While women’s players previously had guaranteed salaries, they will now have the same pay-to-play structure as the men’s players.
The two teams will also pool their World Cup prize money, which is unequally distributed by FIFA, the international governing body, and share the money equally, becoming the first soccer federation in the world to do so, according to the agreement.
“This is a truly historic moment,” U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone said in a statement. “These agreements have changed the game forever here in the United States and have the potential to change the game around the world.”
“Finally,” Molly Levinson, an adviser to the USWNT players in their fight for equal pay, told ABC News about the agreement. “Let this be a resounding call to every league, every sport, every workplace, every workforce, every C-suite, every boardroom.”
The USWNT’s win on equal pay has been years in the making.
In 2016, a group of players filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint against the USWNT over inequality in pay and treatment.
The following year, the women’s team reached an agreement with the USSF for the EEOC complaint. The agreement included direct and bonus pay increases and per diems equal to the men’s team, according to ESPNW, as well as improved travel and financial support for pregnant players or players looking to adopt children. While it was an improvement, it was still unequal.
In 2019, the USWNT filed an equal pay lawsuit that blasted soccer’s national governing body for allegedly paying mere “lip service” to gender equality and dishing out markedly more pay to the men’s team.
The lawsuit, filed in California federal court on International Women’s Day, cited not just pay but also the denial of “at least equal playing, training, and travel conditions; equal promotion of their games; equal support and development for their games; and other terms and conditions of employment.”
“We know in our hearts, and we know with the facts that we have, that we’re on the right side of this,” Megan Rapinoe, a star forward for the team, told ABC News when the lawsuit was filed.
As an example of the pay gap, the lawsuit stated that female players earned $15,000 for making the World Cup team in 2013, while men earned $55,000 for making the team in 2014 and $68,750 in 2018.
The U.S. men’s soccer team did not qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Their best finish was third place — in 1930. The U.S. women’s team, on the other hand, has won the World Cup four times — in 1991, 1999, 2015 and 2019 — and six Olympic medals, most recently winning bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In February, the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) reached a settlement with USWNT on the lawsuit, agreeing to pay $22 million to the players in the case as well as an additional $2 million into an account to benefit the USWNT players in their post-career goals and charitable efforts related to women’s and girls’ soccer.
“This is just such a monumental step forward in feeling valued, feeling respected, and just mending our relationship with U.S. Soccer,” USWNT player Alex Morgan told ABC News at the time the settlement was announced. “I not only see this as a win for our team or women’s sports but women in general.”
Rapinoe and Morgan have both been at the forefront of the fight for equal pay, not only for USWNT but for all women.
On average, women working full-time, year-round are paid 83 cents for every dollar paid to men, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a policy-focused organization that fights for gender justice.
Last year, Rapinoe testified before Congress on the issue of equal pay, telling lawmakers, “If it can happen to us and it can happen to me with the brightest lights shining on us at all times, it can and it does happen to every person who is marginalized by gender.”
“What we’ve learned and what we continue to learn is there’s no level of status, and there is no accomplishment or power, that will protect you from the clutches of inequality,” Rapinoe said in her testimony. “One cannot simply outperform inequality or be excellent enough to escape discrimination of any kind.”
Luke Combs is filling in more of the details about his upcoming third studio album, Growin’ Up. The country star shared the full track list for the project on his social media this week, and it includes a few live favorites — and one superstar duet.
Megawatt duets aren’t a new thing for Luke, who included a collaboration with Eric Church called “Does to Me” on his last album.
This time around, the song in question is called “Outrunnin’ Your Memory,” a collaboration with Miranda Lambert. Luke had previously teased that the album would feature a duet, and hinted at a few more facts about the album in the days leading up to the track list announcement.
“Crazy thing is, I’ve only ever posted about or played lived 6 of the 12 songs on the new album, so y’all have never heard half the songs,” he wrote earlier in May.
Now that it’s out, the track list features several familiar titles — like “Tomorrow Me” and the lead single “Doin’ This” — but there’s plenty of never-before-heard stuff in the mix.
Fans will get the chance to hear a little bit more of the album before it comes out in full: Luke says that track three off the project, “The Kind of Love We Make,” will be coming out ahead of release day, on June 17.
Growin’ Up will arrive in full the next week, on June 24.
