Category: 5. Entertainment

Warning: spoilers ahead for “F1.”

“F1” could be on the road to getting a sequel after it broke box office records in its opening weekend.

Joseph Kosinski, the film’s director, said in interviews published by GQ and Entertainment Weekly last weekend that it’s up to the audience to decide if a sequel should be made.

So far, things are looking good.

The racing drama is already being dubbed a hit after it topped box office charts in its opening weekend, grossing $144 million worldwide. In the US, “F1” beat the record for the best domestic debut for an original movie held since 2020, which was broken earlier this year by “Sinners.”

“F1” is also Apple’s most successful theatrical debut. The movie was produced by the tech company’s original film branch, which has until now struggled to make box office hits.

F1 has grown in popularity in recent years thanks to shows like Netflix’s documentary series “Drive to Survive” and social media platforms like TikTok, Twitch, and podcasts.

Capitalizing on the trend, “F1” follows APXGP, an underdog Formula 1 racing team as it tries to win its first race and establish itself.

Damson Idris plays Joshua Pearce, a rookie for APXGP who represents the modern F1 driver. JP is forced to act like a celebrity by attending influencer parties, modeling, and constantly smiling for the camera.

Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a veteran racer whose F1 career was ruined by a near-fatal crash, is the opposite. He’s a rulebreaker who refuses to engage with the press, but APXGP is desperate, since the board plans to sell the team if they do not win their next competition.

“I think we leave it on a really open-ended moment for Sonny, for Kate, and for Joshua,” Kosinski told GQ, referring to Kerry Condon’s character Kate, who was APXGP’s technical director. “So yeah, I think there’s certainly more to tell of the APXGP team, and where Sonny Hayes goes from here. But that’s not my decision.”

The ‘F1’ director proposed a ‘Days of Thunder’ crossover starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt

In the interview with GQ, Kosinski was asked to pitch a film idea starring Tom Cruise and Pitt, as he worked with them in his last two films, “F1” and “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Kosinski suggested the film could be a crossover with the 1990s racing drama “Days of Thunder,” which starred Tom Cruise as a rookie NASCAR driver trying to win the Daytona 500.

Kosinski’s pitch was: “Well, right now, it’d be Cole Trickle, who was [Cruise’s] ‘Days of Thunder’ character, we find out that he and Sonny Hayes have a past. They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths.

“I heard about this epic go-kart battle on ‘Interview with a Vampire’ that Brad and Tom had, and who wouldn’t pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?” he added, referring to the 1994 movie, which starred both actors.

While the crossover movie is only an idea, Cruise did show up at the “F1” premiere.

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Cruise and Pitt almost starred together in the Oscar-winning racing drama “Ford v. Ferrari.” When Kosinski was chosen as the movie’s director, they were going to play the rival lead characters, Shelby and Miles.

Kosinski told GQ that he, Pitt, and Cruise left the movie when the studio couldn’t meet his proposed budget, and James Mangold decided on a different cast.

UPDATED: The BBC has issued a statement regarding the controversy sparked by Bob Vylan‘s Glastonbury set on Saturday, with the broadcaster saying it “should have pulled” the livestream of the performance. UTA has also dropped the band as a client, sources tell Variety, and an official criminal investigation has been launched.

The punk-rap duo led the crowd in several chants during their show on Saturday afternoon — right before Irish rap group Kneecap’s highly anticipated set on the West Holts stage — including “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces].”

While the BBC did not air Kneecap’s performance after recent controversy over their political statements — leading to member Mo Chara recently being charged under the U.K.’s Terrorism Act — Bob Vylan’s set was shown live. In addition to the “death to the IDF” chant, Bob Vylan also led the crowd in chanting “free, free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.”

“The team were dealing with a live situation but with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance. We regret this did not happen,” the BBC said on Monday. “The BBC respects freedom of expression but stands firmly against incitement to violence. The antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves. In light of this weekend, we will look at our guidance around live events so we can be sure teams are clear on when it is acceptable to keep output on air.”

A police investigation has also been officially launched into both Bob Vylan and Kneecap’s comments. An update from the Avon and Somerset Police on Monday reads in part: “Following the completion of that assessment process we have decided further enquiries are required and a criminal investigation is now being undertaken. A senior detective has been appointed to lead this investigation. This has been recorded as a public order incident at this time while our enquiries are at an early stage. The investigation will be evidence-led and will closely consider all appropriate legislation, including relating to hate crimes.”

On Sunday, Glastonbury organizers said they were “appalled” by Bob Vylan’s statements. “Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence,” the festival said in a statement.

Later on Sunday, lead singer Bobby Vylan put out a statement via Instagram with the caption “I said what I said,” writing: “It is incredibly important that we encourage and inspire future generations to pick up the torch that was passed to us. Let us display to them loudly and visibly the right thing to do when we want and need change. Let them see us marching in the streets, campaigning on ground level, organizing online and shouting about it on any and every stage that we are offered.”

Representatives for Bob Vylan did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment on the BBC’s statement.

Deadline was the first to report the news about Bob Vylan being dropped by UTA.

This past weekend, the Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez wedding festivities took over Venice, Italy. The multi-day affair included an impressive crew of celebrity guests, including Kim Kardashian, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, Sydney Sweeney, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio and Vittoria Ceretti, and many more. While each star brought their best statement looks to the ceremony (and to the various pre- and after-parties), it was Ceretti who emerged as the best dressed attendee.

Given the Italian model is no stranger to the high-fashion world (she is a regular on the runways and in various campaigns), it’s no surprise that Ceretti nailed Italian glamour throughout the week. It’s in her DNA! She kicked off the wedding celebrations on day one in an archival Dolce & Gabbana gown from 2004. The slinky silhouette had lacing along the sides, and was complete with a floral-trimmed shoulder detail; It felt just as fresh and modern in the present as it did when it initially debuted.

Photo: Getty Images

The next day, Ceretti was spotted doing some shopping in Venice on her down time in a perfect summer frock—a floral chiffon dress in red and white, paired with white ballet flats with ribbon-tied ankles. Around her shoulder, a chic Alaïa bag offered some structure.

For the formal ceremony later in the evening, Ceretti went classic in a black gown with a plunging neckline. Around her neck, a striking diamond necklace took the spotlight. (Boyfriend Leonardo DiCaprio, meanwhile, wore a sleek black tuxedo, but evaded the paparazzi in a black cap.)

The sprawling sci-fi epic “Foundation” (July 11), based on Isaac Asimov’s series of novels, returns for its third season. Starring Lee Pace in multiple roles as versions of a cloned galactic emperor, Jared Harris and Lou Llobell as geniuses tasked with preserving humanity from looming extinction, and Pilou Asbæk as an agent of chaos known as “The Mule,” it’s a heady, complex series that pays off for patient viewers.

Apple (AAPL) also has the fourth and final season of “Acapulco” (July 23), the feel-good, bilingual comedy set at a Mexican resort hotel; “The Wild Ones” (July 11), a nature series about endangered species; and “Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical” (July 18), an animated summer-camp musical from the “Peanuts” gang.

There are also weekly episodes of the sci-fi action comedy “Murderbot” (season finale July 11), the Owen Wilson-led golf comedy “Stick” (season finale July 23), the Victorian-era romantic drama “The Buccaneers,” and Dennis Lehane’s arson drama “Smoke,” which has its moments – including a game-changing twist early on – but mostly fizzles out. Meanwhile, Apple has its first real box-office hit with the Brad Pitt racing drama “F1 The Movie,” but don’t expect it to stream for another few months.

Read more: Will ‘F1’ help Apple finally win one in the movie and streaming race?

Play, pause or stop? Stop. There’s nothing that’s a must-watch. Though you could always catch up with stuff like “The Studio,” “Your Friends and Neighbors,” “Severance,” “Mythic Quest,” “Carême” or “Berlin ER.”

Max ($9.99 a month with ads, $16.99 with no ads, or $20.99 ‘Ultimate’ with no ads)

Max – which Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) will soon return to its former moniker, HBO Max, amid a pending corporate split – has a light lineup in July, but it’s topped by one of the biggest movies of the year, with the streaming premiere of Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster horror thriller “Sinners” (July 4). There’s also the thriller movie “Opus” (July 11), starring Ayo Edebiri as a writer invited to the remote compound of a reclusive pop artist (John Malkovich) and his sychophantic cult; the Zambian family drama “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” (July 4); the subversive rom-com “I Love You Forever” (July 18), about a woman in a toxic relationship; and the horror comedy “Death of a Unicorn” (July 25), starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega as a father and daughter whose weekend getaway goes awry after he accidentally hits and kills a unicorn.

There are also the documentaries “Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print” (July 2), about the groundbreaking feminist magazine, and “Billy Joel: And So It Goes” (July 25), about the Piano Man’s life and musical career. On the sports front, Max has Major League Baseball games (July 1 and 8), NASCAR every Sunday, and the U.S. women’s soccer team playing Canada (July 2).

The pulpy ’70s crime drama “Duster” (season finale July 3), is a fun throwback, with Josh Holloway playing a veteran getaway driver for the mob and Rachel Hilson as a stylish FBI agent intent on taking down his boss. It’s a bit distracting that Holloway is much older than his character should be, but one could argue that cigarettes and a lack of sunscreen made 35 in 1972 look more like 55 in 2025. “Duster” also has, hands-down, the best title sequence currently on TV. And then there are new weekly episodes of the upper-crust period drama “The Gilded Age,” which has really stepped up its game for Season 3; the “Sex and the City” sequel “And Just Like That…”; and the essential news satire “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.”

Play, pause or stop? Stop. “Sinners” aside, there’s not a lot coming in July.

Disney+ ($9.99 a month with ads, $15.99 with no ads)

Marvel’s “Black Panther” spinoff “Ironheart” concludes its first (and likely only) season July 1, with the release of its last three episodes. While fun at times, it’s often clunky to a frustrating degree – which can be said of most of Marvel’s recent releases. But for all its flaws, it obviously doesn’t deserve the hateful review-bombing it has received.

Disney (DIS) also has “Jaws@50: The Definitive Inside Story” (July 15), a documentary about Steven Spielberg’s first blockbuster, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer; the YA movie “Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires” (July 11), set at a supernatural summer camp; Season 21 of “Project Runway” (July 31, see more details under Hulu); and a selection of Hulu and ESPN+ programming, including “High Potential,” “Shogun,” “Paradise” and “English Teacher,” movies including “28 Weeks Later,” “Independence Day” and “Ford v Ferrari,” WNBA games (including the WNBA All-Star Game July 19), golf and Savannah Bananas baseball.

Play, pause or stop? Stop, if your kids will let you. Wait for another month to get more value for your buck.

Amazon’s Prime Video ($14.99 a month with ads, $8.99 without Prime membership, both +$2.99 to avoid ads)

The hit YA romantic drama “The Summer I Turned Pretty” (July 16) returns for its third and final season of summertime love triangles and teen angst. This might not be the end of the story, though, as Amazon execs have floated the possibility of a spinoff.

Amazon (AMZN) also has “Heads of State” (July 2), an explosion-o-rama action movie starring John Cena and Idris Elba as a U.S. president and British prime minister, respectively, who don’t get along but have to rely on each other when they’re targeted by a global conspiracy; “Ballard” (July 9), a “Bosch” spinoff starring Maggie Q as an LAPD detective tackling cold cases; the true-crime docuseries “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders” (July 11); a new season of the sports docuseries “Surf Girls: International” (July 17); and Judge Judy is back with “Justice on Trial” (July 21), featuring reenactments of real controversial trials and appeals.

There are also WNBA games every Thursday, and boxer Manny Pacquiao returns to the ring to fight current welterweight champ Mario “El Azteca” Barrios in a pay-per-view event (July 19).

Play, pause or stop? Stop. Prime Video has a bigger selection than in recent months, but nothing that screams to be watched.

Peacock ($7.99 a month with ads, or $13.99 with no ads)

The throwback mystery-of-the-week series “Poker Face” wraps up its second season July 10, and while it’s not the breath of fresh air that it was in Season 1, it’s still a fun, breezy watch – thanks largely to Natasha Lyonne’s performance as a constantly quipping human lie detector – and perfect for a summer binge.

Comcast’s (CMCSA) Peacock also has Season 2 of the post-apocalyptic demolition-derby series “Twisted Metal” (July 31), the season finale of “Love Island USA” (July 13) and the premiere of its spinoff, “Love Island: Beyond the Villa” (July 13).

The Tour de France is one of the more underrated big sporting events to watch, but Peacock’s daily coverage, which includes easily digestible recaps, is excellent. Pick a rider and follow all the action from July 5-27. There’s also British Open golf (July 16-20), motorsports, Premier League Summer Series (July 26 and 30) and preseason NFL with the Hall of Fame Game (July 31), as the Detroit Lions play the Los Angeles Chargers.

Play, pause or stop? Pause. While “Poker Face” is fun and the Tour de France can be spectacular, it’s not enough to warrant a subscription at the moment.

Need more? Catch up on previous months’ picks at What’s Worth Streaming.

-Mike Murphy

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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Maria Cornejo, winner of the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award, poses with Laura Linney at the 2023 CFDA Fashion Awards.Photo: Getty Images

On Saturday, Zero Maria Cornejo made an announcement on Instagram: “Starting with fall 2025, our focus will shift to the best-selling styles that have become beloved parts of our wardrobes, with an emphasis on producing mindfully with upcycled fabrics in our archives.”

Mindful design—meaning sourcing responsibly made fabrics or using her own leftover inventory—has been at the heart of Cornejo’s practice for years, but this is different. Cornejo and her business partner Marysia Woroniecka are adjusting the way they operate. Relying on existing patterns won’t just eliminate the costs of product development, it will also free up Cornejo for other projects: She’s been organizing her storage facility with an eye to donating pieces to museums in the US and Europe.

Cornejo opened her first store in NoLIta in 1998 and her vision was clear from the beginning. A preference for geometric cuts that never fail to flatter the body helped her build an arty, avant garde clientele: artist Cindy Sherman, model Stella Tennant, actress Chloe Sevigny, jewelry designer Jill Platner. Ten years later, she moved into the boutique she occupies today on Bleecker Street, leading a revitalization of her block. In 2023 she won the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the CFDA.

Independent designers have been hard hit by the economic downturn that began last year, and the situation has only been exacerbated by the US administration’s tariff changes. But the Zero Maria Cornejo brand has a couple of factors going for it: Cornejo has always favored timelessness over trends, and the consistency of her vision has produced a loyal client base. Plus: she’s been designing for 27 years, she has a lot of patterns at her fingertips.

“My goal was always to make clothes that were good heirlooms or good vintage, and not to be disposable,” she said over Zoom. “Of course, I love fashion, but I do like the idea of things being sort of ageless and having longer than a season’s worth of life. And I think the clients like that.” Indeed they seem to. In the comments section of her Instagram post, one customer wrote: “I’ve worn your long Issa dress in a few different fabrics for as long as you’ve made it. Another cheered the decision. “Here’s to the classics! Here’s to evolution!”

Cornejo is all positivity on that Zoom call. “I think it’s a good model, because I think people are really overwhelmed. People are visually oversaturated.” There does seem to be a movement toward simplicity afoot. “We’re giving clients what they want,” said Cornejo. “And we won’t have to work as hard. It’s also like a life decision, you know. We think it will liberate us to get organized and sort of see what, what other things we could do, what other opportunities there are.”

After seven weeks of testimony from more than 30 witnesses, jurors in the high-profile federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs have begun deliberations.

The 12-member jury – made up of eight men and four women – began deliberating on Monday, following closing arguments from both sides that concluded on Friday and lengthy instructions from the judge.

Earlier on Monday, Judge Arun Subramanian told jurors that they were the “sole and exclusive judges of the facts” who are to determine a verdict without bias or prejudice to either of the parties involved.

He emphasized that prosecutors had the burden of proving Combs is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, not proof beyond any possible doubt.

Combs, 55, was arrested in September and faces felony charges: one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and denied the accusations against him.

If convicted, Combs could spend the rest of his life in prison. He has been held without bail at a federal detention center in Brooklyn since his arrest.

Prosecutors allege that for over two decades, Combs led a criminal enterprise, aided by employees and associates, that engaged in, attempted to engage in and worked to cover up crimes including sex trafficking, kidnapping, forced labor, drug distribution, arson and bribery, enticement to engage in prostitution and obstruction of justice.

The government has sought to prove that Combs used violence, threats, money, drugs, intimidation and power to abuse and coerce two of his former girlfriends into participating in “freak-offs”, which were described as drug-fueled sex marathons with hired male escorts.

The defense has insisted throughout the trial that all sexual encounters were consensual and part of a “swingers lifestyle”. They have argued that no criminal conspiracy exists and that Combs is being wrongly prosecuted for his “private” and “personal sex life”.

Throughout the trial, Combs’s lawyers acknowledged past instances of domestic violence, but denied that Combs committed sex trafficking and that any coercion took place.

Since the trial began on 12 May, the jury has reviewed dozens of text messages, videos and receipts. The government called 34 witnesses to the stand, including two of Combs’s former girlfriends, multiple former employees and assistants, several male escorts, stylists, hotel workers, law enforcement agents and well-known figures such as the rapper Kid Cudi and singer Dawn Richard, among others.

Key testimony came from two of Combs’s former girlfriends and alleged victims, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and a woman identified as “Jane”, both of whom described the alleged “freak-offs” in graphic detail and alleged that they were coerced into participating.

They both testified that Combs directed, watched, masturbated to and sometimes filmed the sexual encounters.

The women described times where they said Combs was violent with them and they alleged that Combs would threaten to release explicit videos of them or cut off financial support if they didn’t meet his demands.

During cross-examination, Combs’s lawyers sought to cast Ventura and Jane as willing and consenting participants in the “freak-offs”. Combs’s team presented loving and at times explicit text messages exchanged with Combs – some of which showed the women expressing enthusiasm for the encounters. His lawyers also frequently brought up the role that jealousy and drug use played in their relationships.

Another woman, a former personal assistant who testified under the pseudonym “Mia”, alleged that Combs physically and sexually assaulted her during her employment.

Defense attorneys suggested that she fabricated the allegations, and highlighted social media posts and messages from after the alleged assaults in which Mia praised Combs, calling him a “mentor” and an “inspiration”.

The government rested its case last week. Shortly after, Combs confirmed that he would not be testifying. His legal team also rested its case, but opted not to call any witnesses of its own. Instead, his team submitted evidence to the court and relied on its extensive cross-examinations throughout the trial.

During closing arguments, the prosecution spent nearly five hours outlining the government’s case against Combs, revisiting testimony from several witnesses, and broke down each allegation against Combs.

The prosecution described him as “the leader of a criminal enterprise” who refused to “take no for an answer” and alleged that he was someone who wielded “power, violence and fear to get what he wanted”.

“The defendant was a very powerful man,” she said. “But he became more powerful and more dangerous because of the support of his inner circle and his businesses – the enterprise.”

The defense offered its closing argument on Friday, and told the jurors that the government’s case against Combs was “false” and “exaggerated”.

Combs’s lawyer urged the jury to reject the prosecution’s case against Combs and pushed back against the government’s accusations, disputed various pieces of witness testimony, and challenged the prosecution’s portrayal of Ventura and Jane as sex-trafficking victims.

Combs’s lawyer cast Ventura, the government’s star witness, as a woman with agency, rather than a victim, who willingly participated in the sexual encounters.

The lawyer also pointed to the $20m settlement she received from Combs in 2023 after filing a civil lawsuit accusing him of abuse, which triggered the federal investigation, as well as the the $10m Ventura is expected to receive from the owner of a hotel in Los Angeles where she was assaulted by Combs in 2016.

“If you had to pick a winner in this whole thing, it’s hard not to pick Cassie,” Agnifilo said. “This isn’t about a crime, this is about money.”

Though he did not take the stand, throughout the entire trial, Combs has been engaged and active in his defense, often seen whispering to his lawyers and reacting visibly to testimony.

Earlier this month, the judge warned that Combs could be removed from the courtroom for looking at and “nodding vigorously” at the jury during a cross-examination.

“I think if we had been making her with the expectation that she would be a queer icon, she would have been dismissed by the queer community,” Williams says.

“It was like, if you just commit to the truth of it, making her feel like an authentic, real person, making all the characters real, making the world feel real, making the tone feel consistent, then you stand a better chance of creating a character that can be embraced by a community that loves a bold woman living in the truest expression of herself,” she adds.

M3GAN AS A SEQUEL

“M3GAN 2.0” defies expectations once again by totally reinventing the character that made the franchise a hit. The sequel goes almost full action movie while highlighting the need for AI regulation.

Two years after Gemma and her niece Cady neutralize M3GAN, they’ve resettled in San Francisco. Then, they learn a new robot is on the scene. A military contractor got hold of the leaked code that powered M3GAN and built a new robot: AMELIA, short for Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics and Infiltration Android.

The feds put Gemma and her crew in charge of AMELIA when she, just like M3GAN, begins to go rogue. The only way to end AMELIA? Bring back M3GAN.

Ivanna Sakhno, who portrays AMELIA, tells TODAY.com about joining the franchise as a new enemy.

“There’s definitely a sense of responsibility, because you know how beloved it is by people, so you want to just do it justice,” Sakhno says. “I do have full trust in (director) Gerard (Johnstone) and his vision, and I have to applaud him for being so open to go so far with it and being unpretentious in its craziness. He wasn’t afraid to do something quite different from the first one and take a risk.”

Davis also hopes audiences love the fighting scenes between M3GAN and AMELIA, as they start to see M3GAN as something other than just a villain.

“I think the funny thing about M3GAN is, yes, she’s a villain, but she can also be seen as a hero. But she’s also hilarious, and she’s sassy, and she doesn’t care what you’re saying, she just says it. I think it’s really fun for audiences, because they don’t know what’s going to happen next for her, and they can’t predict it.”

“I also think there’s some kinship between AMELIA and M3GAN — although there’s rivalry and fear that is also felt, they see each other. They’re made of the same seed. But M3GAN is that b—-,” Sakhno says with a smile, before adding, “Respectfully.”

M3GAN AS A TRILOGY — AND BEYOND

While a third installment of “M3GAN” hasn’t yet been greenlit, Williams, while appearing on TODAY on June 24, highlighted the fact there is a number “3” in the title of the films.

“We put a three in the first title, which was a conundrum, and it sort of means we have to be allowed to,” Williams said. “It’s already been there, it’s predestined.”

“That said,” she added, “We are dreaming of a third. We have talked about it and wondered what it would look like, and we’ve had some of those conversations, but we’ll need to see what happens this weekend.”

“M3GAN 2.0” is projecting $10 million in its opening weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, but regardless of whether the franchise becomes a trilogy, the M3GAN Cinematic Universe has already begun, Williams tells TODAY.com.

“You can take a real, deep, important theme that’s hard to talk about and put it into this mixy genre, and then suddenly people are able to talk about it in a bigger way,” Williams says. “And then doing it with ‘M3GAN,’ I realized, you can keep doing this.”

Williams is an executive producer on “SOULM8TE,” a “M3GAN” spinoff set in the same universe, premiering in 2026. The details on the film are minimal, though viewers do know that it follows a man who buys an android to help cope with the loss of his wife.

“From the moment the M3GAN doll was an idea, we were kind of like, because people are people, we just know it’s a matter of time before someone is like, ‘What about this, but for sex?’” Williams says with a smile.

“It’s not just that, obviously, it’s more complicated, and I don’t want to spoil anything or give too many details, but it’s sort of like an R-rated adventure into this world where we get to see M3GAN technology extrapolated into a use case that we do not explore in our franchise,” she continues.

Davis also calls the opportunities within the MCU “endless.”

“Especially because of how prevalent AI is in our society, and because of how uncanny it is,” she says. “Even with the first film, they predicted AI portraits, and then they came out — what are they predicting in this film that’s going to come true?”

Williams hopes that this franchise, which started as a question mark and then became a phenomenon, can spark relevant conversations about the world we’re living in, or about to be.

She points to the themes of the sequel — AI regulation (“not the sexiest”) and parenthood — as an example.

“We feel very strongly about the fact that people need to think about these things and to talk about them more openly. And we’re just hopeful that, as a result of this movie and all the other movies in the cinematic universe, people will have those conversations on the way to the car,” Williams says.

“You can talk about the things that are funny, yeah, whatever. But like later at dinner, when the giggling dies down, it’s like, ‘But really, what are we doing? What is our plan here? What are we going to do about these really intelligent lines of code that we’ve written?’”

For Adam Sandler, there is no event formal enough to keep him from wearing basketball shorts: the 2025 Academy Awards, film premieres, and, naturally, the court. While, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t the only bottoms he owns (he also wears track pants), Sandler has become inextricably linked to baggy athletic gear.

Yesterday, Emily Ratajkowski offered her interpretation of Sandler’s uniform while taking her dog Colombo for a stroll in New York City, donning a pair of burgundy Nike basketball shorts with white stripes, worn low-slung across her hips.

Christopher Peterson / SplashNews.com

EmRata gave the look a sexy spin, styling her oversized, knee-length shorts with a cropped black tube top that showed off her midriff, and a pair of woven ballet flats from Mango. And while Sandler is more partial to aviators and wraparounds, the model accessorized with a pair of green-framed rectangular sunglasses. She finished off her look with a vintage Prada bowling bag.

While we know Emily Ratajkowski would look good in anything, nailing Adam Sandler’s signature look is a feat.

Adam Sandler at the 2025 Academy Awards.

PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty Images

For BlocBoy JB, who worked for years to land a smash on the charts, being a one-hit wonder was a blessing: “Look Alive,” his 2018 smash with Drake, turned him into a sought-after rapper and producer, and he collaborated afterward with Childish Gambino on “This Is America.” For Taylor Gayle Rutherfurd, or GAYLE, who wrote 2022’s kiss-off “abcdefu” in the tradition of CeeLo Green and Harry Nilsson, it was not all roses — TikTokers bullied her for her success, saying, “You don’t deserve to be here.”

Here at Billboard, we view being a one-hit wonder as an achievement, and not just for the streaming, sales and airplay: So many songs that fall into this category are classics in their own right, and it’s only a coincidence of timing, culture and business that their performers did not manage more hits. Anyway, unless you’re a baseball pitcher, being a one-hit wonder is better than being a no-hit wonder.

Below are the 25 most-consumed one-hit wonders of the 21st century, from mass viral crazes like Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” (which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100) and Silento’s “Watch Me” (No. 3 Hot 100 peak) to unexpected lightning bolts like Passenger’s busking signature “Let Her Go” (No. 5) to more broadly successful artists who just happened to moonlight on the Hot 100 like Steve Lacy (“Bad Habit,” No. 1), Jimmy Eat World (“The Middle,” No. 5) and Glass Animals (“Heat Waves,” which hit No. 1 and set an all-time record, too).

Wear a helmet, do the stanky legg and scream “abcdefu” at somebody while reading this.

This list includes acts that have logged exactly one Hot 100 hit, in a lead role, between charts dated Jan. 1, 2000, and Dec. 28, 2024. Songs are ranked based on performance on the chart in that span via an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted to account for different chart turnover rates over various periods.

A new documentary about an artist’s decades-long dialogue with New York City government agencies premiered, at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this month, at the perfect time. For the past several months, supposed cost-saving measures, courtesy of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, shrunk federal agencies under the guise that workers who process new vaccines, coordinate air traffic, or protect consumers from business fraud waste money. Debates about the childcare costs, building affordable housing, and free buses dominate New York’s current mayoral race. The moment is ripe to reflect on the practice of an artist like Mierle Laderman Ukeles who encouraged city residents to “hear what New York City is like for the people who keep it alive every single day.”

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Maintenance Artist, written and directed by Toby Perl Freilich, follows Ukeles as she develops “Maintenance Art,” a term she coined in a 1969 manifesto to describe her new approach to art, or as she put it, “doing everyday things, flushing them up to consciousness, and exhibiting them as art.” As she was raising two children, Ukeles seemed frustrated with daily house tasks (child-rearing, cleaning, cooking) that got in the way of her art-making. Likewise, she wanted to make her presence known in an art world that rendered mothers invisible. The manifesto brought those worlds together. In a contemporary art landscape focused on innovation, genius, and individualism, she asked, “After the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?”

Telling her story chronologically, Maintenance Artist weaves in key points from Ukeles’s career—dropping out of Pratt, the manifesto, working with conservators and museum staff, interviewing janitorial staff—into moments for succinct analyses of the context that shaped them (second-wave feminist art, the city’s economic crisis, and the rise of conceptual art). The film deftly unpacks themes without letting their weight distract from the film’s main thrust, as it does when it shows her discussing plans for Landing: Cantilevered Overlook (2008), an ongoing installation at the landfill–turned–city park Freshkills in Staten Island. Difficulties securing institutional funding for the Percent for Art commission coupled with red tape from city bureaucracy have kept the work from being realized. As the artist sorts through documentation for Landing to determine what to send to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, which holds her papers, the exhaustion and frustration show clearly on her face. But central to it all is Ukeles at work, from cleaning the sidewalk, to talking to or shaking hands with maintenance workers, to worrying about funding.

Freilich keeps the editorializing to a minimum while still managing to expose the unconscious bias that operates within the systems that Ukeles works. The film zooms in, for example, on Ukeles’s time as an artist in residence with the NYC Department of Sanitation workers in the late ’70s and early ’80s. For her seminal Touch Sanitation Performance (1979–80), the artist documented her interactions with some 8,500 DSNY employees, or “sanmen,” across the five boroughs, as she shook their hands, interviewed them, and simply observed them. The groundbreaking partnership between an artist and a city agency helped to raise public sentiment and budgets for DSNY. But Ukeles’s footage from that era reveals the crux of her feminist concerns with the project. A veteran, explaining why DSNY staff feel undervalued, says that city residents don’t respect their work because “they think that we’re here to clean up their messes.” Debriefing that moment for the documentary, Ukeles points out the tension. She says, “If they were women would it be okay to hate them?”

But Maintenance Artist features mostly footage from Ukeles’s own archive and the artist’s narration. Freilich wanted to highlight the overlooked artist making ecofeminist, public art decades before it was popular after seeing Ukeles’s Queens Museum career retrospective in 2016. Staying so close to the artist’s point of voice means there are only a few moments that describe the impact of her work. Her collaborators at DSNY, the gallery representing her, and her family share their experiences with the artist at the time, but few interviews interrogate the work beyond its immediate impact.

The omission becomes evident at the end, where you would expect to see comments from contemporary artists or art administrators whom Ukeles inspired, either directly or indirectly. There would be no shortage of artists or administrators to pull. Ukeles’s unpaid work has grown into funded city programs such as NYC’s Public Artist in Residence program, established in 2015 during interviewee Tom Finkelpearl’s time as commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, or Los Angeles’s Creative Catalyst programs, which now intentionally pair artists with city agencies. The documentary also seems to ignore the abundance of social practice artists whose works Ukeles would have been in conversation with.

Similarly, other than a short description of Ukeles attending Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972) with her children, there is little information about her relationship with her children as her practice developed. After that experience, Ukeles left her children at home, working 16-hour sanitation shifts. Her children seem understanding of that decision but they don’t elaborate. The film never resolves if Ukeles’s Maintenance Art was the best solution for the two people who inspired her career. Instead, the, at times, myopic documentary seems so overwhelmed by the mere fact that the 86-year-old artist is still alive that it forgets to step back and look around. “We are all a maintenance worker,” Ukeles reminds us.