Good day, and welcome to this Monday edition of The Monitor, WIRED's pop culture news roundup. Today, we've got some sad news from the box office and some good news about Steven Spielberg's West Side Story movie. Oh, Taylor Swift also released a new video. Let's get started.
Continuing a trend of sequels and spinoffs underperforming this summer, Men in Black: International did not do well at the box office. Led by Thor: Ragnarok costars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, the film made just $28.5 million domestically this past weekend. Internationally, International made $73.4 million. This comes after franchise films like Dark Phoenix and Godzilla: King of the Monsters also saw disappointing opening weekends.
In case it slipped your attention, the E.T. and Schindler's List filmmaker is working on an adaptation of the Broadway musical West Side Story. He's directing from a script written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tony Kushner. It's currently in production and now fans have their first look. The first photo from the movie is below. The film hits theaters Dec. 18, 2020. Get your snapping fingers ready.
First of all, in case you didn’t hear, Taylor Swift showed up at the Stonewall Inn—the place where the LGBTQ+ rights movement started 50 years ago this month—this past weekend to wish everyone a happy Pride. That was nice, though folks were awfully conflicted about it. Anyway, on Monday morning, she dropped a new video for “You Need to Calm Down” that features a rainbow Rolodex of stars ranging from Laverne Cox to Ellen DeGeneres to the cast of Queer Eye. (It also has a reference to those darned snakes that have plagued her for so long.) There’s also a wide-eyed reunion with Katy Perry, a move that seems to indicate they’ve finally squashed their beef forever. (Beef. Is that why Perry is dressed as a hamburger? This video is full of mysteries.) The end of the video includes a call for folks to support the Equality Act, which would protect Americans from being fired or being denied housing or services based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
[#video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dkk9gvTmCXY
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