Acclaimed Bengali cinema actor Parno Mittra is stepping behind the camera as a producer for the first time with “The Music Teacher,” a British-Indian short film starring Raima Sen that begins principal photography this month in Kolkata.
The project is co-produced by Tabernacle Street Films (U.K.) and Unscripted Co (India), the production banner Mittra is launching with this film. Written and directed by Shrimoyee Chakraborty, “The Music Teacher” is her first Bengali narrative film, following her documentary “Spirit of the Wildflower” and her work as creator and presenter of “India Bites.” Chakraborty also produces for Tabernacle Street Films, alongside Mittra’s producing role for Unscripted Co. Editor Aarti Bajaj, known for her work on “Jab We Met,” “Rockstar,” “Highway,” “Tamasha,” “Sacred Games,” “Jubilee” and “Amar Singh Chamkila,” comes aboard as co-producer.
Sen takes the title role, with Niranjan Mondal, who appeared in “Laughtersane,” rounding out the cast.
Inspired by Chakraborty’s mother, “The Music Teacher” is set in North Kolkata and centers on a young man struggling with depression who finds a path back to life through a teacher of Rabindra Sangeet, the genre of songs composed by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore that remains central to Bengali culture. The film is billed as a tribute to Rabindra Sangeet and the educators who have preserved Bengal’s cultural heritage across generations, exploring resilience and human connection.
Mittra has spent more than two decades building a career as one of Bengali cinema’s most established actors, with credits including “Doob (No Bed of Roses),” “Rajkahini,” “Apur Panchali” and “Ranjana Ami Ar Ashbona.”
“‘The Music Teacher’ embodies the kind of cinema I want Unscripted Co to champion – stories that are deeply rooted, emotionally resonant and capable of travelling across cultures,” Mittra said. “After more than two decades as an actor, producing this film marks an exciting new chapter in my creative journey. As our first production, this project represents the beginning of the vision I have for Unscripted Co, and I couldn’t have asked for a more inspiring team to bring it to life.”
“‘The Music Teacher’ is my love letter to my mother, to Rabindra Sangeet and to Kolkata,” Chakraborty added. “It’s an incredibly personal story, and I’m honored to be making it alongside such an extraordinary team.”
“I’ve spent my career helping shape stories in the edit room, and producing feels like a natural extension of that journey,” Bajaj said. “‘The Music Teacher’ is intimate, deeply moving and profoundly human. I’m delighted to come on board as co-producer and help bring Shrimoyee’s beautiful vision to the screen.”
Ariana Grande has spoken out about her upcoming break from her professional career after a representative said that she will step out of the public eye following the conclusion of her “Eternal Sunshine” tour in early September.
During her first of three performances at Chicago’s United Center on Monday night, Grande paused at the front of the stage to address news of her upcoming hiatus, which coincided with the announcement that she would be dropping out of Stephen Sondheim’s West End revival of “Sunday in the Park With George.”
“So basically, the announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing,” she told the crowd. “It is something that I had decided to plan that I had quietly made a long time ago and it’s a decision that was made from a thoughtful and empowered place. And I want you to know many things can be true at the same time. I want to share this because I heard that my fans were worried that negativity was ruining things for me, but I just have to say that could not be more the fuck opposite. Honestly, this is not what that is. And I just want to be very, very clear: Multiple things can be true at the same time. Yes, boundaries, they need to be set. Human beings can need a break sometimes. And also, this can be and will continue to be the greatest experience of my professional and creative life.
“No matter what noises exist out there, nothing will ever be able to distort my reality or be more real to me or elaborate to me than this love that we share,” she continued. “The rest of that shit is not mine to carry, so I don’t carry it. I need to get out here and differentiate that from my truth for you all because I love you and this tour has been the most healing, beautiful, corrective, magnificent, special experience of my life.”
On Sunday, a rep said that Grande will be “taking a step back from visibility after she completes the Eternal Sunshine tour. She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which had led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny.”
Grande had just released her new album “Petal” two days prior, along with a music video for the title track that drew scrutiny for her appearance. The pop star is currently wrapping up her tour, which concludes on September 1 at London’s O2 Arena.
Horror-movie directors are always looking for new ways to transgress. Eli Roth is a prime example — he once transgressed brilliantly, in “Hostel: Part II” (an eerily plausible movie about members of the elite paying huge sums to murder people in a warehouse in Slovakia), and he did it in an impish way in “Thanksgiving,” the holiday-horror expansion of his “Grindhouse” trailer. But with “Ice Cream Man,” Roth tries to go “over the line” in a way that’s shamelessly derivative, jaw-droppingly bare-bones basic as filmmaking, and way too ludicrous to scare you. The movie wants to be a lark, but it’s such a preeningly garish and ham-handed piece of shock theater that it makes “Thanksgiving” look like “Vampyr.”
In the picturesque town of Bayleen Bay, a sunny Little League game is followed by the arrival of the ice-cream man (Ari Millen), who drives up in a blue-and-white truck heralded by his jingling-bell theme music (which sounds like Eddie Cochran’s “C’mon Everybody”). All the kids rush over to get ice cream. But this ice-cream man is a sinister psycho creep. In his pristine 1950s ice-cream-parlor hat and suit, flashing a grin under a sardine mustache, he’s mute, like Art the Clown in the “Terrifier” films, and he gives off the pervy vibe of the shoe-store clerk in ZZ Top’s “Legs” video.
Is he a mad killer? No, he’s a pied piper, handing out demonically possessed ice-cream cones (the flavors advertised on his truck have names like Locust Lick and Serpent Swirl) that turn the local middle schoolers into slasher zombies who kill every teacher and parent in sight. It’s a “Village of the Damned” meets “Weapons” meets the opening scene of “Halloween” situation. But those movies all tower over “Ice Cream Man,” a one-joke piece of hyped-up kiddie zombie splatter schlock.
We know the kids have become a killer cult when they start skulking around with blue and chocolate ice-cream smears (with sprinkles!) around their mouths, as if they had just barfed up a double-scoop cone. Then they go on the attack. The first murder is a girl slicing into her slumbering mother’s neck with a hacksaw; then her brother pounds his father’s face in with a baseball bat. Roth himself plays the hero’s geek dad, who will get his just desserts. As the rampage ramps up, assorted tools and weapons are employed: an electric sander, a garden shears, a garbage disposal, a fishbowl, a baggie, bricks tossed from a rooftop — Roth’s slaughteriffic imagination is very analog suburban. And let’s not forget that old favorite: falling over backwards on a ladder and getting your face reduced to jelly by having it bashed in with a fire extinguisher. At one point the ice-cream man hands a girl a scoop, which juts out a blade, which she uses to saw the top of a teacher’s head off and then scoop out his brains and feed it to him. Fun!
I share the nostalgic affection, and even admiration, that people have these days for practical effects, but there’s a way that the reverence for them can be overstated. The use of practical effects in “The Odyssey” is talked about in awed tones, as if it made up for the film’s storytelling lapses, and in “Ice Cream Man” Eli Roth’s obsession with decapitations and disembowelings and severed body parts — some of this is done practically, some digitally — is a thin step up from the carny-barker grisliness of Herschell Gordon Lewis. At the film’s frenzied climax, children jump rope on the playground using an intestine, and they play tetherball with a chain attached to a severed head. I’ve praised the “Terrifier” films for what may sound like the same thing, but the director of those movies, Damien Leone, uses practical effects to create escalating arias of gore. And Art the Clown’s mime-of-mayhem harlequin ghoulishness is part of the extremity. Since kids aren’t naturally aggressive in that way, seeing them become insane slashers is off-putting, in part because it feels so fake.
What “Ice Cream Man” comes down to, after a while, is an army of teen actors glowering in zombie ice-cream-barf makeup. The idiot-stooge middle-school teachers keep getting it, which gives the movie a musty we’re-not-gonna-take-it “anti-establishment” vibe that’s very 1980s. And the film’s cheesy, functional, overbright look feeds right into that.
There are three kids who aren’t infected, led by Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), the shrimpy geek who’s lactose intolerant (so he can’t have ice cream). They escape the madness just in time to land in a freezer, where a dour priest (Benjamin Byron Davis) explains the ice-cream man’s backstory. It has something to do with a Catholic child-sex-abuse scandal and his being unfairly blamed for it, an origin saga so preposterous it would make Freddy Krueger groan. (My favorite part: the ice-cream man showing up in court…in his ice-cream-man suit.) That the film knows it’s preposterous is supposed to be redeeming. But Roth’s it’s-all-a-big-joke attitude here is a cop-out that’s beneath him, a way to avoid making a horror movie that truly engages us. With a slight nudge, “Ice Cream Man” could be a “Saturday Night Live” horror trailer. The Grindhouse might turn it down.
Mary Rivera, who played the grandmother of Jacob Batalon’s Ned in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” has died. She was 82.
According to her obituary, Rivera was born on June 2, 1943, in Iloilo, Philippines, and died on April 15 in Honolulu, Hawaii. A family member told TMZ that Rivera suffered a stroke and had to be put on life support. The family member also told the outlet that Rivera was “extremely proud” of her role in “No Way Home,” and that landing the part was one of her most cherished accomplishments.
Rivera shares her memorable “No Way Home” scene with Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker, Ned and Zendaya’s MJ. Before her brief appearance, Ned and MJ are in a tense standoff with Peter, who just emerged from the multiverse to help save their universe’s Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland. Rivera then enters the room, breaking the suspense. Via Ned’s translation, she asks Garfield’s Spider-Man to climb across the ceiling and clean a cobweb from a hard-to-reach corner.
A tribute on her obituary page reads, “Tita Mary, as my mentor and colleague, you will be missed tremendously. My deepest and most heartfelt sympathies go out to the Rivera family during this difficult time.”
“Love you, miss you Nanay,” read another remembrance. “My memories with you are vast and long, beginning with you telling me to say: ‘Biva Marcos Lopez’ as a toddler, to three generations taking Cover Look photos, to saying goodbye. Imagining you watching us.”
Rivera is survived by her husband, Alejandro Rivera, and her children, Carmela Jones, Paul Rivera, Edwin Rivera and Angela Kelly.
Anya Taylor-Joy is known for giving full-bodied performances in the likes of “The Witch,” “The Queen’s Gambit,” “Furiosa” and more, but she’s never gone full Method on a set before nor does she have plans to in the future. The way Taylor-Joy sees it, women do not have the opportunity like men do when it comes to being a Method actor.
“If you’ll notice, women don’t method act because we have things to take care of, so we can’t completely lose our minds,” Taylor-Joy recently said in a viral interview with Complex News. “I see acting as a controlled psychosis in a way. You’re pretending to be somebody else and having their thoughts 16 hours a day and moving like them, in their house, in their clothes. It’s like having a sister or a roommate check in up [in my mind] for a little bit.”
Taylor-Joy continued, “I’m just very grateful that the people in my life understand that and know that. Sometimes if it gets out of hand, they’ll call me by the character name and they’ll be like ‘we need to check in again.’ But I can’t imagine keeping it up all the time because, again, you’re going to work with hundreds of people and it is your responsibility to be good to them and to help them do their best job. If you’re too invested in being an asshole then that’s not gonna be very fun.”
Kristen Stewart shared a similar viewpoint last December when she told The New York Times that acting is “quite embarrassing and un-masculine” by nature and that going Method is a way for some male actors to temper the “inherently vulnerable” side of being a performer.
“Performance is inherently vulnerable and therefore quite embarrassing and unmasculine,” Stewart said at the time. “There’s no bravado in suggesting that you’re a mouthpiece for someone else’s ideas. It’s inherently submissive. Have you ever heard of a female actor that was method?”
Daniel Day-Lewis is perhaps the most well known Method actor if his generation, and he spent much of his 2025 press tour for “Anemone” defending the performance technique.
“All the recent commentary in the last few years about Method acting is invariably from people who have little or no understanding of what it actually involves,” Day-Lewis said at the London Film Festival last year. “It’s almost as if it’s some specious science that we’re involved in, or a cult. But it’s just a way of freeing yourself so that the spontaneity, when you are working with your colleagues in front of the camera, that you are free to respond in any way that you’ll move to in that moment.”
Day-Lewis then stressed to Big Issue that Method acting is simply about “freeing yourself so you present your colleagues with a living, breathing human being they can interact with,” adding: “It’s very simple. So it pisses me off this whole ‘Oh, he went full Method’ thing. What the fuck, you know? Because it’s invariably attached to the idea of some kind of lunacy. I choose to stay and splash around, rather than jump in and out or play practical jokes with whoopee cushions between takes or whatever people think is how you should behave as an actor.”
Watch Taylor-Joy’s full interview with Complex in the video below.
CBS has given a pilot order to a comedy series titled “Hilda! (In Lights!)” about an elderly woman who moves to New York City to pursue her Broadway dreams.
Three scripts for the single-camera project, from writer and executive producer Abbey Caldwell, were announced as being in development at the studio in April. The logline reads: “One of those classic shows about a plucky small-town optimist who moves to the big city to pursue her lifelong dream of starring on Broadway. There’s just one teeny, tiny, totally inconsequential difference… our hero Hilda is a 70-year-old woman from Nebraska with absolutely no experience.”
Caldwell’s non-writing executive producers include Will Graham, Max Linsky and Tonia Davis for Invitation Media. The project is produced by CBS Studios.
The “Hilda! (In Lights!)” news comes as CBS has taken bets on a handful of new, original projects. “Eternally Yours,” a vampire comedy from “Ghosts” duo Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, is premiering on Oct. 8 alongside the Silicon Valley-set legal drama “Cupertino” from Robert and Michelle King. Tara Hernandez’s comedy pilot “The Tillbrooks” (formerly known as “Regency”) — a historical spin on the classic multi-camera family sitcom — was also ordered to pilot but will not be moving forward.
On the CBS 2026-2027 schedule is the new “NCIS” spinoff “NCIS: New York,” which will see LL Cool J reprising his role as Sam Hanna. That show will debut on Oct. 6.
New series “Einstein,” a dramedy starring Matthew Gray Gubler as the brilliant but directionless great-grandson of Albert Einstein, will premiere in the second half of the season.
News broke on Friday that Dermot Mulroneywill leave NBC’s “Chicago Fire” in its upcoming 15th season. During a recent appearance at Flash Weekend Chicago Horror Convention (via People), Mulroney opened up about his exit.
“Loved every minute of it. Became friends with this incredible crew of people,” Mulroney said. He later noted that the show gave him some “incredibly challenging scenes,” but luckily, he had an “incredible cast” to back him up.
The “My Best Friend’s Wedding” star explained that he only has one more episode left in Season 15, and then “they write the character off.” He said of his time on “Chicago Fire,” “We gave it our all for two seasons.”
“They wrote an incredible storyline that put me as an actor on [a] high challenge,” Mulroney added. “I loved every minute of it. Sad to see it go.”
Mulroney joined “Chicago Fire” in Season 13 as Chief Dom Pascal. His exit is expected to come early in Season 15, which premieres on Oct. 7 at 9 p.m. ET.
“I can’t tell you how many people come up, and they’d much rather have an autograph on ‘Scream VI,’ but [they ask for] Chief Pascal for their dad,” he later shared. “It’s an amazing thing to see and that’s how meaningful that is. Which makes it that much more, I won’t say bittersweet. It’s bitter to have to leave that.”
Mulroney’s “Chicago Fire” exit came just a couple of days after it was revealed that original cast member Joe Miñoso would also soon leave the drama series. Miñoso’s character, firefighter Joe Cruz, will likewise be written off in Season 15.
Dave Bautista could be the next “God of War.” Variety has learned from sources that Bautista is currently in talks for the role of Kratos in the Amazon Prime Video series based on the popular video game franchise.
The news comes after it was reported that Ryan Hurst, who was originally cast in the role of the titular god in January 2026, suffered a torn bicep on the set of the series that would have delayed a return to production until 2027, ultimately leading Amazon and Sony to recast the part. The plan is to get the production back up and running by the fall.
Reps for Amazon declined to comment.
There are few better suited for the role of Kratos than Bautista. Aside from the fact he is an accomplished actor, he is one of few in Hollywood who could step into the role on short notice in the physical shape it requires. Kratos is known for his incredibly muscular physique in the games, and Bautista has been in remarkable shape throughout his career. Thus, he would not need months of prep time to prepare for the role.
He also has an existing relationship with Amazon MGM Studios. He previously starred in the Amazon movies “The Wrecking Crew,” “My Spy,” and “My Spy: The Eternal City,” while he is set to appear in both “Road House 2” and the remake of “Highlander” for Amazon.
Bautista first broke out as a star in WWE before he transitioned to a highly successful and diverse acting career. He has played Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe across six movies, while he also appeared in the first two “Dune” films from Denis Villeneuve. He also recently lent his voice to the animated film “Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender,” and has previously starred in films like “Blade Runner 2049,” “Knock at the Cabin,” “Spectre,” and “Army of the Dead.”
He is repped by WME and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Prime Video has given “God of War” a two-season order. As previously reported, the series will pick up with the story of the two most recent “God of War” games, in which Kratos must raise his ten-year old son Atreus while battling gods of the Norse pantheon. Per the logline, “Father and son Kratos and Atreus embark on a journey to spread the ashes of their wife and mother, Faye. Through their adventures, Kratos tries to teach his son to be a better god, while Atreus tries to teach his father how to be a better human.”
Callum Vinson remains attached to play Kratos’ son Atreus. Additional cast members include Max Parker as Heimdall, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Thor, Mandy Patinkin as Odin, Alastair Duncan as Mimir, Danny Woodburn and Jeff Gulka as as brothers Brok and Sindri, and Ed Skrein as Baldur.
Ronald D. Moore is the writer, executive producer, and showrunner on “God of War” under his Tall Ship Productions banner.
Frederick E.O. Toye will direct the first two episodes of “God of War.” Maril Davis of Tall Ship also executive produces alongside Cory Barlog, Naren Shankar, Matthew Graham, Asad Qizilbash, Jeff Ketcham, Hermen Hulst, Roy Lee, and Brad Van Arragon. Joe Menosky, Marc Bernardin, Tania Lotia, and Ben McGinnis serve as co-executive producers on the series. The series is co-produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios in association with PlayStation Productions and Tall Ship Productions.
Did you think landing Imax 70mm tickets to “The Odyssey” was hard? Trying landing those tickets and snagging one of the limited-edition popcorn buckets tied to the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s epic, which included designs of the iconic Trojan Horse and a replica of the Imax camera (complete with a real viewfinder!) that the film was famously shot on by Hoyte van Hoytema.
The craze around these popcorn buckets, and the conversations they spark on social media, is nothing new. Just this past weekend, the box office juggernaut that is “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” came with its own set of popular buckets, including a replica of Spider-Man’s head and a drink-popcorn combo featuring a web-slinger shooting out of Peter Parker’s hand.
The craze has gotten so overwhelming that these premium buckets can sell out in minutes after dropping online. For “The Odyssey,” Imax got involved with movie merchandise for the first time to bring a realistic replica of its 15/65mm camera to life. But this growing excitement has also caused some theater chains to limit how many buckets guests can purchase per visit for certain releases, and scalpers have taken to eBay to sell these limited-edition items for increasingly high price tags — and have seen success in doing so.
With the box office on track to have its strongest year since 2019, premium popcorn buckets have only become bigger money drivers for theater chains, which heavily rely on merchandise and concession sales since they typically only keep around half the revenue generated from ticket sales. In 2025, AMC Theatres reported $80 million globally from merchandise sales (including their international Odeon Cinemas) and is on track for a $100 million gross for 2026, according to Nels Storm, AMC’s VP of food and beverage.
“It’s become a vehicle for the future of moviegoing,” Storm tells Variety. “These are tangible movie memories. They’re the concert T-shirts of our industry.”
Chains like Regal estimate that the total number of premium buckets they offer throughout the year will total 50, and that figure extends to over 100 when including collectible popcorn tins.
The level to which directors get involved with designs can vary. “The Odyssey” Imax bucket is a key example of how theater chains and studios are celebrating the filmmakers getting audiences excited to go to the movies again, as Imax has become synonymous with Nolan’s brand over the years.
“The persona rubs off, and it’s like a parasocial relationship,” says Russell Belk, a professor of marketing at York University. “Cross marketing is usually part of the plan from the start. The film studios and now the actors involved are trying to get a piece of the action as well.”
Storm says: “There is so much respect for moviemaking that went into this camera. When you think about how a director like Christopher Nolan likes to film his movies and likes for them to be shown, this was a natural transition to be able to do something like this.”
Imax CEO Rich Gelfond says the camera bucket sold out in 90 minutes, and they had to borrow more from China to meet the high demand: “The scope of this is larger than anything we’ve done before, and it certainly shows the promise of a bigger merchandising effort among Imax fans. I’m a really optimistic guy, but the crazy interest in Imax among the fans would have been hard to predict.”
Courtesy of AMC Theatres
Kristy Breneman, Regal’s director of food and beverage activations, confirms that filmmakers are involved with the bucket designs: “As we’re seeing these concepts, if any changes are asked for, we do hear that everything has to go through the filmmaker for approval on certain projects.”
Going to the movies and buying a tub of hot popcorn have long gone together. But these collectible buckets aren’t always the most practical for moviegoers hoping to actually munch on some food throughout a long movie — a frequent topic of discussion online.
“The rule is it has to hold popcorn, and that’s where the rules stop!” Storm says with a laugh, referencing the tiny Bowser key chain that was sold with the release of “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” earlier this year.
However, not being able to fit much popcorn into certain buckets doesn’t seem to make a difference in which designs fly off the shelves.
“We try to think about what comes after. It may be a piggy bank for somebody, it may be a toy bucket for someone, and it may be a really neat, sculpted item to put on a shelf,” says David Haywood, Cinemark‘s SVP of food and beverage. “We never try to box people into how they’re going to use it.”
Haywood, of course, adds that Cinemark gives out extra popcorn to guests buying certain buckets to ensure that no one leaves the theater on an empty stomach.
Since a majority of these buckets are sold across all the major chains, one way for competing theater chains to distinguish themselves is by securing an exclusive on certain designs that then get promoted online. This comes from locking in a certain number of buckets they want to buy far in advance, according to Haywood.
AMC’s biggest exclusive this year has been the bucket shaped entirely around Spider-Man’s head, which goes for $34.99 and is currently sold out on the theater’s website. “This is the first time that vessel has existed in this way ever,” Storm says, with Marvel and Sony’s input making sure it was as size-accurate as possible.
Courtesy of AMC Theatres
Another popular bucket, the iconic “Devil Wears Prada 2″ purse, started out as a Cinemark exclusive before becoming more widely available, selling online for $39.95.
Courtesy of AMC Theatres
Popular membership programs like AMC A-List and Regal Unlimited, which encourage frequent moviegoing, also provide greater incentives for guests to spend money on these buckets since they’re not paying out-of-pocket for individual tickets each time they go to the theater.
“Not to give too much away about what we’re planning, but we absolutely want to incentivize those loyal customers who do purchase more,” Breneman teases.
But just as scalpers have snatched up coveted tickets for big blockbuster releases, they have found their way into the popcorn bucket craze. For “The Odyssey’s” Trojan Horse, for example, one eBay seller has it currently listed as high as $165, compared to its original $69.99 listing, and has actually sold some at or near that inflated price tag. The same can be said of the “Spider-Man” buckets, which are listed for up to $110.
“That’s been a big topic of conversation recently,” Breneman says. “It’s definitely a challenge for us and we are continuing to learn from these different experiences. Whenever you have products that are limited to a specific release, there’s naturally going to be strong interest from collectors. From our perspective, our priority is to make sure the guests have the opportunity to purchase these items as part of their visit to the theater.”
To meet the high demand for “The Odyssey,” Regal instituted a one-bucket-per-guest limit — something they’ve never had to do before. “And it is possible that it’ll be something we implement moving forward,” Breneman says.
Belk adds that having a short supply of limited-edition items can be a strategic tool to encourage customers to spend more on a whim.
“If you have a limited-time option and you’re not announcing when that’s going to be ahead of time, people that are young and don’t have jobs have a lot of time to hang out online and wait for it,” he says. “You need to find ways to make it seem scarce. It’s a way of generating excitement.”
As these buckets are typically made from plastic, Storm says that theater chain owners and manufacturing companies like Zinc, Golden Link and Snap have been conscious of designing them to “not be disposable,” when asked about any potential pushback from environmental groups.
That points to perhaps the biggest appeal of these popcorn buckets — they’ve become some of the hottest collector items on the market, designed to sit on someone’s shelf for years to come as a token of their favorite moviegoing experiences. Add them next to your favorite Funko pop!
“The fans are now making the moviegoing experience more personal than they ever have before, and these collectibles give them a tangible way to extend that experience all the way to their house,” Haywood says. “People always say, ‘If you don’t show it, it didn’t happen!’”
But with the increasing out-there designs, from the infamous “Dune: Part Two” sandworm-mouth popcorn bucket to the overwhelmingly giant Trojan horse, is there growing pressure for studios and theater chains to keep topping themselves in order to generate online conversation, especially for upcoming major releases like “Dune: Part Three” and “Avengers: Doomsday?”
“The excitement and reaction on social media has definitely raised the bar for everyone involved,” Breneman says. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we need to make things bigger and more elaborate every time. But when there is that opportunity to have something more interactive, if it really goes with the storytelling and is authentic to the film, I do see them pressing the limits.”
Country music is ruling the roost like never before, at least when it comes specifically to the Billboard Hot 100. For the first time in history, country songs are claiming all five of the top five slots on the Hot 100. That’s thanks to Ella Langley and Morgan Wallen, who currently stand at No. 1 on the singles and albums charts, respectively… and to Taylor Swift‘s return to country for a hit soundtrack… and to newcomer Stella Lefty officially joining the ranks of hitmakers.
To no one’s surprise, Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” the biggest single of 2026 so far, maintains its No. 1 perch in chart results reported by Billboard on Monday. Wallen’s new single, “Been by Now,” premieres at No. 2. Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” gets pushed down one spot on this week’s chart, now landing at No. 3. In the fourth position is a duet between Langley and Wallen, “I Can’t Love You Anymore.” And coming in at No. 5 is Lefty’s career-making “Boston,” down two slots from last week, but still with plenty of room to grow.
So many statistical anomalies are included in this top 5, it’s hard to know where to begin, although the aforementioned stat about this congregation of songs establishing a collective chart record is a good place to start.
The headline any other week might be about Langley’s ongoing winning streak at the top of the chart. This is the 16th week at No. 1 with “Choosin’ Texas,” which puts Langley in ever-more-rarefied territory. “Texas” is now tied for a historic fourth place for the number of weeks spent at No. 1. The three singles it is tied with for that sweet 16 number are Wallen’s “Last Night,” Mariah Carey’s and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day” and the Luis Fonsi/Daddy Yankee/Justin Bieber monster “Despacito.”
So, what are the next thresholds for “Choosin’ Texas” to cross? If Langley holds on to No. 1 for just one more week — which is a highly likely prospect — then she will still be in fourth place on the all-time streak chart, just no longer tied for it. The next tier for her would be meeting or surpassing the two songs that are tied for second, at 19 weeks each — Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Old Town Road.” If she gets to 20 weeks at No. 1, she will hold the record for the most weeks for a non-holiday song. Then, the final frontier would be whether she could beat Mariah Carey’s annual perennial “All I Want for Christmas,” which, at 22 nonconsecutive weeks, is a tough one for anyone to beat. Tagging on seven more weeks to the current 16 to claim the all-time record sounds impossible, but the song has surpassed so many expectations already that it might be foolish to bet against it.
Looking at the top 10 for this week, country has six out of those 10, since Langley’s second-most-popular track, “Be Her” is in at No. 9.
The non-country songs rounding the top 10 this week are Tame Impala and Jennie’s “Dracula” at No. 6, Olivia Dean’s “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” at No. 7, Ariana Grande’s “Hate That I Made You Love Me” at No. 8 and Dean’s “Man I Need” at No. 10.
Dean having two songs in the top 10 and Langley having three (one of them a Wallen collaboration) may provide a glimpse of what the Grammy competition holds in store a few months from now. Voters in the four general categories have turned up their noses at country contenders for years, but Langley will provide the true test of whether the Recording Academy can really keep snubbing country or whether her dominance will mean it’s time to cry uncle.
