Rebrands, Scandals + Movie & TV announcements!
Vol. 2 Issue 20 – 17th May 2025
Highlights of the week
The Cannes Film Festival has introduced a new dress code rule, no “naked dressing” and no oversized gowns with large trains that hold up the red carpet queue. If there was ever a recession indicator, the FRENCH are taming down now! While many have already chosen to forego the code, Bella Hadid stuck to the rules and looked gorgeous, debuting her new blonde hair, giving major early aughts energy.
Another moment that stole the show was a bee interrupting the cast of Eddington on the carpet.
After multiple iterations over the years, HBO Max has finally settled on a name. And it is, *drumroll please*… HBO Max! Yes, they circled back to where they began. But they also gave their socials free rein to mock this roundabout decision, leading to some hilarious posts.
Celeb shenanigans
The Weeknd has once again proven that he can’t act; his movie with Jenna Ortega, Hurry Up Tomorrow, debuted with a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Exposè is in the air as the Diddy sex-trafficking trial is ongoing and Chris Brown has also been taken into custody over causing grievous bodily harm at a nightclub.
Reports and a TMZ investigation suggest that Justin Bieber is broke and owes millions to his former manager Scooter Braun. The singer’s cancelled tour costs were covered by Braun, which Bieber was supposed to pay back in instalments. Bieber never payed a dime after the first instalment, hence why he also had to allegedly sell his masters, to pay back the racked up payments.
Earlier in the week, Tom Cruise was randomly spotted standing on top of the BFI IMAX theater building in London. Casual for Tom Cruise to be honest.
Timothee Chalamet attended a Knicks game with the Jenner sisters.
Ashley Tisdale’s daughter has watched the High School Musical movies and goes around telling everyone that she is “Sharpay’s baby”, very Sharpay’s baby of her.
Pitch Perfect actress Anna Camp has come out as gay.
This Dolce and Gabbana ad features Theo James and model Vittoria Ceretti. Enough said.
Trending videos
Sound off
Calvin Harris’ new song is an early contender for song of the summer.
Music Producer/Singer Finneas hilariously called out “terrible” new music after Spotify updated its latest New Music Friday playlist.
At the Twenty One Pilots concert in London, a fan stole the band’s drum from the stage.
Swifties, rejoice! Either a re-recording or a new album may be on the way. Fans have spotted Easter Eggs on the singer’s website, which indicates that an announcement may be coming on Monday, the night of the American Music Awards, where Swift is nominated in multiple categories, and previously she has also announced her albums Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department at award shows.
Watch out
Our first look at the new Superman!!! Love how David Corenswet switches between voices for Clark Kent and Superman.
First teaser for the ‘SPIDER-NOIR’ series, starring Nicolas Cage.
First look at the new Netflix rom-com, My Oxford Year, starring Sofia Carson and Cory Mylchreest.
The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender, the 2D animated movie that continues from the original Avatar animated series, comes out 9th October 2026.
The Hunger Games prequel has cast its new President Snow with Ralph Fiennes, after it was portrayed by Donald Sutherland and Tom Blyth in previous movies. Iconic for him to play two of the worst fictional characters ever, Voldemort and Snow.
Netflix dropped a short preview for the next season of Briderton, which premieres in 2026, along with news of being renewed for seasons 5 & 6!
This is rumoured cast for the new X-Men movie. Nicholas Galitzine- Angel, Drew Starkey- Iceman, Daisy Edgar Jones- Jean Grey, Patrick Schwarzenegger- Cyclops, Logan Lerman- Beast.
Season 4 of The Bear comes out 26th June.
‘The Office’ spinoff ‘The Paper’ is coming this fall.
Last year’s Cannes Film Festival saw the premieres of movies like Anora and Emilia Perez, which later went on to win awards season. Here are the top favourites from this year’s festival line-up, in case you want to start creating your watchlist and place early bets.
In other news
The doll/bag charm Labubu has finally broken through in the West and become mainstream popular. But if you’ve been reading Hyperlinked for some time now, you were well aware of them last year, when I covered it in Vol. 1, Issue 37.
Upfront Week is back! The media presentations by networks and streamers who showcase their upcoming slate to advertisers, for the purpose of selling ad slots. Many of the above announcements I have written about were actually announced during the Upfronts. To know more about how it works, check out Vol. 1, Issue 8 of Hyperlinked, when I covered it in detail last year!
It’s been reported that ChatGPT now gets more monthly visitors than Wikipedia!