Written by Jon Williams
There are
certain media franchises that become so popular that they transcend just the
world of entertainment and become cultural touchstones. For three such
franchises, 2019 is they year in which they will come to an end—or at least
wind down their current iterations. Let’s take a look at them.
On April 26,
Avengers:
Endgame was released into theatres in North America. It debuted with a
bang, taking in the largest opening-weekend box office gross of all time with
more than $350 million. It has steadily added to that total and now stands as
the second on the list of highest-grossing films of all time. While it seems
unlikely to take over the top spot, it’s still in theatres and will definitely
add to its total, currently over $825 million. Endgame is the culmination of 22 films in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe that started with Iron
Man in 2008. While this movie may have brought the story of the
Avengers to a close, the same certainly can’t be said for the MCU as a whole.
On the immediate horizon is Spider-Man:
Far from Home, the sequel to 2017’s Homecoming,
with Tom Holland starring as the titular webslinger. This will mark the formal
end to “Phase Three” of the MCU, but future plans include a Black Widow movie
featuring Scarlett Johansson’s character, a Black
Panther sequel, a third Guardians
of the Galaxy installment, and plenty more on screens both big and
small. There is definitely plenty to look forward to from Marvel in the future,
although whether it continues to work together toward one cohesive story
remains to be seen.
The eighth
and final season of Game
of Thrones premiered before that, on April 14, and came to its
conclusion on May 19. Before the season began, we
examined the likelihood of broken ratings records, particularly for the
series finale. Those predictions came true, as the season’s sixth episode, the
show’s last, drew more than 19.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched
series finale in history for a show on cable. While the final season drew mixed
reviews from fans and critics, viewership numbers remained strong throughout,
and hunger for related content has kept author George R.R. Martin’s Fire
& Blood, a tale that begins centuries before the events of the
show, on the bestseller list since its publication last November. With the show
in the rearview mirror, fans will have to be content with Fire & Blood to hold them over for now, but there are more
stories to come. For one thing, Martin still has two books left in his Song
of Ice & Fire, the novel series that inspired the show. It has been
eight years since the last, A
Dance with Dragons, was published, and while no date has yet been
announced for the arrival of the next, The
Winds of Winter, recent updates from Martin have fans optimistic that it
will be finished in the not-too-distant future. HBO also has plans for a number
of companion shows, with at least one currently going forward with Naomi Watts
set to star.
Then, later
this year, the Star Wars sequel
trilogy will come to a close when Episode
IX: The Rise of Skywalker comes out on December 20. Of course, this echoes
1983, when Return of the Jedi
concluded the original
trilogy, and 2005, when Revenge of
the Sith did the same for the prequel
trilogy; however, it’s actually a culmination of all three, as The Rise of Skywalker will drop the
curtain on the saga of Anakin Skywalker and his offspring. The current trilogy
began in 2015 with The
Force Awakens, the one film that Avengers:
Endgame trails on the all-time box office list, and continued with The
Last Jedi in 2017. After this film there will be a short hiatus for Star Wars on the big screen, but it
definitely will be back—a new film series, set in a different era from the
Skywalker films, is set to begin in December 2022 with Game of Thrones
showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss at the helm. In the meantime, Pedro
Pascal will star in the upcoming TV show The
Mandalorian, to premiere November 12 of this year, and Diego Luna will
reprise his role from the standalone blockbuster Rogue
One in another, as-yet-unnamed TV series.
So while
these beloved franchises may be coming to a close, each in its own way, fans can
take comfort in the fact that there are still plenty of stories to come in the
respective universes. And patrons will always be eager to revisit these favourites
or immerse themselves for the first time. Use the links above to put these
great movies and TV shows on your shelves, and SmartBrowse on our website for a
plethora of related content.
Written by Jon Williams
Many
performers approaching 70 years of age and nearly 50 years into their career
would be slowing down and coasting on their past success. Many performers, but
not Bruce Springsteen. The recent announcement of his upcoming solo album Western Stars, releasing June 14, came
just a short time after the conclusion of Springsteen on Broadway, his
intimate performance show that was originally planned to run for eight weeks
and instead ran for well over a year. On top of that, Springsteen has also said
that he’s written enough material for a new album with the E Street Band, so
fans can be on the lookout for that (plus new tour dates) as well.
Springsteen’s
passion for music began at a young age, and he started playing for audiences
when he was in his teens. He performed with a number of different musicians
over the next several years until signing his first record deal in 1972. That
led to his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., in
1973. That was followed later that same year by The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street
Shuffle. These albums were well received by critics but did not sell
especially well, so Springsteen spent nearly a year and a half and recruited
the help of his friend Steven Van Zandt as he threw everything he had into his
next album.
These
efforts paid off when Born to Run was released in August
of 1975. On the strength of his incredible live performances, the album went to
#3 on the Billboard 200 and a star was born. He built on that success with Darkness on the Edge of Town in 1978,
The River in 1980, and Nebraska in 1982, three albums that
helped to polish Springsteen’s image of a smart, soulful songwriter with their
unflinching looks at working-class life and American politics.
Then in June
of 1984 came the album Born in the USA. The iconic title
track, along with smash singles like “Dancing in the Dark” and “Glory Days,”
made Bruce Springsteen a household name and, over time, a rock n’ roll legend.
Since its release it has sold more than 30 million copies, making it one of the
bestselling albums of all time. Shortly thereafter, he played a prominent part
of the star-studded charity hit “We Are the World,” further cementing his place
in the music and pop culture pantheon of the 1980s. He then showed a more subdued
side of his musical personality with the 1987 album Tunnel of Love.
The
five-year break in albums following Tunnel
of Love was Springsteen’s longest to date. He made up for it by releasing
two albums, Human Touch and Lucky Town, on the same day in 1992.
He would release just one more album in the ‘90s, 1995’s The Ghost of Tom Joad (currently unavailable), but the decade was
notable for other reasons, among them an Academy Award and a slew of Grammy
Awards for the song “Streets of Philadelphia” and his induction into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. In the aftermath of 9/11, he made a triumphant
return with the 2002 album The
Rising.
Since then,
Bruce has been as prolific as ever, releasing six albums with no more than
three years in between up through 2014. That year’s High
Hopes was his most recent leading up to the release of Western Stars, but as noted above, he
has been far from idle. The year of 2016 was particularly busy, seeing the
release of Chapter
and Verse, an 18-track career retrospective in conjunction with his
autobiography, Born
to Run—the audiobook, which he narrated, won the Audie Award for Best
Memoir. That year he was also presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
the highest honour for a civilian in the United States, by President Barack
Obama.
Bruce
Springsteen is a music icon and a rock n’ roll legend, and he’ll be in the
forefront of pop culture for the foreseeable future. In addition to the release
of Western Stars, he’s also promising
a documentary on the making of the album, as well as a new album and tour with
the E Street Band. With his popularity high and holding steady, now is a great
time to make sure your library’s shelves are stocked with plenty of material
relating to the Boss. SmartBrowse his name on our website to find his
discography of studio and live albums, concert films, and much, much more from
his acclaimed career.
Written by Jon Williams
Eleven years
and twenty-two movies in, the Marvel
Cinematic Universe is stronger than ever. In its first weekend of release,
the highly anticipated Avengers:
Endgame set a record with over $356 million made at the box office.
That’s nearly $100 million more than the previous record holder for opening
weekend box office gross—last year’s Avengers:
Infinity War, which this movie follows on from. And with the entire
weekend box office totaling $392 million, Endgame
enjoyed a staggering 90% market share. 1 (It’s also worth noting that
the weekend’s second place movie was also from Marvel— Captain
Marvel, adding $8 million to its current $414 million total in its
eighth weekend of release.)
The numbers
are even more astounding on a global scale. Endgame
brought in over $1.2 billion around the globe. Fewer than 40 movies have made
over a billion dollars in the entirety of their theatrical runs, and Endgame did it in just one weekend.2
Infinity War was the previous record
holder in this regard as well; it took 11 days to cross the billion
dollar-mark.3
Ticket sales
for Endgame are likely to remain
strong for the foreseeable future, as those who weren’t able to secure tickets
for opening weekend look to see it for the first time and as die-hard Marvel
fans return for repeat viewings. With that being the case, more box office
records are sure to fall, with all-time marks in its sights. Topping the $937
million domestic record of Star
Wars: The Force Awakens and the $2.8 billion global record of Avatar
will be a tall order, but both are certainly within the realm of possibility.
These films
are popular with library patrons as well as moviegoers. Use the links above to
pre-order Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel and get them on your
shelves as soon as they are available, and SmartBrowse on our website to find
other entries in the ever-popular MCU.
Written by Jon Williams
Taylor Swift
has had social media buzzing lately. Starting on April 13, each day she posted
a cryptic photo to her Twitter
and Instagram accounts
with the caption “4.26.” It culminated on Thursday with the unveiling of a butterfly mural by artist
Kelsey Montague at Nashville’s famed Gulch neighbourhood, and the wait ended
at midnight with the release of her new video and single, “Me!” Full details on her forthcoming
seventh album haven’t yet been announced, but she has assured fans that it will
be releasing soon.
Swift is
hardly a stranger to buzz, as she’s been a sensation for most of her life.
Developing a passion for music at a young age, she signed her first record deal
when she was just fourteen years old. After developing her songwriting voice
and her musical chops, she burst onto the country music scene in 2006 with her self-titled
debut album at the age of sixteen. While it never made to the top of the album charts (it peaked at #5), its staying power made it the longest-charting
album of the 2000s, and it has been certified 7X platinum. She followed that up
in 2008 with Fearless,
a diamond-selling monster hit that won two Grammy Awards (including Album of
the Year) and made her a bona fide star. Then two years later, in 2010, came Speak
Now, which sold more than a million copies in its first week alone and
has since gone platinum six times over.
Through her
first three albums, Swift’s sound was primarily country, with more and more pop
sensibility being added on each disc. That pop sound came even more into the
forefront on 2012’s Red,
another multiplatinum-selling success. She left the country sound behind
altogether on her fifth album, 1989,
and was rewarded with a 9X platinum smash hit that gave her a second Album of
the Year Grammy and which was covered
in its entirety by Ryan Adams. She gave her pop sound a darker edge on 2017’s
Reputation,
which is her most recent album release leading into her much-anticipated
seventh. If the candy-coloured video and bright tones of “Me!” are any
indication, the tone of her upcoming album will be a 180-degree departure from Reputation.
As if her
stellar music career weren’t enough, Swift has also dabbled in the acting side
of the entertainment industry. She started with a role in a 2009 episode of CSI,
and made her feature film debut as part of the ensemble cast of 2010’s Valentine’s
Day. In 2012 she voiced the character of Audrey in the animated
adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s The
Lorax. She returned to TV for an episode of New
Girl in 2013, and appeared in the 2014 adaptation of the beloved YA
novel The
Giver. She has taken a break since then, but will be starring alongside
such names as Idris Elba, Rebel Wilson, and Ian McKellen in the upcoming movie
version of Cats, coming to theatres
this December.
Taylor Swift’s
new album will be one of the biggest music releases of the year. Your patrons
will be looking for it as soon as it is released, and her back catalog will be
in demand as well. Stay tuned for more information on the album as it becomes
available, and SmartBrowse her name on our website for live albums, karaoke and
lullaby discs, bio videos, and more. Also, make sure to let your patrons know
that her music and plenty of other content is available for checkout from hoopla digital, all
with no waiting or late fees!
Written by Jon Williams
This Sunday begins the long-awaited and highly anticipated
eighth season of the hit HBO show Game of Thrones. The abbreviated
final season will consist of just six episodes (although four of those will run
around 80 minutes, 20 more than the typical episode) and will culminate in the
series finale on May 19. Over the course of the show’s seven seasons to date,
its ratings have continued to climb, making it one of the most-watched cable
series. With nearly two years of hype building up since the Season
7 finale that aired on August 27, 2017, plus the anticipation of who—if
anyone—will survive to take the Iron Throne, the eighth season’s viewership
numbers are sure to set new records, and the series finale will likely go down
as one of the most watched of all time.
On network television, of course, those numbers are
untouchable. The series finale of M*A*S*H on February 28, 1983, drew
upwards of 105 million viewers, making it the most-watched television episode
ever. The only other broadcasts that garner that type of viewership are the
American Super Bowl each year. The closest any show has come since was ten years later,
with the series finale of the hit sitcom Cheers, which came in at 84 million
on May 20, 1993. Before M*A*S*H, the
record was held by the wrap-up of The Fugitive on August 29, 1967,
watched by 78 million people. Rounding out the top five most-watched series
finales are two more sitcoms: Seinfeld (May 14, 1998) with 76
million and Friends (May 16, 2004) with 52
million. In the realm of science fiction and fantasy, the record is held by Star Trek: The Next Generation,
which came to an end on May 23, 1994, with an audience of 31 million.
Network broadcasts, though, have always had the advantage of
being available to anyone with a television set, without the necessity of
additional equipment or subscription fees. That’s why ratings for shows airing
on cable networks are measured in a category of their own. For cable series,
the top two most-watched series finales belong to HBO, the same network that
airs Game of Thrones. First up is the
mob drama The Sopranos, whose controversial
blackout ending aired June 10, 2007, to 11.9 viewers. Coming in second, and
holding the top spot until The Sopranos
came along, is Sex and the City, which bowed to an
audience of 10.6 million on February 22, 2004. Those numbers are especially
impressive considering HBO is a premium network which has traditionally
required an additional subscription fee on top of a cable package. Then in
third place is the acclaimed AMC drama Breaking
Bad, which, like Game of Thrones,
started off to relatively modest ratings and then steadily built over time.
That show finished up on September 29, 2013, with 10.3 million viewers.
So how will the Game
of Thrones finale fare? Obviously it won’t approach the numbers of network
shows like M*A*S*H or even Friends, but it has an excellent chance
of setting a new record for cable shows. Season 7 averaged upwards of 10
million viewers, and the season finale drew over 12 million. With anticipation
at an all-time high, the numbers for Season 8 should leave those behind easily.
And with two more novels to come in George R.R. Martin’s novel
series and a spinoff series in production from HBO, the fever is sure to
last for years to come.
Written by Jon Williams
This coming
weekend, the biggest American sporting event of the year will take place. Super Bowl
LIII will determine the year’s NFL championship in a matchup between the Los
Angeles Rams and the New England Patriots. Beyond its implications for the
sport, the Super Bowl has become a huge cultural event, with over a hundred
million people likely to watch in North America. Even people who normally don’t
follow football tune in—for the camaraderie of sharing the event with friends,
for the innovative commercials that air during the broadcast, and, of course,
for the halftime musical entertainment.
With such a
wide audience, it’s no wonder that the halftime show is such a coveted slot for
musicians. The featured performer this year will be multiplatinum rock band Maroon
5. They’ve been a fixture in the music scene since 2004, when singles like “This
Love” and “Sunday Morning” propelled their debut album, Songs
About Jane, to multiplatinum status. They’ve released five more studio
albums since then, all of them selling over a million copies. Their most
recent, Red
Pill Blues, was released in 2017, driven by singles like “What Lovers
Do” (featuring SZA) and “Girls Like You” (featuring Cardi B). Singer Adam
Levine has also helped to keep the band in the spotlight by serving as a judge
on the hit musical talent show The Voice since its inception in 2011.
Traditionally
the Super Bowl halftime show is a collaborative affair, and this year is no
different. One musician joining Maroon 5 for the festivities will be rapper Travis
Scott. After several EPs and mixtapes, his debut album Rodeo
was released in 2015 and went platinum on the strength of singles “3500” and
Antidote, as well as guest appearances from stars like Kanye West, Justin
Bieber, and the Weekend, to name just a few. He followed that up in 2016 with Birds
in the Trap Sing McKnight, another platinum outing. His newest album, Astroworld,
was released in August of last year and is still a staple near the top of the
Billboard albums chart. Scott is nominated for three awards at this year’s
Grammys, which will take place a week after the Super Bowl.
Another
musician joining Maroon 5 and Travis Scott onstage will be Big
Boi, who hails from the Super Bowl’s host city of Atlanta. Along with Andre
3000 as the multiplatinum hip-hop duo Outkast,
Big Boi came into the spotlight in the mid-1990s. The duo has released six
albums together and won six Grammy Awards, including Best Rap Album and Album
of the Year for Speakerboxxx/The
Love Below in 2003. Since their last album together in 2006, Big Boi
has focused on his solo career. His debut, Sir
Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, came out in 2010. He’s
followed it up with two more albums, the most recent of which, Boomiverse,
came out in 2017.
While the
halftime show is the musical focal point of the Super Bowl, it’s also an
enormous honour for a musician to get the opportunity to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the game kicks off. This year that honour goes to another Atlanta
native, Gladys
Knight. With a career dating back to the early 1960s, she is a true
R&B/soul music legend, both with her band the Pips and on her own. Known
for her early work, she has continued to record, with her most recent album, Where
My Heart Belongs, coming in 2014.
With so many
people watching the Super Bowl and its musical performances, patrons will no
doubt be interested in hearing more from these incredible artists. Make sure to
have plenty of their CDs on your shelves, and if your library is a hoopla Digital customer, don’t forget
to direct your patrons there as well—they’ll find these artists and more,
available with no holds, no waiting, and no late fees.
Written by Jon Williams
Last week we
finally got a premiere date for the return of one of television’s most
acclaimed and popular shows. On April 14, the eighth and final season of Game
of Thrones will debut on HBO. The finale of season
seven aired on August 27, 2017, so fans have been not-so-patiently waiting
for nearly two years for it to return. Game
of Thrones has become known over the years for its shocking plot twists,
and the six-episode final season is sure to deliver plenty of drama and action
as the fate of Westeros is decided.
A number of
beloved shows are coming to an end in 2019. Out today on Netflix are the final six
episodes of The
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the award-winning comedy series created by Tina
Fey. In the comedy realm, both Veep
and Broad
City will take a bow with one last season each. The currently airing
season five of Gotham
will be its last, while Elementary
will wrap after its upcoming seventh season. The fifth season of zombie
detective show iZombie
will end that story. The streaming prison drama Orange
Is the New Black will also come to a conclusion after its seventh
season, while the action-packed spy series Homeland
will finish with its eighth. Finally, Academy Award nominee Rami Malek is back
for one last round of the acclaimed Mr.
Robot as its fourth season will be its last.
However, for
all the series coming to an end, there are a number of new shows premiering
that will vie for the attention of viewers looking for something to watch. Coming
next month is Miracle Workers, a Heaven-set
comedy based on the novel What
in God’s Name by Simon Rich and starring Steve
Buscemi and Daniel
Radcliffe. Also coming in February is Boomerang,
which follows the 1992 Eddie Murphy movie
of the same name. In March, look for Turn
Up Charlie, a streaming comedy created by and starring Idris
Elba as a washed-up DJ who takes on child care duties for his friend’s
daughter. Horror fans can look forward to NOS4A2, a series based on the novel
of the same name by Joe
Hill. And later this year, live-action Star
Wars finally comes to the small screen with The Mandalorian, a series created by Jon Favreau and set between Return
of the Jedi and The
Force Awakens.
There are
also a number of limited series and one-time television events for viewers to
look forward to. This weekend will see a live production of Rent,
the popular musical that made its stage debut in 1996 and came to theatres in 2005.
On Monday comes the first episode of I Am
the Night, a six-episode miniseries starring Chris
Pine and directed by Wonder Woman’s
Patty
Jenkins. In March, Cosmos: Possible
Worlds, starring Neil
deGrasse Tyson, follows up the popular 2014
scientific series that itself followed on Carl Sagan’s 1980
show. Beginning in April is a six-episode miniseries adaptation of Les Miserables, a non-musical version
based directly on Victor
Hugo’s 1862 novel. Then in May comes a live production of the musical Hair, which originally came to the stage
in 1967 and was adapted
for film in 1979.
And then
there are the shows that are coming back for another season, but not ending.
Next month The
Walking Dead returns from its midseason hiatus, carrying on after the
departure of Andrew
Lincoln, whose character, Rick Grimes, has served as the show’s main
character up to this point. When that season ends, the spinoff, Fear
the Walking Dead, will return for its fifth season. American
Gods, adapted from Neil
Gaiman’s novel, returns for a second season in March. Also in March comes
the fourth season of the Showtime drama Billions,
while April brings the return of the acclaimed Killing
Eve. This year will also see the long-awaited third season of the hit
sci-fi/horror series Stranger
Things after a nearly two-year wait.
Television
is in the middle of a golden age, with so many quality shows that it’s
difficult to keep up with everything. With so many viewers perfectly content to
sit down for marathon binge-watching sessions, you can help keep your patrons
happy and entertained for hours on end by making sure your television
collections are robust and up to date. Use the links above or SmartBrowse on
our website to find more, and let us know what you and your patrons are looking
forward to watching in 2019.
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