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Wizard

First Trailer for ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’ with Paul Dano & Jude Law

by jummy84 November 11, 2025

written by jummy84

First Trailer for ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’ with Paul Dano & Jude Law

by Alex Billington
November 10, 2025
Source: YouTube

“What interests me is power.” Gaumont in France has revealed their first trailer for the film The Wizarrd of the Kremlin, an English-language feature film from French director Olivier Assayas. This premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival a few months ago, and it also stopped by the Toronto, San Sebastian, Busan, and Zurich Film Festivals as well. A young Russian artist becomes an unlikely advisor to Vladimir Putin as he rises to power in post-Soviet Russia, navigating the new era’s complexities and chaos. The film tells the story of Vadim Baranov, played with calm and cool by Paul Dano, a sharp young man who becomes the top propagandist and advisor to Vladimir Putin when he first takes power in Russia as President in 2000. It’s a remarkable inside look at how power dynamics, corruption and manipulation work within the top echelons of Russia’s government. Also starring Jude Law as Putin, Alicia Vikander as Ksenia, Jeffrey Wright, Tom Sturridge, Will Keen, and many others. I’ve seen this film and it’s particularly fascinating, showing how everything really is about power and control and manipulation. This trailer captures the vibe of the film and Dano’s story as it progresses through decades of time. But still no US release set yet! Take a look below.

Here’s the first official trailerr for Olivier Assayas’ film The Wizard of the Kremlin, from YouTube:

The Wizard of the Kremlin Trailer

Russia, early 1990s. Amid post-Soviet chaos, a brilliant young man, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), charts his path. First an artist, then a reality TV producer, he becomes the spin doctor for a rising KGB agent: Vladimir Putin. At the heart of power, Baranov shapes the new Russia, blurring the boundaries between truth & lies, belief & manipulation. Only the magnetic Ksenia is beyond his control, tempting him away from this dangerous game. Years later, after retreating into silence and shrouded in mystery, Baranov finally opens up, revealing the dark secrets of the regime he helped build. The Wizard of the Kremlin, also known as Le mage du Kremlin in French, is directed by acclaimed French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, of the films Winter’s Child, Paris Awakens, Cold Water, Demonlover, Clean, Boarding Gate, Summer Hours, Something in the Air, Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper, Non-Fiction, Wasp Network, Suspended Time, and the “Irma Vep” series. The screenplay is written by Olivier Assayas & Emmanuel Carrère; adapted from the book of the same name by Giuliano Da Empoli. Produced by Olivier Delbosc & Sidonie Dumas; Curiosa Films & Gaumont. This initially premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival earlier this fall. The film opens first in France starting January 2026 coming soon. No US release date has been set yet – stay tuned.

Find more posts in: Foreign Films, Indies, To Watch, Trailer

November 11, 2025 0 comments

Music

Sphere Stock Rides ‘Wizard of Oz’ to Gains, Up 46% in Last 4 Weeks

by jummy84 September 13, 2025

written by jummy84

Sphere Entertainment stock rose 19.3% to $58.33 this week, marking its fourth consecutive weekly gain and the largest improvement in that month-long run. Sphere shares have risen an astounding 46.3% in the last four weeks. The stock reached an all-time high of $58.71 on Friday (Sept. 12).

Sphere’s latest offering, a revamped The Wizard of Oz, has won over both audiences and Wall Street analysts. As Billboard noted on Wednesday (Sept. 10), numerous analysts have raised forecasts in the wake of a stellar debut and strong ticket sales. The $2.3 billion venue requires a high level of utilization to be profitable, meaning Sphere must squeeze in film showings when it’s not hosting sold-out concerts by the likes of Backstreet Boys and The Eagles. Early results suggest the revamped The Wizard of Oz, which cost upwards of $100 million, is performing better than Sphere’s two previous films, Postcards from Earth and V-U2.

The 19-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) rose 1.0% to 3,061.29, putting its year-to-date gain at 44.1%. The majority of music stocks ended the week in positive territory, mirroring gains elsewhere in the market as investors lifted stocks ahead of an expected interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The week’s biggest gainer was music streamer LiveOne, which jumped 29.5% to $0.57. On Thursday (Sept. 11), LiveOne raised its fiscal 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $4.5 million to $6 million on revenue of $55 million to $60 million. On Friday, the company announced that its Bitcoin holdings exceed $5 million.

Radio broadcaster and podcast company iHeartMedia rose 23.3% to finish the week at $2.59. iHeartMedia shares rose 9.2% on Friday after the company announced an expanded partnership and new long-term agreement with Bell Media in Canada. iHeartRadio Canada is a partnership between iHeartMedia and Bell Media, giving the American company distribution of its radio stations and podcast content in the neighbor to the north.

Live Nation shares rose 6.3% to $173.73 on Friday after reaching a new all-time high of $175.25 earlier in the day. The spike followed Citi’s hike of its Live Nation price target to $195 from $165 on Tuesday (Sept. 9). Also this week, CFRA raised its Live Nation price target by $26 to $196, citing “the outsized opportunity for live entertainment around the globe” and the company’s efforts to build arenas and theaters to capture market share.

Universal Music Group (UMG) rose 1.2% to 24.59 euros ($28.86). This week, Citi upgraded UMG to “buy” from “neutral” and increased its price target to 29 euros ($34.03) from 27 euros ($31.68).

Warner Music Group shares gained 2.8% to $33.62, lifting the stock’s year-to-date gain to 8.4%. On Wednesday (Sept. 10), Tigress raised its price target to $45 from $44 due to subscriber growth and the company’s margin expansion.

Spotify, the BMGI’s largest single component with a market capitalization of $142.6 billion, fell 1.5% to $696.40. Spotify shares are up 49.2% this year but have fallen 12.7% since reaching an all-time high of $785.00 on June 27. This week, the company announced the launch of its long-awaited high-quality audio streaming offering.

Many markets and indexes gained this week as investors awaited a decision by the Federal Reserve and companies continued to announce positive news. Amidst rising inflation and falling consumer sentiment, companies ranging from Six Flags Entertainment to Adobe nonetheless gained on encouraging results.

In the U.S., the Nasdaq composite index rose 2.0% to a record closing of 22,141.10, and the S&P 500 climbed 1.7% to 6,584.29. In the U.K., the FTSE 100 improved 0.8% to 9,283.29. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index jumped 5.9% to 3,395.54, and China’s Shanghai Composite Index improved 1.5% to 3,870.60.

September 13, 2025 0 comments

Music

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Albums ‘Name Your Price’ on Bandcamp

by jummy84 September 10, 2025

written by jummy84

The band left Spotify in June after its CEO Daniel Ek invested in AI military drone technology

After pulling their music from Spotify following CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in AI military drone technology, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have successfully taken over the entire Top 25 of Bandcamp’s best-selling albums and are letting fans “name your price.”

While Bandcamp’s default pricing for albums is set at $9 (with tracks at $1.50), the company says artist are still able to set “pricing in a way that reflects your goals, your audience, and the value of your work.” The novel pricing move by King Gizzard opens up their digital catalog with a no minimum payment, making their music more accessible than ever.

Earlier this summer, the Aussie band began to remove dozens of albums from Spotify following the announcement that Ek’s investment firm, Prima Materia, helmed a 600 million euro fundraising round for Helsing, a defense technology startup developing AI drones. Simply writing “fuck Spotify” while promoting a new demo collection at the time, King Gizzard later explained their decision in an Instagram Story.

“Hello friends… A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology… We just removed our music from the platform… Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better?… Join us on another platform,” the band’s statement read.

Along with King Gizzard, other prominent artists including Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Hotline TNT, the Mynabirds, Kadhja Bonet, and WU LYF have since left the platform.

“We’ve been saying ‘f— Spotify’ for years. In our circle of musicians, that’s what people say all the time for well-documented reasons,” King Gizzard’s Stu Mackenzie previously told the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t consider myself an activist, but this feels like a decision staying true to ourselves. We saw other bands we admire leaving, and we realized we don’t want our music to be there right now.”

September 10, 2025 0 comments

Music

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Make Albums “Name Your Price” on Bandcamp

by jummy84 September 10, 2025

written by jummy84

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have raised the bar. After leaving Spotify earlier this summer over the streaming platform CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in AI drone technology, the Australian psych rockers have made their music more accessible on Bandcamp by switching to a name-your-price model for fans looking to access their digital catalog.

“Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better? Join us on another platform,” the band posted to Instagram back in July. Now, after more than a month of their music being unavailable on streaming platforms, the world can purchase their jams at a lower price than the previous minimum of $10 for each album.

Get King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Tickets Here

Paying supporters get unlimited streaming of King Gizzard’s music on the free app. Proving this strategy’s success, the prolific band’s deep discography currently populates the entire Top 25 of Bandcamp’s best-selling albums section.

Sphere’s The Wizard of Oz Could Make More than $1 Billion

by jummy84 September 8, 2025

written by jummy84

While previewing the new digitally-augmented presentation of The Wizard of Oz at Sphere in Las Vegas, Sphere Entertainment Co. CEO James Dolan told press that the project had gone way over its original budget. “We went way over the budget. What we were originally thinking, we ended up almost two times what we were originally thinking,” Dolan said. “We’re getting up pretty close to that $100 million mark — it was worth it.” And he may have been right, as it’s been revealed that it could be a billion-dollar revenue generator for Sphere.

Lucas Shaw at Bloomberg reports that with fans paying approximately $200 a ticket, The Wizard of Oz is currently generating sales of approximately $2 million a day, meaning that it could earn more than $1 billion during its run — which could stretch on indefinitely, while also being shown at additional Sphere locations as well.

Get Wizard of Oz at Sphere Tickets Here

Dolan told analysts that “Ultimately, we’ll run The Wizard of Oz forever… It’s hard for me to imagine a better product.” That said, Dolan has also approached Warner Bros. and Disney about potentially giving Harry Potter and Star Wars the Sphere treatment.

Sphere Entertainment Stock Gains as ‘Wizard of Oz’ Debuts

by jummy84 August 30, 2025

written by jummy84

Buzz surrounding the return of Dorothy, Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion may have helped make Sphere Entertainment Co. the best-performing music stock for the week ended Aug. 29. Sphere Entertainment shares rose 6.8% to $45.35 in an otherwise muted week for music stocks.

On Thursday, the Sphere venue in Las Vegas debuted — to both positive and negative reviews — its revamped version of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The premiere was prefaced by a heavy national media campaign that showed both the love for the 1939 original film and curiosity about the state-of-the-art, multi-sensory venue. To date, Sphere had sold 215,000 tickets for The Wizard of Oz at over $100 apiece.

Sphere Entertainment shares have gained 13.7% in the last two weeks, turning a 5.1% year-to-date loss into a 6.8% gain this year. Aside from the attention gained by The Wizard of Oz, the venue has racked up some wins in recent months. The Sphere recently concluded a Kenny Chesney residency in June and will commence with a Zac Brown Band residency in December. In addition, the venue added 14 additional Backstreet Boys performances to extend the group’s well-received run into February 2026.

The Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI), a float-adjusted index of 19 publicly traded music companies, fell 1.5% to 2,979.62 in its second consecutive weekly decline. (The index originally had 20 stocks, but Believe was taken private and no longer trades on the Euronext Paris exchange.) With a majority of music stocks in the red this week, the index’s year-to-date gain dropped to 40.2%.

U.S. indexes fell as core U.S. inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, rose to 2.9% in July, the highest level since February. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.6% to 21,142.01 and the S&P 500 dropped 0.1%. International indexes were mixed. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 fell 1.4% to 9,187.34 but South Korea’s KOSPI composite index rose 0.5% to 3,186.01 and China’s Shanghai Composite Index improved 0.8% to 3,857.93.

Other than Sphere Entertainment, only three stocks had gains above 1%: Cumulus Media (up 6.3%), Anghami (up 4.1%) and MSG Entertainment (up 3.5%). Three of the most valuable music companies had gains of less than 1%: SiriusXM (up 0.8%), HYBE (up 0.5%) and Live Nation (up 0.5%).

With most music stocks losing ground this week, the BGMI was dragged down by the losses of its three most valuable music companies. Spotify fell 1.5% to $682.34, taking the stock 13.1% below the all-time high of $785.00 set on June 27. Universal Music Group dropped 2.7%, bringing its year-to-date gain to 1.0%. And Tencent Music Entertainment sank 3.2% to $24.53, although a blistering first half of 2025 has helped put the stock up 120.0% this year.

Two K-pop companies were among the week’s worst performers. SM Entertainment fell 3.9% to 138,800 KRW ($99.82) and JYP Entertainment was down 5.6% to 72,700 KRW ($52.29). The biggest loser of the week was music streamer LiveOne, which fell 8.3% to $0.55 and extended its year-to-date loss to 59.9%.

August 30, 2025 0 comments

Music

Sphere’s Wizard of Oz Includes David Zaslav’s Face

by jummy84 August 29, 2025

written by jummy84

The classic 1933 movie The Wizard of Oz is filled with famous characters, like the Cowardly Lion, the Wicked Witch of the West, and of course Dorothy Gale herself. But if you go see the new immersive version at Las Vegas’ Sphere, there will be two new faces in the crowd: Sphere Entertainment Co. CEO James Dolan and Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav.

Dolan revealed this information to press during a walkthrough of the Wizard of Oz experience, which alters the original film to fit across the mammoth Sphere screen, while trimming the length of the film to allow for more daily viewings. It also replaces the faces of two characters in the movie with the faces of Dolan and Zaslav.

“I won’t tell you where, it’s only for like two seconds,” The Hollywood Reporter quotes Dolan saying. Visual effects specialist Ben Grossmann then clarified that the original characters were uncredited and “too blurry to be identified” on screen. (Munchkins, perhaps? Or residents of the Emerald City?)

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton producing ‘modern’ Wizard of Oz series for Prime Video

by jummy84 August 27, 2025

written by jummy84

27 August 2025

Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton are producing a new Wizard of Oz series for Amazon Prime Video.

Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are producing Dorothy

The husband-and-wife duo are both attached to the new show called Dorothy, which has been created – and will be written by – 13 Going On 30 producer Gina Matthews.

Gina told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement: “I’ve been in love with The Wizard of Oz books since I was a child.

“The story reminds us of the qualities we need to get through hard times, and Dorothy is a symbol of strength who shows us that with a little kindness — and a lot of grit — we can not only achieve great things but also lift up those around us.

“I’m excited to bring that message to the world, now more than ever.”

The series will be a “contemporary, music-infused” young adult retelling of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz book, with the Yellow Brick Road being used as a metaphor for the challenges currently faced by young people.

As well as Gwen, Lucky Horseshoe’s Blake and Lee Metzger are joined as executive producers by Little Engine’s Grant Scharbo, and Patrick Moran.

Blake said: “We’re really excited about all the possibilities this show brings, and I’m so grateful that Gina shared the idea with me and Lee.

“I knew right away it was something Gwen would connect with. Her creativity and perspective are such a natural fit for this project.”

Meanwhile, his wife described the project as a “modern take on a classic”.

The Don’t Speak hitmaker added: “It’s a creative and modern take on a classic, and being part of something that blends music, emotion, and the character of Dorothy is inspiring to me.”

Patrick said: “I’m really excited to work with this creative team.

“I’m such a fan of everyone involved and couldn’t ask for a more exciting partnership as we reinvent this cherished IP.”

While Grant commented: “We’re thrilled to embark on this journey with Amazon and believe Dorothy will enchant a whole new generation of viewers.”

August 27, 2025 0 comments

Wizard

First Trailer for ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’ with Paul Dano & Jude Law

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