Lady Gaga's LG7 Rollout, Pharrell Williams' Scrapped Movie Musical, And SNL's 50th Celebration

Happy Friday, Valentine’s Day, and Galentine’s Day weekend. Whatever you’re choosing to celebrate this weekend, we hope it’s an amazing one!

In this week’s TFL, we’re covering:

• How Lady Gaga is killing it with the promo and performance of her LP7 album rollout

• A closer look at Pharrell Williams’ shelved biopic and the current state of theatrical movie musicals

• This weekend’s highly star-studded celebration of SNL’s 50th Anniversary (and everything leading up to it)

• A banging new “Good Noise” playlist featuring 30 new songs you need to hear from this week

• A round-up of this week’s new trailer drops

• Plenty of tidbits across the entertainment industry going on and in the works!

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Thank you for being here - now let’s get into it!

—Stephen Frost

🎵 Lady Gaga Is Owning The Moment On All Fronts With Her “Mayhem” Album Rollout

Some might call it magic that Lady Gaga has two of the biggest songs of her career right now with “Abracadabra” and her Bruno Mars collab “Die With A Smile.” But according to her stream counts on Spotify and her active digital marketing strategy for the upcoming album Mayhem (which she’s absolutely crushing), the numbers don’t lie.

Spill the data for me: her latest single “Abracadabra,” since its February 3rd release, has notched over 75 million streams on Spotify and is currently averaging 5.4 million daily streams per today’s Global Chart playlist on the platform. She also sits at number three on the most streamed artists on the platform where just ahead of her at number two and one are The Weeknd and Bruno Mars (whom we wrote about just two weeks ago setting the platform’s new monthly listener record).

On the marketing side of things, Gaga’s not phoning it in when doing everything it takes to promote Mayhem despite still being one of the biggest artists in the world. Gaga and her digital team have been setting what appears to be a new precedent for fan engagement noticeably since the release of “Die With A Smile.” If you look at her reposts on TikTok, she’s been actively engaging with dozens of fans who are taking on the recent “Abracadabra” dance challenge by reposting and genuinely commenting on fans’ posts.

The aforementioned dance challenge is also being supported by a brand partnership with Mastercard where her fans can submit their dance videos to be in an official “Fan Version” music video. Plus, with a recent stop at Hot Ones this week and a performance slated for SNL50: The Homecoming Concert tonight (more on that towards the end of this email), she’s got her hand on many of the biggest culture touch points to enhance the release of her anticipated album.

Moral of the story: artists should never worry about being too big to show they care about their fans. When you genuinely show up for them and follow that with quality bangers, you’ll get equally abundant support back. We’re in the service business after all; serve your fans as a creator and artist.

🍿 Pharrell Williams’ Star-Studded Biopic Musical Set To Release This Summer Has Been Shelved

Last Friday, shortly after sending out last week’s newsletter, it was revealed that Pharrell Williams and Michael Gondry’s new musical film at Universal Pictures titled ‘Golden’ (previously titled ‘Atlantis’) about Pharrell’s childhood growing up in Virginia Beach in 1977 had been shelved permanently from post-production by the filmmakers (meaning it will never be finished, see the light of day or be shopped to other studios).

Fill me in: Golden was originally scheduled to be released on May 5th and boasted a stacked cast of musicians and performers including Kelvin Harrison Jr., Halle Bailey, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Brian Tyree Henry, Janelle Monáe, Missy Elliott, Quinta Brunson, Anderson .Paak and Jaboukie Young-White. Plus, Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, the award-winning songwriting duo behind hits like Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land, The Greatest Showman, and season 3 of Only Murders In The Building to name a few, were hired to write songs for the film in collaboration with Williams (which fans will sadly never get to hear as well).

According to a statement provided to Variety (who broke the story), Williams and Gondry explained in a joint statement, “When all of us got into the editing room we collectively decided there wasn’t a path forward to tell the version of this story that we originally envisioned. We appreciate all the hard work of the talented cast and crew. While we’re disappointed we can’t deliver this film, we have incredible partners at Universal and will collaborate in a different capacity again soon.”

The news of Golden follows last Fall’s release of Pharrell’s first biopic animated by Legos (Golden would’ve been his second) Piece by Piece, which made $10.7 million against its $16 million budget. And even worse for the movie musical space in the last couple of months: the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man made $19.7 million against its $110 million budget and A Complete Unknown at this point may be lucky to nearly break even with $100 million earned against its $70 million budget. While this is not the greatest result to hear for this niche genre, there wasn’t a more definitive reason beyond not capturing what the filmmakers “originally envisioned.” Perhaps releasing two Pharrell biopics within eight months of each other may not have been the move.

Catch me up on the last couple of years of movie musical performances: studio executives have been actively downplaying the musical elements of its films while marketing as reports revealed via Deadline in 2023 that “test-audience focus groups generally hate musicals and the only way to get people into the theater with one is to trick ’em. If they get in the door and wind up enjoying themselves, then business is solid for a studio on a musical.” At the time of that report, this was likely in response to the 2021 box office performances of In the Heights and West Side Story (each respectively made $45.2 against a $55 million budget and $78.4 million against a $100 million budget). When the musical downplay was applied for Wonka and Mean Girls (2024), this gave a better box office performance where each respectively made $634 million against a $125 million budget and $105 million against a $36 million budget.

What this means for upcoming theatrical movie musicals: while audiences have been excited about musical blockbuster film adaptations like Wicked (whose music was definitely not downplayed), there’s more room for improvement to make this genre an enjoyable one to watch by the masses in theaters worldwide versus last year’s top 10 highest earners made solely on existing IP.

📺 ‘SNL’ Celebrates 50 Years As A Trailblazing Comedy Institution All Weekend Long

This weekend marks a historic weekend for sketch comedy fans worldwide as the beloved and deeply respected comedy institution Saturday Night Live, created and executive produced by Lorne Michaels, celebrates its 50th Anniversary in a three-hour primetime special this Sunday night.

Needless to say, this weekend has been a half-century in the making. The team at NBC and fellow SNL affiliates have been pulling out all the stops all season long to mark this occasion a momentous milestone. From premiering multiple specials, an in-depth docu-series, holding an immersive Live From New York Experience at 30 Rock, various books from show insiders, last Fall’s critically acclaimed Saturday Night biopic, plenty of brand partnership commercials including All-State, T-Mobile, and Volkswagen, and even a nostalgic 50-day social media countdown leading up to Sunday night’s primetime special, these lookbacks the show’s rich history have acted as the ultimate hype vehicles leading up to this weekend. It serves as a reminder of how this once underdog show has shaped and defined culture in ways not many other entertainment mainstays have before.

What to expect from this weekend’s primetime special: this mega star-studded event will air live on NBC and Peacock this Sunday at 8 PM ET and feature a half-century’s worth of sketches, cast members, hosts, and other collaborators, in what’s expected to be an extraordinary evening. Iconic cast members set to appear are Adam Sandler, Amy Poehler, Chris Rock, Chevy Chase, Maya Rudolph, Seth Meyers, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, and more. The show’s stand-out hosts and musical guests set to appear are John Mulaney, Martin Short, Miley Cyrus, Paul Simon, Robert De Niro, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, and many more surprise guests to be revealed at airtime.

On Saturday night, there will be a special re-broadcast of the show’s very first episode at 11:30 PM ET featuring host George Carlin with musical guests Billy Preston and Janis Ian and the show’s Not So Ready for Primetime Players.

And tonight, there will be a special celebration of the show’s musical history titled SNL50: The Homecoming Concert streaming live from Radio City Music Hall at 8 PM ET on Peacock. Jimmy Fallon is hosting the Mark Ronson-produced event with legendary performances to be seen by The Roots, Arcade Fire, Backstreet Boys, Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga, Jack White, Post Malone, and more.

Let us know if you’re excited and will be tuning in this weekend!

That’s it for this week folks. Let me know if you have any feedback or comments on what’d you like to see in this newsletter, feel free to reply to me on this email.

We’ll see you back again next Friday & have a great weekend!

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