One of my biggest fears for Zendaya was that once she signed on to be a Louis Vuitton brand ambassador, she would be contractually obligated to wear LV to all of her biggest red carpets. While LV can (sometimes) make some interesting and even great custom pieces for their ambassadors, for the most part, brand ambassadorships suck the life out of all the fashion girls. I’m happy to see that Zendaya is still having a lot of fun with fashion and she does not seem to have the same contractual obligations and restrictions as many house ambassadors.

So, here are some photos from this week and last week as Zendaya and the Dune 2 cast promote their film. Last night, the cast did a big premiere event in Paris. Zendaya wore Louis Vuitton – a haute couture crop top with a slouchy t-neck. While I’m not crazy about the LV, I understand what they were trying to do and I get the theme. What bugs me is that Zendaya’s makeup is awful here.

At the Paris photocall (earlier in the day on Monday), Zendaya wore Alaïa. She looked incredible in these pics!

Last week, the cast was in Mexico City! At the premiere, Zendaya wore custom Bottega Veneta and Florence Pugh wore Standing Ground.

At the photocall in Mexico, Zendaya wore custom Torishéju. This is too costume-y, but I get it.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.

Before the Princess of Wales was hospitalized and MIA for almost two full months, there was a long-running story in the British media about Kate’s refusal to send Prince George to Eton. It’s not that Kate has an aversion to Eton specifically, she’s just anti-same-sex education and anti-boarding school. In the past year, she was apparently visiting other schools which George could potentially attend in a few years, when he turns 13. One of her favorite choices was her alma mater, Marlborough, which is co-ed and part-boarding school and part “day school.” As in, kids just attend like a normal school and go home every afternoon, but some kids board. One of the last times we heard about this Wales debate was in a story from In Touch, in which Kate reportedly “gave in” to William’s demands that George attend Eton, his alma mater. But not so fast – apparently, Kate is well enough to still have opinions on all of this (??), and she’s now considering a different co-ed school.

As the Prince and Princess of Wales ruminate over the difficult choice of where to send the future King to secondary school, a new institution is reportedly in the running. The Mail on Sunday reported this weekend that Kate, 42, and William, 41, have listed the prestigious Oundle School among their top choices for their eldest son, 11, who will be leaving primary school this summer.

It comes amid reports Kate’s alma mater, Marlborough School in Buckinghamshire, where fees are £47,000-per-year, runs the risk of being ‘flashy’ with a source revealing the Princess of Wales’s style is ‘understated wealth’.

In contrast, Oundle School in north Northamptonshire claims to help shape its pupils into ‘decent’, ‘open-minded’ and ‘ambitious’ adults – but never ‘arrogant’. The institution, founded in 1556, boasts that pupils, known as Oundelians, ‘share the town of Oundle’ with residents as its buildings are scattered around the area in an open campus which includes a chapel and a cricket ground.

School fees at Oundle for full-time boarders are £34,515 per year for Year 7, but the fee rises to £45,435 from Years 9 to 13. Fees for day pupils at Year 7 are £22,350 per year, rising to £29,370 for Years 9-13.

Although Prince William and Prince Harry were both educated at Eton College, just a short distance from Windsor Castle, it has not been confirmed if Prince George will follow in his father and uncle’s footsteps. He has also been linked with his mother Kate’s former school, Marlborough College, where Pippa and James Middleton were also educated. The Mail on Sunday reported George has already been allocated a ‘house’ in a safe location and given a housemaster at the school if he does eventually attend.

But there is said to be concern that Marlborough has become ‘too flashy’ after a rise in its popularity with ultra-rich families due to its association with the Middletons.

‘The 2024 version of Marlborough may be quite different from how Kate remembers it,’ a source said. ‘It’s become a little more jet-set. Lots of parents have villas in Ibiza, chalets in Verbier or a private jet, which isn’t Kate’s style. She prefers understated wealth.’

They added: ‘Kate wants a school that suits all of her children and keeps them grounded.’

[From The Daily Mail]

LMAO at “She prefers understated wealth.” I shouldn’t comment, but no, Kate is not all about understated wealth. I realize that rich folks in Britain prefer to act like they have no money, but “acting poor” is only a thing when you actually have money. Besides, everything about Kate and the Middletons screams “pretending to be nouveau riche.” The Middletons couldn’t even keep up the nouveau riche appearances without their house of cards collapsing though. I would also guess that Marlborough was always a school which appealed to flashy rich families, which is probably why the Middletons sent Kate there, so she could learn how to social climb. Anyway, I doubt anyone is seriously considering Oundle – George will end up going to Eton, I can pretty much guarantee that. It will be interesting to see where Charlotte and Louis end up going though.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

It’s really funny to watch as the British media grapples with the monster they helped create. It all began last week, when King Charles announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer, and Prince Harry flew fourteen hours just to check on his father in person. People started asking questions like “where is Prince William” and “what’s really going on with William’s wife” and “why isn’t William stepping in for his father” and “why did William show up to a mid-day event under the influence?” Over the weekend, Kensington Palace’s clowns tried a new talking point: poor William needed time to absorb the news about his father, and he’s working his fingers down to the nub by taking his kids to school every day, and he’s grappling with the fact that he’s the heir! At no point would it even occur to KP or William that there’s a desperate need for William to actually come out and be seen, and to be seen as a 40-something heir fully prepared for the role. Instead, the overwhelming message is: Poor William is paralyzed with laziness, he needs our pity. Anyway, People Magazine tried to put a bow on it with their reporting:

Duty is calling for Prince William. As he continues to focus on his family and care for his wife Kate Middleton, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, he is also prioritizing his duty to the monarchy and his father, King Charles, who is was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Those very different demands have come into focus as the Prince of Wales, 41, takes a week off from royal engagements to look after Princess Kate, 42, and their three children — Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5 during the children’s school break. As he does, there are ongoing discussions about what, if anything, he should do in terms of stepping in for his father, whose treatment for an as-yet-unnamed cancer continues.

A friend told PEOPLE of Prince William’s return to public life, “He is coping remarkably well considering his wife had surgery and he only found out his father’s news recently.”

While the separate staff at Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace respectively are in “constant dialogue,” there hasn’t been anything specific that William has been asked to do on behalf of his father. Last week, a source who knows King Charles told PEOPLE that he wouldn’t burden his son unnecessarily.

“He wouldn’t want to put that pressure on William,” a source close to the royal household told PEOPLE. “He has always wanted to save his children from having that pressure too early and that will remain. Particularly as William has other priorities [with Kate].”

After his children’s school break, Prince William is expected to resume a fuller diary of activities as well as take up the reigns of the school drop-offs and pick-ups.

Prince William will be seen “more than we have done in the last few weeks,” a source adds, as he tackles outings covering the range of his interests. That would be a sure, and positive, sign that Princess Kate is doing well enough to enable him to do so.

He is likely to be at the Commonwealth Day service on March 11 while Queen Camilla, 76, will represent her husband. There is also a chance he will be at the biggest night for British film, the BAFTA ceremony, on Sunday, though his appearance will depend on the situation at home.

[From People]

One week ago, just before William stepped out at an investiture service looking visibly under the influence, Kensington Palace sources told Rebecca English at the Mail: “The Prince has always made clear that his priority is to support his wife and family for the time being – and he did not put a timescale on that. He will make a return to duties on Wednesday but you should not expect to see him again for a bit after that.” Sources have also insisted that palace staff are iffy about William doing anything for Commonwealth Day in March. There’s a very good chance that after William’s “holiday” this week, we still won’t see him for weeks longer. So who is briefing People Mag that William will be back to work next week? I mean, we’ll see, but it’s still pretty notable that the only thing that got William out of lazy-paralysis was his brother visiting their father.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Here are some photos from Monday’s Oscar luncheon, always one of the nicest events on the awards-season calendar. There’s no real dress code other than “look nice for this year’s class photo” and you get a nice lunch. There’s always a lot of media involved too. Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig both showed up, because they were nominated as producer and screenwriter, not lead actress and director. Margot wore a custom Chanel look which I don’t really like, but she’s still doing her Barbie-dressing and that’s cool. Greta looked terrible – the black socks with the white pumps, I’m dying!!! WTF.

I’m including pics of Carey Mulligan (in a great black dress), Robert Downey Jr. (wearing lifts and snazzy pants), Emily Blunt (I love her ensemble but not her face work), Paul Giamatti, Ryan Gosling, Jeffrey Wright, Emma Stone (I’m sure her suit is Louis Vuitton), America Ferrera, Colman Domingo (easily the best-dressed man of the awards season) and Lily Gladstone. You can see the “class photo” here at People Mag.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

I’ve just been reminded of royal commentator/wannabe gadfly Petronella Wyatt. We haven’t talked about her in months, not since she made a series of cracked-out comments in the Telegraph and elsewhere about Prince Harry last May and June. According to Wyatt, her friends in LA are “always bumping into Meghan at parties” and Harry is a very lonely babysitter. Weeks later, Wyatt threw a hissy fit about Harry testifying against the tabloids who hacked him and every girlfriend he ever had. These days, it looks like Wyatt is getting her marching orders from Queen Camilla. My pet theory is that Camilla was banned from King Charles and Prince Harry’s brief meeting last week and Camilla has been throwing some hissy fits of her own. She clearly was behind that particularly nasty story to Robert Jobson, about how Charles didn’t even want to see Harry. Now Wyatt claims that it was Harry who told his father that he didn’t want to be in the same room as Camilla. Sure. And??

Hostilities flared up last week between Prince Harry and Queen Camilla. Or rather, the Duke of Sussex apparently launched an unprovoked volley in the direction of a 75-year-old woman. In an irony that will no doubt escape this self-proclaimed feminist and Lochinvar of the New World, Harry, I hear, preferred not to be in the same room with his stepmother when he spoke to the King about his cancer diagnosis, following the most precipitous and historic mercy mission to Blighty since Lend Lease. As olive branches go, it’s a massive opportunity missed by the Prince of Petulance – though it’s likely our laidback Queen wouldn’t have minded either way.

Remember the howls and lamentations when Meghan was excluded from any family conference. But the trouble with Harry is that he fights like a coward, refusing to stand up to a comparable foe, and on the rare occasion he meets one, he takes refuge in a dog bowl. In short, Prince Valiant he is not.

Harry, despite his one trick phoney Californian posturing, is the typical Anglo-Saxon who has stuck to his hereditary guns. He is so violently blowhard, and in this fact lies the cause of the ridiculous figure he commonly cuts in the eyes of others. He brags and blusters so incessantly that if he actually had the combined virtues of Jesus Christ, Aristotle and El Cid he would still go beyond the facts and so appear a mere Bombastes Furioso. This has taken on an almost pathological character and is probably no more than a protective mechanism erected to conceal an inescapable sense of inferiority.

Even so, I do not understand his continuing choler where the Queen is concerned. Perhaps, having dispatched his brother and sister-in-law, he had run out of family members to insult. I have known Camilla since I was 18, and she is palpably incapable of the scheming Harry has often accused her of. To what has sometimes been her detriment, she is incapable of machinations of any kind. With her clean tradition as the daughter of country gentry, her complexion that rejects make-up and the elements, and her forthright, genuine approach, the closest she has come to “scheme” is on a Scrabble board.

After Diana’s death, and when I was deputy editor of The Spectator, I sometimes breakfasted with Mark Bolland, who was Charles’s Deputy Private Secretary. Without wishing to betray any confidences, I received the distinct impression that it was Charles who desired to marry Camilla, whilst she was content with a less formal arrangement. The subject of her one day becoming Queen was never broached. There are some people who are devoid of ambition and snobbery, and Camilla is one of them. Thus I do not understand Harry’s bile, and cannot sympathise with it.

Like most forms of hatred it seems based on envy; envy of the fact that his father’s marriage to Camilla is, as he has publicly conceded in the past, “very happy”, and envy, perhaps, of the humorous and invaluable support she will give him now. Harry seems to have a problem with other people’s happiness, and has spent the past year trying to make his closest relatives miserable. He has a suspicion of anyone with a superior capacity for having a good time. Was Camilla wretched in her marriage, he would doubtless rush to embrace her and assure the public of his friendship.

There is possibly another, equally unpalatable explanation. It occurs to me that the Queen Consort’s life of royal service and her growing popularity in this country contrasts too deeply with Harry’s existence of grotesque futility abroad. I do not trust for an instant his continuous assertions that he is an infinitely more fulfilled and much better person. Could it be perhaps that under his shiny new skin, Prince Harry remains the sexist buffoon of his youth?

[From The Telegraph]

I called this woman a crackhead before, and I’ll do it again. What kind of drugs is she on? All of them? She barfed out this 3000-word prolix contempt all because a son allegedly wanted to speak to his father alone… and that’s it? Is Camilla really so tacky and classless that she would begrudge a son some one-on-one time with his father? That’s how it comes across, that Camilla was truly furious about it, furious enough to call up Robert Jobson and Petronella Wyatt and a dozen other royalists.

Also: “But the trouble with Harry is that he fights like a coward, refusing to stand up to a comparable foe, and on the rare occasion he meets one, he takes refuge in a dog bowl.” Wow. They’re really hellbent on rewriting “Prince William violently assaulted his brother because Harry refused to divorce Meghan,” aren’t they. These people need to get off drugs and get into therapy. Crack is wack.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Instar.

I’m still trying to understand what really went down last week, with King Charles’s cancer diagnosis, Prince Harry’s quick visit to his father, and William’s complete freak out and briefing spree about Harry. Like, Charles and William were not projecting confidence or steadiness, and by the end of the week, William looked downright unhinged and solely obsessed with bad-mouthing Harry to everyone. Simultaneous to William’s freakout, his people were briefing friendly reporters that William wouldn’t be coming back to work in any way for another month or longer. That became the focus of several pieces in the Telegraph and Times of London this weekend. While it’s obvious that Kensington Palace is working overtime to paint William in a positive way, there’s some really interesting criticism creeping in. Some highlights from this Telegraph piece:

Prince William’s role has never been more important: At 41, just 17 months into the job, the Prince’s role as next in line to the throne has never been more important. But as of this week, he finds himself – as one source delicately puts it – in an “unenviable position”. “It is…suboptimal,” said another.

William’s appearance at the investiture ceremony last Wednesday: At the most recent investiture, William looked a little thinner, a little more careworn than he has of late. As a military band played the national anthem, he blinked rapidly with a furrowed brow over the strains of God Save the King – the tune so familiar, the keyword of “King” still so new to the nation. Later that night, at a hotel for London’s Air Ambulance gala fundraiser, he was more like his old self, leaning in to speak to fellow air ambulance helicopter pilots and the patients they have saved; clapping Tom Cruise on the shoulder and making jokes about his Top Gun-themed shoes.

King Charles does not William to take over any kingly duties: William will not, sources emphasise, be taking on tons of the King’s engagements, with both Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace mindful not to make sweeping changes to the public face of the monarchy before necessary. As a palace aide says: “The King is still the King.” In other words, he can and will still fulfil his state duties. The only current hole will be outside the palaces, where the 500-odd engagements he does every year will temporarily fall by the wayside to minimise risks to his health.

William can’t win!! “William can’t really win on this one,” worries one long-term royal watcher. “Either he keeps calm and carries on with his own programme, and people say he isn’t stepping up. Or he steps up, and people think he is trying to be King-like or – worse – that his father isn’t capable and needs him to step up.” A palace source said there was “constant conversation” between the King and Prince William’s teams, but that the Prince was not expected to pick up all of his father’s engagements – a mutual decision.

Poor William: “This week has been a reminder that yes they [the Royal Family] are in these public positions, but they’re also human beings,” says one who knows William. “Think about it: his life partner who he’s been with since university has had major surgery. They have three children and all of the worry about keeping things normal for them. Then on top of that you find out your father has cancer? It’s only been four days.”

William the dutiful: “He’s very aware of the future in front of him,” a source said of William. “They [the Waleses] take their commitment to duty and service very, very seriously, and he has made decisions about his life based on being heir to the throne. That weighs on his mind constantly.”

William won’t do anything until Kate is back on her feet: First and foremost, his priority is to see the Princess safely back on her feet. “Do not expect him to say or do anything about the future until his wife is recovered,” said a former royal aide. “He will always do the right thing, and for his wife and father right now that also means not jumping too many steps ahead.”

[From The Telegraph]

The press/royal establishment: William, you have to do something, you have to be seen, you have to show up to events and provide a sense that the monarchy is in steady hands no matter what.

William: No, I think I’ll show up drunk to an investiture, scream about Harry for 72 hours, whine about how I can’t win and then tell everyone that they shouldn’t expect me to do a g–damn thing for the next two months.

“Do not expect him to say or do anything about the future until his wife is recovered” is a very interesting timeline too – the shifting goalposts have been remarkable to watch as everyone works out in real time that William just refuses to “step up” and do ANYTHING.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

Yesterday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex launched their new site, sussex.com. I was honestly a little bit surprised that they are using their Sussex titles for the site, since the whole reason they created the Archewell branding was to comply with the Windsors’ demands that they stay away from anything royal-branded or royal-adjacent. That being said, it’s been four years since they left and it’s clear that the Windsors aren’t going to remove their Sussex titles, so who really cares? Plus, they aren’t using “royal” in their branding, but they are using their Sussex coat-of-arms.

Anyway, the Windsors and their media handlers can’t decide what upsets them more, the fact that they’re “using their titles” or the fact that they’re barely mentioning anything or anyone on Isla de Saltines. The Mail threw a hissy fit because “Prince Harry notably failed to mention being a member of the Royal Family” – shades of “why didn’t Harry talk about his father at the NFL Honors!!” Now “sources” are complaining that sussex.com is terribly “gauche.”

Prince Harry and Meghan have risked a fresh row with the Royal Family after launching a new website last night that uses their Sussex title. The couple replaced their Archewell webpage with a site called Sussex.com that includes their biographies and lists their recent activities. But sources warned that their use of their Sussex title and their royal crest for what appeared to be commercial purposes could provoke complaints from the Palace.

One said: ‘They are going to have real trouble with the use of Sussex. It is a royal title and if there is any hint of commercialism about this it will be shut down. It’s just staggering they cannot see how gauche it is.’

However, a source close to the couple said last night: ‘Prince Harry and Meghan are the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. That is a fact. It is their surname and family name.’

The launch of the website fuelled speculation that they are trying to reinvigorate their media careers. The homepage for ‘The Office of Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’ went live yesterday evening. It features glowing biographies for both Harry, 39, and Meghan, 42, as well as the latest news about the pair.

The duke is described as a ‘humanitarian, military veteran, mental health advocate and environmental campaigner’. His wife is hailed as a ‘feminist and champion of human rights and gender equity’.

The Sussexes’ online rebranding comes amid speculation that they may be seeking new production companies to work with. Their £18million deal with Spotify recently came to an end, and there have been rumours that streaming giant Netflix may not renew its £80million contract with them. The website is operated by ‘The Office of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’ and is a ‘one-stop shop’ for all their activities.

[From The Daily Mail]

Y’all, I check royal.uk every now and then and I find it staggering how poorly operated it is. It’s been seventeen months since QEII died and there are still so many updates left to be made to so many of the pages. My point? It’s a bit rich to throw this kind of tantrum about the Sussexes simply trying to organize their own stand-alone page when the Windsors’ website looks like it’s being run by a crack team of howler monkeys. The whole “it’s gauche to sell things with your title” thing is absurd as well, given that there’s royal-branded gin and liquors, the Duchy Originals food line, royal-branded honey, and on and on.

Screencap courtesy of sussex.com, photos courtesy of Cover Images.

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex lived in the UK, they used “Sussex Royal” branding for their social media. Even when they were exiting the institution, they used sussexroyal.com to explain to the public what they wanted and why they were leaving. As part of the Sandringham Summit in early 2020, Prince Harry agreed (or was forced) to stop using any and all use of “royal” in their branding. No more Sussex Royal Instagram, no more updates to sussexroyal.com, no more HRH stylings. This was a huge reason why Harry and Meghan came up with the “Archewell” branding – it evoked their son’s name, it wasn’t royal or royal-adjacent, yet it had a kind of vibe they liked. They used the Archewell branding for their production company, audio/podcast company and their foundation. But guess what they just did? They launched something new: sussex.com.

From the look of it, sussex.com is just a more organized way of creating some kind of delineation between all of their projects. The new site has links to Archewell Productions, the Archewell Foundation and the old sussexroyal.com site. The new site also has more thorough and updated biographies for both Harry and Meghan, which is nice because every other week, the webmasters at royal.uk are pulling some new bullsh-t with their “updates” on Harry and Meghan’s pages and bios, playing fast and loose with their titles and HRH styles and trying to minimize the Sussexes’ work.

My favorite part of Meghan’s new bio is that her hellish time in the UK is reduced to “In 2018, Meghan married Prince Harry, becoming The Duchess of Sussex.” While Meghan’s patronages and projects as a working royal are mentioned (the cookbook, SmartWorks), she’s basically doing the most to distance herself from That Family.

Hello Magazine reports that Harry and Meghan might use sussex.com as a platform for “personal and official updates,” and they likely wanted to launch it before their three-day trip to Canada. Sure. But they were giving us updates on Archewell.com too, so why this new site? While I know they have their reasons – good reasons – for being wary of being too online, I am f–king begging them to have more of an online presence. Meghan doesn’t even need a personal Instagram, but they should absolutely have an Archewell IG. I’m praying that they use sussex.com to, like, blog about what they’re doing and give us updates on their work in a more direct way. It’s been four years of their antiquated media/comms strategy and they need to shake things up.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencap of sussex.com.

After much anticipation, the long-awaited Wicked trailer, which you can watch below, premiered at the Super Bowl. The movie, based on the beloved Broadway show, (which was based on the much darker novel by Gregory Maguire), will be split into two parts. Part One will be released on November 27. The first trailer, a minute-long teaser, shows clips of Elphaba and G[a]linda, played, respectively, by Cythia Erivo and Ariana Grande, set to a sampling of “Defying Gravity.” It also reveals Michelle Yeoh as Madam Morrible, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard. SpongeBob Sidepiece (Ethan Slater) is not in it, but I didn’t expect to see Boz or Nessa’s characters in a teaser for the first half of the musical, as their storylines are a big catalyst in Act II.

The first teaser trailer for the movie musical Wicked: Part One debuted during Super Bowl Sunday, showing the first footage of Cynthia Erivo as the witchy Elphaba and Ariana Grande as bubbly Glinda.

Directed by Jon M. Chu, who also brought In the Heights from stage to screen in 2021, Wicked will be a two-part adaptation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s Tony-winning Broadway show. Part Two is set to be released Nov. 26, 2025.

A prequel to the events of The Wizard of Oz, Wicked is the origin story of “a green-skinned woman,” the film’s logline states, who “becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.” Its source material is Gregory Maguire’s hit 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Joining Erivo, 37, as that green-skinned heroine and Grande, 30, as her schoolmate-turned-best-friend is Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard, Marissa Bode as Nessarose, Bowen Yang as Pfannee, Keala Settle as Miss Coddle, Ethan Slater as Boq, and Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible.

“This movie has everything: giant musical numbers, big action pieces,” Chu told the audience at CinemaCon 2023 in April, introducing first-look footage. “And using a classic story you all know, The Wizard of Oz. At the end of the day, it’s actually not about those things. It’s about change and [how] it’s necessary for things to get better.”

The musical’s original Broadway cast included Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda and Idina Menzel as Elphaba. The latter actress earned one of the production’s three Tony Awards, for leading actress in a musical.

In 2022 around the time it was filming, Erivo told Entertainment Tonight that the Wicked film adaptation would be “unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.”

She continued, “I think we’re going to enjoy the magic of it. We’re going to try and put our own spin on what we know already and show you a story about two women [who] are sisters.”.

[From People]

The teaser itself is fine, I guess. I don’t know, guys. I’m curious to hear what y’all think. While I have no doubt that Erivo will be a spectacular Elphaba – she sounds great in the trailer! – and that Yeoh will bring it as Madam M, I fully admit that I am skeptical about Ariana’s Glinda. It’s not the acting, it’s the vocals and general lack of enunciation. We didn’t get much from her in the teaser, so I will refrain from judgment until we see a full trailer. I just don’t want another Russell Crowe situation. But yeah, I don’t know how I feel about this whole thing overall. Also, I had completely forgotten that it would be two parts. I’m guessing that they split the movies up to correspond with each act?

And now, if I may, let me drop a story about that one time that my friend and I went into NYC on a snow day and got reasonably-priced orchestra tickets to see Wicked. It was Friday, January 7, 2005. That performance also happened to be the last full show Idina Menzel did before falling through the trap door during the following performance, a day before she was supposed to end her run as the OG Elphaba. We also stood outside of the stage door and met Joey McIntyre. It blows my mind that this happened almost 20 years ago. What I mean to say here is that I have tentatively high hopes that this movie will be good.

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Here are some photos from the LA premiere of Madame Web. I’ve been waiting to see if they would do any big American premieres, and I guess this is all we’re getting, especially since the film comes out tomorrow. Don’t ask me to explain the structure or backstory of these characters, all I know is that Dakota Johnson plays Madame Web, a paramedic-turned-psychic crime fighter. Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor and Isabela Merced play her friends/helpers and I think they have some special skills too. Sydney took this role just before she really blew up, and I kind of wonder if she regrets not holding out for something bigger from Marvel.

Fashion-wise, these ladies are MESSY. Dakota is repping her Gucci contract and this is not a serve. I get that she wanted something “webbed” but I think she should have insisted that Gucci fully line the dress and not just give her a thonged bodysuit. Sydney’s Oscar de la Renta gown is much more suitable and spider-webby. Celeste O’Connor wore Gert-Johan Coetzee and Isabela Merced wore Versace. Bonus photo of Emma Roberts with very bad hair.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.