POP CULTURE NEWS EDITION THIRTY-FOUR: COLLEGE, ROMANCE ADAPTATIONS + TWITTER

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Hey, there, readers! It’s a ‘Pop Culture News edition thirty four’ kind of day. Every Friday we look back on and recap some of the stories that fall into that pop culture or even just cultural story category. Most of the time, it’s TV news because that’s what I seem to find the most of, but we always try to find some other stories too.

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POP CULTURE NEWS EDITION THIRTY-FOUR: COLLEGE, ROMANCE ADAPTATIONS + TWITTER #INSTAGRAM #TWITTER #THETERMINALLIST #TAYLORSWIFT #NICHOLASSPARKS #DISNEY Share on X

Feels as though I say this every week, but honestly, this week there just isn’t much. There’s some follow up on other stories I already shared. But just not much in the way of really interesting stories. Digging through everything to find what I did find wasn’t quite as fun this week, but hey, sometimes that’s the rule because someone has to do it. All that complaining aside, let’s jump in.

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POP CULTURE NEWS EDITION THIRTY-THREE

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1: ADAPTING MORE OF THE NYT BEST-SELLER ROMANCE

It’s been a long time since we saw a new adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks film. Funnily enough, I’ve been thinking about this for the past few months, and wondering why this is. His films, to my knowledge, did well and I enjoyed some of them no matter their tropey-ness. Plus, for a while there, they seemed to stack on top of the other with their releases.

News broke this week that Sparks’ signed a deal with Universal for a three picture deal that will see him as a producer. The first up in the list is his most recent release The Wish. A story that is described as the “enduring legacy of first love, and the decisions that haunt us forever.”

Guess I know which of his books I should pick up next.  

2: INSTAGRAM IS GOING STUPID. AGAIN.

Instagram has another change coming, this time it will be all about Stories. It’s going to do an author “collapse” feature after three slides. This means, likely for people who sell on Instagram, this could really hinder their business. I saw someone mention that in their reporting of the change and that is SO accurate. The idea that Instagram is doing something to in some sense further “hide” content is disgusting. If we don’t like what an account shares, there is an unfollow button and a feature that allows us to skip past slides if we’re not interested. Frustrates me to no end that Instagram is driving creators out, mentally if not physically.

3: MORE ‘OCEAN’ HEISTS?

Rumor has it, another “Ocean” film is in “active development” featuring Margot Robbie. Robbie is in partnership with Warner Brothers, which also includes the upcoming film Barbie. It hasn’t been “greenlit” yet nor do I see a synopsis apart from the tease of 1960s Europe. Would you watch this?

4: TWITTER STAYS THE SAME?

The Twitter deal “can’t move ahead” according to the potential $44 billion deal maker, Elon Musk. He says that the bot accounts originally reported to be 5% may actually be a great deal more. His quote says “My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate” and furthermore that the bots could be 20% which is four-times higher.

LAST THINGS

• This past week, Taylor Swift received an honorary degree from NYU, and she gave a commencement speech too. Reportedly it’s candid and she also talks about how painful it was to be “publicly humiliated” time and again. Honestly, in no way do I think that wouldn’t be hard, but girl, you did similar things to others, and not naming them doesn’t mean it didn’t still affect someone. Beyond these headlines, I didn’t listen* because frankly, I just don’t care. *Update: since writing this, I did watch a video that played clips from her speech, and honestly… it wasn’t good. I would liken its likely inspiration to something, but that’s a whole other thing. But anyway, this I say as someone who would epically crash and burn giving a speech.

• Adam Demos is back on Netflix in a new rom-com titled A Perfect Pairing; it follows a woman who travels to Australia in order to land a deal only to, of course, clash with a local. Demos previously starred in Falling Inn Love, also on Netflix.

• If you like Call the Midwife, you may enjoy knowing Helen George is returning for the Christmas special and series 12 beyond that.

• A producer of the ‘Pirates’ films from Disney has been quoted as saying Depp’s return as Jack Sparrow is a “not at this time” scenario. Further going on to say “the future is yet to be decided.” All I’ll say is, if they re-cast the role (and they may not), no one will be Jack. Depp IS Captain Jack. Just saying. At this point, it sounds like his character would just be absent.

• If you’re a fan of the Yellowstone saga, Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford will join the cast in the new prequel series 1932.

• Reba will be back on TV, after a season three casting in ABC’s Big Sky as a “matriarch.” Seems like a possibly different role for her compared to her comedies Reba or Malibu County.

• If you’ve been waiting on season two of Blood & Treasure (after its summer 2019 debut), it’s finally coming July 17 but will move to Paramount+.

• Amazon will release The Terminal List on Prime come July, and this week, they released the trailer for the Chris Pratt actioner. If I had to guess, I’d say this will have a Reacher (also from Prime) level rating.

Did you see any of these stories? What did you think of them? Would you watch any of these shows? Did any of the stories make you sad? Comment all the comments below – let’s chat all the cultural stories of the week.

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