
Hans Zimmer joins ‘Euphoria' season 3 as composer alongside Labrinth
Zimmer will work alongside returning composer Labrinth, whose sound has defined the show's haunting and emotional tone in its first two seasons.
The news was announced on social media Wednesday, with Zimmer expressing excitement about the collaboration. 'It's an honor to join this incredible team of storytellers led by the visionary Sam Levinson,' he said. 'Labrinth's music has shaped the show's identity, and I look forward to helping shape this new season through music.'
Labrinth, who composed standout tracks like 'All for Us' and 'I'm Tired,' also welcomed the opportunity to collaborate. 'So great to join Hans, one of my heroes in film score, and bring some new magic to this new season,' he said.
Zimmer's involvement adds prestige and anticipation, as the acclaimed composer is known for iconic film scores in Interstellar, The Lion King, Gladiator, Inception, and Dune. His cinematic influence has already been part of the show's DNA, according to creator Sam Levinson, who revealed that he wrote parts of the season while listening to Zimmer's scores from Interstellar and True Romance.
'Euphoria' Season 3 has yet to receive a release date, but the addition of Zimmer signals a bold creative evolution for the series. With both Zimmer and Labrinth shaping the sonic landscape, fans can expect a fresh yet emotionally grounded score that elevates the storytelling to new heights.
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Business Recorder
a day ago
- Business Recorder
‘Project Hail Mary' sends Ryan Gosling, and Comic-Con, into outer space
SAN DIEGO: Comic-Con attendees got their first glimpse Saturday at the new sci-fi space thriller 'Project Hail Mary,' starring Ryan Gosling, ahead of its arrival in US theaters in March 2026. Gosling was joined on a convention panel by directing duo Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, as well as screenwriter Drew Goddard and book author Andy Weir – whose previous novel 'The Martian' was also turned into an Oscar-nominated film starring Matt Damon. Based on Weir's 2021 book of the same title, 'Project Hail Mary' follows astronaut Ryland Grace (Gosling), a science teacher waking up to learn he was recruited for a space mission to save Earth from an existential solar threat. Gosling described his character as 'a scared guy who has to do something impossible.' 'I knew it would be brilliant, because it's Andy [Weir],' Gosling told the crowd. 'It took me places I've never been. It showed me things I had never seen. It was as heartbreaking as it was funny and I was… not just blown away, but also overwhelmed.' Weir for his part said it was 'so cool' to see his book come to life and complimented Gosling for giving 'many layers to this character I made up.' Lord and Miller, the Oscar-winning duo behind the 'Spider-Verse' Spider-Man animated films, talked about the challenges of shooting a 'crazy ambitious' film which takes place inside a spaceship for the most part. 'We had to build an entire spaceship in two modes of gravity, and then we built this entire massive tunnel at scale,' Miller said. 'This is insane, to build a tunnel that was like 100 feet (30 meters) long, filled up an entire stage.' The event also showcased various clips from the film, receiving a positive response from fans, who noted the bond formed between Gosling's character and an alien named Rocky. 'The relationship between these two characters is the heart of the movie,' Miller said. 'I loved it,' attendee April Rodriguez, who also read the book, gushed about the film. 'I just never, like, envisioned it that way. So that was pretty cool.' Star Trek Comic-Con, which bring some 130,000 fans for the convention in San Diego, California, welcomed the Star Trek universe to the main stage earlier in the day Saturday to showcase its upcoming releases. Thousands of fans filled the hall to watch exclusive footage from the fourth season of 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' before it premieres on Paramount+. One clip showed Captain Christopher Pike played by Anson Mount in an entire episode where the cast is depicted like puppets from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Fans dive into San Diego Comic-Con despite drop in celebrity panels Fans were also offered a first look of a new Star Trek series, dubbed 'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' starring Holly Hunter. Hunter plays Nahla Ake, the academy's chancellor and captain of the USS Athena, who in a clip shown at Comic-Con welcomes a new class of cadets. 'It was really interesting to get the offer to be the captain, but then also to combine that with being the chancellor,' Hunter said. 'The captain is there to analyze in emergency situations, and then to delegate. And the chancellor is there to guide, to collaborate and to have tremendous empathy. 'It was just a wonderful combination of things,' she added. Comic-Con continues on Sunday for its final day of events.


Express Tribune
a day ago
- Express Tribune
THE END OF AN ERA?
Back in the mid-2010s, when the idea of 'binge-watching' was still novel, you could impress someone you met at a party by saying you watched Black Mirror. The streaming service Netflix had already changed how people rented movies—killing Blockbuster with the casual cruelty of convenience—but now, it wanted to change what people watched. By the time Stranger Things dropped in 2016, the game had already changed. The show, with its mix of Spielbergian nostalgia and synth-scored sci-fi, hit audiences like a cultural bomb. Kids dressed up as Eleven for Halloween. Adults argued over the ethics of what happened in the Upside Down. Netflix had hit a bullseye. And more importantly, it had found its business model: make people stay subscribed, not just for content, but for connection. Fast forward to 2025. Stranger Things is nearing its final season. Squid Game, the Korean thriller that became a global parable about class, is also wrapping up. And the streamer, now sitting atop a global empire of 270+ million subscribers, faces the kind of existential question that haunts legacy studios and tech giants alike: What happens when your biggest hits stop hitting? Shows like Stranger Things, The Crown, The Witcher, and Squid Game weren't just were global cultural events, they brought in millions of subscribers, shaped social media discourse, and most importantly justified Netflix's spendthrift content budget to nervous investors. The blockbusters that built the brand Stranger Things wasn't Netflix's first original hit—but it was the one that felt tectonic. House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black had kicked off the 'prestige streaming TV' era, giving Netflix credibility in awards circuits and pop culture columns. But Stranger Things was different. It had meme power. Fandom. Merchandising potential. It was a world that extended beyond the screen—and into Funko Pops, comic cons, and even retro-style video games. By the time Season 4 dropped in 2022, it had clocked over 1.3 billion hours of viewing — making it Netflix's second most-watched English-language series ever, only behind Wednesday. Kate Bush's 1985 track 'Running Up That Hill' became a Gen Z anthem nearly 40 years later, charting in multiple countries — a symbol of how a single show could ripple through pop culture, music charts, and fashion. Then came The Witcher, with its CGI monsters and Henry Cavill's brooding charisma. Adapted from Polish fantasy novels and games, the show became Netflix's answer to HBO's Game of Thrones—minus the incest and prestige polish. Though critically uneven, it made money globally. But nothing prepared anyone for Squid Game. Then came Squid Game. Released with minimal fanfare in 2021, the South Korean thriller became an overnight global phenomenon. Within 28 days, 111 million accounts had tuned in. It wasn't just the most-watched Netflix show in history at the time — it reshaped the perception of international content. It proved that language was no longer a barrier; if the story was good enough, audiences would follow. It tapped into a pandemic-era malaise: economic anxiety, social isolation, the sense that we were all playing some perverse, rigged game. Netflix reported that 142 million households had watched it in the first month. It became the platform's biggest show ever at the time, helping to stem a slowdown in growth and proving the viability of non-English language content in global markets. While Stranger Things and Squid Game were pop-cultural tsunamis, they weren't alone in making Netflix what it is. The Crown lent prestige and awards legitimacy. Bridgerton brought in the romance crowd with period drama and redefined inclusivity in costume storytelling. The Witcher pulled in fantasy lovers post-Game of Thrones. Money Heist (La Casa de Papel), a Spanish-language crime thriller, became a bankable brand globally, despite originally being a flop on Spanish TV. Even lighter fare like Emily in Paris, Outer Banks, or reality TV hits like Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle drove viewership numbers and kept the content wheel spinning between prestige projects. Netflix had a machine: fund broadly, promote smartly, find a breakout, ride the wave, and double down. But as the biggest shows begin to sunset, the cracks in the model are becoming visible. The problem with blockbusters Unlike linear TV, which offered seasons year after year at regular intervals, Netflix binge-dumped content. Stranger Things seasons dropped two years apart. Squid Game took even longer to follow up. In between, Netflix relied on a pipeline of content to keep subscribers around — a gamble that became harder as competition intensified. Enter Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, and Amazon Prime — all offering their own prestige fare, some with legacy franchises (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones), others with buzzy new titles (Severance, The Bear, The Boys). Suddenly, Netflix was no longer the only game in town. Worse still, the streamer's own release model may have backfired. Releasing an entire season in one go made for headlines, memes, and cultural moments — but those moments were fleeting. Compare that to HBO's week-to-week strategy, which allowed Succession, Euphoria, and The Last of Us to dominate conversations for months. Netflix's shift from a growth-at-all-costs model to a more mature, revenue-focused one was inevitable. With subscriber growth slowing in North America and Europe, and saturation looming in mature markets, the company has introduced ads, cracked down on password sharing, and flirted with licensing content to others — all moves that would've seemed blasphemous five years ago. These aren't signs of desperation so much as maturation. But they do signal the end of a certain kind of Netflix era — the one defined by wild experimentation and blank-check funding for passion projects. Remember when Netflix gave the creators of Game of Thrones $200 million to make The Three-Body Problem? Or funded Martin Scorsese's $160 million The Irishman? Today, Netflix is far more surgical. And that could be good — or very bad — for riskier storytelling. So what does Netflix have coming up to replace its aging giants? First, there's the second season of Squid Game, a high-stakes gamble if ever there was one. Series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk returns, but can lightning strike twice? The sleeper hit had the advantage of novelty and zero expectations. Season two carries the weight of history. Then there's One Piece, the anime adaptation that shocked skeptics with its success. A second season is confirmed, and if it continues to grow, Netflix may have a long-running franchise on its hands. Wednesday, the gothic teen spin-off of The Addams Family, became the most-watched English-language series in Netflix history. With Tim Burton and Jenna Ortega returning for Season 2, it's arguably Netflix's biggest active asset now. Also in development are adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia, fresh Avatar: The Last Airbender content (after a lukewarm start), and another round of The Witcher, albeit without Cavill. These all carry potential — but also risk. The 'middle show' crisis One of Netflix's quieter dilemmas is what insiders call the 'middle show' crisis. While top shows get massive budgets and marketing, and cheap reality shows get renewals because they're inexpensive to produce, mid-budget, quality series often fall through the cracks. Critically loved shows like Mindhunter, Glow, Archive 81, and 1899 were cancelled despite strong fanbases. The algorithm, it seems, doesn't reward slow builds. Netflix has trained audiences to look for the next big thing — but that leaves little room for cult hits to grow organically. This is where competitors are gaining ground. Apple TV+ is patient and prestige-focused, willing to let shows like Slow Horses or For All Mankind build over time. HBO has decades of reputation in nurturing quality. Even Amazon is doubling down on genre bets and global reach. Netflix, in contrast, sometimes seems caught in its own system: make everything available, see what pops, cut the rest. Is Netflix currently the place for prestige drama? Bingeable fluff? Global storytelling? True crime? Live events? The platform's breadth is unmatched, but with that comes dilution. Disney+ has Marvel and Star Wars. HBO has high-end drama. Prime has genre and scale. Apple has polish. Netflix… has everything, but stands for less. Yet there's a problem with lightning-in-a-bottle shows: they don't last forever. Stranger Things is bowing out with its fifth and final season. The kids have grown up. The charm of '80s nostalgia is wearing thin. Squid Game's creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, always intended it as a critique of the very systems that made it a commercial juggernaut. Even The Witcher has lost its lead actor, Cavill, and faces declining buzz with each season. So what is Netflix doing to prepare for life after its flagship titles? The answer, predictably, is a little of everything. But whether it sticks is another question. The franchise factory approach In recent years, Netflix has shifted strategy. Rather than hope for breakout hits, it's trying to build franchises intentionally. That's meant spinoffs (like Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel stage play, and potential animated series), sequels (Extraction 2, Enola Holmes 2), and universe-building (The Witcher: Blood Origin, though critics would rather forget it existed). It's also meant poaching talent and IP from traditional Hollywood. Deals with the Duffer Brothers (Stranger Things creators), Shonda Rhimes (Bridgerton, Inventing Anna), and Ryan Murphy (Dahmer, The Watcher) were meant to lock in brand-name storytellers. But results have been mixed. Shonda's Bridgerton universe continues to deliver, especially in international markets. Murphy's shows rack up views, but rarely become cultural events. Netflix has also bet big on international hits — Korean dramas, Japanese anime, Indian thrillers, Spanish heist sagas (Money Heist was a phenomenon). In 2023 alone, Netflix spent over $1 billion on Korean content. It's a smart hedge: local-language shows with global appeal often deliver better ROI than expensive American productions. But is any of it iconic? Does it break through the noise like Squid Game did? Not quite yet. Algorithms don't create magic Netflix's advantage, and maybe its Achilles heel, is its data. It knows what people watch, when they stop, what thumbnail makes them click. This has led to a model of commissioning content that feels more like market research than art. The result is a sprawling catalogue of 'good enough' shows: entertaining, formulaic, and largely forgettable. Think of the dozens of crime thrillers, rom-coms, and reality dating shows that get a weekend spike, trend for two days, then disappear into the abyss of the 'More Like This' section. Critics call this the 'content treadmill.' It's not about making hits. It's about making enough to keep churn low and engagement high. But this risks turning Netflix into a utility — like cable TV — rather than a tastemaker. In contrast, HBO (now Max) still tries to brand itself as a curator. Apple TV+ has a leaner slate but wins Emmys. Disney+ rides the strength of 80 years of IP. Netflix has volume, but volume doesn't inspire devotion. Live sports, ads, and the YouTube pivot In 2022, Netflix launched an ad-supported tier. This marked a seismic shift in its business model, long held up as the 'no ads' disruptor. But with subscriber growth plateauing in key markets, the company needed new revenue streams. The next frontier? Live content. Netflix has started dabbling in live comedy specials (Chris Rock: Selective Outrage) and is reportedly exploring sports rights. It recently struck a deal with WWE to stream Monday Night Raw starting in 2025. This is less about prestige, more about stickiness. Sports and live events bring consistent, appointment-based viewership — something Netflix has never had. There's also a move toward interactive and short-form content. Bandersnatch tested interactive storytelling. Korean Physical: 100 shows how global reality TV can cross borders. The streamer even acquired game studios and is quietly developing mobile games tied to its IP—hoping that users won't just watch Squid Game, but play it. If this all sounds like a pivot toward being a hybrid of YouTube, cable TV, and Xbox — it kind of is. One thing Netflix still lacks is its own massive IP universe. Disney has Marvel. Warner has DC. Amazon has The Lord of the Rings. Netflix's biggest assets (Stranger Things, Squid Game, Bridgerton) are original, but don't have the longevity of 60-year-old comic book characters or fantasy epics. It tried to fix this by spending lavishly. The $200 million The Gray Man franchise (with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans) was meant to be the next Bond. It didn't quite land. The $450 million acquisition of Knives Out sequels promised a new detective franchise—only for the second film, Glass Onion, to burn hot and fast, then disappear. When you don't own the underlying IP, you don't own the future. And Netflix, for all its streaming dominance, is still renting its place in the culture. What next? The question isn't just what shows come next—it's what kind of company Netflix wants to be. Does it double down on prestige? Go full global? Turn into an interactive tech platform with games and live events? To survive post-Stranger Things, it might have to do all of the above. Already, Netflix is releasing more reality TV (Love Is Blind, Too Hot to Handle), more animated fare (Arcane, The Dragon Prince), more docu-series (The Tinder Swindler, Beckham, American Nightmare). It's diversifying, not in the name of art, but insurance. But the real answer might lie in how it nurtures the next wave of talent. The next Squid Game won't be found by an algorithm. It will come from some obscure writer in Seoul, or Karachi, or São Paulo, with a story that cuts through noise and speaks to this chaotic, collapsing, post-pandemic world. The hits of Netflix's past were surprising, risky, plain weird even. BoJack Horseman, Dark, Sex Education, Russian Doll. The next era of Netflix might require less strategy and more instinct. Because you can build a business on data. But culture? That still takes vision.


Express Tribune
a day ago
- Express Tribune
Urdu version of lauded play comes to capital
The Chand Nagar Cultural Centre is proud to announce the first-ever Pakistani adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play, "Doubt: A Parable", which is being performed on July 26 and 27 at the Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai Auditorium in Islamabad. This production is the Urdu translation of the play by John Patrick Shanley, translated by the director and theatre educator Imran Iftikhar and Adil Yousaf. Iftikhar expressed his excitement and gratitude, for being granted permission to adapt and stage this masterpiece. "I'm sharing this news with immense pride and gratitude that I've been formally granted permission by John Patrick Shanley — the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter — to translate, adapt and stage his masterpiece theatre play, Doubt: A Parable, for the Islamabad audience in Urdu," he shared. The play, "Doubt: A Parable", was written by American playwright John Patrick Shanley in 2004. It was adapted into a mystery thriller film titled "Doubt" in 2008, starring Hollywood's renowned actress Meryl Streep. The film received critical acclaim and showcased the powerful story and themes of the play. "Doubt: A Parable" explores the complexities of human nature, delving into themes of faith, doubt, power and morality. Set in a small-town school in Punjab, the play raises questions about truth, silence and the grey areas in between. With its suspenseful plot and impactful characters, this production promises to be a thought-provoking experience for the audience. Imran Iftikhar further added, "This is not just a milestone for me as a director and translator but a historic moment for Pakistani theatre. To my knowledge, this is the first time a Pulitzer Prize-winning play is being officially produced in Pakistan. Bringing this globally acclaimed work to our local stage is a huge responsibility — and an opportunity to elevate the standards of theatre productions in the region." He hopes that "this production will open new doors for international theatre in Pakistan and spark critical conversations about ethics, education and truth." Chand Nagar Cultural Centre is dedicated to telling bold, thought-provoking, and relevant stories through theatre and arts in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The play is translated into Urdu by Adil Yousaf, directed by Imran Iftikhar and features a cast of young theatre actors from the twin cities. "Doubt: A Parable" is being brought to life by Chand Nagar Cultural Centre, with the aim of creating a platform for meaningful storytelling and cultural exchange.