From Disney+ nearing 138 million subscribers and Elizabeth Olsen's frustrations with her Marvel contract to the state of the European box office, Between Bells dives into today's top entertainment headlines. 

Between Bells

Top Entertainment Headlines for May 12

let's get you caught up in some of your top entertainment headlines were found for this hour. Let's start with Elizabeth Olsen, she first stepped into the marvel cinematic universe as wanda Maksimov in 2015 Avengers age of Ultron and while the role might be a dream for many, well stepping into the superhero shoes came with a price and that was missing out on other opportunities while making the rounds to promote Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Olson opened up to the new york times about her frustration early in her marvel career revealing that she had to pass on parts in multiple films, including the critically acclaimed movie, The Lobster that started Colin Farrell and Rachel Vice Olson saying quote I had this job security but I was losing these pieces that I felt were more part of my being and the further I got away from that, the less I became considered for it, things got better when marvel pitched her on one division though, which gave Olson more creative freedom. The actor goes on to say quote that was an amazing opportunity, but also an amazing opportunity to remember playfulness and being able to fail. There's such a freedom that we had while filming that has informed me now in how I approach her, it may seem like a lifetime ago, but Olson first became known thanks to her roles in indie films like Martha Marcy May Marlene Kill your darlings and very good girls, Here's the thing when I first read about this, I'm like boo hoo poor and you know, she grew up, you know, she's an old, you know, with the Olsen twins as her sister. But then the more I read the interview, the more I actually understood, I'm like, you know what, there are so many roles and it was R. E. P. Connor who told us this morning that she was an indie darling. I hadn't seen any of her indie movies to be honest. But I love wanda vision and I thought she was like, this has been a sort of a criticism we've heard from a lot of actors, chris Evans as well with Captain America as well, that essentially pigeonholed there. You're essentially typecasting and for the rest of your career as a result of that because people only look at you as this marvel character. So for actors, it's sort of the trade off. Do you want the big financial payout and payday that you're gonna get from doing these marvel films or do you still want to do more of the creative process of doing different films that sort of showcase your acting abilities. I think you still can do both. I think there is a world because look, these are a list actors, they're the top of their game for an absolute reason because they're the best actors out there. So I just had this hard time really believing that robert Downey JR is never gonna get another thing that pops into my head, all these chris, you know, chris Hemsworth is not gonna get another rule, I just have a hard time believing that, but I do understand sort of the creative sort of change that you have creative walls and the change that you have to go through when you're basically accepting these high budget films and not doing the things that are going to get you Oscars because I mean, yes, maybe a marvel family's gonna maybe win the most popular Oscar category, but it's not gonna net you a best actor, you know, Oscar, I mean like wanda Vision was one of my favorite shows, I talked about it all the time, if not one of my top five favorite shows ever and I think it gave her so much room to act like she was incredible because every episode was different. I won't spoil it, but I think she's incredible and I'm with you, I think she has a long career and she's so young, she's so young, it's not like, and look, she's not gonna be doing wanda forever. So that essentially means if she's not doing wanda then does that mean she's never gonna act again? I have a hard time believing that Absolutely. Also netflix better start looking over its shoulder because Disney plus is coming for the streaming, thrown in an earnings call just this week, the House of Mouse revealing the platform now nearly has 138 million subscribers adding 7.9 million customers in the first three months of 2021 analysts expected Disney Plus to gain 5.2 million new subscribers per fact set, Disney subscriber growth is much better news than what netflix recently reported last month, the streaming giant revealed it lost 200,000 subscribers. Its first subscriber lost ever in the history of netflix. Disney's trio of streaming services. Disney Plus, hulu and ESPN plus has now surpassed 205 million subscribers globally While Netflix is sitting at 222 million. So they've seen a 33% increase from a year earlier compared to Netflix. Obviously they're doing great. Here's where I think Disney had an advantage. They had a whole vault of these old movies and shows that kids absolutely love not to mention marvel that we're talking about. I mean they have so much while netflix I think does venture out into different genres and demographics they have more of an international poll. So while I don't think it's fair to really compare the two, of course we have to because they're both streamers that are doing really well Well, look, this is why Disney bundles all three of those platforms to your point because they're catching up to netflix in terms of subscribers. I mean what they're only like about, you know, 30 million subscribers away from them. If you add all three of those platforms, I think Hulu in particular had over 40 million, 45 million subscribers on its own ESPN plus was like 20 million. But this is only if I think anything going to feed more of the rumors that Disney might do away with Hulu and all of the hulu content then gets folded into Disney Plus, because if you look at that graphic that we just showed just a moment ago when it showed all the different subscribers, you're now having to account Discovery in HBO max in here as well. And that is now becoming a huge juggernaut as well. So you have essentially paramount down there, but then you have Discovery at 24 million HBO max has over 60 million subscribers as well. So if you add HBO and Discovery together, that is 100 million subscribers and a lot of people have speculated that likely David Zaslav, the new Ceo of Discovery, warnermedia is going to be folding Discovery plus and HBO max together. So if you're Disney and your whole worry is competing with, you know, the netflix of the world, but also basically keeping the subscriber numbers in, it's likely that you're almost going to collapse all of those essentially into one platform soon because you're seeing your competitors do. And HBO MAx also has one of those benefits where they have these shows that are built in and have huge fan bases. So true. Meanwhile, the North american box office gearing up for a huge summer European box off is still recovering from the pandemic and the receipts proven while gross box office revenue jumped 38.2% to an estimated 3.05 billion across the region last year, that's still a 59% decrease from the average annual revenue recorded in the pre pandemic period between 2017 and 2019. Now, while the slump was worsened by the fact many countries had to shut down cinemas or impose capacity restrictions once again because of a spike in covid infections last fall, we should also note that period, especially 2019 in particular, that was like the biggest year for Disney ever because they had all the regular Disney films and then they had all these marvel films that were coming out. So you had all the Avengers, which was basically the highest grossing film ever at the time. And then you had the pandemic hit, I've said this multiple times this week. Theater owners are very optimistic about this about because they have a slew of summer movies from Top Gun to the new Buzz Lightyear movie, to the Minions movie, to Jurassic world and then you have avatar coming up this holiday season, which the holiday season always is a big time for people to go to the movie theaters. So yes, while it is off the peak of where it's been at before, we're seeing this massive rebound this year and a lot of optimism and on top of that avatar is getting so many views at least for its trailer in china, which is an area that a lot of these marvel films have not been showcased at all. So all of a sudden now you're looking at the global box office increasing this year as well and china has had really bad covid cases over the course of the last six months. Yeah, I'm pretty bullish I think I know last year wasn't that great for movie theaters at all but this year will be different by the way, Top Gun, I'll be in the theater for that. I just read by the way, I just read the Hollywood Reporter's review of it. They again, like every other person lost their minds. They are very tough critics and the Hollywood reporter loved it. I cannot wait, I only go to theaters for like comic book movies but this might be it by the way, it's also only barely over two hours, so it's less than three hours, which is what we get for like almost every other movie right now done. Also the saying the pen is mightier than the sword is taking on new meaning for rapper young thug. His own lyrics are being used as evidence in a 56 count indictment against him. Lyrics from the rapper's popular songs like anybody were used as examples of overt acts of gang violence. That's a quote that's according to the indictment obtained by CNN prosecutors alleged young thug whose real name is Jeffrey Williams founded the gang Young Slime life and was a key person in various Y. S. L. Activities. One in particular mentions young thug renting a car from Hertz in 2015 which was later used in the murder of a rival gang member. That's according to prosecutors, along with the lyrics. His social media posts are also being used in the indictment, Williams has been charged with conspiracy to violate the rico act and participation in criminal street gang activity. The situation has raised a debate over whether lyrics are protected with free speech. This is a very thin line here by the way, do you remember years ago when Snoop Dogg who came into my head he would always talk about being a blood or you know representing red. There was always the lyrics and it was never really used against him. He's been a court a few times for different kinds of allegations. This I don't know if you should be able to use an artist's lyrics or his art against them. I don't know I mean I don't know that answer either. And I also don't know how much those lyrics help advance the case if that helps the prosecutors find more information about him because look you're right, other rappers have said you know talked about gang their gang relationships or incendiary things and a lot of a lot of them it's not even true, they're just saying that because it wraps it works lyrically perfectly. So who knows at the end of the day how much this actually is going to help help prosecutors in this case? And R. E. P. Connor said this in our meeting today and it did stick with me. There are a lot of different genres that have done this rock for example, and you never hear this about, you know, rock stars, It's usually typically rap stars.