Entertainment
Taylor Swift is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year 2023
Record-breaking year
After a remarkable and record-breaking year, Taylor Swift is officially Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2023.
Swift has reached a new realm of superstardom this year on the streaming platform, having 65 songs reach the Global Daily Top 100 for the first 10 months of 2023 — the most for any female artist in Apple Music history.
As part of highlighting Swift as the newest Artist of the Year awardee, Apple Music is offering subscribers to tune in to a wide range of radio programming celebrating her two decades of melodic album narratives, interviews, album collections, and playlists.
Taylor’s 2023 on Apple Music
Swift has accomplished some of the biggest milestones in 2023 alone when it comes to streaming.
Starting in March 2023 when she kicked off her Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour, her streams grew 61% globally. “Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour” became the most-streamed set list of the year as well.
All-time favorites like “Bad Blood”, “Blank Space”, “Style”, “Shake It Off”, “Wildest Dreams”, and “All Of The Girls You Loved Before” all reached Apple Music charts for their first time in 2023.
“Cruel Summer” from Swift’s 2019 album Lover also became one of the biggest songs of the summer on Apple Music worldwide. The song re-entered the Global Daily Top 100 in April for the first time in four years and has stayed there ever since.
Midnights still stands as the biggest album of all time by a female artist by first-day and first-week streams worldwide.
To top it all off, Swift has become the most-streamed female music artist in Apple Music history.
Entertainment
Box office: Brand New Day set to surpass US$ 2 billion, drives Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 resurgence
Sony Pictures’ fourth Tom Holland feature film sets records
The box office performance of Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been nothing short of spectacular.
Sony Pictures’ fourth feature film featuring Tom Holland as the titular protagonist broke the domestic opening day record.
This feat narrowly beat the previous record set by another Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film in Avengers Endgame.
That strong opening continued in the next few weeks as Brand New Day became became the fastest to reach the US$ 500 million mark, breaching the milestone in just seven days, per LA Times.
The movie is already the highest grossing film of 2026, beating Toy Story 5.
Which such massive success so far, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is on pace to beat Avengers: Infinity War for worldwide total gross.
With over US$ 1.7 billion grossed in just two weeks, the film is projected to surpass any point between the US$ 2.1 billion to US$ 2.3 billion mark.
It will become only the eighth ever film to surpass that mark once it reaches at least US$ 2 billion.
The others are: Avatar (2009), Endgame (2019), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Ne Zha (2025), Titanic (1997), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and Infinity War (2018).
However, Endgame still holds an advantage, thanks to its international launch in major markets. The epic conclusion to the MCU’s Infinity Saga grossed US$ 2.79 billion during its 2019 run. And you will have to adjust that value slightly due to inflation.
In the Philippines, a strong market, Brand New Day has just eclipsed the PhP 1 billion mark, which is roughly about US$ 17.2 billion.
For comparison, it will definitely surpass Infinity War at some point, while Endgame grossed PhP 1.8 billion total or about US$ 34.56 billion at the time.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 experiences resurgence
Moreover, the film’s success also triggered a transmedia halo effect with Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 also experiencing a resurgence in sales and player engagement.
Per IGN citing Alinea Analytics, since the film’s release, the game sold over 300,000 more copies across PlayStation 5 and Steam within a two-week span.
This is the equivalent to over US$ 11 million in revenue for Sony and Insomniac Games.
Plus, for the first time since the title’s launch in 2023, it experienced more than one million daily active users.
A combination of movie hype plus some timely discounts contributed to the game’s resurgence, also proving that the Spider-Man franchise has always been one of the biggest and most relevant IPs of all time.
Entertainment
Netflix: Kris Aquino makes on-screen comeback with fictional role
Long-time TV icon named “C.H.I.K.A.” of Netflix
Long-time popular Philippine TV icon Kris Aquino has made her on-screen comeback as Netflix’s fictional C.H.I.K.A., or “Chief Head of Insights and Kontent Analysis.”
Netflix initially teased the campaign through a post mentioning that they were “hiring” for the said position.
The post also contained a bullet list of descriptions that served as clues. Not long after, the streaming giant bared the former presidential daughter and presidential sister has made her comeback.
A teaser has likewise been released. The fun skit features Aquino in this new fictional role, giving her signature witty commentary inside the Netflix editing room to ensure that the production of local entertainment content is of topnotch quality.
Two more episodes will be rolled out on August 14 and 20.
Entertainment
New Yorkers compete in Ted Lasso lookalike contest at Apple Fifth Avenue
Futbol is life!
Apple Fifth Avenue or Nelson Road? New Yorkers gathered at the iconic flagship store as it transformed into a slice of AFC Richmond for a Ted Lasso lookalike contest celebrating the return of the hit Apple TV+ series.
Dozens of fans arrived in Ted’s signature look, complete with mustaches, visors, blue sweaters, and khakis. Inside the store, the AFC Richmond takeover continued with themed photo opportunities and hidden Easter eggs for longtime fans to discover.
The celebration continued across Midtown and Central Park, where brand ambassadors spread kindness with “Believe” signs, complimentary coffee and tea, a tunnel of cheering Teds for runners, and the Goldfish Zone, where visitors symbolically let go of worries by dropping paper fish into a fishbowl.
The takeover marked the return of Ted Lasso, which premiered its fourth season on Apple TV+ on Aug. 5, which arrives more than three years after Season 3 concluded in 2023.
Jason Sudeikis returns as the relentlessly optimistic coach, this time leading AFC Richmond’s newly formed women’s team while reuniting with familiar faces.
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