SEVENTEEN's new sub-unit V8, consisting of members The8 and Vernon, released their debut mini-album titled V8 on June 29, 2026. This marks the sixth sub-unit to debut from the group SEVENTEEN.On its first day, the album accumulated over 1.07 million unfiltered streams on Spotify, with the title track Singasonggenerating over 240,000 streams.

Chart Performance

As of July 1—just three days after its release—album sales have already surpassed 559,904 copies.Currently, V8's three-day sales total ranks 6th of all time on the Hanteo Chart for sub-unit first-week album sales. For context, the current top three spots on this all-time chart are:

• 1st: SEVENTEEN's sub-unit CxM — First-week sales: 887,581
• 2nd: SEVENTEEN's sub-unit JxW — First-week sales: 787,046
• 3rd: NCT's sub-unit DoJaeJung — First-week sales: 672,374

The year 2026 has been perhaps the most transparent year in the history of the US government’s willingness to talk about the unexplained. Since May 8, the Pentagon has been declassifying records through PURSUE, the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. PURSUE is a product of a February order from President Donald Trump, who directed agencies to find and release everything linked to UFOs, UAP and extraterrestrial life.

The first tranche of the order included around 160 files and loads of videos, dating back from 1944, a year before the conclusion of the Second World War.

Naturally, there is hope that we could be getting close to the US government finally admitting about the existence of extraterrestrial lifeforms and associated technology - thus answering the question of whether we're alone for good.

Prediction markets are already running contracts on whether that admission will come this year — a bet on what would be one of the most consequential announcements in human history.

Putting a Price on Aliens

It's a question that now trades as a live contract on Polymarket, where volume has climbed to nearly $50 million. But the condition is demanding: the market resolves to 'Yes' only if Trump, a cabinet member, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or any US federal agency confirms that extraterrestrial life or technology exists before year's end.

On June 12, the Department of War published the third release of declassified and historical UAP files as part of the PURSUE move, thus reinforcing hope that at some point this year, the government might admit to the existence of aliens and alien tech.

And this is the angle worth looking into. The alien market isn't really betting on whether extraterrestrials exist — it's betting on whether the US bureaucracy will drop its cloak-and-dagger secrecy and say so on the record.

Look closely at the contract and you see what it actually demands. Not a file, not a video, not a transcript of an astronaut recounting strange lights — but an official statement. Which is precisely the one thing the entire disclosure apparatus seems built never to produce.

Government Disclaimer to Avoid Official Admission

On top of that, every PURSUE document is stamped with a disclaimer telling readers not to treat it as an analytical judgment or a factual determination. And while AARO exists to adjudicate these cases, it keeps filing them in the 'unresolved' column — its own reporting points to a lack of data that would indicate the recovery or reverse-engineering of any UAP.

The irony is that transparency actually lowers the odds of a contract like this resolving 'Yes.' Each case logged as unresolved nudges the story away from 'they're hiding something' and toward a pile of low-context files no one can draw a conclusion from.

This is the distinction that matters: disclosure and confirmation are two separate events, and the market has been pricing the gap between them in real time. It's also why the 'when' in the market's headline isn't really a date — it's a condition. Confirmation arrives only if an official steps past that disclaimer and says the words out loud: forced by a congressional subpoena, delivered under sworn testimony, or issued when AARO finally attributes one of its uncharacterized cases to something non-human.

Reviving A Critical Act

Witness testimony could move the market, too. David Grusch, a former intelligence official, told the House Oversight Committee in 2023 that the US runs a program to retrieve and reverse-engineer craft of non-human origin, and that the government holds nonhuman biological material. Grusch conceded, however, that he had never personally seen any of it and was relying on accounts from credible sources — which may not clear the bar this market sets.

A more bipartisan development worth watching is Senator Mike Rounds' pledge to revive the UAP Disclosure Act, which would include protections for whistleblowers.

Exploring the Russia-China Connection

The market could also be mispricing one path. The contract is built around an official confirmation of extraterrestrial life or technology, but it says nothing about the form such a statement might take — and the form is everything. If anomalous hardware were ever attributed to Russia or China, or unveiled as reverse-engineered American craft flaunted as a deterrent, the government could acknowledge something extraordinary while carefully never using the word 'extraterrestrial.' The confirmation, in other words, might arrive wrapped in threat rather than wonder — and slip right past the condition this market is waiting on.

Closing

Even the most casual brush with confirmation gets pulled back fast. Asked point-blank on a podcast this February whether aliens are real, Barack Obama said 'They're real, but I haven't seen them' — then clarified within a day that he'd seen no evidence, during his presidency, that extraterrestrials had ever made contact. A former president can muse; the on-the-record correction follows almost immediately.

Public belief, meanwhile, settled long ago. One in five Americans (21%) say they've seen something they thought was a UFO, and roughly three-quarters assume the government would hide any real evidence — the public's confirmation threshold was crossed years back. The market is really measuring the other one: the government's. And so far, every released file shows the state tiptoeing toward the line without any conviction to cross it.

House of the Dragon Season 3 premiered on June 21, opening to a 95% Tomatometer score — within reach of Game of Thrones at its critical peak. The Popcornmeter, though, tells a different story: a 72% audience score, the lowest of the show's three seasons to date. Critics and everyday viewers have landed on strikingly opposite verdicts for the same season, and that divide has set off heated speculation over where the score will ultimately settle by the time the season wraps.

A Quick Primer on House of the Dragon and Season 3

A prequel to Game of Thrones based on George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, the series is set roughly two centuries before the original show and follows the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. Season 2 was widely regarded as the franchise's low point — hampered by sluggish pacing and a shortened episode order due to the Hollywood writers' strike — and went on to receive zero Emmy nominations. Season 3 premiered June 21 with eight episodes, set to conclude on August 9, and showrunners have promised significantly more large-scale battle sequences this time around. A fourth and final season has already been confirmed, slated for 2028.

Where Critics and Audiences Part Ways

On the critical side, the trajectory has been: Season 1 at 90%, Season 2 at 84%, and Season 3 now at 95% based on the episodes reviewed so far. Recurring praise points to the scale and production value of the opening battle sequence, a noticeably brisker pace compared to last season, widely lauded work from Emma D'Arcy, and a strong reception for new cast addition James Norton. Multiple outlets have framed the season as a return to the form that made Season 1 a standout, and while some reviews still note reservations about narrative density, the proportion of negative coverage has dropped sharply compared to Season 2.Audiences, however, have focused their frustration on a single moment: the death of a major character in the premiere episode. While the character does meet the same fate in the corresponding battle in the source material, the show altered the specific circumstances surrounding the death — a change that book purists have criticized as rushed and lacking weight. In the comment sections, a recurring complaint is that this reflects a long-standing issue with the series: major plot turns driven by accident or misunderstanding rather than by characters' own choices. That backlash has pulled the audience score down to its lowest point across all three seasons.

What This Split Says

Stepping back, a gap between critical and audience reception isn't unusual for major fantasy adaptations — book-loyalists tend to hold "faithfulness to the source material" to a far higher standard than general audiences or critics typically apply. But for HBO, this divide carries two distinct practical stakes. Critical acclaim feeds into awards-season prestige and the show's long-term cultural standing, while audience sentiment has a more direct bearing on subscriber retention and the season's ongoing buzz. With several weeks to go before the August 9 finale, whether this gap narrows as the season progresses will largely determine whether Season 3 is ultimately remembered as a true comeback — or as a season that stayed divisive to the end.

Several names have surfaced as potential guest performers for the World Cup final halftime show.

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is serving as the show's creative curator, making the band itself a natural candidate to take the stage alongside the confirmed headliners.

Justin Bieber has also drawn speculation, partly due to his strong performance at Coachella earlier this year and his Canadian nationality, which has fueled talk of a possible "North American moment" given the tournament's host countries.

KATSEYE, the multinational girl group, gained additional visibility this year through their Coachella appearance alongside the real singing voices behind KPop Demon Hunters, and their international makeup aligns with the World Cup's global audience.

Rihanna's name has also circulated since reports last year suggested she was in early talks to perform alongside Shakira, and a stage of this scale fits the kind of high-profile moment she has historically chosen to appear at. None of these four have been officially confirmed by FIFA or Global Citizen, and the final lineup may include additional names not yet under public discussion.

Join our community opinion poll below and vote for your favorite artist! (This is a non-commercial, entertainment-only fan discussion)."

YIt's been nearly a year since Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement, and the couple has yet to confirm a single official wedding detail. New York City has confirmed a permit filed for an event at Madison Square Garden on July 3, capped at 999 guests, with setup beginning July 2 and teardown by July 4. The New York Times previously reported that Swift's team had rented out the entire venue — an intimate gathering of around 100 on July 2, followed by a larger celebration of roughly 1,000 guests the next day. Several Kansas City Chiefs players have reportedly booked Midtown Manhattan hotel rooms for July 2 and 3, with Patrick and Brittany Mahomes likely among the attendees. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani even joked at a press conference that the World Cup schedule happens to coincide with "Taylor Swift's wedding" that same week.There's still room for doubt — Swift has a well-earned reputation for surprises and guarding her privacy, so an elaborate misdirect isn't entirely off the table. But with street closure permits, venue bookings, and guest travel plans all lining up independently, the theory that the wedding isn't happening in the Garden is getting harder to defend by the day.

The much-anticipated animated sequel Minions & Monsters has received a positive Rotten Tomatoes prediction to go alongside its better box office forecast. The Illumination franchise has a mixed track record when it comes to critic scores, with the first six Minions and Despicable Me movies getting a spread of 'Rotten' and 'Fresh' ratings on the review site.Pierre Coffin, who serves as the film's director and co-writer with Brian Lynch, returns as the voice of the Minions, joining Trey Parker as the green antagonist Goomi (also known as Deceiver), Allison Janney as a Universal tour guide, Jesse Eisenberg as the humanoid robot Dort, and George Lucas in a yet undisclosed role. The movie sees the Minions wanting to regain their reputation in Old Hollywood by producing a monster movie of their own, though the trailers reveal that the monsters they ask for might be more than they bargained for. Unlike the typical movie, Minions & Monsters is slated to arrive on a Wednesday, June 1, in the United States to take advantage of the Independence Day holiday weekend.

Minions & Monsters is getting positive reviews so far

Minions & Monsters is predicted to get a 72% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to a bet on Kalshi (as of June 22, 2026). This would give the film 'Fresh' status on the site, below the 75% threshold necessary to earn the 'Certified Fresh' title. The full results of the betting spread are as follows:

• Above 45 (Rotten Tomatoes rating) – 95% chance
• Above 50 – 90% chance
• Above 55 – 88% chance
• Above 60 – 84% chance
• Above 65 – 70% chance
• Above 70 – 56% chance
• Above 75 – 41% chance
• Above 80 – 19% chance
• Above 85 – 8% chance
• Above 90 – 6% chance

Per usual, Rotten Tomatoes predictions can fluctuate wildly, so it's important to take these results with a grain of salt. This bet started on June 17 and had the film's RT rating hovering at around a 64% before jumping considerably a few days later up to the low 70s.To put the movie's predicted 72% rating into context on the site, it is notably higher than the 58% for 2017's Despicable Me 3, the 55% of the first Minions movie in 2015, and the 56% for 2024's Despicable Me 4. It's more comparable to the 70% that 2022's Minions: Rise of Gru and the 75% of Despicable Me 2. This bodes well for Minions & Monsters, since it has to contend with Toy Story 5, which has an impressive 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.Fortunately, it's expected that the movie will be getting a Rotten Tomatoes score shortly. The review embargo for the Illumination and Universal Pictures production has already passed, lifting on June 21 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET, according to @EmbargoLiftsFor on Instagram. This date coincides with the movie's premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France that also takes places on June 21.A review generally needs a minimum of 10 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes before it receives a score, and at the time of writing, it has five reviews in total on the site. On that front, all five have a positive rating with the two scored reviews giving Minions & Monsters an above-average judgment— a 3 out of 5 from Empire Magazine and a 3.5 out of 5 from South China Morning Post.Meanwhile, the three other reviews praise the film as being a tribute to 1920s Hollywood, with Tessa Smith from Mama's Geeky calling it a "love letter" that "features industry jokes and references." Drew Taylor from TheWrap calls it the "best in the franchise, perhaps since the very first 'Despicable Me,'" and Guy Lodge from Variety says it has "such a weird, willful popular entertainment for much of its (blessedly snappy) running time that it holds your goodwill."The post Minions & Monsters Rotten Tomatoes Prediction Is Better Than Expected appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.

On March 18, Marvel released the first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Within 24 hours, it had racked up 718.7 million views — breaking the record previously held by Deadpool & Wolverine to become the most-watched movie trailer on its debut day in history. Within four days, views surpassed one billion, making it the first trailer ever to cross that threshold. The second trailer arrived on June 17 and went on to become the second most-viewed movie trailer of all time. Between the two, audiences saw Spider-Man, the Punisher, the Hulk, and MJ's new boyfriend — but there was one person whose face you could barely make out. Sadie Sink's name appears in the official cast list. The character column is blank. This is virtually unprecedented in MCU promotional history. Marvel has kept secrets before, but withholding a character's name entirely for over a year is something close to unheard of. That blank space has become the biggest mystery surrounding Brand New Day.

A Quick Primer on Brand New Day

Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens July 31, and is Tom Holland's fourth solo Spider-Man film.At the end of No Way Home (2021), in order to repair a fractured multiverse, Peter Parker asked Doctor Strange to cast a spell that would make the entire world forget he existed — not just forget he was Spider-Man, but erase all the memory of Peter Parker as a person, including those closest to him: his girlfriend MJ and his best friend Ned.Brand New Day begins four years later. Peter is a nameless, forgotten adult living alone in an apartment, protecting New York full-time as Spider-Man. Meanwhile, MJ and Ned are at MIT, and MJ has a new boyfriend, played by Eman Esfandi. Peter knows all of this, and can only watch from afar. As the official synopsis puts it: "The world may have forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn't forgotten them."Sadie Sink's casting is a story in itself. In March 2025, she revealed on The Tonight Show that she first found out she might be in the film the same way fans did — through online speculation. Deadline subsequently confirmed she had joined the cast in a "significant role," though the character's name has never been officially disclosed. Even more intriguing: Deadline later confirmed that Sink's role won't end with this film. She is set to appear in next year's Avengers: Secret Wars, suggesting that whoever she's playing carries far more weight in the broader MCU than a supporting Spider-Man character typically would.This film's position in the MCU timeline makes that all the more significant. Avengers: Doomsday, arriving this December, is the culmination of Marvel's entire Multiverse Saga — and Brand New Day will be the last MCU film to release before it. With the word "mutant" appearing with growing frequency across the MCU, this film's ending may lay the most critical groundwork for December. Sadie Sink's character could be the thread connecting the Spider-Man universe to that much larger picture.

Who Is Sadie Sink?

If the name doesn't immediately ring a bell, chances are you've already seen her most famous moment.In 2017, at just fifteen years old, she joined Stranger Things Season 2 as Max Mayfield — a skateboarding, Walkman-wearing transfer student who was all sharp edges on the outside but quietly, deeply feeling on the inside. In Season 4 in 2022, Max's escape from the villain Vecna set to "Running Up That Hill" moved countless viewers to tears in front of their screens.Looking across these roles, audiences will find that Sink has a particular gift for characters who appear sharp-edged and guarded at first glance, but carry within them a quiet depth and a powerful, coiled intensity waiting to break through. That quality maps precisely onto the defining traits of several key Marvel characters — which is exactly why, when Deadline announced in March 2025 that she had joined Brand New Day in a "significant role," fan communities didn't stop to ask whether she could handle it. They went straight to asking: who is she playing?

The Leading Theories

Theory A: A Punisher-adjacent character
A figure resembling Sink briefly appears in the background of scenes involving the Punisher. If this turns out to be the answer, Marvel's year-long silence would feel somewhat disproportionate to the reveal — though Marvel has done exactly this before (Mads Mikkelsen's role in Doctor Strange was kept under wraps until release).

Theory B: Mayday Parker
In the comics, Mayday Parker is Peter and MJ's daughter from an alternate universe, with spider-powers of her own. The multiverse framework makes this plausible, and Sink's age roughly fits. The complication is that this is a high-concept premise that would require significant setup for general audiences, and neither trailer contains any visible multiverse thread pointing in her direction.

Theory C: Gwen Stacy
Peter's first love in the comics, and one of the most iconic figures in Spider-Man's history. A Peter with no memory of his past life, encountering a woman who feels inexplicably familiar — the emotional logic is clean and self-contained. Sink's look and demeanor fit the classic Gwen Stacy image closely. The open question is whether a live-action Gwen Stacy might feel like a complication, given how deeply Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has already embedded "Spider-Gwen" in the popular imagination.

Theory D: Jean Grey (X-Men)
If Sadie Sink is playing Jean Grey, it means mutants are formally entering the MCU — not as an easter egg, but as a structural shift in the main continuity. The trailers contain imagery widely read as suggesting telepathic or psychokinetic abilities. Marvel has been building towards an X-Men integration for some time. And Jean Grey's defining characteristic — an immense inner power, suppressed and threatening to break free — aligns closely with the precise quality Sink has demonstrated she can embody. If this is the answer, Brand New Day becomes something considerably larger than a Spider-Man sequel: the opening of an entirely new chapter in the MCU.

From brat to Music, Fashion, Film: Can Charli XCX Rewrite the Rules All Over Again?

Two years ago, a neon-green album cover landed in the global pop landscape. No elaborate rollout, no manufactured buzz — just a single word that somehow made perfect sense and none at all: brat.

What followed was hard to argue with. brat debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Ireland, earned a Metacritic score of 95 — the highest of 2024 — and ignited "brat summer," a cultural phenomenon that swept social media worldwide. By February 2025, it had claimed three Grammy Awards. Now, less than a month remains before the release of her seventh studio album, Music, Fashion, Film. The neon green is gone. In its place: a black-and-white photograph, three figures standing side by side with measured expressions — rock musician John Cale, fashion designer Marc Jacobs, and filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The shift in visual identity alone has been enough to keep listeners around the world watching closely, and speculation about the album's commercial performance is already running high.

What Is This Album, Exactly?

Music, Fashion, Film arrives via Atlantic Records on July 24 — 11 tracks, just over 30 minutes, leaner and more contained than brat's 15.

The lead singles have already sketched out a clear direction. "Rock Music" runs on electric guitar and raw momentum; "SS26" builds on that same guitar-forward texture, its title pulled from the lyric "nothing's gonna save us, not music, fashion, or film"; and "Wink Wink," described by Rolling Stone as "a sardonic nod to her own early career," rounds out the trio. Together, they point unmistakably toward a deliberate stylistic departure.

The album cover, then, reads less like design and more like a statement of intent. Placing John Cale, Marc Jacobs, and Martin Scorsese — each a defining figure in their respective field — on the front of a pop record suggests that Charli XCX is no longer interested in being measured purely against other pop artists. The ambition here is to occupy a different kind of cultural space altogether.

Creative Conviction or Calculated Gamble?

This is the question that has split the music world in the weeks since the singles dropped.

Those in the "conviction" camp point to her track record. Nearly every album in Charli XCX's catalog has been a deliberate act of self-reinvention: the lockdown-era ambient experiments of How I'm Feeling Now in 2020, the polished '80s synthpop of Crash in 2022, the raw underground rave energy of brat in 2024. Each pivot looked risky at the time. Each one, in retrospect, proved prescient.

Her own words in a British Vogue interview this past April carry weight here too. "If I made another dance album, it would feel really hard, really sad," she said — a statement that reads not as a marketing line, but as a candid admission of creative depletion. Her longtime collaborator and producer A.G. Cook put it more broadly: "She's not flexing. She's genuinely responding to a feeling a lot of people have in 2026 — of there being so much, almost too much."

The skeptics, however, are not without a case. When "Rock Music" dropped, fan communities fractured almost immediately. "This isn't rock — it's just electronic music with a guitar layered on top," was a criticism that spread quickly and widely. The deeper concern, though, goes beyond genre labeling. brat worked because it arrived at precisely the right moment: post-pandemic release, a collective Z-generation hunger for self-acceptance, a cultural appetite for anti-polish aesthetics — all of it converging on that one lime-green cover. The cultural landscape of 2026 is a different place. Whether lightning can strike the same artist twice, in a different storm entirely, is a question no one can answer in advance.

What the Numbers Tell Us

Charli XCX's trajectory on the Billboard 200 has been one of consistent upward movement: No. 42 with Charli in 2019, No. 14 with Crash in 2022, and then the career peak of No. 3 with brat in 2024, backed by 77,000 album-equivalent units in its first week.

It's worth noting, though, that brat's chart position benefited from relatively favorable timing. That particular week, both Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish had albums that were already several weeks into their runs, clearing some space at the top. The landscape this time is considerably more crowded. Olivia Rodrigo's latest album, released June 12, opened with over 80 million streams and a Metacritic score of 89, and remains a commanding presence on the charts. More directly, Tyla's A*POP is scheduled for release on the exact same day as Music, Fashion, Film — July 24 — setting up a direct head-to-head competition for first-week attention.

Album length is also a factor that often goes unmentioned. At 11 tracks, Music, Fashion, Film has a lower streaming ceiling than brat's 15 — a meaningful gap in an era where Billboard's formula increasingly weights paid-subscription plays.

The day Swifties, Chiefs fans, and those who lived through her 2010s girl-squad era have been waiting for is allegedly nigh. Taylor Swift’s wedding is reportedly happening in New York City this week, although an exact date is unbeknownst to both the public and guests (some say July 3) as the star and her team have taken to inviting guests via phone calls.

Regardless of when the nuptials happen, Swift will (obviously) need a dress, or a few, to wear. While her fiancé, Travis Kelce, seems to wear his heart and fashion taste literally on his sleeve (I think he’s going to wear the most obvious KillaTrav-esque outfit possible, i.e., a slightly oversized, Elvis-style white suit), the singer is notoriously selective about what she chooses to share with the public. Instead, she opts to sprinkle Easter eggs among her outfits, songs, and social media in the lead-up to any big reveal, leaving it to her fans to put the pieces together. Consider this a mission accepted, Taylor. We’ve combed through her favorite and most recent looks in an attempt to answer one of the biggest, most important questions plaguing our generation: What will Taylor Swift wear to her wedding?

Who will design Taylor Swift’s dress?

This year, Swift has been wearing a wide mix of American and European brands: Most recently, she wore a corseted, off-the-shoulder Erdem minidress to the Toy Story 5 premiere, nodding to her romantic country roots.

In May, she wore a black Valentino dress; in April, a mint-green corset from Wiederhoeft (a favorite designer among brides); for her birthday, a white Retrofête dress to dinner; and most notably, a striped Staud dress paired with a bright-yellow Dior bag. This final pairing might seem like a typical spring outfit, but let’s go Swift-Easter-egg mode for a second, shall we? The dress itself looks eerily similar to her engagement dress, which feels like a signal in itself.

But what’s really out of place here is her bag — though she loves a good purse, Swift typically opts for bags in neutral colors. In a vibrant yellow, this Dior purse (aptly named after another world-famous blonde, Princess Diana) is anything but neutral. This is our biggest clue. We predict that Swift is leaning toward wearing a Jonathan Anderson–designed Dior dress for the occasion. Since taking over the helm at the storied French fashion house, Anderson has become one of the buzziest names in the industry, which is actually the only thing that makes him less of a contender, in my eyes. “Page Six” reported that Monse was in the running and that Swift will have multiple outfit changes throughout the night, which duh. According to the outlet’s source, Swift is choosing between multiple custom-designed outfits, including one from designers Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia. They’ve long dressed Swift, including this week, when she wore a Monse dress for Kelce’s Tight End University event in Nashville.

But if we are going off her engagement dress, which was a $320 striped Ralph Lauren number that sold out in minutes, shutting down the brand’s website momentarily, she might choose Mr. Americana, Ralph Lauren himself. Despite being a billionaire, Swift famously doesn’t care about exclusively wearing couture or high fashion or about sartorial buzz, often gravitating toward garments that much of the American public can find online at Revolve or Nordstrom and splurge on.

So if Swift, a.k.a Miss Americana (getting married on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary), is going to stick to her roots, I could completely see her creating a custom look with America’s preeminent heritage brand. Plus, best friend Selena Gomez wore three custom looks from the designer for her own nuptials recently. Nothing says BFFs like matching wedding dresses.

There’s also the Vivienne Westwood of it all. Westwood is a favorite for Swift. She’s worn Westwood at major red carpets like the Grammys in 2025, on the stage at the Eras Tour, and even to watch Kelce play in 2024.

The dress will be white, right?

We think, yes. Recently, she’s been opting for more neutral, understated tones like the white dress that she wore to her birthday dinner.

Given her personal taste — and that she’s still a woman who thrives on repetition, ritual and tradition — I can’t see her walking down the aisle in anything other than the customary white gown. But who knows! She does love to surprise.

And what about the silhouette?

A corset and A-line princess-type dress seems quite possible. Because if she does opt for a callback on her wedding day (and we know she loves a self-reference), my suggestion — and entirely biased yet educated guess — would be to reference her greatest music video of all time: “Love Story.” It's evident Swift and Kelce understand themselves to be the prince and princess of pop culture, so there is truly no better time to dig up lyrics like “You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess / It’s a love story, baby, just say ‘yes,’” than on their own wedding day. Furthermore, the classic corseted silhouette featured in this Regency-era video is one Swift loves. The brands at the pinnacle of corsetry, like Wiederhoeft and Westwood, have made custom garments for Taylor in the past, and it’s a shape she returns to over and over. If I could, I’d put money on her coming down the aisle in a strapless or off-the-shoulder dress with boning throughout the torso, cinched at the waist, mild draping at the hips, leading to an A-line ball gown down below. If I turn out to be wrong, pretend I wasn’t.

Will Taylor go for an archival or new dress?

The woman who builds entire worlds — lyrically, sartorially, cinematically, and emotionally — from scratch for every album wearing something she didn’t have a hand in creating? Please.

That’s not to say she doesn’t love a vintage moment — she pulled a deep cut, “if you know, you know” Bob Mackie piece for her Life of a Showgirl album cover — but for most of the red carpets she’s been walking as of late, she’s been opting for custom looks. Brands like Gucci and, again, Westwood, Wiederhoeft, and Schiaparelli have made outfits from her either entirely from scratch or reconfigured existing designs in their wheelhouse. If my instincts are right, we’ll have a Swift-designed, custom couture dress for her wedding day.

Will Taylor only wear one outfit?

I’m going to give this a confident “no.” Swift pulled over 100 looks during her Eras Tour, often only having 60 seconds to change from one sequined, skintight corset into another without fudging her hair and makeup. In comparison, changing wedding dresses is going to feel like a walk in the park. Plus, in recent years, it’s practically become customary for modern-day brides to have at least a second dress to change into for the reception. Now picture having every designer at your beck and call, coupled with about a billion dollars of buying power — one can imagine Swift’s evening will involve several outfit changes. Gomez wore three dresses for her big day, and it’s safe to say her best friend will likely follow suit (birds of a feather flock together, etc.)

“Supergirl” is struggling to take flight at the box office. The comic book adaptation, a space adventure revolving around Superman’s cousin, debuted to a disappointing $38 million from 3,600 North American theaters and $68 million globally.

Heading into the weekend, the Warner Bros. and DC Studios film was targeting a domestic start of around $50 million to $55 million, which already would have been a soft launch for such a big-budget tentpole. Initial ticket sales are concerning for the studio because the movie’s polarizing reception, as well as the intense competition during the peak of summer movie season, could limit its theatrical staying power. That would be a problem because “Supergirl” carries a substantial $170 million price tag, not including the mega marketing budget. Although economics vary from studio to studio, a movie of this size would need to earn at least $375 million to break even since cinema owners get to keep roughly half of revenues. A source close to the film says the breakeven point for “Supergirl” is closer to $300 million.

Critics didn’t like “Supergirl,” which holds a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences appear mixed, with a “B-” grade on CinemaScore exit polls. Initial crowds were 59% male, meaning the film didn’t break out beyond the core superhero fanbase. Milly Alcock plays Supergirl, who travels through the cosmos with her trusty pup Krypto the Superdog. When she encounters an alien girl named Ruthye, she reluctantly joins her on a quest for vengeance and justice. Craig Gillespie, best known for “I, Tonya” and “Cruella,” directed the film from a script by Ana Nogueira (“The Vampire Diaries”).

“Supergirl” arrives a year after “Superman,” which rebooted the DC Universe under the direction of James Gunn and Peter Safran. That film, starring David Corenswet as the Man of Steel, made $125 million and ended its run with $618 million, a decent result at a time when superhero movies have been worryingly Earth-bound. After the debut of “Superman,” Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO David Zaslav championed the “bold 10-year plan” of the new DC Universe, saying the “vision is clear, the momentum is real.” Yet the start for “Supergirl” indicates the road to building an interconnected film franchise (and fashioning a rival to Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe) has hit its first speed bump.

Moreover, “Superman” had the benefit of centering on one of the most recognizable heroes of all time, while his cousin Kara Zor-El, a.k.a. Supergirl, isn’t a household name. The staying power of “Supergirl” could signal whether lesser-known characters get the big screen treatment, or if future installments in the DC Universe will focus solely on marquee characters. Up next is October’s “Clayface,” which carries a substantially smaller $40 million budget, followed by 2027’s “Superman: Man of Tomorrow,” which brings back two heavyweights, Corenswet’s Clark Kent and Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor, as the adversaries team up to take down a bigger threat.

This weekend’s other newcomer, “Jackass: Best and Last,” also stumbled at the box office with $8.4 million from 2,855 venues. The film faltered overseas with $1.9 million from 19 markets for a global debut of $10.3 million. Those ticket sales rank as the worst opening in the prank comedy series that’s all about risking life, limb and dignity. To compare, 2022’s “Jackass Forever,” the property’s prior installment, debuted to $23 million domestically and ended up with $80 million globally. However, “Jackass 5” cost just $10 million to produce, so it doesn’t need to earn much to turn a theatrical profit.

For “Jackass: Best and Last,” critics and audiences actually liked the R-rated reckless prank sequel, which carries an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes and “A-” grade on CinemaScore. One reason the new entry didn’t bring out a bigger crowd is because the film isn’t entirely original; “Best and Last” features stars Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Wee Man and their other daredevil friends in a compilation of new and old stunts and skits.

“This is a weak opening [and] a sharp drop from the last opening in the series,” says David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe. However, he adds that “very few comedies reach a fifth episode — that in itself is an accomplishment. And this one should be profitable, even without strong overseas business.”

Neither of the new releases was close to dethroning Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5,” which ruled again with $70 million in its second weekend of release. That’s a standard 55% decline from its huge $160 million debut. The fifth installment in the generation-spanning franchise is poised to be one of the year’s highest-grossing releases with $297 million domestically and $585 million globally after just 12 days in theaters. “Toy Story 5” is also expected to wind up as the biggest entry in the 31-year-old franchise, a record that currently belongs to “Toy Story 4” with $1.07 billion.

“Obsession” slid to the No. 3 spot, ranking behind “Supergirl” and ahead of “Jackass: Best and Last.” Now in its seventh weekend of release, the box office juggernaut has earned $9.8 million from 2,965 locations, a mere 27% decline in ticket sales. The low-budget horror sensation has generated $233.9 million domestically and $370 million worldwide, making “Obsession” a wildly profitable success for both Focus Features and theater owners.

Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi adventure “Disclosure Day” rounded out the top five with $8.1 million from 3,357 venues, a 54% drop from the prior weekend. So far, “Disclosure Day” has generated $94.3 million in North America and $193 million globally after three weekends on the big screen. Since the PG-13 movie cost $115 million, “Disclosure Day” is estimated to need around $300 million globally to be profitable.

Among specialty titles, A24’s comedy “The Invite” grossed $379,104 on just seven screens in New York and Los Angeles, translating to a strong $54,158 per location. The movie’s commercial appeal will be tested as it continues to roll out in select markets before expanding nationwide on July 10. Olivia Wilde directed the well-reviewed “The Invite,” in which she and Seth Rogen play a bickering married couple who host a dinner party for their far more free-spirited upstairs neighbors (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton).

Although this weekend’s nationwide releases didn’t live up to expectations, Hollywood is enjoying the best summer season since COVID, with revenues just 1.7% behind 2019, according to Rentrak. Next weekend is July 4th, which sees the release of the family-friendly “Despicable Me” spinoff “Minions & Monsters,” with tentpoles like Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” on the horizon.

“Those lovable little Minions will provide some box office fireworks,” predicts Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends. “The summer hit parade just keeps rolling along.”

In June 2026, Taylor Swift's original song I Knew It, I Knew You — written for Toy Story 5 — debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 70,000 digital downloads and 17,000 physical CD sales in its first week, making it only the third Disney animated song ever to top the chart. Prior to that, her The Eras Tour concert film had launched exclusively on Disney+, the six-part documentary The End of an Era had premiered on the same platform, a dedicated exhibition had been mounted at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida, and her feature directorial debut was in production under Disney's Searchlight Pictures banner.

Over the past five years, Swift and Disney have evolved from one-off content licensing into a systematic content partnership — a Disney+ exclusive trilogy, a theme park exhibition, and a Searchlight Pictures production. Today, the question of whether this relationship will move from "content collaboration" to "capital tie-up" has become one of the most closely watched industry narratives in Hollywood.

Signals of a Deeper Tie-Up

Over the past five years, the Swift-Disney relationship has followed a clear escalation path: a one-off collaboration in 2020 → a $75 million concert film in 2024 → a six-part docuseries, a theme park exhibition, a director-driven feature film, and a chart-topping animated soundtrack single by 2026. With I Knew It, I Knew You posting a No.1 Hot 100 debut, the partnership has arguably reached a peak — and a tipping point.

Meanwhile, Disney has established a clear track record of capital partnerships. In 2006, the company completed its acquisition of Pixar after years of content collaboration. In 2024, Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic Games for a 9% stake, securing commercialization rights while allowing the IP owner to retain creative control. These precedents suggest that an "investment → equity partnership" path is already a well-documented part of Disney's playbook.

For Disney, the pressure to differentiate content in the streaming war continues to intensify. Netflix is expanding into short-form content, YouTube TV has surpassed 125 million subscribers, and Disney+ needs to build a sustainable content moat beyond Marvel and Star Wars. Swift's content library offers a distinctly differentiated value proposition — her IP empire spans music, touring, film, and animated soundtrack work — and it also happens to require a more stable production and distribution infrastructure to support its expansion.

The Scope and Boundaries of an Upgrade

However, collaboration does not equal acquisition. The more probable "middle ground" lies in one of several forms of capital or content deepening:

Capital tie-up: A joint venture or minority equity investment, in which Disney exchanges a minority stake for exclusive content distribution and merchandising rights, while Swift retains controlling ownership and creative veto power.

Content deepening: A long-term exclusive production agreement that upgrades the current project-by-project model into a framework deal covering first-look rights on all future audiovisual content, without involving equity.

Status quo: The partnership remains at its current level, with Swift diversifying content distribution across multiple platforms to avoid over-reliance on a single partner.

So, Do you think Taylor Swift-Disney partnership will upgrade from "exclusive content collaboration" to "capital structure tie-up" by the end of 2027?

On June 22, 2026, former ENHYPEN member Lee Heeseung made his official solo debut under the new stage name EVAN with his first digital single, Ride or Die. The music video for the title track surpassed 10 million YouTube views in approximately 44 hours, while simultaneously debuting at No.39 on the Melon Real-time Chart and amassing over 130,000 first-hour likes—the highest record for a male soloist in 2026. On the same day, the track entered Melon HOT100 at No.5, with B-side Overflow following at No.7. Internationally, the music video ranked No.9 on YouTube's Global Daily Chart, hit No.1 in Singapore, and cracked the Top 10 in major markets including the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Germany.Against this dual momentum of strong digital performance and MV virality, EVAN's first-week physical sales have become one of the most hotly debated topics across social media platforms.

Why Did EVAN's Solo Debut Explode?

1. The "Departure Dividend"

As one of the few idols in recent years to leave a group during its prime and launch a solo career, EVAN's debut was inherently destined to become a major talking point. ENHYPEN, over their six-year run, had never once entered the Melon chart—yet EVAN soared to No.39 on the Melon Real-time Chart on his very first day as a soloist. This sharp contrast became highly combustible narrative fuel. Supporters argue the numbers prove his talent finally has room to flourish; skeptics counter that digital traction is merely a "departure dividend" inflated by controversy. The ongoing debate between both camps has only kept the topic alive.

2. The "Compensatory Fandom" Dynamic

EVAN's fanbase rallied around the slogan "the numbers determine future investment" and mobilized dedicated streaming teams to maximize chart performance. This mobilization is essentially an outlet for long-suppressed sentiment — the accumulated disparity between EVAN's individual performance and the group's resource allocation during his ENHYPEN days. Besides, the broader casual audience's curiosity around his debut also contributed significantly to the track's early traction.

YEONJUN's Solo Data as a Comparative Benchmark for EVAN's Sales Outlook

When projecting EVAN's first-week sales, the solo activities of YEONJUN—a fellow fifth-generation boy group core member who also debuted as a soloist while his group was still active—offer a valuable reference point. The key comparison dimensions are as follows:

1. Physical Album Sales

YEONJUN followed a "digital single first → physical EP later" trajectory. His debut mini-album recorded first-day sales exceeding 540,000 copies, with Chinese fanbar pre-orders surpassing 250,000 units. EVAN, by contrast, launched with a physical single right out of the gate—meaning his first-week sales represent the full picture from day one, with no "soft launch" phase to test the waters.

2. Digital and SNS Performance

EVAN outperformed YEONJUN's mixtape-era numbers in both Melon likes and MV velocity, suggesting stronger initial fandom response and more concentrated early attention. However, it's important to note that YEONJUN's GGUM was a digital-only mixtape, whereas EVAN's debut is a physical release. This means YEONJUN's fans had their purchasing power spread across two phases—"stream first, buy later"—while EVAN's fanbase is directing their full consumption power toward a single point of release. Key Takeaways for EVAN's Sales Forecast:

• Upper-bound reference: YEONJUN's 542,000 first-day sales provide a ceiling benchmark for what a fifth-generation boy group member's solo debut can achieve.
• EVAN's upside: His superior MV velocity and Melon first-hour like count suggest stronger early momentum, which bodes well for a "pre-order driven, day-one concentrated" sales pattern.
• EVAN's downside risks: Backlash from a segment of former group fans could compress the ceiling, and with no digital-single buffer phase, his first-week performance will be the definitive opening statement.

So, what's your projection for EVAN's first-week Hanteo sales?