Entertainment
U2 made a concert movie of its Sphere show. Sphere is the only place you can see it
Nine months after U2 wrapped its 40-date residency at Sphere, the veteran Irish rock band is back at the dome-shaped venue just off the Las Vegas Strip.
Well, sort of.
“V-U2” is a new concert movie that documents the group’s high-tech “U2:UV” show, in which singer Bono, guitarist the Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Bram van den Berg (filling in for Larry Mullen Jr.) revisited U2’s media-obsessed 1991 album “Achtung Baby” as they inaugurated the $2-billion building outfitted with the world’s highest-resolution LED screen. U2’s stay at Sphere was a critical and commercial success, blanketing social media with eye-popping video clips and raking in nearly $250 million, according to the trade journal Pollstar — and at a moment when the show’s stiff competition included Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour.
So it’s no wonder that U2 followed Swift and Beyoncé in bringing its show to the screen. Unlike those pop superstars’ films, though, this one you can see only at the place where the band filmed it — at Sphere, that is, where “V-U2” plays on that massive wraparound screen on nights when the Eagles aren’t there for their residency. (Between U2 and the Eagles came gigs at Sphere by Phish and Dead & Company.) Directed by the Edge and his wife, Morleigh Steinberg, “V-U2” opened in September and was just extended through the end of February; tickets to see the movie are pricey, starting at around 100 bucks a pop.
Looking back at “U2:UV,” the Edge, 63, says a Sphere production is “its own distinct kind of art form — a new art form, I think, not just for music but for narrative film, for documentary, for all kinds of presentations. It’s the ability to translocate the audience to a new place, be it real or imaginary.” (Among the vignettes in U2’s show were ones that put the crowd in a pre-Strip desert landscape and amid a menagerie of endangered wildlife species.) “You can’t divorce the scale of the imagery from what you might want to do with it,” the Edge adds. As inspirations, the guitarist cites Christo and Jean-Claude’s 2021 wrapping of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe as well as Culver City’s Museum of Jurassic Technology, which he calls one of his favorite places in Los Angeles.
“All those tiny miniatures that fit on the head of a needle — I think it’s so beautiful,” he says in a Zoom call from his place in Malibu. “Again, it’s the scale that makes it unique.”
I get the desire to preserve an ambitious live show for posterity. And I get the impulse to sell tickets to folks who didn’t pay to catch the show in person. What was the creative opportunity you saw in making this movie?
You’ve got to understand that there was a huge amount of risk associated with signing on to be the first band [to play Sphere]. It’s all untried and untested technology, and the building — when we first went to see it, it was half-built, OK? So opening night arrives and we literally walk onstage, no idea if it’s going to work. It’s kind of a white-knuckle ride. Coming out of the first few shows, we realized that not only is it working, it’s like all our ideas have landed. That was such a relief.
Then we pivot quite quickly to the thought of filming it, and what does that mean? We go through a process of consideration and elimination as we realize the show is so bespoke to this venue that to try and capture it for a small screen just wouldn’t make any sense. So then we start thinking, Well, what about capturing it for the screen it happens to be on right now? What was here in potential was an immersive experience — maybe the first of its kind — where you can faithfully represent your live performance so that there’s only a few giveaways that it’s not actually happening live in front of you. That was the thrilling proposition.
U2 performs at Sphere in Las Vegas in September 2023.
(Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for Live Nation)
The goal was to get an audience member to buy the illusion that U2 is onstage.
Yes. The combination of visuals and the audio and the haptics of the seats — all of those things were brought to bear to try and basically turn on its head the whole idea of suspension of disbelief, so that you’re having to remind yourself that it’s not real, as opposed to pretending that it is.
There’s something very U2 about a concert film that you can see only in the place where the concert happened.
I’d love if [media theorist] Marshall McLuhan could see it. What would he think? Since the beginning of touring “Achtung Baby,” we were riffing on this idea of “even better than the real thing.” That wasn’t lost on us. And I have to say: Finally getting to see U2 live was genuinely shocking. It gave me goosebumps. We’re not half-bad.
The first few songs are shot from a steady position in the audience. Then the camera starts moving around.
You don’t want to give that up too soon. You want people to enjoy the show as it was first designed and imagined. Then you give them a tab of acid and it goes in a completely different direction. We wait until “One,” our fifth song [in the set] — that was a good moment to start deconstructing the show to some extent.
A good moment in an emotional sense?
I think that’s always the leading metric for us — the emotional connection. We had [director] Mark Pellington come in, and he was the one who suggested the close-up of Bono in “One,” which was a great call. It breaks the movie out of the conceit of it actually being a live show, and suddenly you shatter the fourth wall.
That close-up of Bono is startling to behold.
I haven’t actually had it measured, but it must be the size of a building.
Did Bono get to approve such a revealing shot of his own face?
Oh, yeah [laughs]. His word to us was: “It can’t be just spectacle — you’ve got to capture the humanity of what’s happening.” So, like, mistakes: Bono stumbled over some of his banter in the introductions, and he wanted to keep that in. This is not overly polished.
U2’s concert movie is scheduled to play at Sphere through the end of February.
(Sphere Entertainment)
My instinct is to scoff at that idea. The whole point of Sphere is polish! But there actually is something kind of raw about the movie.
Part of that is practical. With modern post-production, it’s super simple to alter 35-mill format. But since this is such a massive amount of data, to really do anything too fancy would take months and an eye-watering amount of computer processing to achieve. I’m sure future projects will be able to make that possible. But for us, it was kind of straightforward. We knew there wasn’t an awful lot we could do beyond just make cuts and showcase the moments that we thought were the best representations of the show.
Does this movie pose a threat to live music in any way? You think about this or you think about ABBA’s hologram show in London — both enable bands to offer fans a concert-like experience without having to be there in person.
I don’t see it as a threat — no more of a threat than any concert film. The ABBA thing, which I’ve seen, was really fun, given the fact that no one’s seen ABBA perform in the flesh for generations. But I don’t think any of this negates what exists in live concerts — it’s in addition to those offerings.
How did the Sphere experience shape U2’s live ambitions going forward?
I wouldn’t rule out doing something for the Sphere in the future. But we’re itching to get back to regular concerts. Next thing we have to do is a new record, of course. This project was a celebration of “Achtung Baby,” so we’re anxious to do something that’s about new work. We’re already actively developing new material for what will become a U2 album in the future, and we’ll be back to touring. As much as we loved being able to rely on the sound being great every night, there’s a great momentum to being on the road. And seeing local fans, as opposed to relying on them coming to us — it’s different. We miss it.
Entertainment
Zoe Saldaña becomes the highest-grossing actor of all time
After another impressively profitable weekend in theaters, James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” helped crown its star Zoe Saldaña the queen of the box office.
The third “Avatar” movie boasted $21.3 million in North American sales last week, bringing it to a global total of $1.23 billion. With those impressive stats, Saldaña officially surpassed Scarlett Johansson as the highest-grossing actor of all time.
The Oscar winner has grossed more than $15.47 billion at the international box office, according to box office tracking website the Numbers. Johansson only recently gained the title after surpassing her “Avengers” co-star Samuel L. Jackson with the release of last summer’s “Jurassic World Rebirth.”
What helped buoy Saldaña to the top is the fact that the 47-year-old actor stars in the three highest-grossing films of all time: 2009’s “Avatar” ($2.9 billion), 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” ($2.8 billion) and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” ($2.3 billion).
Saldaña is also the only actor to appear in four movies that brought in over $2 billion worldwide. (2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” grossed $2.05 billion.)
Last year proved that Saldaña’s talent exceeded the realm of popcorn movies when she nabbed her first Academy Award for her supporting role in the controversial musical “Emilia Pérez.” Her win marked the first time an actor with Dominican roots had won an Oscar.
“I am a proud child of immigrant parents, with dreams and dignity and hardworking hands,” she said through tears while accepting the award for supporting actress. “And I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last.”
Saldaña cemented her Oscar win while side-stepping criticisms of the film — namely regarding its portrayals of Mexicans and transgender people — as well as the scandal that surrounded “Emilia Pérez” co-star Karla Sofía Gascón, when her offensive tweets with anti-Muslim, anti-diversity and racist language resurfaced.
Movie Reviews
Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: A fond, funky & fun throwback to old-school masala films
Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Synopsis: Even as he keeps up an appearance of following in the footsteps MGR in front of his grandfather, a die-hard fan of the legend, Ramu is actually a corrupt cop, who’s helping in a mission to nab activists exposing the government. What happens when an incident triggers the Vaathiyaar in him? Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: In his interviews about the film, director Nalan Kumarasamy repeatedly stressed on the fact that he planned Vaa Vaathiyaar as an attempt at recreating the old-school masala film in his own style. And that’s exactly what he delivers with his film. The simplicity of the MGR film formula meets the new-age-y plot device of Maaveeran in this fond, fun, funky throwback to the masala films of an earlier era. The film does take a while to get going with the beats of the initial set-up coming across as little too familiar. The narrative rhythm, too, is slightly off, with far too many songs popping up at frequent intervals. Though, it helps that Santhosh Narayanan’s songs are short and groovy. And the composer delivers a score that superbly elevates the emotional moments. But once we get into the main conflict, things perk up. An anonymous group of hacker-activists exposes a shootout plot by power broker Periasamy (Sathyaraj) and the chief minister (Nizhalgal Ravi) at a Sterlite-like protest. The government decides to nab them before they can cause further damage to a 142 million euro business deal. How does Ramu – a corrupt cop, who is keeping up a facade of being a do-gooder for the sake of his grandfather (Rajkiran, who has become the default casting choice for such well-meaning boomer roles), a die-hard MGR fan – gets involved in this and where does the OG Vaathiyaar figures in this scheme of things?Vaa Vaathiyaar shows that in this age of hyper-masculine action – and even romantic – films, it’s still possible to make a rousing commercial entertainer with a star without relying on guns and gratuitous bloodshed. The film’s action set-pieces have the hero taking on dozens of henchmen (and cops, too!), but it’s all done in swashbuckling MGR style. And in Karthi, it has an actor who is brave enough to take on a risky role, given the stature in which MGR is held by the Tamil people. Rather than merely mimicking him, which would have ended up as a spoof, the actor wonderfully captures the spirit of the legend’s onscreen image and creates moments that are genuinely heartfelt. Credit should also go to Nalan for finding the right pitch at which the actor should play these portions. While there are quite a few throwbacks to iconic MGR scenes, the filmmaker even succeeds in his modern take on the iconic song, Raajavin Paarvai Raaniyin Pakkam.The film would have been even better with a stronger villain. The film initially builds up Periyasamy to be ruthless and powerful, and with someone of Sathyaraj’s calibre playing this role, we expect more only to be deceived in the end. There’s also some build up to Nivas, a rival cop, who’s keen on nailing Ramu, but this arc, which could have added tension, is left incomplete after a while.That said, Nalan’s bold move to call back to MGR’s real-life hospitalisation and resurgence in the climax leaves the film on an emotional high.
Entertainment
Audience for Golden Globe Awards telecast drops 7% from last year
The Sunday telecast of the 83rd Golden Globe Awards on CBS suffered a ratings setback with an audience decline of 7% compared with last year’s show.
Nielsen data showed the live event, hosted by comic Nikki Glaser at the Beverly Hilton, averaged 8.66 million viewers. The big winners of the night included “One Battle After Another” and “Hamnet” on the feature film side. Medical drama “The Pitt” and comedy series “Hacks,” both from HBO Max, were the big TV winners.
The data, which include livestreaming, mark the second straight audience decline for the Golden Globe Awards, which scored 9.2 million viewers in 2025. That edition dropped slightly from its bounce-back year of 2024, when the program delivered 9.4 million viewers — a 50% lift over its final year on NBC.
Like all awards shows, the Golden Globes no longer deliver the kind of ratings that once made it one of the most-watched programs of the year. The show has suffered from the changing habits of viewers, many of whom have turned to social media for trophy-show clips.
The Golden Globe Awards also had to come back from a scandal over the lack of diversity in the membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which operated the event for decades. A Los Angeles Times investigation brought attention and raised concerns about its ethics and financial practices in 2021.
The 83rd Golden Globe Awards may have been hurt by some production elements that did not go over well based on the harsh response from viewers posting on social media.
Marc Malkin, senior culture and events editor for Variety, was paired with “Entertainment Tonight” co-host Kevin Frazier to provide running chatter off-camera during the long and winding trip to the stage for winners seated in the crowded hotel ballroom. They were not well received.
“Do you think Golden Globes commentators Marc Malkin and Kevin Frazier are going to go home tonight utterly haunted for the rest of their days over the mind-numbing inanities they uttered all night?” wrote film critic Dustin Putman.
A post from another viewer compared Malkin’s commentary to “your mom talking about who she just ran into at the supermarket.”
Viewers were also put off by on-screen graphics featuring data from the prediction market app Polymarket showing the win probability of the nominees ahead of their categories. “Just push me in front of a bus at this point,” sports podcaster Bobby Wagner wrote on X.
The Golden Globe Awards presented the data as part of a partnership deal with Polymarket, which gives users the opportunity to bet on the outcomes of events in sports, culture, politics and other areas. The deal included an advertising buy on the broadcast.
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