BOOM JANUARY 2016 | Page 22

REPORT Furious 7 and "See You Again" Made Us Miss Paul Walker More Than Ever Usually, the 7th movie in a film franchise doesn’t break records. But after the untimely death of star Paul Walker, Furious 7 broke a lot of records and hearts around the world. The film’s current gross is $1,515,047,671. It came in at #5 All Time Worldwide and #3 Worldwide Openings in the charts (though that's sure to change after Star Wars). The song’s theme tune “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth hit #1 on many charts, staying there consistently for weeks and weeks. The song was nominated for 3 Grammys and 1 Golden Globe award. Jurassic World Slayed the Box Office Everyone knew that Jurassic World was going to be a big summer blockbuster film, but no one anticipated the success it would generate in one weekend. For six months, it held the recording for highest grossing opening weekend with $208, 806, 270 (the Star Wars: The Force Awakens changed that). That mega success in it’s opening weekend led to continued growth, making it the 3rd highest grossing film of all time (domestically). As of December 21st, Star Wars did beat Jurassic World, but the whole Jurassic Park family was classy as hell about that. Ruby Rose Joined Orange Is The New Black In June, Netflix released it’s 3rd season of Orange Is the New Black and when Ruby Rose popped up, people lost their damn minds. People took to social media to express their love (*cough* obsession *cough*) with Ruby Rose. Everyone needed to know who the hell she was and they needed to explain that they had a serious crush on her. "Call me Caitlyn" For years, there was speculation about Bruce Jenner's changing appearance, and in April we officially found out why when she appeared on 20/20 with Diane Sawyer, where she came out as a trans woman. Fast-forward to June, and we had her official new name, Caitlyn Jenner (yes, with a C and not a K). In a Vanity Fair spread, the world was introduced to Caitlyn Jenner and learned more about her journey from being an Olympic athlete, to media star, to her choice to come out. Since then Caitlyn has made waves (and cause some flack for certain comments) in the transgender community, with praise and disregards from many for her decision. #LoveWins While this moment in 2015 history isn't exactly "pop culture" related, it was too important to not include. On June 26th, 2015 a big step in equality was made in America, where gay and lesbians couples were granted the right to marry across the country (previously, only a few states made this legal). The movement was dubbed #LoveWins on Twitter, where real people, celebrities, and politicians (President Barrack Obama himself) all spoke out in support. Drake vs. Meek Mill In 2015 one of the greatest beefs ever was document- ed via Twitter and music, all thanks to Drake and Meek Mill. If you weren't pay attention from the start, BET has the perfect timeline of this beef. For a while, these two seemed to be on the same team, as Drake has worked with Nicki Minaj (Meek's fiance) for years and Drake and Meek have even been on some tracks together, but that friendship has since ended. In July this battle started when Meek tweeted angrily for people to stop comparing him to Drake, claiming Drake doesn't write his own raps. He claimed that Drake has a ghost writer (Quentin Miller, who has denied these claims) on all of his songs and that is who is behind Drake's success. Obviously Champagne Papi didn't take too kindly to this and released "Charged Up" which called out Meek on multiple levels. But, he didn't stop there, shortly after (with no real word back from Meek) he dropped "Back to Back" and slayed Meek on the track, pretty much discouraging any belief that he didn't write his own raps. By the time Meek responded with "Wanna Know", it was already too late. We all know who won this battle. Viola Davis Made History Viola Davis made history at the 2015 Emmys. She became the first African American woman ever to win for Best Actress In a Drama Series for her role on How To Get Away With Murder. After winning, she said this: "The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is simply opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. So here's to all the writers, the awesome people — people who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be black." Adele Broke Like a MILLION Records With 25 With less than 2 months left of 2015, Adele swept in to break all the damn records. Her newest album, 25, is the first ever to sell more than 3 million (3.38 million to be exact) copies in one week. The previous record holder was *NSYNC, with No Strings Attached in 2000. This feat is incredible in 2015 with all the various streaming services and abilities to illegally download music that were not as available 15 years ago. 25 quickly became the best-selling album of 2015. People are so obsessed with this album, 10 million people logged onto Ticketmaster on December 17th to buy tickets to her 2016 North American tour (which only had roughly 750,000 tickets available). Star Wars: The Force Awakens Slays The 2015 Movie Game with Less Than 2 Weeks Left in 2015 Star Wars: The Force Awakens nabbed $238 million during its opening weekend, which included $100 million from Friday alone (the larg