In case you haven’t noticed, everything that was big in the late ‘90s is in again right now, and Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi are about to bring back one of that era’s cultural institutions: the movie/music crossover hit. The prodigiously talented duo have teamed up to contribute ‘Just Look Up’ to the original soundtrack for the upcoming Netflix movie Don’t Look Up.
After hearing a teaser of the track at the 2021 Hollywood Music In Media Awards 2021, where it was nominated for Best Song- On-Screen Performance, we’ve got a feeling it’ll be as big, if not bigger than Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page’s Godzilla OST monster hit ‘Come With Me’. In the brief snippet, you can hear Grande’s stellar voice soaring over a soundscape provided by herself and fellow writers, Kid Cudi (credited as Scott Mescudi), Taura Stinson and Nicholas Britell. Even more excitingly, the two musical superstars actually have roles in the upcoming movie, and if the trailer is anything to judge it by, they both absolutely kill it in their respective roles.
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Grande and Cudi will feature alongside some Hollywood icons in the film with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry. It is a fittingly star-studded cast for a movie that tells the story of an astronomy grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) who make an astounding discovery of a comet orbiting with the solar system. The problem – it’s on a direct collision course with Earth. The other problem? No one really seems to care. In typical fashion for humanity in these types of imminent disaster movies (which were also a huge part of ‘90s culture) warning mankind about a planet-killer, the size of Mount Everest proves to be an inconvenient fact to navigate.
With the help of Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), Kate and Randall embark on a media tour that takes them from the office of an indifferent President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), to the airwaves of The Daily Rip, an upbeat morning show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry). With only six months until the comet makes impact, managing the 24-hour news cycle and gaining the attention of the social media-obsessed public before it’s too late proves predictably and shockingly comical — what will it take to get the world to just look up?
As for what Grande and Cudi’s roles in the movie will involve, all we know so far is that Grande plays a character called Riley Brina and Cudi plays a character named DJ Chello and that they’re both part of an extended cast that also includes freaking Timothée Chalamet, Chris Evans, Matthew Perry and Ron Perlman. It’s the type of all-star blockbuster casting that was very common in, you guessed it, the late ‘90s. If you’re asking whether or not Grande and Cudi have the chops to stand out amongst such company, then we’re guessing you’ve not seen Grande as Picola Grande in Jim Carrey’s TV series Kidding where she proved herself a revelation, or Cudi in this year’s Crisis where he owned his part as Ben Walker, an investigator for the FDA.
Watching them display their acting talents while being soundtracked by their otherworldly musical ones sounds like a perfect way to spend a few hours when Don’t Look Up opens in theatres from December 9th.
