2017 – Page 28 – The world according to Dan.

Foo Fighters to spend 2017 recording new album

It looks like every aspect of Foo Fighters’ short-lived hiatus is over. Not only are the prolific rockers scheduled to return to the stage to headline BottleRock Napa Valley Festival in May, but they’ve also got plans to work on a brand new album, their first since 2014’s Sonic Highways.

News of the album was revealed by Dave Graham, CEO of Latitude 38, the entertainment company behind BottleRock. “The Foo Fighters are in the studio all next year recording a new album and BottleRock may be their only show in 2017 in North America,” he recently told writer David Kerns of the Napa Valley Register, in an interview discussing the steps Latitude 38 took to nab the much-coveted, Grammy-winning outfit. (Kerns confirmed to Consequence of Sound that “next year” means 2017.)

The forthcoming full-length would mark the Foos’ ninth overall and follows their two 2015 EPs, Songs from the Laundry Room and Saint Cecilia. In November, drummer Taylor Hawkins put out his debut solo album, KOTA.

The three-day BottleRock Festival goes down May 26th – 28th in Napa Valley, California. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Modest Mouse, The Roots, and Mavis Staples are also expected to perform.

North American Box Office Hits Record $11.4 Billion

The North American box office closed out the year with $11.4 billion in ticket sales, ComScore said Sunday. That marks a new record for the industry, bypassing the previous high-water mark of $11.1 billion that was established in 2015.

ComScore, a data measurement company, did not calculate admissions, but studio executives and analysts believe that attendance will be essentially flat. Nor does it account for inflation. The record was achieved, in part, thanks to more expensive tickets. Ticket prices hit new highs earlier in 2016, though an average full-year price for tickets have yet to be calculated.

Still it was a record that few thought the industry would set. This year was faulted for lacking major franchises such as James Bond and the Fast and the Furious series.

It was a particularly strong year for Disney, which controlled more than a quarter of the domestic market share despite releasing fewer films than any of the major studios. It made the most of what it had. Disney launched four of the top five highest-grossing films, including “Finding Dory,” the years top film with $486.3 million. When holdovers are taken into account, Disney had six of the year’s ten highest-grossing releases, a group that includes “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which debuted in 2015.

Other top films include “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” ($408.2 million), “Captain America: Civil War” ($408.1 million),”The Secret Life of Pets” ($368.4 million), and “The Jungle Book” ($364 million).