J-LO STRUTS TO LORDE’S ANTHEM
Jennifer Lopez is breathing new life into Lorde’s triumphant debut song Royals, by walking up the street to it in her latest movie.
Six years after smashing global charts, Lorde has agreed the Kiwi song of the decade can take its first big screen role.
Hustlers, which also stars Constance Wu and Julia Stiles, follows a group of former strip club employees who team up to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.
The movie has already generated Oscar buzz for Lopez and has been a box office hit since its Northern Hemisphere release earlier this month. Writer and director Lorene
Scafaria said in the Los Angeles Times that she told J-Lo she had a song in mind for the pivotal scene.
“And I played it, but I only played like eight seconds of it. And she immediately, of course, had the rhythm of how she was going to walk up the street,” Scafaria said.
The scene is one in which authorities move in on the stripper crime ring across various corners of New York City.
“I was told that Lorde had never given the rights to any of her music to movies or anything like that, so I should abandon the dream of using that song, but I was like, I can’t. I just picture it running through this whole scene,” said Scafaria.
The movie’s soundtrack is getting as much buzz as the movie, with songs by Janet Jackson, Britney Spears and Usher adding to its ambience. In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing worth a reported US$2.5m. The agreement reportedly gave the publisher the right to license her music for films and advertising. In 2014 Lorde famously curated the soundtrack for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. Hustlers hits screens in New Zealand next month.