Put away the holochess board, C-3PO is going to the 2027 Super Bowl!
An animated “Star Wars” version of Super Bowl LXI featuring characters from the galaxy far, far away will air live, simultaneously with the game, on Feb. 14 on Disney Channel and Disney XD, the NFL announced Monday along with partners ESPN, Lucasfilm and Disney. “Star Wars Funday Football” will also be available on Disney+ and the ESPN app.
Anthony Daniels, who has portrayed C-3PO since the original “Star Wars” trilogy, will voice the worry-prone protocol droid in the live alternate telecast. If the brief teaser video is any indication, C-3PO will be joined by his favorite astromech, R2-D2.
“Star Wars Funday Football” will feature live-animated avatars of all of the players on the field as they play the game. Viewers can expect “Star Wars” characters to sub in during special moments, as well as various Easter eggs to appear throughout the game.
The “Star Wars” themed telecast follows previous “Funday Football” installments that were themed to “Toy Story,” “The Simpsons,” and “Monsters, Inc.” This marks the first time that the Super Bowl is getting the “Funday Football” treatment.
The traditional telecast, featuring announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman with reporters Lisa Salters and Laura Rutledge, will be available on ESPN, ABC and Disney+.
Super Bowl LXI will be held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. Details for the halftime performance have not officially been announced, but Jay-Z is rumored to be the headliner.
Following “Star Wars Funday Football” and Super Bowl LXI, a newly restored version of “A New Hope” will return to theaters on Feb. 19. “Star Wars: Starfighter,” a new standalone film starring Ryan Gosling as Kade Auberon, is slated to hit theaters May 28.
Rams tight end Colby Parkinson scores a touchdown in front of Cardinals safety Andrew Wingard at SoFi Stadium Sunday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
First-year Cardinals coach Mike LaFleur, the Rams former offensive coordinator, outcoached and outmaneuvered friend and mentor Sean McVay.
With just more than a third of the season complete, the Rams are 2-4.
The Rams failed to bounce back from their overtime defeat by the powerful Buffalo Bills and lost to a Cardinals team that entered the game having given up at least 31 points in each of its last four.
Only six players from the team that won Super Bowl LVI are still on the roster: Quarterback Matthew Stafford, defensive lineman Aaron Donald, tight end Tyler Higbee, center Coleman Shelton, left tackle Alaric Jackson and receiver Tutu Atwell.
During the offseason they added two players with two Super Bowl rings each: cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson.
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford looks to pass the ball against the Cardinals at Sofi Stadium on Sunday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
But they have not looked anything like a Super Bowl contender.
An offense that went into the game as the league’s most productive from a yardage standpoint managed only a field goal and two touchdowns.
Stafford completed 25 of 33 passes for 222 yards.
With left tackle Alaric Jackson suspended for the game for punching Bill linebacker Bradley Chubb on the field after the Rams loss, veteran David Quessenberry started for the first time since 2023.
The Cardinals predictably brought pressure and blitzed, sacking Stafford three times and hitting him seven times.
Safety Quentin Lake intercepted a pass for a defense that was without All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie because of a groin injury. The defense gave up only field goals and gave the offense multiple opportunities.
And special teams continued to be a disaster.
New kicker Blake Grupe, signed this week after the Rams released struggling Harrison Mevis, kicked a 44-yard field goal in the first quarter. But on the ensuing kickoff, Devin Duvernay returned Grupe’s kick 40 yards before the 5-foot-7, 156-pound Grupe hurled his body to stop him. Grupe suffered a knee injury and did not return.
The Rams managed Grupe’s 44-yard field goal and Corum’s touchdown for a 9-9 tie at halftime.
The Cardinals consumed nearly nine minutes of the third quarter before kicking a field goal for a 12-9 lead.
The loss of Grupe then came into play again late in the third quarter. On a fourth-and-one at the Cardinals’ 27-yard, McVay opted to go for it. Davis Allen lined up in the backfield and took a handoff from Stafford, but the Cardinals stopped him for no gain.
The Cardinals added another field goal with 9:28 left for a 15-9 lead.
The Rams then put together a lively drive, but Higbee fumbled with just under eight minutes left.
They got the ball back with just less than seven minutes remaining. They drove into Cardinals’ territory with about three minutes left but a false-start penalty gave them a fourth-and-eight situation, and Stafford’s pass to running back Kyren Williams fell incomplete.
But the Rams got one more chance when they got the ball with 2:48 left.
Stafford escaped pressure and found Nacua, for a mid-range pass that he turned into a 32-yard gain. Stafford connected again with Nacua for 16 yards to the Cardinals’ 13-yard line.
Stafford’s six-yard touchdown pass to Colby Parkinson tied the score, and punter Ethan Evans came on to kick the extra point to give the Rams the lead.
But the Cardinals came back with the help of a personal-foul penalty after a completed pass. And Ryland’s sixth field goal finished the Rams.
“For me, performance can’t be everything,” Miley Cyrus declared on Friday night, and you had to admire her choice of setting: onstage at the Hollywood Bowl in front of approximately 18,000 people who’d turned up precisely to see her perform.
A star since her teenage days on the Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana,” the 33-year-old musician and actor was maybe half an hour into the first of two sold-out concerts at the iconic hillside amphitheater — a place close to Cyrus’ heart, as she explained in a videotaped intro recalling a gig she and her fiancé, Maxx Morando, caught last year by the French band Air.
“I step into wine, which soaks onto my boots,” she said in the dramatic black-and-white clip. “I don’t mind stained leather — it only adds to their character.”
Cyrus’ shows were billed as part of the rollout of her latest album, “Bass Persuades,” which came out in September (and which found her dropping her last name to go simply by Miley). Yet the two-night engagement is really meant to mark her grand return to the stage after she said a few years ago that she’d sworn off touring because it was too harmful to her mental health.
Is “grand” the right word for a comeback as equivocal as this one? Despite all the hype surrounding this weekend’s concerts, Cyrus spoke again and again Friday about how much less space for performance she has in her life these days than she used to; she talked repeatedly about her quest to balance her fans’ emotional needs with her own.
At one point, after singing a couple of numbers on a small B-stage about halfway up the bowl, she walked through the crowd back to the main stage, gripping and grinning the entire way. Then she described the toll her trip had just taken: “I appreciate each of you guys reaching out and touching me, and me getting to feel you. But I do want to say — it is a lot for me,” she said. “It is a little bit overwhelming.”
In an era of parasocial pop stardom, the radical honesty of Cyrus’ approach — her clear-eyed appraisal of the relationship that binds an idol and her audience — was kind of a thrill to behold. The problem was that her singing for the most part wasn’t.
As she described being overwhelmed, her band slowly revved up her song “Wrecking Ball.” It’s one of the great power ballads of the last 25 years, with a chorus as cathartic as any in modern pop; Cyrus, the showbiz lifer, surely understood the payoff she was building toward. Except when the moment arrived, she inexplicably dodged it, skipping the song’s first chorus and soft-pedaling the second — an anticlimax for the ages.
Indeed, Cyrus let the audience and her backup singers handle vocals for many of her biggest hits, among them “The Climb,” “Party in the U.S.A.” and “We Can’t Stop”; during that last one, she twerked for a second, evoking memories of the infamous 2013 MTV performance that briefly scandalized a nation.
She sang more heartily in songs from “Bass Persuades,” which would’ve been better news if that tuneless mishmash of bleary synths and dated club beats weren’t one of the year’s least likable pop records. (This month Variety reported that, after debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the album took the biggest fall in chart history in its second week of release.)
The paradox of Cyrus’ career at this stage is that she wants to do the thing that nobody wants her to do — “Bass Persuades” is just the latest in a string of crummy LPs — and doesn’t want to do the thing that everybody wants her to do. Truly, her bad taste should be studied: On Friday, she welcomed Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips to the B-stage for a duet on “Karen Don’t Be Sad,” from the miserable psych-rock record they made together in 2015. Naturally, Cyrus said it was her favorite of her albums.
One highlight of the show was Cyrus’ tribute to her late godmother, Dolly Parton, whom she memorialized with a rendition of “Jolene” and with a funny and touching account of the time Parton tried unsuccessfully to get Cyrus to sing with her at the Bowl.
I also found myself moved near the end of the night by Cyrus’ performance of the only keeper on “Bass Persuades” — a dreamy little love song called “Let’s Get Married” for which Morando joined her onstage. As he played drums, she ran her hand tenderly over his chest before laying her head on his shoulder; the moment reminded me of that goofy intro video about the Air concert, which she likened to a bubble containing only the two of them.
“That’s how it feels when we’re together,” she said. “I think I’d live in that bubble.”
Two men charged Wednesday in connection with the shooting of San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman Keion White at a Super Bowl party in the early hours of February 9 were among four arrested as a result of a sweeping investigation.
Alleged gunman Gregory Walker, 36, of Mountain House was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department and charged with assault with a firearm. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Walker is alleged to have personally discharged the weapon that wounded White. Walker is also charged with causing great bodily injury, possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a concealed firearm by a felon, and possession of a loaded firearm by a felon.
Curtis Green, 35, of Irvine was charged with brandishing a firearm at the party held in the VIP area of the Dahlia Lounge in San Francisco’s Mission District. Green was booked in San Francisco on misdemeanor weapons charges. Charges for the other two suspects, Marquis Davis, 38, and Antoine Washington, 36, have not been announced because they are not in custody in San Francisco, police said.
Davis was arrested in Atlanta and police said they found 979 grams of cocaine, 820 grams of MDMA, 1,026 grams of methamphetamine and 3,842 grams of fentanyl at his home. Washington was arrested in Stockton and police said they found loaded gun and oxycodone pills.
The investigation was dubbed “Operation D-Line” by San Francisco police and involved more than 50 search warrants and the assistance of more than 250 law enforcement personnel nationwide, officials said Wednesday.
“This kind of violence is unacceptable in San Francisco, and we devoted significant resources to holding the perpetrators of this incident accountable,” San Francisco Police Chief Derrick Lew said in a statement.
White was struck in the ankle with a bullet at 4 a.m. According to reports, the shooting occurred after an argument between White, Atlanta rapper Lil Baby, and the rapper’s entourage, who attempted to enter White’s event, according to a police report.
“For those who know me, y’all know this won’t stope [sic] me from spreading peace and joy to the world,” White wrote on Instagram a day after the shooting. “Full steam ahead. I’m in great spirits and ready to make the most of this off-season.”
White, a second-round draft pick of the New England Patriots in 2023, has played in all five games this season for the unbeaten 49ers, registering three sacks and nine tackles. He had a rooting interest in Super Bowl LX because he was traded to the 49ers from the Patriots, who lost the game to the Seattle Seahawks at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
Lil Baby, a 2022 Grammy winner whose given name is Dominique Jones, performed the night of the game at The Grand nightclub San Francisco before heading to the Dahlia Lounge, where strippers entertained on the main floor. White’s private party was downstairs.
An unidentified witness from White’s group told police that when he went upstairs to ask for help breaking up the conflict, he heard two gunshots. He returned downstairs and found that White had been shot in the left leg. According to the police report, topless women were scooping up money from the floor when police entered the club.
“As I entered, I saw numerous scantily clad females picking up dollar bills that were strewn all over the floor,” the police report said. “Some of the females were topless and appeared to have been adult entertainers.”
White posted a photograph on his Instagram story showing him smiling from his hospital room. He wrote, “I’ve undergone successful surgery. Thank you to everyone who has reached out with their prayers and concerns on my behalf.”
The shooting was the second involving a 49ers player in San Francisco in the last two years. Rookie wide receiver Ricky Pearsall was shot in Union Square when a teenager allegedly attempted to rob him in 2004.
The Walt Disney Co. announced Wednesday that ESPN’s telecast of the NFL’s marquee event on Feb. 14 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. will be available to Disney+ subscribers. The company also said Disney+ will carry two ESPN “Monday Night Football” games in the current season.
ESPN is producing the Super Bowl for the first time in its history. The game is airing on Disney’s broadcast network ABC which last carried the game in 2006, and on ESPN and the ESPN app.
The addition of Disney+ makes the game available to casual fans who may not have cable or subscribe to a sports TV channel. The Super Bowl is the most-watched TV event of the year, with audiences exceeding 120 million viewers in recent years.
Streaming platforms are bringing in additional advertising revenue for the networks that carry the game.
In 2025, the Fox telecast of Super Bowl LIX averaged 13.6 million viewers on Tubi, the ad-supported streaming service owned by the network’s parent company. Fox was able to sell streaming-only ads on the telecast at around $2 million for a 30-second commercial. The spots aired in the commercial breaks for local Fox TV affiliates.
Disney is offering advertisers the opportunity to buy streaming-only ads across Disney+, the ESPN app, Hulu Live and Fubo. The company has already sold out the commercial time on the ESPN and ABC telecasts with some 30-second spots going for $10 million.
As a lead-up to the game, Disney+ will carry ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” match-up between the Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 26 and another contest later in the season.
Disney+ has been adding sports to its lineup, with select ESPN college football games and Formula E races now available on the platform.
Last year chef Debbie Lee debuted her long-awaited pocha in Highland Park: Yi Cha, one of L.A.’s best new bars, where Lee serves modern Korean bites that pair with artful cocktails and imported soju. Now she’s opened Mokja, a tandem cafe and market for Korean-leaning coffees, sandwiches, pastries and pantry goods. Enter Mokja through Yi Cha’s back alley and find sweet corn iced lattes, coffees topped with misugaru cold foam, and banana matcha lattes served alongside oxtail hand pies, Seoul-style breakfast plates, gochujang short rib onigiri, tomato-muchim pork belly BLTs, and a DIY ramyun station. In a hurry? Grab Lee’s premade bibimbap, mayak eggs, mandu, japchae and more from the refrigerators. If you’re shopping for your home, find coffee, mochi mixes, ice cream, hot sauce, black sesame spreads and other goods from local makers, plus imported Korean Oreos and chips, on the shelves around the cafe.
