Category: Health & Fitness

Avid fans of the John Wick movie franchise have even more reason to be excited after recently learning that John Wick 5 is officially in development.

An upcoming behind-the-scenes documentary entitled Wick Is Pain is set to release on May 9, and with that comes an intriguing trailer that offers never-before-seen footage in what can probably be best described as “chaotic” about a beloved Keanu Reeves film that almost never happened.

The trailer for the documentary features some pretty eye-opening commentary from John Wick director Chad Stahelski, as well as key producers who faced budget issues that appeared to have the movie’s fate hanging by a thread.

How the legend was made. #WickIsPain – On digital 5/9. Pre-order Tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/Kc4ggJPsY2

— lionsgate (@Lionsgate) April 30, 2025

One of the more telling quotes from the trailer regarding whether or not the movie would even resonate with audience, let alone be made, came from Reaves himself.

“Is this f—— terrible?” Reaves asks at the 1:43 mark of the clip, right after a producer had discussed the Hollywood “no-no” of killing a dog in a movie.

First trailer for ‘John Wick’ documentary ‘WICK IS PAIN’
pic.twitter.com/fLgACSQ3Uz

— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) May 1, 2025

“We were a tiny little movie,” a producer stated at one point in the trailer. “We were shut down. I don’t know how you find six-and-a-half million dollars by Monday.”

The whole trailer is well worth the watch, but even in the relatively brief video—as compared to the documentary’s full running time of 80 minutes—the stress in making the film feels very much conveyed.

“We have never worked harder on any movie than we have on the John Wick series,” said producer Basil Iwanyk. “Producing a movie is always long hours and stressful times, but John Wick turned that up to the max — and because we survived, that’s what made the movies so gratifying.”

Iwanyk saying the actors and crew “survived” making John Wick kind of sums up everyone’s stress-cooker of an experience throughout the trailer, paired with the glaring last-minute budget concerns.

Related: Keanu Reeves Confuses Fans With Major Announcement

But fellow producer David Leitch added some sprinkles on top, driving home Iwanyk’s words.

“It’s safe to say that John Wick changed our lives, for everyone involved,” Leitch shared. “We had been waiting for the opportunity to show our vision of what action filmmaking could be, and this film and this character gave us that opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Wick.”

The Wick is Pain documentary is already available for pre-order purchases on platforms like Amazon Prime, Apple TV, YouTube, Fandango, among others, but otherwise will be digitally released on May 9 following its exclusive screening at “Beyond Fest” at the American Cinematheque on May 8.

“I’m excited to share and be a part of taking fans behind the curtain on the extraordinary journey of making the John Wick films,” Reeves said of Wick is Pain.

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McDonald’s is one of many American companies to get off to a sluggish start to 2025.

On Thursday, McDonald’s reported its quarterly sales for Q1 of the new year, and the numbers are not good. According to NBC News, the fast food corporation saw same-store sales fall 3.6%, the worst drop since plummeting 8.7%. in Q2 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 3.6% decrease was more than twice the projected decline, which had been 1.7%. Overall, McDonald’s is just the latest chain restaurant to report declining sales as consumers spend less.

“People are just visiting less,” McDonald’s said.

One specific portion of the company’s call with investors raised eyebrows. Per NBC, McDonald internal surveys have detected “an uptick in anti-American sentiment, particularly among diners in northern Europe and Canada.”

“We have seen … an increase in people in various markets saying they’re going to be cutting back on purchases of American brands,” the company said.

While McDonald’s says it hasn’t noticed its own brand in particular being docked by anti-American sentiment, the reported findings are worth keeping an eye on. 

The beginning of 2025 has marked a period of economic volatility, and coupled with the uncertainty of President Trump’s threatened tariffs, has likely contributed to any negative feelings toward American brands abroad.

“We believe McDonald’s can weather these difficult conditions better than most,” McDonald’s Chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski told investors Thursday. “However, we’re not immune to the volatility in the industry or the pressures that our consumers are facing.”

Despite some Q1 struggles, McDonald’s is still planning on opening 2,200 locations and projecting sales growth to be over 2% for the year.

As Sinners continues to take the box office by storm, the vampire pic is making its grand return to the IMAX screens.

For one week only, Sinners will have limited re-release screenings in nine select IMAX 70mm theaters across the United States.

“Audiences have spoken and we listened. If ever a film needed to be experienced in this incredible larger-than-life format, it’s ‘Sinners,’” Warner Bros. Pictures president of global distribution Jeff Goldstein said in a statement.

Sinners marks the biggest debut for an original film since 2019, grossing $48 million during its domestic opening weekend. The film has gone on to gross over $160 million globally.

Related: ‘Sinners’ Hits Another Milestone While Making Its Mark on the Film Industry

Written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Coogler, Sinners sees Michael B. Jordan inhabit the dual roles of Smoke and Stack, twin brothers who return to their segregated Mississippi Delta town of Clarksdale in the 1930s with the sole ambition of opening up a juke joint. However, there plan quickly goes awry when they are confronted by vampires. Jordan leads Sinners alongside Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller and Delroy Lindo.

“Ryan has delivered a film that has been embraced by fans who appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into creating a film for this screen-filling format and we wanted to give everyone the opportunity to see it — or see it again — in 70mm IMAX,” Goldstein continued.

Sinners will screen in IMAX 70mm at the City Walk Stadium 19 + IMAX (Los Angeles), Irvine Spectrum and IMAX (Irvine), Lincoln Square 13 + IMAX (New York), Metreon 16 + IMAX (San Francisco), Indiana State Museum (Indianapolis), Arizona Mills IMAX (Phoenix), Autonation Imax (Ft. Lauderdale), Webb Chapel IMAX (Dallas) and Colossus Imax (Toronto).

Mass layoffs are rippling across industries this May, as nearly 130 companies notify employees of impending job cuts, according to new data compiled from WARNTracker.com.

Under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), businesses must alert employees and government officials ahead of mass layoffs. These notices offer early insight into shifting economic tides, and May’s data shows widespread turbulence.

Companies cutting jobs this month span a broad range of sectors, from household names like Amazon, Starbucks, and FedEx to tech, healthcare, education, and retail. In some cases, firms cite cost-cutting amid inflation and lower demand. In others, layoffs appear to be tied more to profit protection than necessity, Newsweek reported.

Among those announcing cuts:

• FedEx
• Macy’s
• JP Morgan Chase
• Mattel
• Chewy
• Wells Fargo
• The Cheesecake Factory
• Southern California Edison
• Starbucks
• American Medical Response

Even large educational and non-profit institutions like Johns Hopkins University, Catholic Charities of Orange, and the American Bar Association are trimming staff.

Related: Prices Are About to Jump—Here’s What 7 Major Companies Announced

The number of layoffs per employer ranges from a handful to hundreds, and no region appears untouched. While some companies are still navigating post-pandemic restructuring, others are reacting to persistent inflation, rising labor costs, and shifting consumer behavior.

Related: Major Carmaker Announces Disappointing News Amid Tariffs

The layoffs also come as job openings decline, wage growth slows, and uncertainty lingers over interest rate policy. For many workers, job security is starting to feel less certain again, despite a still-low national unemployment rate.

Whether this wave marks the start of a deeper employment correction or a short-term recalibration remains to be seen. For now, thousands of workers across the U.S. are bracing for difficult transitions this month.

Amid a potential United States-led tariff war, one major airline issued a significant threat to avoid American airplane manufacturer Boeing.

On Thursday, May 1, Ryanair threatened to cancel orders for hundreds of Boeing aircraft if a trade war sparks materially higher prices. The company even suggested it would take its business elsewhere, potentially to Chinese manufacturer COMAC, according to a report from Reuters.

A source told Reuters the threat may be difficult to follow through with considering COMAC isn’t yet certified in Europe while fellow rival Airbus maintains it’s sold out through the rest of the decade. 

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said the tariffs “could threaten 330 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft that his airline has on order, which have a list price of more than $30 billion,” according to Reuters.

“If the U.S. government proceeds with its ill-judged plan to impose tariffs, and if these tariffs materially affect the price of Boeing aircraft exports to Europe, then we would certainly reassess both our current Boeing orders, and the possibility of placing those orders elsewhere,” O’Leary said.

It’s a change of tone from O’Leary, who said in March that Boeing executives had privately expressed confidence that aircraft would be exempted from the tariffs. However, a Reuters source claimed contracts with Boeing and Airbus don’t include a provision for tariffs while major airplane manufacturers are “reviewing the wording of contracts for future deals on the assumption that trade turbulence will remain for some time.”

In the letter O’Leary admitted the Irish airline hasn’t had discussions with COMAC since 2011, but would “of course” consider the Boeing and Airbus alternative if they were 10-20% cheaper.

Related: Coca-Cola Makes Big Announcement After Pepsi’s Bad News

Jim Lampley is pulling no punches as he gets ready to make his ringside comeback. The 76-year-old broadcasting legend is adamant, like most boxing purists, that HBO made a big mistake in abandoning the sport.

Lampley can’t fathom how HBO reached that decision. For more than four decades, HBO and boxing were synonymous entities. When it all came to a close, Lampley delivered an emotional farewell on Dec. 8, 2018. More than six years later, there’s still pain in Lampley’s voice when he talks about the business decision he calls puzzling and a mistake.

Lampley, who makes his ringside comeback on Friday for Ring Magazine‘s outdoor triple-header live from Times Square on DAZN PPV, tells Men’s Journal he’s befuddled as to how a network that aims to create the best dramatic television could quit a business that delivered the best kind of human drama. And live drama, at that.

Related: Exclusive: Jim Lampley on His Boxing Comeback, Ex-Friend Donald Trump, Jack Nicholson Saving His Career and HBO’s Mistake

“Maybe they can point to balance sheet evidence or some other indicator that says, ‘Aha, we did exactly the right thing to get rid of boxing.’ But I don’t believe that,” Lampley tells Men’s Journal. “I think that it was an important characteristic of HBO. I think it was an important touchstone for the viewer. It was drama. It was unpredictable live drama. It was exactly what a drama-based television network should have. It was different from all of the conventional team sports that we see so much of on all of the other networks.

“It was something that both paid cable networks, Showtime and HBO, built around and promoted around because they recognized these are human dramas. They are cellular in nature. They are not like anything else in sports, where it’s far more organizational and institutional.”

Lampley called some of the most iconic boxing matches for HBO in his 30-year career as the blow-by-blow commentator. From Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson to George Foreman knocking out Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion at 46. He was the voice behind entire boxing careers, from Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. to Oscar De La Hoya and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

He was also the voice behind boxing’s iconic trilogy, Micky Ward and Arturo Gatti, a rivalry that personified the best boxing has to offer.

“This is about two human beings who go into the ring and breathe on each other and taste each other’s sweat and blood and try to prove minute-by-minute “I’m more [of a]man than you are,'” Lampley says. “There’s nothing like that. And to have wiped it off the face of the television screen to the degree that they did, I don’t get it. And I never will.”

Read Men’s Journal’s full interview with Jim Lampley here.

The U.S. Army, which has a fiscal year budget of close to $200 billion, is reportedly planning a “massive” change.

A report from the Wall Street Journal states that the U.S. Army is planning its biggest overhaul since the end of the Cold War in 1989. The U.S. Army is planning to dive deeper into the world of drones and technology.

The U.S. Army, which has about 450,000 active duty soldiers, is planning on equipping each of its divisions with a huge increase in drones. The U.S. Army is reportedly planning to give each of its divisions about 1,000 drones.

With the influx of more drones, outdated weapons are being pushed aside.

The U.S. Army has 10 active duty divisions. Those divisions would be using the drones for surveillance, moving supplies and the carrying out of attacks, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This has been in the works for a while, though according to the report, the U.S. Army’s decision was influenced by what has happened during Ukraine’s war with Russia. The Ukraine military has been praised for its use of drones in warfare. The U.S. Army believes that it can learn from Ukraine.

Training has been taking place for about a year.

Col. Donald Neal, the commander of the U.S. 2nd Cavalry Regiment, made it clear that drone usage is the future of the battlefield. 

“We’ve got to learn how to use drones, how to fight with them, how to scale them, produce them, and employ them in our fights so we can see beyond line of sight,” he said. “We’ve always had drones since I’ve been in the Army, but it has been very few.”

Military-grade drones are not cheap. Estimates suggest that they can cost as low as $700,000 and as high as several million dollars. Still, if they can help save lives, they’re priceless. 

But Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, said that the U.S. Army isn’t asking for more money. It’s just trying to spend the money it has in a better way.

“We aren’t going to ask for more money,” George said in an interview. “What we want to do is spend the money that we have better.”

It sounds like more drone usage is a big part of those plans.

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Here’s a name you don’t often see in REI’s sale section: Kuhl. The brand is known for its ultra-durable, incredibly well-designed outerwear and activewear—the kind of clothing you can rely on to keep you comfortable when you’re out in the wilderness. That’s why we’re particularly stoked about Kuhl’s recent sale on a beloved pair of hiking pants at REI with—crucially—a good size range still available.

The Kuhl Free Radikl Hiking Pants are on sale for $80, a very rare 26% discount from their normal price of $109. These pants are available at that price in one colorway, Fossil, and you can order them in waist sizes 28 up to 40, with various inseam lengths available. REI shoppers say they’re the “perfect active pants” and “lighter hiking pants that don’t look silly off the trail with good flexibility and a modern slim fit.”

Kuhl Free Radikl Hiking Pants in Fossil, $80 (was $109) at REI

Shoppers love the thoughtful design and just-right fit of these hiking pants. The main body is crafted from a cotton-nylon-spandex blend for optimal durability, UPF 50+ sun protection, and a comfortable feel (no clammy, plasticky texture here), while the dedicated stretch zones feature a nylon-spandex blend for increased flexibility. Stretch panels are located at the thigh, below the knee, and at the waist, giving you good freedom of movement whether you’re hiking up a trail or digging in the garden (reviewers say these make great work pants). Kuhl describes the Free Radikl Pants as “slim but not skinny,” so you’ll get a modern, tailored look without bagginess, but it won’t feel restrictive. A bevy of pockets—dual hand pockets, dual cell phone pockets, and a pair of back pockets—gives you lots of room to stash essentials.

REI shoppers are singing praises for the Free Radikl Pants in the reviews section. One shopper called them “durable and flexible” and said they’re “nice for everyday wear and rugged hiking” and “also practical for yard work and gardening.” Another shopper who has owned two pairs called them “truly exceptional.”

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“I just completed a 10-day safari wearing these pants only,” a third shopper said. “They were incredibly comfortable, durable, dried quickly when wet, and surprisingly had very good ventilation as well.”

The Free Radikl Hiking Pants offer strong durability, great freedom of movement, and a notably stylish silhouette (especially for hiking pants). And at just $80, you’d be hard-pressed to find ‘em at a better price. These are going to sell out quickly, so grab your size before it’s gone.

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Walk into any gas station or grocery store in America, and you’ll see aisle after aisle of ultra-processed junk food. The shiny, colorful packaging and hyper-palatable snacks are designed to be irresistible. And while the occasional cheat meal is no big deal—it’s all about balance, right?—research shows that eating ultra-processed foods (UPFs) regularly may significantly increase your risk of early death.

A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that every 10% increase in ultra-processed food (UPF) intake is linked to a 2.7% rise in risk of death from all causes.

According to the study, UPFs are classified as industrial products made mostly from food extracts, additives, and little to no whole food. They’re typically calorie-dense, nutritionally lacking, and engineered to be cheap, convenient, and hyper-palatable—often replacing healthier, less processed options in the diet.

“UPFs affect health beyond the individual impact of high content of critical nutrients (sodium, trans fats, and sugar) because of the changes in the foods during industrial processing and the use of artificial ingredients, including colorants, artificial flavors and sweeteners, emulsifiers, and many other additives and processing aids, so assessing deaths from all-causes associated with UPF consumption allows an overall estimate of the effect of industrial food processing on health,” said lead investigator of the study Eduardo Augusto Fernandes Nilson, DSc.

Related: New Research Uncovers Shocking Link Between Cannabis and Dementia

Researchers noted that diets high in UPFs are often linked to other lifestyle factors such as lower levels of physical activity, poor overall diet, and lower socioeconomic status, all of which impact health. 

For the study, scientists analyzed data from eight countries. They discovered that in places like the United Kingdom and the United States, where UPFs make up over half of daily calories, they may be linked to 14% of early deaths. In contrast, in countries like Brazil and Colombia, where UPF intake is under 20%, that number drops to about 4%.

“It is concerning that, while in high-income countries UPF consumption is already high but relatively stable for over a decade, in low- and middle-income countries the consumption has continuously increased, meaning that while the attributable burden in high-income countries is currently higher, it is growing in the other countries,” Nilson said in a statement. “This shows that policies that disincentivize the consumption of UPFs are urgently needed globally, promoting traditional dietary patterns based on local fresh and minimally processed foods.”

Actor Noel Johansen has spoken out after his wife, Jen Darbellay, was tragically killed during the annual Lapu Lapu festival in Vancouver. 

On April 26, a man drove an SUV through a crowd of people at the festival, killing 11 and injuring dozens more, according to ABC News. It has since been confirmed that Darbellay is among the deceased. 

“What you see here is an injury that means nothing to me because what’s inside my heart is broken,” Johansen said, according to Global News Canada. “Because my wife passed away behind me at the incident.”

“She never celebrated herself in her life. She never thought of herself, she thought of herself as small in terms of the reach,” Johansen continued. “And I can tell you she was larger than life for any of you who know her. So don’t be small in life, be big, reach out and reach out as a human being with everything you have and please remember us who went through this.”

Johansen is best known for his role on the 2017 television series Somewhere Between. According to his IMDb page, he has more than a dozen credits to his name, but no major upcoming projects.

Darbellay, 50, is survived by her husband and their two children, Ford, 15, and Darby, 7. A GoFundMe set up to help the family has already received more than $100,000 (U.S.).

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