The Weeknd is looking forward to his upcoming Hurry Up Tomorrow film, which will complete his new album's magnanimous rollout. But he has even more plans for the future, signing with a new talent agency for his other projects on the horizon.
According to Billboard, William Morris Endeavor (WME) announced on Thursday (May 1) that they signed Abel Tesfaye in all areas. This comes after his four-year stint with Creative Arts Agency (CAA) starting in 2021, which itself followed a previous partnership with WME.
The big change this time around is how WME will represent Manic Phase. That's the Toronto artist's production company, which produced his 2023 HBO series The Idol and the upcoming Hurry Up Tomorrow movie. Speaking of that flick, it seems like it might come with even more new music from The Weeknd.
The Weeknd Movie
In any case, this sets up some exciting expanded ventures for the "Drive" superstar moving forward. With a stadium tour with Playboi Carti and Mike Dean rolling around next week, it seems like the perfect time to capitalize on this momentum and plant seeds for what's next.
Still, some fans of Abel wish this came with at least a little more pizzazz, especially those who hoped to see The Weeknd at Coachella. He was there, alright, but die-hards hoped his social media teases actually indicated a performance would come. Sadly, no such set emerged.
But considering how Hurry Up Tomorrow came to be, this new WME signing could fuel even more bombastic and creative ideas moving forward. The Weeknd recently told Fandango about how this album and movie came to life.
"The film came first, the album didn't exist," he revealed. "So this music, we were scoring and I guess writing music to picture. The idea came from a real life incident that had happened. And I always saw it as a film."
"First, it started just, like, Abel had this idea, and we were both connecting over that," the HUT movie's director, cowriter, and editor Trey Edward Schults added. "And then [we] got creative juju and super inspired and excited and bouncing back and forth. And then, naturally, influences started filtering in. You know, it ranged Persona to Raging Bull to Purple Rain to Audition and you name it."
