Rita Ora and Taika Waititi attend the MTV Europe Music Awards 2022. Photo / Getty Images
Spy Predictions 2023
Spy’s crystal and magic eight-balls have had a good shake-up. We’ve looked at the stars, checked the tea leaves, read some tarot cards and had coffee with the clairvoyant - to predict who will make headlines in the year to come. Warning: Predicting the future is not an exact science . . . but we do warn readers, some forecasts over the years have landed true.
The perfect duet
Spy is picking the big music splash this year is a duet between Kiwi singing star Teeks (Te Karehana Gardiner-Toi)-and international popstar Rita Ora.
In our dreams, Ora hasn’t been so excited about sharing the studio since her 2018 duet, For You, with former One Direction singer Liam Payne for the film Fifty Shades Freed.
Teeks is pretty stoked too - although Ora has hard shoes to fill after Teeks’ 2019 duet with Hollie Smith of Whakaaria Mai (How Great Thou Art).
Teeks plays Ora Anchor Me by the Mutton Birds and explains a new arrangement they can work on in English and te reo.
Ora loves it and adds in some synth-pop new wave beats. Within days the song hits number 1 on the NZ charts - the same happens in Australia within a week - and a month later it tops the UK charts - and the US within two.
The pair hit the stage at the new improved Aotearoa Music Awards, the Arias, the Brit Awards and the Grammys - picking up a string of awards along the way.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s NZ movie role
Mega director James Cameron has recently been talking about Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. What more obvious sign is there that he wants to reunite with the star? And the movie-maker has also made it clear he wants to continue making movies in Aotearoa - but what type of movie would entice DiCaprio?
Our crystal ball says The Wolf of Wall Street star declines the opportunity to appear in Avatar 4 and 5 - and we can also rule out Titanic 2 with Kate Winslet for obvious reasons.
Terminator and Alien movies or anything in space just don’t float DiCaprio’s boat.
However, DiCaprio arrives in the Wairarapa to find the perfect vehicle with Cameron - after headlines that NZ may reverse its ban on new permits for offshore oil and gas exploration. That is just the inspiration the pair needs.
Cameron and DiCaprio co-write a sequel to his underwater movie The Abyss with plenty of ocean sustainability, political messaging and a hint of the supernatural thrown in.
Aotearoa brings the Royal Fab 4 back together
Our royal oracle sees a showdown between King Charles’ sons to win the hearts of Kiwis.
Months after the May Coronation of King Charles III, the Prince and Princess of Wales touch down in Aotearoa for a late winter visit.
Their trip marks Prince William taking over the mantle of his father’s work in the Prince’s Trust New Zealand. William and Catherine’s schedule is full of meet and greets with past and present young entrepreneurs benefitting from the trust’s work.
Days into their Royal Highnesses’ visit - during an official state banquet at the Beehive - news comes in that the Prince’s younger brother, Harry, and wife Meghan are arriving in Auckland the following morning. The pair are in Godzone to film a new campaign for Harry’s sustainable travel company Travalyst, having used New Zealand as its launch pad in 2022.
After arriving on a private jet, Harry reunites with comedian Rhys Darby to film a sustainable travel video at Te Henga Bethells Beach.
Also opening in Auckland’s west is a Netflix office at which Meghan obligingly cuts the ribbon. Air NZ CEO Greg Foran seizes on the opportunity of having the former working royals in the country and - for an undisclosed sum - brings back the airline’s famous safety videos starring Harry and Meghan
Australian royal commentator Daniela Elser somehow manages to convince Buckingham Palace and the Sussexes that she is the one to bring the fab four back together.
Elser hosts a summit at Huka Lodge and pulls off the royal coup of the century. Reunification is achieved, hatchets and daggers are buried - and the Waleses agree to let Netflix film it.
A debate of two halves
According to the roulette wheel, things heat up both inside and outside Parliament when Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick’s alcohol harm reduction bill comes into the house for its second reading.
The bill - which will ban alcohol sponsorship in sports and give local councils the power to control alcohol sales, trading hours and locations - has MPs across the house wishing it was a conscience vote. The nation is divided.
Pro-bill rugby league icon Sir Graham Lowe is amazed when fellow legend Sir Graham Henry joins him on the megaphone in the crusade to change the national culture kicking alcohol sponsorship out of professional sport. Between them, they also firm up new booze-free sponsorship deals from grassroots to professional with new partners.
Major booze companies as well as RTD company owners and sporting stars - league’s Shaun Johnson, rugby’s Damian McKenzie, Anton Lienert-Brown and former All Black Stephen Donald are silent in the debate.
The great Kiwi streaming battle
Sky TV will finally get its new Sky Box to customers and the tea leaves say customers are overjoyed with their all-in-one package and the savings they are making on their Sky and Neon.
The new Sky service offers all the best streaming providers and announces plans to make local content with Discovery’s ThreeNow, throwing local content plans of TVNZ+ into disarray.
TVNZ+ ups the ante and forms a co-production agreement with Disney+.
The dating show genre is top of the strategy for both camps. “Tropical Island pick-up shows” and “new ways to meet people at the altar” get vetoed after the verdicts of numerous think tanks.
A race for a mid-winter launch is on and the first new announcement is from TVNZ+ for a local series of Top Gear. The hosts have people both excited and confused. Top Gear NZ will be hosted by high-performance car enthusiast Mike Hosking, IndyCar star Scott McLaughlin and to lighten the trio “That Guy” Leigh Hart.
The new Shorty St
Amid the streaming wars, news leaks that some local content directors have commissioned a new, bingeworthy five-night-a-week soap.
Despite last year’s cancellation of Aussie soap Neighbours, the co-productions of ThreeNow and Neon create a Coronation Street and Eastenders-style show centred around a pub. Named The Flying Jug, the new show is set in the fictional North Shore suburb of Birkendale. The budget is big and Martin Henderson is lured back to the future to play the show’s lothario. Equal billing goes to The Flying Jug’s bar owner - former 80s soap star Dame Miranda Harcourt.
Although she is tempted, Harcourt’s daughter Thomasin McKenzie’s international project demands are too great for her to sign on. However, the timing is perfect for McKenzie’s younger sister Davida. Mother and daughter are up against each other for Best Actress at the New Zealand Television Awards.
A family surprise for Sir John Key
After finishing last year with a hole-in-one, a “winning is grinning” attitude, and being well into achieving massive wealth - former PM Sir John Key and son Max have their 2023 plans set in stone.
Daughter Stephie has been home for the break and at New Year’s Eve celebrations decides to stay on in New Zealand.
The tarot cards foresee that when the Keys and the Chow brothers head back to work at Stonewood Key in February - a surprise meeting will be requested of them.
After a decade away from NZ, Stephie has not only developed her art and design career, she has also developed a passion for architecture.
Oozing style and confidence Stephie takes the head of the boardroom table. She tells the boys they need to stand out from other developments by thinking style and colour.
She points out to her father that the homes they are building - with her design vision - could bring in a new era of design to Kiwi suburbia.
Stonewood Key take out NZ Home of the Year and a housing direction is formed that will define a new architectural era.
A-list chefs get their own cooking shows
With Aussie chefs Manu Feildel and Colin Fassnidge crossing the Ditch to film MKR NZ, the lack of A-list Kiwi chefs spurs action from TV makers who look back to the ‘80s for inspiration.
Hudson and Halls - where Peter Hudson and David Halls were as famous for their on-screen spats as they were for their cooking – is perfect for a new vehicle.
Auditions are held for a new cooking duo that can cook a souffle to perfection under the lights and cameras while assassinating each other with one-liners. TV cooking judges, winners and contestants are combed through - Simon Gault, Josh Emett, Nadia Lim, Jax Hamilton and Chelsea Winter - to name a few.
But can anyone match the chemistry of Hudson and Halls? The idea of a father and son dynamic is mooted and the result is kitchen legend Al Brown and influencer Hercules Noble - A-list chef to the Auckland party set.
Act turns down the Left Lane
We asked our clairvoyant to come back after he had had a good night’s sleep - but the next day he said the vision had come back the same in a dream.
In election year, Winston Peters and Christopher Luxon are caught having a cup of tea in Newmarket. David Seymour isn’t impressed - was it revenge for his saying National governments campaign from the right and govern from the left?
Any neighbourly friendship between the two is gone and Seymour steers his party to the left lane.
He figures if he and his political nemesis can make more than $100,000 for charity after Jacinda Ardern called him a prick, anything is possible.
The pair are caught having a cup of coffee in Grey Lynn.
Seymour and Ardern agree that seeing individual New Zealanders feel free to achieve their full potential is something they both have in common.
Ardern takes on his advice to tell her party to be less woke before her political capital goes broke and Seymour promises to get his party afloat with Three Waters.
Our clairvoyant says things go dark by the election and the political capital of both Labour and Act suffer.
The Kiwi actor has been part of the Star Wars universe for more than 20 years.