Author: Empire

When Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis’ wordless wonder Flow won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Oscars, not only did it become the first truly independent animated film to scoop the top gong to date, but Zilbalodis’ plucky black cat and its pals also beat Pixar and DreamWorks in the process. No mean feat given Pixar’s Inside Out 2 had, at the time, just become the highest grossing animated movie ever made. Now, perhaps sensing a growing appetite among animation lovers for more original efforts, Pixar has today revealed at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival that…

There has been an awakening in the Schwarts… have you felt it? Well, Amazon MGM Studios certainly has. Following the surprise reveal last June that legendary sci-fi spoof Spaceballs would be getting the sequel treatment from Josh Gad and Barb And Star director Josh Greenbaum, today has seen a slurry of exciting reveals that assure us they’re not just doing this for the money — or even just for a shit load of money. Firstly, a surprise teaser for Spaceballs 2 released this afternoon, taking aim at Hollywood’s reboot/sequel culture as 99-year-old legend Mel Brooks helped reveal a 2027 release…

If we had a penny for every time a major Christmas movie got announced on 11 June, 2025, we’d have two pennies. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. Yes, following the wake-up shot that was the announcement Robert Eggers is tackling a new take on A Christmas Carol over at Warner Bros., our mid-summer festive feeling intensified this morning with the news, courtesy of THR, that r-rated candy-canes-and-battle-hammers joint Violent Night is getting a sequel — and both director Tommy Wirkola and star David Harbour are returning. Slated for a Christmas 2026 release, Violent Night…

At the time of writing, we are one month and one day exactly away from the release of James Gunn’s Superman, the first major entry in DC Studios’ new-look DCU. But even before David Corenswet’s Man of Steel takes flight for the first time, it looks like Gunn has already got one eye on plans to bring another major player from the DC universe back to our screens. Namely, Princess Diana of Themyscira — or, as we know her best, Wonder Woman. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gunn — who has previously talked up plans for a _Game…

We’ve had the Murder Mysterenaissance, the Brendanaissance, and the Cageaissance, but now it is time for the main event: McConaissance 2.0. Yes, after six years away from the movies (beyond some voicework here and there), Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey has not one but two films heading our way this year. One is The Vast Of Night filmmaker Andrew Patterson’s sophomore effort, crime thriller The Rivals Of Amziah King. The other — whose first trailer just dropped — is The Lost Bus, an Apple TV+ bound feature from Paul Greengrass based on Paradise, journalist Lizzie Johnson’s first-hand account of 2018’s deadly…

To say that the first part of Jon M. Chu’s blockbuster take on Broadway smash Wicked went down well with fans and critics alike would be something of an understatement. The filmmaker’s Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo starring Wizard Of Oz prequel wasn’t just popular — it was a box-office record breaker. Now Chu just has the unenviable task of, er, sticking the landing on his wildly ambitious Wicked Witch Of The West origin story with Wicked: For Good. Luckily, if the spellbinding first trailer for our return to Oz is anything to go by, it looks like we’re in…

Since making her major big screen breakthrough in Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria back in 2018, Mia Goth has marked herself out as one of the most otherworldly talents in Hollywood today, putting in singular performances in everything from High Life to Emma to Infinity Pool to Ti West’s X trilogy. Now, per THR’s reporting, it looks like Goth is set to go from the otherworldly to the quite-literally-out-of-this-worldly with her first blockbuster booking. The movie? Shawn Levy’s Star Wars: Starfighter. The role? Lead villain. Yes, despite recent whisperings that Mikey Madison had been offered the villainous lead opposite star Ryan Gosling…

This week’s episode of the freshly award-losing Empire Film Podcast finds the podteam lick their wounds after a demoralising defeat in the Best Podcast (Consumer) category at the BSMEs earlier in the week. How do they do this? Why, by talking about movies of course! Yes, undeterred by their unwinning streak, Chris Hewitt is joined in the podbooth by James Dyer and Helen O’Hara for another chaotic episode in which the team discuss the week’s movie news (including trailers for *deep breath* Wicked: For Good, Alien: Earth, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Wake Up Dead…

It’s been almost four years since the words ‘James Bond Will Return’ flashed up on cinema screens at the end of No Time To Die — a head scratching promise after the movie’s, er, explosive finale. And yet, while MI6’s finest may not be ready to make his big screen comeback just yet as Amazon MGM Studios acclimatises to being the franchise’s new custodians, James Bond is returning — in a new AAA video game, no less. Hailing from stealth specialist Hitman developers IO Interactive, 007 First Light is set to offer a fresh take on Bond’s origin story, following…

The 21st century has birthed some truly remarkable horror icons. Jigsaw in Saw, Art the Clown in Terrifier, Esther in Orphan, Annabelle in The Conjuring, M3GAN in, er, M3GAN — you get the idea. But there is no modern movie monster quite like Octavia Spencer’s Sue Ann, the titular teen-killing veterinarian assistant at the centre of Tate Taylor’s Ma. Such is the love fans have for Spencer’s unhinged spinster, who never drinks alone, that Blumhouse has used its inaugural Business of Fear event to officially confirm that after keeping us waiting for six years, Ma 2 is coming. “Ma has proven…