Author: Empire

With Captain America: Brave New World mere days away, Marvel Studios are already ratcheting up the promotion for Jake Schreier’s upcoming MCU joint Thunderbolts*, which is set to see Earth’s mightiest anti-heroes team up, The Suicide Squad style, to face a mysterious threat. Well, perhaps not quite so mysterious any more. After months of speculation, the latest trailer for the movie — which just dropped during the Super Bowl — seems to confirm just who exactly Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and their fellow under appreciated ne’er-do-wells (Wyatt Russell’s John Walker, Olga Kurylenko’s…

As Chief Brody famously said upon seeing the shark up-close in Jaws: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” And that, too, seems to be exactly how the RDA felt after their SeaDragon ship was trashed by heroic space-whale Payakan in the final reel of Avatar: The Way Of Water. James Cameron’s mega-sequel ended in a colossal aquatic battle that led to major casualties on both sides, and left the RDA running away, tail-between-legs – but as we head towards this year’s Avatar: Fire And Ash, the conflict has only just begun, and the RDA are ready to strike back. As…

This week’s bumper-sized edition of the Empire Podcast brings with it a hat-trick of top notch guests for your listening pleasure as Chris Hewitt sits down on Zoom for chats with a bevy of terrific talents. First up Chris chops it up with Ke Huy Quan about Love Hurts, the action movie that not only represents his first lead role, but is also the Vietnamese-born comeback king’s first movie since winning an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All At Once [17:33 – 34:18 approx]. Then, in the middle of our starry sandwich, there’s September 5 star John Magaro, who explains how…

Planeswalkers, assemble! Over a decade after Fox tried and failed to bring the fantasy world of Magic: The Gathering to the big screen with, MonsterVerse architects Legendary and toymakers turned burgeoning movie powerhouse Hasbro are reaching for the topdeck to give Wizards Of The Coast’s iconic collectible card game an on-screen universe that’s as expansive as its in-game world. Per Variety’s reporting, the entertainment world juggernauts are joining forces to create a cinematic universe for Magic that will stretch across both film and television. With over 50 million players worldwide and an estimated value of over $1 billion, Magic: The…

There’s a certain kind of magic to seeing real life siblings sharing the screen. Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko. Chris and Luke Hemsworth in Thor: Ragnarok. Macaulay and Kieran Culkin in Home Alone (yes, Roman Roy is serial bedwetter Fuller!). And soon to be joining that niche but ever eye-catching canon are Rooney and Kate Mara. Per Deadline’s reporting, the sisters — stars of Carol and Black Mirror respectively — are set to lead Bucking Fastard (yes, you read that correctly), the latest movie from mellifluous German auteur Werner Herzog. Despite their prolific screen careers, Emmy nominee Kate…

Just last Friday, Abel Tesfaye — aka music megastar The Weeknd — dropped Hurry Up Tomorrow, the blockbuster finale to a trilogy of albums that started with 2020’s After Hours and continued in 2022 with Dawn FM. A high-concept, semi-autobiographical deconstruction of the fame monster laden with synths, hooky beats, and a brooding noirish undercurrent, Tomorrow doesn’t just feel like a movie — it’s about to become one. Directed by Trey Edward Shults (It Comes At Night) and starring Tesfaye, Jenna Ortega, and Barry Keoghan, the cinematic version of The Weeknd’s latest — and supposedly last — album is an…

Horror reboots are all the rage these days. Scream, Scary Movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Saw — you name it, there’s a decent chance someone’s out there with red string and pins figuring out a fiendish way to bring it back. With that being said, the latest addition to the growing reboot canon is New Line Cinema’s Final Destination: Bloodlines, the first new entry in what remains the only major franchise that can proudly boast Death itself as its antagonist since Final Destination 5 some 14 years ago. And if the gnarly first trailer for Freaks directors…

Move over, John Kramer — there’s a new twisted vigilante in town! And this ain’t just any old bloodthirsty kook either: it’s Hannibal Lecter himself, Sir Anthony Hopkins. Yes, in David Yarovesky’s upcoming single location thriller Locked, Hopkins plays William, a Jigsaw-style cool, calm, and collected killer who traps unsuspecting lout Eddie (Bill Skarsgård) in his luxury SUV when the down-on-his-luck thief tries to steal his car. Thus ensues a battle of wits as William employs all sorts of cruel, car-based torture to punish Eddie while his hostage fights for survival. And you can check out the trailer for the…

Live from London — it’s Friday night! And it’s also another bumper, jam-packed edition of the Empire Podcast that we’ve got in store for you this week, dear listeners. The great Angelina Jolie heads up our trio of amazing guests, as she talks to our very own musical icon, George Har— we mean, er, John Nugent about taking on the challenge of playing legendary opera singer Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s Maria [20:48 — 34:02 approx.] Then, Chris Hewitt has a fascinating chat with Jason Reitman about how, exactly, he recreated the chaos of SNL’s opening night in Saturday Night…

It’s a good time to be a Den Of Thieves die-hard. (They exist!) The Gerard Butler crime-actioner came out way back in 2018 – and this year finally got a belated sequel, Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera, released Stateside in January to a decent US box office reception. And while it’s yet to arrive on UK shores, the early success of the sequel has given its creators the confidence to plough onward with the story of Butler’s ‘Big Nick’ O’Brien: Den Of Thieves 3 has been officially confirmed. ‘Den Of Threeves’, anyone? The official Den Of Thieves account confirmed the…