Author: Empire

They say that any movie is only as good as its villain — and by that metric, it looks like Wes Ball is gunning for an all-timer with his upcoming live-action The Legend Of Zelda movie. Just over a year after the Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes filmmaker’s cinematic trip to Hyrule cast youngsters Bo Bragason and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as its Zelda and Link, and a good nine months on from our first official look at Nintendo and Sony’s fantasy epic, Deadline is reporting that Australian actor Uli Latukefu has landed the role of iconic villain Ganondorf…

It’s been fourteen years and five films since Christopher Nolan scored his last billion dollar hit at the box office with The Dark Knight Rises. Now however, in news that at this point will surely come as a surprise to approximately nobody, Nolan has scaled that billion-dollar mountain once more, with Variety reporting that the British auteur’s Homeric epic The Odyssey has just sailed past the major milestone in a frankly astonishing three weeks flat. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day swinging into cinemas just last week and landing a record-shattering $932 million opening weekend, it was always going to be…

This week’s episode of the Empire Podcast sees Taika Waititi, director of Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Zoom in for a cracking chat with Chris Hewitt about that movie’s tenth anniversary re-release, his feelings about the loss of the great Sam Neill, the status of his What We Do In The Shadows sequel, New Zealand PSAs, and more. Either side of that, Chris is joined in the podbooth by Helen O’Hara and John Nugent to answer a listener question about the implications of Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s record-breaking box office open; discuss the week’s movie news, including the Violent Night 2…

Fun, frothy, dino-filled and star-studded, last year’s Jurassic World Rebirth may not exactly have been a game changer for the Jurassic Park saga, but it was a ton of fun and it did make a none-too-shabby $872 million at the box office. By almost any metric, you could safely call the seventh instalment in everyone’s favourite fossil-fuelled franchise a roaring success. But per Deadline’s reporting, the next _J_urassic World will need to, uh, find a way without director Gareth Edwards, who has left the project due to that old dragon “creative differences”. Insiders tell Deadline that Edwards left the project…

It’s something of a Hollywood tradition – when a new film comes out and breaks all kinds of records, the previous record-holders pass the baton courtesy of a custom piece of art. For instance, James Cameron congratulated the team behind Avengers: Endgame on its Earth-shattering box office haul with an Iron Man / Avatar crossover image; and now, the Russo Brothers are nodding to another Marvel victor. While Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a good way to go before becoming the most successful film of all time, it did just have the highest-grossing opening weekend ever in the US, earning…

In Tommy Wirkola’s ultraviolent 2022 Christmas actioner Violent Night, David Harbour’s not-so-jolly Santa Claus found his festive spirit by slaughtering a sled-load of mercenaries to rescue a little girl and her family. Four years later however, and our man Dave — fresh from Stranger Things’ emotional finale — finds himself on the naughty list in Violent Night 2, depowered and left searching for the true meaning of Christmas in a mall being held at the mercy of a ruthless, Jared Harris played gangster. And, as the newly dropped trailer for Wirkola’s bloody sequel reveals, this time Mrs. Claus (Kristen Bell)…

Kumail Nanjiani is an Oscar-nominated writer, actor, and comedian. He’s been in the MCU, done a Star Wars, kicked it with the Ghostbusters, been to Fallout’s Wasteland, checked in at Only Murders In The Building’s Arconia, showed us his Poker Face, and even finished third on his season of Taskmaster. Now, in addition to all of that, Nanjiani is adding another feather to his already many-feathered hat. Per Deadline’s reporting, The Big Sick writer-star’s directorial debut, werewolf movie Howl, has landed at Amazon MGM Studios’ Orion Pictures. Penned by Madison Vanderberg, whose original screenplay wound up on Hollywood’s prestigious Black…

In a real case of ‘fork found in kitchen’, a new Spider-Man movie has just hit cinemas and is going gangbusters at the box office. But while a wildly successful Spidey outing ain’t nothing new (the last one, Spider-Man: No Way Home, took an eye-watering $582.7 million worldwide in its opening weekend back in 2021), Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day just blew any and all first frame expectations out of the water. swinging its way to a staggering $927 million global debut — second only to Avengers: Endgame’s $1.2 billion back in pre-COVID 2019. Tom Holland’s fourth solo…

When The Inbetweeners 2 released in 2014, Empire prophetically stated in our four-star review that we should “never say never say never again again” when it came to the chances of seeing Will, Jay, Simon, and Neil return one day for an Inbetweeners 3. After all, everything’s a trilogy these days, right? Well, er, yes actually, it would seem. Per Variety’s reporting, Iain Morris and Damon Beesley’s iconic British teen comedy is officially making a comeback: The Inbetweeners reunion movie is happening at Netflix, and the whole gang is getting back together for it. Spanning three seasons, two successful spin-off…

This week’s episode of the Empire Podcast sees Chris Hewitt — freshly returned from Comic-Con and San Diego — sit down for a lovely chat with Spider-Man: Brand New Day director, Destin Daniel Cretton. Either side of that, Chris is joined in the podbooth by Helen O’Hara, Amon Warmann, and Ben Travis to discuss their favourite Spider-movies, look back at Comic-Con and a whole bunch of trailers (Jumanji! Onslaught! The Thomas Crown Affair!), and review Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Ish. They also get into Emily Wilson’s scathing criticism of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and discuss authors and writers who…