Author: Empire

Spooky season is upon us, folks, and this week’s Empire Podcast is even more of a horror show than usual! First up to send shivers down your spine, Chris Hewitt talks to actor Naomi Scott about her fabulous performance in Parker Finn’s scary sequel Smile 2 [23:26 — 37:26 approx]. Then, the team — this week comprising Chris, James Dyer, Ben Travis and, in a rare appearance, our news editor Beth Webb — tackle two horror-related questions from listeners, including the horror flicks they think should have been nominated for Best Picture, and an impromptu Mount Rushmore of vampire films…

Earlier this year came seismic news from Middle-earth: more Lord Of The Rings films are on the way from Warner Bros, with Peter Jackson and his team producing, and familiar faces expected to return in front of the camera too. Then quickly came the reveal that one such upcoming project is titled The Hunt For Gollum, set shortly before the main events of The Fellowship Of The Ring, and set to be directed by none other than Gollum himself: Andy Serkis. From there, all kinds of rumours and reports have spread – including the notion that The Hunt For Gollum…

With Parasite, Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho stormed into the Hollywood big-leagues – and he has no intention of leaving. Five years after winning Best Picture (and Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature  Film) for his slyly satirical capitalist thriller, Director Bong is back with his third English-language feature, Mickey 17, boasting an A-list lead in none other than Robert Pattinson. But make no mistake: this isn’t Bong going mainstream. Like Snowpiercer and Okja before it, Mickey 17 tilts the filmmaker head-first into bonkers sci-fi territory. It’s a madcap story of mass capitalism, marauding monsters, and…

After making a breakout screen debut in Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘70s hangout movie Licorice Pizza back in 2021, singer-songwriter Alana Haim — one-third of rock band HAIM — is taking The Steps (yes, that’s a reference) to bolster her acting CV in a big way with not one but two new projects in the pipeline. Per THR’s reporting, Haim has landed roles in both Kelly Reichardt art heist drama The Mastermind, in which she’ll star opposite Josh O’Connor, and in Kristoffer Borgli’s Zendaya and Robert Pattinson led The Drama. Cameras are already rolling on The Mastermind, Reichardt’s self-written and directed…

With Todd Phillips’ experimental DC sequel Joker: Folie À Deux going a little bit *wah wah wahhh* at the box office this past fortnight, another killer clown has risen to the top of the pile. After growing a passionate core fanbase with two increasingly shocking, low-budget outings, Art the Clown has been galling and enthralling the masses in Damien Leone’s cut-throat (and hack-off-head) threequel Terrifier 3, cruising to a cool $18 million in its opening weekend on a $2 million budget. Now, in an interview with DiscussingFilm, Leone has revealed his future plans for David Howard Thornton’s jugular-busting jester. When…

DreamWorks’ latest animated effort, The Wild Robot, may not have even made it to British multiplexes just yet, but it’s already whipping up quite the critical and commercial storm stateside. In fact, writer-director Chris Sanders’ take on Peter Brown’s bot-on-an-island book has proven so successful that, after cleaning up at the domestic box office to the tune of over $100 million thus far, more adventures for Lupita Nyong’o’s Roz and her anthropomorphic pals are already in the pipeline. As confirmed by Deadline during their Contenders event in London this weekend, DreamWorks and Sanders will be giving The Wild Robot a…

In recent years, we’ve seen a real resurgence of big ol’ stage-to-screen movie musicals hitting cinemas and streamers. West Side Story, Wicked, In The Heights, Tick, Tick… BOOM!, err… *cough* Dear Evan Hansen and Cats *cough* — you name it, some big wig in Tinseltown’s already figuring out how to turn it into a blockbuster smash. Somewhat rarer however is the (non-Disney) movie musical that gets the screen-to-stage treatment. But now, having made a splash Off-Broadway back in 2019 before the pandemic halted its run, Sing Street: A New Musical — an all-singing, all-dancing stage adaptation of John Carney’s beloved,…

With the likes of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Sonic The Hedgehog doing big business in the multiplexes and The Last Of Us and Fallout receiving critical acclaim on TV, stock in video game adaptations has never been higher. Hell, even Minecraft is about to get the cinematic treatment! And now, according to Deadline, Universal and Sega are looking to capitalise on the genre boom with a live-action take on ninja hack-and-slash classic Shinobi. And that’s not all, either — Extraction director Sam Hargrave is set to direct it. Chronicling modern day ninja Joe Musashi’s battles with the forces…

It’s a good time to be an Alien fan right about now. Alien: Romulus has just been in cinemas, Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth TV series is well on its way (and even has a teaser already!), and one of the best movie tie-in video games ever made, Alien: Isolation, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week. But that’s not all folks — that is not all! Not only does the aforementioned Alien: Isolation turn a decade old today, but — after years of fans waiting, and waiting, and waiting — the occasion has been marked by an official announcement from…

Just a couple of short weeks ago, Edgar Wright’s zombie horror-comedy Shaun Of The Dead turned 20 years old. (We know, we feel it, too!) But with time inexorably marching on — running on, even — our attention is already being turned back to the British filmmaker’s next movie, a new retooling of Stephen King’s dystopian sci-fi novel The Running Man. Having already nabbed the highly in-demand Glen Powell to take on the Arnold Schwarzenegger role from the classic 1987 movie, Deadline are reporting that Wright has snapped up Love Lies Bleeding breakout Katy O’Brian to get her running shoes…