Author: Empire

Oddly enough, history is replete with stories about being in the belly of a whale. There’s the biblical version with Jonah (see: The Bible, duh) and its reinterpretation in Pinocchio, finding the puppet-boy stranded in the cavernous innards of Monstro. But never before has a cinematic telling truly explored how exactly it would feel to be eaten alive and swallowed down into a whale’s stomach. Until now. Enter Whalefall, the wild new survival thriller from director Brian Duffield, which finds Austin Abrams’ diver Jay in deep, deep trouble.Stuck in a whale’s stomach with only an hour to escape, Jay’s predicament…

This week’s episode of the Empire Podcast sees Jane Schoenbrun, director of Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma, chat to Harry Stainer on Zoom about their new movie, creating a new horror icon, and their own filmmaking journey. Either side of that, Helen O’Hara is joined in the podbooth by James Dyer and Jamie Graham to take a bunch of listener questions, discuss the week’s movie news (including their takes on the X-Men casting from D23), and review the aforementioned Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma, The Stath’s latest movie, Mutiny, & Sons, and Stop! That! Train! Enjoy.And…

Cinema has brought us so many visions of the apocalypse across the decades. We’ve seen the human race face towering infernos, asteroid armageddons, icebergs ahead, marauding martians, and climate deep-freezes, to name but a few. But with Digger, filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu is preparing a different kind of disaster movie. Already, he’s sent Michael Keaton into an existential tailspin in Birdman, and stranded Leonardo DiCaprio in the icy wilderness in The Revenant (both to Oscar-winning effect). And now, he’s got Tom Cruise – as you’ve never seen him before – at the heart of a story about the thing that…

Tom Cruise is not a man who’s easy to forget. He’s one of the biggest stars Hollywood has ever seen. A man whose contributions to cinema range from some of the most jaw-dropping action spectacles ever pulled off (see: the Mission: Impossible movies, Top Gun and its sequel, and many more) to arresting character dramas that made him a megastar in the first place (from A Few Good Men, to Rain Man, to Jerry Maguire). And yet, during production of his latest film Digger, Cruise’s co-star Riz Ahmed found himself lost in the larger-than-life character that the star has worked…

Over the last few weeks, the internet has been ablaze with rumours about Charles Melton and whether or not he could be in the frame to play Beast in Jake Schreier’s MCU X-Men movie. But with D23’s X-Cast announcement having come and gone and no big blue Melton reveal having materialised, it would appear — for now at least — that Marvel Studios is keeping its Beast (whoever that may be) under wraps for now. But fear not because, per Variety’s reporting, Melton may have another major blockbuster — namely Destin Daniel Cretton’s upcoming live-action Naruto movie — on his…

It may have been 15 years now since Laika Studios first acquired the rights to adapt Colin Meloy’s YA fantasy epic Wildwood, but as the saying goes, all good things come to those who wait — and Travis Knight’s stop-motion epic does look very good. With the first teaser for Knight’s movie having racked up a staggering 90 million views and counting on YouTube alone, today Laika has unveiled a new trailer for its long-gestating latest — this one bringing Carey Mulligan’s complex human antagonist Alexandra into the spotlight as Wildwood’s tale of love, loss, and war comes into sharper…

This morning, we are incredibly saddened to share the news that Hayden Panettiere, star of Heroes, Nashville and the Scream franchise, has sadly passed away at 36 years old. Beginning her acting career at just 11 months old in a toy commercial, Panettiere graced our screens for more than 30 years. She died on Sunday, August 16. No cause of death has been announced.  First reported by ABC News on Sunday night, a statement from her father, Skip Panettiere, read as follows: “It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden. She was an…

Avengers: Doomsday isn’t far off, and fresh off D23, we’ve now had a closer look at Victor von Doom raising Sentinels and giving the Avengers, X-Men and co. what looks to be a pretty hard time. Needless to say, the MCU has expanded somewhat in the last few years. Now juggling TV shows, films and a whole host of new characters, it can sometimes be a struggle to know what’s actually a must-watch before a new entry hits cinemas. Thankfully, with Avengers: Doomsday, Disney+ has put together a must-watch list to make sure your Marvel knowledge is up to scratch…

Be honest: you’re still crying about Coco now, nearly 10 years on. Pixar’s musical fantasy film, set in the Mexican Land Of The Dead, might stake a claim as the studio’s most tear-jerking movie – a certified 10 on the sob-scale thanks to its emotional gut-punches. It is, of course, a colourful and joyous adventure too, sending guitar-playing kiddo Miguel into the great beyond on a family adventure. And following the announcement in 2025 that Coco 2 was coming, the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California saw fresh details – and the first concept art – emerge from the sequel. First…

If you were paying attention to Zootopia 2, it should come as no surprise that threequel hopes have been bubbling away. And we’re not just talking about the fact that the 2025 sequel made a whopping $1.86 billion worldwide. No, the final moment of the film saw a feather falling from the sky: the first indication that, yes, birds exists in the expanse of Zootopia (or, Zootropolis, depending on your territory). As confirmed at Disney’s D23 Expo, Zootopia 3 is officially in the works – and it’ll bring feathered friends into the animal kingdom, just as Zootopia 2 brought in…