Author: Empire

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…

Are you a fan of Craig Gillespie’s Ryan Gosling starring sex doll rom-com Lars And The Real Girl? Did you watch last year’s Wicked: For Good and find yourself inexplicably drawn towards Jonathan Bailey’s strawified Fiyero? Are you here for what we are dubbing Olivia Colman’s ‘Willem Dafoe’ era? If you answered yes to any of the above, then we may have just the movie for you: Wicker. Billed as ‘a comedic fable about sex, marriage, and the absurdities of social convention’, Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston’s movie stars Olivia Colman as a fisherwoman who commissions Peter Dinklage to make…

Ready to return to Middle-earth? The new issue of Empire is nearly here, and it was – even more so than usual – forged in the fires of Mount Doom, deep in the heart of Mordor. Yes, The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power is back for a pivotal third season, as the One Ring finally gets created, and Sauron rises to seize power – and it’s on the cover of our new issue. The Rings Of Power Season 3 issue doesn’t hit newsstands until Thursday July 30 (order a copy online here), but for now here’s a…

It’s been a few years since Taika Waititi delivered his last film – an adaptation of beloved football doc Next Goal Wins. But now, three years later, he’s finally back with Klara And The Sun, taking Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel – about a robot girl, Klara, who befriends sick kid Josie in a dystopian future – and bringing it to life with Jenna Ortega in the title role, and Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi and more among its ensemble. Oh, and Rachel House too – this is a Taika Waititi movie. Except, it looks set to be a different kind of…

Okay, so it’s official: Adam Wingard’s super soldier A24 action movie Onslaught is not a stealth sequel to super soldier not-A24 action movie The Guest after all. It’s just set in the same town, shares the same universe, and also happens to star Dan Stevens. But now that we’ve cleared up those technicalities, we can get back to what really matters… watching the aforementioned Mr Stevens playing a super soldier making Nazi scientist in Wingard’s first non-MonsterVerse outing in yonks. And if the latest trailer for the upcoming actioner is anything to go by, we are in for a bloody…

Interestingly, the Marvel Studios panel at Comic-Con yesterday didn’t peak with the grand unveiling of pretty much the entire cast of Avengers: Doomsday, including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, a previously unconfirmed Hayley Atwell, and three distinct groups of actors spread across three different stages in Hall (a first for the Con). Nor did it peak with the debut of footage from Doomsday. Instead, Kevin Feige gave pride of place to a very special announcement, bringing Ryan Coogler out to reveal that Black Panther III not only is happening, but has a release date of December 15, 2028 (so one…