In its 50th year, Star Trek looks like a franchise set to live long and – well, you get the idea. Star Trek Beyond has blasted into cinemas around the world, and so naturally, we decided to have a big old bumper Empire Podcast spoiler special to mark it. Clocking in at two hours and six minutes, it's marginally longer than the actual film we're here to talk about.
To help us on our two-hour mission, we invited Star Trek Beyond's director, Justin Lin, and its co-writer/co-star, Simon Pegg, into the pod booth for extensive spoilery chats. Plus, we assembled three of Empire's biggest Trek nerds together to discuss the film in sometimes needlessly forensic detail. As ever, there are plentiful spoilers throughout this podcast, so make sure you've seen the film first.
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“He’s his own species,” Garcia told us. “He’s going to be 100 feet tall.” That's a fair bit taller that the beast's original 1933 height, which was estimated to be only around 25m. His growth spurt may have something to do with Kong's upcoming face-off against old foe Godzilla in Godzilla Vs. Kong, planned for release in 2020 – and not least because Gareth Edwards’ monster stood 350 feet tall when we last saw it moonwalking back into the ocean…
But what of the mysterious island’s terrain, which has seen various incarnations since Kong’s 1933 movie debut? “There are jungles, sulphur pits, bamboo forests, a variety of different environments that are both wondrous and incredibly dangerous.” Sounds like the perfect playground for a 100 foot ape, then.
Skull Island takes place in 1973, seeing Kong hunted down by Tom Hiddleston’s SAS tracker James Conrad, Brie Larson’s photographer Mason Weaver, and Johns C. Reilly and Goodman.
Kong: Skull Island is released on March 10, 2017. For more on everyone’s favourite giant ape and much, much more besides, be sure to pick up a copy of our newest issue, in all good and evil newsagents now.
“Pablo dies, yeah.” But this attracted Wagner Moura to the role of Escobar even more when signing on for Season 1. Where its inaugural 10 episodes covered just over a decade, Season 2 looks set to flip that device on its head, instead focusing on Escobar’s final year. “It’s now about this guy running,” Moura told Empire, “he’s being hunted by everybody. He starts a war against not only his enemies, but the country itself.”
But Moura’s exit doesn’t spell bad news entirely: “the idea since the beginning was to keep talking about the drug trade, and there are so many things to talk about.” So, while Pablo may be gone, Narcos’ drug war looks set to rage on.
Season 2 arrives on Netflix on September 2. Read more on this (and more upcoming shows and films than you can shake a stick at) in the new issue of Empire, on sale now.
See what else ranks alongside Narcos in our list of the best TV shows on Netflix.
While the Universal version has its own spin, the Lionsgate movie would be based on Steven Moffat's 2007 BBC series. Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry are at work on a script that would focus on Tom Jackman, a modern-day descendent of Jekyll who has inherited his condition through genetics. So he sets up a secure basement in which he can be stepped into a chair and monitored by a nurse as he changes. The Mr. Hyde in this case has enhanced strength and a raging personality that can also be a charming devil. Neither man remembers what the other one does while inhabiting Jackman's body, and they communicate using recordings. Of course, Hyde manages to get out one night and goes in search of Jackman's family...
The movie is still hunting for a director, and Evans' isn't 100% confirmed yet. There will also be his busy Marvel schedule to factor in, with two Avengers: Infinity Wars films to consider. He'll next be seen in Gifted, out on June 16 next year.
Netflix has taken advantage of a TV press tour to announce more details of the six episodes is has backed from Brooker and producer Annabel Jones as part of a third "season" (we feel like it should be "series", given its UK roots.)
Brooker and his team have gathered a typically eclectic bunch of concepts, directors and actors for the new episodes, which will launch on the streaming service at the same time. So get ready for San Junipero, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis and directed by Owen Harris, Shut Up And Dance featuring Jerome Flynn and Alex Lawther, directed by James Watkins, Joe Wright directing Nosedive, which stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Alice Eve and James Norton, Men Against Fire featuring Michael Kelly, Malachi Kirby and Madeline Brewer directed by Jakob Verbruggen, Hated In The Nation, which has Kelly MacDonald and James Hawes in the director's chair and finally, Playtest, starring Wyatt Russell and Hannah John-Kamen, directed by 10 Cloverfield Lane's Dan Trachtenberg.
Topics covered this time include social media and video game testing but not Pokemon Go. Still, as Brooker says, "It’s fair to say that this season, some of the ideas are because we were aware of the greater progress of the world, that you’ve got to go two steps forward to stay ahead of reality at the moment. There are things that are more demented then Pokemon Go within this season." Cannot. Wait.
David Magee has written the script, which draws on material from author P.L. Travers' other Poppins novels that followed the original. The story this time finds the magical nanny returning to the Banks family in Depression-era London to find that her charges Jane and Michael Banks have now grown up. Michael has three children of his own, and they all need a little help re-discovering the joy in life.
Poppins will need the help of street lamplighter Jack (to be played by Hamilton musical god Lin-Manuel Miranda, who recently departed the show he created and starred in to pursue other projects) and cousin Topsy, which will allow Streep to once again show off both her award-winning acting ranging and her proven singing voice.
Marc Platt (who also worked on Woods) will be the producer, while Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are handling the music chores. The movie should be arriving just in time for Christmas 2018.
On this week's Empire Podcast, we welcome two directors returning to amnesia-based franchises. First up, Andrew Stanton pops by with his producer Lindsey Collins to discuss the return of memory-afflicted fish in Finding Dory. Then, Paul Greengrass drops in to discuss the return of memory-afflicted CIA assassins in Jason Bourne. Hopefully we can jog their memories through pod form.
You can listen to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page, our SoundCloud page, this RSS feed (please note – we've switched to a new feed) or by pressing play below.
Talking to Extra TV, Edwards (looking for all the world like his Lucasfilm and Disney bosses would chuck a thermal detonator his way if he spilled too much information) tackled the subject. "I can put it to bed," he told Extra TV, but wouldn't be drawn on anything else, including exactly when Rogue One finishes in relation to Episode IV. Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy, who is a little freer to talk about such things, addressed that one and also answered about the much less likely matter of Hayden Christensen showing up in the movie. "No. That is not true. I can confirm that he is not," she said, before doubly confirming that Han won't show up either.
Darth Vader has been confirmed, but there will be someone else (not David Prowse) in the suit and James Earl Jones on voice duty.
So now we know we'll have to wait until the stand-alone young Han Solo movie to first meet Ehrenreich's interpretation of the hero, unless everyone has been lying and he casually strolls through the background of a scene talking to a familiar walking carpet... Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will be in UK cinemas on December 16.
Preacher’s hardcore fans will be counting down the hours to the Season 1 finale. To help make the time pass a little quicker, we have a whistle-wetting exclusive: the first five minutes of that finale, right here, right now.
Without giving too much away to those who’ve yet to sit down with AMC’s gonzo kinda-Western, the setting is New Mexico, the currency by now large blood and grue – large amounts of both. You-know-who, fresh from hell and with a lengthy pedigree in killing people, is heading for his big showdown with Dominic Cooper’s Jesse.
As Joe Gilgun, AKA Irish vampire Cassidy, tells Empire, Season 1 has been a steady upping of the pace towards what promises to be a proper blowout next time out. “We needed to cater for those who haven't read the comics,” he explains. "We’ve all been finding our feet in this initial series.” Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s comic book is already teed up for a second run in 2017.
Preacher’s season finale airs on AMC in the US on Sunday and Amazon Prime in the UK on Monday. Read Empire’s review of the most recent episode and that Gilgun interview in full.
Would you trust Ben Affleck to do your accounting? His skills have not yet been measured, but he plays a maths whizz and freelance ledger legend with some highly q questionable clients in new thriller The Accountant. See the new trailer below.
Affleck here is Christian Wolff, a man who grew up knowing he was different. He has a genius-level IQ and can run numbers in a way that would baffle most mental mortals. But he can't seem to crack social skills in any meaningful fashion. Still, that hasn't stopped him working as a freelance accountant for some of the world's biggest criminal organisations.
As he takes on his first legit client, a state-of-the-art robotics company, he comes under scrutiny from a junior accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick), who discovered the discrepancy that led to his hiring and from the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, which has finally tied him to his criminal paymasters. With federal lawman Ray King (J.K. Simmons) closing in, the stakes – and the body count – start to rise.
Gavin O'Connor directed this one, which will arrive on UK screens on November 4.
M. Night Shyamalan scored a much-needed return to the "kudos" side of critical and even audience reactions to his film with The Visit. He's back in low-budget Blumhouse thriller territory with James McAvoy in Split. Check out the first trailer below.
Split sees McAvoy (taking over a role that Joaquin Phoenix originally circled) playing Kevin, a man whose psychologist (Betty Buckley) has identified 23 individual personalities occupying his brain. But Kevin's issue is no mere psychological condition: his body chemistry actually changes with each identity. Most of them appear to be harmless, there is one that has recently started to emerge and which dominates the others. This one has malicious, mysterious intent pulsing through him, and Kevin abducts three teenage girls (including The Witch's Anya Taylor-Joy) for reasons that he won't immediately reveal. But several of Kevin's personalities reference "The Beast", so perhaps he's met Black Phillip?
However it shakes out, Split will be on our screens next January.
Period drama Free State Of Jones may not have had the best luck with critics or audiences in the States, but that's not stopping the new Matthew Mcconaughey movie, due here in a couple of months. Here's the latest trailer...
McConaughey stars as real-life advocate Newton Knight. A Mississippi farmer and loyal Confederate recruit in the American Civil War, he defected from the army and took a group of like-minded troops with him to create the Free State of Jones on a patch of land next to a swamp. Knight later married a slave (Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Rachel), creating one of the first ever publicised mixed-race unions in the South, fought against the Confederates from within his new territory and led a daring raid to free children who were still enslaved following the end of the conflict.
Naturally, his former military masters decided to hunt him and his new community down, forcing Knight to take up guerrilla tactics against the army.
With Gary Ross on writing and directing duty and Jacob Lofland, Keri Russell and Mahershala Ali also in the cast, Free State Of Jones is out here on September 30.
There’s never been a good time to be Nazi scumbag Reinhard Heydrich, a man so evil even other evil people would have to hold their noses around him, but this is a particularly bad one – cinematically-speaking, at least. Two movies, Anthropoid and HHhH, will tell the story of his assassination in 1941, with the former sneaking in first. It has a new UK trailer to share below.
The courageous pair of Czech agents parachuted into their homeland on this dangerous mission, Josef Gabcík and Jan Kubis, are played in Anthropoid by Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan. (Its rival project has Jack Reynor and Jack O’Connell in the roles.)
The two have been trained by the British to ambush Heydrich as he commutes to his Prague office. Despised by the Czech people under his control, he’d already earned himself the nickname ‘the Butcher of Prague’ – and not because he was especially good at making sausages.
The ensuing story – one of the most remarkable episodes of the early part of the war – is directed and co-written by Metro Manila’s Sean Ellis. Charlotte Le Bon, Anna Geislerova, Toby Jones and The Riot Club’s Harry Lloyd will also be appearing when it hits UK cinemas on September 9.
Director David F. Sandberg and writer Eric Heisserer are both back for the new film, which will once again be produced by James Wan and Lawrence Grey. Sandberg created the original Lights Out short film along with wife/actress Lotta Losten in Sweden and when it went viral after playing a few festivals, it led to a flurry of attention and he was offered the chance to turn it into a full movie.
Lights Out stars Teresa Palmer as Rebecca, a young woman who has grown up dealing with her mother Sophie's (Maria Bello) struggles with mental health. She's largely stayed out of family matters but when her step-brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) starts seeing something in the darkness, Rebecca realises that her mother's condition might be tied to something else...
Even before Lights Out opened (it has made $35 million worldwide so far on the back of a $4.9 million budget), Sandberg was offered the director's chair on Annabelle 2 (Wan keeping it in the professional family there), so he'll complete that before he can even think about more of his own film's story. Lights Out will arrive in the UK on August 19. You can see the trailer below.
While the movie is still in early development, the Hollywood Reporter has heard that it will re-imagine the character as a black female hero who dons the rocket pack and suit to fight evil. Joe Johnston's original was adapted from Dave Stevens' 1980s comic by Danny Bilson, William Dear and Paul De Meo and starred Billy Campbell as Cliff Secord, a stunt pilot who stumbles across an experimental jet pack and gear and gets mixed up with mobsters, Nazis, Howard Hughes and the FBI. Designed as a throwback to the serials of the 1930s and '40s in the same way that Flash Gordon channelled the genre (perhaps with a smidge less camp), The Rocketeer has long since been boosted into a life of its own, turning it into prime target and an arrow aimed straight at nostalgia.
In the new concept, the story will keep the period setting, but six years after the original film. Secord has vanished while battling Nazis and a new hero, a young, African-American pilot, must take up the Rocketeer mantle to stop an ambitious rocket scientist from stealing the jet pack technology and changing the course of what will become the Cold War. Max Winkler and Matt Spicer are aboard to write the movie, currently known as The Rocketeers.
Disney has yet to release any sort of official statement, nor is there a release set, but if done right, it could introduce a whole new generation to the idea of high-flying adventure and heroics.
AMC’s Preacher arrives at its season finale this weekend, and few would disagree that the breakout star of the hit supernatural TV show is Chorley’s own Joe Gilgun, delivering a career-best performance as the slightly-deranged Irish vampire Cassidy. In an exclusive chat with Empire, Gilgun has spoken candidly about the show, which he described as “one of the best times I've had filming”, and hinted at what to expect from the recently-greenlit Season 2, which was recently commissioned.
“I think for the first series, we've had to keep it stationary, so people can invest in the characters,” Gilgun told us, acknowledging that some of the early episodes were something of a slow burn. “We needed to cater for those who haven't read the comics. We've all been finding our feet in this initial series, man.”
As for the future? “In the comics, which I think they're trying to stick to, the trio [Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy] sort of fuck off on this quest for God. It's kind of an adventure where all three of them try to find out who they are and what it's all about – which is the eternal question for everybody, I guess.”
In a characteristically sweary flourish, he added: “Fuck, it sounds corny, doesn't it?”
Gilgun also noted that life as a vampire brings with it a huge amount of fake blood – “Me house at home is like a fuckin' crime scene” – and that he had found his preferred fake blood flavour: “I like the minty shit, with a bit of a eucalyptus vibe.”
Read the full interview with Joe Gilgun right here, in which he also discusses his work on This Is England, Misfits, and “being a twat” on Corrrie.
Preacher airs on AMC in the US and Amazon Prime in the UK; the season finale arrives on Sunday. Read Empire’s review of the most recent episode right here.
Tyldum's film, which finds him reuniting with his Imitation Game writer Graham Moore (who won an Oscar for the film, while Tyldum was nominated) is a tale of clashing industrial titans. In this case, that would be Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, who went head to head in a nasty battle over alternating and direct current, known as the “War of Currents.” Both men knew there was room for just one American electricity system, and Edison set out to ruin Westinghouse in a campaign that saw the inventor stage publicity events where dogs, horses and even an elephant were killed using Westinghouse’s alternating current. The two men played out their battle on the front pages of newspapers and in the Supreme Court, which included a struggle over who would power the country's first electric chair.
Redmayne will play Paul Cravath, a famed lawyer who represented several big inventors, and made his career working on behalf of Edison. Tyldum, who is finishing sci-fi drama Passengers, is looking to start work on the film in January in the UK, with an autumn awards time release pencilled in, though a distributor is yet to hop on board. Given the Oscar talent involved, we doubt that will take long.
Fantastic Beasts, which Redmayne promoted at this weekend's San Diego Comic-Con, will be out in the UK on November 18.
Sicario's Denis Villeneuve is directing the new movie, about we know little save for the fact that it takes place decades after Ridley Scott's 1982 original (itself set in Los Angeles in 2019) LA is now even more sprawling than it was and, as the director told Entertainment Weekly recently: “The climate has gone berserk – the ocean, the rain, the snow is all toxic."
Other details remain a mystery beyond the extensive cast that James now joins. Harrison Ford is back as Rick Deckard, with Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, Dave Bautista and Ana De Armas among the other new arrivals to the world of replicants and flying cars. With shooting set to start soon, the film will be out in the UK on October 6 next year.
The Canadian writer's 1985 novel – once adapted by Volker Schlöndorff in 1990 – is set in a fictional state called Gilead, where religious nutcases have turned women into chattel to be controlled and exploited by the state. With birth rates plunging and women effectively sex slaves, Moss’s ‘handmaid’, Offred, is co-opted into the efforts to repopulate the planet.
Imagine the warped totalitarian state of Children Of Men with religious zealots in control. Wiley will play Moira, a college buddy of Offred’s and now her fellow handmaid-in-training. Max Minghella and Ann Dowd (The Leftovers) are also appearing.
Bruce Miller is the show’s creator, working on a ten-episode run for MGM TV in the autumn. It’ll shoot in Toronto, with Reed Morano (Meadowland) directing the first three episodes, and is set to premiere next year.
The Boy Who Lived is the parallel its creators are using to explain the way they see Mike and the other kids’ stories developing. "We’ve been talking about Harry Potter, even though it's weird to compare,” co-creator Matt Duffer tells Empire. "I like that you're revisiting these kids and watching them grow up on a year-to-year basis.”
Expect the story to pick up right where the first instalment left off. “If Netflix want to do [another run], Season 2 would function almost more like a sequel than it would ‘Season 2’. We're leaving that door open if people like the show."
Warning: mild Season 1 spoilers follow
The first season wrapped itself relatively neatly, with only a thread or two left untied ("We didn't want to do The Killing or the Homeland thing where you stretch one storyline out,” stresses Matt Duffer), but the town of Hawkins, Indiana has many secrets yet to spill. "There’s a mythology in terms of the evil that’s happening in the town that we dip our toes into this season,” expands Duffer, "but it isn’t actually explored: it’s only scratching the surface of what this thing is.”
"Without giving anything away, when you open the door to alternate dimensions, there’s a lot you can do. We’re not really boxed in!"
In other words, if the second season gets the go-ahead, we're all set to find out much more about how that so-called Department of Energy programme came into being, the provenance of the Upside Down, and what made that demogorgon so cranky in the first place.
For much more on the show, read Empire’s full interview with creators Matt and Ross Duffer. Stranger Things is on Netflix now.
Suicide Squad may be adorning the cover of the new Empire but they aren’t the only DC superheroes within. Leading off the issue’s preview section is a new look at Wonder Woman, a Comic-Con standout thanks to its impressive new trailer. Take a closer look below at Gal Gadot’s time-travelling Diana Prince.
Muddied and battle-worn, Gadot crouches amid the carnage of the Western Front. This iteration of the magical-lasso-whirling Amazon sees her plunged into the full-scale mayhem of the Great War, where she’s aiding Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) in a mission that will prove vital to mankind’s very future.
The movie will show how the character, a warrior princess of the Amazons (who is more than 5000 years old), has her first fateful meeting with a human man (Pine's Trevor) and the impact it has on her life, including the decision to largely stay away from us until she gets more involved with Batman and Superman's battle against evil. “She’s seen it all,” Gadot told Empire in January. “She has seen what humans can do, so it was very hard for her to come back and fight.”
With Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Danny Huston and Ewen Bremner also in the film and Patty Jenkins directing, Wonder Woman will be out in the UK on June 2, 2017.
For the full story on Wonder Woman pick up the new issue on sale July 28 – available in all good newsagents. To get future issues like this delivered straight to your door, days before anyone else, complete with exclusive limited edition covers, be sure to subscribe to Empire.
It's perhaps not surprising that Dope director Rick Famuyiwa, who took over in charge of the Flash movie after the departure of Seth Grahame-Smith, might choose to work again with one of his talented cast members. The move comes as more evidence that the film is finally back on track after the sudden directorial change. Iris, in case you've never read the comics or see the TV series, is a journalist friend of Barry's and has, in some plot lines, been more than that (they've been married).
This once again represents the film getting back on track after the directorial switch, with Famuyiwa still working from Grahame-Smith's script draft, itself adapted from a treatment written by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were attached to direct before their schedules became a crazy teetering tower of premium projects.
Clemons' breakout in Dope has led to several jobs, and she's currently shooting a lead role in the Flatliners remake. The Flash should be in production later this year and is expected to dash into cinemas in 2018.
The new movie will be based on the game's basic story, in which the player becomes an agent off the Strategic Homeland Division, which is looking for the origins of a devastating smallpox outbreak. As the Division begins to rebuild its operation in a dystopian New York City, it'll also have to deal with the crime that has popped up in the wake of the epidemic.
There are no further details on what either acting will be playing, though we'd figure they'll be operatives working for the titular organisation. Ubisoft is putting all the pieces in place (so expect a director to be announced soon enough.) And it's just the latest game-to-film project from the company, which also has Assassin's Creed on the way, starring Michael Fassbender.
Chastain has worked on several films recently, including Miss Sloane and The Zookeeper's Wife. She's attached to star in Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut, Molly's Game.
We ain't afraid of no ghosts! Nor, for that matter, are we afraid of no internet trolls! Ghostbusters, the year's inadvertently most controversial film, has finally arrived, and we felt it remiss not to mark the occasion with a bumper Empire Podcast spoiler special.
We have an extensive interview with director Paul Feig – plus our usual spoilery roundtable discussion on what worked and what didn't in the film. As ever, we delve into plot-spoiling details of the entire film from the get-go, so make sure you've seen the film before listening.
You can listen to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page, our SoundCloud page, this RSS feed (please note – we've switched to a new feed) or by pressing play below.
Every Hollywood era seems to have a Ben-Hur to call its own. This one may not have the star power of Charlton Heston’s 1959 version or the groundbreaking action of the 1925 silent, but it’s not short of spectacle. It also has a new trailer to share with you.
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, this latest Ben-Hur pledges to skirt closer to Lew Wallace's book than the 1959 film. It'll chronicle the younger days of Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) and Messala (Toby Kebbell), best friends growing up in Jerusalem. Ben-Hur is a Jewish prince and Messala the son of a Roman tax collector who is packed off to be educated in Rome for five years.
Upon his return, Messala mocks our hero for his religion and, after an accident he pins on his friend, has him sold into slavery. Cue a quest for revenge that includes the chariot race made iconic by the Heston film.
Morgan Freeman is Ildarin, the man who teaches our lead how to be a master at the reins for the races, while Nazanin Boniadi is Esther, Rodrigo Santoro is Jesus and Pilou Asbaek is Pontius Pilate. Ben-Hur is out in the UK on August 26.
Strap yourselves in: it's nearly time for Empire's Suicide Squad issue. We've already debuted three covers – a rather spiffing subscriber-only cover with Harley Quinn, another featuring Jared Leto's Joker, and yet another featuring the full delinquent team. Subscribers should be getting their issues on their doormats from today; the regular issue will be on sale from Thursday July 28. Here's just a taste of what you can find inside.
Suicide Squad
As you might expect, there’s a whacking great sixteen pages on DC’s rogues' gallery of baddies, including interviews with all the key cast and crew (deep breath: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Cara Delevingne, Joel Kinnaman, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and David Ayer). Plus, we delve into the colourful history of the Joker, from Jack to Jared, and everything in between.
Kong: Skull Island
Thankfully, twasn’t beauty that killed this exclusive first look at Kong: Skull Island, a sort-of-reboot of the classic King Kong monster franchise, with a long-term aim to square off the legendary oversized ape against Godzilla. Our first-look pic features Tom Hiddleston (in case you were wondering why a small portion of the internet just exploded) and Brie Larson, in the belly of a certain beast.
Bridget Jones's Baby
Singledom’s finest, Bridget Jones is the subject of an all-singing, all-wine-white-quaffing Empire oral history this month to mark the release of Bridget Jones’s Baby. Renée Zellweger, Sharon Maguire and Colin Firth are your guides through the tao of Bridge.
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them
We Wingardium Leviosa-ed our way to the New York set of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, where we managed to find a glut of exclusive pictures from inside Newt Scamander's suitcase. We also spoke to Newt himself, Eddie Redmayne, and his director David Yates, for this – the first Potter-less Potter prequel.
The 50 Greatest Villains
In honour of our morally dubious cover stars, we thought we’d round up a list of our favourite movie characters: the guys and gals of cinema who have proved really good at being bad. Unlike our usual patented Empire lists, this one was compiled by 26 famous movie villain actors, who were kind enough to take time out from their busy schedules of moustache-twiddling and cat-stroking to cast their votes.
Michael Keaton
Batman, Birdman and now Empire Interview man, Michael Keaton has had a long and storied career. We sat him down, switched on our dictaphone and quizzed him about new film The Founder (in which he plays the man who invented the Big Mac), Spider-Man: Homecoming, Beetlejuice and much, much more.
Aliens
It’s been 30 years since James Cameron reopened the Alien airlock and reinvented the sequel with his follow-up to Ridley Scott’s outer-space horror. For its anniversary, we asked him to tell the story of his great sci-fi actioner.
Sausage Party
A film that will surely make vegetarians of a generation, Sausage Party is an animated film that prides itself on its lack of family-friendliness. The brains behind the filthy affair, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, talk us through the key characters, including Frank the Sausage, Theresa the Taco, and the excellently-monikered Sammy Bagel Jr.
Noel Clarke and Brotherhood
The third part in a triptych that spans a decade, Brotherhood is the latest from that one-man UK film industry better known as Noel Clarke. He tells Empire about the inspirations for the final leg of his urban trilogy.
On.Screen
Star Trek Beyond leads off this month’s big review of new theatrical releases, games and on-demand content. We’ve also run the rule over The Purge: Election Year, The Lonely Island’s Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Pete’s Dragon, Julieta and Stranger Things.
Viewing Guide: High-Rise
Hiddlestoners are well-served in this month’s issue of Empire. We kick off our shiny new Re.View section with a viewing guide to Ben Wheatley’s terrifyingly brilliant High-Rise, including quotes from the director himself, and a shot of Tom Hiddleston almost entirely Hiddlestark-naked.
And that's the tip of an 154-page iceberg! The new issue of Empire goes on sale July 28 – available in all good and anti-heroic newsagents. To get future issues like this delivered straight to your door, days before anyone else, complete with exclusive limited edition covers, be sure to subscribe to Empire (and save yourself a bit of cash in the process).
To paraphrase Will Smith’s line from the Suicide Squad trailer: “So that’s it, huh? Some kind of Suicide Squad cover of Empire featuring the full team line-up, in a world-exclusive image?” Indeed it is, Paraphrased Will Smith!
This is the third of Empire's exclusive covers to showcase DC's ragtag rogues' gallery of anti-heroes. The first, which featured Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn riding a bomb, Major Kong-style, is exclusive to subscribers, and will be plopping on doormats from today. Another – one of two available on the newsstands – features Jared Leto as the heavily-tattooed Joker, looking suitably mischievous.
The covers are merely the tip of a Suicide Squad-ian iceberg for the new issue, which features tons of coverage on David Ayer’s new DC universe film, including on-set interviews with all the key cast and crew – plus on-set access to Fantastic Beasts, and all the usual filmy goodness you’ve come to expect from the world’s biggest-selling movie magazine.
The new issue arrives in all good and anti-heroic newsagents from July 28. To guarantee yourself early delivery of Empire each month, along with this kind of special cover treatment, just sign up for one of the current subscription offers.
For more on Suicide Squad, read our complete primer to DC’s super-villain posse or check out the five comic book story lines to read before seeing the movie. It arrives in UK cinemas on August 5.
Talking with Yahoo Movies at this weekend's Comic-Con (where he was promoting Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword), Hunnam revealed that he had been approached by producer Guillermo del Toro and director Steven S. DeKnight to return, and that initial drafts of the script featured his character considerably. Sadly, it's not the Kaiju threat keeping him from returning, but the age-old problem of scheduling issues. Still, he seems excited to see that the Pacific Rim story will continue.
John Boyega is the lead for the new movie, snagging both the lead role and planning to be a producer. And del Toro has said that the sequel will be expanding the universe of Pacific Rim, blending with other planned stories. "If and when the animated series happens, we are mixing them. In fact the sequel takes some ideas that we created for the animated series originally," del Toro told The Hollywood Reporter. " I think we need to let the live-action lead. When we went with Steven we showed him everything we were developing and he said, ‘I like this from this universe, I like this from this element, I want to bring them into the movie.’ It’s easy to expand cause you have not only the Jaeger-human universe and the Kaiju-alien universe, but (also) the fact that you are now able to play in a very history-filled universe. We started the war with the Kaiju, we won the war with the Kaiju and now it’s a postwar of those two universes."
Pacific Rim 2 (or Pacific Rim: Maelstrom, if it ends up using that title) is currently scheduled to bring the robots vs monsters action back to our screens on February 23, 2018. As for Hunnam, watch the first trailer for King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword.
Though he hasn't released a film since 2013's The Great Gatsby, director Baz Luhrmann hasn't been resting on his probably well-designed laurels. He's been hard at work on a new Netflix series, The Get Down, which features Jaden Smith. The new trailer is below.
The show is set in grungy, gritty, 1970s New York, a much tougher place to live than the law-abiding city it is today... In the South Bronx, a crew of teenagers who have no-one else to turn to find shelter and solace in each other, as they express their own musical abilities at a time when hip-hop, punk and disco are kicking off and pulsing through the culture.
It's an era that fascinated a younger Luhrmann. “Growing up in an isolated town in Australia, I saw New York from a distance as this amazing creative capital with very sophisticated art forms bursting forth," he says. "Yet, it was also a dangerous, and in some ways, broken place in 1977. My first question was a simple one: how did these profound, creative, new gestures come out of this place, this youth, and this geography? So much creativity, so little means. We see so many depictions of the burned out Bronx. But who were these 'kids'? this generation of artists? What great adventure, sense of curiosity, and hope did the adults and the newsreels miss? Fundamentally, this show isn’t simply about the roots of hip-hop or the demise of disco. The ultimate character is childhood – that ‘authentic impulse to action,’ the simple happinesses, and the accidental discoveries that made hip-hop possible.”
The Get Down's cast mixes experienced acting types (Giancarlo Esposito, Jimmy Smits) with a cadre of newer faces including Herizen Guardiola Shameik Moore, Justice Smith, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Skylan Brooks. The whole first season kicks off on Netflix on August 12.
Before he could look to the future, Kevin Feige, boss of Marvel Studios, took a moment to look back, launching the panel with a sizzle reel of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's characters and then introducing the brand new studio logo, complete with a fanfare from one Michael Giacchino (we can only imagine the pun name the music carries: Marvel-ous News? Fanfare For The Uncommon Man And Woman?)
From there, things jumped around in terms of which movies were presented and how far they are away from reaching cinemas. First up? A certain Wakandan warrior king we met in Captain America: Civil War who is set to get his own movie in 2018...
Black Panther
Ryan Coogler, the man who made Creed, admitted it was not his first Comic-Con, but that he "sat way, way, way, way back there!" before. So it was crazy for him to be on stage at Hall H. He and Joe Robert Cole are hard at work on the script, and he seemed truly excited to start making the movie. He's already been busy in pre-production and casting, gearing up to start the cameras rolling in January, but he did bring up the Panther himself, AKA T'Challa, AKA Chadwick Boseman. Boseman himself said he thrilled to be exploring more of T'Challa's character.
But he was not the only person brought up, as Coogler also introduced Lupita Nyong'o, who plays warrior woman Nakia (who in the comics has been both a love interest and a danger to T'Challa), Creed's Michael B. Jordan as Eric Killmonger, who has his name might suggest, does not have noble intentions towards our hero and Wakanda, and, in a new piece of casting, The Walking Dead's Danai Gurira, who we reported on right here.
After some chitchat from the Panther people (including the revelation that, like Boseman, this was Nyong'o's first trip to Comic-Con, whereas Gurira is an old hand), it was time to head to a distant other world. Where a god awaited...
Thor: Ragnarok
After Feige rattled off the damned impressive list of new cast members joining the established Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba and Anthony Hopkins (the newcomers include Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban and Cate Blanchett, not forgetting Mark Ruffalo, who we already knew would show up as Bruce Banner/The Hulk), he confirmed that the film will explain to some degree why Thor and Banner sat Civil War out.
What We Do In The Shadows' Taika Waititi recently started shooting the third Thor in Australia, so there wasn't a cut footage reel to show just yet. But he had sent some treats, including a hilarious spoof short in the Shadows' mockumentary style that purports to show what Thor has been up to. Hemsworth, displaying a similar comedy knack to his work in Ghostbusters, managed to keep the Thunder God's character consistent while turning him into the roommate from hell in Australia for a poor schlub named Daryl. In addition to a little bed in a drawer for Mjolnir (complete with pillow), he took us through a conspiracy thriller-style board for his investigation into the Infinity Stones and his thoughts on "the weird purple guy" (Thanos) who "likes to sit down a lot." There was Daryl roped into writing email correspondence to Tony Stark and Steve Rogers and an awkward coffee meeting with Banner, who was in communication with the rest of the gang, much to Thor's chagrin. We devoutly hope that this will end up as an extra on the home entertainment release, but as a Comic-Con exclusive, it was beyond special.
And then there was a blend of behind-the-scenes footage and concept art for the movie, which showed up some impressive action plans and costumes. Including a gladiator-style armour for the Hulk which has raised some fans' hopes that it means the story will draw elements from the Planet Hulk plot lines. One particularly striking concept shot saw the Hulk leaping to battle a giant creature. Marvel's team brought the armour to the Con's exhibition floor for display at their booth and you can see it below.
The movie itself arrives next year. With that part complete, the screens in Hall H darkened, then expanded, filled with mysterious energy as mist began to pour into the room. It could only mean one thing: either the Fantastic Beasts panel was still going on, or it was time for...
Doctor Strange
As the lights came back up and the mist cleared, there was Benedict Cumberbatch, Dr. Stephen Strange himself, bracing himself for the cheers and screams that habitually greet him at events such as this. After the usual talk of characters, arcs and the like, director Scott Derrickson arrived to explain the comic book's history and how the film will be channeling the weird, trippy energy.
He wondered what he'd done in a former life to deserve the cast, but he still introduced Cumberbatch's co-stars, including Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen and Benedict Wong.
Given that the movie arrives in a few months, Derrickson had a couple of actual, near-finished clips to show. One was Stephen Strange's first meeting with Swinton's Ancient One as part of his quest to heal his injured hands. It shows a light touch in terms of Strange's skepticism and his future mentor's unflappable belief in the mystical arts. She soon starts to change his mind by sending him on a brain-melting trip around the astral plane that include some very 2001-style visuals.
The other scene didn't have anything strange (no pun intended), but did feature a similar vein of humour as the snarky Doctor confronts Wong (played by Benedict Wong), who is some sort of guardian of magical books. "Just Wong?" asks Strange. "Like Adele... Or Aristotle? Drake? Bono? Eminem..." Wong is not impressed, and warns him that if a volume is stolen from the library, it means death. There's some fun interplay about how a late fee might be a maiming and then we get another montage of spectacular action. Doctor Strange makes its presence felt in October here in the UK and November 4 in the States. You can see the new Strange trailer here.
Before Feige could get properly get to talking about the next section of the panel, he was interrupted by a clip montage featuring a character who has just joined the larger MCU and made his debut in Captain America: Civil War. Yup, that famous wall-crawler we'll meet again in...
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Tom Holland (not Tom Holland, Tom Holland or even Tom Hollander) arrived on stage alongside director Jon Watts. Feige announced that they had just started filming the movie in Atlanta and gave a shout-out to Sony and producer Amy Pascal who had helped make the studio alliance possible and opened the door to bringing Spidey into the Marvel universe.
Watts talked up the "ground-level" nature of Spider-Man, as opposed to the gods, monsters and astral plane-walkers we've already met or are about to. "He's just finished puberty," Watts said, much to Holland's comical embarrassment. Did they bring some stuff? "We should really be working now," Watts admitted, before saying they'd shot some of the high school scenes and launched a wonderful, Freaks & Geeks-meets-John Hughes-flavoured look at Peter Parker's school life. He's everything you'd expect from the character: a little awkward, a little obsessed with finding love, a science nerd who secretly works on his web tech during other classes and a good friend. On stage, we got to meet some of his co-stars, including Zendaya, as character named Michelle, Tony Revolori, who will play Flash Thompson (here, as he often is in the comics, an ally for Peter), Jacob Batalon as Ned and Laura Harrier, who is Liz.
The footage briefly also included a look at Spider-Man in action (Peter at one point is watching a YouTube video of his exploits during the Civil War airport fight) and we were treated to a concept art and animatic-boosted set of scenes that included confirmation that the Vulture is definitely one of the big bads in the film, a concept further added to via new art from the film that has since appeared officially online.
With that portion complete, it was back into space again, this time to renew our acquaintance with those brawling, criminal, heroic reprobates whose adventures we continue to follow in...
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2
The exuberant James Gunn bounded on stage to than the fans' commitment to both the movie and those who stayed up for hours in line. After asking Feige what should be happening next, he was interrupted by Come And Get Your Love (from the first film's Awesome Mix soundtrack) piping in through the hall's speakers and the arrival of the Ravagers, including a few new ugly faces. Loosely led by Sean Gunn's Kraglin, they mocked the audience, bantered, bickered and generally set a rude comic tone that worked well.
When the lads were finally corralled (not before tipping over the cast's chairs), Gunn brought out the Guardians' leads, or at least the ones who can actually appear on stage without CGI: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista plus Karen Gillan (back as Nebula), Pom Klementieff (as new character Mantis), Elizabeth Debicki as Ayesha, the golden High Priestess of a genetically-perfect people called the Sovereign), and finally, Kurt Russell, whose character was still a mystery... at least for some of the panel.
Vol. 2 apparently picks up just a couple of months after the first, and finds the Guardians further forming into a squabbling family of sorts. They agree to help Ayesha's people with a big problem, but the deal goes sour quickly. As for Star-Lord this time around? "He’s famous now in the galaxy for having saved so many people, and for what the Guardians did in the first movie,” Pratt said. "He feels like he’s part of this group, a leader of this group. He’s a little more responsible and trying to stay out of trouble, but not necessarily doing the best job."
But his Peter Quill was not the star (lord) of the first clip from the film; that honour went to Michael Rooker's Yondu (who also showed up on stage, in costume), Rocket Raccoon and Baby Groot, who is now able to walk and is clad in the most adorable mini-uniform you can imagine. Yondu and Rocket are in a jail cell for some reason, with the ravagers causing chaos. Baby (Toddler?) Groot needs to get Yondu's experimental new weapon fan (his telepathic head gear that controls an arrow), but the little guy keeps bringing the wrong thing - a cybernetic eye, a gasket, a severed toe... Eventually, he hits the jackpot and Yondu and Rocket break loose, taking out Ravagers as they go.
The second clip saw the Guardians together meeting Russell's character, revealed to be the human-shaped incarnation of Ego, the living planet) who is indeed (spoiler alert), Quill's father. There is much side-splitting talk of penises between Drax, Ego and Quill that has to be seen to be enjoyed in full. Other goodies included a glimpse of Sylvester Stallone on set in character. Tango And Cash reunion!
In addition to the new footage (Gunn has only recently wrapped in Atlanta), there was the announcement that the Guardians will also appear in a new theme park attraction in Disney's California Adventure. There were some grumbles about the fact that Guardians Of The Galaxy: Mission Breakout is replacing the Tower Of Terror, but it could be something fun. It features the main cast plus Benicio Del Toro as The Collector, and the live-action footage was directed by James Gunn. See more about it below, and prepare for the movie's arrival next April.
Before the panel finally ended, Feige gathered all the various actors and directors back on stage for a big selfie, which just so happened to include one final extra person...
Captain Marvel
Yes, after months of speculation and recent word of her being in talks, Brie Larson showed up to confirm that she's playing Carol Danvers. We wrote about Larson being added to the MCU right here, and there wasn't anything more said about it aside from an Instagram picture by Larson captioned, "Just call me Captain Marvel"...
