Mads Mikkelsen On For Survival Thriller Arctic

Mads Mikkelsen On The Empire Podcast Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Mads Mikkelsen Reveals His Character

Joe Penna is directing the film from the script he wrote with Ryan Morrison, and Arctic will find Mikkelsen's character stranded, as the title suggests, in the Arctic. He's encouraged to see that rescue is on the way, but then tragedy strikes.

His choice is then whether to stay in the relative safety of his camp or head out into treacherous terrain and potentially deadly freezing conditions in the hope of salvation.

Penna is rolling the cameras now, and should be on screens either later this year or next, with rights for sale at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival market.

007 In The News: The Battle For Bond 25 Has Begun

Although Sony has been distributing the films since 2006's Casino Royale, their license to distribute has expired. As a result, they now have to get in line with all the other interested parties to impress EON (Everything Or Nothing) Productions' Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and convince them, along with co-owners MGM, that they're the right people for Her Majesty's Secret Service.

According to an article in The New York Times, besides Sony, the other studios vying for the rights are Warner Bros, Universal, 20th Century Fox and, surprisingly, Annapurna, the company behind such films as Her and American Hustle. The theory regarding the latter is that having Bond could be a game-changer for them.

Of course while all of this is going on, Broccoli and Wilson are, at best, hopeful that Daniel Craig will return for one more outing, which would be his fifth following Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre. Virtually nothing is known about the plot of Bond 25, although it is being written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have co-written every Bond film from 1999’s The World Is Not Enough through 2012's Skyfall, while also contributing to Spectre.

Not long ago Purvis spoke to The Telegraph and offered up some of the potential challenges facing the new film creatively. “I’m just not sure how you would go about writing a James Bond film now,” he said. “Each time, you’ve got to say something about Bond’s place in the world, which is Britain’s place in the world. But things are moving so quickly now that that becomes tricky. With people like Trump, the Bond villain has become a reality.”

More recently, actor Jeffrey Wright, coming off of HBO's Westworld, offered up a tweet that suggested he could be returning as CIA agent Felix Leiter in the new film.

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Exclusive New Look At Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge

Pirates Of The Caribbean is setting sail for its fifth voyage soon – and with the new issue of Empire also dropping anchor this week, we bring bounty from Davy Jones’ Locker. Specifically, a brand new and exclusive image from the film known as Salazar’s Revenge here in the UK, and Dead Men Tell No Tales in the US. Take a look below, and click to embiggen.

Here, we see Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, in possibly his final Pirates adventure) squaring up to old sparring partner Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), both of whom have appeared in every film in the franchise thus far. Speaking to Empire, the cast and crew seemed keen to return to the spirit of 2003’s franchise opener, The Curse Of The Black Pearl.

“I like all of the films in the franchise, but the first one is my first love,” says Joachim Rønning, the Norwegian co-director of the new film. “For me, it was important to come back to a character dynamic where it is about relatable, real people — some of the people are real, at least — then Jack Sparrow comes in and crashes the party. It was also very important to bring more comedy back in. I feel like they lost some of the humour. This is Buster Keaton on steroids.”

Buster Keaton on steroids sounds like something we would watch. For the full insane story on Salazar’s Revenge, which takes in script delays, mass vomiting, cast injuries and a homicidal monkey, pick up a copy of the new issue of Empire, on sale from Thursday 20 April. Want to get your copy days before anyone else? Subscribe to Empire here.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge, meanwhile, arrives in cinemas from 25 May.

Empire Podcast: Warren Beatty Interview Special

For an extremely special edition of the Empire Podcast, we sat down with a genuine bona fide one-of-a-kind Hollywood legend: the great Warren Beatty. In town to talk about his new film Rules Don't Apply, Beatty speaks to us for nearly an hour on his life, career, politics – and that Oscars moment.

A true raconteur, Beatty tells us anecdotes of his times with Elia Kazan, Stanley Kubrick, David Lean and Ronald Reagan, from his early career in the '50s and '60s through to his current status as an elder statesman of cinema. For any film fan worth his or her salt, this is an essential listen.

You can listen to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page, our SoundCloud page, this RSS feed or by pressing play below.

Marvel's Cloak And Dagger Gets A New Trailer

Marvel has certainly spent the past couple of years getting down, dirty and gritty with its various Netflix series (the latest of which, the crossover event The Defenders, is coming this summer). It seems that now they're going the Young Adult route with their new series, Cloak And Dagger, for which a new trailer has been released.

Based on the comic of the same name, the focus is on a gradually growing romance between Tandy Bowen/Dagger (Olivia Holt) and Tyrone Johnson/Cloak (Aubrey Joseph), who come from extremely different backgrounds. They're initially drawn together as they develop superpowers, romance following shortly thereafter, but, notes part of the official description, "They quickly learn they are better together than apart — but their feelings for each other make their already complicated world even more challenging." Damn those feelings!

Tandy has the power to unleash light daggers, while Tryone is able to engulf others in complete darkness.

Other cast members include Andrea Roth as Tandy's mother, Melissa; Gloria Reuben as Tyrone's mother, Adina; Miles Mussenden as Tyrone's father, Michael; Carl Lundstedt as Tandy's criminal boyfriend (uh-oh, romantic tension, here we come!), Liam; James Salto as Bernard Sanjo, a friend of Tyrone's; and J.D. Evermore as Connors, described as a detective "with an intimidating secret" (intriguing). The series is created by Joe Pokaski, who served as a writer and executive story editor on Tim Kring's Heroes.

Cloak And Dagger represents just one of several series from Marvel titles expected to be on television in the near future, including the expected-to-return Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., season two of Legion, The Defenders, the untitled X-Men TV pilot, Hulu's Runaways and Inhumans (which will be making its debut on IMAX cinema screens this September).

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Three Exclusive New Alien: Covenant Images Revealed

Alien: Covenant graces the cover of Empire this month – and lurking within the pages of the world’s biggest movie magazine, there’s some planet-sized world exclusives on Ridley Scott’s return to the Alien-verse. As a little extraterrestrial aperitif, we’re happy to share a sneak preview of some of those never-before-seen images below. Take a look, and click each to embiggen. Alien: Covenant’s Xenomorph Stars On Empire’s Latest Newsstand Cover Empire’s Alien: Covenant subscriber exclusive cover revealed. Empire Issue Preview: Alien: Covenant, Pirates 5, Spider-Man: Homecoming

The first image show a mysterious figure on the Engineer’s planet,, unleashing pods previously seen in Prometheus.

Our second image shows Michael Fassbender, returning in one of his dual roles as the android David (“My first question was, ‘Do I get paid double?’” Fassbender quips in the issue), in what appears to be a flashback with Weyland Industries CEO Peter Weyland.

Our third and final image shows the gruesome-looking “Neomorph”, chowing down on a hearty meal. The Neomorph was inspired by Scott’s fondness for nature documentaries on living nightmares, like goblin sharks. “Some of those nature videos are so stomach-churning that they don’t pay me enough to watch them,” shudders Covenant screenwriter John Logan. “But Ridley will see something to do with insects swarming, for example, which eventually finds its way into a movie. Usually there’s some sort of grotesqueness we find interesting.”

This is just a taste of our extensive eight-page coverage on Alien: Covenant – for the full insane story, be sure to pick up a copy of Empire, on sale in all good and malevolent newsagents now. Want to get your copy days before anyone else? Subscribe to Empire here.

Alien: Covenant, meanwhile, arrives in the UK on 12 May.

Scott Derrickson And Carlton Cuse Set For New Locke & Key TV Pilot

Writer Joe Hill Developing Locke & Key As A TV Series Universal Buys Rights To Locke & Key Spielberg Unlocking Locke & Key

Locke & Key, which debuted via IDW Publishing in 2008 written by Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez, is a complex, sprawling tale that has a history going back to the American Revolution. But the focus is on Nina Locke and her children Tyler, Kinsey and Bode, who are trying to start a new life after surviving an unspeakable horror. Trying to rebuild, they move to the family home known as Keyhouse in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. There, they discover magical keys that can open portals that are also being sought by a terrifying, hate-filled creature who has his own designs on the portals.

The project has been as far as pilot stage before, as Fox Television developed it in 2010. It never made it to series, but the title wouldn't go away – Universal looked into making it as a movie. Finally, last year, Hill took matters into his own hands, developing the script along with Cuse, and Derrickson was quick to sign on to direct the pilot when he got the finished draft. If it goes to series, Cuse, who recently finished up working on Bates Motel, will run the show. According to Deadline, Derrickson is scheduled to shoot several episodes should that happen and is then going to be making the Doctor Strange sequel, though that has yet to be officially confirmed or dated by Marvel.