Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Empire

A LOT WENT down in 1999. Neo learned kung fu. Some campers met a witch in the woods. Tyler Durden took his shirt off. A shark tried to cook LL Cool J in an oven. But through all the hype and excitement, one thing reverberated loudest of all. The return of Star Wars. George Lucas could have bought his own planet (Georgonosis?) with his riches from the original trilogy and retired in peace. Instead, he poured his soul into three new films, flipping the formula so that they started with triumph (well, Gungans having a party) and ended with tears, death and a politician smirking. The movies caused a few tears themselves, some fans left feeling bereft by their digital sheen, the baroque supporting characters, the dialogue about sand. Undeniably,…

SHOWRUNNER BEAU DEMAYO didn’t need to rewatch X-Men: The Animated Series when he started work on its sequel; he’d binged it all during the pandemic. “I don’t know if there would be an MCU without this show,” he says of the popular Saturday-morning series which ran from 1992. “It’s the grandfather of everything we see today.” With the memory fresh in his mind, DeMayo went out to the desert in Joshua Tree National Park and thought about the essential elements they needed to retain for the new show. The relationships between the characters; the fact that they had faced adult problems in a kids’ cartoon, from race to the AIDS crisis; the exciting powers that could be combined in cool new ways: these were key. Speaking with Empire, DeMayo and…

Ben Travis (Deputy Online Editor): This film will surely have to continue with a world where dinosaurs and humans are living together, which was set up in the new trilogy but not fully explored. Or they have to completely reboot the franchise and ignore everything that’s ever happened in it. Nick de Semlyen (Editor): The tricky thing that they have to contend with is that these aren’t big kaiju films with humans battling dinosaurs. Right from the original film they established that these are animals rather than monsters, so you can’t have, say, a tank fighting a T-Rex. I quite like the idea of ‘Jurassic Galaxy’. It’s too dangerous to have a park on Earth, so send all the dinosaurs to space. Ben: ‘Jurassic Planet’ would be mad. I want…

PLAY DIRTY LaKeith Stanfield has joined Mark Wahlberg as the co-lead in Shane Black’s crime thriller. The film, based on Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels, follows Wahlberg’s professional thief and Stanfield’s actor and conman as they take on various foes. It’s due to begin filming early this year. HONEY, DON’T Aubrey Plaza will star alongside Margaret Qualley and Chris Evans in Drive-Away Dolls director Ethan Coen’s next picture. Plot details are hush-hush thus far, but the film — co-written by Coen with long-time collaborator and wife Tricia Cooke — is reportedly a Dolls-esque comedy. Honey, yes! ANIMALS Long-time creative partners and lifelong besties Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are re-teaming for a new Netflix-bound crime thriller, with the former directing the latter à la 2023’s Air. This latest team-up centres…

TO GET UNDER the skin of former wild and crazy guy Steve Martin, documentarian Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom) wanted to chart both his emergence as a stand-up superstar and his life today. “I just kept thinking, ‘These things feel different,’” he says, “‘so why don’t I let them be different?’” Rather than one film, the result is Steve! (Martin): A Documentary In 2 Pieces. Here’s how Neville used two distinct methods to find the ‘real’ Steve Martin. THEN Part One deals with Martin’s rise as a comedian. For Neville, “It was this isolated, archival story of this man in time,” inspiring the filmmaker to document this period of Martin’s life through old clips and voiceover. Starting with hours of in-person audio interviews with Martin, Neville worked on the…

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? I was 13, and George C. Scott snuck up on me after a performance on Broadway. I was doing Seesaw. He was doing Uncle Vanya. I was in the middle of an interview afterwards in the theatre restaurant, and he came up behind me —this big man with all this weight on my back, whispering in my ear. He was kind of toasted. And he said, [puts on a gruff George C. Scott voice], “Don’t do it. Don’t do it!” I go, “Who is this guy behind me?” The interviewer, her mouth had dropped open, she was staring. I went, “Wait a minute, I know that voice.” And he turns his face into mine, looks me right in the eye, and says,…

★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 119 MINS DIRECTOR Yuzuru Tachikawa CAST Shôtarô Mamiya, Amane Okayama, Yuki Yamada For almost every transcendently beautiful moment in Blue Giant, where music and animation work in breathtaking concert with each other, there’s one that feels out of tune. As the film follows a trio of jazz musicians looking to hit the big time, its big musical sequences are spectacularly imagined; you can see the great ideas housed within each scene even at their most awkward-looking. But there are glaring imperfections in its sporadic use of 3D animation — a distracting bum note in otherwise thrilling performances. When it all comes together — abstract musical imagery warping and stretching with flashes of colour, as the realistic detail of the imagery melts away —…

★★★★★ OUT NOW (APPLE TV+) / EPISODES VIEWED 9 OF 9 SHOWRUNNER John Orloff CAST Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Barry Keoghan, Nate Mann, Anthony Boyle, Raff Law, Ncuti Gatwa PLOT In World War II, the 100th Bomb Group of the USAAF must fly into occupied Europe on strategic missions. Not everyone makes it home. WE ARE SPOILED with blockbuster telly in the streaming era —but back in 2001, there was nothing quite like Band Of Brothers. HBO’s grand adaptation of Stephen Ambrose’s non-fiction World War II tome was, at the time, the most expensive television series ever mounted. Epic in budget, in scale, in scope and in stars, it boasted ten stunning episodes on a breadth rarely seen on TV. Bolstered by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks —fresh off of…

★★★★ OUT NOW (PRIME VIDEO) / EPISODES VIEWED 5 OF 6 SHOWRUNNER Lulu Wang CAST Nicole Kidman, Ji-young Yoo, Sarayu Blue, Jack Huston In her first major outing since The Farewell, Lulu Wang brings her astute eye to this broader, starrier venture. Based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s novel The Expatriates, this follows three women: Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), a young Korean-American wrestling with guilt; Hilary (Sarayu Blue), a wealthy housewife struggling with fertility complications; and Margaret (Nicole Kidman), whose life was shattered by the disappearance of her youngest child. Through interweaving stories, the series interrogates the dynamics of the über-wealthy community and the largely female domestic workforce hired to clean their homes, cater their parties and care for their families. It all makes for a vivid study that lays bare the…

★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / CERT 15 / 107 MINS DIRECTORS Kibwe Tavares, Daniel Kaluuya CAST Kane Robinson, Jedaiah Bannerman, Hope Ikpoku Jr, Teija Kabs, Demmy Ladipo, Cristale, BackRoad Gee PLOT In near-future London, Izi (Robinson) and Benji (Bannerman) look to leave their dilapidated London housing estate, known as ‘the Kitchen’. THE KITCHEN —NAMED for the rebellious, run-down fictional housing estate it is set in —is the latest entry in a relatively small sub-genre: British social-realist sci-fi. Set in a London in which the government have all but given up looking after tenants of the aforementioned vast Brutalist edifice, except to deploy violent police raids, the film sees debut directors Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares offer a credible near-future for the capital, while examining present-day issues. The lure of gangs…

★★★★ OUT NOW (PRIME VIDEO) / EPISODES VIEWED 8 OF 8 SHOWRUNNERS Donald Glover, Francesca Sloane CAST Donald Glover, Maya Erskine, Parker Posey, Michaela Coel, John Turturro, Paul Dano, Alexander Skarsgård, Sarah Paulson, Ron Perlman PLOT John (Glover) and Jane Smith (Erskine) were married before they ever met. Paired by a mysterious spy organisation, they take on deadly missions while navigating newly wedded life. CO -CREATORS DONALD GLOVER and Francesca Sloane’s take on Mr. & Mrs. Smith flips the 2005 Doug Liman movie on its head. That sexy, frothy blockbuster followed a married couple who discover they’re both secretly working as assassins and their whole relationship has been based on lies. Here, the core couple are still undercover agents, but they enter into marriage knowing that, and pretty much only…

“IT TOOK YOUR bloody head off!” bellows Brian Blessed down the phone line, as only he can. The legendarily bushy-bearded 87-year-old actor is recounting for Empire the first time he saw Star Wars: in 1977, having been made aware of the film from a “great big billboard at Snow Hill railway station in Birmingham”, Blessed sallied forth to the first cinema he could find. An avowed science-fiction nerd and keen space enthusiast — “I am actually a fully trained astronaut”, he notes several times during our conversation — he found himself transfixed. “Here was something totally, completely original. It was by far the finest science-fiction film I’d ever seen.” Blessed hoped to be cast in the original trilogy, but suspects his iconic role in the similarly space-operatic Flash Gordon in…

SUPERYACHTS. OSCARS. LAVISH parties. The life of Leonardo DiCaprio is hardly relatable. But back in 1999, he was just like us: hooked on Star Wars toys. The tie-in merch deluge for The Phantom Menace was vast, and at 1.30am on May the third (so close), DiCaprio was papped in the Santa Monica branch of Toys R Us, buying a trolley-load of Episode I collectibles. He got an Amidala doll. He got a Trade Federation Droid Fighter. And yes, he got a classic yellow N-1 Starfighter. Excitement for Star Wars’ return was inescapable even in the upper echelons of Hollywood (though DiCaprio reportedly turned down the chance to play Anakin). We hope he didn’t kick the habit —anyone else reckon the LEGO Star Wars UCS Venator was top of his 2023…

I JUST RECENTLY found my physical copy of ‘The Beginning ’, the script I reviewed on Ain’t It Cool that got me banned from Skywalker Ranch for over a decade. At the time I wrote about it, it was one of four physical copies of the full Phantom Menace script anywhere (hence that working title). If you didn’t live through the dark times after Return Of The Jedi, you don’t understand. Star Wars was dead. For yeeeeeeears. The announcement that they were finally making new films drove me a little crazy. I wasn’t alone. I lived two blocks from Hollywood’s Chinese Theatre, where a small army of lunatics lined up on the street for a full month. The internet was still relatively new and this created a new level of…

THE SCALE After the challenge of conjuring a 600mph tear through an alien desert, the production team had hoped for a bit of a breather on Attack Of The Clones. “George promised us: ‘Episode II is a love story, there won’t be anywhere near the same level of [visual] challenges,” laughs McCallum. “And then... he tells us about Geonosis.” In creating the vast Petranaki Arena —in which Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padmé are sentenced to death on the planet Geonosis —the designers, looking for some Ancient Roman splendour, once more went back to Ben-Hur. “With anything big, cinematically, the first place you go is Ben-Hur,” grins McCallum. “It’s such a classic that we always go back and try to steal from it.” A soundstage was promptly erected to represent the gladiatorial…

“EVERYONE KNOWS THE ‘Death Sticks Guy’,” beams Matt Doran. “It’s such a short scene, but it’s amazing just how many people reacted to that one little tiny moment.” For the Star Wars-challenged, the ‘Death Sticks Guy’ is actually called Elan Sleazebaggano, the most nominatively determined character in cinema history. Uttering only three lines, the bequiffed scallywag tries to peddle thinly veiled cigarettes to Obi-Wan at the Outlander Club. In Attack Of The Clones’ funniest moment, Obi-Wan plays a Jedi mind trick, sending Elan scuttling off to “rethink his life”. Shooting at Fox (now Disney) Studios, Sydney, Doran, best known at that point for playing Mouse in The Matrix, remembers, “It actually took longer to get past the security gate than to shoot the scene.” The props team had created Death…

AS DIRECTORIAL CAMEOS go, George Lucas’ long-awaited bow in a Star Wars movie is perhaps not quite up there with your average Hitchcock appearance or, indeed, his own turn in Beverly Hills Cop III as ‘Disappointed Man’. As Anakin Skywalker rushes into the space opera to hear Chancellor Palpatine pontificate about Darth Plagueis The Wise, he passes a bunch of bystanders; two of whom are Baron Notluwiski Papanoida (Lucas) and his daughter, Chi Eekway (played by Lucas’ daughter, Katie). They’re on screen for about seven seconds, and do nothing. Yet this is the beginning of a significant recurring character in the Star Wars universe. Well, maybe not that significant, but Baron Papanoida did show up (voiced by Corey Burton) in an episode of The Clone Wars. Beat that, Hitchcock. CHRIS…

"I WAS SCREAMING. 'ABSOLUTE POWER! GEORGE SAID. 'GO FURTHER, GO FURTHER! SO I DID." SENATOR, SUPREME CHANCELLOR, SITH Lord, Emperor. Whatever title you know him by, Star Wars’ cowled puppet-master is the undisputed architect of all your pain. Every plot, scheme, and dark-side contrivance, from the opening crawl of The Phantom Menace (onerous taxes!) to the grand finale of The Rise Of Skywalker (the Sith Eternal!), bears the fingerprints of Sheev Palpatine’s inSidious machinations. Of course, none of that was mentioned —or even imagined —when a 37-year-old Scottish stage actor sauntered blithely into a London production office in 1981 for a chat with George Lucas. We’d already met the Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back, but that iteration — a holographic chimaera of two different actors —clearly wasn’t going to…

3 BODY PROBLEM? THE SHOWRUNNERS WERE SCARED. But that’s just how they liked it. Fear is exactly why David Benioff and D.B. Weiss picked The Three-Body Problem —title reconfigured for the screen as 3 Body Problem —as their follow-up to Game Of Thrones. Cixin Liu’s trilogy of novels is hard sci-fi, heavy on the theoretical physics but seriously lacking in sexy green aliens or lasers that go pew-pew. It starts during China’s Cultural Revolution and finishes at the end of the universe, with flashbacks to ancient history through a virtual-reality game. The alien threats are often invisible, though later books pose the challenge of depicting artefacts that exist in five, or six, or ten dimensions, rather than our native four. Even the title refers to a problem with no solution.…

TITAN OF THE US Independent Scene™ John Sayles hadn’t seen his 1996 masterpiece Lone Star with an audience for years. But, after watching it recently at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles in a spiffy new Criterion Collection restoration, he seems pleased with his handiwork. “I don’t really rank our movies,” he says. “But I was very happy with the casting. I was very happy with the music. When I think of the films, I think of the experience of making them and some experiences were nicer than others. This was one where we had enough money.” The idea started percolating in Sayles’ mind nearly 20 years before shooting, when he was on location for Joe Dante’s Piranha, doing rewrites on the screenplay and appearing in a cameo as ‘Sentry’.…

LEE CHILD’S HAD enough experience of writing Jack Reacher to know that he’s the last person in the world who should write Jack Reacher. For the big and small screens, that is. That’s for damn sure. “Quietly, secretly, I’ve written stuff for movies,” he tells Empire. “I had a long spell of story-doctoring, and you have to got to be so brutal. You cannot do that to your own work. Book writers who do their own screenplay, it is 99 per cent guaranteed to be overlong, too baggy, not good enough.” Of the 28 Jack Reacher novels Child has written (the four most recent ones with his brother, Andrew), four have been adapted — two as films, starring Tom Cruise, and two as Prime Video series starring Alan Ritchson. And…

THE SPIDER-MAN MOVIES 1Before Sam Raimi brought Spider-Man to the big screen in 2002, a made-for-television movie was produced in 1978. Who starred as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in that? 2 What is the first line we hear Peter Parker say in Spider-Man? 3Who played Flash Thompson in Raimi’s original Spider-Man? 4 Who were the villains in James Cameron’s famous scriptment for a Spider-Man movie? 5 What links the following characters: Ring Announcer, Snooty Usher and Maitre d’? 6 In Spider-Man: Homecoming, who voices Peter’s AI assistant, Karen? 7 Which Spider-Man movie has made the most money at the worldwide box office? 8 In Spider-Man: Far From Home, what does E.D.I.T.H. stand for? 9 In the Spider-Verse movies, which number is assigned to Miles Morales’ Earth? 10 In Spider-Man: No Way Home,…

A MAGNIFICENT MAN WRITES I just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying receiving my magazine. It’s a delight to receive something tangible that you can read, and cut out bits to keep. As an ‘older’ person, the first film I saw at a cinema was Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines. Empire’s brought me back in touch with the world of current cinema, and to that end I’ve got back into visiting my local one on a regular basis. Great movies deserve our attention on a BIG screen! ALAN LETTS, EASTBOURNE Heartily agree, Alan! Please enjoy some more big-screen experiences on us with this Picturehouse membership. We’re now angling for a re-release of Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines. Empire’s star letter wins a Picturehouse Membership, valid…

THERE IS A Joker movie due out this year you’ll have heard of —Joker: Folie À Deux, from DC Films. But there is another Joker movie on the slate: The People’s Joker, a chaotic mixed-media parody movie which re-imagines Batman’s greatest foe as a trans woman in Gotham City embarking on a coming-of-age romance. Shot in just five days, it is totally unauthorised by DC —and was very nearly banned. “This is every lawyer's favourite movie,” Vera Drew, the film’s star, writer, director and producer tells Empire, before deadpanning: “It was obviously my childhood dream to make a movie like that.” The People’s Joker had its foundations in a “horror movie about a drag queen that was physically addicted to irony”, eventually evolving into its current form: a “kind of…

LET’S GET ONE thing straight: Godzilla and Kong aren’t exactly best mates. In 2021’s royal rumble Godzilla vs. Kong, they knocked seven bells out of each other before begrudgingly uniting to battle Mechagodzilla. But with villainous mega-primate Skar King bringing the thunder in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, returning director Adam Wingard explains how the MonsterVerse’s headlining heroes are joining forces —and upping their game together. GODZILLA “Godzilla’s going through an evolution,” states Wingard. Case in point: that brand-new pink palette, part homage to “the colourful, outlandish Showa[-era]” films, part personal pick from the filmmaker. “Pink’s just my favourite colour, to be honest,” he says. “Our editorial room has pink Christmas lights.” GxK (as Wingard calls it) offered a chance to reinvent the character’s look. The transformation will be…

THE BEAST IS the kind of vast, conceptual movie that defies loglines. Set across three eras — 1910, 2014 and 2044 —the film wrestles with themes of love, death, reincarnation and fear. Even its star, Léa Seydoux, has to take a pause when summing it up. “This is the first time that I’m speaking about this, so you need to be patient,” she laughs. The film —directed by Seydoux’s long-standing collaborator Bertrand Bonello —is loosely adapted from Henry James’ The Beast In The Jungle. The novella follows a man whose life is dominated by the fear of something terrible happening to him. It’s a fear embodied by Seydoux’s Gabrielle, who travels through her past lives in a bid to cleanse her DNA of emotion to secure work in the future,…

BEFORE THE TRAILER dropped for the new film from impish horror filmmaking duo Matt Bettinelli- Olpin and Tyler Gillett (collectively known as Radio Silence), precious little was known about it, other than it was a monster movie made by Universal Pictures. Which got tongues wagging about the nature of said monster. Was it a werewolf ? A Creature From The Black Lagoon? And then, about a minute into Abigail’s preview footage, the matter was somewhat settled as its seemingly sweet title character reveals a mouth filled with fangs. “We kidnapped a fucking vampire,” says Melissa Barrera, before Kathryn Newton’s character adds the all-important capper: “A ballerina vampire!” Yes, folks, Abigail is about a young ballerina —played by Matilda’s Alisha Weir —who turns out to be a vampire, much to the…

LARRY DAVID IS a sweetheart. The real Larry, that is, not the misanthropic version at the centre of Curb Your Enthusiasm, now in its 12th and final season. While that character of Larry is a genius of social disruption, the actual Larry, speaking to Empire over Zoom from his office in Los Angeles, is disarmingly relaxed and affable, sitting in front of book-shelves full of memorabilia, including a Seinfeld clapperboard. This writer/creator Larry puts his fictional counterpart through some extraordinary extremes in this swansong season, even by Curb standards. “I enjoy anything that I find funny,” says David, explaining his raison d’être. “I love yelling at people. I love people yelling at me. Nothing makes me laugh harder than people cursing me. I can’t get through scenes when people call…

15 FEBRUARY-13 MARCH 2024 | EDITED BY JOHN NUGENT WATCH FIRST The lead character, Hirayama, shares a name with the protagonist of Yasujirô Ozu’s film, 1962’s An Autumn Afternoon. Wenders — who made a documentary about Ozu, Tokyo-Ga — has said that it is “not a coincidence”. ★★★★ OUT 23 FEBRUARY / CERT PG / 123 MINS DIRECTOR Wim Wenders CAST Kōji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano, Aoi Yamada PLOT In Tokyo, toilet cleaner Hirayama (Yakusho) has a simple life, with everything just so… until an unexpected interruption brings change. SOCIETY SNIFFS AT repetition, in its place prizing spontaneity and surprise. We are sold newness and adventure. How boring it is, we’re told, to do the same old thing, day in, day out, forever. But what if routine makes us…

★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 104 MINS DIRECTOR Reinaldo Marcus Green CAST Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Tosin Cole, Umi Myers, Anthony Welsh, Nia Ashi, Aston Barrett Jr., Anna-Sharé Blake, Michael Gandolfini PLOT In 1976, Bob Marley (Ben-Adir) is a global reggae star. As he starts work on his next album, he embraces a level of fame that is bigger than him. IN HIS SHORT life, Bob Marley undeniably achieved a huge amount. He ushered reggae music into the mainstream, recorded albums that have sold over 75 million copies, became an iconic, globally recognised megastar, and spread a message of peace and unity. He died at just 36, at the peak of his fame. He’s ripe for a biopic, and in King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s…

★★★★ OUT 23 FEBRUARY / CERT TBC / 100 MINS DIRECTOR Michel Franco CAST Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard, Merritt Wever, Brooke Timber, Elsie Fisher, Josh Charles, Jessica Harper PLOT A recovering addict (Chastain) with a traumatic past lets her walls down for a sweet, handsome man (Sarsgaard) with early-onset dementia. DESPITE THE FACT that Michel Franco’s new film focuses on an alcoholic grappling with the lingering effects of child abuse, Memory may well be his most buoyant work yet. The Mexican director, known for his violent and unforgiving plots (After Lucia, Chronic), is often considered something of a cinematic sadist who enjoys inflicting as much pain as possible onto his characters. This time, however, his trademark brand of screen cruelty finds a more optimistic narrative —almost feel-good in its theme…

★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 139 MINS DIRECTOR Matthew Vaughn CAST Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Bryan Cranston PLOT Author Elly Conway (Howard) writes spy books about Agent Argylle (Cavill). When it emerges there’s truth to her fiction, real-life agent Aidan (Rockwell) steps in. MATTHEW VAUGHN HAS never played by the rules. Whether it’s his penchant for independence, eschewing the traditional studio system, or his gleeful genre subversions (superhero tales in Kick-Ass, fantasy adventures in Stardust, spy movies in Kingsman), he prefers doing things his own way. With Argylle, he basically subverts himself —it might be another film in the espionage arena, but here he tempers his tendency for ultra-violence and gross-out gags for a rug-pull-heavy romp boasting surprising sweetness; a Vaughn…

★★★★★ OUT NOW (SKY COMEDY) / EPISODES VIEWED 9 OF 10 KILLER QUOTE "Balls are disgusting. They're hideous. It's like having the Elephant Man under your penis." LARRY (LARRY DAVID) SHOWRUNNERS Larry David, Jeff Schaffer CAST Larry David, Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman, JB Smoove, Richard Lewis, Tracey Ullman, Vince Vaughn, Cheryl Hines, Sienna Miller, Sean Hayes PLOT Larry (David) becomes a national liberal hero after breaking an arcane voting law in Georgia, but he faces a trial as a result. LARRY DAVID WILL do pretty much anything to get a laugh. In the opening episode of this 12th and final season of Curb, he spends most of the time wearing a pair of incongruous horn-rimmed ladies’ glasses after his old friend Auntie Rae (Ellia English) tries his specs on and…

★★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / CERT TBC / 92 MINS DIRECTOR Sean Charmatz CAST Jacob Tremblay, Colin Hanks, Paul Walter Hauser, Angela Bassett, Ike Barinholtz, Natasia Demetriou, Carla Gugino PLOT Young boy Orion (Tremblay) is terrified of the dark. One day, Dark (Hauser) comes to life — and shows him that there’s more to life than his fears. CHARLIE KAUFMAN’S LAST film, I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, ended with a naked elderly janitor stalking the corridors of a school while a maggot-infested pig waffled on about physics. It’s safe to say his latest, a family-friendly animation from the makers of The Boss Baby, is not that. And yet, this is still recognisably A Charlie Kaufman Film. He serves only as screenwriter — first-timer Sean Charmatz has the directing reins —but…

"I WAS REALLY THRILLED THAT I WAS GONNA GET TO EXPRESS GEORGE'S MAPPING OUT OF HOW SOMEONE GOES FROM GOOD TO BAD." THIS IS WHERE THE FUN BEGINS. For years, we’d wondered —dreamed —how it happened. How the almost mythical figure, Anakin Skywalker —Luke’s dad! —came to be clad in pitch-black armour, serving as the right-hand enforcer of galactic tyrant Emperor Palpatine, and striking fear through the hearts of everyone in the galaxy, Force-choking his way across the stars. Then finally, after over two decades of us pondering it all, George Lucas’ prequel trilogy was announced, promising to answer our feverish, lingering questions. The one chosen to play the Chosen One was Hayden Christensen, destined to lead Star Wars down a bold new path and bring balance and empathy to…

NO ‘BEST LIGHTSABER Fights’ list is complete without Darth Maul versus Qui- Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and John Williams’ ‘Duel Of The Fates’ score takes it to hyperspace. The anthemic earworm begins with an attention-commanding brass fanfare that heralds Maul’s arrival, and only gets more thrilling from there. The 88-piece choir and the orchestra span the full spectrum from hushed to thunderous, with Williams’ repeated, ferocious melody bringing ominous atmosphere, and a propulsion that builds in intensity as the fight continues. Meanwhile, Sanskrit chants add to the sense of pagan religiosity that gives the track its mysterious vibe and a sense of inevitability. It’s rare for a piece of score to transcend its origins, but ‘Duel Of The Fates’ earned that distinction. And then some. AMON WARMANN…

QUI- GON’S NOBLE end, as we all know, came at the hands, and blade, of Darth Maul, the Jedi Master breathing his last on the cold floor of the Plasma Refinery Complex in Naboo. Somebody had to lose the Duel Of The Fates, after all. Qui-Gon’s noble beginning, by stark contrast, came when Liam Neeson sat down with George Lucas in a London restaurant. The purpose of the meeting was, ostensibly, to discuss the possibility of Neeson starring in the first Star Wars movie in over a decade. “Really all we talked about over lunch was the rearing of our children,” recalls Neeson of the “very practical and cool” Lucas. “Star Wars was not mentioned once.” Clearly, though, something about Neeson impressed Lucas. Perhaps it was his track record of…

BUT A NUMBER, age is. The final reel of Attack Of The Clones is proof that you’re never too old to throw down —Christopher Lee was 80-odd when he unleashed Count Dooku’s (or, Darth Tyranus’) Sith Lord skills. And Yoda? Well, he wasn’t far off 900, still managing to front-flip and back-flip and twirl his way through a lightsaber battle that blew minds back in 2002. The original trilogy’s puppet Yoda holds the character’s fuzzy-felt heart, but his CGI iteration in Clones proved much more nimble —no longer restricted to being Luke Skywalker’s backpack, able to careen across the screen and prove his status as an all-out Jedi Master. Lee, meanwhile, relishes every ’saber-swipe, in a duel that could previously only have played out in fanboys’ BEN TRAVIS…

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY THE PHANTOM MENACE A 12-year-old Knightley made her movie debut as Amidala’s bodyguard — and lookalike decoy — Sabé. Bend it like Padmé. RICHARD ARMITAGE THE PHANTOM MENACE The one-day Thorin Oakenshield spent one day filming and apparently couldn’t find himself in the film. Freeze-frame, Richard! ROSE BYRNE ATTACK OF THE CLONES Another of Amidala’s doubles, Byrne played Dormé (who, in later comic books, swore revenge after her mistress’ death). SOFIA COPPOLA THE PHANTOM MENACE Coppola was only on set to watch her dad’s friend George work, but he asked if she fancied joining the royal entourage. Result. CELIA IMRIE THE PHANTOM MENACE As Naboo fighter pilot Dineé Ellberger, Imrie distinguishes herself in battle. Also, her line delivery of, “Roger, Bravo Leader,” is on point. DOMINIC WEST THE…

THE LANDSCAPE It’s fitting that Anakin and Obi-Wan’s big bout takes place on a lava planet, given the volcanic emotions at play. And to authentically bring Mustafar to life, the crew went after the real deal. “We had this lucky break —Mount Etna erupted in Italy, so we sent a cameraman out to film it,” producer Rick McCallum recalls. “He spent three days there, he got every spurt of lava coming out —some of them hundreds and hundreds of feet high. So almost all the shots of lava exploding are real.” The finished sequence makes it look and feel like the duel is happening in the bowels of hell. In reality, it took place across seven different soundstages, with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen fighting, climbing, and swinging from one…

WINTER 1973 George Lucas sits down to tap away at a script outline. Titled ‘Journal Of The Whills’, it begins with some soon-to-be-abandoned lore: “This is the story of Mace Windy, a revered Jedi-bendu of Ophuchi, as related to us by C.J. Thorpe, padawaan learner to the famed Jedi.” The first Star Wars character ever to be named on paper, Mace was put to one side but not forgotten. C.J., on the other hand, was consigned to the dustiest room in the Jedi archives (though she might just have inspired the name of a West Wing character). SUMMER 1977 Star Wars comes out in cinemas. In New York, a 28-year-old theatre actor named Samuel L. Jackson catches a daytime screening. “Yeah, I was high,” he recalled to Empire in 2018…

“I told you I was trouble,” sang Amy Winehouse. Which was a bit of an understatement. Throughout her devastatingly short career, she tore through the world, always without compromise, always on her own terms. With her new film, Sam Taylor-Johnson wanted to pay tribute to that spirit. “What we didn’t want to do was a traditional biopic, which Back To Black is definitely not,” says the director. Winehouse was hardly a traditional 2000s pop star, and was famously frustrated by lazy attempts to bracket her work alongside the likes of other turn-of-the-millennium female singers like Katie Melua or Dido. And rightly so — Winehouse was the real deal, writing raw poetry which she sang with a remarkable contralto voice that seemed to belong to someone not only older than she…

1 WONKA (OUT 4 MARCH, DVD/BR/4K/DIGITAL) One of the great joys of last year came right at the tail-end, as Paul King brought much of that Paddington magic to this prequel, which saw Timothée Chalamet sing and dance his way around a storybook city as a young Willy Wonka. As uplifting as a hoverchoc, with great Neil Hannon songs and pure imagination all over the shop. 2 DREAM SCENARIO (OUT 4 MARCH, DVD/BR/DIGITAL) Unfairly overlooked in this year’s Oscar race, Kristoffer Borgli’s startling debut film has at its core a truly great Nicolas Cage performance, as an unassuming college professor who finds himself showing up in people’s dreams and becomes a celebrity as a result, until it all comes crashing down. Borgli beautifully navigates the tonal shift from absurdist comedy…

Chris: So, the Scream series. The franchise that began under director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson way back in 1996. It gets a lot of props for its meta approach to slasher films, but it did a lot more. It introduced the idea of an opening kill, and a whodunnit. Mike: It’s such a fun format. It’s one of the most consistent horror franchises. Helen: There are no bad Scream movies. But there are less good Scream movies. What’s impressive is not just the meta angle, and the way people know the rules of horror movies and the killers are mostly motivated by those same rules. That’s exciting and cool, but they also work as slasher movies. Ghostface has an incredibly iconic design, and there are legendary kills. Chris:…

PETER SOHN: “There’s a scene in Lawrence Of Arabia that invokes such passion, where Anthony Quinn says, ‘I am a river to my people!’, and he gestures to the tribe that’s outside the tent. And there’s energy coming from them, and the cut to Peter O’Toole is so electrifying as he’s getting adrenalised by the connection this man has with his people. That always blew me away. The game is trying to capture electricity on celluloid, and David Lean did it better than almost anyone.” INT. AUDA ABU TAYI’S TENT – NIGHT Invited to dine with Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn) in his tent, T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole), Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) and Majid (Gamil Ratib) have just finished a meal. Outside, hundreds of Auda Abu Tayi’s men sit. Auda…

ALEX GARLAND IS no stranger to genre mischief. His three films as director, Ex Machina, Annihilation and Men, have all featured fantastical elements: murderous, sentient robots, alien shimmers and, well, men giving birth to men from unexpected orifices. His latest, Civil War, though, looks a little more down-to-earth. “I’ve seen it described as sci-fi, but I don’t see it as sci-fi at all,” he tells Empire. “There’s no ‘sci’ in it, for a start.” Whatever you want to call it, the film, starring Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny and Jesse Plemons, doesn’t seem any less discomforting than his back catalogue, focusing on violent unrest across America: an uprising which sees the White House under attack. Here, Garland tells us what he’s exploring. THE STATES Despite the lack of “sci”, the film…

IN THE OPENING moments of a Gladiator 2 trailer, Barry Keoghan is shown in armour, staring into the distance. "I'll finish your quest for you," he promises via voiceover, before a spectacular battle sequence and rousing soundtrack kick in. Yet, despite it drawing over a million views on YouTube, this is no authorised preview for the Ridley Scott sequel (Keoghan is not even on the official cast list). Instead, it's the handiwork of a concept-trailer creator, who mashes together pre-existing movie footage with their own effects to make videos with a huge global reach. "It's really quite complicated," says Screen Culture's Nikhil Chaudhari of the process. His channel, which was launched in 2018, puts out daily videos teasing everything from Stranger Things' fifth season to the non-existent 'Iron Man 4'…

LAST OCTOBER, KATHRYN Newton had the kind of pinch-me moment that only Kathryn Newton could have. The actor was visiting Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood, where her body-swap slasher Freaky had its own maze featuring extras dressed up as her weapon-wielding, serial killer-possessed character. “It was my version of having a Disney princess ride,” she tells Empire happily. Horror has been a constant presence throughout Newton’s career, from her first leading movie role in 2012’s Paranormal Activity 4 to the upcoming Abigail, in which she plays a member of a criminal crew pitted against a ballerina vampire. Yet there’s a twist: Newton is, in fact, a total scaredy-cat. She recalls her first frightening trip to the movies, where she watched the Diablo Cody-penned Jennifer’s Body. “I was so scared…

SEVENTY YEARS INTO his screen career, Godzilla remains a monster box-office draw. While the US MonsterVerse franchise continues to evolve, original Japanese studio Toho has conquered the world with its latest homegrown film, Godzilla Minus One —an international hit that’s received unanimous acclaim, a worldwide haul north of $100 million, and even earned an Oscar nomination. “Right now, I’m finally feeling a little bit of relief,” its director, writer and visual-effects supervisor Takashi Yamazaki tells Empire. “For the longest time in my career, I was the director who wanted to make a Godzilla film. Now I’ve become the director who has made a Godzilla film.” And it only cost a reported $15 million — perhaps even less, as Yamazaki has hinted on X. “I don’t know if I can go…

IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING Del Toro has been trying to make a Frankenstein film happen for years. The Mexican fabulist and lifelong Frankenstein superfan first struck a deal to adapt Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Promethean tale with Universal back in 2008. Then, after ultimately swerving that ‘Dark Universe’-shaped bullet, del Toro resurrected the project in 2013 with Benedict Cumberbatch mooted to star. Now, a decade later, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is finally heading to Netflix. The cast assembled in late January in Toronto, putting out a group photo from a restaurant. IT’S ALIIIIIVE!!! IT WON’T BE LIKE BRANAGH’S FRANKENSTEIN For starters, del Toro publicly promised back in 2008 that, “Compared to Kenneth Branagh, I will not appear shirtless in the movie!” And, though plot details for this new adaptation…

★★★ OUT 23 FEBRUARY / CERT 15 / 100 MINS DIRECTOR Thea Sharrock CAST Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Joanna Scanlan, Malachi Kirby, Lolly Adefope, Timothy Spall PLOT In 1920s England, Rose Gooding (Buckley) protests her innocence when Edith Swan (Colman) accuses her of sending insulting anonymous letters. “THIS STORY IS more true than you’d think,” a title card informs us with a wink at the beginning of Wicked Little Letters. Based on a real case of poison-pen missives shocking the Sussex seaside town of Littlehampton in the 1920s, the film attempts to act as a kind of paean to British eccentricity, particularly a national propensity for swearing with gusto. It also portrays a nation on the brink of societal change, reeling from the horror of the First World…

★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 164 MINS DIRECTOR Siddharth Anand CAST Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor For the past few years, director Siddharth Anand has delivered some of the biggest blockbusters in Indian cinema, including last year’s record-breaker Pathaan. His latest, Fighter — an attempt to capitalise on the success of Top Gun: Maverick — wears its jingoistic patches proudly on its jumpsuit. The plot is simple: an evil terrorist group is attempting to cause trouble in Kashmir. Only our brave pilots stand in their way. Will their love of country and dedication to each other save the day? You already know the answer. Subtle this is not, but it delivers what you’d expect from an Indian military blockbuster: excitement, passion and a level of patriotism that’s…

★★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / EPISODES VIEWED 8 OF 8 SHOWRUNNER Brad Falchuk CAST Michelle Yeoh, Sam Song Li, Justin Chien, Joon Lee An assassination attempt leaves Triad gang leader Big Sun (Johnny Kou) in a coma; his eldest offspring, deadly enforcer Charles Sun (Justin Chien) is forced to protect his oblivious mother Eileen (Michelle Yeoh) and younger brother Bruce (Sam Song Li). With a decapitated head floating in a fish tank adorning the show’s poster, it’s obvious from the get-go that the Suns have more skeletons in the closet than most. Yeoh revels in her role, but it’s in the warmth of the bond between the brothers that the heart of the series lies. The action, meanwhile, is hugely inventive: elaborate (and extremely violent) set-pieces to rival Warrior or…

★★★ OUT 1 MARCH / CERT TBC / 101 MINS DIRECTOR Zelda Williams CAST Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano, Henry Eikenberry, Joe Chrest, Carla Gugino PLOT Lisa (Newton) is a lonely teenager looking for love and purpose. She finds it — and more — in the resurrected corpse of a young man (Sprouse). IT IS AMUSING to imagine how Mary Shelley’s scientist character Victor Frankenstein, with his dogged scientific pursuits and intellectual achievements, might react to giving life to something as haywire and horny as Lisa Frankenstein. Director Zelda Williams and writer Diablo Cody make it feel like a bit of ano-brainer: surely the only reason for reanimating a rotting corpse (a handsome one, mind you) is to give purpose to your lonely little life? Lisa Frankenstein is dubbed…

★★★★ PC, PS4, PS5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE, XBOX SERIES X|S THE PRINCE OF Persia franchise was last seen with 2010’s The Forgotten Sands, a return to the well-loved Sands Of Time continuity, but one that mainly served to complement that year’s cinematic outing. Neither movie nor game set the world alight, though, and the series went dormant. Alot rides on The Lost Crown, then. But rather than play it safe and serve up something familiar, developer Ubisoft Montpellier has gambled on a revamp that returns to the series’ earliest 2D roots, taps narrative elements from later 3D adventures, and wraps everything in a striking new visual style. It’s a risk that, overall, pays off. Tapping into Persian mythology, players control Sargon, a young warrior in the elite Immortals cadre. When…

THE BEEKEEPER ★★ “The film seems desperate to want to be in on the joke. But you’re far more likely to be laughing at it than with it. Why is the former director of the CIA talking about honey? Why is an FBI special agent discussing pollination methods?” JOHN NUGENT THE BOYS IN THE BOAT ★★★ “The film [pictured] would have done better to take its own mantra to heart, and focus on the fellowship of boys in the boat. As it is, it’s a pleasant introduction to a fascinating bit of history, but no world-beater.” HELEN O’HARA LIFT ★★ “By stifling Kevin Hart’s seasoned comedy-fuelled charisma, this stylised crime caper is a turbulent ride. Stay for Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s righteous action skills, which should propel her to bigger and bolder…

THE CONCEPT George Lucas has always had a need for speed. The man behind 1973 hot-rod classic American Graffiti is an avid F1 fan —so it’s hardly surprising that when he set about plotting an action set-piece for The Phantom Menace, his mind drifted to racing. “George told us three years before filming started that he wanted a race,” says Rick McCallum, Lucas’ producer on the prequels. “He freaked us out slightly by saying the vehicles should go at 600mph...” Thus was born the Boonta Eve Podrace, taking place in the Tatooine desert of Mos Espa, in which pre-teen slave —and surprisingly capable driver —Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) would win his freedom. Lucas wanted to blend the glamour and danger of Ben-Hur’s chariot race with the spiky, ultra-competitive trash-talking associated…

PART-TERMINATOR, PART-octopus, part-Muppet, the Sith’s goofiest warrior has become an internet favourite. His mere presence raises infinite questions. Why does a cyborg wear a cape? Why the cough? How come he has the eyes of a snake? Did he start off as a humble Cadet Grievous, slowly rising up the military ranks? Seriously, why’s he got a cape? Frankly, such mysteries only add to his aura of slithery cool. His backstory suggests he was trained in his dark arts by Count Dooku, raising the enjoyable image of Christopher Lee scowling as he watches Grievous practising his villainous scuttle. The robo-rotter’s behind-the-scenes backstory is just as colourful: originally the role was earmarked for Gary Oldman, who revealed recently while promoting Slow Horses that he even recorded the dialogue, only to see…

JUSTICE FOR JAR JAR. When The Phantom Menace debuted, Star Wars fans did not react well to Ahmed Best’s gangly Gungan. They wanted Jedi being cool. They got a big-eared, blithering buffoon. Lucas chopped Jar Jar’s screen time for Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith, but those films could have done with more of Jar Jar Binks’ playful slapstick to mitigate the murk of Anakin’s downfall. Jar Jar, like the Ewoks, was a character conceived by Lucas to appeal to the younglings and, if you’ve ever had the chance to watch him with a child, boy does he hit that demographic. They love him, and so should we. After years of being a (literal) fall guy, he deserves a renaissance. Maybe even his own show. ’Tis demanded…

THE SPIRIT OF Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan Kenobi looms large over the original Star Wars trilogy —literally, since he’s a Force ghost for most of it. So when Ewan McGregor was cast to play the younger Obi-Wan in the prequels, the pressure was on. “Everybody felt the importance of it,” he reflects now, in-between takes on upcoming drama series A Gentleman In Moscow. After a quick, “Hello there,” we asked him to revisit four of young Kenobi’s most memorable moments. THE MAUL BRAWL THE PHANTOM MENACE The ‘Duel Of The Fates’ sequence has gone down in Star Wars legend —Jedi Master Qui- Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi facing off against Darth Maul (Ray Park) and his double-bladed lightsaber. After Qui- Gon is taken out by Maul, it…

AFTER THE DERRING-DO of the original trilogy, Star Wars fans didn’t necessarily expect “taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems” to be a major part of the prequels. But when you think about it, it shows commendable ambition. The means by which a republic could fall into fascism was something that clearly fascinated George Lucas, and it’s chilling to see Palpatine undermine democracy from within. Across three films, the fiendishly clever Sith Lord outplays the well-meaning Chancellor Valorum and his allies. Worse, he persuades every good guy to support him at some key moment. Watch the trilogy from his point of view, and this is a triumph of Machiavellian manoeuvring, not a tragedy, and all our favourite heroes are in fact his unwitting patsies. HELEN O’HARA…

BULLET TIME First to bite the Jedi dust is Jedi Council member Ki-Adi-Mundi. Adding further fuel to the ‘clone troopers can’t shoot for shit’ debate, they shoot him in the chest, despite him having a head the size of a small truck. TAKING THE FALL Twi’lek Jedi Aayla Secura is also gunned down in cold blood, on the planet of Felucia (bye, Felucia), falling to the ground in a frankly unconvincing manner, not unlike Larry David pretending to faint. ON YOUR BIKE On Saleucami, Stass Allie falls foul of her allies, as two speeder-bike-riding troopers slam on the brakes, let her get ahead, and then kill her. A violation of the Highway Code, yes. But as an execution of Order 66? Perfect. FULL BLAST Another Council mainstay bites the dust,…

J.A. BAYONA’S HAUNTING, evocative and beautiful Society Of The Snow is the very definition of a passion project. The Spanish director has been trying to adapt Pablo Vierci’s retelling of the legendary true story of the members of an amateur Uruguayan rugby team who managed to survive against all the odds after their plane crashed into the Andes from the moment he read it, while prepping his second movie, The Impossible. That he’s now finally done it marks the end of a ten-year odyssey that has seen him plot his path from his Spanish-language debut, the horror The Orphanage, to a series of English-language movies and TV shows —A Monster Calls, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power —that combine his facility for the…

SEASON 2OF What If…?, the animated show that presents alternative outcomes of key moments in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was something of a belter, with an all-star cast (mostly) returning to voice surprising, striking, and funny developments for their characters. Supervising director Bryan Andrews is already working hard on Season 3, but took time out to talk Empire through the key episodes. EPISODE 1: WHAT IF…? NEBULA JOINED THE NOVA CORPS This one was the result of a major, and late-in-the-day, switcheroo. Initially, Episode 5, a direct sequel to a Season 1 episode in which Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter became a super-soldier instead of Steve Rogers, was meant to kick off the season, to reinforce Peggy’s status as its de facto lead. Instead, this episode —featuring Karen…

SICKBED NOIR LAST OCTOBER, AFTER three years of dodging the viral bullet, I finally got Covid (a fairly mild case) and was forced to spend a couple of weeks self-isolating. This gave me a chance to work out what my personal version of comfort-viewing is. It turns out the answer is film noir. I spent over a fortnight in a slightly dissociative state watching non-stop black-and-white movies with tough guys in fedoras and slinky dames up to no good. Often, the titles alone are enough to conjure up a mood —Night Has A Thousand Eyes, Between Midnight And Dawn, The Dark Past, Escape In The Fog, Drive A Crooked Road, I Wake Up Screaming, The Devil Thumbs A Ride, Phantom Lady. This was the black-and-silver swirling abyss which opened up…

WHEN DANIEL LEVY wrote a karaoke scene in his big-screen directorial debut, Good Grief, he knew there was only one song that would fit the bill: Elton John’s beautiful 2001 ballad, This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore. With its opening lyrics (penned by Bernie Taupin), “You may not believe it, but I don’t believe in miracles anymore”, it’s the perfect song thematically for a man (Levy’s Marc) coming to terms with the sudden and shocking death of his husband. But that’s not the only reason Levy chose it. “It’s a song that I actually sing at karaoke,” he says. “I knew it was in my range. I knew I could pull it off. Theoretically.” And he does indeed, in a scene that may have been set in a Paris karaoke…