Table of contents for January 2023 in Empire

HUNG OUT WITH CATE BLANCHETT Empire’s Olly Richards spoke to Cate Blanchett this month for TÁR — her performance is already being spoken of as an Oscar frontrunner. We also enlisted Mary McCartney to photograph her at Abbey Road Studios. See page 80. CRACKED THE CASE WITH RIAN JOHNSON Empire’s Chris Hewitt spoke to writer-director Rian Johnson this month for Glass Onion, the latest Benoit Blanc whodunnit. If you, too, suspect foul play, listen to the interview in an upcoming episode of the Empire Podcast — and read our glowing review of the film on page 32. HOSTED A LORD OF THE RINGS SPECIAL SCREENING We hosted an epic finale episode screening of The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power and a Q&A with the showrunners and cast,…

SOME SUPERHEROES HAVE legendary foes. Spider-Man, Batman and the X-Men, say, have no shortage of nefarious ne’er-do-wells to pit their wits against. And then, on the other side of the coin, is Ant-Man. Marvel’s mightiest mini-Avenger may have been around since the ’60s, but even seasoned comic-book fans might struggle to name more than two classic Ant-Man villains. There’s the guy with the yellow jacket (whose name, helpfully, is Yellowjacket) and… no, it’s gone. This is something of which Peyton Reed was aware when he sat down to figure out Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, the third MCU movie to follow Paul Rudd’s tiny titan. “It felt like I wanted to pit Ant-Man against an all-timer antagonist,” he tells Empire. And they don’t come much more all-timey than Kang The…

HER MOTIVATION WAS CARROTS “She hadn’t read the script, because Jenny isn’t great at reading. They’d use her favourite food, carrots, to make her do what Martin [McDonagh, director] needed her to do for the scene. But ultimately, if the donkey didn’t want to do it, Martin had to work around it.” SHE GOT ROWDY WITH COLIN FARRELL “Yes, Jenny did kick him. They were shooting a scene where Colin is feeding Jenny and Minnie the pony together. Jenny had never had to share anything before and got a little agitated. Colin, in fairness, took the kick like a man.” SHE’S ALREADY RETIRED “Martin didn’t want her to be commercialised after the film. He wanted to protect her from [the spotlight]. So she’s now retired, in a field in another…

LEE UNKRICH — DIRECTOR of Toy Story 3 and Coco — saw Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining at the impressionable and perhaps unhealthy age of 12. He became immediately obsessed, searching for Shining screenplay drafts, reading about deleted scenes and hunting down rare photos, ultimately making it his lifelong passion, resulting in Easter eggs in the films he worked on for Pixar (Sid’s carpet in the original Toy Story might look familiar). And for the past ten years he has worked on an exhaustive three-volume Taschen book about the haunted-hotel horror film: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, comprising new interviews and countless photographs. Not a moment of the production has been, well, overlooked. We asked him to tell us the stories behind some special shots. 1. FROZEN IN TIME The penultimate shot…

IF DANIELLE DEADWYLER hasn’t landed on your radar yet, her performance in Till will ensure she is soon going to. With her searing portrayal of Mamie Till-Mobley, a mother demanding justice for the racial violence inflicted on her murdered child Emmet (Jalyn Hall), Deadwyler’s work looks set to carry her straight to awards season. She walks Empire through the roles that prepared her for this powerhouse performance. THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS (2013-2021) Tyler Perry’s soapy crime drama saw Deadwyler play fan-favourite La’Quita ‘Quita’ Maxwell, a short-tempered antagonist grappling with the mysterious absence of her brother. “I know girls like her, I’ve had feelings like her,” says the actor. “Somebody who’s doing everything they possibly can to get by, even if it might be fucked up.” Quita might be…

John Nugent (Reviews Editor): This film is already funny to me because it reminds me of Mindhorn. Ben Travis (Deputy Online Editor): It reminds me of 30 Rock, where Tracy Jordan is always talking about his mind-grapes. Alex Godfrey (Features Editor): There’s also that thing in Bowfinger, isn’t there? Nick de Semlyen (Editor): Chubby rain? Alex: No, Mindhead. Nick: I feel like there’s a big Seven vibe here, but they should call it ‘Fourteen’ because it looks twice as good. James Dyer (Digital Editor-In-Chief ): Look at the expression on that priest, given he’s just found a dead body covered in feathers. He looks mildly perturbed at best. Alex Godfrey: He’s going, “That’s not Jesus?” James: “There’s something up with this, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.”…

IT’S BEEN OVER 20 years since Haley Joel Osment’s Cole whispered, “I see dead people,” in M. Night Shyamalan’s milestone horror The Sixth Sense. In that time the filmmaker has brought us superhero movies (Unbreakable, Glass), a lavish psychological thriller TV show (Servant) and a gnarly body horror (Old). Now with Knock At The Cabin, a home-invasion story, the filmmaker appears to be going back to those stripped-down, scary roots. “I’m drawn to older ways of telling stories,” Shyamalan tells Empire. In this case, the story is loosely adapted from Paul G. Tremblay’s The Cabin At The End Of The World, which sees a vacationing family pressured to make a horrific decision by a mysterious group convinced that the apocalypse is coming. Shyamalan originally boarded the adaptation as producer and…

25 NOV - 16 DEC BIG SCREEN. SMALL SCREEN. YOUR REVIEWS BIBLE STARTS HERE ★★★★★ EXCELLENT ★★★★ GOOD ★★★ OKAY ★★ POOR ★ AWFUL ★★★★ OUT23 NOVEMBER (CINEMAS), 23 DECEMBER (NETFLIX) / CERT TBC / 139 MINS DIRECTOR Rian Johnson CAST Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista PLOT Eccentric billionaire Miles Bron (Norton) invites his favourite friends and “disruptors” to a private Greek island for a murder-mystery party. When a guest actually dies, it’s up to detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) to once again solve the case. WHETHER YOU’RE A detective or a director, taking on a new case is always tricky. The last time Rian Johnson made a sequel (2017’s The Last Jedi), he nearly broke the…

★★★ OUT 25 NOVEMBER (CINEMAS), 2 DECEMBER (NETFLIX) / CERT TBC / 112 MINS DIRECTOR Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre CAST Emma Corrin, Jack O’Connell An early-20th-century novel deemed so salacious it was banned from publication until 1960, Lady Chatterley’s Lover has long been an exciting prospect for film adaptation. Now attempting to faithfully translate to the screen the carnality and desire between Constance Chatterley (Emma Corrin) and her lover Oliver Mellors (Jack O’Connell) is Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (The Mustang), who brings a keen eye for sensuality. Corrin and O’Connell shine, but there is a disappointing lack of truly hot-blooded eroticism in this version, which feels underwhelming. Still, while not offering anything revolutionary to the period drama, it is a mostly engaging watch, lit up by moments of visual beauty. CQ…

★★★★ OUT 25 NOVEMBER (CINEMAS) / 9 DECEMBER (NETFLIX) / CERT PG / 117 MINS DIRECTORS Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson CAST Gregory Mann, David Bradley, Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton, Ron Perlman, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro PLOT Ten years after his son dies, Italian sculptor Geppetto (Bradley), wracked with grief, carves a new boy from a pine tree. Introduced to a world of fascism and exploitation, Pinocchio (Mann) is encouraged to do as he’s told — but he’s not totally on board with that. EARLY ON IN Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, in a church, the little wooden boy — agnarly, twisted, ramshackle figure, new to the world but already causing consternation due to his mere appearance and unruly behaviour — peers up at a huge, wooden…

★★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 105 MINS DIRECTORS Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman CAST Cheryl Isheja, Elvis Ngabo, Bertrand Ninteretse For their directorial debut, Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman have built an Afrofuturist vision of identity. It focuses on the character of Neptune, as they begin a binary-blasting transitional journey, changing hands between actors Elvis Ngabo and Cheryl Isheja, singing poetic songs to liberate their voice after society has suppressed it. The fluidity of Neptune Frost extends into every dimension of its craft: it is set in Burundi but shot in Rwanda; the songs and dialogue weave between Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Swahili, French and English. It moves visually between natural landscapes to digital ones, from spiritual calm to neon-coloured urban junk. Neptune Frost finds cohesion in its messiness, throwing everything…

★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 106 MINS DIRECTOR Mark Mylod CAST Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Ralph Fiennes, Hong Chau The Menu begins as a dressing-down of opulence before transforming into a trashy genre thriller. It may not be very thrilling, but it’s surprising and amusing enough, following newly minted couple Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) as they arrive on a secluded island for an exclusive fine-dining experience courtesy of world-famous chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). The concept menu turns oddly personal, as Slowik waxes poetic about his philosophies and imbues his theatrical presentation with a violent streak. The film is delightfully silly at times, even if the unfurling plot fails to gather much tension or momentum. While Fiennes’ delectable performance belongs in a gourmet thriller, The…

★★★★ OUT 2 DECEMBER / CERT 15 / 89 MINS DIRECTORS Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne CAST Joely Mbundu, Pablo Schils, Alban Ukaj, Charlotte de Bruyne Revisiting themes explored in 1996’s The Promise, the Dardennes unflinchingly confirm that migrants are regarded as money-spinning workhorses by Europe’s predatory underworlds. Joely Mbundu and Pablo Schils excel as the children who tell the Belgian authorities they are siblings, despite respectively hailing from Cameroon and Benin. But the Dardennes are more concerned with their mistreatment by a drug dealer and a trafficking church official. By setting the tragedy in an everyday urban locale, they also implicate the viewer’s apathy in allowing such injustice. This could happen in anyone’s back yard. Simmering with fury, this is social realism at its most damning. DP…

HOW DO YOU go about making a sequel to one of the greatest superhero films? The answer: you double down. 2018’s Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse matched game-changing animation with a bold story following Miles Morales, an Afro-Latino kid who learns how to be Spider-Man when he’s bestowed with powers. A sequel was inevitable — but producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller had bigger plans than that, because with great power comes... the power to make two sequels. Indeed, Miles’ next story has been split in half, beginning with Across The Spider-Verse — amovie which, Lord and Miller tell us, is even more pioneering than the original... Why make this a two-part story? Lord: I guess we’re gonna get asked this a lot, Chris! You’re gonna get a raw answer. The…

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR SOME NOT-SO-SERIOUS ROLE-PLAYING JOHN FRANCIS DALEY and Jonathan Goldstein would like to share a secret about their upcoming movie, Dungeons & Dragons. “We have no dragons or dungeons,” reveals Goldstein. “Yeah,” adds Daley. “We’re just trolling our audience!” They’re joking, of course. And, as the writer-director duo behind Vacation and Game Night, this is hardly the first time. Which begs the question: how have two comedy guys wound up doing an epic fantasy adventure featuring more magic and monsters than you can wave a wand at? “It all starts with character,” replies Goldstein. “It doesn’t matter what genre it is. What makes the audience care is, ‘Who are we following and why should we invest in them?’ That’s always been our approach, regardless of the size and…

PART FOURS ARE notoriously difficult to nail. For every Avengers: Endgame (farewell, Tony), there’s a Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol (farewell, Mahoney). This is something Chad Stahelski was keenly aware of while figuring out where to take John Wick fourth time around. says Stahelski, who has directed all four Wicks. “Because now we have a formula that works. But you have to throw caution to the wind and say, ‘Fuck it, we’re not doing that again.’ So now, on number four, we have multiple storylines. The movie feels different. It feels more epic.” “It gets a little scary after the third one,” Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, he was not in a fit state for an epic. In fact, he was as close to death as he’s ever been…

Pa-pa, pa-pa, pa-pa, pa-pa-papapa, pa-pa, pa-pa, pa-pa, pa-paaaaa – PA! The iconic Pearl & Dean theme — ‘Asteroid’ by Pete Moore if you’re interested — was one of the many soundtracks to the teenage life of Sam Mendes (also see: The Specials, Haircut 100). At his local Oxford fleapit during the early ’80s, he hoovered up the big movies (Indiana Jones and 007 obvs) and the smaller ones (Being There, Raging Bull), all the while devouring his cine-snacks of choice: Maltesers and Liquorice Allsorts. But, looking back, Mendes realises this movie-going habit was not just about catching the latest Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor buddy-comedy. “It’s the whole experience,” he says. “It’s the place, the atmosphere of the place, the posters for other movies, the trailers, the adverts. It was as much…

SIGOURNEY WEAVER How did you first imagine the Na’vi? Why blue? I wanted to do a story set on an alien world that was both beautiful and terrifying, but I wanted the audience to experience it through the eyes of the Indigenous people. So, I did a lot of research on Indigenous cultures all over our world, and tried to draw some common denominators, such as their innate reverence for the living world around them, and their methods for cooperation and conflict resolution, as well as their spiritual traditions. I wanted the audience to side with the Indigenous people and see the humans as the invaders from space who were ravaging their world. A flip on all the ‘aliens invade Earth’ stories we grew up with. I was betting that…

NOT MANY PEOPLE — hardly any, in fact — will get the chance to attend their own funeral. For obvious reasons. For Brian O’Halloran, that wasn’t the case. When it came time to hoot the funeral of his character, Dante Hicks, in Clerks III, he was there. Not watching from a distance, like a ghost, but right slap-bang in the middle of the action as one of the mourners, observing Jeff Anderson — who plays Randal Graves, his best friend/arch-nemesis since the first Clerks — give a heartfelt eulogy, complete with heart-tugging topper: “You weren’t even supposed to be here today.” “It was a public cemetery,” explains O’Halloran. “Wardrobe put me in a suit, so anyone who had a long lens wouldn’t be able to spoil it. We had to…

CLASSIC SCENE Standout sequence from the great movies INT. WASHINGTON POST NEWSROOM — DAY Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) are talking about their investigation into the Watergate break-in. Woodward is at his desk, on the phone, trying to get through to President Nixon’s spokesman, Ken Clawson, to verify an important piece of information. Suddenly, a voice appears on the line. CLAWSON: Ken Clawson. WOODWARD: Mr Clawson? This is Bob Woodward. Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post had a conversation with a White House librarian on some books a Mr Howard Hunt took out on Senator Edward Kennedy. She first said that Howard Hunt had taken out books on Senator Kennedy and then she denied even knowing who he was. I was wondering if you’d like to…

IF STEVEN SODERBERGH hadn’t been replaced as the director of Moneyball, Magic Mike may never have come to be. Instead of helming the Brad Pitt-fronted sports movie (eventually directed by Bennett Miller), the filmmaker moved onto Haywire and, while speaking to star Channing Tatum, saw instant opportunity in a throwaway comment. “It’s crazy,” Soderbergh tells Empire. “Just one sentence. He said to me, ‘Oh yeah, I’m working on this idea of when I was a stripper in Tampa when I was 19.’” Two films, a stage production and a reality-TV show later, the pair are embarking on the final chapter in the Magic Mike franchise: Magic Mike’s Last Dance. It’s been a journey that’s taken up over a decade of their lives, and that began with an important lesson for…

“IT WASN’T LIKE Apocalypse Now, but there were some challenges to making that film,” reflects White Noise’s choreographer David Neumann. And nothing was more daunting than the huge, supermarket-set dance scene that plays out at the end of Noah Baumbach’s film, featuring Greta Gerwig, Adam Driver and many more. Here, Neumann and Gerwig reveal to Empire how this adaptation of Don DeLillo’s satirical novel ended up culminating in a grocery-store boogie. THE COLLABORATION Gerwig — askilled dancer — discovered Neumann’s choreography when she was an 18-year-old student in New York, catching a performance of his work. “I remember seeing this mix of dance and theatre and thinking, ‘That’s exactly what I want to do,’” she says. The actor followed his career for years, before introducing him to Baumbach, her partner.…

THE PREDATOR PREY The thrilling prequel welcomed back the Predator like an old friend, albeit one with a terrifying headpiece that accentuates their fanged alien mouth. This impenetrable helmet proves a challenge for Amber Midthunder’s Naru. THE ORCS THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER With Sauron’s hordes getting a headgear upgrade, this variety of bony bonnets, one with a sharp fin, one with some impressive rivets, quickly became Middle-earth’s must-have accessory. ATTUMA BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER If your brawny deep-sea villain isn’t wearing a hammerhead-shark-inspired helmet, is he even a deep-sea Atlantean villain? Namor’s ally Attuma is this big blue sea army’s MVP. BETH WEBB…

“YES, I AM. I’m tired,” says Florian Zeller. How could he not be? The Father, 2020’s heart-shattering drama about dementia, saw Zeller serenading 2021’s awards circuit for quite some time, with the film receiving six Oscar nominations, winning two. All the while, though, he was prepping his follow-up, and here it is already. “It’s my way to be alive, to work and to dream, to have a big part of my life taken by work,” he explains. “That’s how I breathe.” Like The Father, The Son is another adaptation of one of Zeller’s own plays, but despite the title, there is no connection between the characters, even though Anthony Hopkins appears in both. The Son focuses chiefly on Hugh Jackman’s Peter, attempting to juggle a high-powered job, a relationship with…

ON LANDING THE ROLE My mum found this advert for a role on her teaching page on Facebook, and sent in a photo of me. After that I had to go to Glasgow twice for auditions — and then I got the part. I’d never done any acting before at school — it was brand-new and so cool. ON WORKING WITH PAUL MESCAL He’s still one of my best friends. When we weren’t filming we’d hang out in our trailers and just sing Olivia Rodrigo together. ‘Good 4 U’ was our favourite. We had a lot of handshakes as [our characters] Callum and Sophie and hung out loads before filming, which helped us get closer to each other. And we practised a lot of breathing and mindfulness with the director,…

★★★★ OUT 25 NOVEMBER (CINEMAS), 16 DECEMBER (PRIME VIDEO) / CERT 15 / 98 MINS DIRECTOR Nikyatu Jusu CAST Anna Diop, Michelle Monaghan There’s much to admire in writer-director Nikyatu Jusu’s feature debut: a haunting atmosphere, and the African folktales of Anansi the Spider and the water spirit Mami Wata. But beneath the surface is some thematically rich storytelling encompassing Black womanhood and the struggles of the American Dream, anchored by a captivating performance from Anna Diop as Aisha, the nanny of the title. Veering away from Get Out territory, Jusu’s film offers a distinct voice, as horror clichés are ditched for a focus on Aisha's life and the African diaspora. Its slightly muddled plot and somewhat rushed ending lightly threaten to undo that profound work, but Jusu does enough…

★★★★ OUT 25 NOVEMBER / CERT 15 128 MINS DIRECTOR Maria Schrader CAST Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, Ashley Judd PLOT New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor (Kazan) and Megan Twohey (Mulligan) begin work on a new investigation: several women, off the record, speak about years of sexual abuse at the hands of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. But what will it take for them to speak on record? JOURNALISTS ARE RARELY interesting enough to be the centre of a film. There’s a reason we tell other people’s stories — shining a light on incredible, singular human beings doing things the world previously thought impossible. But as with Spotlight or All The President’s Men, sometimes the journalists become the story. Such as five years…

★★ OUT 16 DECEMBER / CERT PG / 90 MINS DIRECTOR Toby Genkel, Florian Westermann CAST Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, Himesh Patel, David Tennant Given that it’s adapted from a Terry Pratchett tale, it makes sense that The Amazing Maurice displays moments of real smarts. The tale of a precocious cat running a Pied Piper-style hustle with a troupe of rodents and a human companion begins by drawing attention to its own framing device, and frequently breaks the fourth wall from there. But despite a self-aware screenplay and a super-starry voice cast (David Tennant plays a rat named Dangerous Beans), Maurice is bound by generic animation and ties itself in narrative knots, firing off in multiple directions, too distracted by deconstructing itself to tell an engaging story. Add in gratingly…

★★★ OUT NOW (NETFLIX) / CERT 12A / 129 MINS DIRECTOR Harry Bradbeer CAST Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Louis Partridge, Helena Bonham Carter This sequel to the YA Netflix hit retains much of the charm from the first movie. There’s playful action and quick-witted humour — especially in Enola’s casual breaking of the fourth wall, which makes the most of Millie Bobby Brown’s impeccable comedic timing — and a complex mystery that cleverly ties into Victorian historical events. Brown and Henry Cavill’s Sherlock retain their great chemistry, but the story loses momentum in its efforts to set up a potential third film, and several characters feel wasted, including Helena Bonham Carter’s Eudoria and Louis Partridge’s Lord Tewkesbury. Despite the missteps, it’s still a solid successor filled with satisfying twists…

★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 121 MINS DIRECTOR Phyllis Nagy CAST Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara Director Phyllis Nagy — best known as the screenwriter of Todd Haynes’ Carol — brings humour and heart to this fictionalised story of the Jane Collective, a group who provided safe but illegal abortions during the late ’60s. Housewife Joy (a wonderful Elizabeth Banks) is denied a legal abortion even though her pregnancy will almost certainly kill her, and finds a literal lifeline on a poster telling her to “Call Jane”. She’s soon enveloped by the warmth of Sigourney Weaver’s group leader Virginia, and is inspired to join the movement. Hardly as revolutionary as the activists from whom it draws inspiration, Call Jane is nonetheless a charming, compassionate story…

★★★★ EPISODES VIEWED 5 OF 10 OUT NOW (APPLE TV+) SHOWRUNNERS Mark Boal, Jason Horwitch CAST Jessica Ann Collins, Luke Evans, Michiel Huisman, Bradley Whitford, Martina Gusmán PLOT While researching psychedelic drugs in a Colombian jungle, American scientist Amber (Collins) is kidnapped by rebel forces. Her brother Bambi (Evans) and husband Prince (Huisman) — both elite special-ops soldiers — take it upon themselves to rescue her. But there are larger political forces at play. “THIS ISN’T JASON Bourne,” says a character in an early episode of Echo 3. It feels like a pointed observation, and an unusually meta piece of writing for a show that generally leans towards groundedness. But it’s true: this is not Jason Bourne. While at first glance it might seem to share some tough-as-nails DNA with…

IN 2001, THE American Samoa football team lost 31-0 against Australia. They were an awful team, comprised of an eclectic gang of misfits, with little idea of how to successfully play the game. Then charismatic Dutch football coach Thomas Rongen was drafted in to attempt to turn their fortunes around. All of this was chronicled in 2014’s joyful documentary Next Goal Wins, which has now been dramatised by Taika Waititi — and the results sound very Taika Waititi… What made you want to make this film? It was the ultimate underdog story. It taking place in Polynesia is very important to me, because it’s my people. We stick together. It was like seeing myself up there, seeing my family up there, when I saw that documentary, which is so perfect…

IDRIS ELBA DOESN’T feel the need to play James Bond. For years, fans have been hoping he might step into 007’s shoes, but Elba already has a character of Bond-esque potential, he says. And he’s soon to star in a film that could compete with the 007 series in terms of thrills, villains and intrigue. “Not to be controversial, but this is probably the best forum to say it — all the talk about Bond is fantastic, but this is my version of that,” he says. “I’ve got a character and a landscape here in which I can do exactly what people love from Bond and Bourne and all those other big franchises.” He’s talking about Detective John Luther, the rogue cop he’s portrayed in the BBC crime series of…

2019’S SHAZAM! WAS a cheery, family-friendly movie with a classic wish-fulfilment hook: what if a lonely kid could become a superhero with a single word? Despite critical and commercial success, though, director David F. Sandberg had a nagging feeling about it; he’d run out of time to tweak some things, and had more ideas he wanted to try. So, returning for the sequel, he decided to create gods and monsters unlike any the DC Universe has seen — because they don’t come from the comics at all. “We landed there because Shazam’s powers come from Greek gods,” explains Sandberg of the new villains. “So what if those powers were stolen from the gods and now they want revenge?” He and his team created the three Daughters of Atlas, bringing the…

PIXAR’S LATEST TRADES ON SOME PROPER CHEMISTRY THE IDEA FOR Peter Sohn’s Elemental began with the absolute basics. Literally. “In school, when I was learning the periodic table, I never saw it as a table,” the director recalls. “I saw it as apartments lined up. There was copper living next to cobalt… They all became families.” That memory came back to him about five years ago, when he was trying to develop a movie based on his own family. Sohn was raised in New York by Korean immigrant parents and felt a pull between two cultures, especially when he found the woman he wanted to marry. “Growing up, my family said, ‘You’ve got to marry Korean.’ Then I fell in love with someone who wasn’t Korean. That triggered a Romeo…

“IF LALALAND WAS A LOVE LETTER TO HOLLYWOOD,” SAYS DAMIEN CHAZELLE, “BABYLON IS ONE WRITTEN WITH A POISON PEN.” It’s early in Los Angeles, and the director is attempting to address the elephant in the room. Not the elephant that violently shits everywhere (and we mean everywhere) within the opening minutes of his latest spectacle (more on that long-trunked fellow shortly). No, what Chazelle really wants to clear up is that he’s aware his upcoming fifth feature might sound like it has a thing or two in common with the swooning musical that, in 2016, underlined him as one of American cinema’s most vital new talents. Set in Hollywood? Tick. Chock-full of characters chasing Tinseltown dreams? Tick. A jazz-trumpet-heavy soundtrack and a plot that pays tribute to the art of…

IT WAS A hell of a comeback. The Power Of The Dog, Jane Campion’s first film since 2009’s Bright Star, bagged 12 Oscar nominations, with Campion winning for Best Director. Adapted by her from Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel, it is set in 1925 and swirls around rancher Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch), a closeted gay man who had a secret relationship with his mentor, Bronco Henry, and now, tortured and downright mean, takes out his pain and shame on those around him — particularly his brother’s wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). It’s a beautiful, beguiling, intense and tender drama which, clearly, leaves a trail of superlatives in its wake. With a new Campion-approved 4K master hitting Criterion, the director pulls up a chair in her New…

Chris: When you absolutely, positively have to rank every motherfucking film on a CV, accept no substitutes. I’m very excited about this. When did you first become aware of the work of Samuel Leroy Jackson? Amon: It was a while before I understood how cool he is. I think it must have been Coming To America, when he’s trying to hold up the McDowells. Kobi: That’s exactly the same as me. In the TV version, which I saw growing up in the ’80s, Sam Jackson responds, “Forget you.” When I saw the unedited version for the first time, I fell on the floor. Chris: He’s got a great gift, and incredible propensity for, swearing. Samuel L. Jackson is Fuckelstiltskin. He can take a “fuck” and spin it into pure motherfucking…

IF YOU LOVED... THE ENGLISH THE SHADOW LINE BRITBOX Years before he created The English, writer/ producer/director Hugo Blick made a string of ambitious dramas for the BBC, starting with this expert conspiracy thriller in 2011. The Shadow Line also features vivid roles for Stephen Rea and Rafe Spall, who both went on to star in The English. Spall plays Jay Wratten, the psychotic nephew of a drug baron; Rea is the enigmatic, soft-spoken villain-in-chief, Gatehouse. They’re both embroiled in a high-level police investigation led by Chiwetel Ejiofor’s troubled Inspector Gabriel, which plays out in enthralling, operatic style. A TV drama classic. EMPIRE PRIME VIDEO The English is a rare foray into TV drama for Emily Blunt since this 2005 American network TV take on ancient Rome, not to be…

GIANT INFLATABLE SANTAS! Drax in a novelty jumper! Kevin Bacon?! James Gunn’s 40-minute festive caper, The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special, promises everything but a space-partridge in an intergalactic pear tree, with Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord and his motley crew storming Earth — and Hollywood — in a pre-Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 warm-up story. The relentlessly busy Gunn serves as writer-director on the short film, which sees the gang on an Earthbound mission to lift Star-Lord’s spirits after Gamora’s (Zoe Saldana) heart-wrenching demise at the hands of her evil dad Thanos. Gunn, a self-confessed fan of the ill-fated 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, said that he “bugged Kevin Feige endlessly” over the years about giving the Guardians their own televised merry mission, before Feige buckled and announced the…

SPARE A THOUGHT for any diners at London’s Jones & Sons restaurant who haven’t seen Boiling Point. “People keep going in and taking pictures of themselves lying in the spot where [Andy, played by Stephen Graham] collapses at the end,” says Philip Barantini, director of the tense one-take kitchen drama, which was shot in the restaurant in March 2020. The filmmaker concedes that that must be a pretty perplexing sight for anyone not acquainted with the film. Then again, there’s much that’s perplexing right now regarding Boiling Point — not least the news that it’s been commissioned as a TV series, featuring the character many presumed died at the film’s end. “Well, we wrote it as a heart attack. In our minds, he lived,” grins Barantini. “It was definitely left…

“THERE WAS A moment when Kevin [Feige] was going to be played by a puppy,” laughs Jessica Gao, head writer on She-Hulk: Attorney-At-Law, reflecting on the most gloriously bonkers TV finale of the year. In the show’s Season 1 climax, the titular hero didn’t just break the fourth wall — she Hulk-smashed it to smithereens, stopping the episode midway through to storm into Marvel HQ and confront its head honcho. “We also talked about George Clooney or Jon Hamm playing Kevin,” says Gao, “but in the end, this felt right” — “this” being a robot, with whom Jennifer Walters chats about the nature of MCU storytelling. Obviously. How did this ending come about? “While writing the final episode, I had this sense that I needed to deliver a classic Marvel…

ANDOR IS A show packed full of surprises, few bigger than the one in its opening episode, when a synth-heavy dancefloor anthem kicks in. A viral standout in Nicholas Britell’s riveting score, ‘Niamos! (Morlana Club Mix)’, brings a new edge to the show. “People on Instagram have been sending me videos of themselves playing it in their car,” says the in-demand composer. “Someone said, ‘We’re bringing this to the club!’ I’m just like, ‘Great, let’s do it!’” Talking to Empire “in the midst of formulating ideas” in his LA studio for Succession’s upcoming fourth season, Britell breaks down his Star Wars hit. INSPIRATION Andor’s score is a thrilling departure from the traditional orchestral Star Wars sound. The starting point for Britell was Diego Luna’s rogue rebel. “Cassian is trying to…

★★★★ OUT 25 NOVEMBER / CERT TBC / 130 MINS DIRECTOR Luca Guadagnino CAST Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland, Chloë Sevigny, David Gordon Green, Jessica Harper PLOT America, the 1980s. Teenager Maren (Russell) is abandoned by her father (Holland) after her cannibalistic urges become too much to bear. With the help of fellow cannibal Lee (Chalamet), Maren searches for her mother and a better understanding of herself. But sinister older cannibal Sully (Rylance) seems to be on their tail. BONES AND ALL seems, at first glance, to be another entry in the ‘Sexy Vampires’ canon. Strictly speaking, the blood-sucking heroes of Luca Guadagnino’s seventh film are a kind of cannibal-vampire hybrid, chowing down on flesh just as much as blood, with the ability to…

★★★ OUT 25 NOVEMBER / CERT PG 117 MINS DIRECTOR Matthew Warchus CAST Alisha Weir, Emma Thompson, Lashana Lynch, Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough PLOT Matilda (Weir) is a child genius trapped in a family of monsters. She hopes things will improve when she’s sent to school to be taught by the kindly Miss Honey (Lynch). But sadistic headmistress Miss Trunchbull (Thompson) is determined to make her life a living hell. ROALD DAHL’S 1988 novel Matilda was a late-career highlight, an empowering story about a girl with extraordinary mental gifts caught in the clutches of very ordinary monsters: uncaring parents and a cruel head teacher. In 2010 it became a hilarious and magical musical by Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin, and now the director of that show, Matthew Warchus, has brought…

★★★ OUT 9 DECEMBER / CERT TBC / 113 MINS DIRECTOR Agnieszka Smoczynska CAST Letitia Wright, Tamara Lawrance, Jodhi May, Michael Smiley The bond between twins is a complex thing in Agnieszka Smoczynska’s English-language debut, a biographical drama that tells the true story of June (Letitia Wright) and Jennifer Gibson (Tamara Lawrance). Growing up in 1960s Wales, the sisters were the only Black children in their class, where they were severely bullied, leading to them receding from the outside world and speaking only with each other. The racial element to their bullying is a detail that Andrea Seigel’s screenplay (adapted from Marjorie Wallace’s 1986 book of the same name) should have explicitly addressed; nonetheless, committed, physical performances from Wright and Lawrance provide pathos, and the film’s consistently inventive visuals help…

★★★ OUT 9 DECEMBER / CERT 12A / 92 MINS DIRECTORS Tahir Rana, Éric Warin CAST Keira Knightley, Jim Broadbent, Sam Claflin, Eddie Marsan Painter Charlotte Salomon has drawn comparisons to Anne Frank: like the diarist, she was a young Jewish-German woman forced into hiding during World War II, who took refuge in her art — art that would ultimately outlive her, forming a first-hand account of a tragic, violent history. This mostly affecting film retells her story in a way designed largely for a young-adult audience, which means occasionally clichéd storytelling. For an account of an unconventional artist, the animation is disappointingly conventional, too — unlike, say, the impressionistic artwork of Van Gogh biopic Loving Vincent. Still, a righteous take on historical events and strong voice-work from Keira Knightley…

★★★ OUT 16 DECEMBER (NETFLIX) CERT 15 / 160 MINUTES DIRECTOR Alejandro González Iñárritu CAST Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid, Jay O. Sanders PLOT When US-based film director and journalist Silverio Gama (Cacho) wins an award, he returns to his Mexican hometown. There, he must confront his life, career, and family — through an increasingly surreal and existential journey. NOW MORE THAN ever, filmmakers are making films about filmmaking: Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes and Paolo Sorrentino have all been at it lately. No self-made quasi-biopic is likely to be quite as strange — or as self-indulgent — as Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest, a film as vast in ambition as it is nakedly pretentious in execution. In Buddhism, “bardo” describes the liminal state between death and rebirth; on screen,…

★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 12A 125 MINS DIRECTOR Jaume Collet-Serra CAST Dwayne Johnson, Pierce Brosnan, Aldis Hodge, Sarah Shahi, Noah Centineo PLOT Nearly 5,000 years ago, in the Middle Eastern country of Kahndaq, the superpowered Teth-Adam (Johnson) took on a tyrant king and then vanished. In the present day, with Kahndaq now mercenary-ruled, Adam is re-awakened — and must face up to both the modern world and his own past. THE DC FILM universe has, for nearly a decade now, been pinballing between the lightness of Shazam! or Wonder Woman and the grim violence of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. With Black Adam, Dwayne Johnson and director Jaume Collet-Serra attempt to offer a grand unified theory of DC, mixing family-film tropes with a protagonist who straight-up murders people.…

SINCE 2015, THE walloping grit of the Creed franchise has been a worthy successor to the Rocky legend, following the late Apollo Creed’s plucky son Adonis into heavyweight glory under the watchful eye of Sylvester Stallone’s ageing pug. After starring in both previous films, Michael B. Jordan gets into the director’s chair for Creed III, which promises a highly personal war of attrition between Creed and his ex-convict childhood pal Damian, played by Jonathan Majors. We asked Jordan how he’s pushed things forward. What’s it been like to direct yourself ? I was pretty anxious going into it, wondering what that would be like. “Who’s calling action and cut? Is that me?!” Talking with Denzel [Washington] and Bradley Cooper and others who have directed themselves, they told me you have to…

2023: IT’S GONNA BE A BEAST. HERE’S THE REST OF WHAT’S REVVING US UP Kicking off with a big one: Steven Spielberg’s semi- (read: hugely) autobiographical coming-of-age drama THE FABELMANS (27 JANUARY), which might break your heart (spoiler: we’ve seen it, it will)... Darren Aronofsky brings us a psychologically fragile Brendan Fraser in THE WHALE (3 FEBRUARY)... Elizabeth Banks’ COCAINE BEAR (24 FEBRUARY) brings us, well, a bear on cocaine... James Gunn reassembles his ragtag band of maniacs for GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 (5 MAY)... Halle Bailey stars, sings and swims in Rob Marshall’s live-action take on THE LITTLE MERMAID (26 MAY)... Greta Gerwig co-writes (with Noah Baumbach) and directs the DayGlo BARBIE (21 JULY), starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling — the mind boggles... Christopher Nolan knows…

SPOILER WARNING WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, Michael Giacchino’s debut as director, after years of being one of the best composers in the business, may only be 53 minutes long, but it packs a lot in. Here, Giacchino tells us all about how he turned Marvel Studios’ first Halloween special into more treat than trick… DE-COMPOSE YOURSELF Even in a month featuring She-Hulk: Attorney At Law’s fourth-wall-shattering season finale (see page 19), Werewolf By Night is the wildest creative swing the MCU has taken in some time — astandalone short film, shot in black-and-white, that pays homage to any era of horror you could mention. And it signals its intention from the off, as Giacchino gleefully transforms the Marvel Studios fanfare (which he wrote) into a frightacular parody of Universal Horror cues, complete…

How iconic images came to life SAM NEILL HAS vivid memories about this month’s shot, the moment in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park where a T-Rex stomps into the mud before a cowering Alan Grant (Neill) and Lex (Ariana Richards). “I’m probably in a little bit of pain in that photo,” he recalls. “We’d previously shot Alan Grant waving a flare to distract the T-Rex and a lump of burning stuff landed on my arm and went under my watch. There’s still a big scar where this stuff landed.” The first big scare of the movie — “There’s been a wobbly glass, some absence of goat, so anticipation is rising,” says Neill — it’s a moment burnished by the brilliance of live-action-dinosaur creator Stan Winston. Bitten by the malfunctioning mechanical shark…

BETTER CALL SAUL: SEASON 6 OUT 12 DECEMBER / CERT 15 / 690 MINS DVD BR The debate about which show is better — Breaking Bad or its spin-off prequel, Better Call Saul — will rage forever (this writer is on the side of the latter, just about). But the very existence of that debate is testament to the beautiful job Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan did in fleshing out Bob Odenkirk’s sharp-talking, shit-heel lawyer, and the characters (all hail Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler) around him. The closing season takes the kind of creative risks (killing major players, narrative twists and a time-jump as audacious in execution as 2001: A Space Odyssey’s) that finales usually avoid in favour of fan-service box-ticking, and is all the better for it, giving us…