Table of contents for April 2026 in Empire

THINK BACK TO more innocent times. The 1980s, to be specific, when toy boxes were spilling over with cool stuff — action figures with names like Laserbeak, Mega Hurtz and the Hugga Bunch (okay, maybe that last one wasn’t quite so cool). I myself was a G.I. Joe fanatic, driving my parents nuts by waging elaborate battles in their flowerbeds, the perfect tactical position for the crack forces of COBRA. But among all the myriad options, one toy-line stood out as particularly epic. Even the name had muscle: ‘Masters Of The Universe’. And its star attraction, He-Man, was as mighty as a 5.5-inch hunk of plastic could be. Blond, ripped, short on clothing but long on valour, “the most powerful man in the Universe” imbued any child who held him…

A lengthy biopic of Emu. Zero mention of Rod Hull. @DAVIDBCOOPER. BSKY.SOCIAL Bob Mortimer. As long as it includes re-enactments of all his crazy stories from Would I Lie To You?. @STEVESENSIBLE. BSKY.SOCIAL The Bob Monkhouse story has a convenient three-act structure (early career, cheesy game-show era, then feel-good ending as he is rediscovered as a stand-up by younger comedians in the years before his death). @TALLANTYRE. BSKY.SOCIAL Tommy Cooper would be interesting to see. His ‘terrible stage magician’ act is hilarious to this day, and his tragic death is one of those ‘couldn’t script it’ kind of events. @DEANBOWES.COM WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT QUESTION VIA OUR BLUESKY ACCOUNT: @EMPIREMAGAZINE.BSKY.SOCIAL…

“WE ARE NOW in a world where the words ‘video-game adaptation’ aren’t said scornfully anymore.” Louise Blain, Creative Lead at Blumhouse Games, is speaking with Empire about the epic, ambitious new wave of console to-screen projects set to hit cinemas in the next few years. She’s also referring, of course, to the inglorious history of the form, from ’93 big-studio flop Super Mario Bros. through to the lamentable early-2000s oeuvre of Uwe Boll (House Of The Dead, Far Cry). Yet these days, thanks to the critically lauded likes of The Last Of Us and Fallout — not to mention immensely lucrative hits A Minecraft Movie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Blumhouse’s own Five Nights At Freddy’s (the first two made around a billion dollars each) — “it’s no longer…

EVERY GENERATION OF teenagers has its defining shows, usually featuring characters of equivalent age. But coming in hot to defy the likes of Byker Grove and Gossip Girl is a series that has proved an unexpected hit with Generation Z. The Rookie is a network police procedural led by Nathan Fillion’s 40-year-old divorcé John Nolan, who has started a new career at the LAPD. John couldn’t be further from your average Dawson — he is literally the oldest rookie to join the force. So why is this eight-season prestige drama that would usually, almost exclusively, land with the dad demographic now one of the biggest titles for teenagers? With The Rookie first airing in 2019, it’s safe to say that many Gen Z-ers weren’t the first to watch it (some…

WHEN DAVID BOWIE requests that advance episodes of the show you co-created and star in be sent out to him on tour, you know you’re onto something. “We just went, ‘Oh, alright, we’re done, right?’ What more does anyone need?” Lisa Kudrow tells Empire. Only they (Kudrow and her creative partner Michael Patrick King) weren’t done. Since it first aired 20 years ago, The Comeback — specifically its lead character, Kudrow’s veteran strawberry-blonde sitcom star Valerie Cherish — has maintained an audience devoted to Valerie’s resilience in the face of countless humiliations (among them, vomiting while wearing a giant cupcake costume). “Nothing shuts her down, and then she stands up for herself when she has to,” Kudrow summarises. Now Valerie is back for a third season after a 12-year hiatus,…

A KILLER DEBUT 1983 This future fan-favourite burst onto the scene in comic-book The Omega Men #3 as an extraterrestrial anti-hero cooked up by writer Roger Slifer and artist Keith Giffen, with creative input from British artist Simon Bisley. With his name in his native Czarnian tongue meaning “he who devours your entrails and thoroughly enjoys it”, Giffen described the character as “an indictment of the Punisher, Wolverine, [a] bad-ass hero prototype”. He was soon a hit; he even became Stan Lee’s favourite DC Comics character. “Somehow he caught on as the high-violence poster boy,” Giffen added. SLAUGHTERING INTO THE SPOTLIGHT 1990 After featuring in several established DC series (Justice League International, L.E.G.I.O.N.) and receiving a makeover thanks to Bisley’s love of motorbike culture, the black-haired, shredded interstellar mercenary got…

ON THE CROISETTE’S red-carpeted steps at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, a collective of female filmmakers, actors and key players threw their hands in the air in defiance. The 82-strong army, which included Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, Ava DuVernay and Patty Jenkins, had assembled to rally against inequality and misogyny in the film industry, spurred on by movements like Time’s Up and its French equivalent, Collectif 50/50. Utilising the festival’s press spotlight, and with the Harvey Weinstein scandal still unravelling in the headlines, the protesters called for vital changes to be made at both the festival and on an international scale. “Women are not a minority in the world, yet the current state of the industry says otherwise,” Blanchett declared at the time. It’s an understatement, then, to say that…

THE RESEARCH Amanda Seyfried had never heard of Ann Lee — the 18th-century Mancunian religious reformer — when director Mona Fastvold first approached her. “The fact Ann was almost eliminated from history is scary,” Seyfried tells Empire. “She fought for equality between all people, she stabilised an entire community. Her kindness and curiosity were incredible.” A visionary whose followers believed her to be the female incarnation of God, Lee founded the ‘Shaker’ sect (named for the ecstatic ‘dances’ they performed), and was persecuted for blasphemy. “Mona had an encyclopedia of quotes, testimonies and drawings that I dug into,” says Seyfried. “It seemed insane she wasn’t a household name.” THE TRAUMA Ann’s journey into religious fervour was catalysed by grief — she had four children, all of whom died in infancy.…

OUT NOW/CERT 15/113 MINS DIRECTOR Sam Raimi CAST Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, Dennis Haysbert PLOT Following a plane crash, downtrodden executive Linda Liddle (McAdams) is marooned on an island with her sexist boss Bradley Preston (O’Brien). IF WILLIAM GOLDING had spent less of his life in a posh boys’ school and more in the corporate jungle, Lord Of The Flies might have read quite a bit like Sam Raimi’s latest film. An office satire set largely on an idyllic tropical island, it’s a film that shuttles between body horror, comedy, romance and thriller, and finds something wildly entertaining on a little-explored island in-between. McAdams plays Linda Liddle, who’s a whizz at strategy and planning but also a scruffy, unsexy embarrassment to the well-heeled (male) executives at…

OUT FEBRUARY 27/CERT 15/115 MINS DIRECTOR Oliver Laxe CAST Sergi López, Bruno Núñez, Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson, Tonin Janvier, Jade Oukid, Richard Bellamy PLOT Looking for his missing daughter at a rave in Morocco, middle-aged dad Luis (López) joins forces with a rag-tag band of hedonistic party-goers to continue the search. IN MUSLIM THEOLOGY, “sirāt” denotes the razor-thin bridge between paradise and hell. It’s a tightrope that French-Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe (Mimosas, Fire Will Come) not only walks but practically tap-dances along in his uncategorisable mind-blower of a movie. Part adventure yarn, part trippy odyssey, part meditation on loss, part promo for the joys of dancing, Laxe takes disparate elements and weaves them together with maximalist confidence. The result is a film that is vital, unpredictable, brilliantly made, hard…

OUT NOW (SKY ATLANTIC)/EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 6 SHOWRUNNER Ira Parker CAST Peter Claffey, Dexter Sol Ansell, Finn Bennett, Bertie Carvel, Tanzyn Crawford, Daniel Ings, Sam Spruell PLOT In Westeros, a century before Ned Stark and Daenerys Targaryen, Ser Duncan The Tall (Claffey) and his tiny squire, Egg (Ansell), seek adventure. WHEN IS GAME Of Thrones not Game Of Thrones? When it’s A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms. This second spin-off from George R.R. Martin’s fantasy world of Westeros contains no actual thrones (or games thereof), no warring noble houses, no Starks, no Lannisters, no wars, no sex, not even any dragons — save for one puppet. The only part of King’s Landing we see is the filthy slum Flea Bottom; the biggest battle that takes place is a jousting…

OUT FEBRUARY 20/CERT TBC/103 MINS DIRECTOR Aidan Zamiri CAST Charli xcx, Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Jamie Demetriou, Alexander Skarsgård PLOT Pop sensation Charli xcx (herself) navigates the pressures of her moment in the spotlight while she rehearses for her new tour. CHARLOTTE AITCHISON, AKA Grammy award-winning artist Charli xcx, has been chasing her moment for a while. She has described herself in her lyrics as “famous but not quite… one foot in a normal life”; her music was critically acclaimed but not chart-topping. But then came Brat. Summer 2024 was declared ‘Brat Summer’ after the hedonistic yet introspective album. Charli xcx went from niche it girl to stratospheric practically overnight, and, of course, became the subject of intense media attention. The Moment’s tagline — “and it’s a movie about brat and…

OUT FEBRUARY 13/CERT 15/97 MINS DIRECTOR Corin Hardy CAST Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Sky Yang, Percy Hynes White, Michelle Fairley, Nick Frost PLOT When troubled high-schooler Chrys (Keen) and her pals find — and blow — an Aztec death whistle, something evil comes calling. IN 1904, BRITISH writer M.R. James released his debut collection, Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary, which included the classic tale Oh, Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad. A masterpiece of slow-burn dread, it features what is perhaps horror’s first cursed whistle. Updating the concept to 21st-century New York State, director Corin Hardy (The Nun) and writer Owen Egerton (Mercy Black) aren’t shy about their influences — nodding in the film to several major directors (Nick Frost’s teacher is called Mr Craven), and re-purposing ideas…

BUZZ-OFF What do you get if you cross a bee with a bodybuilder? Is a question that probably nobody ever asked before this heroic character appeared in 1983, complete with insectoid wings and striped torso. MAN-E-FACES Is he a person? A monster? A robot? Or ALL THREE? The action figure let you switch between three faces. In the cartoon, he used this triplicitous talent to become an actor. Who we guess could only play robots and monsters. MOSQUITOR This life-force-draining monstrosity was a follower of She-Ra villain Hordak. That much we know; what we don’t know is, why does he look more like an evil chicken than a mosquito? Clucking ridiculous. SNAKE FACE This guy has a fizzog full of pop-out snakes. They come out of his eyes, they come…

SUDDEN DEATH CLIFFHANGER (1993) Harlin’s mountaineering thriller opens in iconic fashion, as Sylvester Stallone’s veteran climber Gabe tries, and fails, to save his friend Sarah (Michelle Joyner) from death by very long drop… “I was a little bit reluctant to do the movie when I first read it, because I had just done Die Hard 2, and I didn’t want to do another action thing like that. But then Mario Kassar, who was the head of [studio] Carolco in those days, convinced me to do it. I told him I wanted to make it realistic and gritty — I was thinking of Harrison Ford for the lead, but Mario, who had produced the Rambo movies, said, ‘No, I want Sly to be the guy.’ With all due respect, I didn’t…

THIS MONTH BELGIAN ART-EXPLOITATION CHIC NESTLED AWAY ON a niche streaming service (Shudder) is one of my favourite films of 2025 — Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s fourth feature, Reflet Dans Un Diamant Mort (Reflection In A Dead Diamond). Since their debut Amer (2009), the Brussels-based French director-writer team have hand-crafted only two other films, L’Étrange Couleur Des Larmes De Ton Corps (The Strange Colour Of Your Body’s Tears, 2013) and Laisser Broulez Les Cadavres (Let The Corpses Tan, 2017). It’s no surprise that their films are infrequent: they’re as idea- and image-intensive as an Avatar sequel but inhabit a European art-film tradition where Fellini and Buñuel are grandmasters of form (essentially, free association rather than story), with specific references to a dizzying, dazzling back catalogue of stylish, chic exploitation…

DAN JOLIN BECAME A MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE “Here I am, clutching the actual Havoc Staff of Skeletor — complete with malevolently glowing eyes (the ram skull, not me) — on set at Sky Studios Elstree. Afterwards, I went home to my Hall Of Unequivocal Triumph and brooded over ways to destroy muscly blond dudes.” AL HORNER VISITED THE HOSPITAL SET OF THE PITT “I’m not usually grinning maniacally when I have to go to A&E. But The Pitt is my biggest TV obsession since Succession, and I’d been dressed in scrubs to help get in the mood, hence me looking like I’d just been shot with 50 cc of pure joy.” BETH WEBB SPOKE TO BEN WHEATLEY FOR THE EMPIRE PODCAST LIVE “Somehow, while chatting with the legendary Ben…

James McAvoy returns to our pages this month (read the interview on page 74). He is an actor we’ve been championing for the best part of two decades; back in 2008, then just six weeks shy of his 29th birthday, McAvoy won Best Actor at the Empire Awards for his performance in Atonement. He gave a charming, unpolished speech, in which he thanked performers The Fratellis (“They’re from Scotland!”), his agent, and Empire for shining a light on quality cinema. “Well done, Empire,” he said, “for getting people to see the good stuff and still saying the bad stuff is shit.” He was praised by fellow nominee Matt Damon. “I don’t get many awards,” Damon told us on the night. “I tend to lose out to younger, more talented, better-looking…

WHEN ARE TRAILERS not trailers? When they’re “narrative information”. At least, that’s how Joe Russo, co-director of Avengers: Doomsday, describes the unique approach to marketing the film to Empire. “Each one of those trailers is narrative information,” he adds, “and it’s all part of a larger story. So I would argue that Doomsday has already started for you.” Blimey. Joe — along with his brother and fellow director, Anthony — is speaking in the wake of four different Doomsday trailers that debuted weekly in front of Avatar: Fire And Ash in cinemas. The film is an epic crossover event that sees the Russos and Robert Downey Jr return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time since Avengers: Endgame. “Look, the movie is very complex,” says Joe, delivering the…

KEVIN WILLIAMSON IS not one to be ruffled by questions. After all, this is the man who came up with a couple of the most famous movie questions of them all — Ghostface’s “Do you like scary movies? What’s your favourite scary movie?” — when he was writing the original Scream in the mid-’90s. That launched a seven film franchise, although Williamson hadn’t been directly involved since 2011’s Scream 4. But when he Zoomed with Neve Campbell in early 2024 to discuss her return as final girl Sidney Prescott in Scream 7, he was taken aback by a question. A big question. “Neve asked me to direct,” Williamson tells Empire. “I was just so stunned and shocked. I didn’t know what to say.” Ultimately, he said yes, and here talks…

FEW FILMMAKERS HAVE a certified understanding of the laws of the universe. But then, most filmmakers never started their careers as physicists. Which is what makes Kirill Sokolov, the guy behind frenzied, fist throwing gore-fest They Will Kill You, such an anomaly. Born and raised in Russia, Sokolov had always seen the film industry as unreachable. “[So] you must be grounded and do what you can do,” he tells Empire. For him, this meant earning a masters degree in physics and technology in 2012 before taking on a lab job. So how did this young scientist pivot from hadrons to Hollywood? Movies had been in Sokolov’s bones since coming home from kindergarten, aged four, and finding his dad watching The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. He enthusiastically recounts to…

ERIC ROBLES DOESN’T have Vecna-esque telepathic powers. But when it comes to Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, he knows what you’re probably thinking. “The majority [of people are] expecting a lighter version of Stranger Things,” he says, describing Netflix’s new spin-off adventure. The showrunner gets it. A cartoon return to Hawkins? Set between Seasons 2 and 3, when the characters are still kids? At first glance, he admits, there are plenty of reasons for the string lights in your living room to be spelling out four words: “entry-level Upside Down”. “But then you see the shark!” laughs Robles, referring to a brand-new Demo-beast who, within minutes of the start of the first episode, dispatches two bullies in a face-ripping fury. In Tales From ’85, Eleven, Mike and co, played by…

OUT NOW (NETFLIX)/CERT 15/113 MINS DIRECTOR Joe Carnahan CAST Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Steven Yeun, Kyle Chandler This is a sharp, very tense and, for the most part, tightly constructed crime thriller from Joe Carnahan. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck make for fine company in this latest chapter of their double-act, playing Lieutenant Dane Dumars and Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne: tough, tired, bearded cops in the narcotics division of the Miami PD, who reluctantly investigate a huge drug-money stash. Naturally, the proverbial faecal matter hits the proverbial air-conditioning unit. Carnahan’s script is nicely twisty and unpredictable, and he plays it all a little like Assault On Precinct 13 meets The Thing, a tense siege and all-pervading paranoia looming large. The third act almost loses steam, but still, this is strong…

OUT FEBRUARY 20/CERT 18/90 MINS DIRECTOR Cal McMau CAST David Jonsson, Tom Blyth, Corin Silva, Alex Hassell, Neil Linpow PLOT Taylor (Jonsson) hopes to be released from prison after a long sentence but his new cellmate, Dee (Blyth), threatens to scupper his chances. WASTEMAN BEGINS IN the unmistakable aspect ratio of a mobile phone. In a tiny prison cell, men crowd and jeer, while dark threats are thrown about. “I’ve cut someone’s throat for less than that,” growls one. It’s clear we are watching a prison-made viral video: violence, commodified for the TikTok generation. This is a remarkable feature debut from writer-director Cal McMau, which plays like a modern-day Scum, or a British answer to A Prophet: a film that follows in this country’s social-realist traditions, but brings with it…

OUT FEBRUARY 13/CERT 15/106 MINS DIRECTOR Amy Berg PARTICIPANTS Jeff Buckley “Proof that God exists,” said one review of Grace, the first — and only — album by singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley; “the best album ever made,” claimed David Bowie. High praise indeed, and worthy of cinematic investigation. As that title hints, this is not the first documentary to try to unpack the mystery and magic of the musician, who died tragically young, but it’s maybe the best to fold in both his musical genius and his personal and familial contradictions. With significant contributions from his mother and former partners — giving them more airtime than other docs have — Amy Berg’s film feels like a holistic portrait, using inventive animation and an (obviously) excellent soundtrack to tell the story of…

OUT NOW (DISNEY+)/EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 6 SHOWRUNNER Andrew Guest CAST Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Ben Kingsley, X Mayo, Zlatko Burić, Joe Pantoliano, Josh Gad PLOT Simon Williams (Abdul-Mateen II) is a struggling actor with secret powers. A chance encounter with washed-up thespian Trevor Slattery (Kingsley) could change his fortunes. CREATED BY SHANG-CHI and Spider-Man: Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest (the latter of whom serves as showrunner for the season), Wonder Man is the second series to be released under the more character-driven Marvel Spotlight banner. That’s notable given just how different this latest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry feels: there are no traditional heroes and villains here, little homework required in the form of previous entries, and the superpowered action sequences are limited. Instead, we’re treated…

MERCY FILM “A frustrating mess. There are fun ideas here and solid performances, but it shies away from tough questions while taking itself too seriously to simply offer brainless fun. Minority Report minor; the same idea, but dumber.” HELEN O’HARA HEAVYWEIGHT FILM “Jordan Bolger is a revelation, vulnerable and descending towards an emotional breakdown before rising again to conquer his fears. The film drives home the importance of having somebody in your corner — and that’s as satisfying as the ring fight itself.” KELECHI EHENULO THE BEAUTY FILM “How the busiest guy in TV found time to create a mix of The X-Files, American Horror Story and The Substance is almost as implausible as the show itself. Yet here we are with Ryan Murphy’s commentary on Ozempic culture. It’s a…

The painkillers they prescribe at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center must be pretty damn potent. It’s early December and Empire is surrounded by a dozen or so of its patients, gathered outside the hospital entrance, laughing and joking with each other like they’re not each sporting what look like agonising injuries. A man with a bloody head-wound is playing a game of Uno. A woman with third-degree burns is casually scrolling TikTok. People with broken bones, rashes and lacerated limbs are snacking in the sun, without a worry in the world. Inside, the atmosphere is not quite as carefree. Passing through a tatty waiting-room and into its ER we find a man laid out on a gurney, face white as snow. His vitals are dropping. The prognosis is not good. Around…

“The moment where I went, ‘Okay, this is a crazy time,’ was when people were getting tattoos of my face on their shins.” Samara Weaving is thinking back to 2019’s Ready Or Not. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the horror about Weaving’s Grace, a newlywed who must survive her wedding night in a stately home while her wealthy in-laws try to hunt her down in a fatal game of hide-and-seek, did well, making $57 million from its $6 million budget. But it also gained a diehard, ever-growing community of fans, captivated by the central performances, comic undertones and inventive kills. At a 2024 Halloween screening the directors hosted in El Capitan, California, “people dressed up as Grace, they knew all the lines, and they were laughing pre-emptively,” recalls…

Saucepan Man saunters over for a chat, shaking Empire by the hand, clanking up a storm. He is covered head-to-toe in pans, with goggles made of sieves. “You’re clanking,” we say as he — Dustin Demri-Burns, the actor underneath the steel — takes a seat. “You can definitely hear me coming,” he agrees. “I feel like a kind of… goat, with a bell on.” It’s quite the gig. Does he ever, we wonder aloud, catch sight of himself in the mirror and think: “How did I get here?” “Yeah,” he nods. “I mean, it’s a funny career trajectory, isn’t it? You end up as Saucepan Man, and you sort of go, ‘God…’” Saucepan Man is summoned to the set. The cameras roll in the Land Of Goodies, where there are…

BEAST OF WAR DVD, BLU-RAY, DIGITAL Aussie squaddies huddle on floating wreckage after a World War II troop carrier is sunk. Tension simmers between Aborigine Mark Coles Smith and racist Sam Delich. Then a hungry shark shows up. Kiah Roache-Turner (the Wyrmwood films) crafts a gripping exercise in retro sharksploitation. CHAIN REACTIONS BLU-RAY, DIGITAL Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary about Tobe Hooper’s classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre presents reminiscences about the film and its impact from talking, not-so-far-severed heads Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, Takashi Miike, Patton Oswalt and Karyn Kusama. COYOTES DIGITAL Hollywood Hills is invaded in Colin Minihan’s cartoonish terror-by-beast picture. Justin Long and Kate Bosworth are fun as sitcom parents forced to resist canine attacks. The coyotes are too CG fakey to truly menace, but Brittany Allen is…

FIVE PEOPLE ARE specially thanked at the end of Joe Carnahan’s new Matt Damon and Ben Affleck cop thriller, The Rip. Several of them — including William Goldenberg and Christopher Rouse — are editors. Smash cut to: Carnahan, explaining the situation. “Chris was hugely helpful to us,” he tells Empire of Rouse, the Oscar-winning editor of The Bourne Ultimatum. “Kevin Hale [The Rip’s editor] developed a unique fondness for Chris and his ideas and input.” All of which stemmed from making a movie for Damon and Affleck’s company, Artists Equity. “This guy’s down the hall,” laughs Carnahan (Rouse is editing Affleck’s latest directorial offering, Animals). “You just walk down there and be like, ‘Hey, what do you think, pal? You’re dealing with an Oscar-winner, with a heavyweight, giving you suggestions.”…

LETTER OF THE MONTH THE GREAT WALL OF EMPIRE My stash of Empire magazines had become an issue. “Why not do something fun with them?” my wife asked. A couple of months later, she turned my previously blank office wall into a collage of magnificence. One of my favourite covers fell foul of some Yorkshire Tea, but that didn’t stop us from patching it up and giving it pride of place anyway. Hope you enjoy seeing this as much as I do every day, and a very happy new year to you all! JUSTIN ADDLETON, VIA EMAIL A happy new year to you too, Justin, and your very handsome wall. Just be sure to keep the tea well away from it. As a salute to your magnificent efforts, please accept…

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IT’S THE SIGN that’s launched a thousand establishing shots. It nearly squashed a troupe of girl scouts in 1978’s Superman. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II recently sat atop its giant ‘W’ for a Wonder Man promo poster. But when the cameras aren’t rolling, the Hollywood landmark is still a staple of celebrity culture, with stars historically scaling its iconic white letters for publicity stunts. Reaching it is no walk in the canyon; visitors must endure a tough near-vertical climb and, as Sydney Sweeney recently discovered, it comes with strict legal protection. Reportedly the Euphoria actor recently clambered up to the sign as a promotional stunt for her lingerie line Syrn. The covert operation (documented with what appear to be phone cameras) involved Sweeney scaling part of the surrounding Mount Lee and stringing…

“I REMEMBER BEING in college and discovering manga,” says One Piece showrunner Joe Tracz. “You’re so used to the tropes of Western media that you read these stories, thinking, ‘Wow — I genuinely have no idea where this is going.’ It surprised and moved me in ways I didn’t think were possible.” For the uninitiated, One Piece — the live action adaptation of the biggest-selling manga series of all time — tracks the adventures of the Straw Hat Pirates. Led by an excitable, rubber limbed scamp named Monkey D. Luffy, the gang scour the oceans for fabled treasure (the titular ‘One Piece’). Blending political satire, superhero adventure and high surrealism (the characters communicate via, erm, telepathic snails), the original manga series has long been a cultural juggernaut across Asia —…

ANDY WEIR AND DREW GODDARD are about to blast off into the cosmos again. In 2015, the pair scored an interplanetary smash with The Martian, adapted from Weir’s literary bestseller by director Ridley Scott, with Goddard (Cloverfield, The Cabin In The Woods) on script duties. Their latest collaboration, the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller-directed Project Hail Mary, is another tale of a man adrift among the stars: Ryan Gosling plays Ryland, a high-school teacher-turned-astronaut on a mission to save our solar system’s dimming sun. But The Martian 2.0 this is not. The duo explain why that film was a small step and this one a giant leap in their sci-fi-spectacle building friendship… Andy, what was it about your experience with Drew on The Martian that made you reach out to…

OUT NOW/CERT TBC/107 MINS DIRECTOR Ric Roman Waugh CAST Jason Statham, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie Few things in life are as reliable as the Jason Statham-led action-thriller. You know he’ll be a retired hard man with elite skills, called back into action to protect an innocent — in this case, his delivery girl, Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach). You know he’ll take down a rogue government department, criminal gang, or both. Ric Roman Waugh directs this latest spin on the formula, and executes the action scenes well — often literally, as Mason (Statham) takes out squads of goons. But the plot leans into sub-Bourne secret-service shenanigans and leaves poor Breathnach struggling to make an impact. It’s always nice to see Statham taking henchmen apart, but the formula could…

OUT FEBRUARY 13/CERT PG/91 MINS DIRECTOR Pete Browngardt CAST Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol, Fred Tatasciore, Laraine Newman, Wayne Knight PLOT After a UFO crash-lands on Earth, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (both voiced by Bauza) are forced to save the world from alien goo. HARD THOUGH IT may be to believe, here is a true fact: until now, there has never been an original, animated, theatrically released, feature-length Looney Tunes movie. Warner Bros.’ famous cartoon canon has enjoyed direct-to-video outings (e.g. 2023’s Taz: Quest for Burger), a handful of live-action/animation hybrids (most famously 1996’s Space Jam), and various feature-length compilations of the shorts that made them famous (who can forget 1988’s Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters?). The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie was never even intended…

OUT NOW (APPLE TV+)/EPISODES VIEWED 8 OF 8 SHOWRUNNER Jim Field Smith CAST Idris Elba, Toby Jones, Christine Adams, Max Beesley When it debuted back in 2023, this airborne thriller saw businessman Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) match wits with a plane full of criminals across seven taut episodes. Set one year later, this second season finds itself cornered into a very specific format by the show’s title and, like John McClane in Die Hard 2, pondering quite how the same shit can happen to the same guy twice — this time, on a train. Elba remains the show’s charismatic core, bringing a fresh desperation that makes the formerly unflappable Nelson feel more lived-in and frayed around the edges. It’s a lesser if still compelling outing for Idris Elba’s have-a-go hero,…

OUT FEBRUARY 20/CERT TBC/137 MINS DIRECTOR Mona Fastvold CAST Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, Christopher Abbott, Stacy Martin PLOT In 18th-century Manchester, spiritual leader Ann Lee (Seyfried) founds new religious movement the Shakers, before travelling to America to spread the word. A MUSICAL BIOPIC of the woman who led a tiny branch of Christianity in the 1700s may sound like a pretty niche prospect — but with The Testament Of Ann Lee, director and co-writer Mona Fastvold is employing every tool in her movie-making arsenal to shine a light on this little-known corner of history. The film depicts the origin of the Christian sect known as the Shakers, so named because of how they worshipped through ecstatic song and dance. They were led by Ann Lee (played in utterly…

OUT FEBRUARY 20/CERT 15/113 MINS DIRECTOR Mary Bronstein CAST Rose Byrne, Mary Bronstein, Conan O’Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater, A$AP Rocky PLOT After their apartment ceiling caves in, a therapist (Byrne) and her chronically ill daughter are forced to move to a motel. WRITER-AND-DIRECTOR Mary Bronstein’s cold-sweat-inducing follow-up to 2008 mumblecore classic Yeast is about as pulse-raising as a high-speed car chase, and as claustrophobic as an escape room. Despite that adrenaline hit, this mother-daughter drama is profoundly thought-provoking too. Working with deceptively few ingredients, Bronstein creates a dizzying cinematic hall of mirrors, a nightmarish vision that relentlessly pursues its own brilliant, demented dream logic to bizarre ends. The spiral out of control begins in the very first scene, when Linda (a career-topping performance from Rose Byrne), a therapist, is…

Empire is in Eternia. Specifically, the inner sanctum of the mystical stronghold known as Castle Grayskull. Amid its grand pillars, curving stone stairways, thick cobwebs and flaming braziers, we find our brave hero: director Travis Knight, prepping a crucial beat of Masters Of The Universe’s climactic showdown. In one fire-lit corner of the imposing set, a pair of female stunt-doubles rehearse combat moves in outfits that clearly identify them as valorous warrior Teela and her spell-flinging nemesis, Evil-Lyn. In another, Knight explains, his VFX team will conjure a huge green tiger (Battle Cat) fighting a shaggy orange-furred ape-dude (Beast Man). Knight is in high spirits. “The greatest Christmas gift I ever received was a Castle Grayskull playset,” he grins. “So to actually be physically here inside Castle Grayskull… It’s been…

OCTOMANIA SPIDER-MAN 2 2004 “Anybody here take shop class?” chuckles a saw-wielding surgeon, prior to attempting to remove Otto Octavius’ mechanical tentacles. He’s not chuckling a second later, when said tentacles smack him straight through a glass window, before massacring his colleagues and levelling his operating theatre. BLOODY BOULDER BLUES 127 HOURS 2010 After five days of yelling for help, trapped mountaineer Aron’s (James Franco) only option is to self-amputate his arm. As if hacking off his own limb with a penknife wasn’t taxing enough, he also has to contend with hallucinations of his unborn son eerily grinning at him as he operates. Not ideal. UNWANTED PREGNANCY PROMETHEUS 2012 When Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) discovers she’s pregnant with a bouncing baby alien-squid-thing, she hops into the nearest ‘MedPod’ to get…

ELIJAH WOOD THE FACULTY 1998 After body-snatching aliens infect a school, a band of students devise a test to find victims. Delilah (Jordana Brewster) fails and a trembling Casey (Wood) aims a gun at her writhing face. DAVID CRONENBERG NIGHTBREED 1990 Cronenberg’s psychiatrist is also serial killer Ol’ Button Face, and here dons his terrifying mask for a home invasion. “Breeding is a disease,” he says. SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR THE GRUDGE 2004 Buffy would’ve struggled to best vengeful spirit Kayako. Gellar’s nurse, Karen, can’t even wash her hair without a ghostly grey hand appearing. SAMARA WEAVING SCREAM VI 2023 In a bar, Laura Crane (Weaving) receives a call, exits to greet her lost date, and instead finds death. Weaving says it was a life goal to be killed by Ghostface.…

BY SEPTEMBER 23, 1984, autumn was settling in, the nights were getting darker and the air a little chillier. That evening, people cosied up to watch TV; flicking through the channels, perhaps they stopped on BBC Two to watch highlights of the darts championship, as Englishman Cliff ‘Big Cliff’ Lazarenko went head-to-head with Wales’ Leighton Rees. However, at 9.30pm, if they stayed on that same channel, what would unfold over the next couple of hours would prove far more unsettling than a spot of arrows: Threads. Depicting the detonation of a nuclear bomb and the subsequent fallout of a nuclear winter in Sheffield — prolonged sickness, famine, crime, death, rape, and eating rats to survive — the film was so bone-chilling, harrowing and terrifying that that Sunday evening would soon be…

1 PREDATOR: BADLANDS OUT FEBRUARY 23/DVD, BLU-RAY, DIGITAL Dan Trachtenberg’s third Predator movie continues his revitalisation of a cult sci-fi franchise. An exercise in crowdpleasing, it’s a buddy movie that makes plenty of tweaks to the Predator playbook while delivering excellent action, storytelling surprises and engaging characters. The best (and biggest) Predator movie since the original. 2 SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE OUT FEBRUARY 16/DVD, BLU-RAY, DIGITAL Jalmari Helander’s sequel about an unstoppable killing machine lacks the freshness of the original, but at times his ingenuity in figuring out ways for Jorma Tommila’s one-man army, Aatami, to wipe out Russian soldiers is worthy of applause. 3 ROOFMAN OUT NOW/DVD, BLU-RAY, DIGITAL Derek Cianfrance’s warm comedy-drama, inspired by a true-life tale, didn’t get a single Oscar nomination. Unfairly so. Channing Tatum has never been better…

“KISSING THE LAMPPOST was a good one,” says Kirk Jones, director and writer of I Swear. He and his lead actor, Robert Aramayo, are discussing how the film’s subject, Scottish Tourette syndrome activist John Davidson, was constantly changing things up. I Swear had been in the works since late 2022, and they’d both got to know him well, but even as the shoot loomed in the summer of 2024, there was more to learn. Davidson was full of surprises. “I got a text from Rob saying, ‘I’ve got to call you,’” remembers Jones of a conversation shortly before cameras rolled. “And he said, ‘Did you know that John kisses lampposts?’ I said, ‘No, I didn’t know that.’ He said, ‘It’s one of his tics. If a lamppost is out of…