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The Empire Podcast #107: Lukas Moodysson, Marc Webb, Avi Arad
18 April 2014 4:17 AM, PDT
It's Easter weekend, and you need a podcast. Well, congratulations, because you've come to the right place: a URL on the internet that allows you to download one. The Empire Podcast. That one.This week there's Amazing Spider-Man 2 director Marc Webb, as well as Amazing Spider-Man 2 producers Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad, not forgetting Sweden's very own Lukas Moodysson, here to talk about his latest, We Are The Best, on top of your usual dose of movie news and nonsense.Look forward to discussions on how to survive the zombie apocalypse, which films would actualy make you walk out of a cinema and the thorny issue of X-Men credit stings at the end of Spidey movies.P.S. You can check out our podcast photo gallery here and subscribe to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page or this handy RSS feed. You can subscribe to the magazine »
Spielberg Plans The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara
17 April 2014 7:00 PM, PDT
Fear not, Spielbergers. The man behind Lincoln, Jurassic Park and so many famous films is not planning to snatch someone from the street and incur the wrath of Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills. Instead, The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara is yet another potential project for him to direct.There’s every chance the script will spend time cooling its heels in Spielberg’s development pile, though, and it’s still in an embryonic form. If he does decide to take it on, Mortara would see a reunion between the director and his Munich/Lincoln collaborator, Tony Kushner. The writer is adapting David Kertzer’s novel, which charts the true story of a seven-year-old Italian Jew thrust into controversy in 1858 when he was taken from his parents and raised as a Catholic by authorities of the Papacy. He ended up becoming a priest. Even if he doesn't end up making the film himself, »
First Jersey Boys Trailer
17 April 2014 5:10 PM, PDT
Musicals and Clint Eastwood are not always a natural fit, as anyone who's seen Paint Your Wagon will attest. But Jersey Boys is another story, since the director won't be called upon to sing as much. And besides, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons involves a heck of a lot of male bonding and tussling, as well as underworld connections that should be right up his alley. Here's the first trailer for the film, and a new poster.Adapted from the hugely successful stage show, Jersey Boys follows the ups and downs of what would become the Four Seasons. Onstage, it's a story told through four sections themed around each of the seasons of the year, and narrated by each member of the band in turn. Tommy DeVito, Bob Gaudio, Nick Massi and Franki Castelluccio (aka Valli) all take their turn to discuss their rise, fall and rise again. »
Maleficent Featurette Explores The Film
17 April 2014 11:34 AM, PDT
Though we’ve had a couple of trailers that fairly comprehensively set the scene for Disney’s new re-working of the Sleeping Beauty story with Maleficent, it’s clearly time in the film’s promotional schedule for the cast and crew to reveal their thinking behind the expanded story. A new featurette has hit the web to do just that. Maleficent, as you’ll know by now, takes the familiar Sleeping Beauty elements and offers up some explanation for why shunned fairy Maleficent curses the young princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) to fall into a deep sleep on her 16th birthday. Turns out there was a lot of story we weren’t told in the run up the Aurora’s birth and christening, and Maleficent was badly wronged by the humans around her.As Jolie and co explain, this new take on the tale kicks off years before the events of the fairy tale, »
Chris Pine May Clock In For The Finest Hours
17 April 2014 11:33 AM, PDT
Though his last stab at screen heroism, Jack Ryan, didn’t exactly set the box office alight, Chris Pine has had better luck at the helm of a ship, even if it is one that traverses between the stars and not across the ocean. He may be hoping for similar success with a real-life naval tale, The Finest Hours.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pine is in talks to star in the film, which is drawn from the true story of two oil tankers being caught in massive Nor’easter storm off the New England coast in 1952. The ships split in two and their crews were thrown into the raging seas. The coast guard was called out and had to attempt a rescue in the tempestuous waves. Though his role isn’t specified, Pine would likely be leading the Guard crew.Fright Night director Craig Gillespie is in talks to »
Zack Snyder On Batman-Superman
17 April 2014 11:32 AM, PDT
Currently at work on the still untitled Man Of Steel follow-up that will see Henry Cavill’s Superman sharing screen time with Ben Affleck as the latest incarnation of Batman, Zack Snyder took some time out to talk to Forbes about his ideas for the film and his excitement at uniting the two veteran superheroes on the live-action big screen for the first time.Naturally, since the movie is more than two years away and Warner Bros. has been very secretive about anything to do with the look of Bats or Supes, Snyder wasn’t able to share too much, lest he himself fall victim to a swiftly thrown Batarang. But he did talk up his initial reasons for deciding to add Batman into the mix. “After Man Of Steel finished and we started talking about what would be in the next movie, I started subtly mentioning that it would »
First Teaser For The Captive
17 April 2014 11:31 AM, PDT
With the announcement today that it will screen in competition at Cannes, it seems only logical for the first trailer for Atom Egoyan’s new thriller, The Captive, to appear online. Take a look at Ryan Reynolds thrown into a nightmare… The Captive finds Egoyan on typically psychological form, wrapping the story of a kidnapping into something even deeper and darker. Reynolds plays Matthew, whose daughter Cass (Peyton Kennedy) is swiped from the back of his truck during a roadside diner. So begins a terrifying manhunt that will test the limits of the relationships between Reynolds, his wife (Mireille Enos) and others involved in the case, including the investigators assigned to try to track Cass down and the predators who are playing a twisted game.Set across eight years, the film brings last year’s Prisoners to mind with its story of twisting loyalties and clues to what happened while Cass was missing. »
Initial Image From Ryan Gosling's Lost River
17 April 2014 11:30 AM, PDT
If you read our feature on the films we’re most anticipating in this year’s Cannes line-up, you know we’re intrigued by Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River. Formerly known as How To Catch A Monster, the film promises surreal mystery and, from the looks of this first image, Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks in a tricky situation. Hendricks stars as Billy, a single mother of two who has to journey into a macabre, dark fantasy world even as her eldest son Bones finds a secret road leading to an underwater town. They’ll both have to figure out the mystery if they’re to help their family survive… Cryptic, definitely, and for certain the sort of off-centre, not-so-commercial fare you imagine from a man who has worked with the likes of Nicolas Winding Refn.When we spoke to Hendricks’ co-star, Iain De Caestecker last year, he »
New Promo For The Rover
17 April 2014 11:29 AM, PDT
Late January brought the first, moody look at Australian director David Michôd’s much-anticipated follow-up to Animal Kingdom, The Rover. If you were after a promo that keeps much of the intense, atmospheric feeling from that teaser, but offered a little more in the way of story, here you go.In fact, the new trailer shakes up what we knew of the movie’s plot, aside from the initial post-apocalyptic set-up. The Rover takes place in a world 10 years after the collapse of society. The rule of the law has disintegrated and life is cheap. The film follows hardened loner Eric (Guy Pearce) as he travels the desolate towns and roads of the outback. When a gang of thieves steals his car they leave behind a wounded Rey (Robert Pattinson) in their wake. Forcing Rey to help track the gang, Eric will go to any lengths to take back the »
Cannes Official Selection 2014 Announced!
17 April 2014 8:47 AM, PDT
The line-up for the Cannes Film Festival 2014 has been announced, and it's a selection that includes some Festival regulars as well as some less familiar faces. So don your beret, strike up a Gauloise and peruse the full list of films in competition, screening out of competition and in the Un Certain Regard categories below.It's a strong selection, albeit mainly from directors who have appeared at the Festival multiple times before. Ken Loach (Jimmy's Hall), Mike Leigh (Mr Turner, pictured), Jean-Luc Godard (Goodbye To Language), the Dardennes brothers (Two Days, One Night), David Cronenberg (Maps To The Stars) and Atom Egoyan (The Captive) are all regulars. In fact, Damian Szifron and Bennett Miller are the only directors in the competition who are at the Festival for the first time.Screening out of competition is How To Train Your Dragon 2, occupying the traditional big-animated-film-screening-at-Cannes spot. The Un Certain Regard »
Mrs Doubtfire Sequel Heats Up Again
16 April 2014 7:00 PM, PDT
It’s been so long since the idea of a sequel to Mrs. Doubtfire hit the news radar that we were beginning to think it would end up going the reboot route before any official follow-up happened. But Fox 2000 is not letting Euphegenia Doubtfire die peacefully, and is making a new attempt to convince director Christopher Columbus and star Robin Williams to re-visit the character.You’re probably aware that the 1993 film saw Williams as struggling actor Daniel Hillard, who was desperate to maintain a relationship with his children following the recent divorce from his wife Miranda (Sally Field). In order to stay close, he concocts the elderly Scottish housekeeper character and applies to be their carer with predictably disastrous results. The movie was a hit at the box office, and all involved thought a sequel might happen, but no one could find an idea they liked.Bonnie Hunt was »
First Poster For The Equalizer
16 April 2014 6:48 PM, PDT
So far, all that the world at large has seen of the new film version of classic ‘80s show The Equalizer is a couple of pictures featuring Denzel Washington looking grumpy in character as Robert McCall. We got a look at a scene last month at CinemaCon, and the poster is now online, which makes us think the trailer can’t be far behind. This updated peek into the world finds Washington as a slightly different take on Robert McCall, the retired intelligence officer played on the small screen by Edward Woodward, who decides to atone for his past sins by helping the hopeless.Working quietly at a Home Depot, McCall finds himself drawn into the life of a crusading vigilante when he helps out a young prostitute (Chloe Moretz). His actions draw the ire of the Russian mafia, and in particular a brutal fixer plated by Marton Csokas. While »
David Koechner To Lead Scouts Vs. Zombies
16 April 2014 5:02 PM, PDT
Lumbering through development hell since at least 2010, zom-com Scouts Vs. Zombies is finally heading into production. Last we heard (a year ago), Tropic Thunder and Men In Black 3 writer Etan Cohen was directing, but he's since been replaced by Christopher Landon, who most recently made Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones and wrote 2007's Disturbia. The film also now has its scout leader, in the jocular form of Champ Kind himself, David Koechner.As you might surmise from the title, Scouts Vs. Zombies finds a troop of bob-a-jobbers facing down a horde of flesh-craving undead on a camping trip. They’ll need all their survival skills to avoid becoming the zombies’ latest meal, and to help save their small town.Carrie Evans and Emi Mochizuki wrote the original script, which hit the 2010 Black List and attracted interest from Race To Witch Mountain director Andy Fickman. He’s still involved, but only as producer, »
First Trailer For Eli Roth's Green Inferno
16 April 2014 5:01 PM, PDT
The film debuted at Tiff last autumn, but aside from the odd still and a lot of talk from Eli Roth, non-festival audiences are yet to experience The Green Inferno. That's sort of of changed this morning with the arrival of the first trailer, but given its (appropriate for the title) green-band nature, there's still not much to see here. Prepare for another Roth lesson in never going travelling. Stay in your homes, kids.Roth's tribute to the gonzo Italian likes of Ruggero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi sees a group of student activists head deep into the Peruvian jungle and face the threat of being eaten alive at the hands of a hungry indigent tribe. Sticking to Roth's penchant for a clever marketing hook, you'll notice that the trailer is at pains to point out that Green Inferno stars a Peruvian rainforest tribe that's never been filmed before. Roth has »
New Title Rumoured For Third Hobbit Film
16 April 2014 2:17 PM, PDT
The film has been known as The Hobbit: There And Back Again since 2012 at least, but today a rumour surfaced from usually reliable fan site TheOneRing.net that the third Hobbit adventure could conceivably be called Into The Fire.While the site is at pains to point out that its sources are simply pointing to New Line registering the title as a way of protecting copyright, it wouldn’t be the first time the film has been floated under a different name. There was speculation that it might end up being called The Battle Of Five Armies when the plan to split the story into a trilogy was first announced.Of course, it seems awfully late to be changing things now, especially with merchandising partners’ long lead times to consider and the fact that both die hard fans and general moviegoers are used to referring to the film as There And Back Again. »
Antonio Banderas Talks Puss In Boots 2
16 April 2014 2:16 PM, PDT
While its attempts to set up new franchises with the likes of Turbo and Mr. Peabody & Sherman haven’t all worked out, DreamWorks Animation hasn’t been in a hurry to push out another entry in the Shrek spin-off Puss In Boots series. Despite the 2011 film’s success at the box office, little has been heard of any sequel, but Collider spoke to Antonio Banderas, who revealed that the wheels are well in motion.“We started the new one four days ago. It did incredibly well with audiences and critics, all around the world, and the character is going to keep going,” says the actor who provides Puss’ familiar purring tones. “This character was born almost 12 years ago. We have had a lot of fun with him, and it seems that audiences do, too. So, we’re doing another one.”With Guillermo del Toro once more acting as executive producer, »
If I Stay Trailer Online
16 April 2014 2:11 PM, PDT
Though we’re now more accustomed to teen novel adaptations featuring dystopian futures or romances with supernatural creatures, the tearjerkers are coming back in force with the grounded likes of The Fault In Our Stars. If I Stay, however, treads both a fantastical and a romantic line, and the first trailer has arrived. Adapted from Gayle Forman’s 2009 bestseller, the film stars Chloe Moretz as Mia Hall, a young music prodigy who is experiencing her first taste of love with rocker Adam (Jamie Blackley). Wavering between her Julliard ambitions and her blossoming personal life, Mia is cast into an even more difficult situation when a devastating car crash kills her parents (Mireille Enos and Joshua Leonard) and leaves her in a coma.Caught between life and death in a limbo state, Mia must choose between fighting to live in a world where she’ll face tragedy or passing on to a presumably peaceful death. »
TV Show About Greta Garbo And Marlene Dietrich Planned
16 April 2014 2:10 PM, PDT
Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures has earned a reputation for helping to fund films that other companies weren’t willing to risk, like Spike Jonze’s Her, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master and Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. The company is now looking to get into television, setting up an untitled project about Hollywood icons Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.Annapurna has True Blood writer Angela Robinson and The L Word’s Alex Kondracke scripting the project, which is mostly being kept under wraps in terms of content and where it might end up. That's not surprising, since the project doesn’t yet have a network or channel involved.But we can imagine there being considerable interest in a series that would delve into the lives of two such fascinating screen legends, including their rivalry and the circles in which they mixed during Hollywood’s Golden Age. People »
Jose Padilha To Make A Nazi-Hunting Revenge Tale
16 April 2014 2:09 PM, PDT
Having largely survived the trial by executive notes, critics and audiences that was making his first Hollywood film with the RoboCop remake, Jose Padilha is busy setting up potential new projects, albeit ones where he will have a little more control. He’s now picked Nekome, a post-World War II action pitch from John Hlavin, to potentially direct.Padilha’s Cold Mountain company is working with producer Eric Newman to develop the film for StudioCanal. Hlavin, who wrote Underworld Awakening and has several unproduced scripts floating around different development pools, cooked up the idea, which takes its name from the Yiddish word for revenge. The setting is the days shortly after the conflict, with two young Holocaust survivors sent to Brazil to hunt down the Nazis who ran their concentration camp.Given his experience working in his home country for the much-praised Elite Squad films, it’s not surprising to »
See An X-Men: Days Of Future Past Sting On Amazing Spider-Man 2
16 April 2014 8:57 AM, PDT
It's not exactly unusual for superheroes to team up. Spider-Man and the X-Men have done so on numerous occasions in the comics, so it should come as no surprise that they are doing so again - sort of - on the big screen. But surprise! There is an X-Men: Days Of Future Past clip in the credits of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which marks a possible new era of collaboration between competing studios with Fox and Sony working together.Now this isn't a post-credits sting as we've seen before in the Marvel universe, setting up some sort of crossover between the two worlds. Rather, it's a clip from the X-film that gives us a taste of the action we're in for. We've been told by Sony that the clip will be attached to the film in the UK.The scene featured sees Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique, Lucas Till's Havok »
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