Did you watch Scott Mann's 2022 TV tower thriller Fall and think, "Yeah, this is neat, but I could really do with the action moving about 2,000 feet higher a few more loose footholds, and a lil' pinch of extra lurching shots over perilous drops?" Well then do we have the movie — and trailer — for you. The Spierig Brothers have picked up Mann's vertigo-inducing thriller gauntlet for Fall 2: Deadpoint, a sure-to-be-nerve-shredding sequel set 5,000 feet above ground, featuring a new cast of emotionally vulnerable adrenaline junkies climbing things they really probably should leave well alone — this time, a bunch of mile-high perilous planks. Check out the trailer below;

Okay, okay, okay... that was barely a minute long and we're already feeling a little dizzy and a lotta nausea — sheesh! This is a teaser trailer that's pretty much all tease with admittedly little trail to follow, but as tone-setters go, it more than does the trick. On-screen infographics remind us of all the mental and physical effects of climbing at high altitudes (did you know oxygen drops to 13.7% at 11,000 feet?) as we hear some seriously shallow breathing, and then suddenly we're with Queen Charlotte star Arsema Thomas' Luce and her pals, stranded up plank creek without a sturdy plank paddle. Cue ominous shots of loose makeshift steps, dangling backpacks, perilous rocky outcrops all the way down, and — YIKES! — a seemingly unsurvivable fall. And all that in just a minute. Yeah, we're thinkin' Fall is back!

The official synopsis for The Spierig Brothers' vertiginous thriller — which also stars Harriet Slater, Tom Brittney, Virginia Gardner, and Grace Caroline Currey — gives us a little more context, and reads: "After losing her fearless sister Hunter, a deeply damaged Jax (Harriet Slater) sets out on a dangerous climb with Hunter’s old friend to honor her memory. As they tightrope walk the perilous planks of Mount Kwan, a terrifying rockslide leaves them stranded 5,000 feet above ground. In the face of vertigo-inducing sequences, dark truths, and cruel twists, Jax must confront her deepest fears head-on to fight for survival and closure."

While we'd still recommend anyone with deep-rooted trauma and mental health vulnerabilities to maybe pursue some slightly less dangerous acts of catharsis, we nevertheless are very excited/terrified to see where The Spierig Brothers' movie *cough* drops *cough* with fans when Fall 2: Deadpoint hits cinemas on 2 September. Before then, we're off for a lie-down and some deep breathing exercises because that trailer alone was pure stress...

When The Acolyte was cancelled after a single season on Disney+, fans of Leslye Headland’s Star Wars series were left with all kinds of questions. What was the deal with Manny Jacinto’s dark and dangerous Stranger? What would become of Amandla Stenberg’s Osha after her turn to the dark side? And where would those teases of Yoda and Darth Plagueis have led? Without a second season, we’ll never know – but fresh hope for the show arose recently when it re-charted on Disney+, around the release of Maul: Shadow Lord.

As more audiences caught up with The Acolyte years on, Empire spoke to Headland – who expressed that she would return if a second season of the show ever got the green light. “I would still want to do it! Absolutely,” she says. “As more people discover it, I think people may want to see some form of the story come back.” While a chapter of the story closed at the end of the season, Headland is clear on where she wanted to go next. “We did have a lot of stuff that we wanted to explore — including tying in lore to the sequels,” she teases. “Getting into who exactly Manny’s character is, his connection with [Jedi Master] Vernestra, his connection with Plagueis, and then his connection with other sequel-established things.”

For now, fans can binge Season 1 without waiting a week between episodes – a viewing experience Headland recommends. “It was designed that way,” she says. And in a galaxy rife with possibilities, there may come a time for The Acolyte to, somehow, return. “The weather changes with Star Wars,” she says. “There was a real negative reaction to [the Prequels], especially from a particular generation. And 25 years later, Hayden [Christensen] is at Celebration.” Trust in the Force.

Read Empire’s full story on The Acolyte in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue, on sale now. Order a copy online here. The Acolyte is streaming now on Disney+.

When Kevin Williamson pitched a meta slasher called ‘Scary Movie’ to Miramax, the suits felt the title was too flippant for a horror film and changed it to Scream. The rejected title didn’t go to waste, and was stuck on the Wayans family’s parody, which founded a parallel franchise. The Wayanses’ involvement ended after Scary Movie 2, and Scary Movie 5 was the last entry, in 2013. Until now: with Scream relaunching through 2022’s ‘requel’, it was inevitable that Scary Movie would be back with this ‘rebootycall’. And the Wayanses are back with it.

Just as the first Scary Movie was more a remake of Scream with gross-out comedy footnotes than an actual parody, this sticks close to the plot of Scream (2022) — simply restaging scenes with the odd wink to camera about how obvious the mystery is or dig at the modern-day Scream films’ ‘woke’ tendencies. Besides Wayanses old and new — there’s a joke about how many of them there are — pretty much all of the cast of the first Scary Movie return, still hammering their running jokes into the ground. Shorty (Marlon Wayans) is still stoned, and Ray (Shawn Wayans) is still pretending not to be gay, while talented comedians Anna Faris — who takes a ribbing for being in Scary Movie 3 and 4 — and Regina Hall do their best with not-exactly A material. Olivia Rose Keegan, Savannah Lee Nassif, Cameron Scott Roberts and Sydney Park — one of many 1997 babies who might have been named after the Neve Campbell character in Scream — are shrill stands-ins for Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, and Jasmin Savoy Brown from the requel — which is, by now, two Screams ago.

Scary Movie tradition is to refer to job-lots of other films in scenes which only barely qualify as send-ups. It’s also series tradition to be just behind the curve, so nods to Terrifier, Sinners, Get Out, Weapons, Longlegs, M3GAN, Candyman, The Substance, and Nosferatu will be old news to audiences who’ve moved on to Backrooms, Obsession, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (the likely targets of a seventh instalment). There are okay-ish jokes about the OG SM crew being stuck in the early 2000s, but the film at least references some current concerns — ICE raids, insistence on preferred pronouns, a history curriculum predicated on slavery not being a bad thing. The last ten minutes before the extended end-credits almost start to be funny, playing on tension between the cast holdovers from the first Scary Movie and the younger generation — but it’s a long haul to get there.

In the last few years, Anya Taylor-Joy has mostly been seen (and heard) in the realms of sci-fi and fantasy — whether as The Super Mario Galaxy Movie's Princess Peach, Furiosa's eponymous warrior heroine, or as Paul Atreides' sister Alia in Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two. In Jonathan Tropper's upcoming Apple TV limited series Lucky however, adapted from Marissa Stapley's bestselling book, our gal Anya — here playing the titular role, a con artist on the lam after a multi-million-dollar heist gone awry — is brought back down to Earth with a thud. Check out the trailer below;

Now there's a trailer! Sure, having a career-criminal Timothy Olyphant for a dad and a stylish federal agent Annette Bening for a mother-in-law might sound like a dream come true on paper, but as this first look at Lucky shows us, in reality it's a set-up that puts Anya Taylor-Joy's trying-to-be-reformed robber in a real pickle. But Lucky's daddy issues/missing hubby/missing money losses look most assuredly like our gains, with Taylor-Joy switching up wigs, costumes, and stress-levels effortlessly — running across rooftops and excavating childhood traumas — as she leaves the law asking, "How can someone so small cause so much trouble?"

The short-but-sweet official synopsis for Lucky — which also stars Queer breakout Drew Starkey, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and Clifton Collins Jr. (Train Dreams) — reads: "When a multimillion-dollar heist goes sideways, con artist Lucky (Taylor-Joy) is forced to go on the run. Pursued by both the FBI and a ruthless crime boss, Lucky must fight for her life — and a way out."

With adrenalised action, tense familial drama, and a classic 'one last job' hook, the omens are strong for Tropper and Taylor-Joy's passion project, the latest from Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production label. We'll see whether we're feeling Lucky when it hits Apple TV on 15 July.

Charli XCX’s post-Brat pivot to cinema has so far seen her ease her way in, taking small roles in 100 Nights Of Hero, Faces Of Death, and I Want Your Sex, as well as playing herself in tour mock-doc The Moment. But Erupcja is a bolder leap: an intimate indie character-drama that hinges on her not playing Charli XCX, or a version thereof. It’s a film that proves she may well have a future in movies, the sort of cool underground Euro-picture that she herself would log on her eclectic Letterboxd page.

While XCX’s pop persona has never been the most outsized, she strips it all back to play Bethany — a ‘normal’ woman in her thirties on the brink of settling down. Her nice-but-dull boyfriend Rob (Will Madden, perfectly pitiable) has whisked her away to Warsaw (her suggestion, he wanted Paris) where he plans to propose. But Bethany has ulterior motives for picking Poland: she used to live there, and has a powerful unspoken bond with local flower-shop-owner Nel (Lena Góra). Whenever Beth and Nel are together, a volcano erupts — quite literally. When Mount Etna belches ash, cancelling flights across Europe and unexpectedly extending Beth and Rob’s trip, she can’t help but be drawn back into Nel’s orbit.

The film’s greatest asset, its compelling core? It’s Charli, baby.

Director Pete Ohs keeps things low-key but engaging as the tectonic plates shift in Beth and Rob’s relationship; it’s painful watching him flail, trying to bridge the distance and conjure romance as she pulls further away. For all his niceties, they’re clearly not aligned. “With him, the Earth doesn’t shake,” Beth admits. The exact nature of her connection with Nel — whether romantic, sexual or spiritual — isn’t spelled out, but their chemistry is undeniable, both potent and volatile, causing ruptions in Nel’s other entanglements too. Through Rob and Nel, Erupcja prods at possible paths in Beth’s future: is the stability he represents boring? Is her connection with Nel — for all its excitement and unpredictability — ultimately selfish? Rather than try and offer answers or moralistic judgment, Ohs simply lets his characters exist in the mess of it all.

The overall vibe is one of a hangout, with shades of Richard Linklater’s Before films; you sense it was filmed that way too, since Ohs shares a writing credit with all the key cast members, including XCX, Madden, Góra and playwright Jeremy O. Harris (who plays a small role as an expat artist). That looseness is inviting, all contained in a 71-minute runtime that doesn’t outstay its welcome. There’s style here — a boxy aspect ratio, colourful interstitials, volcano cutaways — and a drolly funny voiceover that lends wry humour to the drama. But the film’s greatest asset, its compelling core? It’s Charli, baby.

Great things happen when Brad Bird goes animated. This is the filmmaker who cut his teeth on The Simpsons in its prime, and went on to helm The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and its sequel, and Ratatouille. And running through the background of it all, he’s always wanted to make Ray Gunn – a retro-sci-fi noir which he’s been stewing on since the 1990s. Now, it’s finally real, arriving as an animated feature on Netflix later this year, with some stellar voice talent to boot.

In the role of the brilliantly-named Ray Gunn himself is Sam Rockwell. “He’s pretty much your Main Street private detective,” Bird tells Empire of his hero. “A hard-bitten character, but not without a sense of humour.” And getting someone as expressive as Rockwell in the booth only adds to the personality of your hero. “Sam is just an amazing actor, and he’s quirky and unpredictable,” says Bird. “He never phones it in. It inspires you to bring something to the table as an animator.”

As Gunn – the last human private detective in a world inhabited by all kinds of galactic beings – becomes embroiled in a twisty-turny mystery, Bird promises audiences are in for a ride. “It has no shortage of thoughts in it. But it’s primarily meant to be good with a box full of popcorn,” he explains. “It’s meant to be a really good time.” Plus, in true Brad Bird style, it’s a real genre blend. “There’s a lot more action in this movie than a normal noir, and there’s more comedy,” he says. “It’s a blend of things going on at once.” Sounds like it’ll be worth the seriously long wait.

Read Empire’s full Ray Gunn story in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue, on sale Thursday 4 June. Order a copy online here. Ray Gunn comes to Netflix later in 2026.

A new era is dawning for Spider-Man in Brand New Day – picking back up with Tom Holland’s Spidey in a world where nobody remembers Peter Parker. The new issue of Empire takes a major new look at Marvel’s summer blockbuster – and you can pre-order a copy right here.

While the issue doesn’t hit shelves until June 4, here’s a sneak peek inside its pages.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

New York’s friendly neighbourhood hero thwips back into action in Spider-Man: Brand New Day – and Empire gets the first word, speaking to stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jon Bernthal, Marvel boss Kevin Feige, director Destin Daniel Cretton, and producer Amy Pascal.

Supergirl

James Gunn’s DCU returns with Supergirl – a punky space-opera that isn’t afraid to explore the messiness of its complex central hero. Empire speaks to Milly Alcock, director Craig Gillespie, and writer Ana Nogueira on a different kind of comic book movie.

Jackass

For decades now, Johnny Knoxville and crew have been raising hell for our entertainment. As they prepare to bow out with Jackass: Best And Last, they talk Empire through their wildest moments – and the camaraderie that’s kept them together.

Minions & Monsters

The little yellow Minions have dominated the globe for years now. And as they prepare to take on Hollywood in Minions & Monsters, Empire meets their creator (and voice actor) Pierre Coffin to discover what makes them so irresistible.

Timothy Olyphant

Whether playing heroes, villains or anything in between, Timothy Olyphant is a magnetic screen presence – and his choices are only getting bolder. He sits down for a major new Empire interview and shoot.

10 Years Of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

The cult classic comedy turns 10 – and Empire sat down with the ever-humble trio known as The Lonely Island to discuss its legacy, its initial box office flop, and what was left on the cutting room floor.

The Deep Dive: Houdini In Hollywood

Our latest exploration of the annals of movie history explores the time legendary escape artist Harry Houdini broke his way into cinema.

First Word

This month’s news section takes aim at Brad Bird’s long-awaited animated passion project Ray Gunn; goes to the beach with the surviving members of Monty Python; straps in for Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma with director Jane Schoenbrun; digs into the mysteries of Silo Season 3; ventures to Dreamworks’ much-hyped Forgotten Island; lights the spark on Evil Dead Burn; explores the resurgence of The Acolyte on Disney+ with creator Leslye Headland; and much more.

Final Cut

In the home entertainment section, Charlie Cox discusses the seismic Season 2 finale of Daredevil: Born Again; we rank the best movies of 1996; Cyrano de Bergerac gets the Masterpiece treatment; Lawrence Kasdan discusses Body Heat; we break down the big moments of Jack Ryan movie Ghost War with director Andrew Bernstein; and plenty more.

Reviews

In this issue, you’ll find reviews of the Nicolas Cage-starring Spidey spin-off Spider-Noir; John Travolta’s directorial debut Propellor One-Way Night Coach; Jodie Foster thriller A Private Life; Charli XCX Euro-drama Erupcja; and many more.

Order a copy of the issue online here

In recent years, the Evil Dead series has not messed about. While Sam Raimi’s sequels fused his hardcore horror sensibilities with gallons of slapstick gore, the likes of Fede Alvarez’s 2013 Evil Dead and Lee Cronin’s 2023 Evil Dead Rise have veered closer to the transgressive terror of Raimi’s original film; albeit with a sadistic wink in their eye. Next up is the turn of French filmmaker Sebastien Vaniček, whose Evil Dead Burn will subject a new family to the hellish exploits of Kandarian demons. The Necronomicon is open for business once more.

At the heart of the madness this time is Souheila Yacoub’s Alice, playing on a different register to Bruce Campbell’s outlandish Ash. “When we created Alice, we wanted a character who’s really grounded,” Vaniček explains. “She’s mourning someone, she arrives in this house, and crazy stuff happens. I wanted to create characters that are behaving like it’s real life.”

While Alice won’t have a chainsaw hand, Vaniček is still pulling ideas that spring from fighting Deadites in a domestic space. “I really want the audience to feel different when they use their dishwasher after watching the movie,” he says. And Alice will really have her work cut out, battling the Necronomicon’s nastiest. “I needed to stay in touch with what makes these demons not like the ones from The Exorcist,” says Vaniček. “They are smart. They are playing with you. When I was talking with the actors, I was telling them, ‘Behave like animals.’ Every one of these Deadites has a fighting style that is completely different.” Expect a groovy time at the movies.

Read Empire’s full Evil Dead Burn story in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue, on sale Thursday June 4. Order a copy online here. Evil Dead Burn comes to cinemas from July 10.

Streaming on: Apple TV

Episodes viewed: 6 of 10

As soon as the familiar, ominous horns blare over the first scene, it’s clear that this new Cape Fear has no hang-ups about being a remake. The same Bernard Herrmann theme stalked the 1962 J. Lee Thompson original and 1991 Martin Scorsese version. Music is far from the only thing the show affectionately borrows, particularly from Scorsese’s take (he’s an executive producer here). It imitates respectfully and stylishly, with visual nods and reinterpretations of key scenes. What this Apple TV show does less surely is establish its own convincing identity.

In the earlier versions, Max Cady is a violent rapist who emerges from prison with a volcanic grudge against a lawyer he blames for his conviction. Here, there’s a tweak. Cady (Javier Bardem) has served 17 years for murdering his pregnant wife but is released when an ex-lover confesses to his crimes, then immediately kills herself. News of his freedom terrifies his former lawyer, Anna Bowden (Amy Adams), who is now married to Tom (Patrick Wilson), the prosecutor who put Cady away. The terror is intensified when Cady heads to the Bowdens’ neighbourhood and takes a keen interest in them and their two unhappy teenage children.

The movies were straightforward cat-and-mouse. This is a bit more cat-and-ball-of-string.

In the movies and the original novel, The Executioners, Cady is a guilty man set on vengeance. The tension builds as he gets closer to his stated goal of destroying the life of the lawyer he holds responsible. The show makes Cady more ambiguous. Is he fundamentally evil or was he broken by prison? Was he wrongly jailed or wrongly freed? As practised as Bardem is at being sinister, it reduces the character. To keep Cady interacting with the Bowdens, and string out the mystery, he has to be partially defanged, leading to some unconvincing plot-turns. Anna is forced to work with Cady, which she finds uncomfortable rather than unbearable. Tom has the odd drink with him. They circle each other cautiously and repetitively. The movies were straightforward cat-and-mouse. This is a bit more cat-and-ball-of-string.

It becomes a better watch as the series progresses, the Bowdens’ paranoia boiling over and the tone edging into campy thriller. Early episodes have moments of it, with overwrought Hitchcockian camerawork and some cheesy storytelling tricks — newspaper headlines and televised reports do some expository heavy-lifting — but they’re playful little smudges on a more prestige, serious surface. By Episode 6 (the first six of ten were made available for review) it gets looser, with some ludicrous revelations, all well-sold by the excellent cast. It’s silly, garish fun and actually more of a piece with the adaptations it’s following: another serving of well-made pulp.

To me, my X-Men... '97 Season 2 trailer! When last we saw our beloved mutants in X-Men '97's breathless Season 1 finale, things weren't looking so great for our heroes. Scattered across time, Magneto, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Beast, and Xavier wound up in Ancient Egypt circa 3000BC, landing directly in the path of a young En Sabah Nur — aka 'the first mutant' Apocalypse. Meanwhile Jean Grey and Cyclops were flung 2000 years into the future, reunited with their son Nathan in a literal post-Apocalypse world. And as the first trailer for X-Men' 97 Season 2 shows us, we're picking right back where we left off with our mutie crew — check it out below;

Hoo boy — if X-Men '97 Season 1 proved Marvel knows exactly how to handle its mutants, then it looks like Season 2 is doubling down and then some. Rogue mourning Gambit... Apocalypse pledging to strike the X-Men at their most vulnerable ("The 1990s!" obviously)... Morph going full Deadpool... Polaris! Sheesh, we need a Time Machine — or just a replay button, really — to process all the cool mutant shenanigans teased here. Handily, amid our delirium we did find Marvel's official Season 2 synopsis as our superheroes — and villains — prepare for a battle across the ages. It reads: "X-Men '97 Season 2 continues with the heroic mutant team of X-Men, divided and thrown across different eras in time as they struggle to navigate their return home. Meanwhile, back in the 1990s, suspicious foes and new strains of mutant intolerance are on the rise in the wake of the X-Men’s absence."

Among the voice cast for X-Men '97's nine-episode Season 2, you'll be relieved to hear, are Ross Marquand as Professor X, Matthew Waterson as Magneto, Ray Chase as Cyclops, Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, Lenore Zann as Rogue, and George Buza as Beast. We'll see whether they — and the rest of our heroes — make it back to the 90s in one piece when X-Men '97 Season 2 drops on Disney+ on 1 July. Now can we get a “Bwa-na-na-na naaaa na-na”? Thank you!

Given how many of Kristin Scott Thomas’ on-screen characters could kill you with a single withering look, it’s perhaps a surprise that her screenwriting and directorial debut is a gentle and cosy affair, about a middle-class British family working through their emotional hang-ups. Think chintzy cottage, idyllic streams and enviable day dresses and you’re halfway there. What’s less surprising is the quality of performance and self-assurance on display.

There’s a sense of real feeling to Scott Thomas’ work here. Written with her journalist husband John Micklethwait, this was inspired by elements of Scott Thomas' own life. She lost both her pilot father and later her pilot stepfather to plane crashes in early life, at a time when she was old enough to remember both tragedies. While she had made short animations for her younger brothers about their missing fathers, she wanted here to explore the experiences of three children shaped in contrasting ways by the same events, which not all of them remember in the same way. It's an ambitious undertaking, an attempt to examine all three women’s lives, marriages and approaches to motherhood, as well as their own mother’s response. It can't quite drill down into all those elements sufficiently deeply, but what's here is beautifully played.

It can't quite drill down into all those elements sufficiently deeply, but what's here is beautifully played.

Naturally given her reputation, Scott Thomas was able to assemble a superb cast. She enlisted her Four Weddings And A Funeral brother, James Fleet, as her fiancé Geoff, and her Horse Whisperer daughter Scarlett Johansson (with a solid English accent) as her oldest and most tightly wound daughter, Katherine, who’s about to become the Royal Navy’s first female aircraft carrier captain. Sienna Miller is the movie-star middle-child Victoria, and Emily Beecham the youngest and most stay-at-home, Georgina, an NHS nurse. Over the course of a few days, they must all face blockages in their lives, and hopefully find a way to move forward.

There are a few awkward shifts of tone, a few too-obvious tells (Saltburn's Joshua McGuire, as Georgina’s husband, is so often cast as a buffoon that there are no surprises to his storyline), and one satisfying but arguably too-pat mother-solves-it-all scene with the sisters. Still, the cast deliver enough substance, with enough nuance, to carry it off, and create something as charming and evidently loved as their country-cottage setting.

You know the saying about how when one door closes, another one opens? Well, when it comes to revivals of sci-fi franchises based on a 1994 Roland Emmerich movie, it's more like when one Stargate opens, the same Stargate closes. Yes, just seven months after Amazon announced a new Stargate series from Blindspot creator Martin Gero would soon be heading our way, Variety is reporting that Uncle Bezos has closed his wallet and the show has already been axed before ever making it into production.

According to Variety's sources, Amazon's top brass got cold feet around Stargate because they became worried "that Gero’s take on the series would not have broad appeal beyond the franchise’s already dedicated fanbase." Given that the company happily hired Gero as writer-showrunner however, a Stargate veteran who's worked on each of the franchise's last three TV iterations, it's unclear what ultimately proved the straw that broke the camel's back for Amazon. If there is a silver lining to be found in this disappointing news though, it is that despite Gero's series not moving forwards, Amazon is still exploring new ways to bring the franchise back to our screens.

With 16 years having passed now since the franchise's last TV outing, Stargate Universe, hopes for a fully-fledged revival of the hard sci-fi saga are admittedly dwindling at this exact moment. But given the infinite potential of the premise — an ever-refreshing expeditionary team uses ring-shaped portals to virtually instantaneously travel anywhere across the universe — surely, surely it's only a matter of time before the Stargate truly does open once more. Only then will the holy trinity of Star franchises — Wars, Trek, and Gate — be whole again. Fingers crossed!

“Love is a state of temporary psychosis,” claims Sigmund Freud, in the opening title card of Finding Emily. Once upon a time, of course, this particular psychosis was less of a temporary presence on our cinema screens and more of a regular feature. But in the streaming era, romcoms are a rare breed; how pleasing, then, to see an unabashed romantic comedy back on the big screen, and a homegrown British one from _Four Weddings And A Funeral_production company Working Title, no less.

This is a sweet little film which makes no bones about following in the tradition of its Richard Curtis-ian forebears, even if it tries to inject a bit of Gen-Z self-awareness and subversion along the way. Our star-cross’d story begins in a Manchester Student Union bar: one night, scruffy music technician Owen (Spike Fearn), with a Stone Roses haircut and a fidgety soft-lad Gallagher swagger, stumbles upon a cute girl named Emily (Sadie Soverall). They enjoy a slow-motion meet-cute, where the world around them seems to fade away, West Side Story-style. They vibe. But then Emily disappears, and though she gives Owen her number, it’s one digit short.

Alicia MacDonald’s direction almost feels like a Mancunian take on Rye Lane, colourful and vibrant with music everywhere...

So, Owen sets out on a romantic/obsessive (delete as appropriate) mission to track her down — which is how he bumps into the wrong Emily (Spider-Man’s Angourie Rice), an American psychology student and confirmed romance cynic who believes that love is an act of insanity. Struggling to find a suitable subject for her thesis, she realises that Owen’s desperate mission to find the real Emily might be the perfect case-study of self-sabotage. Thus, a 10 Things I Hate About You-style ‘secret scheme’ is hatched — a classic romcom conceit — in which Emily creates her very own deeply unethical “Stanford prison experiment”, as she puts it, without Owen’s awareness or consent. Or, as her Romcom Best Friend suggests, in the Gen-Z vernacular: “It’s giving illegal.”

It all goes about the way you might expect it to go, with a romance they didn’t realise was happening until it was right in front of them, a love that goes unrequited until it is, inevitably, requited. Plenty of stuff here stretches credulity, even for this genre — are podcasts really blared out on big screens and loudspeakers, live across university campuses, like it’s Times Square in a film about the end of the world? — and there are some fairly broad caricatures of ‘woke’ politics, which slightly undermine a real point the film wants to make.

But the script, by Rachel Hirons, has some strength to it, self-aware enough to reference genre tropes like Manic Pixie Dream Girls, and robust enough to have a genuine narrative debate on earnestness versus cynicism. And it sails by with charm and warmth: Alicia MacDonald’s direction almost feels like a Mancunian take on Rye Lane, colourful and vibrant with music everywhere (shout-out to Nia Archives and Tom Tom Club on the soundtrack); while Rice and Fearn are bright and breezy company, both game for self-effacing comedy and with bags of chemistry between them. For a good romcom, that’s half the battle.

By any action aficionado's standards, stuntman-turned-director David Leitch's filmography is pretty impressive. Producer of John Wick, director of Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train, Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, and veritable actionpalooza The Fall Guy, and one of the reasons we're finally getting a Stunt Oscar, when it comes to cinematic ass-kicking the man kicks ass. And his latest movie, Nicholas Hoult and Zoë Kravitz led cat-and-mouse heist thriller How To Rob A Bank, looks like another balls-to-the-wall cinematic adrenaline rush. Check out the trailer below;

Nicholas Hoult in a wolf mask? Check! Zoë Kravitz and John C. Reilly teaming up to take on Hoult and his gang of viral crooks? Check! Bank job POV shots, two-footed dropkicks, and a primo slice of anti-capitalist sentiment? Check, check, and triple-check! Yeah, we're thinkin' Leitch is back. And honestly, if this first trailer for How To Rob A Bank is anything to go by, with its acerbic wit, kinetic action, and palpable tension as 'what if Robin Hood was a content creator in a furry outfit?' Hoult and co gear up for their biggest job yet, then we could be in for a real treat.

The official synopsis for How To Rob A Bank — which also stars Anna Sawai, Rhenzy Feliz, Christian Slater, and Pete Davidson — reads: "A crew of social media-savvy bank robbers broadcasts their daring heists, unaware that their growing viral fame has put them in the crosshairs of a veteran FBI agent and a brilliant software engineer. Despite the unlikely duo closing in, the crime ring pushes past their limits, putting everything on the line for their beliefs – and their most ambitious heist yet.”

We won't know whether the cops or the robbers will out until How To Rob A Bank hits cinemas on 4 September, but David Leitch has already scored big: we're more than ready to shut up and let him take our money with this one.

In jazz, the magic happens in the silences. Miles Davis once suggested that true genius lies in “the notes you don’t play”. Fittingly, Köln 75 — a film about the story behind The Köln Concert, Keith Jarrett’s improvised 1975 performance that went on to become the bestselling solo piano album of all time — is ingenious in how it riffs around one striking omission: none of Jarrett’s music appears in the film.

Rather than awkwardly dance around that absence, director Ido Fluk transforms it into the film’s central idea. In place of Jarrett’s music comes the frantic, infectious energy of Vera Brandes, the teenage concert promoter who somehow convinced the notoriously difficult pianist to take the stage in Cologne and ended up creating jazz history.

[Ido] Fluk attacks the material with restless formal energy. Fourth-wall breaks, rapid-fire editing and knowingly absurd pop-culture detours give the film a self-aware swagger that occasionally strains for profundity.

Crucially, Jarrett himself is barely the point. The film belongs entirely to Vera, played by Mala Emde with charming, kinetic verve. Though older than the real-life teenager she portrays, Emde captures the reckless obsession of someone utterly consumed by art, throwing herself into jazz culture with the kind of evangelical earnestness that feels almost alien today. Vera isn’t simply organising a concert; she’s chasing transcendence. John Magaro (Past Lives), meanwhile, plays Jarrett as a man permanently teetering between artistic purity and total exasperation, giving the film a prickly counterweight to Vera’s idealism.

Fluk attacks the material with restless formal energy. Fourth-wall breaks, rapid-fire editing and knowingly absurd pop-culture detours give the film a self-aware swagger that occasionally strains for profundity. There are moments where the film tries a little too hard to mythologise jazz as a near-spiritual force, while Michael Chernus’ rambling critic character often arrives to dump exposition rather than add to the narrative. Some of the film’s broader comedic flourishes also sit awkwardly alongside its more sincere emotional beats. Still, the film’s sheer, chaotic momentum usually carries it through.

That momentum becomes exhilarating in the final stretch, as Vera scrambles through a mounting series of disasters threatening to derail the concert entirely. A faulty piano, Jarrett’s exhaustion, backstage chaos— Fluk stages it all like a ticking-clock thriller. Even knowing the outcome, the film builds genuine suspense from the logistical nightmare. Then comes the elephant in the room: the missing music. The now 81-year-old Keith Jarrett’s lack of involvement with the production means the climactic performance unfolds without a note of The Köln Concert itself. For some, that will be an unforgivable anticlimax. Yet there’ssomething strangely fitting about a film that rolls with the punches around that limitation. By the end, the missing music feels less like a flaw than part of the magic.

When you think of Jackass, you think of a bunch of brawling bros in a giant shopping trolley, careening down a steep road. Or, ‘bee limo’, in which they filled a limo with bees, while their friends were still inside it. Or, Johnny Knoxville getting flipped by an angry bull. But underneath all those daft and dangerous pranks, there’s always been a camaraderie to the Jackass crew, one that persists to this day. Hence why the gang returns, one last time, in the upcoming Jackass: Best And Last – which sees them recreate that legendary shopping trolley stunt from the first film.

As member Steve-O puts it, there’s a warmth to Jackass that keeps the team – and the audience – coming back. “It might sound counter-intuitive, but I consider Jackass to be deeply wholesome,” he tells Empire. “I think it’s built into the male DNA to want to be macho and tough, and I think our willingness to not look cool is somehow endearing.”

Over the years, those involved in making the movies (and the original show) have been through ups and downs, with Jackass a constant among it all – and while the core conceit means they’ve never truly grown up, they have matured. “I’m so grateful for the growth in both the franchise and in myself,” says Steve-O. “The trajectory is one of tremendous spiritual growth.” Looking back on the films, he can see significant chapters in his own life. “On the third movie, I was newly sober, which is great, but sobriety is a very slow and uncomfortable process. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. I had not found my voice,” he reflects. “And then on the fourth movie, with so much time having elapsed, I just felt like a butterfly. I just blossomed.” Long live Jackass.

Read Empire’s full Jackass feature in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue – on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online now. Jackass: Best And Last comes to UK cinemas from June 26.

Tip Toe begins with a woman screaming, “Monster!” in horror, but to label the show itself as horror suggests this to be a work of heightened fiction. In truth, the dread and terror evoked here are all too real. While It's A Sin reflected on gay history (it’s set between 1981 and 1991) and Years And Years took a prescient look at the near-future, this latest rallying cry from Russell T Davies is rooted in the here and now. Specifically, the fear, rage and despair that characterise modern-day life as a queer person in the UK.

Queer joy does pop up occasionally, connecting Leo (Alan Cumming) to his chosen family on Canal Street, for example. But these aren’t the moments that will stick with you. No, it’s Clive (David Morrissey) showing up in Leo’s home unannounced; it’s Leo no longer apologising for simply existing; and most of all, it’s the sight of Leo’s feet dangling from the lamppost he’s been hanged from in the street. That’s not a spoiler, by the way. Tip Toe opens with Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington) broken at the sight of her friend strung up for all to see, establishing an immediate sense of dread as we jump back ten days to understand how we reached this point.

Knowing Leo’s story ends this way creates a constant unease heightened by each individual conflict. Small at first, the clashes build primarily in taut two-handers, with Cumming and Morrissey both doing career-best work that finds nuance in even the most difficult moments. Director Peter Hoar, who’s previously collaborated with Davies on Nolly, It’s A Sin and Doctor Who, expertly handles the shifting tension as it ebbs and flows, the abrasive drama hurtling towards a crescendo that's almost too hard to watch. Watch we must, though, because Tip Toe wrestles with vital conversations that remain overlooked elsewhere.

As such, it’s easy to forgive the occasional heavy-handed monologue. The most effective one comes early on via Leo’s friend Melba (Paul Rhys): “I used to walk into a room and just go, ‘Ta-da!’ Now I tiptoe, just in case.” We are lucky that Davies refuses to do the same, loudly calling out the real horrors queer people face at a time when everything should be getting better, not worse.

For a few years now, Adam Wingard has been in MonsterVerse mode. But for all the rock-‘em-sock-‘em delights of Godzilla Vs Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, his return to original fare is particularly exciting. Because, long before he was going full monster-mash, Wingard made films like You’re Next and The Guest – small, sharp, ultra-knowing genre works that made him a cult sensation. And his latest, Onslaught, looks to be very much in that mould, pitching Adria Arjona against a batch of super-soldiers. Check out the trailer:

Now that looks like a rad time at the movies. Onslaught seems to be something like The Guest with the action dial cranked way up – with a big, burly (and seemingly supernatural) military monster, played by Alex Pereira, on the march. Can Arjona’s battle-hardened Celeste stop him? Judging by the way she revs that chainsaw (“Come on, you little bitch!”), we wouldn’t count her out just yet. The cast also includes The Terminator legend Michael Biehn, Reginald VelJohnson, and Rebecca Hall, who also starred in Wingard’s Godzilla/Kong films.

The real question is, will this have any connective tissue to The Guest? It has that military theme, it’s a collaboration with Wingard’s regular screenwriter Simon Barrett, and Dan Stevens is also in the cast (and mysteriously absent from this trailer). It wouldn’t be the first time Wingard and Barrett pulled a switcheroo on audiences, after their 2016 film ‘The Woods’ turned out to be a secret Blair Witch sequel. Whatever Onslaught ends up being, it looks like a blast. It’s due in US cinemas on September 6, and hopefully won’t be out much later in the UK.

A movie based on an old cartoon, based on a toy, about a character who voluntarily goes by the name ‘He-Man’, should not be taken too seriously. If you feel nostalgic about it and think it deserves respect, imagine listing off the characters to an unfamiliar fellow adult and see how long it takes you to feel embarrassed (even if you get past Ram Man, good luck navigating Fisto). That’s presumably why director Travis Knight has taken a distinctly winking approach to the self-styled Masters Of The Universe, and leaned into the utter ridiculousness in a way that, largely, works.

A wordy prologue establishes the scene: our hapless hero Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) was once a prince of Eternia, a magical land that the royal family and the Sorceress (Monica Baccarin) protected against evildoers like Skeletor (Jared Leto). But when that bad guy attacks, the King (James Purefoy) and his chief Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba) are overwhelmed, and the child Adam is sent through a portal to Earth. He instantly loses the magical sword that would allow him to return. Fifteen years later, he’s a misunderstood cog in a corporate machine, but he finds his weapon at long last and is immediately hunted by Skeletor’s goons.

Travis Knight and his cast get the big stuff right.

His childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes) helps him escape home, where they must keep the weapon away from Skeletor and reach Castle Grayskull to… well, it’s not entirely clear. The result is a chase movie, with the pantomime bony baddie determined to get his hands on Adam’s sword (steady) and crush all opposition to his rule.

The decision to make Adam a hapless doofus is a source of great comedy — Galitzine sends himself up as gamely as he bulks up — but his childish dependence on Teela and the rest reduces the narrative propulsion. Adam needs to avoid Skeletor and Alison Brie’s underused Evil-Lyn, sure, but he has no real plan to reclaim his throne or restore Eternia. He’s just swept along by events. That might be okay, as he muddles towards a rebellion, but the muddle needed to be very funny and very sharply scripted, and there are a few lulls in the pace here.

That all said, Knight and his cast get the big stuff right. This will appeal to small kids with its bold colours, big characters and utter lack of deep thought (how does Mekaneck’s blood reach his brain when his neck suddenly telescopes 20 feet?), and will appeal to adults who remember being small kids playing with action figures. Certainly, it’s vastly more fun than the misfiring 1987 attempt, and welcome proof that Hollywood has finally given up on making everything darker and more serious.

It’s no secret that Jason Momoa has always wanted to be Lobo. But, given that he also spent years as Aquaman in the DCEU ‘Snyder-verse’, that option was never really open. Until, that is, the universe got rebooted into the DCU, with James Gunn and Peter Safran holding the reins. The morning that was announced, Gunn received a text from Momoa that simply said “fucking LOBO”.

Cut to summer 2026, and Momoa’s dreams have come true: he’s playing Lobo, the intergalactic bounty hunter, in the Gunn-produced Supergirl movie, directed by Craig Gillespie. And if Momoa was bullish about playing the part, nobody can deny that he was perfect for the role. “I was thrilled to have him,” Gillespie tells Empire. “I couldn’t imagine anybody else, but it’s a pressure... [we asked ourselves a] million questions to pay homage to the original.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Supergirl herself, Milly Alcock, whose Kara Zor-El is set to cross paths with the motorbike-riding badass when she sets off on a vengeful quest through the galaxy. “Jason had such presence,” Alcock says. “He is Lobo. And it was exciting to see somebody living out their dream.” Remember: it’s never too late to manifest.

Read Empire’s full Supergirl feature in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue – on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Supergirl comes to cinemas from June 25.

For years now, the pursuit of an _Escape From New York_remake has been a fool's errand. To write one is impossible. To direct one is insane. Len Wiseman was going to tackle it in 2007 with Gerard Butler. Joel Silver wanted to make a whole trilogy in the mid-2010s. Just a few short years ago, Radio Silence signed on to bring Snake Plissken back. But now, per THR's reporting, it appears that Zack Snyder is set to be the man to go in and remake John Carpenter's dystopian cult classic.

According to THR, Snyder — who's most recently been working on low-budget passion project The Last Photograph after the high-profile releases of his Justice League and Rebel Moon movies — is aboard to write and direct 'a reimagining' of Carpenter's 1981 action flick. For those who may not know, Escape From New York was set in a dystopian future where the isle of Manhattan had been turned into a maximum security prison. In the OG film, Kurt Russell starred as tattooed, eye-patch wearing anti-hero Snake Plissken, a disgraced former military hero sent on a one-man-Suicide-Squad style mission to enter the island and extract the crash-landed President of the United States. Part character piece, part black comedy, all post-Vietnam/Watergate individualism and anti-establishment sentiment, Escape From New York oozes a cool and an idiosyncrasy filmmakers have been looking to replicate ever since. That Snyder's version, which will have Carpenter aboard as Executive Producer, is being eyed for theatrical release by StudioCanal is a promising sign that maybe someone has finally cracked a modern take on the source material.

We don't know who'll be in Snyder's Escape From New York just yet, just as we don't know when his The Last Photograph will reach our screens. What we do know however is that Snyder has previous for reinvigorating long-since considered untouchable classics (hello Dawn Of The Dead!), sources suggest the 300 filmmaker is opting for a 'down-and-dirty' approach to the material, and we are very interested to see what his vision of Carpenter's movie will look like. And, of course, who will be playing Snake Plissken. Our eyepatches are at the ready, and our stick-on cobra tattoos are waiting. Give us a call!

Streaming on: Apple TV

Episodes viewed: 5 of 8

The pressure of making Star City — a spin-off of the beloved alternate-history drama For All Mankind — must have been immense. That surely pales in comparison to the strain endured by the characters of the show itself, though. Never mind that these scientists and cosmonauts are ahead in the Space Race: they’re not doing this for themselves, and they’re not doing it for all mankind either — they’re doing it for Mother Russia, whose iron grip is absolute.

Taking us back to the late ’60s, showrunners Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert retell key events from the first season of For All Mankind without repeating what’s come before. Star City is a much harsher beast, trading in the optimism of its predecessor for something far bleaker, but no less compelling. To pull this off, the writers ground all the relentless paranoia and snitching with characters to root for, including some younger versions of recognisable faces such as Sergei Nikulov (Josef Davies) and Irina Morozova (Agnes O’Casey).

[Anna Maxwell] Martin Martin has never been better, elevating what could be rather dour into scenes that thrum with energy...

O’Casey is the breakout star, mesmerising to watch as she observes a married couple who may or may not be faithful to their country. Everyone understandably has their guard up at all times, but as specific relationships gradually thaw and even heat up, other standout personalities emerge as well. The two-hander that pulls it all together isn't half as guarded, however: the ‘Chief Designer’ (Rhys Ifans) and Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) are at odds from the start, despite fighting for the same cause. The air is thick with their contempt for each other, and Raskova is especially vicious in her cold austerity. Martin has never been better, elevating what could be rather dour into scenes that thrum with energy, even when trapped in a brutally oppressive Soviet setting.

Would this ring truer if the cast spoke in actual Russian? Absolutely, but if you're willing to overlook the ‘Chernobyl Effect’, Star City is a worthy successor to For All Mankind, proving that there’s still life in this world (and potentially worlds beyond it too).

Ever since it was revealed that Spider-Man: Brand New Day would see Tom Holland’s Peter Parker rub spider-shoulders with Jon Bernthal’s gun-toting Punisher, fans have wondered how the ultra-violent exploits of Frank Castle will mesh with the Friendly Neighbourhood vibe of everyone’s favourite wall-crawler. But then, there’s the flip-side of that question: what would it be like for Spider-Man to pop up in a Punisher project, should Marvel pursue more post-One Last Kill?

As it turns out, the thought has crossed Tom Holland’s mind too. “I would love to pop up in one of [Punisher’s] shows,” he tells Empire. “Let’s see what an R-rated version of Spider-Man looks like. I’m so grateful for Jon for taking the leap and being a part of the film, and I would love to repay the favour.”

Holland and Bernthal’s friendship goes way back, when they starred together in film Pilgrimage – during which time they were each auditioning for their Marvel roles, helping each other through the process. “I really wasn’t familiar with the Punisher. I wasn’t a huge comic-book guy,” admits Bernthal. “Tom was really the one that said, ‘Man, this character’s so great,’ and he explained it to me.” Now, all these years later, it’s coming full circle – and not just in Brand New Day. “We’ve remained friends over the years, but what a beautiful opportunity to do two movies back to back with him with The Odyssey and Spider-Man,” says Bernthal. “I love him. I’m so proud of him.” Sounds like more Spidey-Punisher team-ups could have real (spider) legs.

Read Empire’s full Spider-Man: Brand New Day cover story – speaking to Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Kevin Feige, Destin Daniel Cretton, Amy Pascal and more – in the July 2026 issue, on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes to cinemas from July 29.

Unless your name happens to be Din Djarin or Grogu, this past weekend's box office takings should put a smile on your face — even if it is two horror movies making the big bucks right now. Yes, the great YouTuber horror boom continues to reign victorious at cinemas near and far. Curry Barker's monkey's paw joint Obsession has just crossed the $148 million mark as it continues to, er, obsess cinemagoers in its third week since release, while Kane Parsons' liminal nightmare Backrooms has racked up an almighty $118 million globally in its opening weekend — the biggest ever open for an A24 movie. And the good news doesn't stop there, either.

Since Danny and Michael Philippou — aka RackaRacka — rocked up on the scene with cursed hand chiller Talk To Me in 2023, the YouTuber-turned-horror-filmmaker pipeline has proven particularly fruitful at the box office, with the likes of Chris Stuckmann's Shelby Oaks, Mark Fischbach's Iron Lung, and the the Philippous' sophomore feature Bring Her Back all reaping the rewards of passionate fan bases, relatively meagre budgets, and Gen Z enthusiasm for the genre. With Obsession and Backrooms though, both of which have opened against — and handsomely beaten — the first new Star Wars movie in seven years (The Mandalorian And Grogu), it feels like a watershed moment has arrived. Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old genre wunderkind Kane Parsons and generally garnering rave reviews, has enjoyed the third biggest opening weekend for a horror movie in US history on a budget of just $10 million. Obsession on the other hand has achieved a feat unseen since E.T The Extraterrestrial, experiencing an increase in ticket sales in its second and third weekends, proving in the process that this horror bubble — far from bursting — is only growing, with plenty of space for all comers.

Now, as more major YouTubers start to realise the potential of harnessing their legions of supporters and cut-price content creation nous to enter the cinema sphere, it seems we could be in for a radical new generation of filmmakers — just like the Movie Brats, Super 8, and Film School generations before them. Irish YouTube megastar JackSepticEye is already on board to produce and tackle a Bloodborne animated movie, Parsons is already thinking about Backrooms sequels, and Barker has expressed interest in seeing what other dreams the 'One Wish Willow' can turn into all-too-real nightmares. All of which is to say, watch this space! (And if PewDiePie fancies making a Star War, now may be the perfect time...)

Look up! It isn't a bird. It isn't a plane. And it sure as Krypton ain't Superman. It is however our first look at James Gunn's upcoming Superman sequel Man Of Tomorrow — or at least Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor on the set of the upcoming DCU blockbuster. Yes, in what is now becoming typical Gunn fashion, the DC Studios head honcho took to Instagram this afternoon to reveal a photo of Hoult's supervillain Luthor, in full emerald green Warsuit mode, 'live from the set of Man Of Tomorrow' — per his own words. Check it out below;

Hoo boy — here we go! Now yes, before you come out swinging with your "ackshyually"s, we know Lex Luthor's war suit in DC comics is traditionally represented as an exoskeleton essentially designed to help Luthor level the playing field with the Kryptonian thorn in his side. But, as we also know, Man Of Tomorrow is actually set to see Hoult's Lex and David Corenswet's Supes buddy up to take on a threat far bigger than their feud, classic silver age comic book supervillain Brainiac (Lars Eidinger). So, the smart money is on Lex either breaking out of prison dressed as the world's deadliest Christmas tree decoration before allying with the Man of Steel against Brainiac, or debuting his high-tech new threads on the field of battle itself. (It is of note that Luthor appears to be either on a sandy planet, or just a sort-of Dune-looking beach, in this shot — so perhaps there's some more off-world action heading our way as Gunn bulks out his more cosmic take on the DC Universe.)

Outside of the return of Hoult and his shiny bonce, and Corenswet's Clark Kent, we also know that Man Of Tomorrow is going to bring us Adria Arjona as Maxima, an alien queen with a serious Supes obsession (at least, she has one in Marvel's comics). Elsewhere, Lanterns star Aaron Pierre is bringing his Green Lantern, John Stewart, from the small to the big screen for Gunn's latest blockbuster, Matthew Lillard has been cast in an as-yet-unrevealed role, and Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Guy Gardner (Nathon Fillion) and Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific) are all set to return for next summer's DC blockbuster. We'll see how they all fare when Man Of Tomorrow soars into cinemas on 9 July, 2027. But before then, Supergirl awaits! 26 June better come around faster than a speeding bullet or we might have to bust out our own warsuits... and you don't want that!

You never know quite what you’re going to get with a Minions movie. Sometimes it’s a classic Gru-and-family adventure, as in the Despicable Me films. Sometimes it’s a ‘70s B-movie depicting the rise of Gru, as in Minions: The Rise Of Gru. Or in the original Minions spin-off, it was a jaunt through history as the little guys worked to find their ultimate overlord. Now, prepare for something completely different: Minions & Monsters isn’t just a new Minions movie; it’s a Minions monster movie, specifically about the Minions trying to make a monster movie in 1920s Hollywood. Think Babylon, meets James Whale's Frankenstein, with Minions.

Having the nonsense-babbling creatures front and centre – while pairing them with other supernatural creatures – means that Minions & Monsters will feature an entire 15-minute section spoken only in ‘Minionese’, the quasi-language voiced by creator Pierre Coffin – who also directs here, for the first time since 2017’s Despicable Me 3. It helps that the Minions have always been indebted to early cinema. “All the Minions stuff is heavily inspired by silent-movie stars,” Coffin tells Empire. “There’s this magic element to it.”

Placing them in the early days of Hollywood – and alongside other fantastic beasts – should result in the kind of anarchy that the Minions have always embodied. “I want to hope that the reason why the Minions are successful is that in this era of highly political correctness, they’re on the edge of being insolent,” Coffin explains. In a way, the Minions unite us all. “The whole point of it is that you don’t understand them when they speak — but you understand them nonetheless,” he says. Global domination: achieved.

Read Empire’s full Pierre Coffin interview – talking the legacy of the Minions, and what’s to come in Minions & Monsters – in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue, on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Minions & Monsters comes to UK cinemas from July 1.

Even in space, families can be dysfunctional. So it appeared when the final act of James Gunn’s Superman gave us our first glimpse at the DCU’s Supergirl, Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock), who swaggered in with rockstar energy, collected her unruly pooch Krypto, and swiftly waved goodbye to her do-gooding cousin. Think is a Kryptonian was having a Brat summer. Now, Supergirl is front and centre in her own movie – one that looks to channel the raucous energy of its main character, who beneath all the partying is dealing with real inner turmoil.

For Alcock, it was reading the Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow comic that unlocked what DC boss Gunn wanted the Kara in his movie universe to be. “I understood at that point that James is trying to do something very different and unexpected with her,” she tells Empire. “She’s such a good contrast to Superman, because she’s a survivor of trauma in the purest sense. I was excited to play someone so beautifully flawed and resilient.” Hey, if you lost your entire planet and people, you’d probably be messed-up too.

It was this approach which opened up the film for Craig Gillespie too, who’s previously made big bold films about complicated women in I, Tonya, and Cruella. “I have a very specific tone I’m attracted to,” he explains. “I always loved the first Iron Man: flawed, complex and conflicted. They sent me the Ana Nogueira script [for Supergirl], and two scenes in, I was like, ‘I’m in.’ It was exactly what I hoped for; it’s all character. She went from an incredibly, incredibly dark scene to this irreverent character scene, all in the first 15 pages.” Get ready for a big swing in presenting a superhero, flaws and all. “[Supergirl] has got a lot of trauma, a lot of demons; she’s unapologetic,” he teases. “You get to have a character that can be punky and edgy and not take off those rough edges.” Bring on the noise.

Read Empire’s full Supergirl feature in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue – on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Supergirl comes to cinemas from June 25.

It had to happen eventually. And when the time came, Daredevil: Born Again made its big moment count. In the Season 2 finale, Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock made a major move – SPOILER WARNING! – and announced to the world his secret: he is Daredevil. And he did so to bring down Wilson Fisk within the boundaries of the legal system he so deeply believes in. While the move finally forced Mayor Fisk out of his NYC office, it also landed Murdock behind bars – setting the stage for even bigger things to come in Season 3.

As Cox tells Empire, it was time to take a seismic shift with the character. “My response to anything like that is, I’m all for big and bold,” he says of the Season 2 finale. From here, there’s no going back on Matt’s secret. “That’s a very difficult thing to put back in the box in our show,” he explains. “It’s been done in the comics, but the kind of show that we make has a kind of grounded element to it. It’s hopefully as much based in reality as any of the Marvel projects are, and it’s a harder thing to wind back. The powers-that-be said, ‘Yeah, we understand that.’ Fine, great.”

It remains to be seen how Matt outing his own vigilante secret will affect his journey in Season 3 and beyond, but we do know the next run of episodes will see more appearances from Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones, and Mike Colter’s Luke Cage. Not that comics fans should expect characters from those shows to undo the Season 2 bombshell any time soon. “I think Purple Man’s children in effect do Daredevil a solid and wipe the memories of New York or something,” says Cox of where things evolve in the comics. “I don’t want to do that, although I’d be a huge advocate of having David Tennant on the show.” Stranger things have happened in the multiverse.

Read Empire’s full Charlie Cox interview on Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue, on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Daredevil: Born Again is streaming on Disney+.

Things get awkward on this week's Empire Podcast, folks. Not just because Chris Hewitt seems to be wearing a Skeletor mask for some of it, nor because he's so heat-addled that he forgets to introduce James Dyer properly. No, things get awkward because the team — Chris, James, Helen O'Hara, and Ben Travis — discuss whether it ever gets awkward for them when visiting film sets. Then, our intrepid quartet also discuss the week's movie news, including the shocking news of Paddington 4's potty-mouthed writers, and review Daniel Roher's Tuner, John Carney's Power Ballad, Kane Parsons' Backrooms, and Kristin Scott Thomas' directorial debut, My Mother's Wedding. Oh, and Chris sits down for a lovely chat with Leo Woodall, star of the excellent Tuner (spoiler for the reviews section there — it's great!), and discovers that Woodall has some hidden talents. Enjoy!

And if all of the above isn't quite enough Empire Podcast for you, then there's plenty more where that came from. You can listen to this week's episode (which, if you're counting, is #719) on the pod app of your choice. There, you'll also find the latest episode of Empire Pod regular The Shameless Plug, which sees Chris Hewitt and our intrepid leader, Nick de Semlyen, deliver a monthly behind-the-scenes deep-dive into the making of the world's biggest movie magazine. This month, the duo become a trio as James Dyer joins Nick and Chris to discuss how our Aliens 40th Anniversary issue came to be, and just how exactly the team managed to get James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn and Jenette Goldstein to come together on Zoom in celebration of the ultimate sci-fi blockbuster sequel.

Want to make sure you never miss out on the latest movie news, reviews, and Empire exclusives again? Click here to add Empire as your go-to source on Google Feed.

Is it even considered a break-up if one party literally doesn’t remember the other’s existence? No, we’re not talking Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind – this is the fate of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and Zendaya’s MJ as we enter Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Due to the reality-altering events of previous film No Way Home, the MCU at large no longer remembers Parker, nor that he’s the civilian counterpart to New York’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. And that includes Peter’s best mate Ned (Jacob Batalon), and his girlfriend MJ too – who each ventured off to college while the newly-anonymous Peter committed to full-time hero-dom.

It was a bittersweet ending to the Jon Watts-directed Spider-Man trilogy, and true to the sacrificial essence of the character’s ‘great responsibility’. And now, as Brand New Day picks up, MJ has another romantic interest – played by Ahsoka’s Eman Esfandi – while Peter has to simply watch on. Even for its cast, it’s emotionally wrenching. “As someone who cares about the characters and cares about these films, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, it’s so heartbreaking,’” Zendaya tells Empire. “You just feel so bad because you want them to be happy, and you know ultimately they would be happier together.”

While MJ doesn’t remember Peter, she does – of course – still know about Spider-Man, and it seems the pair will cross paths in the more spandex-centric side of Brand New Day. Given the nature of Doctor Strange’s magic spell, get ready for a different kind of MJ-Spidey dynamic. “It’s easy in a way, because I don’t have to play that I know this person,” explains Zendaya. “I don’t have to play all the history that they have together because seemingly, to her, they don’t.” Here’s hoping love, uh, finds a way.

Read Empire’s full Spider-Man: Brand New Day cover story – speaking to Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Kevin Feige, Destin Daniel Cretton, Amy Pascal and more – in the July 2026 issue, on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes to cinemas from July 29.

It’s in the name: the Punisher, well… punishes. Violently. As Marvel fans most recently saw in MCU Special Presentation The Punisher: One Last Kill, with Jon Bernthal taking centre stage once more as vengeful ex-marine Frank Castle – a role he originated in Netflix’s Defenders shows, and reprised in Daredevil: Born Again. Next stop for the Punisher? Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is less likely to feature the kind of bone-crunching no-holds-barred smackdowns seen in One Last Kill. Still, it sounds like director Destin Daniel Cretton – along with Bernthal and Spidey himself, Tom Holland – has found ways to bring an authentic Punisher into Peter Parker’s world, without landing Brand New Day in hot water.

As Holland tells Empire, fans will see consistency with what’s come before from the Punisher. “I know that there are concerns about taking a sort of R-rated character and putting him into one of these movies, but the way that we’ve designed the world around him feels very authentic to the Frank Castle we know,” Holland explains. If the MPAA would look less favourably on The Punisher’s actions, the same goes for Peter Parker himself. “There are fun ways to get around the fact that he swears all the time and kills people,” teases Holland.

And don’t expect Castle to go soft in the presence of Spidey, either. “Frank Castle is perfectly at peace in a world of absolute darkness,” says Bernthal. “He’s not looking for a buddy, he’s not looking for a friend, he’s not looking for a hand to pull him out of the hole that he’s in. He’s fine living in there. In fact, all he wants to do is dig deeper.” Get ready for another perfect pairing of mismatched allies in the MCU. “I think, begrudgingly, Frank would tell you, if he had to be honest, he does care about Peter,” Bernthal promises. Just, don’t get on his bad side.

Read Empire’s full Spider-Man: Brand New Day cover story – speaking to Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Kevin Feige, Destin Daniel Cretton, Amy Pascal and more – in the July 2026 issue, on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes to cinemas from July 29.

Every filmmaker worth their salt has their recurring obsessions, whether it’s the confines of privilege (Sofia Coppola), symmetry and pastels (Wes Anderson) or naked bare feet (you know who). For Irish writer-director John Carney, it is the enervating quality of music to connect and forge relationships of all stripes. From Once to Begin Again, Sing Street to Flora And Son, ex-muso Carney has plied his trade in funny, unashamedly uncynical song-centric films that wear their heart and art on their sleeve. His latest, Power Ballad, is no exception, again playing his favourite theme, this time adding some fresh new licks.

The set-up is efficiently, entertainingly sketched. Giving up his dreams of musical stardom to start a family in Ireland, American rocker Rick Power (Paul Rudd) is the frontman of wedding band The Bride And Groove (chef’s kiss), playing cover versions and occasionally harshing the buzz with his own compositions. During a reception at an Irish castle, friend of the groom and floundering former boy-band alumnus Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas) joins the band on stage and duets with Rick on a kickass version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Wish’.

Sharing an easy chemistry, Rudd and Jonas are such a delight together that there’s a dip when the demands of the story split them up.

The pair click and Danny invites Rick back to his hotel room, a makeshift studio filled with guitars, keyboards and recording equipment. In a lengthy sequence, Carney has a ball watching the music lovers vibe: if the jam session isn’t quite Paul McCartney making up ‘Get Back’ on the fly, it is a joy to watch the two men create, especially when the two riff on a Rick composition, ‘How To Write A Song (Without You)’. The two go their separate ways until Rick, six months later, is walking through a Dublin shopping centre and hears his tune, now an over-produced sad banger, seeping out of the PA system.

Sharing an easy chemistry, Rudd and Jonas are such a delight together that there’s a dip when the demands of the story split them up. Just wanting acknowledgement for his involvement, Rick becomes obsessed, alienating his bandmates, wife Rachel (Marcella Plunkett) and daughter Aja (Beth Fallon) while Danny returns to LA with 100 million views, an arena tour and a renewed sense of purpose. It’s refreshing to see the eternally youthful Rudd play crumpled middle age: smoking, swearing, seeing his lifelong dream become a nightmare. Jonas is eminently winning as a former star who, like Rick, just wants to prove his worth musically, buoyed by his agent (Carney regular Jack Reynor). To its credit, there are no villains in Power Ballad. Carney and co-writer Peter McDonald (who, in an endearing comedic turn, plays Rick’s bestie Sandy) do a smart, convincing job of blurring the lines of creative ownership. Like Carney’s other work, it’s a big-hearted film that likes its people, whatever their faults and foibles.

A former bassist with The Frames, Carney pulls off that rare trick of making ‘fictional’ pop music in his films sound not only credible but memorable. After working with Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová on Once and New Radicals’ Gregg Alexander on Begin Again, this time around Carney has collab’d with Gary Clark, lead singer of ’80s popsters — hey! — Danny Wilson (their biggest hit, ‘Mary’s Prayer’, can be heard in a pub), who contributed to Sing Street and Flora And Son. There’s less music here than usual, but the pair make ‘How To Write A Song (Without You)’ an irresistible, iPhone-torch-in-the-air anthem about the importance of a muse for a love song. That song is not only memorable but also feeds into a twist in the tale that makes you feel differently about its relationships.

It might not have the soul of Once or the exuberance of Sing Street, but Power Ballad sees Carney try something different. It is consistently funny — an extended set-piece where Rick and Sandy gate-crash Danny’s LA pad hits the mark, in broad strokes — but it’s not out-and-out comedy. Carney is exploring more here than just laughs, tapping deeper and more earnestly into middle-age despair, youthful insecurities and thwarted aspirations. It’s a new palette that makes you wonder what a Carney film might look like if the guitar stayed firmly in its case.

It’s been 10 years since Tom Holland first entered the MCU as Spider-Man, thwipping his way into Captain America: Civil War. Across a decade which brought an entire Spider-Man trilogy and several super-sized Avengers team-ups, Holland really got to know what makes his Spidey tick. And so, after taking a break from the character after the world-conquering Spider-Man: No Way Home, when the time came to return for the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Holland became instrumental in creatively contributing to the next era of Peter Parker.

Who better to help steer Spidey’s new adventures than the guy in the suit? “This is the first time in my tenure as Spider-Man that I was kind of welcomed into the writers’ room,” Holland reveals to Empire, adding that he and the producers would “meet once every two weeks to pitch ideas and discuss our ambitions and what we wanted to try and do.” He was even instrumental in kick-starting one of Brand New Day’s most significant plot points: that Parker’s powers are evolving in unusual and unexpected ways. “My pitch when I came to the table with it was called ‘Spider-Puberty’,” he says. “What happens if Peter Parker is losing control and things are changing?” That core proved instrumental in what Brand New Day became. “‘Spider-Puberty’ was my tagline pitch to the studio — which was immediately shot down,” Holland says. “But they liked the kernel of the idea and it grew into what we have in the movie now.”

Returning to the character nearly five years after we last saw him, Holland is ready to steer Spider-Man into the future – and ensure that, eventually, there’s life beyond Peter Parker too. “For whoever’s next, whether that is a Miles Morales or a Spider-Gwen or a Spider-Woman or something like that, I would love to be a part of setting up the next chapter,” he says. “Whatever that looks like, I don’t know. But if I could do what Downey did for me, then I would be so content swinging off into the sunset.” Spoken exactly like a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

Read Empire’s full Spider-Man: Brand New Day cover story – speaking to Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Kevin Feige, Destin Daniel Cretton, Amy Pascal and more – in the July 2026 issue, on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes to cinemas from July 29.

Through the years, Spider-Man fans have seen various elements of the wall-crawler make it to the big screen. First came Tobey Maguire’s boy-next-door take on Peter Parker, followed by Andrew Garfield’s cooler kick-flipping version, before the MCU introduced Tom Holland’s decisively teenaged iteration, following the character through high school. (Plus, of course, we’ve had Miles Morales in the Spider-Verse films too.) But the arrival of Spider-Man: Brand New Day will take Holland’s Parker into a new era: now a fully-fledged Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man operating in New York City, isolated from his friends – and Zendaya’s MJ – since the world no longer remembers who he is (courtesy of some Doctor Strange sorcery).

As Marvel boss Kevin Feige explains, it sets the stage for perhaps the most comics-accurate Spidey yet. “It is the first Spider-Man film that we’ve made in the MCU that is focused on the classic elements of Spider-Man,” Feige tells Empire in our world-exclusive Brand New Day issue. “He’s doing the Spidey thing of living in a rather sad, small apartment, listening to the police scanner and going out and using his great power responsibly.”

In the absence of his friends – and following the losses of Aunt May and Tony Stark – Brand New Day sees Peter burying himself in his web-slinging work, while his powers undergo strange transformations. “He is dedicating his entire existence to his job. That’s the core theme that I find incredibly relatable,” says director Destin Daniel Cretton. “I think most people at certain points in our lives have gone through loss. At least for me, and I think for many people, the result can be: ‘Screw it. I’m just going to work. I’m going to do nothing else but work.’ That’s obviously not the most healthy state.”

The hope is to get deeper under Peter Parker’s skin than ever before – – still with all the thrills fans expect from a big summer Spidey blockbuster. “[Brand New Day] is a more internal movie,” producer Amy Pascal teases, “and the bigness of it is emotional, not worlds exploding.” Get ready for Spider-Man’s all-new evolution.

Read Empire’s full Spider-Man: Brand New Day cover story – speaking to Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Kevin Feige, Destin Daniel Cretton, Amy Pascal and more – in the July 2026 issue, on sale Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes to cinemas from July 29.

The last time we saw Spider-Man in the MCU, the entire universe shifted. 2021’s world-conquering No Way Home not only broke down the walls of the Spider-Verse, but ended with a seismic shift in Peter Parker’s existence: by which we mean, the entire world forgot about it, courtesy of some Doctor Strange magic. So, the return of the wall-crawling hero marks the start of a new era, kick-starting a new phase of Spidey’s lifecycle as a fully-functioning Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, living anonymously in New York City – with some surprising evolutions on the way. Get ready for the dawn of a Brand New Day.

This month’s issue of Empire takes a world-exclusive deep dive into Spider-Man: Brand New Day, getting the first word from the web-slinger himself – Tom Holland – and co-stars Zendaya and Jon Bernthal, as well as Marvel boss Kevin Feige, producer Amy Pascal, and incoming director Destin Daniel Cretton. Inside, we explore how Brand New Day finally brings vintage-comics Spider-Man to the screen, dig into the emotional stakes as Peter’s closest allies no longer remember him, discover how the Punisher meshes with New York’s friendliest superhero, and unpack the mysteries of the film’s spider-mutation story. And it’s packed with never-before-seen images, offering your best look yet at Spidey’s action-packed comeback.

This month’s newsstand cover sees Spider-Man – and nefarious ninjas The Hand – soaring through the New York skyline.

And the subscriber cover sees Spidey drawing The Hand into his web, illustrated exclusively for Empire by Edgar Ascensão.

And that’s not all! This month’s issue also meets the man behind the Minions, as Minions & Monsters prepares to unleash mayhem; goes on set of Supergirl to get the inside scoop on DC Studios’ second major movie; revisits the legacy of Jackass with cinema’s premier pranksters; ventures to The Lonely Island for a 10-year look-back at Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping; and goes to the beach with members of Monty Python. It’s not to be missed.

Thwip over to your local newsstands to pick up the Spider-Man: Brand New Day issue of Empire, on sale from Thursday June 4. Pre-order a copy online here. Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes to cinemas from July 29.

To me, my X-Men... '97 Season 2 trailer! When last we saw our beloved mutants in X-Men '97's breathless Season 1 finale, things weren't looking so great for our heroes. Scattered across time, Magneto, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Beast, and Xavier wound up in Ancient Egypt circa 3000BC, landing directly in the path of a young En Sabah Nur — aka 'the first mutant' Apocalypse. Meanwhile Jean Grey and Cyclops were flung 2000 years into the future, reunited with their son Nathan in a literal post-Apocalypse world. And as the first trailer for X-Men' 97 Season 2 shows us, we're picking right back where we left off with our mutie crew — check it out below;

Hoo boy — if X-Men '97 Season 1 proved Marvel knows exactly how to handle its mutants, then it looks like Season 2 is doubling down and then some. Rogue mourning Gambit... Apocalypse pledging to strike the X-Men at their most vulnerable ("The 1990s!" obviously)... Morph going full Deadpool... Polaris! Sheesh, we need a Time Machine — or just a replay button, really — to process all the cool mutant shenanigans teased here. Handily, amid our delirium we did find Marvel's official Season 2 synopsis as our superheroes — and villains — prepare for a battle across the ages. It reads: "X-Men '97 Season 2 continues with the heroic mutant team of X-Men, divided and thrown across different eras in time as they struggle to navigate their return home. Meanwhile, back in the 1990s, suspicious foes and new strains of mutant intolerance are on the rise in the wake of the X-Men’s absence."

Among the voice cast for X-Men '97's nine-episode Season 2, you'll be relieved to hear, are Ross Marquand as Professor X, Matthew Waterson as Magneto, Ray Chase as Cyclops, Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, Lenore Zann as Rogue, and George Buza as Beast. We'll see whether they — and the rest of our heroes — make it back to the 90s in one piece when X-Men '97 Season 2 drops on Disney+ on 1 July. Now can we get a “Bwa-na-na-na naaaa na-na”? Thank you!

Good news for Tolkien-heads: more Rings Of Power are being forged. Prime Video’s Lord Of The Rings series has been a significant undertaking for the streamer in recent years, exploring the Second Age of Middle-earth during Sauron’s initial rise. And ahead of Season 3 arriving later in 2026, it seems things are going swimmingly in the Rings Of Power camp, with Season 4 already in development.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, plans are a-hairy-foot for Season 4 of The Rings Of Power, and it’s expected to start rolling cameras in early 2027. While the season has not officially been greenlit, wheels are in motion to begin pre-production before the end of this year. From the beginning, showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay were vocal about having a five-season plan for the show, while Prime Video has previously touted positive streaming numbers for the series.

Stay tuned for the official greenlight on Season 4 – and we’ll see in Season 3 where all the assembled Elves, Orcs, Harfoots and more end up; the new episodes are set to shift the timeline forward by several years. Season 3 starts streaming on Prime Video from 11 November.

Hot on the heels of Mark Fischbach’s Iron Lung and Curry Barker’s Obsession, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms is another horror movie by a fledgling feature director whose shorts have built up a huge subscription base on YouTube. But this surreal offering is quite unlike any horror movie you’ve seen. If references must be offered as fingerholds to cling to, it’s something like The Blair Witch Project spliced with Cube blended with Synecdoche, New York, mostly shot in liminal spaces lit in queasy mono-yellow.

Confused? You will be. Unless, of course, you’re familiar with Parsons’ web series that grew out of a 4chan creepypasta image of a large, oddly shaped room. From the thrumming disquietude of that image, Parsons built 20-plus instalments revolving around fictional research facility Async as it attempts to document a dimension outside of reality. Now, in the movie, Async scientists led by Mark Duplass haunt the periphery, but the main focus is civilian Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who inexplicably passes through a wall in the basement of his drab furniture store, into the Backrooms. Shocked, scared, intrigued, he sets about exploring its strangely angled, segmented spaces connected by tapering passageways, jutting staircases and small, Alice-In-Wonderland-type doorways. What he discovers is a seemingly endless maze that makes the Overlook Hotel look like a roadside motel. (Twice Parsons directly nods to The Shining, which shares Backrooms’ corridors-as-neural-pathways metaphor.)

Backrooms is one of the most out there art-horror features since Eraserhead.

Occasionally the rooms possess items, like dirty laundry or a Christmas tree or furniture melted into the floor; always there is the insistent buzz of fluorescent lights and the drone of an ambient score that might be whale music in Satan’s spa. “None of it makes any sense,” he tells therapist Mary (Norwegian arthouse queen Renate Reinsve), whose own traumatic childhood lends her a mysterious link to this otherworld. Many viewers will likely nod in sympathy. But for all those who will doubtless be relieved that a nightmarish final scene and then a coda offer hints of explanation, others will wish that Parsons kept us entirely in the dark (or should that be in the scuzzy yellow?).

Switching between the rigorous lensing of an objective camera and lurching, found-footage-style perspectives, Backrooms is one of the most out there, surreal, art-horror features since David Lynch’s Eraserhead. The web series might boast 200 million views since debuting in 2022, but this movie is most certainly not for everyone. It favours opacity, half-glimpsed creatures and a steady sense of unease over crowd-pleasing jumps, and is sure to spark endless debate and interpretations among those who aren’t bored silly by it.

Leo Woodall’s charm has already got him through a trip on the Italian coast (The White Lotus), Netflix’s most devastating modern romance (One Day), and even a run-in with Bridget Jones, but with Tuner, he’s finally handed a true star vehicle, proving well and truly ready to take the wheel. In Daniel Roher’s romance-cum-thriller-cum-drama, Woodall plays Niki, a piano tuner with a rare hearing condition who, after being hit with mounting medical bills, decides to put his extraordinary ears to some less-than-legal use. And while the film borrows familiar notes from The Thomas Crown Affair and Baby Driver, it’s the committed character work and lead performance that ensure a mostly clean getaway.

With its breezy banter between Woodall and Dustin Hoffman’s mentor figure Harry, alongside Roher’s jazzy, quick-cut editing style, Tuner quickly becomes a very easy film to like. It’s equally easy to get wrapped up in Niki’s everyman world, too. There’s a quiet confidence to Woodall here, completely assured in what he does for work, yet refreshingly unassured in how he handles people, with the actor note-perfect at jumping between the two.

Not since Whiplash has a film made audiences so aware of every note, key or click.

The world Niki inhabits only becomes more engaging once he crosses paths with pianist Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), in what is, crucially, a genuinely convincing budding romance. Where other films would reduce this to a secondary plot point, Tuner gives it real importance. Woodall and Liu dance through Roher’s dialogue with ease; romantic, yes, but also allowing time for two people who experience the world through sound to slowly use words to show us who they really are, a pairing of two actors who have long hovered around leading roles and have finally been given the space to properly shine.

Tuner’s next star is its sound design. Not since Whiplash has a film made audiences so aware of every note, key or click. Whether it’s a piano performance or Niki hearing each increasingly deafening turn of a safe dial, Roher makes sound feel tactile and always dialled up. The film plays many scenes from Niki’s point of view, with every raised voice or pin-drop pulling us deeper into his world. It not only creates some genuinely nerve-crunching tension, but makes us feel Niki’s disorientation and sensitivity in a way that brings us even closer to him.

If there’s a flaw in this grand heist, it’s that Tuner can’t quite get away with all the genres it’s trying to pull off. Its crime antics are never as convincing as the drama and romance the film invests so heavily in, and as those increasingly far-fetched hijinks take centre stage in the third act, the film does lose some of its cool. Still, when the loot on display has this much character and charm, it’s hard to be dissatisfied. It may not be 18-carat gold, but Tuner is still a damn good watch.

Platforms: PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2

The wait for a cinematic successor to Daniel Craig’s James Bond has been long, but the gap between 007 games has been even longer. After a 14 year hiatus, Hitman developers IO Interactive have accepted the mission, bringing the famed Secret Service agent back to gaming with an original story that’s entirely divorced from its movie counterparts. At its best, it makes for a thrilling action-espionage tale, though some refinements in certain areas would not go amiss.

It helps that IOI has chosen to focus on Bond’s origins, a hitherto unexplored period in his onscreen life that covers his recruitment into MI6, his training, and his first globetrotting mission across approximately 14 hours. Once the latter truly kicks off, the escalating narrative is at once Bondian and slightly convoluted, with too much talk of quantum computers and AI that threatens to encroach on the fun. And while the true villains don’t leave much of an impression, the level design is almost always strong, while the transitions between stealth and climbing segments, all-guns-blazing battles, and cinematic cutscenes are seamless. Hitman meets Uncharted may sound reductive, but it’s also accurate (and complimentary).

Gameplay leads into thrilling cutscenes that wouldn’t feel out of place on a big screen.

When it does come time to take enemies down, there are multiple ways to get creative and achieve objectives, whether you opt for stealth and guile or gunplay and gadgetry. The forward momentum the game actively encourages is when things really click into place, with the gunplay feeling especially slick and impactful. The melee combat is less smooth; while the use of environments to aid you mid-beatdown is wonderfully satisfying and makes fights feel more dynamic, the counter system – especially with large groups of enemies – is at times sluggish and clunky. The gameplay often leads into some thrilling cutscenes that wouldn’t feel out of place on a big screen, and there are a handful of moments that make you feel like Bond too, from a cool and chaotic plane sequence to a mission that has you driving a bin lorry through Kensington.

Patrick Gibson’s Bond performance is giving more Eggsy from the Kingsman franchise than the experienced and hardened agent we all love and recognise at this stage. That makes sense for a raw, pre-00 Bond, and there are still enough building blocks in place – his charm, instincts, and rule-breaking tendencies remain intact – that it’s believable both character and actor will grow into the role. It’s a good thing, too; First Light is being billed as the first chapter in an ongoing James Bond game universe, and it has more than enough going for it for us to want to see – and play – what happens next.

We were all thinking it: Paddington – and Paddington 2, and Paddington In Peru – were all pleasant watches, but they could have done with more swearing. Maybe Paddington could have told Mr. Gruber, “Fuckity-bye” as he left the antique shop; or Mrs Brown could have called the kindly bear an “omnishambles” after he wrecked their Windsor Gardens house for the umpteenth time. Well, good news: Paddington 4 officially has a writing duo, and none other than Armando Iannucci – of The Thick Of It, and Veep, and The Death Of Stalin pedigree – is one half of it, the other being his regular collaborator Simon Blackwell.

The news was confirmed by Variety, who also reports that Paddington In Peru director Dougal Wilson is in talks to return behind the camera for a fourth outing of British bear shenanigans. While Iannucci and Blackwell are known for penning some of the most foul-mouthed creations in comedy history, their appointment continues the Paddington tradition of drawing from British comic greats, following in the footsteps of Paul King and Simon Farnaby (who directed and wrote on the first two films).

Quite what the fourth film will entail remains to be seen – it was announced earlier this year at CinemaCon, but details are currently scarce. Perhaps it’ll involve a farewell to Brown children Jonathan and Judy, with actors Samuel Joslin and Madeleine Harris now in the mid-20s; or maybe it’ll be another globetrotting adventure after Peru took Paddington back to his homeland. Either way, expect Peter Capaldi's Mr. Curry to have some particularly brutal lines this time. Here’s hoping Iannucci and Blackwell can cook up something great, like a delicious batch of marmalade.

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

If you've played a Forza Horizon entry in the last decade, you've already put the pedal to the metal in some of the coolest cars while zooming around the world's most picturesque locales. But developer Playground Games has somehow outdone themselves with Forza Horizon 6, a superb sequel that not only further refines and polishes the series' genre-defining formula, but crams even more enhancements and content beneath its hood.

As expected, this latest entry retains the franchise's rewarding behind-the-wheel gameplay, nailing the sweet spot between accessible arcade-style racing and deeper, simulation-like mechanics. Of course, a massive selection of optional assists and customisation options also allow players of all stripes to lean further in either direction, tailoring the experience to their skill level and preferred playstyle.

Expansive, diverse, dense, and incredibly detailed, the game's richly realized Japan setting is as fun to experience as a camera-toting tourist as it is for a speed limit-obliterating adrenaline junkie.

But whether you buckle-up as a returning racer or you're revving your engine for the first time, you can expect to tear up the blacktop around the series' biggest, most beautiful open-world yet.

Expansive, diverse, dense, and incredibly detailed, the game's richly realized Japan setting is as fun to experience as a camera-toting tourist as it is for a speed limit-obliterating adrenaline junkie. And that's before you account for the immersion-ratcheting variety fuelled by changing seasons, weather patterns, and a day/night cycle that seems to frame every location — from Tokyo's neon-soaked streets to the postcard-perfect Japanese Alps — in the absolute best light.

Whether you want to casually take in the sights — or take tight turns at insane speeds while white-knuckling the wheel — there's never any shortage of things to do in Horizon 6. If it's competition you crave, there are countless courses, contests, events, and challenges, all tied to the campaign's Horizon Festival, allowing you to rise through ranks, collect hundreds of cars, and even chase a towering mech through Tokyo.

Equally layered and deep are the game's "Discover Japan" activities, which are less about crossing the finish line first, and more about exploring and appreciating the vast island nation's landmarks, culture, and personality. That's not to say this side of the game isn't packed with its own unique thrills and skill-testing tasks. While this more exploratory side of the experience will have you completing fun food-delivery challenges, it also hosts Touge Battles: incredibly intense one-on-one races on some of the map's most perilous mountain roads.

Tying everything together is Forza Horizon 6's pair of rewarding progression systems. Whatever you choose to do among the game's hundreds of activities, it all continually fuels your progress, either within the competitive Festival or the Discover Japan activities. This results in a constant drip of rewards, unlocks, and upgrades — from the 550-plus cars and customisation options to garages, houses, and even estates where you can build your own tracks - that significantly elevate the progression path beyond just simple character growth.

Forza Horizon 6 is the best entry in an already stellar series, retaining — but refining and polishing — what's worked in previous instalments, while also significantly building on the franchise's rock-solid foundation with a ton of fresh inclusions. A must-play for racing game fans, as well as complete newcomers seeking an accessible entry point into the genre, Playground Games' latest lap is a rubber-burning blast.

All hail the Alien Queen! For the legendary Sigourney Weaver, star of some of the finest sci-fi films of all time, is our esteemed guest on this week's episode of the Empire Podcast, as she tells Chris Hewitt all about starring in her first Star War, The Mandalorian And Grogu. [44:47 — 58:17 approx] Then, Chris is joined in the podbooth by Helen O'Hara and James Dyer to discuss their predictions for the biggest movies of the year; cast their eye over the week's movie news, including a shocking development in the hunt for the new James Bond and a welcome update on Netflix's Cliff Booth movie release plans; and review The Mandalorian And Grogu, Jack Ryan: Ghost War, Finding Emily, Tom & Jerry: Forbidden Compass, and Passenger. Oh, and the team eat some burgers, but thankfully they don't bang on about it. Enjoy.

And if all of the above isn't quite enough Empire Podcast for you, then there's plenty more where that came from. You can listen to this week's episode (which, if you're counting, is #718) on the pod app of your choice. There, you'll also find the latest episode of Empire Pod regular The Shameless Plug, which sees Chris Hewitt and our intrepid leader, Nick de Semlyen, deliver a monthly behind-the-scenes deep-dive into the making of the world's biggest movie magazine. This month, the duo become a trio as James Dyer joins Nick and Chris to discuss how our Aliens 40th Anniversary issue came to be, and just how exactly the team managed to get James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn and Jenette Goldstein to come together on Zoom in celebration of the ultimate sci-fi blockbuster sequel.

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The Boys is dead, long live The Boys — or, at least, the Vought Cinematic Universe. (Hey, it's what Clara would've wanted!) Yes, less than a week since the finale of Eric Kripke's r-rated superhero series landed on Prime Video, Amazon have gone full Vought and released the first trailer for Vought Rising, the streamer's upcoming post-WWII set prequel series. For those craving more of Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy and some impeccably presented Golden Age clobber, check out the new trailer below;

Tantalisingly described by showrunner Paul Grellong and The Boys creator and executive producer Kripke at SDCC 2024 as "a twisted murder mystery about the origins of Vought in the 1950s, the early exploits of Soldier Boy, and the diabolical maneuvers of a Supe known to fans as Stormfront (Aya Cash)," we've long since known — and hoped — Vought Rising would have something truly diabolical in store for fans. And this first trailer — which offers glimpses of a more idealistic Soldier Boy, his fascist former lover Clara Vought/Stormfront, Elizabeth Posey's Forces' sweetheart styled Private Angel, Mason Dye's fighter pilot inspired Bombsight, and Will Hochman's naval hero Torpedo — doesn't disappoint. Anachronistic needle drops, blood spatter, torture, satirical swipes, and our old friend Compound V are all present and correct as the trailer teases a thorough examination of Vought's grim origins and how the Soldier Boy we meet in The Boys came to be.

Also set to star KiKi Layne, Jorden Myrie, Nicolo Pasetti, Ricky Staffieri, and Brian J. Smith, Vought Rising has plenty of intrigue surrounding it — not least in terms of how it may illuminate information that comes to light in The Boys' final season surrounding the nature of Soldier Boy and Stormfront's relationship. We can look forward to going back to where supes began when Vought Rising hits Prime Video in 2027, by which point we may have finally processed the events of that final episode.

What with EO, Cow, and Kedi, cinema seems more interested in the inner lives of animals than ever before. György Pálfi’s nail-biting drama Hen is the latest in this creaturely canon, offering a bird’s-eye-view of human affairs. With the help of their plucky protagonist, the Hungarian filmmaker and co-writer Zsófia Ruttkay take a cold, hard and sometimes darkly comic look at casual human cruelty.

The film’s opening sequence makes this starkly clear from the outset. A visceral close-up of a chicken mid-laying cuts to mechanised conveyor belts ferrying eggs (and, soon enough, fuzzy yellow chicks) through their various life stages — contrasting the vitality of these living beings with the bleak, metal-clad emotionlessness of mass-scale farming. The prodigious fowl of Pálfi’s title is one of many birds destined to be discarded.

The result is an understated, remarkably moving portrayal of the hen’s emotional existence.

But a second shot at life arrives when a farmer fortuitously leaves a window in his vehicle open, and the heroic hen bolts for freedom. In a series of what can only be described as action sequences, the hen wends its way through protests, markets and shops, and navigates a close call with a fox, gradually getting its bearings in this unfamiliar, manmade world. Pálfi’s drama relies heavily on the star power of its animal protagonist — played by eight talented real-life chickens — and cinematographer Giorgos Karvelas’ roving camera honing in on minute details in the hen’s behaviour and the outer environment. The result is an understated, remarkably moving portrayal of the hen’s emotional existence.

This endearing birdie often eclipses the humans of the tale, though. The wayward hen winds up being taken in by the gentle-natured proprietor of a seafood taverna (Yannis Kokiasmenos); in turn oppressed by his mobster son-in-law (Argyris Pandazaras). Their portion of the story is significantly leaner, meaning the connection the film tries to make between human and animal suffering doesn’t feel robust. Yet this hardboiled parable is fascinating — and, with help from Szőke Szabolcs’ droll score, funny — at every turn, and is sure to make you think twice next time you’re in the egg aisle of the supermarket.

“Why don’t we just wait here for a little while… see what happens?” It was with this eerily ambiguous line, delivered coldly by Kurt Russell’s R.J. MacReady, that John Carpenter’s The Thing ended, in iconic fashion. Fans of the film have waited a good long while since 1982 for its reevaluation. Upon release, the film was a critical and commercial failure; now, 44 years on, it is widely and correctly lauded as a masterpiece — an achievement emphatically confirmed with The Thing Expanded, a vast celebratory ‘making of’ documentary.

This comes from writer-director Ian Nathan, who has crafted it in the same mould as his previous documentary, Aliens Expanded. (Full disclosure: Ian Nathan is a former editor of and writer for Empire magazine. This had no bearing on the writing of this review.) Like that previous film, this is stuffed to the gills with detail, overflowing with several new talking-heads interviews, and as such arrives with a runtime that far outlasts that of the film it is discussing. Where The Thing was a thrifty 109 minutes, The Thing Expanded — as the name suggests — runs to a buttock-threatening 312 minutes, or just over five hours.

This is something clearly aiming to be the definitive text on the film, and it’s hard to see what ground it couldn’t have covered.

For some viewers, that might mean it’s better treated as a miniseries than a movie, something to be digested — like the alien chest of Norris-Thing, devouring a pair of arms — in bitesize segments. But for fans of Carpenter’s sci-fi, it is worth the patience. This is something clearly aiming to be the definitive text on the film, and it’s hard to see what ground it couldn’t have covered.

The interviewees are the stars here. Nathan assembles practically everyone involved in the film still alive and willing for on-camera chats. John Carpenter, Kurt Russell and the surviving cast, most notably, make significant contributions; Carpenter — these days having a reputation for being more reclusive and irascible — is found in a happy, amiable mood, clearly proud as punch to still be talking about a film that critics mauled at the time. (Pleasingly, his interview is conducted with him sitting next to a scale model of Mrs Pickman from In The Mouth Of Madness.)

Key crew-members appear, too, including cinematographer Dean Cundey, editor Todd C. Ramsay, and producers Stuart Cohen and Larry Franco (who doubled as the Norwegian firing shots at the dog in the opening scene), and there’s below-the-line talent too, including make-up artist Margaret Beserra and Erik Jensen, the line producer on the special make-up effects unit. That’s not even mentioning the legion of famous faces waxing lyrical about the film, from Frank Darabont and Guillermo del Toro (in conversation with each other, for some reason) to Stephen Colbert (who declares it his favourite film), Eli Roth and Matthijs van Heijningen Jr, director of the much-maligned 2011 prequel. Along with writers, journalists, authors, an astrobiologist and even a winter manager at the South Pole (who shows the film to new arrivals every first goddamned week of winter) added to the mix, it amounts to nearly 30 contributors on screen.

So, few stones go unturned. While some stories might be familiar to die-hard MacReady-mad fans, there’s a ton of fascinating details uncovered. Nathan’s approach is chronological, but allows for plenty of diversions, with clips from important influences and reference points, from the claustrophobia of 12 Angry Men to the important sci-fi groundwork laid by Dark Star and Alien.

Tantalisingly, we hear of some of the tensions that existed on the largely male set. David Clennon, who played Palmer, offers this gem: “Peter Maloney was the right guy to play Bennings, I think.” Before adding: “And that’s not necessarily a compliment.” (Russell, diplomatically, calls him “sweet”.) The stifling masculinity of the shoot seemed to have got to them all. “It’s grim on an all-male set, let me tell you,” notes Carpenter.

Yet this is not an all-male documentary, with great insights from superfans like critic Anne Billson and filmmaker Issa Lopez, who point out that the only female voice in The Thing, the chess computer that MacReady tinkers with in an early scene, was voiced by Carpenter’s wife at the time, and posit the theory that the Thing itself is female — a writhing, twisting symbol of male fear and paranoia.

All that gorgeously practical writhing and twisting is given a full tribute, too — though Rob Bottin, the special make-up effects designer and “smartest man on the film” according to producer Stuart Cohen, is sadly not interviewed, having retired from the industry. His presence looms large, though: rather than share space on a Mount Rushmore of make-up artists, he “would have his own mountain”, says Darabont. We do get a good idea of just how ingenious his work was — among the most mind-blowing nuggets of trivia, we learn that 62 puppeteers operated the climactic Blair-Thing, and that the team regularly went to a local rendering plant to collect dogs and cats that had been euthanised or found roadkill, which would subsequently be taken to a taxidermist for use in the film.

There are tons of eye-popping details like this, more than even the most die-hard Thing fan would have previously encountered. The Thing Expanded’s enormous length might put off those who aren’t entirely die-hard, to be fair — but it is worth the time, even for casual fans. Like the great DVD extras of yore — the Lord Of The Rings Special Editions and their ilk — this is really a masterclass in filmmaking and film appreciation, an earnest and nerdy celebration of great art. “People write to me all the time, they know every frame of the film,” says Thomas G. Waites, who plays Windows. After watching The Thing Expanded, you’ll feel like you know practically every frame, too.

Streaming on: Prime Video
Episodes viewed: 8 of 8

In his New York office, private investigator Ben Reilly — wholly inhabited by Nicolas Cage — receives a client who believes his wife is cheating on him. The supposed cuckold is in the advanced stages of middle-age, and a stout fellow at that. Not a looker. So much so that when he hands Reilly a photo of his very beautiful, much younger partner, the droll gumshoe double-takes. “You a rich man?” inquires Reilly, indelicately trying to make sense of it. Later, having learnt more about the woman in question, Reilly comments to his secretary, “The only thing I can say with any certainty is that she isn’t married to that syphilitic walrus.”

Spider-Noir contains multitudes. Set in 1933, it is film noir with a keen wit and a sharp bite, its lead character (played, we must again stress, by Nicolas Cage) a variation on Spider-Man — except Reilly is more Humphrey Bogart than Peter Parker, lobbing out sardonic put-downs instead of friendly-neighbourhood wisecracks. It is an absurdly brilliant, brilliantly absurd concoction, on paper a ridiculous idea but in execution, genius. It is uncompromisingly hard-boiled, rattling along with rat-a-tat-tat dialogue, wall-to-wall with private dicks, shady dames and super-villains. And if you’re a fan of Nicolas Cage losing his shit, oh boy.

This isn’t the Spider-Man Noir from the comics, or the one from the animated Spider-Verse films, which Cage voiced; it takes its cue from all that, but then runs — and runs, and runs — with it. Here, he is The Spider, possessed of all the arachnid advantages we’ve come to expect, but when we find him in 1933, he’s hung up his woolly mask, scarred by his failure to save the life of his girlfriend five years earlier. Instead, he’s thrown himself into his PI work, although that soon involves run-ins with a motley crew of super-powered undesirables, all borrowed from the comics, and all here connected to the non-powered but very powerful mobster running New York’s underbelly: the snarling, cigar-chomping Silvermane (a particularly Irish Brendan Gleeson, providing genuine menace). Some ugly, brutal gangster violence goes down with this guy. It ain’t for kids.

It just gets better and better, with a finale that delivers on every level.

The show really is none more noir, shot in the most gorgeous black-and-white, although it was simultaneously filmed in colour for philistines who might want that option. In monochrome, this New York is as romantic as it is dangerous. Blinding-white sheets of rain blast onto the streets. Sunlight smashes through Art Deco windows. Frames are painted by cigarette smoke. There is high-contrast lighting and rich shadow-play, accenting the themes: just as duality is a mainstay in noir, so it is here. Ben Reilly/The Spider provides that in (Sam) spades, and this show never met a mirror it didn’t like.

What makes it truly noir, though, is the sad heart pumping through it. Reilly is classically nihilistic. Still, his abandonment of costumed heroism doesn’t last too long, and let’s just say that from the start, it’s hard to deny the simple thrill of seeing Nicolas Cage web-sling his way around a skyscraper. The actor is having the time of his life here, munching on the scenery like he hasn’t eaten in weeks: he resists delivering conservative line-readings at the best of times, and this show lets him run amok. One morning, when Reilly is still drunk, and hungover, he says, “I need scrambled eggs, sausages… and… a biscuit,” like he’s simultaneously caressing and mocking the English language. A sequence in which he is finding his way with his powers again, contorting his limbs, clicking his bones, is maximum kabuki. Elsewhere, Cage’s facial expression, as Reilly stumbles while trying to improv some Latin, is a facial expression quite possibly never seen before.

It’s a miracle that all of this works so well together. And it is full of surprises: one later episode, outstandingly titled ‘Nightmare On A Gurney’, serves up hallucinatory, Buñuelian stuff, going psychologically and biologically deeper than any other Spider-Man outing has. It just gets better and better, with a rug-pulling season finale that delivers on every level, with Nicolas Cage in the middle of it all, fulfilling a lifelong dream he possibly didn’t know he had, with every pore of his body, every restless, fizzy atom of his being.

Van life, as it’s known, is a subject that’s ripe for a horror movie. Alone on the highway, far away from normality, its practitioners are free to go where they like, yet always trapped in the samemetal box. So it proves for our newly engaged heroes, Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio). “If we can survive six weeks on the road, we can survive anything,” says Tyler. Here’s hoping.

Sparely scripted by T.W. Burgess and Zachary Donohue (The Den), and stylishly directed by Norwegian André Øvredal (The Last Voyage Of The Demeter), Passenger takes a spooky concept, then puts the pedal to the metal so there’s no time to question it.

A fantastic opening sequence — all blaring horns, red warning lights and expertly timed jump-scares — introduces half-glimpsed antagonist the Passenger (Joseph Lopez), a creepy old man who’s given to popping up unannounced in the back of vehicles. Imagine It Follows retooled for Jeremy Clarkson and you get the idea.

Delivers some skin-prickling set-pieces.

Things step up a gear when the Passenger begins stalking Maddie and Tyler. Alone in an empty car park, she finds herself menaced by an ominous figure, unexplained footsteps and all manner of automotive trickery, the camera twirling tense pirouettes around her to create a sense of all-pervasive dread.

“The road can be a scary place,” warns grizzled van-lifer Diana (Melissa Leo), who might have stepped straight out of Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland. She’s not wrong. While the film is many milessouth of subtle, and any attempt at characterisation is jettisoned early on, Øvredal directs the hell out of it, skirting the idea’s potential silliness to deliver some skin-prickling set-pieces.

If things run out of steam a little during the climax — after all, most supernatural phenomena are best left under-explained — it doesn’t ruin what went before. In a strong year for original horror, Passenger is a trip to remember.

Over the last two decades, Jason Clarke has quietly staked his claim as one of Australia's greatest acting exports. From Lawless and Zero Dark Thirty to Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and Mudbound, and from First Man to Oppenheimer to A House Of Dynamite, the man virtually never misses (shh, Terminator Genisys never happened!) And now, per Deadline's reporting, it looks like Clarke may be reuniting with the director of one of his formative films, Public Enemies. Yes, Clarke is currently circling a role in Michael Mann's hotly anticipated crime sequel Heat 2.

While no cast deals have been locked in yet for Michael Mann's follow-up to his 1995 crime epic, Deadline has multiple sources corroborating the potential Clarke casting coup. And, what's more, those self-same sources continue to indicate that Leonardo DiCaprio and another Public Enemies star, Christian Bale, remain in the conversation to play pivotal roles in the film.

For those unfamiliar with Heat 2, Mann's Meg Gardiner co-authored 2022 novel (which takes place both before and after the events of the first film), it's very much a book of two halves. One half is dedicated to charting the younger years of rookie cop Vincent Hanna and up-and-coming crook Neil McCauley and his gang in the 1980s, while the other follows Hanna's pursuit of an on-the-run Chris Shiherlis in the present as past actions intersect with present consequences. The sequel book does also introduce an all-new antagonist, the outright evil and downright psychopathic home invader, murderer, and rapist Otis Wardell. Who Clarke — perhaps most well known for portraying villains — would prospectively play in the movie remains unknown.

With production due to get underway on Heat 2 this year, we fully expect some concrete casting confirmations to start pouring through on Mann's cat-and-mouse sequel as cameras get closer to rolling. Even going on little more than a book and some whispers of names looking to get involved in the action, we're starting to feel the heat around the corner once again...

You are a visitor to the Empire website. You are here for some exciting movie news. You must find a buzzy announcement regarding two in-demand filmmakers and a globally beloved book series they are set to adapt. If you decide to go with this article's gimmick, read on. If you think it's already run its course, read on anyway because it's actually pretty cool news. Yes, as you may have figured out, Deadline is reporting that Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — aka Ready Or Not and Abigail directorial duo Radio Silence — are tackling a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' adaptation at 20th Century Studios.

Created by Edward Packard back in 1979 and comprising, in its original run, 184 books in which readers could become hyperspace travellers, Cold War spies, ghost hunters, and even monsters, the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' series is, by nature, a source of infinite storytelling possibilities. As such, we have no plot information on Gillet and Bettinelli-Olpin's movie, and couldn't even hazard a guess as to what they might have in store. What we do know however is that the duo will be working from a script penned by Andor and The Disaster Artist scribe Mike Bissell, and that we'll likely have a little bit of a wait on our hands before this one reaches our screens: Radio Silence are currently hard at work preparing to bring back The Mummy (no, not the Lee Cronin one, or the Tom Cruise one — the proper one!)

Given the cultural influence of 'Choose Your Own Adventure' on everything from video games like Life Is Strange, The Walking Dead, and Detroit: Become Human to Netflix's Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, The Daniels' Possibilia, and much more besides, the prospect of Radio Silence heading back to the source and doing their thing is very exciting. If you agree, proceed to get hyped. If you disagree, leave this page forever — we thank you for your click. The End.