The Empire Film Podcast #633 ft. Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Jeremy Saulnier

There's more guests than hosts on the Empire Podcast this week folks as, due to a combination of work absences, holidays, and *checks notes* a dog eating Chris Hewitt's podcasting microphone, only Helen O'Hara and James Dyer are on pod-duty this week. But fear not! Though their numbers be depleted, our two colleagues of such lethal cunning still bring the film-related fun. In the pod booth (well, over Zoom — curse ye, Covid!), Helen and James take on a brace of listener questions, contemplating which doomed crews in film they'd want to be stuck with before pontificating on whether video game movies are the adaptations are the next comic book movies. Then, in this week's movie news section (recorded before the Ocean's 14 story broke, naturally), the pod team tackle a slew of new trailers — Minecraft, Nightbitch, Smile 2, and more — and discuss Ian McKellen's potential return to Middle-earth.

On the reviews front then this week, we're tackling Tudor thriller Firebrand, Tim Burton sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Morfydd Clark and Matt Smith folk horror Starve Acre, and tense Netflix thriller Rebel Ridge. The first of those films, Firebrand, provides two of our guests in the shape of Henry VIII (aka Jude Law) and Katherine Parr (aka Alicia Vikander), who talk to Helen and Chris respectively. [Timings for those two are 17:04 - 33:12 approx for Alicia, and 51:28 - 1:09:04 approx for Jude.] And Rebel Ridge provides our other interviewee right at the end of the pod, as Chris Hewitt talks to writer/director Jeremy Saulnier about his movie's long route to our screens [1:32:47 — 1:51:41 approx]. Next week should be back to business as usual in the pod booth, but until then, as ever, please do enjoy.

You can listen to this week's episode (and over 600 more) on the pod app of your choice. And if you want to come and see the Empire Film Podcast LIVE at the London Podcast Festival at King's Place on Saturday 7 September, then head over to the King's Place website and get your tickets right here before they all sell out!