Empire News

Tom Cruise Drops Out Of Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:44:02 GMT

He wants to focus on the new Mission: Impossible

Today’s movie quiz: How many Tom Cruise secret agent franchises is too many? According to Tom himself, the number is two, as he’s now decided to drop out of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. at Warner Bros. to focus instead on his favourite fran-child, the Mission: Impossible series.

So now there is a Hero Wanted sign back up in the production offices for U.N.C.L.E., as Guy Ritchie reads what will probably be a “Cruise ankles UNCLE” headline in Variety and shakes his fist at the bad mojo from the movie gods.

It’s just the latest setback for the U.N.C.L.E. adaptation, which aims to take the basic concept of the 1960s spy series – in which Robert Vaughn and David McCallum played agents fighting the evils of THRUSH (one more comment about special cream and we are turning this website around, no joke) – and turn it into a big spectacle a la M:I or Sherlock Holmes. Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney were attached for a time, before Clooney’s medical woes saw him drop out and take Soderbergh with him.

The Lone Ranger ‘s Armie Hammer is still aboard for the film, so Warners and Ritchie only really have a new star to find ready for a shoot this autumn. Start your casting suggestions now here or over on Twitter…

Cannes 2013: Nebraska Initial Reaction

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:57:21 GMT

Alexander Payne's latest comedy-drama keeps it in the family

Nebraska, by Alexander Payne, is the third of four American films in competition at Cannes this year and has potential to figure somewhere in the awards come Sunday. There's a lot of speculation that Spielberg and his international jury will leave the US out of the reckoning, but this obstacle could be neatly sidestepped by either a special or a joint prize (or perhaps just a special mention). Payne and the film itself are less likely to figure, but star Bruce Dern must surely be worth consideration, as is his co-star June Squibb and the whole ensemble.

In retrospect, Payne's sixth feature is perhaps a long overdue morale-booster after last year's emotionally draining Palme d'Or winner Amour. Shot in unfussy, unaffected black and white, it begins with an old man, Woody Grant (Dern), walking down a busy Montana highway. Taken in by a cop, he is picked up by his son David (Will Forte) and returned to his frustrated wife Katie (Squibb). At his parents' home, David learns that Woody – an old man slowly succumbing to dementia – thinks he has won a million dollars in a lottery and is going to state capital Lincoln to claim his winnings. David tries to persuade Woody that it's just a marketing scam, but Woody won't have it, so after his father makes several failed attempts to bolt, David agrees to drive him there.

What begins as a road movie takes a sharp turn when Woody and David break the trip by stopping off with relatives in the town of Hawthorne, where Woody and Katie met in their youth. Here, the Grant family start to encounter the ghosts of the past, not to mention the present, as the locals get wind of Woody's good fortune and try to cash in, not realising it is all a terrible misunderstanding. Which sounds like the formula for a bleak, melancholic buddy movie, but Payne's movie is much broader than that. When Katie unexpectedly joins the duo, the film finally begins to reveal itself: by turns laugh-out-loud funny, sad, wry (in Payne's traditional deadpan style) and unbelievably poignant, it skews a little older than some of Payne's previous work, but like the Coens' Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska is a grown-up crowdpleaser certain to figure on this year's awards trail.{Cannes 2013: Nebraska Premiere}

Nebraska is out in the US on December 22.

Podcast 62: Alec Baldwin, Nicolas Winding Refn, Kristin Scott Thomas and James Toback

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:05:10 GMT

The podcast team wrap up the Cannes Film Festival

Cannes 2013 is almost over. To celebrate that fact, here's our final Croisette-recorded podcast, which sees a very special guest in the form of newcomer Stevie Wong coming into the Empire fold to talk about the hits (and the misses) of this year's film festival to end all film festivals.

Over in London, the reviews team dig into The Hangover Part III, Epic and My Neighbour Totoro, and in the interviews department, Alec Baldwin and James Toback talk about their documentary Seduced And Abandoned and Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn shares a few details about his latest, Only God Forgives, alongside his new leading lady, Kristin Scott Thomas.

P.S. Don't forget to check out our podcast photo gallery here and subscribe to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page or this handy RSS feed.

Rosamund Pike Will Return To Sender

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:23:28 GMT

With Shiloh Fernandez and Nick Nolte

Patricia Beauchamp and Joe Gossett gave a screenplay to the postman, he put it in his sack, and bright and early the next morning... it was being filmed with Rosamund Pike, Shiloh Fernandez and Nick Nolte. Well OK, maybe that isn't quite how Return To Sender found itself in production, but it's underway nevertheless, under the directorial eye of Fouad Mikati (Operation: Endgame).

Not quite the Elvis-based rom-com its title might imply, this Return To Sender sounds a bit more sinister. It involves an uptight nurse in a small town (Pike) whose life changes irrevocably after a blind date with a guy (Fernandez) who turns out not to be all he seems. In the aftermath, Pike ~~gets violent revenge on the person who set the date up~~ has to rebuild her life and get back to being who she used to be. Nolte will be playing her father.

THR's description of Pike as "victim to a life-altering event" sounds like coy language for a rather nasty date-related assault, but there's no confirmation of that so far so we shouldn't leap to conclusions. The official line is that Return To Sender is a psychological thriller, and that single-random-event-that-changes-everything-forever business sounds very like the hook for any number of Ian McEwan novels. So perhaps, superficially, this will be somewhere along the lines of something like Enduring Love.

Either way, it sounds a scene-stealing opportunity for Fernandez following Red Riding Hood and the Evil Dead remake and it's another entry in Pike's rather full diary. She'll follow this with Josh Duhamel's thriller French Window, and we'll next see her in The World's End, out in the UK on July 19.

Return To Sender is shooting right now in New Orleans.

Cannes 2013: The Immigrant Initial Reaction

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:23:27 GMT

James Gray's latest gets a deportation order

James Gray has been a fixture in Cannes since The Yards in 2000, much to the bemusement of UK press who fail to see why he is so consistently invited. His latest, The Immigrant, is by far the least of all the films he's submitted, being a very plain melodrama that could have come from the Hallmark Channel if it weren't for its triumvirate of Oscar-nominated leads. Though it's safe to say the Golden Globes will find places at the dinner table for Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Renner and Marion Cotillard, Gray's latest is a middlebrow period piece that crawls along at a snail's pace and won't find too much favour at the box office.

It begins in the early ’20s, with the Ukrainian Sonya (Cotillard) and her consumptive sister lining up on Ellis Island, hoping to be granted American citizenship. The sister is taken to hospital for examination and Sonya is refused entry, on the grounds that she may be a “loose woman”, but a kindly stranger, Bruno (Phoenix), takes her in and gives her a bed. Bruno, it turns out, runs an illegal strip club in Manhattan that doubles as a brothel, and Sonya is appalled. Nevertheless, she needs money to pay for her sister's hospital treatment and reluctantly does what Bruno asks of her.

To say how Renner's dancing magician Orlando enters the frame would spoil what little there is that's surprising about the film, but The Immigrant soon becomes an unlikely love triangle: unlikely, since the characters are so very unloveable. There is no chemistry whatsoever – because the writing doesn't call for any – and although Phoenix starts out promisingly as a charming but devious pimp, the spark never becomes a flame. What's left is the excellent cinematography and production design, which leaves one thinking not of simmering passions but all the mottled, muddy-brown wallpaper.

Bryan Singer Tweets Quicksilver Is In Days Of Future Past

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:36:09 GMT

Evan Peters is in - but what does this mean for Avengers 2?

Here’s a turn-up for the (comic) books and no mistake: mere days after Joss Whedon talked about using the characters Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in the Avengers sequel, Bryan Singer has tweeted that he’s cast Evan Peters as Quicksilver in X-Men: Days Of Future Past. What's curious is that the original tweet in question has now been deleted - here's a screengrab of what it looked like and the full text is below - and was replaced with an Avengers-free missive, also below.

Before he was an #Avenger, he was just a REALLY fast kid. Thrilled to say #EvanPeters is joining #XMen #DaysOfFuturePast as #Quicksilver.
— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) May 23, 2013

Thrilled to say #EvanPeters is joining #XMen #DaysOfFuturePast as #Quicksilver.
— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) May 24, 2013

So Singer has announced that Peters – who already has a comic book film credit to his name with Kick-Ass’ Todd – is on board for the movie. In case you’re busy spluttering and wondering how he could conceivably turn up in two studio franchises, Pietro (AKA Quicksilver) and twin sister Scarlet Witch (real name: Wanda) are two of several characters spawned by the X-Men comics universe whose rights are jointly held by 20th Fox and Marvel/Disney. We've discussed the characters' tangled histories in a bit more depth here.

Quicksilver showing up in Days Of Future Past makes some sense: he and his sister are, after all, Magneto’s children, even if ol’ Erik Lensherr in the comics wasn’t aware of that for a long time. However, how he will fit in to the already sprawling cast and fighting-the-dark-future-timeline plot is still a mystery, and he won’t have a the biggest part to play given the late-stage casting, but it’s still an intriguing idea that we could see Magneto interacting with his son (we're assuming he'll be aware of the relationship here). Also: which Magneto? We're guessing this would be McKellen's version, since Fassbender seems a little youthful to be Peters' father.

Even more audaciously, could Peters conceivably be shown first in Days Of Future Past and then crop up in the Avengers sequel? It's unlikely, since Singer's version is a younger man in Days, and Whedon may have different plans for the character, but Feige's expressed openness to the idea of reuniting all Marvel characters in one cohesive universe, whatever studios hold the rights, so it's not completely beyond the pale. At the other end of the spectrum of possibilities, will this lead Whedon to reconsider his plans to include the brother and sister?

X-Men: Days Of Future Past already includes Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, Anna Paquin, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Omar Sy, Fan Bingbing and more. In fact, it’s getting to the point where it’ll be easier to list the people NOT in the film. It’ll arrive on July 17 next year. In case you have no idea who we're on about when we talk about Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, head to the informative briefing on the characters right here.

Cannes 2013: Videblogisode #4 - Alec Baldwin, Stephen Woolley

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:19:39 GMT

Can you guess what ABIAB stands for?

The sun has finally come out here in Cannes, so the Empire videblogisode team capitalised on that fortunate turn of events by holing up in an office to record an extended movie parody. As the French wouldn't say, "Such is life."

The spoof was in honour of our interview with Alec Baldwin and James Toback, whose documentary, Seduced And Abandoned, was shown out of competition at the Palais De Festivals. No points for guessing which scene from which movie we try to recreate...

This episode also saw us interview longstanding videblog-guest Stephen Woolley about his planned film Limehouse Golem, from a script by Jane Goldman.

For more videblogifun - yes, that's yet another word we just made up - be sure to head to our Cannes 2013 microsite, where you can also find all of our initial reaction reviews, news pieces, picture galleries and more.

Gael Garcia Bernal Starring In Rosewater

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:28:11 GMT

He's on for Jon Stewart's directorial effort

Daily Show host Jon Stewart sparked headlines back in March when he announced he’d take a 12-week break this summer from the satirical news show to direct a film called Rosewater. Well, now we know who will be starring, because The Wrap reports that Gael Garcia Bernal has been cast in the lead.

Stewart adapted the script from BBC journalist Maziar Bahari’s book Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story Of Love, Captivity And Survival. He picked up the rights a while ago, and has been hard at work at the keyboard in between hosting duties and his usual meetings with his staff to come up with ways to describe Dick Cheney’s heartless attitude towards the world.

The book, co-written with Aimee Molloy, is the harrowing story of Bahari’s assignment to cover the Iranian presidential elections in 2009. The plan was that he'd only be away from his pregnant fiancée for a week, but he was accused of spying (ironically, an appearance on The Daily Show was held up as evidence), imprisoned and interrogated for 118 days by a man he knew only by one thing: that he smelled of rosewater.

Bernal most recently cropped up in Pablo Larrain’s No, and is working on Roberto Sneider’s Deserted Cities. He’ll also crop up in The Ardor and just yesterday was signed up for Pablo Aguero's Evita project.

Universal Opens The School For Good And Evil

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:28:11 GMT

Joe Roth producing novel adaptation

Having struck box office gold with Alice In Wonderland and this year’s Oz The Great And Powerful, Joe Roth and his production company have naturally been on the hunt for more fantasy fodder to sprinkle with filmic fairy dust. Last week, he partnered with Jane Startz Production to buy up the rights to Soman Chainani’s upcoming trilogy The School For Good And Evil, and Universal has won the bidding battle to produce the first film.

Chainani’s trilogy – well, it will be once all three novels are out, but the first only just arrived on US bookshelves and hits here on June 6 – is about ordinary boys and girls kidnapped from their homes and carted off to the titular learning establishment, a split personality teaching system where they are ether taught to be heroes or villains.

Our heroine for this Harry Potter-esque tale is Sophie, a beautiful girl who winds up in the Evil side while her friend Agatha is taken to the Good side. They see their fortunes reversed and must face the truth about their destinies.

Chainani has made a deal to craft the script with Hook co-writer Malia Scotch Marmo, and Universal will be hoping for a new franchise from this one. As seems usual for bigger books these days, the novel as a trailer, which you can see below.

New Rush Trailer Squeals In

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:28:11 GMT

Everyone's driven by something

Everyone, according to the latest tagline for Ron Howard’s look at Formula One racing in the era of James Hunt and Niki Lauda, is driven by something. In the case of Team Empire, it’s cake and the desperate need to stay one step ahead of Oscar the Office Mouse, the crafty, snack cake-stealing bastard. For the speed freaks in this movie, it’s the burning ambition to win. The new trailer is available over at Apple.

Rush chronicles the 1970s rivalry between Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, swapping his hammer for putting the hammer down at the wheel of a racing vehicle) and Lauda (Daniel Bruhl).

Though their rivalry was fierce, and led to real problems, Howard also emphasises the crazy intensity of the racing and the passion behind the scenes that inspired them to go that bit further. Not to mention the glitz and the glamour of the era.

{Rush - New Stills}

The new promo further convinces us that this has been shot beautifully and that the cast – which also includes Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara, Stephen Mangan, Christian McKay, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Jamie de Courcey and Natalie Dormer – is spot on.

Howard’s latest arrives in pole position on September 13.

Paddy Considine Set For Child 44

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:28:10 GMT

He'll join Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace

Good news for Paddy Considine fans: despite the success of directorial debut Tyrannosaur, he hasn’t disappeared behind the camera, as The World’s End is about to prove. And he’s scored another acting gig, signing on alongside Zero Dark Thirty’s Fares Fares for Child 44.

Safe House director Daniel Espinosa is gearing up to make the film, which finds 1950s Soviet police officer Hardy investigating a serial killer who is targeting children. But as he digs deeper into the case, his own government begins to suspect him of treason when a colleague frames him. Rapace is set to play his conflicted wife and Gary Oldman joined up in March as the chief of police, who investigates Hardy.

Fares (who worked for Espinosa with fellow Child 44 actor Joel Kinnaman in Easy Money, which pre-dates Safe House but only hits UK cinemas this week) is on as one of Hardy’s colleagues, while Considine’s role is being kept quiet for now.

Considine, as mentioned above, will be back on our screens in The World’s End (see the trailer at the bottom of the page), due out July 19. Fares has just shot The Keeper Of Lost Causes.

Steven Soderbergh On For The Knick

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:28:10 GMT

He'll produce and direct a TV show with Clive Owen

Somewhere there’s a blank canvas sitting in a spare room of Steven Soderbergh’s house, wondering what he really meant when he said he was going to retire and paint full time. Because the director is now in talks to produce and direct a period drama series starring Clive Owen called The Knick.

Yes, far from taking it easy, the one-man filmmaking machine might have stepped back from cinema, but Cinemax, the US cable channel, is another matter.

The company is locking down the details of a deal whereby Soderbergh will produce and direct all 10 episodes of a series set in New York in 1900. The title refers to Knickerbocker Hospital, where the staff (including Owen) shoved back the boundaries of science at the time, where antibiotics are a few years away and the mortality rate is high. Presumably they sat down with the star and director in Cannes recently.

Big Miracle co-writers Jack Amiel and Michael Begler worked on the pilot script as a spec assignment and will produce along with Soderbergh and Owen. It’s not the director’s first stab at TV: he also produced short-lived political drama with K Street with George Clooney for HBO back in 2003. Cinemax seems an odd choice for the series given its predilection for action/sexy fare, but perhaps this represents the channel looking to branch out. And let’s face it: it’s Soderbergh. You know this thing has a high chance of being great.

Podcast 62: Alec Baldwin, Nicolas Winding Refn, Kristen Scott Thomas and James Toback

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:12:28 GMT

The podcast team wrap up the Cannes Film Festival

P.S. Don't forget to check out our podcast photo gallery here and subscribe to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page or this handy RSS feed.

Podcast 62: Alec Baldwin, Nicolas Winding Refn

Fri, 24 May 2013 07:56:55 GMT

The podcast team wrap up the Cannes Film Festival

P.S. Don't forget to check out our podcast photo gallery here and subscribe to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page or this handy RSS feed.

New Trailer Online For Edgar Wright's The World's End

Thu, 23 May 2013 20:47:30 GMT

Mine's a pint of Edgar's Best Kaboom

Most pub crawls have a sticky ending, one way or another. Some finish with fisticuffs, many with vomit, others with a mere killer hangover. But The World's End promises to take things to a whole new level with an apocalyptic outcome to the reunion of five old friends. You can see some of what we're in for in the new trailer below.

The film sees Simon Pegg as something of a failure in life, who sees a chance to recreate his teenage glory days by reuniting his old friends to complete the pub crawl they once abandoned. Only it turns out that their home town has changed in the years since they left: now it's crawling with what look very much like alien invaders. Uh. Oh.

The World's End stars Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Martin Freeman and Paddy Considine with Pegg as the central quintet of drinkers; Rosamund Pike plays Freeman's sister (and Pegg's old flame) and you'll see a few more familiar faces pop up in this trailer. Edgar Wright, of course, directs this finale to the Blood And Ice Cream trilogy.{The World's End Explosion Quad}

The World's End is out in the UK on July 19.

Star Trek Into Darkness Spoiler Podcast #2

Thu, 23 May 2013 20:31:46 GMT

Damon Lindelof and the rest of the writer/producers speak...

(L-R) Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Bryan Burk and Damon Lindelof

Our first Star Trek Into Darkness spoiler special saw four of the podcast team dissecting the heck of out J.J. Abrams' space sequel for nearly an hour. This go around, it's interview time, and in the hot seat(s) are the writing/producing team of Damon Lindelof, Bryan Burk, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who reveal some very interesting details about Khan - sorry, You Know Who - including whether we'll see him in another installment and when his name first came up in the writers' room...

Also, it turns out Damon Lindelof's mum listens to the podcast. Hello Mrs. Lindelof!

Don't forget to check out our podcast photo gallery here and subscribe to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page or this handy RSS feed.

Cannes 2013: Behind The Candelabra Initial Reaction

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:57:35 GMT

Steven Soderbergh's Liberace biopic chars the Croisette

Behind The Candelabra doesn't seem very likely to take the Palme d'Or, but Steven Soderbergh's alleged swansong proved very popular with audiences in Cannes, being a witty and affectionate, if not entirely factually accurate, biopic of flamboyant cabaret artist Liberace. Michael Douglas steals the show as the preening, neurotic but really rather likeable pianist, although Matt Damon proves a formidable supporting act, giving much-needed warmth to a slightly tragic and misguided figure.

The film opens in 1977, with Scott Thorson (Damon) working as an animal trainer in Hollywood movies. A chance meeting in a gay bar with Scott Bakula's Bob Black leads to an encounter with Liberace (Douglas) in Vegas, and an extended scene sets out the entertainer's camp charisma and genuine charm, engaging a largely blue-rinse, conservative crowd with a call-and-response boogie-woogie routine. Backstage, Liberace invites the pair to his home, forming an attachment to Thorson that develops into a full-blown relationship as the latter progresses from personal assistant to lover.

Neither director nor cast shirk their responsibilities, and the story is about as gay as it could possibly be, with lots of physical romping and open-mouth kissing. Douglas relishes the role, and is never upstaged by the ever more outrageous outfits that so defined Liberace's public image.

Some have described the film's ultimate descent into bitchery – when the relationship finally deteriorates beyond repair – as homophobic, but the other side of the coin is that Richard LaGravenese's very funny script does invest his characters with feelings and emotions that aren't always expected (for example, the young Thorson is prudish and monogamous, while Liberace is lewd and quite delightfully licentious).

Its roots as a TV movie are pretty clear, but Behind The Candelabra doesn't look at all out of place on the big screen. The happy(ish) ending doesn't quite tally with reality, but the film nicely reflects the dynamic of the relationship – a lonely millionaire finds a lost boy to father, using plastic surgery to make their bond creepily real – and brings out the all-too-human story behind the tabloid gossip.

Behind The Candelabra is out in the UK on June 7.

Cannes 2013: We Are What We Are Initial Reaction

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:41:52 GMT

US horror remake shocks audiences by being good

When it was announced that Jorge Michel Grau's 2010 genre debut We Are What We Are – otherwise known as The Mexican Cannibal Film – would be getting an American remake, hopes didn't exactly run high. Happily, Stake Land director Jim Mickle's take on the story of a family of flesh-eaters only lifts the premise of Grau's original and takes it in a completely different direction, while nevertheless holding onto the original's underlying melancholy. Consider it more a translation, in every sense.

Mickle's sharpest move is to take a poor urban family in Mexico and make them a poor rural family in the USA. The motivation for their cannibalism is never quite clear, but we soon deduce that this is a confluence of poverty and religion, as well as a tradition that has been going on since the late 19^th century. The second bright decision is to make the protagonists two sisters – Iris (Ambyr Childers) and Rose (Julia Garner) – who live with their little brother and overbearing father (Bill Sage) in a trailer park. The third, and equally clever, decision is to follow the Evil Dead remake route and set the action in the middle of a violent storm, one that has dire consequences for the family as the skeletons of the past literally spew up out of the ground.

The switch of gender gives the new We Are What We Are more of a Carrie vibe, and though there are some intense scenes of violence, there is nothing gratuitous or anything that could be described as torture porn. It still may be too graphic for mainstream audience, since another key change involves the family's victims: in the original they feasted on hookers and lowlifes, but here they prey on regular high-school girls, a chilling echo of the recent Amanda Berry case in the USA. But like all good horror stories Mickle's film is really about something else, and the two female leads give terrific performances as cloistered teenagers struggling to come to terms with their place in their world.

Stallone Talking To Seagal For Expendables 3

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:26:18 GMT

And confirms Wesley Snipes' casting. Again.

Following our chat with the cheerfully equivocal Jackie Chan last week, there's been a little more activity on the Expendables front. Sylvester Stallone, in one of his occasional fits of tweeting, has confirmed that Wesley Snipes is definitely showing up for Expendables 3, and that Mickey Rourke is returning. He's also indicated that he has The Raid in his sights and, perhaps most surprisingly, that he's been talking to Steven Seagal after all.

We totally called Snipes a while ago, and Stallone now says he "Talked to Wesley today... he cannot wait to fight to the top again!". The news of Rourke, who sat out Expendables 2, comes in the form of "Mighty Mickey is back..." Sly also puts the call out for "a young Sigourney Weaver..." We haven't finished with the old one yet!

But Seagal is a curveball. Stallone himself said there was "No Seagal, sorry" back in March, and legend had it that Seagal, perhaps the most obviously missing Expendable to date, was boycotting the franchise because of an ongoing beef with producer Avi Lerner. Maybe that's now been ironed out, or perhaps it was always nonsense, because suddenly Sly was "Calling Seagal this morning", and a couple of days later had "Just talked to Steven in Moscow*... Sounds great and says he wants to be in EX3, if the part fits".

Just talked to STEVEN S. in Moscow ...Sounds great and says he wants to be in EX3, if the part fits....
— Sylvester Stallone (@TheSlyStallone) May 19, 2013

As for last year's exhilarating slice of Indonesian tower-block carnage, Sly muses that he's "Thinking about raiding The Raid". Does he just mean stylistically? Or is he talking about going after the likes of Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian for the actual cast? Unclear, but says Sly, "The Raid was an excellent film... We believe we can do better... Raising the bar..."

Raising the bar from Expendables 2? Good idea! Writing and pre-production are currently ongoing, with Red Hill's Patrick Hughes set to call the shots this time. Production is slated to start in August, for release sometime in 2014.

*Where he's been on a peculiar tour for some months.

The Hangover Part III Premieres In London

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:29:52 GMT

A big welcome to the Wolfpack!

A pleasant, sunny evening in London last night was torn by screams and hysteria as The Hangover Part III premiered in Leicester Square. The cast were all present, along with director Todd Phillips, to launch the film's UK premiere, but miraculously none of them mutilated themselves or one another, had a close encounter with a hooker or molested a wild animal. At least, that we know of. Perhaps that was the after-party.

This third - and, we're told, final - instalment of the series sees Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha) stage an intervention for Alan (Zach Galifianakis), who is off his meds and not doing too well following the death of his father (Jeffrey Tambor). Unfortunately, all goes wrong when they're kidnapped by Marshall (John Goodman), who holds Doug hostage and orders the rest to find Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) and find the gold Chow stole from Marshall, or he'll kill Doug. Cue disasters galore.{The Hangover Part III Premiere}

The film also stars Heather Graham, returning for the first time since the first film, Mike Epps and Melissa McCarthy. The Hangover Part III hits cinemas today.

Universal Wants to Reboot Timecop

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:57:57 GMT

But will Van Damme cameo for a Dammeo?

As the hunger for remakes expands like a gigantic space amoeba looking to swallow unwary planets, voices are frequently raised in outrage at the titles in line for a swift reboot. Yet when you learn that 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme sci-fi actioner Timecop has been added to the list, the reaction is surely more of a “Huh… Maybe that could work….” So Universal wants to try.

The original is a blast of comic-spawned ‘90s fun that saw Van Damme’s haunted chrono-lawkeeper run afoul of crooked senator Ron Silver, who is using time travel to help his political career.

Spawned from the Dark Horse title, it ended up with decent (if occasionally wry) reviews and solid box office. It birthed a straight-to-DVD sequel and a short-lived TV spin-off.

Sadly for Van Damme fans, it appears he’s not involved this time around (yet – cue the online petitions), and the studio is entertaining pitches from writers with a take on how to re-imagine the concept for today. Especially since the film was set in the far-away world of 2004. Ooh... Welcome to the woooorld of tomorroooow!

So what say you? Think Timecop can be reworked without poisoning the memory of a classic? Or should we leave it alone, lest JCVD arrive through a portal and kick everyone involved in the head?

Red Band We're The Millers Trailer Drives Up

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:57:56 GMT

Jason Sudeikis' drug smuggler needs a fake family...

When Empire attended CinemaCon last month, one of the films that struck our fancy, based on an extended trailer, was Dodgeball director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s new comedy We’re The Millers. Now a version of that trailer is online via Warners’ YouTube account for you all to watch. Warning: it’s a Red Band promo, so expect swearing and gross-out gags…

We’re The Millers finds small-scale pot dealer David Burke (Sudeikis) getting into a spot of bother when Ed Helms' sleazy kingpin offers him a potentially lucrative job: smuggle a batch of pot across the border from Mexico back into the US and Burke will score $100,000.

There’s a hitch, however. If he goes across alone, he’ll look suspicious. So Burke nabs an RV and starts to recruit a fake family to hide the fact that he’ll be transporting several kilos of marijuana. Neighbourhood no-good nerd Kenny (Will Poulter) will be his son; crafty Casey (Emma Roberts) his daughter and stripper Rose (Jennifer Aniston) is the woman he asks to be his fake wife.

When they reach Mexico, they discover the haul is significantly bigger than they thought; and that’s just the start of their problems, which include randy fellow travellers (Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn on good form) and a nasty tarantula bite that leaves Kenny with some trouble in the trouser department.

While there are moments that might make you roll your eyes – of course Aniston’s stripper history is going to come into play at some point – there are enough genuine chuckles to have us anticipating this one. It’ll find its way into cinemas on August 23.

J.J. Abrams Picks New Star Wars' Costume Designer

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:57:56 GMT

Trek veteran Michael Kaplan gets the gig

Admittedly, it’s hardly the most enlightening piece of news about Star Wars: Episode VII, but it’s still fun to see who J.J. Abrams is gathering to work on the new trip to that Galaxy Far, Far Away. One of the first confirmed members of his team is an old Abrams hand and recent Empire interviewee, costume designer Michael Kaplan.

It’s not tough to see why Abrams would tap Kaplan for the job. They worked together to revise the look of Captain Kirk and co on Star Trek and Into Darkness, and Kaplan also provided the togs for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which Abrams produced.

But Kaplan’s CV goes back much further and deeper than just the Enterprise crew. One of his earliest jobs was working alongside Charles Knode on 1982’s Blade Runner. He also counts Flashdance, Fight Club, Panic Room, Pearl Harbor, Curly Sue, Clue, I Am Legend and Miami Vice among his credits. So he’s certainly got the chops to tackle the Lucas universe now inherited (for Episode VII, at least) by Abrams.

Michael Arndt is busy working on the script and, assuming they all make deals, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill are expected to appear in some capacity. Abrams has also said he wants John Williams to write the score, and Disney aims to have the new Wars on screen sometime in 2015. Meanwhile, why not read our feature on Kaplan and other members of J.J.’s behind-the-scenes Trek crew and start taking bets on the next one to get recruited...

New Trailer For Grown Ups 2 Online

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:40:51 GMT

Nothing but a good time...

So in 2010 there was a film called Grown Ups, with Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade and Rob Schneider. We gave it one star, but it made north of $270m anyway. Why does nobody ever listen? Box office of more than triple your budget - especially when it was quite a high budget, considering - pretty much guarantees you a sequel, and here we have Grown Ups 2. Here's what you bought with all your Grown Ups tickets. Happy now? Happy?

This is the international trailer, not to be confused with the domestic one from a month or so ago. If you care to play spot the difference, please go right ahead. This one makes clear that Grown Ups 2 has replaced the water park with small-town America, but that it's otherwise business as usual (minus Schneider: it seems he couldn't do it).

What that means is there's some gross-out stuff, some goofy stuff, some sentimental stuff, and Poison on the soundtrack. The thrust of the plot sees our old-timers going up against some frat-boys (lead by Taylor Lautner) for alpha-male dominance of the local hangouts. Because it's called Grown Ups, but they're acting like kids: do you see? They also have to operate under the radar of their wives. We'd like to to operate under Salma Hayek's radar too. Does that actually make sense? Meh.

Grown Ups 2, along with the boys, Lautner and Hayek, also stars Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph, Nick Swardson and model Patrick Schwarzenegger (yup, son of Arnold) in his first movie role. Sandler stalwart Dennis Dugan is the director once again, and it's out in the UK on August 9. Remember, if you go and see it, there will be another.

Cate Blanchett And Mia Wasikowska Find Carol

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:24:49 GMT

For director Todd Haynes

Though he’s produced a few projects since making 2007’s I’m Not There, we haven’t seen a film directed by Todd Haynes for a while. But according to Screen Daily, he’s back with Carol, and he’s bringing Cate Blanchett and Mia Wasikowska with him.

Empire Videblogisode regular Stephen Woolley is producing the new film, which adapts Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price Of Salt.

Carol will chart a relationship between two women in 1950s New York: a girl in her 20s slogging through a job in a department store (Wasikowska) and a wife trapped in a loveless, unfulfilling, but wealthy marriage (Blanchett).

Phyllis Nagy is at work writing the script, which has producer Elizabeth Karlsen excited. “Todd is without a doubt one of the most talented directors working today," she says in a statement. "His attachment to direct this script and cast is a dream come true."

Blanchett, last seen in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, turned director for Australian shorts compilation The Turning and will be seen in Terrence Malick’s next two movies, Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine and the second Hobbit film. She’s currently working on George Clooney’s The Monuments Men.

Wasikowska was one of Stoker’s leads and will show up in Richard Ayoade’s The Double and Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive alongside that actor we always mention. Old wotsisname... Thomas Middleditch? No... Tamany Hall? Nah... Tom Hiddleston! That's the one.