Tabla de contenidos para September 2025 en Empire

“WHEN A FIRE starts to burn/There’s a lesson you must learn,” sang Homer Simpson once. “Something something, then you’ll see/You’ll avoid catastrophe!” He may not have managed to remember all the lyrics, but he got the gist of it right: fire is dangerous, handle with care. Something the heroes of Avatar: Fire And Ash, our cover story this month, seem destined to learn the hard way. They’re up against the Ash People, led by the formidable Varang (pictured right in concept-art form) — will they avoid catastrophe? We’ll find out this Christmas what something something unfolds on Pandora. Until then, this issue provides the closest thing you can get to sitting by James Cameron’s side as he tweaks his latest colossal blockbuster to his satisfaction. We asked if we could…

GLEN POWELL HAS been running for as long as he can remember. Running towards acting, running towards Hollywood success, and now running towards The Running Man, his first major solo star vehicle. Adapted from the 1982 Richard Bachman/Stephen King novel by director Edgar Wright, the film stars Powell as Ben Richards, a desperate man who enters a deadly game show in the hopes of winning enough money to help his ailing daughter. It’s the kind of big blockbuster leading role that has been a lifetime-in-the-making for Powell. “My first project ever was on Steven Spielberg when I was in second or third grade,” he tells Empire, adding that he got to tell this to Spielberg himself while making Twisters. “That shows you how much I loved this shit since I…

THE ATTITUDE Smith was given room for interpretation with Russ, an English rocker caught up in a ’90s New York criminal underworld. “Darren gave me a really liberating note which was, ‘I give you permission to be a punk every day,’” he tells Empire. So he began sending Aronofsky the work of Salford poet John Cooper Clarke, including the relentlessly insulting Twat (“You put the ‘shat’ in ‘shatter’, you put the ‘pain’ in ‘Spain’”). “I [reckoned that Russ had] moved to New York and learned all of these John Cooper Clarke poems because he’s a punk, but he’s quite a sensitive punk,” Smith explains. It’s in the city that his character befriends neighbour Hank (Austin Butler). After accidentally dragging Hank into his shady dealings, Russ no doubt becomes worthy of…

“THIS COULD NOT have really happened.” That’s what Derek Cianfrance kept thinking as he was making Roofman, his first film in nine years. Based on real events, it follows army vet-turned-outlaw Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum), who robbed at least 40 branches of McDonald’s between 1998 and 2000. “Then he got put in prison. Then broke out of prison. Then he hid out in a Toys R Us,” Cianfrance explains. He tells Empire about what drew him to what he describes as his “Mrs. Doubtfire on the run”. AN ECCENTRIC CRIMINAL Remember the iconic sequence in Mission: Impossible, where Ethan Hunt rappels into a vault? Replace CIA headquarters with those of Ronald McDonald and you’ve pretty much got Manchester’s method for his Hamburglar-style break-ins. Despite his many sophisticated robberies, Cianfrance insists…

“FOR GUYS LIKE me, Las Vegas washes away your sins,” said Robert De Niro’s Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein in Casino. And it turns out Ace was not alone in seeing unlikely parallels between the church and the international gambling mecca. “The casino is like our new church,” laughs Swiss-Austrian director Edward Berger. “It’s the epitome of capitalism. But it’s an ‘opposite’ church — a spiritually empty place that leaves you devoid of hope. Perhaps that’s what drew me to this story — I was flocking from one church to another.” The story in question is Ballad Of A Small Player — a “fun, colourful, operatic explosion” (Berger’s words) set in the mega-casinos of Macau, China. The film arrives a year after Berger’s acclaimed papal drama Conclave, which enjoyed a lengthy spell…

WHO WOULD HAVE thought that a tech revolution would be hailed by a fully nude zombie, lurching through the wilderness? 28 Years Later is not the first film to be shot with iPhones — see also Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane and High Flying Bird — but it’s certainly the biggest in scale. “You can record at 4K 60 frames a second on your phone. Don’t, because your iCloud storage will go through the roof,” Boyle tells Empire. “But for a cinema screen, it works.” 28 Years Later is just one recent example of people pushing the frontiers of filmmaking in order to bring startling visuals to the screen. In the case of Boyle, he used the pocket-sized devices for their lightness, allowing them to venture into the authentically unkempt Northumbrian wilderness.…

TWO OF THE most respected directors alive have for the first time in their careers been nominated by an awards body for, effectively, taking the piss out of themselves. Together, Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard are both acknowledged in this year’s Best Guest Actor In A Comedy Series category at the Emmys — taking place on 14 September — for playing versions of themselves in The Studio, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s satirical take on the movie industry. They face off against three other performances from The Studio — Bryan Cranston as CEO Griffin Mill, and Dave Franco and Anthony Mackie as… themselves. Meanwhile, The Bear’s Jon Bernthal is the token nominee not repping The Studio. Of course, Hollywood likes nothing better than shows about Hollywood, hence, perhaps, the 23…

A SOUTH KOREAN girl band who kill monsters while protecting humans with their music. It’s a concept just wild enough to work, and work it has; within two weeks of launching on Netflix in June, KPop Demon Hunters had generated 33 million views while making its fictional band into realworld chart-toppers. Writer-director Maggie Kang and co-director Chris Appelhans share with Empire the secret sauce behind their breakout hit. MYTHIC MUSES For Korean-Canadian Kang, the idea came from a desire for representation, and interest in mythology. “I gravitated towards iconic images like the Jeoseung Saja, aka [Korean] Grim Reapers,” she tells Empire. “I thought, ‘That would make such a great villain.’ It naturally led to demon hunters.” That presented an opportunity to work in Kang’s love of K-pop, the South Korean…

OUT 22 AUGUST/CERT TBC/149 MINS DIRECTOR Ari Aster CAST Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, Emma Stone PLOT In the summer of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the sheriff (Phoenix) of the New Mexico town of Eddington enters into a bitter conflict with the mayor (Pascal). 2020 WAS A hell of a year. It has been both five years and several lifetimes since the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the world, and it remains, arguably, a collective trauma we as a species have yet to process. There have been modest attempts at trying to grapple cinematically with this epochal event, but few have grabbed the subject by its greasy horns quite as fearlessly as Ari Aster does with Eddington. Aster’s fourth feature is…

OUT NOW/CERT U/92 MINS DIRECTOR Chris Miller CAST Rihanna, James Corden, Nick Offerman, JP Karliak, Natasha Lyonne, Kurt Russell, John Goodman PLOT When Papa Smurf (Goodman) is kidnapped, Smurfette (Rihanna) and No Name (Corden) must rescue him. WHAT IS THE deal with the Smurfs? It’s hard to find anyone who is a genuine fan of the blue-skinned, mushroom-dwelling cartoony creatures — they are, arguably, the worst thing to come out of Belgium since King Leopold II — yet Smurf-based films and TV shows continue, relentlessly, to be made. Now, by unpopular demand, they’re back. Following the advice of Justin Timberlake in The Social Network and dropping the ‘The’, this is another crack at the live-action/animated hybrid format established with 2011’s The Smurfs — think Who Framed Roger Rabbit with none of…

OUT NOW (NETFLIX)/EPISODES VIEWED 10 OF 10 SHOWRUNNERS Lena Dunham, Luis Felber CAST Megan Stalter, Will Sharpe, Michael Zegen, Richard E. Grant, Naomi Watts, Lena Dunham PLOT After a traumatic break-up, Jessica (Stalter) moves from New York to London for work, where she falls for musician Felix (Sharpe). IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged, that a single American girl in possession of a one-way ticket to London, must be in want of her own Mr Darcy. We’ve seen it before, and we see it again here in Lena Dunham’s Too Much, which combines the incisive honesty of her seminal 2010s drama Girls with the swooning romance of executive producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner’s Notting Hill and Love Actually. Based loosely on Dunham’s experiences of moving to the UK and meeting…

OUT 15 AUGUST/CERT 15/117 MINS DIRECTOR Celine Song CAST Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, Chris Evans, Zoë Winters, Marin Ireland PLOT New York matchmaker Lucy (Johnson) finds herself having to decide between two suitors: wealthy eligible bachelor Harry (Pascal) and her less well-off ex, John (Evans). THE OPENING OF Materialists is not what you might expect from a modern-day, New York-set romantic-comedy. It begins in a cave — the least romantic of all places, surely — with an enigmatic and strangely beautiful wordless prologue, in which a caveman presents a cavewoman with a wedding ring made of flowers. Early doors, writer-director Celine Song is subverting our expectations, arguing that love is and always has been a primal, ancient, essential dance. This is fundamental stuff. So much of Materialists is not what…

OUT NOW/CERT PG/104 MINS DIRECTOR Pierre Perifel CAST Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, Zazie Beetz, Richard Ayoade PLOT After their imprisonment, the Bad Guys struggle to reintegrate into society — and are drawn back into old habits by a new crew of thieves. THE MAIN JOY of self-described “animated caper” The Bad Guys — the 2022 film based on the books of the same name — came in the way it blended Ocean’s Eleven-style heist action with Looney Tunes-style zany physics. As with its predecessor, this sequel builds a moral parable on top of all this, though this time around with a little less pandering to a young audience through childish jokes. We find Wolf (Sam Rockwell, doing his best Clooney impersonation), Snake (Marc Maron), Tarantula…

When we first met them, Spinal Tap were suffering implosion and, in the case of one of their drummers, explosion. Our three axe-wielding heroes: David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls, a British band who’d been going in various guises since the 1960s, assuming their final form in the 1970s as they embraced the majesty of rock. There were controversial albums (Intravenus de Milo, Shark Sandwich) and seminal songs (‘Big Bottom’, ‘Stonehenge’, ‘Sex Farm’). Director Marty DiBergi’s 1984 film, though, chronicled the disastrous release of their 1982 record Smell The Glove and its catastrophic promotional tour, in which they failed to break America. In fact, America broke them. Unfortunately for them, DiBergi captured it all, presenting them as they got lost backstage, wrestled with malfunctioning props and fell out…

THERE IS A SPECIFIC SMILE THAT DAVID JONSSON HAS IN HIS REPERTOIRE: HEAD SLIGHTLY BOWED, EYES LOOKING UPWARDS, MOUTH LOPSIDED AT THE CORNERS. IT IS SHY BUT SUAVE; FRIENDLY BUT FULL OF SECRETS. HE IS AN ACTOR WHO CAN BE RELIED UPON TO BRING A STRANGE OTHER-WORLDLINESS TO EVERY ROLE HE PLAYS. At 31, Jonsson is best known as old-Etonian investment banker Gus in the zeitgeist-y HBO series Industry, south London “sad-boi” Dom in 2023’s much-beloved romcom Rye Lane, and Andy, an AI ‘stimulant’ with more heart than most humans, in Alien: Romulus. Such character types might have felt over-familiar in another actor’s hands, but through Jonsson’s rare qualities, they are reinvigorated almost beyond recognition. This February, audiences declared themselves smitten, honouring him with the BAFTA Rising Star Award. His…

IT’S TAKEN ALMOST a decade for Gavin O’Connor to make a sequel to The Accountant, his slick 2016 thriller that saw Ben Affleck play Christian Wolff, an autistic assassin who also happens to be one of the world’s greatest accountants. Or is that an accountant who also happens to be one of the world’s greatest assassins? Either way, the follow-up — imaginatively titled The Accountant 2 — dials back the action and dials up the character work and comedy. “I think it’s better than the first, but probably just because it’s fresher in my bloodstream,” O’Connor tells Empire. Here, he talks us through the film’s twists and turns… RIP RAY The movie begins with a bang, and something of a shock, as J.K. Simmons’ former Fed, Ray King, an ally…

IN THE BRIEF but illustrious history of Empire’s ‘Special Thanks To…’ column, there’s been one common denominator. The Special Thanker has cultivated some kind of relationship with the Special Thankee. They could be old friends. They could be family. They could be a young filmmaker and an older one, the latter assuming a mentor role. But they will have a relationship or a friendship, at least of sorts. It’s not as if a Special Thanker would put a Special Thankee’s name in the end credits of their movie if they hadn’t even met. Right? Wrong. Because David Lowery, the director of The Green Knight, A Ghost Story and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, is thanked in the credits of both of Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN movies, and yet the two have never…

IT USED TO be said that all clowns wanted to play Hamlet, then someone cast Mel Gibson as the Gloomy Dane and all bets were off. Nick Frost is a natural screen comedian, and has been working hard in scene-stealing supporting roles in the two decades (!) since Shaun Of The Dead. But he’s always been drawn to dark stuff, even in comedies, and two recent straight-to-streaming vehicles suggest he might be a screen comic who really wants to be a horror star — and not just by playing a funny version of the Frankenstein monster in the Monster Family cartoon kid-flicks. Black Cab — on Shudder — is literally a vehicle for Frost, directed by Bruce Goodison, from a script by Virginia Gilbert (with additional material by Frost). Synnøve…

NICK DE SEMLYEN MET JAMES CAMERON IN NEW ZEALAND “Last summer I visited the James Cameron exhibition at the Cinémathèque in Paris. Little did I know that in a year I’d get to spend two days with the man himself. I came away more impressed than ever by his one-of-a-kind mind and formidable work ethic.” CHRIS HEWITT CAUGHT UP WITH JEREMY RENNER “Former footballer Iain Dowie once coined a word: ‘bouncebackability’. Jeremy Renner is that in human form. The man was nearly crushed to death by a snowplough, but when I met him in London recently, he was the picture of health. Long may his bouncebackability continue.” SYLVAIN HOMO PHOTOGRAPHED DAVID JONSSON “Working on set with David was a wonderful experience. We shot in an old factory-turned-studio in North London…

James Dyer (Digital Editor-In-Chief) : This is incredible news for so many reasons. Denis Villeneuve takes IPs and makes them feel fresh. He brings a very independent sensibility to his big-budget filmmaking. This is the Bond I want to see. Hundred per cent. Ben Travis (Deputy Online Editor): Of all the names rumoured to be involved with this film, Villeneuve was not the one who I thought would actually do it. I thought someone like Edward Berger, who made Conclave, would be more likely, or Jonathan Nolan, as he has an Amazon connection with his TV show Fallout. Villeneuve felt like wishful thinking because he’s doing Dune 3 and has other projects lined up, but maybe when you’re offered Bond you drop everything except the sand worms? John Nugent (Reviews…

“WE GOT TOO excited by M3GAN, and she didn’t work.” It sounds like something roboticist Gemma (played by Allison Williams) might have uttered in the first M3GAN movie, after her fast-tracked prototype robot malfunctioned and started killing people. In fact, the above quote was delivered by the movie’s producer Jason Blum in a recent interview, as he faced up to the sequel’s less-than-killer box-office showing. The 2023 original — about an AI doll with a taste for killer dance moves and brutal murder — was a surprise hit, netting $180 million against a $12 million budget, and sparking countless internet memes. But M3GAN 2.0, released in June this year, has taken just $33 million and had nowhere near the same social-media-melting impact. So, what went wrong? “We thought M3GAN was…

IT BEGAN WITH a trailer which announced that “Cinema is not dead”. This two-minute supercut of lurid trash-cinema clips heralded The Nickel: a “small capacity DIY cinema space dedicated to psychotronic film, from the arthouse to the grindhouse to the unclassifiable… Shocking, savage, subversive, strange and underseen”. Except, when the trailer was made — by filmmaker Dominic Hicks, to kill time while waiting for a delayed flight from Heathrow — The Nickel didn’t even exist. “But it kind of sat in my head, and I kept thinking about it,” Hicks tells Empire. Eventually, reasoning there was room on London’s streets for a “rep movie theatre” like New York’s Spectacle or LA’s New Beverly, the self-described “borderline insane cinephile” crowdfunded the startup funds to make his vividly imagined ideal picture house…

NICK DE SEMLYEN IS THINKING ABOUT… OVER-LITERAL TITLES I liked F1, but isn’t that like calling a movie ‘Tennis’? The title of Cillian Murphy drama Steve is accurate but low-energy. And couldn’t a Paul Greengrass thriller about a lost bus do better than… The Lost Bus? Come on, film people, step up your name-game! BETH WEBB IS THINKING ABOUT… NICHE SCREEN CHEF BROS Upon watching the trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, I realised that co-stars Jeremy Allen White and Stephen Graham have both starred in one-shot kitchen dramas (The Bear and Boiling Point respectively). Imagine the weirdly specific chats they could’ve shared. ALEX GODFREY IS THINKING ABOUT… A DEMON GOAT-MAN Feeding some goats on a farm with my daughter, my thoughts turned to Mr Tumnus. I pictured him…

IT’S BEEN THREE years since the emotional second chapter of Black Panther hit screens with Wakanda Forever. While we await further word on Shuri and co.’s future, Eyes Of Wakanda — an animated, time-hopping, four-episode anthology — takes us deeper into the fictional African nation. Until now, we’ve only seen the kingdom’s inhabitants in modern-day Earth on MCU business. But in Eyes Of Wakanda, the Hatut Zeraze (their equivalent to the secret police) have the ability to time-travel, and use their skills to zip between different periods in pursuit of stolen vibranium. The series is also, in part, a spy show, with the events of the first episode setting off an espionage story through the ages. “[It’s] about how Wakandans intersected through history — those futuristic, Star Trek-level Africans who…

When were you most starstruck? My childhood best friend played a couple of games in the NHL [National Hockey League] for the Detroit Red Wings when I was shooting Friday Night Lights. [After one game] I was waiting for him in the tunnels of the Joe Louis arena, and I said to myself, “If Steve Yzerman comes by, I’ve got to say something.” I had his posters on my wall growing up. He walked right by me, and I yelled his name and waved him over and I told him, “Hey, man, I’m this young actor and a Canadian kid, and I played hockey my whole life and you’re my idol.” He couldn’t have been nicer, and we still talk to this day. What was your role in your first-ever…

OUT NOW (DISNEY+)/EPISODES VIEWED 10 OF 10 SHOWRUNNERS Christopher Storer, Joanna Calo CAST Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Lionel Boyce Season 3 of The Bear was no catastrophe, but Carmy’s restaurant and the show itself have both been in dire need of a menu change-up. Sure enough, there’s a shift here. The show has always been a slow burn; the difference now is that momentum can be felt in the show’s quieter moments too, gently pushing the characters to change and grow rather than recircle the same old traumas. Now eschewing standalone episodes, every main character gets their due, including Sydney’s (Ayo Edebiri) showcase in Episode 4 which stands out as a huge highlight. It’s an electric return to form, even if it doesn’t quite hit the highs…

OUT NOW/CERT 12A/129 MINS DIRECTOR James Gunn CAST David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Skyler Gisondo, Nathan Fillion, Edi Gathegi, Isabela Merced PLOT Three years after announcing himself to the world, Superman (Corenswet) gets caught up in a brewing war — while Lex Luthor (Hoult) sets out to destroy him. IT MAY BE the first film in the newly established DC Universe, marking the beginning of James Gunn’s reign over a new comic-book behemothian franchise — but with his Superman, the Guardians Of The Galaxy writer-director chooses to start in the middle. Krypton is gone, Kal-El (David Corenswet) is all grown up, and Superman (plus other metahumans and monsters) are part of everyday life for those on Earth. Clark Kent already works at the Daily Planet, is already dating Lois…

OUT NOW (APPLE TV+)/EPISODES VIEWED 10 OF 10 SHOWRUNNER Bill Bost CAST Lee Pace, Jared Harris, Lou Llobell, Pilou Asbæk, Cassian Bilton On its arrival in 2021, Foundation established itself as an uncompromising and sometimes disorientatingly dense series. Building on and expanding Isaac Asimov’s series of novels, it presented itself as a dizzying cocktail of wild ideas, and quickly established itself as some of the most exceptional sci-fi around. The series continues to build a compellingly complex narrative while underpinning its ideas with an engaging spread of similarly complex characters. This may not be television’s most accessible show — a rewatch of the first two seasons is all but essential — but if you’re prepared to put down that second screen and strap in, this is one of the most…

OUT 22 AUGUST/CERT 15/111 MINS DIRECTOR Mike Flanagan CAST Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Annalise Basso, Mark Hamill, Mia Sara, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay PLOT A backwards journey through the life of Charles ‘Chuck’ Krantz (Hiddleston), from the Apocalypse to his spooky childhood. LIKE ROB REINER and Frank Darabont, Mike Flanagan has made Stephen King adaptations a speciality. But while Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep felt no less ripe for cinematic treatment than, say, Misery or Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption, King’s 2020 novella The Life Of Chuck seems a peculiar choice. Hardly a genre banger, it is the story of an average man’s life told in reverse. And rather than plucking at one strand or refitting the material entirely, Flanagan has boldly gone for a faithful take. Like the novella, he’s…

M3GAN 2.0 FILM “There are potential quibbles to be had but when you’re watching two plastic dolls neck-snap their way through the world, life is good. We can’t wait for the next system upgrade. Slay, queen!” JOHN NUGENT THE OLD GUARD 2 FILM “What it accomplishes is barely a movie. It’s an unfinished concept underpinned by soap-opera dramatics, and for every emotional beat posed, there is a bizarre, rushed set-up for ‘The Old Guard 3’.” KELECHI EHENULO THE SANDMAN: SEASON 2, VOLUME 1 TV “With more difficult material to adapt, this half-season suffers in comparison to Season 1, but there’s just enough quality to keep you on board for the final volume. The later upturn is encouraging for the final instalments.” DAN JOLIN THE INSTITUTE TV “Enjoyable in its pulpy…

James Cameron told us that seeing Varang come to life has been his big joy on this film. How has it been for you? It’s a dream come true in so many different ways. The first Avatar is so dear to my heart. Just beautiful, heartwarming, connecting to nature, connecting to the blue people, the victory of everything that’s good against everything that’s bad… It’s one of my favourite films of all time. Getting to be a part of that, then getting to be a part of a family of people — it’s such a crew. And then on top of that, you’re in a place where all of the weird physical things that I’ve always wanted to do with my body, with a performance, I get to do them.…

A gang of cackling miscreants tear down the street in their car. They aim it at a kid wobbling happily along on his bicycle, smashing into him and sending him flying over the windshield. Then, as the poor, bloodied 12-year-old crawls across the Tarmac, they reverse over his head. Crunch. It splits open like a melon filled with beef mince. Ask anyone what scene from 1984’s The Toxic Avenger has lodged most firmly in their minds, and there’s a good chance that the above is what they’ll describe. It certainly made the deepest impression on Macon Blair. “That moment,” he says, “is when you think, ‘What the fuck are they doing?!’” Blair might also have cited the scene in which the cult film’s title character — a meltyfaced, mop-wielding, tutu-wearing…

ROBERT ALTMAN IS BATTLING AN UNRULY octopus. It’s June 1980, and the director and his crew of hundreds are stuck on the small Mediterranean island of Malta. They’ve been shooting for almost six months — some have been there a year — and Altman needs to hastily capture the finale of his big-budget musical-comedy Popeye before returning to the US. It’s a tricky sequence, even for the maverick genius behind such innovative pictures as M*A*S*H and Nashville, requiring the famous sailor-man with the bulging forearms to defeat his bellicose rival Bluto in an underwater scrap as their mutual sweetheart, Olive Oyl, tussles with an octopus named Salty Sam. But tricky becomes torturous when the tentacular beast refuses to budge. “The special effects just didn’t do the job,” says Stephen Altman,…

Chris: So, then, the Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars, a category that was introduced in 2001. Is it one you’re on board with?  Helen: I’m on board with celebrating animated movies, but I’m very conscious of the fact that this was really meant to ghettoise animation and prevent it from bringing down the tone in the Best Picture category. Ben: I think it’s a good thing overall. I’m pleased to see the conversation changing around the category, because it was dismissed by a lot of people as ‘and now for all the films your kids watched’, which feels insulting to the medium. Jake: In the first 15 years of this, you could put a bet on it being a Disney or a Pixar. Now it feels like it’s…

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN IS the masterpiece nobody wanted to make. In 1997, Annie Proulx’s short story of the same name was published in The New Yorker. Set in 1963, it tells of Ennis and Jack, two young men who become lovers while tending sheep. The relationship cannot go home with them. Over the years, as both marry women and become fathers, they share snatched moments, never able to be together in the open. Screenwriter Diana Ossana read Proulx’s story and almost immediately bought the rights, with writing partner Larry McMurtry. Actually getting the film made would be much slower and rockier. Although Ossana and McMurtry’s script was widely acclaimed, many directors turned it down. Early on, Gus Van Sant was attached to direct, for Sony, but he couldn’t get a cast…

LETTER OF THE MONTH IN MEMORY OF A LONG-TIME READER I’m writing to pay tribute to my best friend, Neil Johns, who sadly passed away. For over 40 years, Neil and I shared a weekly tradition of watching films together, and every single issue of Empire magazine has been a part of that journey. Neil was an avid amateur critic with razor-sharp insight, a brilliant blues guitarist, and the best friend anyone could hope for. I can’t begin to imagine going to the cinema without him. It would mean the world to me if Neil could be mentioned in the magazine he loved so deeply. MARK ROBINSON, VIA EMAIL Very sorry for your loss, Mark. We’re very grateful that Empire played a part in your friendship. Have a Picturehouse membership…

WHAT DOES A space traveller experience after they return from a mission? That’s the central question of Jess Varley’s debut feature The Astronaut. Kate Mara stars as Sam, stationed at a remote government facility to recuperate after a turbulent space mission — until she begins to suspect that she might not be alone. The idea first came to Varley after she came across an article that detailed the physical toll of space travel: fevers, tinnitus and hallucinations of objects floating, as if still suspended in zero gravity. Sam attempts to conceal her side effects from NASA to avoid being taken off her next mission, but there’s only so much you can do to hide visions of flying pens and eggs. “Meanwhile, our [crew] are off-camera with fishing wire,” Varley says,…

GUILLERMO DEL TORO has been influenced by Frankenstein pretty much all his life. “You can see it in Hellboy, you can see it in Blade II,” he tells Empire. “You can see it most any chance I get.” But he’d never actually adapted Mary Shelley’s classic novel. Until — you guessed it — now. Here, he dissects our world-exclusive snapshot of Frankenstein and his Creature as their journey begins. 1. CREATING A CRUCIAL MOMENT Virtually every director who’s ever franked a stein, whether it’s James Whale or even Sir Kenneth Branagh, knows that they must include this key scene, where Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) breathes life into his life’s work, a creature made of parts of multiple corpses. Del Toro is no different. But his approach very much is. “There…

SUPERMAN & LOIS SUPERMAN (2025) Two smooches from the colleague-sturned-couple — including their 33-second mid-air lip-lock — were cut in the Indian version of the superhero movie. The country’s Central Board Of Film Certification (CBFC) deemed both “overly sensual”. Kissing: the ultimate kryptonite. LILY & RYLE IT ENDS WITH US (2024) Before they became embroiled in a legal battle, co-stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni came up against Qatar. The country’s censorship committee banned the romantic drama entirely on account of its canoodling, meaning it technically ended before it even began. ARTHUR CURRY & PRINCESS MERA AQUAMAN (2018) More DC depravity! Some Saudi Arabian and Indonesian fans reportedly didn’t witness a 20-second underwater necking sesh between the loved-up Atlanteans after regulatory boards stepped in. Talk about making waves. JAMES BOND…

IN MAY, DEVONEY LOOSER found herself marvelling at the lively young crowd around her at a Pride & Prejudice movie anniversary ball in California. Since being gifted the book at 13 by her mother, the 58-year-old American scholar has dedicated much of her life to its author, from penning the upcoming book Wild For Austen to adopting the roller-derby alias ‘Stone Cold Jane Austen’. But looking around at the attendees, she was taken aback by their response to the classical 19th-century music reminiscent of that used in the film. “[I was] like, ‘Okay this has concert vibes, but the concert isn’t Coachella — it’s Chopin,’” she laughs. Austen’s work has led to many adaptations over the years, be it the Pride And Prejudice BBC series starring Colin Firth (which has…

A PRIEST AND a trash-collection guy walk into a bar. Okay, less of a bar and more the criminal underbelly of Philadelphia. And the priest is in fact a former priest-turned-FBI agent, who is hunting down the trash-collection guy. This is the premise of Task, the Mare Of Easttown follow-up from creator Brad Ingelsby. After the success of the Kate Winslet-fronted, Emmy-winning show, all eyes were on Ingelsby for a second season, but instead he pursued an idea that he had after talking with his local chief of police, who consulted on Mare. “He mentioned [how] trash men come through your neighbourhood, they know a lot about your life, and you don’t seem to notice them at all,” he tells Empire. From that conversation he created Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), a…

IT’S BASED ON AN ACCLAIMED GAME The 2025 follow-up to couch co-op game It Takes Two (2021), Split Fiction blends cutting-edge gameplay and inventive storytelling. Designed as a split-screen multiplayer game, it follows struggling writers Mio and Zoe, the former a sci-fi scribe and the latter a fantasy aficionado. The game — a sort-of Tron-meets-Pagemaster affair — finds the pair trapped in a VR simulation of their shared works, universe-hopping as nefarious corporation Rader Publishing tries to steal their IP and turn it into “content”. IT’S GOT A WICKED DIRECTOR To successfully bring Split Fiction from game to screen will require a filmmaker who can tackle worldbuilding on an epic scale, who’s at home working across genre spaces, and who has a handle on the art of adaptation. Handily, Jon…

OUT 1 AUGUST/CERT PG/86 MINS DIRECTOR Claude Barras CAST Babette De Coster, Martin Verset, Laetitia Dosch, Benoît Poelvoorde After adopting a monkey, young girl Kéria (Babette De Coster) gets lost in the jungle, uncovering deforestation, a passion for rebellion and her indigenous heritage. A stop-motion eco-fable, Savages has surprising moral depth, challenging audiences on the complexities of environmental destruction. Kéria’s journey allows her to define her family tree, regardless of any biological roots. Characters are stunningly realised, their vibrant clay figures animated with rich, humane physicality. This is Claude Barras’ follow-up to My Life As A Courgette, and while the character work isn’t as strong, the command of style and narrative ambition remains hugely impressive.…

OUT 1 AUGUST/CERT 12A/95 MINS DIRECTOR Isaiah Saxon CAST Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, Willem Dafoe PLOT On a secluded island, a headstrong girl (Zengel) journeys to bring an apelike creature home, defying the wishes of her father (Dafoe). CONTRARY TO INTERNET speculation, AI is not responsible for the saucer-eyed, blue-furred, adorably simian attractions of The Legend Of Ochi. No, these are creatures of an older age — that is, the practical-effects heyday of the 1980s, when people still built monsters from elbow grease instead of ones and zeroes. Moving to movies years after conjuring the weird menagerie of Björk’s ‘Wanderlust’ video, director Isaiah Saxon deploys old-school animatronics and puppetry to breathe life into his beasts of the Romanian wild, which roam the woods surrounding a sleepy island village…

OUT 22 AUGUST/CERT TBC/103 MINS DIRECTOR Eva Victor CAST Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch Unlike some other cinematic reckonings with #MeToo, Eva Victor’s first feature is devoid of sensationalism. Victor plays Agnes, a young academic whose college contemporaries tick off milestones, while her own life seems to be stagnant. As a student, she was sexually assaulted; the film provides a time-zigzagging account of how she processes this, with help from her bestie (Naomi Ackie) and an irresistible feline friend. But this is no trauma-triggered origin story, with Agnes refusing to bend to societal expectations. A bracingly fresh, thoughtful and tenderly funny debut which delivers its most poignant moments over delicious sandwiches, its dexterous balancing of light and dark is reminiscent of Manchester By The Sea.…

OUT NOW (DISNEY+)/EPISODES VIEWED 6 OF 6 SHOWRUNNER Chinaka Hodge CAST Dominique Thorne, Anthony Ramos, Lyric Ross, Alden Ehrenreich, Regan Aliyah, Manny Montana PLOT In order to fund her armoured suit, genius inventor Riri Williams (Thorne) falls in with a gang of criminals led by the Hood (Ramos). As events escalate, she is forced to confront the price of her ambitions. IT’S BEEN THREE years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe introduced genius inventor Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Though Thorne made her presence felt in that blockbuster, Ironheart — a six-episode miniseries created by Chinaka Hodge and executive-produced by Ryan Coogler — presents a prime opportunity to spotlight her burgeoning superhero in a big way. But while the added focus on her world is welcome, it’s…

OUT NOW (DISNEY+)/CERT TBC/89 MINS DIRECTOR Laurent Bouzereau PARTICIPANTS Steven Spielberg, John Williams, James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh, J.J. Abrams, Jordan Peele, Robert Zemeckis, Guillermo del Toro, George Lucas PLOT Crew, filmmakers and fans look back on the cinematic phenomenon of Jaws on its 50th anniversary. THERE IS LITTLE that’s new to say about Jaws: it’s one of the greatest films ever made, but its production was famously troubled. In the five decades since its release, all those involved have told their stories until they’re as well scrubbed and sanded as any boat captain could wish, so any Jawshead will have heard or read much of this film’s content before. That said, if you’re a completist or just want to celebrate the 50th anniversary, this is an affectionate and thorough look…

JAMES CAMERON’S EARS ARE BURNING. It’s a Monday morning in late June. And in Mix Theatre 2 of Park Road Post, a pristine post-production facility in Wellington, New Zealand, the most successful director in the history of Earth — standing, laser-focused, ramrod-straight — is watching the first trailer for his new movie, Avatar: Fire And Ash, unspool on a giant screen. The imagery is, of course, utterly spectacular. Giant stingray-like creatures tug galleons through the air. Lizardy ikran whoosh past the camera like dragonflies. New Na’vi antagonist Varang, adorned with a bristly red headdress, hisses the climactic line, “Your goddess has no dominion here.” The thunderous audio, blasting out of seven big speakers on each wall, subsides. Silence settles over the room. A line of people at a long mixing…

HOW MUCH ARE YOU WILLING TO BE GREAT? It’s a question that cinema has tackled time and time again. With musicians. With actors. And with athletes. But with HIM, the answers could be darker and more unsettling than ever before, resulting in something its director thinks might be wholly new. “I was an athlete my entire life. My first word was ‘ball’,” says Justin Tipping. “About halfway through playing soccer in college, I gave it up and started pursuing film. That was my new love. So I have this love of sports as well as the inner-workings of the psychology of athletes, and I’m a cinephile. I thought it was exciting to take on a film that was giving the promise of a sports drama, but at the same time…

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, KOGONADA had been stuck indoors. The world was tentatively emerging from lockdown, and it had been a number of years since his debut feature stunned Sundance — though his sons were less interested. “[My youngest] fell asleep at Columbus five minutes in,” he recalls of the boy’s response to his walking-and-talking indie drama. So, having experienced our respective worlds shrink down to the confines of our homes, Kogonada stepped through doors into other universes that extended far beyond the four walls around him — by letting his children decide what to watch. “I had this idea with my kids that I wouldn’t push all the films that I loved,” he tells Empire. “I have this whole collection of films, and it will always be there for them.…

JEREMY RENNER BOUNDS into the room and greets Empire with the enthusiasm of a man who knows that he really shouldn’t be bounding into any room at all. Because just over two years ago, on New Year’s Day 2023, Renner — two-time Academy Award-nominated actor, star of The Hurt Locker and a couple of Mission: Impossibles, and one of the original pillars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Hawkeye — had an unplanned interaction with a snowcat just outside his property near Lake Tahoe. He was, not to put too fine a point on it, crushed by the 14,000 lb monster. He suffered horrific injuries. He almost died. Hell, at one point he actually did. You can’t keep a good Avenger down, though, and today — after a long, painful…

1__________ SINNERS  (OUT NOW, DVD/BR/DIGITAL) Ryan Coogler’s exhilarating horror-thriller is so ambitious, and packs so much into its running time (the thrill of creativity! The importance of music! Racism and cultural oppression in America! Sex!), that by the time vampires show up, it somehow makes sense. More than the sum of its many influences, this is one of the year’s best films. 2__________ THUNDERBOLTS* (OUT 4 AUGUST, DVD/BR/DIGITAL/DISNEY+) Jake Schreier’s MCU team-up movie didn’t connect with audiences despite the 11th-hour deployment of the word “Avengers” in the marketing. Perhaps it’ll find its way now that people don’t have to get up off their asterisks to go see it. It deserves to, not just for its neat blend of some of the MCU’s lesser lights, but for a third act far…

JOE CARNAHAN CAN’T quite pinpoint the moment when his life changed. It could have been the moment when Steven Spielberg came up to him after a preview screening of Narc, and told him, “I never felt safe in your movie.” “I thought, ‘I wanna start crying,’” laughs Carnahan. Or maybe the moment when Tom Cruise, similarly wowed after another screening, decided to come on board as executive producer, giving the film a commercial boost. “It could have been a little $3 million indie that vanished,” says Carnahan. “I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for that.” Or maybe it was the moment, soon after Narc was released in cinemas in 2002, when Carnahan was having a catch-up with his business manager. “He said, ‘We got 123 on Narc for…