Issue May 2023 - Empire (2024)

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NEWS! Empire brings you world-exclusive movie news and first-look pictures of the films you want to watch and care about.REVIEWS! Empire delivers the most independent and authoritative movie reviews in the world - period.ACCESS! Empire's incredible insider-access brings you the interviews with A-list Hollywood stars that no-one else can get.All served with an irreverent sense of humour and unparalleled movie knowledge...

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EditorialTHIS MONTHIT IS A truth universally acknowledged that putting “Spider” in front of any word makes it 500 per cent cooler. ‘Man’? Yawn. ‘Spider-Man’? Amazing! ‘Multiverse’? Everyone’s got one these days. ‘Spider-Verse’? Now we’re talking. Fizzy with arachnid-people of every conceivable type, plus some that are frankly inconceivable, the sugar-rush concept brought to life by the makers of 2018’s Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse was so fun, gonzo and inventive, we’re still coming down from the high. It turns out, though, that with that movie we only dipped in our collective big toe. Now, with Across The Spider-Verse, it’s time to take the plunge. Just look at our cover — beside returning webslingers Miles Morales and Gwen are three more leftfield variants: Spider-Man Manga, Spider-Man Unlimited and Amazing Bag-Man. Yes, you read…2 min

EMPIRETALK TO USCOMMENTS OF THE MONTH FROM FILM MAG TO FILM SET I wanted to take this opportunity to say I wouldn’t be where I am now without Empire. Your continued passion for cinema changed me from a casual cinemagoer to a proper film fan, obsessed and invested, ultimately leading me down a path of working in film myself! Now, the first two shows that I worked on as a third assistant director will finally be released. So thank you, Empire, for fuelling my passion and getting me to where I am today. You all do an amazing job! PHOEBE HODGETTS, VIA EMAIL Your mightily impressive IMDb page speaks for itself, Phoebe — keep fuelling that passion with this Picturehouse membership, on us. Empire’s star letter wins a Picturehouse Membership, plus one…2 min

TAKE 20No./1 Is A.I. cinema’s latest villain?Empire delves into the algorithm-fuelled minefield that’s looming for the movie industry First there was the emergence of ChatGPT — a text-generating software so sophisticated, it can write screenplays. Then there was the announcement that Robert Zemeckis’ next film Here would feature a digitally de-aged “deepfake” of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, using a generative A.I.-based visual tool called Metaphysic Live. Throw into the mix a stark warning from Keanu Reeves — “What’s frustrating about that is you lose your agency… it’s scary,” he told Variety — and a picture begins to emerge of an industry divided, on the brink of a new frontier. The belief among those developing A.I. software for Hollywood is that it’ll unlock exciting new storytelling possibilities; a technological leap forward comparable to the advent of…5 min

TAKE 20No./2 Giving Ariel a new voiceIF THERE’S A prevailing myth about The Little Mermaid’s Ariel, it’s this: she has gone down, rightly or wrongly, as the Disney Princess who quite literally gave up her voice to be with a man she’d barely met. In its most simplistic form this might be true — nary a word has our mermaid hero uttered to the handsome Eric before she signs a monkey’s-paw pact with sea-witch Ursula, swaps her flipper for legs, and totters ashore to find him. But that was never the whole story for this character, who, even before encountering Eric, long dreamed of leaving her life under the sea behind to — quite literally — step into a whole new world (wait, different Disney film). “A lot of people forget how modern she was, especially…2 min

TAKE 20No./3 Why Hollywood won’t stop knockin’ on Dylan’s doorHOW MANY FILMS must Hollywood make about Bob Dylan before they can call it a day? The answer is: quite a few. In the pipeline we have James Mangold’s Timothée Chalamet-led biopic Going Electric, which is currently in development while the director and star complete other projects. And a recently announced adaptation of stage musical Girl From The North Country, inspired by Dylan’s back catalogue, has now entered the mix. Featuring big-hitter songs such as ‘Jokerman’ and ‘Forever Young’, the film will star musician Chlöe Bailey (sister of The Little Mermaid’s Halle Bailey), Woody Harrelson, and Olivia Colman, and follows a group of travellers during the Great Depression. Dylan may not be the most mainstream of musicians, but Hollywood keeps coming back to him, whether he’s being played by an…2 min

TAKE 20How to clone Alexander SkarsgårdIT’S A CLASSIC tale. Husband and wife go on holiday. Husband accidentally kills a man. Husband is sentenced to death and pays handsomely to be cloned so his double can take the hit. Classic. “It was haunting, but it deeply fascinated me,” reflects Alexander Skarsgård, who plays James, of the unique set-up. For Infinity Pool director Brandon Cronenberg, this twisted premise provided an opportunity to create one weird, wild cloning sequence. Here’s how they pulled it off. STAGE 1: THE PREP Cronenberg wanted to bring a magical-realism quality to the sequence and called in puppet-effects designer Dan Martin. “It was all from the perspective of dreaminess and surreal impressionism rather than an attempt to reproduce actual cloning,” the filmmaker explains. Martin cooked up a “buffet” of elements for Cronenberg. On…2 min

Issue May 2023 - Empire (2024)

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