Emperor

If you’re a Tom Hardy fan, you’ve always wanted to see him cause real havoc. Sure, across his career he’s manufactured mayhem, proffered pain, brought memorable muscle – but you’ve never seen him go really all-out. That’s about to change. Next year finally brings the release of HAVOC, the new film from The Raid legend Gareth Evans, returning from the high-octane small-screen antics of Gangs Of London, and ready to send Hardy into the hardman stratosphere.

The film has been a longtime coming – partly owing to additional photography that required a cast and crew of booked-and-busy brawlers to all be available. But as Evans promises, HAVOC is worth the wait. “It’s had a profound effect on the film,” he tells Empire of the extra shooting. “It allowed me to better streamline it, and make it what it was always intended to be, which is a blistering, fast-paced action-thriller with nods to the Hong Kong cinema that I grew up watching.” Sounds like a Gareth Evans film, then.

The Predator franchise has, over the years, given us all kinds of heroes. We got Arnie’s rippling muscles in the original; Danny Glover’s LA cop in the sequel; a gaggle of reprobates in Predators; and, most recently, Amber Midthunder’s Comanche warrior Naru in Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey. But for his next Predator outing, Trachtenberg has something very different planned. 2025 will see the release of Predator: Badlands (as well as another film in the franchise that he shot simultaneously in secret), which isn’t exactly a follow-up to Prey but a future-set tale taking place on an alien planet. And, most importantly, it brings a very different kind of Predator protagonist: the Predator itself.

“The creature is front and centre, leading the charge,” Trachtenberg grins, speaking to Empire in the Andor Season 2 issue. “He’s still badass, but there’s something there that touches you emotionally, too. Creating a character you connect with, but are also super-intimidated by, has been challenging. But exciting.” The idea, he says, came from a desire to “find another essential piece of cinema that does what Prey did spiritually — pushing the franchise’s boundaries, letting us root for a hero we rarely get to root for — but in a different way. And that transformed into this big idea of rooting for the Predator.” Finally, the ugly mother-effer’s day has come.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/20085658

Tales of the Unexpected (1979–1988) started off with a foundation of Roald Dahl-based stories, but over time, this classic television anthology sought out other inspirations. One such source was Elizabeth Taylor, an esteemed English author whose short piece of fiction, “The Flypaper,” was adapted in 1980.

Fans of the show will often cite this episode as one of the best, not to mention the scariest. In the troubling episode, a schoolgirl is hounded by a stranger, only to then realize her peril is greater than first imagined. Now, Tales of the Unexpected did not always live up to its title; some stories were more foreseeable than others. “The Flypaper,” however, caught everyone off guard, including the young and unfortunate protagonist who, despite her efforts, could not escape harm.

An admiring Dahl wished he had written Taylor’s short story himself. And during the adaptation’s introduction, the host went on to tell viewers to watch carefully, for the episode does not give anything away until the very end. That preface, while enticing, is not quite true when comparing the two versions of “The Flypaper”; Taylor kept a tighter lip, whereas the teleplay, written by Unexpected regular Robin Chapman, was more forthcoming. The conclusion is identical in both forms, but the dramatization gives the audience a substantial preview of what awaits poor Sylvia (Lorna Yabsley).

[email protected]

It's about drinking establishments. We already have [email protected] and [email protected] so it was about time we expanded the selection of available beverages.

The Great Twitter Exodus of 2022 is still happening. It's just a little...fractured. A lot of X power users migrated to Bluesky early on, which paved the way for a flood of folks to join that service in 2024. Meanwhile, a lot of technically inclined individuals are still hanging out on Mastodon (at least, that's where I hang out).

Bluesky and Mastodon are both decentralized services, in theory, but users of one service can't really talk to users on the other—or it wasn't possible before Bridgy Fed, anyway. It's a beta service that makes it possible for Bluesky and Fediverse-compatible applications, such as Mastodon, to interact.

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This is where Bridgy Fed comes in. With this service, individual users of either service can opt in to "bridging" their accounts. I tested this out with my friend and Lifehacker alumni Eric Ravenscraft, who hangs out on Bluesky more than me. It worked well—we can now see each other's posts, like each other's posts, and even talk to each other, cross-network.

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While this solution works well, there are a few hangups. Chiefly, it only functions if both people bridge their accounts. This means I can't see any comments from Bluesky users unless they also are bridged, and vice versa: During our little test, a few other Mastodon users responded to my conversation with Eric, but Eric could not see those replies. This make sense if you know how the system works—only comments from bridged users are bridged—but it's hardly ideal, and can lead to asymmetrical conversations. Unfortunately, the opt-in nature of the bridging service makes this inevitable.

If you are already using Bridgy Fed, how is it working out for you?

The world’s most ferocious death metal band, Impaled Rektum, is back and ready to unleash hell in sequel Heavier Trip. The official trailer highlights some of the raucous heavy metal mayhem, and it also features….Babymetal?!

Bloody Disgusting and Doppelgänger Releasing joined forces back in 2018 to release Heavy Trip, a Finnish black metal comedy about a small-town heavy metal band that blasts its way out of the quiet countryside for a big debut gig in Norway.

Now, the sequel is set to arrive in theaters and on Digital on November 29, 2024.

In Heavier Trip, “Shackled by fate and locked up in a Norwegian prison, the band discovers their lead guitarist’s family reindeer slaughterhouse faces a financial storm. Turo, Lotvonen, Xytraxm and Oula hatch a daring escape plan to help. Desperate for the money, and the chance to perform at the ultimate battleground for metal warriors, Impaled Rektum takes a journey through northern Europe to the legendary Wacken music festival. But hot on their trail is a vengeful prison guard, thirsting for revenge, and a sketchy record label executive, weaving lies that could shatter their dreams and worse, compromise the integrity of the band. Amidst the chaos, the band must forge a bond stronger than the darkest riffs – forging alliances with the most unexpected compatriots, including an epic cameo from the Japanese Kawaii-metal band, Baby Metal. Only the raw power of metal can determine their fate! Prepare for a relentless odyssey of sound, fury, and the unbreakable spirit of true heavy metal in this sequel to cult classic Heavy Trip.”

Trailer

“Black Panther will return,” Marvel promised at the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. When the superhero does eventually return to the big screen, they’ll be joined onscreen by Denzel Washington, according to the actor himself.

While Marvel Studios hasn’t officially announced a Black Panther 3 for its upcoming slate, Washington says that one is in the works, and that writer-director Ryan Coogler is writing a role for him. Speaking on Australia’s Today show during press rounds for Gladiator II, Washington outlined his upcoming list of projects, saying that he’s slated to appear in a third Black Panther movie.

“At this point in my career, I’m only interested in working with the best,” Washington said. “I don’t know how many more films I’m gonna make, probably not that many. I want to do things I haven’t done.

“I played Othello at 22. I’m about to play Othello at 70. After that, I’m playing Hannibal. After that, I’ve been talking with Steve McQueen about a film. After that, Ryan Coogler is writing a part for me in the next Black Panther. After that I’m gonna do the film Othello. After that I’m gonna do King Lear. After that I’m gonna retire.”

For nearly the entire time that Collider has been around, we’ve been reporting on the Flash Gordon remake. Now, nearly two decades later, the movie has gone through several levels of production hell with no release date in sight. The most recent director stepping up to the plate to take a swing at the Alex Raymond-created comic-turned-Mike Hodges-film of 1980 was none other than Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit director, Taika Waititi. His involvement came into focus back in 2019, first as an animated production, before moving into live-action in 2021. Since then, however, things surrounding the reimagining have been rather hush-hush, with fans wondering if Waititi’s Flash Gordon will ever crossover onto screens.

Recently, Collider’s Tania Hussain caught up with The Adjustment Bureau director, George Nolfi, to pick his brain about his upcoming action thriller, Elevation. While discussing the writer-turned-director’s lengthy and impressive career, Hussain inquired about Nolfi’s ties to Waititi’s Flash Gordon. Previously revealed to be joining the behind-the-scenes team as an executive producer, Nolfi’s name has been looped into the comic adaptation for quite some time. Unfortunately, he’s just as in the dark about the fate of Flash Gordon as the rest of us, revealing,

“I'm not too involved with that one. There are a couple of things coming up that I can't talk about that I'm humbled to be involved with that I think would be in your realm of interest, but I’m not too involved with Flash Gordon at this point.”

Neon has set a Dec. 27 release date and released the trailer for Asif Kapadia’s (“Amy”) “2073,” a speculative sci-fi documentary that serves as a warning for a potentially dismal reality that lurks 49 years in the future.

Per an official logline, the film takes place in the year “‘2073,’ and the worst fears of modern life have been realized. Surveillance drones fill the burnt orange skies and militarized police roam the wrecked streets, while survivors hide away underground, struggling to remember a free and hopeful existence. In this ingenious mixture of visionary science fiction and speculative nonfiction, Kapadia transports us to a future foreshadowed by the terrifying realities of our present moment. Samantha Morton (“In America”) plays a survivor besieged by nightmare visions of the past—a past that happens to be our present, visualized through contemporary footage interconnecting today’s global crises of authoritarianism, unchecked big tech, inequality and global climate change. ‘2073’ is an urgent, unshakable vision of a dystopic future that could very well be our own.”

Naomi Ackie (“Blink Twice”) also stars with a script from Kapadia and Tony Grisoni. The film is inspired by Chris Marker’s seminal sci-fi film “La Jetée,” which follows a time traveler who attempts to alter the past to save his dismal present.

Hiro Murai, one of today’s most influential and in demand directors of television and music videos, has found his long-awaited first feature project in Bushido, an original samurai film to be financed by A24, which will produce alongside Square Peg and 2AM.

While plot details are being kept under wraps, Bushido is said to be a high-stakes action film set against the backdrop of feudal Japan.

Murai will direct from a script by Henry Dunham (The Standoff at Sparrow Creek), with the duo to produce alongside Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen for Square Peg, and the 2AM trio of Julia Oh, Christine D’Souza Gelb and David Hinojosa.

The project comes at a time when the samurai story has significant cultural cachet, given the outsized breakout success of FX’s Shōgun, an hour-long drama delving deep into samurai culture and the feudal politics of early 17th-century Japan. The winner of 18 Emmys, that show made history earlier this fall as the first Japanese-language effort to win the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19832929

Sky Studios has boarded the TV adaptation of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London and is developing it with Tom Winchester’s drama indie Pure Fiction. With Sky Studios attached, the series will bow on Sky in the UK. Deadline understands there is U.S. buyer interest although no confirmed deal yet.

Pure Fiction and Sky Studios are working up the series, which is an adaptation of the first book in Ben Aaronovitch’s urban fantasy series. Slow Horses prodco See Saw is an investor in Pure Fiction, which Winchester, who was formerly President of Heyday Television, set up in 2022. See Saw is also a production partner on the Rivers of London series.

Rivers of London is known as Midnight Riot in the U.S. and follows a young officer in London’s Met Police, Peter Grant. After working on a murder case with a witness who happens to be a ghost, he is signed up to a unit on the force dedicated to magic and the supernatural. Subsequent cases take in gods and goddesses, magic and many forms of supernatural activity.

Aaronovitch, who was a writer on Doctor Who, is an Executive Producer through his own Unnecessary Logo banner. His books, novellas and graphic novels have sold more that 8M worldwide.

Several writers and playwrights were assembled for the U.S.-style writers room including John Jackson, whose credits include The Gentleman, as the lead writer. Tobi King Bakare, whose on-screen credits include I May Destroy You, also took part, as did Kara Smith (Lockwood & Co), Joshua St Johnson (Grantchester), Tolula Dada (Gangs of London), and Robin French (Sanditon).

A quarter of a century ago, it seemed like nobody wanted Dogma. Kevin Smith’s subversive comedy about a pair of disgraced angels (played by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) was met with fierce protests soon after it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. Writer-director Smith, riding high off his 1997 romcom Chasing Amy, received 300,000 pieces of hate mail, including several “bona fide death threats”. Religious campaign group the Catholic League picketed outside cinemas. Critics also sharpened their knives, with The Independent’s Gilbert Adair among those who crucified the film. “Nothing, absolutely nothing, not a single idea, not a shot, not a camera movement, not a performance, not a gesture, not a gag, nothing at all, I repeat, works in this movie,” he sneered.

Some of us, though, couldn’t get enough of the film, which celebrates its 25th anniversary on 12 November. I was a Sunday School-attending teenager when I first stumbled across Dogma on late-night television, and I was hooked from the moment Linda Fiorentino’s beleaguered abortion counsellor Bethany set upon Alan Rickman’s Metatron, the flaming voice of God, with a fire extinguisher. He had appeared in her bedroom to recruit her on a quest to stop Bartleby and Loki, Affleck and Damon’s fallen angels, from making it to a church in New Jersey. There they intend to use a doctrinal loophole known as a “plenary indulgence” to wash away all their sins and sneak back into heaven. What they don’t realise is that in doing so they’ll disprove the fundamental concept of God’s omnipotence and immediately wipe out all of existence.

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The real star, though, was Smith’s script, which plays out like a pop-culture-infused catechism. It uses a technicolour version of the Catholic belief system to bring to life a vigorous moral debate, as when Bartleby and Loki hand out righteous vengeance to the board of a clearly Disney-inspired cartoon company they accuse of raising up a false idol, Mooby the Golden Calf. Last year, Affleck recalled reading the screenplay in an interview with Vanity Fair, saying: “Kevin’s very focused on the written word. He’s got a cadence that he likes, but I thought it was a really creative, interesting script. It was a sort of imagining of Catholicism in a very literal sense, and also in a comic sense. I was thinking my kids would actually like that; they have that sense of humour… Kevin’s always had the sense of humour of an adolescent!”

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The controversy that surrounded the film’s release didn’t actually do anything to harm its box-office performance, and may well have helped it to rake in $31m (£24m) worldwide, easily recouping its $10m (£7m) budget. Yet 25 years on, Dogma is not available on any streaming service and last received a physical release when it came out on Blu-ray in 2008. DVDs and VHS copies now change hands for inflated sums online. The reason the film is so hard to find is a direct result of all those Catholic League protests years ago. They kicked up such a fuss that Disney, which at the time owned Miramax, decided they wanted no part of its release. To solve the problem, Weinstein and his brother Bob personally bought the rights to Dogma and set up a distribution deal with Lionsgate. The Weinsteins continued to hold the rights for years but refused to do anything with them, which led Smith to joke of Weinstein in 2022: “He’s holding it hostage. My movie about angels is owned by the devil himself.”

But there is reason to be optimistic. A few weeks ago, Smith revealed during an appearance on podcast That Hashtag Show that the movie rights have been bought by a new distribution company, and plans are afoot to re-release the film in 2025. He went on to say that Dogma could finally get a streaming release, too, as well as new physical versions to accompany a cinema run in the new year. Most excitingly for fans, though, was his suggestion that he could – now that his film is out of Weinstein’s clutches – return to the world of Dogma to tell new tales on a Biblical scale.