Empire March 2022

IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE now, but at the time The Godfather was a major risk. Its director, Francis Ford Coppola, was coming off a small movie called The Rain People, which had cost just $750,000, a sum Vito Corleone wouldn’t get out of his chair for. Marlon Brando was seen as a washed-up has-been, called “box-office poison” by a high-level executive who was agitating for Charles Bronson to play the Don instead. And nobody wanted the intense 31-year-old named Al Pacino to be in it either. The production was fraught, with raging arguments, tension and probably even the odd gun stashed behind a loo. Flash forward five decades, and nobody is taking sides against the family again. Ever. The Godfather is arguably the most influential drama in cinema history, referenced in everything…

IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE now, but at the time The Godfather was a major risk. Its director, Francis Ford Coppola, was coming off a small movie called The Rain People, which had cost just $750,000, a sum Vito Corleone wouldn’t get out of his chair for. Marlon Brando was seen as a washed-up has-been, called “box-office poison” by a high-level executive who was agitating for Charles Bronson to play the Don instead. And nobody wanted the intense 31-year-old named Al Pacino to be in it either. The production was fraught, with raging arguments, tension and probably even the odd gun stashed behind a loo. Flash forward five decades, and nobody is taking sides against the family again. Ever. The Godfather is arguably the most influential drama in cinema history, referenced in…

ABSOLUTE CAR CRASH I have never written a letter to a magazine before but I have also never been made to feel angry about seeing a film before. Four stars you gave this. I trusted you. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good, indie, messed-up horror. The previous articles on Titane made it sound amazing and edgy. The review promised a lot. What in the name of the living gods of cinema did I spend two hours of my life watching? I have never walked out of a film. I talked myself down from leaving this. I wish I’d gone home and watched White Chicks. A statement I do not make lightly. (As much as this is tongue-in-cheek... My head physically hurts.) FELICITY KIRKHAM, VIA EMAIL Strong stuff, Felicity. But if Julia Ducournau’s…

ABSOLUTE CAR CRASH I have never written a letter to a magazine before but I have also never been made to feel angry about seeing a film before. Four stars you gave this. I trusted you. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good, indie, messed-up horror. The previous articles on Titane made it sound amazing and edgy. The review promised a lot. What in the name of the living gods of cinema did I spend two hours of my life watching? I have never walked out of a film. I talked myself down from leaving this. I wish I’d gone home and watched White Chicks. A statement I do not make lightly. (As much as this is tongue-in-cheek... My head physically hurts.) FELICITY KIRKHAM, VIA EMAIL Strong stuff, Felicity.…

Empire’s Chris Hewitt on how Spider-Man: No Way Home’s ambitious storytelling marks a new era in the MCU ! SPOILER WARNING SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-Man, does whatever a spider can, apparently. That’s a fairly long list, as it happens — it includes spinning webs (anytime), catching thieves (just like flies), and the most recent addition: saving cinema. Look out: here comes the four-quadrant event movie extravaganza-man. At the time of writing, Spider-Man: No Way Home has pulled in almost $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office in a little under three weeks, making it the 12th biggest movie of all time. By the time you read this, it will almost certainly be in the top ten. All of which would be fairly noteworthy in normal times. These are not normal times. Since the pandemic began in…

AT FIRST GLANCE, Channing Tatum’s filmmaking debut Dog – co-directed with longstanding producer Reid Carolin – appears to be a heartfelt comedy about an army veteran (played by Tatum) and his bond with a mischievous hound. It is, in fact, the pair’s attempt to shake up the genre entirely. Speaking to Empire, Tatum and Carolin reveal how they set out to reinvent the dog-buddy movie. THEY WANTED TO SHOW VETERANS AS THEY REALLY ARE Reid Carolin: We made really close friends with a lot of vets through the film that we first met on [2008 war drama] Stop-Loss, and then again on an HBO documentary that we produced called War Dogs. Stop-Loss is where the journey to this film really began; in many ways Dog is a continuation of that world. Channing Tatum:…