First Look At The Enfield Haunting

Who you gonna Spall?

Amityville, the Black Hills of Maryland, Eden Lake… Enfield? Okay, the sleepy north London suburb isn’t as synonymous with horror as those other locales, but residents might beg to differ. The Enfield Haunting, a Sky drama capturing the spooky goings-on that took place in the Hodgson household in 1977, will, judging by these first-look stills, be both clammily scary and full of outlandish ‘70s fashions. Any malign presence undeterred by Timothy Spall’s demonic shirt/jacket/tie combo immediately has our fear and respect.

{The Enfield Haunting First Look Pics}

Spall stars as Maurice Grosse, a newcomer to the world of paranormal research and a man recovering from recent tragedy. He finds himself drawn in by the strange events of Green Street, EN3. Before you can say “Don’t go there!”, Britain’s answer to Peter Venkman begins investigating the poltergeisty phenomonon, as his wife, Betty (Juliet Stevenson), finds out to her increasing dismay.



The third factor here is Matthew Macfadyen’s Guy Lyon Playfair. He’s the more sceptical mind of the two, trying to keep Maurice’s theories to more “plausible” areas. Considering the show is based on Lyon Playfair’s book This House Is Haunted, maybe he came round to Maurice’s way of thinking after all.



Also co-starring are Rosie Cavaliero, Eleanor Worthington-Cox, Fern Deacon and Elliot Kerley, with The Killing's Kristoffer Nyholm behind the camera. Catch The Enfield Haunting across three 60-minute episodes in the spring.

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Exploring the Limits in a Man’s World

By A. O. Scott



Girlhood ()



Opening January 30, 2015



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A Medieval Time on a Planet Far Away

By Nicolas Rapold



Hard to Be a God ()



Opening January 30, 2015



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Noam Murro Says Blink

On to direct a new thriller

He managed to channel Zack Snyder’s OTT style with 300: Rise Of An Empire, but for his next film, Noam Murro is looking to get back to something original. He’s signed on to direct a thriller called Blink .

Hernany Perla’s script follows what happens when a man is left paralyzed after a famous and still-unsolved bank robbery. When criminals kidnap him and hold him hostage, determined to pry the secrets of the incident out of his head, he’s forced to outwit his captors. The twist being, he can only control his eyes, and he’s got to figure out the big mystery of the heist.

Atlas Independent wants this one up and shooting in the summer, so expect the casting announcements to come thick and fast. The central role promises to be a challenging one, at the very least.

Murro is also attached to direct the comedy drama All Families Are Psychotic, but that one will likely have to remain sitting in development for now, as Blink is on a much faster track.

from Empire News

New Avengers: Age Of Ultron TV Spot

'You've meddled with something you don't understand...'

It might not be receiving the Super Bowl TV spot treatment, but Marvel has made sure we’re all still anticipating Avengers: Age Of Ultron with a new ad. Cue the heroes squabbling and the robotic drones causing havoc…

There is a lot here that we’ve seen in previous trailers, but some of those moments are expanded upon and you’ll find plenty of new footage lurking within the relatively short trail.

Among the highlights this time? Plenty of mystery about a strange medical procedure, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) accusing Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) of meddling in things he doesn’t understand, more Hulk vs. Hulkbuster action and James Spader’s technological terror Ultron threatening to tear the team apart from the inside. And if the growing tension between them present here is any indication, he might just succeed…

With Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Stellan Skarsgard, Cobie Smulders and Paul Bettany all put through their paces by writer/director Joss Whedon, Avengers: Age Of Ultron lands in the UK on April 24, before heading Stateside on May 1. For some exclusive peeks behind the scenes of the film, pick up the latest Empire in traditional magazine and digital formats.

from Empire News

Terminator Genisys Super Bowl Spot Online

Watch out for back-flipping buses...

This weekend sees the biggest event in the American Football sporting calendar: the Super Bowl. And with it comes a raft of expensive adverts for all sorts of things, including some of the big movies hitting cinemas in the coming months. Once relegated to airing during the game itself, the TV spots now arrive in advance. Here’s the effort from the Terminator Genisys team.

It’s essentially a cut-down selection of footage from the recent trailer, arranged so as to cram in as much about the story as is possible in a 30-second commercial. The story branches off from the original in that it still sees Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) volunteering to go back in time and save John Connor (Jason Clarke)’s mother, Sarah (Emilia Clarke), only to discover that the timeline has been tinkered with and things are very different. This is not the be-permed, Everywoman Sarah we met in 1984’s The Terminator. Instead, this Sarah lost her parents to a Terminator attack but was raised to be a warrior by an ageing version of Arnie’s T-800. And Kyle will need her help when an Asian model of the morphing metal T-1000 (Byung-hun Lee) threatens his life.

The spot has plenty of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the older Terminator (there’s a new picture of him below), with Clarke and Courtney present and correct. Still no glimpse of Matt Smith or J.K. Simmons, though. {Terminator Genisys Old Arnie Still}

Terminator Genisys will use a portal to arrive in our cinemas on July 3.

from Empire News

Exclusive: First Still From The 9th Life Of Louis Drax

Jamie Dornan is a man on wires

Fifty Shades of Grey isn’t the only Jamie Dornan show in town. The smooth-as-a-pint-of-silk Irishman also has The 9th Life Of Louis Drax upcoming and Empire has been to the film’s Vancouver set to whip up… okay, gather some info on the supernatural thriller. Starting with this first-look still from the film that sees Dornan jumpstarting a car with his mind. At least, we think that’s what he’s doing here. Feel free to completely disagree. {Louis Drax Still} The film tells the story of Louis Drax, a boy in a coma (Aiden Longworth, Hector And The Search For Happiness) whose mental journeys will no doubt tease some striking visuals from the director. By his bedside is Dornan’s neurologist, Dr. Allan Pascal, who fights to awaken him from his comatose state. The twist? Louis’s injured state may not have been an accident. Aaron Paul, Louis’ dad, is prime suspect after the clifftop fall that now threatens his life.

On-set touchstones for the film, the latest from Frenchman Alexandre ‘Horns’ Aja, include Otto Preminger and the Master himself. “It reminded me of films like Vertigo or Bunny Lake Is Missing,” enthuses Dornan’s co-star Sarah Gadon. If it’s a third as good as that Hitchcock classic, we’re in for a treat. Frankly, we'd take an unashamedly hammy '90s-style Shattered-alike thriller in a heartbeat, too. We miss those.



Find out when it heads UK-wards later this year or pick up the new Empire for more in our On Location report.

from Empire News

VIDEO: Gaming meets film at Sundance

As well as showcasing the best in independent cinema, the annual Sundance Film Festival is trying to show how state-of-the-art moving image technologies can be used to tell stories in very different ways.



from BBC News - Entertainment & Arts

First Poster For Ted 2

Grin and bare it

Move over Paddington, politeness has had its day. The rootsier end of the bear spectrum, Ted, is back with a new poster for Ted 2 in which he’s executing what can best be described, pre-watershed, as “the one pawed shuffle”. Click below for a look at him in, erm, err, action. {Ted 2 Teaser Poster} It’s more of the same, poster-wise. Seems that Antonioni-esque sequel in which Ted embarks on an existentialist journey in pursuit of meaning in his furry life never quite reached the drawing board. Hold tight for more ursine misadventures involving booze, drugs, strippers and more, stronger drugs.



Plot details are still under wraps at this point, with shooting underway in Boston, but early world is that Ted gets into some legal scraps that see him call on the help of Morgan Freeman’s famous civil rights lawyer. It seems that the bear is fighting a ground-breaking legal battle to have a child with his human girlfriend.



Seth MacFarlane returns to direct, star, voice the bear and co-write the script with regular partners Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, while Mark Wahlberg is back as John Bennett. Amanda Seyfried takes the female lead and Liam Neeson and John Slattery are also joining the fun.



The first Ted made $550 million worldwide. After A Million Ways To Die In The West flopped hard, MacFarlane will be hoping hard for more of the same. It lands in the US on June 26 before arriving UK side of the pond on July 10.

from Empire News

Octavia Spencer Joins Seacole

Playing Jamaica's Florence Nightingale in biopic

She's won an Oscar for The Help and now Octavia Spencer is heading back in time for another story of pioneering women in tumultuous times by signing up for 19th century biopic Seacole.



According to The Hollywood Reporter's scoop, her old producer from The Help, Brunson Green, has enticed her into taking the role of Crimean War-era doctor, Mary Seacole. Despite all the usual strictures of her race at the time - an inability to vote, lack of civil rights - she made a name for herself with her pioneering approach to medicine, saving countless soldiers' lives in the process. Among them she came to be known as 'Mother Seacole', a saving angel whose reputation grew to rival even that of Florence Nightingale.



"Mary Seacole was a dynamic, complex and charming woman, and, knowing Octavia and her immense talent, there is no one better to embody this impressive and courageous historical figure," elaborates Green.



Sounds like a fascinating tale, especially when you consider Seacole's long travelogue preceding her arrival in Balaclava. Her voyages took her from home in Kingston, Jamaica to Cuba, Haiti and the Bahamas, as well as Central America and Britain. All this was recounted in her beautifully-titled 1857 memoir The Wonderful Adventures Of Mrs. Seacole In Many Lands.



This one should get underway soon, with the project being hawked around the Berlin Film Market. Next up for Spencer, meanwhile, is race drama Black Or White alongside Kevin Costner and as head of the Amity faction in follow-up-to-Divergent, Insurgent .

from Empire News

Exclusive New Stills From Entourage

Ari Gold and the gang rug it out

The Entourage movie seems to have been in the pipeline longer than Bishop at the end of Aliens, but it’s finally hoved into view, switched on Hollywood’s transmitter and piloted in a dropship’s worth of supermodels, partying and consequence-free balcony golf. None of those things feature in this new still from the film, but what it does have is a typically immaculate Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) about to fill another swear jar as he tries to ignore that pristine bong below his nose. If this is something you might be interested in, click on the image below for a closer look. {Entourage stills} Promising all the celeb cameos and, according to director creator Doug Ellin, “filled with as many good-looking people as [possible]”, Entourage picks up with Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier) trying his hand at directing a take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. But will it be an Aquaman-style success story or a Medellin-y catastrophe?



Ari, meanwhile, the best thing in the show for its entire seven-year HBO run, is now bringing his apocalyptic temper to bear as head of Warner Bros., where he presumably divides his time between greenlighting Hobbit movies and being enormously rude to Lloyd.

We think our correspondent, who sadly won’t be cameoing in the movie despite taking their best super-yacht shorts along to the shot, filed this month’s On Location report from a Hollywood hot tub. Hopefully they’ll come back one day too.

Entourage is out in the US on June 5, before heading to UK cinemas two weeks later.

from Empire News

A Fury Arrives. Hypocrisy, Too.

By A. O. Scott



Timbuktu (PG-13)



Opening January 28, 2015



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Morten Tyldum Taking On Passengers

Imitation Game director set for sci-fi romance

He’s had a big success with his first English language film, as The Imitation Game has seen big box-office success and lots of awards talk. Headhunters director Morten Tyldum must be hoping he’ll have the same luck with a potential first Hollywood studio job: finally getting science fiction romance Passengers off the ground for Sony.

The story of a spaceship transporting thousands of human colonists to a distant planet, Passengers chronicles what happens when a malfunction causes one of them to be rudely awakened 90 years before anyone else. Unable to fix the situation and seemingly doomed to spend his time dying alone, he decides to take the unusual and controversial step to wake up a fellow passenger. Can love bloom in the echoing confines of the ship? Possibly, though we’d imagine his intended is probably going to be fairly annoyed at the imposition...

Jon Spaihts’ script has been cruising through development for a while now, around since at least 2010 and nabbed in a big deal by The Weinstein Company at Cannes in 2012. Since then, it has burned through several potential actors including Reese Witherspoon, Keanu Reeves and Rachel McAdams, with Game Of Thrones director Brian Kirk aboard at one point. The rights became available last month and Sony, along with power producer Neal Moritz, jumped in with an offer. Tyldum is now in early talks to direct and if he takes the gig, he’ll have to hire his own cast. Given the clout of The Imitation Game, we doubt he’ll have much trouble.

from Empire News

Mortem Tyldum Taking On Passengers

Imitation Game director set for sci-fi romance

He’s had a big success with his first English language film, as The Imitation Game has seen big box office success and lots of awards talk. Headhunters director Mortem Tyldum must be hoping he’ll have the same luck with a potential first Hollywood studio job: finally getting science fiction romance Passengers off the ground for Sony.

The story of a spaceship transporting thousands of human colonists to a distant planet, Passengers chronicles what happens when a malfunction causes one of them to be rudely awakened 90 years before anyone else. Unable to fix the situation and seemingly doomed to spend his time dying alone, he decides to take the unusual and controversial step to wake up a fellow passenger. Can love bloom in the echoing confines of the ship? Possibly, though we’d imagine his intended is probably going to be fairly annoyed at the imposition…

Jon Spaihts’ script has been cruising through development for a while now, around since at least 2010 and nabbed in a big deal by The Weinstein Company at Cannes in 2012. Since then, it has burned through several potential actors including Reese Witherspoon, Keanu Reeves and Rachel McAdams, with Game Of Thrones director Brian Kirk aboard at one point. The rights became available last month and Sony, along with power producer Neal Moritz, jumped in with an offer. Tyldum is now in early talks to direct and if he takes the gig, he’ll have to hire his own cast. Given the clout of The Intimidation Game, we doubt he’ll have much trouble.

from Empire News