Robin Hardy Starts Crowdfunding For The Wrath Of The Gods

The Wicker Man Part 3 is underway

It's possible you missed that there had been a Wicker Man follow-up, given that Robin Hardy's 2011 The Wicker Tree failed to catch on in quite the way that his 1973 cult classic achieved. But that hasn't stopped the veteran director pressing onwards to complete his long-planned trilogy. Crowdfunding for The Wrath Of The Gods has just begun.

"The Wrath Of The Gods is set at a time when the gods are very angry indeed," explains Hardy of the film's plot. "An international entertainment company has decided to build a theme park based on the Norse Sagas: the tales of the genesis of the gods, their battles with the giants, and ultimately their creation of the human race. They felt this was an outrageous intrusion on their privacy!"

The human characters include fugitive widow Clarissa accused of murder, and police chief Oscar. The pair are "brought together in an unlikely relationship because of their mutual love for steampunk". We're also promised a supernatural element and an ending "as horrific in its way as the burning of the Wicker Man"...

The Indiegogo campaign hopes to raise an initial $210,000, which will be allocated to fund building the theme park set, some steampunk artefacts and a viking ship. Among the perks, $30 gets you a poster and a thanks in the credits, and for $5k you can be an extra.

The Wicker Tree, based on Hardy's novel Cowboys For Christ, was recognisably a reworking of The Wicker Man's themes with a slightly different angle (American Christian country singers instead of devout coppers, for example). This one sounds... very different.

Sadly Christopher Lee is no longer with us for a cameo appearance - as he was in The Wicker Tree - but casting is already underway, with the James Mapes, Christopher Leveaux and Icelandic model Halla Williams currently confirmed. Hardy hopes to start shooting in October.

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Teaser Trailer For London Has Fallen

Gerard Butler saves the Big Smoke

Gerard Butler is back in action as Mike Banning, Secret Service man with nerves of steel and the kidneys of an ageing thespian. Banning has tragedy in his past and skeletons in his closet – some metaphoric, some possibly real – but they’ve let him into the UK and, judging by the first teaser for London Has Fallen, thank goodness for that. He’s all that stands between us and a return to the dark ages. Don your protective headwear and click below.

He may have missed the Secret Service’s health and safety day but Banning is a ruthless practitioner in the art of defending his President, the highly incident prone Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). He’s seen off North Korean commandos in Olympus Has Fallen and now there’s another cadre of evildoers to fend off, this time on English soil. Not too many tourist attractions look like surviving this one.

The premise sees Asher and his fellow world leaders assembling for a state funeral. The presence of so many big knobs in one place attracts some Very Bad People to the capital with a Very Nasty Plan. "Only three people have any hope of stopping it,” runs the official synopsis. “The President of the United States, his formidable secret service head, and an English MI-6 agent who rightly trusts no one.” Sounds like Eckhart, who spent the majority of the first film cuffed to a railing, is finally up and running in this one.

Radha Mitchell is back as Leah Banning, with Angela Bassett, Morgan Freeman, Jackie Earle Haley, Melissa Leo, Robert Forster and Colin Salmon all aboard.

London Has Fallen will fall on October 2.

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Beauty and the Beast Exclusive: Trouble in Paradise for Vincent and Catherine?

Beauty and the Beast's Vincent and Catherine are on a quest to be "a normal couple," and you can't get more real-world then heading to therapy!

On Thursday's episode, the pair sees a couples counselor when the bickering gets a bit out of hand. But when the therapist starts asking questions, let's

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New Trailer For The Diary Of A Teenage Girl

Bel Powley and Alexander Skarsgård's graphic movie

A comic-book movie with a difference, The Diary Of A Teenage Girl is based on a much-loved illustrated novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. It’s the kind of thing chin-stroking film critics (especially German one) might call a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age tale about a girl growing up in swinging San Francisco in the 1970s. The movie has a new trailer you can catch below.

The young girl in question, Minnie, is played by an eye-catching Bel Powley. Her flawless Californian tones belie London roots as Minnie, a gifted cartoonist and writer, navigates all the perks and pitfalls of being a teenager as she experiments with sex, drugs and Iggy Pop posters.

Her mum (Kristen Wiig) is seeing a well-meaning but hazy character called Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård), who soon becomes the focus of Minnie’s infatuations. She records all her most intimate thoughts and experiences – and they get pretty intimate – in a series of tape recordings and illustrated diaries. As her life oscillates from heady peaks to deep troughs, her illustrations come to life around her in a riot of shape and colour against the dying embers of the hippie era. Think the Fabulous Furry Freak Sisters or Bedknobs And Joss Sticks.

Directed by feature first-timer Marielle Heller and lauded at Sundance, The Diary Of A Teenage Girl arrives in UK cinemas on August 7.

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Exclusive New Poster For Tom Hardy's Legend

Getting a little Kray-zy

Why play one role when you can play two? In the next demonstration of Tom Hardy’s formidable acting prowess, the Londoner plays not one but two Kray brothers in Legend. The film's stylish new poster, making its world premiere here, eschews its stars handsome visage (in either of his guises) and plumps instead for a smartly illustrative approach. Click on it for a closer look.{Legend Teaser Poster}

For a time in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Ronnie and Reggie Kray ruled East London with fists, pistols and pure, simple intimidation. Their gang, the unimaginatively-named but viciously effective The Firm, took control of the shadowy underworld and carried out armed robberies, arson, racketeering, assaults and murder.

LA Confidential’s Brian Helgeland is piloting us through this crime arena, adapting John Pearson’s book The Progression Of Violence. Legend dips into the dark underbelly of the swinging ‘60s, when sharp-suited gangsters warred for turf and control, and innocent people were caught in the middle of the conflict, although criminals like Ronald and Reginald Kray liked to claim they only went after the competition.



Emily Browning, David Thewlis, Christopher Eccleston, Taron Egerton, Tara Fitzgerald and Chazz Palminteri fill out the main cast for the film, with Legend to arriving September 11. For more on its lead actor, check out Empire’s handy guide to the Tom Hardyverse to date here.

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Julia Roberts And Jennifer Aniston Celebrate Mother's Day

Garry Marshall prepares for another celebration

Now officially a sort of anthology franchise, Garry Marshall's ensemble holiday movies have just reached episode three. Mother's Day will be the follow-up to Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve, with Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Jason Sudeikis all in negotiations to head up what will undoubtedly be another large cast.

Not to be confused with the Mother's Day in which Rebecca De Mornay killed a number of people, this one will, unsurprisingly, tell the intertwining stories of several mothers as the day approaches and they wait for their bunch of daffs. Or whatever. 

Marshall aside, the film has slightly different DNA to its predecessors. Anya Kochoff-Romano (Monster In Law) and Lily Hollander replace Katherine Fugate as the writers, and while the previous two films came out of New Line, that's not a done deal this time. The "package" is "going out to buyers" shortly.

It will, however, mark a reunion for Marshall and Roberts: their fourth collaboration following Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride and Valentine's Day. Don't take the latter as evidence that Roberts will reprise her previous character though: Jessica Biel and Ashton Kutcher were both in Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve playing different roles each time. Maybe they'll show up in this one too.

Shooting starts in August.

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House of Cards Adds Neve Campbell For Season 4

Looks like Season 4 of House of Cards could be getting more interesting.

Neve Campbell has joined the cast of the Netflix drama as a new series regular, Deadline reports. No word on who the former Party of Five star will play, but perhaps she'll pose a new threat to Frank and Claire's plans as they

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