‘Total War: Pharaoh’ director talks the “challenge” of not having dragons

K.J. Yossman Kristy Matheson had big shoes to fill when she took over from Tricia Tuttle as director of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF) earlier this year. Over the course of a decade, Tuttle transformed LFF into a highlight of the fall festival calendar, drawing some of the biggest names in entertainment to the English capital each October including, memorably, Ted Sarandos and Beyoncé, who flew in to celebrate the world premiere of “The Harder They Fall” in 2021.

Michaela Zee “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” director Gareth Edwards is once again addressing the multiple reports about the 2016 film requiring extensive reshoots overseen by Tony Gilroy (the eventual “Andor” creator was hired by Lucasfilm to join the “Rogue One” team in June 2016). On a recent episode of KCRW’s “The Business” podcast, Edwards claimed “there is so much inaccuracy” surrounding the making of the “Star Wars” prequel.

Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart has revealed he and Lou Reed once had to convince Damien Hirst not to chop off his hands for an art project.Stewart told the story as part of an interview for NME’s Does Rock N’Roll Kill Braincells? series, shortly after he was asked which comedian had played him in a ’90s Rock Profile sketch.“He wanted to have his hands chopped off and then stitched back on by a surgeon in Mexico, while filming it as an art piece,” Stewart said. “He seemed dead-serious but myself and Lou Reed were trying to convince him: ‘No, this isn’t a good idea.

Todd Haynes, who has appeared on behalf of his latest directing outing, May December, since its splashy debut in Cannes, turned to a new collaborator when promoting it at the New York Film Festival.

Creative Assembly, the developer of Total War, has announced that this week’s cancellation of Hyenas has led to layoffs.Sega Sammy stated that it expected “record losses of approximately 14.3 billion yen [£78.6million]” in this fiscal year and as a result, “structural reforms aimed at increasing efficiency” were necessary.Hyenas had a closed beta last month, signifying that the sci-fi extraction shooter was approaching a potential release in some shape or form. However, the game was one of an undisclosed number of titles that were cancelled in order to safeguard the stability of the publisher.In a post to X (previously Twitter), Creative Assembly expressed its regret for these events that have led to losses at the company.Following an internal announcement to our employees, please see the below statement: pic.twitter.com/b6LPonVagV— Creative Assembly (@CAGames) September 28, 2023“We have made the incredibly difficult decision to begin a redundancy consultation process in some areas of our UK operations, alongside ending development of Hyenas,” it said.“We have always aimed to operate as a ‘people-first’ studio; that is foundational to our values and culture.

The Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence has ruled out making any further films unless they are based on author Suzanne Collins’ original stories.Lawrence, who recently took on the forthcoming The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes which follows the younger years of Donald Sutherland’s future villain President Snow (here played by Tom Blyth) as he crosses paths with Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from District 12, was asked by Entertainment Weekly whether he would consider further movies featuring the characters Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and the late District 4 victor Finnick (Sam Claflin).“I liked being part of the series originally because the stories are great,” Lawrence, who helmed three of the four original Hunger Games films, said. “But what was always gratifying was that they were always about something.

Holly Jones Frenetic and high-flying ‘90s rock emblem Mauricio Aznar trades his position as enigmatic frontman of Zaragoza’s Más Birras for a journey towards the soul of his craft in Spanish writer-director Javier Macipe’s highly-anticipated second feature, “The Blue Star” (“La Estrella Azul”) saw its world premiere in the New Directors strand of the San Sebastian Film Festival on Monday. Macipe’s (“Los inconvenientes de no ser dios”) short efforts, 2014 release “Children of the River” and 2019’s “Gastos incluídos,” earned Spanish Academy Goya nominations, placing him among Variety’s 10 Spanish talents to track in 2021.

Total War: Pharaoh has had to push its launch on the Epic Games Store to “early 2024”, with Creative Assembly stating that it is as “disappointed” as the fans are.This is in order to introduce “additional social functions” to the game, and the team will require a more flexible time frame to fulfil those features.Fans had realised that their pre-orders through the Epic Games Store for Total War: Pharaoh had been refunded, signalling that some sort of update from Creative Assembly was on the way.“We apologise to all our fans whose plans are affected by this news. Know that we’re disappointed too, and that we otherwise look forward to welcoming you into Ancient Egypt early next year,” continued the post to Total War‘s official X account.The game’s launch on Steam and Mac is unaffected and Total War: Pharaoh will arrive on October 11.

He’s captivated our imaginations with iconic monsters and futuristic space battles, using a symphony of light, scale, sound, and mastery over visual effects. Oh, and he really knows how to make Darth Vader scary.

The Callisto Protocol and the CEO of Striking Distance Studios, has left the developer to “pursue new opportunities”.Bloomberg reported that chief operating officer Stacey Hirata and chief financial officer Johnny Hsu will also be leaving Striking Distance Studios. A spokesperson for parent company Krafton maintained that these were voluntary decisions from the three individuals.In a statement, Schofield described his departure as “bittersweet” but added that “the studio is in excellent hands” with chief development officer Steve Papoutsis now stepping up to take over his role.Earlier this year, Krafton revealed that The Callisto Protocol had missed out on its expected sales statistics. The publisher forecasted that the game would sell five million copies, yet in January, it was coursing towards a total of two million copies.Then, Striking Distance Studios laid off almost a fifth of its developers in August as a result of “strategic changes that realign the studio’s priorities”.The Callisto Protocol‘s expansion, Final Transmission, arrived in June, but it was not met with particularly positive reviews from players. Final Transmission appeared to exacerbate technical issues with the base game and on the story itself, one said “they are essentially selling the ending cutscene for £12”.Last September, Schofield was placed under pressure for posting a tweet that seemingly glorified crunch culture.“I only talk about the game during an event.

“The Continental,” subtitled somewhere in the marketing as, “From the World of John Wick,” is indeed what it advertises: a series that spins off from the kinetic assassins action-thriller franchise starring Keanu Reeves and now on its fourth installment, possibly going on a fifth. “John Wick” has its own intricate mythology filled with codes and currencies— the High Table, The Bowery King and The Bowery Boys, The Operators, Adjudicators, and of course, The Continental, the opulently noir-ish underworld assassin-friendly hotel where “No business can be conducted on the neutral premises.” Aka, you may be a contract killer, but you cannot kill within The Continental grounds, such is the strangely gallant “honor among thieves” conduct ideologies and rules the hotel and its murderous guests abide by.

Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Nadiya Bychkova has shared her disappointment at being left without a celebrity partner for the 2023 series, as she spoke out for the first time since the launch show. Nadiya was paired with singer Matt Goss last year, but this year, she will be watching from the sidelines and taking part in the professional dance numbers in the coming months.The programme returned on Saturday, 16 September, and after the episode concluded, Nadiya took to Instagram to update her fans on her situation in an honest post.

The Chemical Brothers have shared their concerns about the rising costs of touring, revealing that they aren’t planning any US shows in support of their new album because it’s “not really viable at the moment”.Speaking to Billboard, the electronic duo’s Ed Simons said: “The costs have gone up so much.

A mum was left furious after discovering her son received detention in his first week of school because he didn't have a pencil case. Leah Tamsin blasted the "unjustifiable" punishment from Bodmin College in Cornwall - as she didn't know a case was mandatory.

A Time Called You director Kim Jin-won has spoken about the changes of the new Netflix K-drama, as compared to its source material, the 2019 Taiwanese series Someday or One Day.In a new interview with The Korea Times, Kim opened up about how it felt like working on A Time Called You, which is a remake of the popular 2019 Taiwanese series, Someday or One Day.The director shared that because he is a “big fan” of the original series, a huge “difficulty” when it came to A Time Called You was “finding the balance between staying true to the original and carving out new identity”.“If it’s too similar, there comes a question on our series’ identity and on why we are making this series,” he said, later noting that he and screenwriter Choi Hyo-bi “didn’t deliberately try to make huge changes”.“As we go with the flow, we know it will have certain aspects of the characters that will naturally deviate,” Kim added. “There have been a lot of changes to the characters, rather than in the overall story.”Kim singled out changes to the character of Nam Si-heon, played by Ahn Hyo-seop of A Business Proposal fame, as the one that really affected the “overall tone of the series”.“I believed that creating Si-heon as more adult and mature would help to develop the story more smoothly,” the A Time Called You director added.

The Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson with $1.5billion (£1.2billion), while Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron comes in at fourth with $800million (£640million).You can find the 20 richest directors in the world below.

NME, Total War: Pharaoh director Todor Nikolov has shared that the upcoming strategy game’s Egyptian Court feature will serve as a “game within a game” for players to scheme their way into power.In line with the wider Total War series, Pharaoh will task players with conquering a turn-based campaign map while maneuvering their armies in real-time battles. But the historical strategy has a new feature: the Egyptian Court, which lets Total War fans try their hand at politics.Here, players can gain favour with the court’s most influential figures – such as its religious head or treasurer – in return for powerful rewards, or plot to blackmail rivals and even usurp their position.

The 2023 MTV Video Music Awards officially named Taylor Swift its Artist of the Year Tuesday night. Though the award was not televised, it marked Swift’s 9th trophy of the night. After Tuesday’s big sweep, Swift has officially solidified her place in VMAs history tying for most wins in one night and now second-most overall wins. Swift was nominated along with Beyoncé, Doja Cat, Karol G, Nicki Minaj and Shakira

Only Murders in the Building wrapping up on Hulu and her song in the Top 20 on the Billboard charts, is nominated for song of the year, best collaboration, and best afrobeats for a remix of the song “Calm Down” by the artist Rema on which Gomez is featured.On July 1, Gomez reflected on being part of the song on Instagram, , “This man has changed my life forever. Rema, thank you for choosing me to be apart of one of the biggest songs in the world.

Wonka director Paul King has praised Timothée Chalamet’s “beautiful” singing voice, saying the actor’s vocal work while filming the prequel fiml reminded him of 1930s icon Bing Crosby.King spoke of Chalamet’s performance as the titular chocolatier in a recent interview with Total Film. The director, who previously helmed both instalments of the Paddington film franchise, said Chalamet showcased “quite a range” while singing multiple music numbers throughout Wonka.“[Chalamet]’s got a beautiful singing voice,” King said.