Moana adds Nicole Scherzinger, Jemaine Clement and more

We know that Dwayne Johnson is playing demi god Maui and Auli‘i Cravalho will be the title character in Disney's latest, Moana. Now there is confirmation of some of the other roles, with Nicole Scherzinger, Jemaine Clement, Temuera Morrison, Rachel House and, of course, Alan Tudyk all contributing.

Courtesy of a new look at the film by USA Today, the world at large is now aware that Scherzinger and Morrison are Moana's mother Sina and father Tui, the latter the chief of their home (Motunui island) and an overprotective sort who dislikes his daughter's craving for adventure. Then there's House's Gramma Tala, who is closer to Moana than either parent, and who indulges her travelling spirit despite everyone seeing her as the village's crazy old lady.

Also among Moana's friends are Pua, a non-speaking pig who serves as her constant companion, and the bird-brained Heihei (below), who will be brought to life by Tudyk using a combination of rooster crows and other squawks. It's a reassuring presence, given that Tudyk has become the Mouse House's good luck charm on its animation projects, having voiced characters since Frozen.

Then there is the villainous side of the film, partly personified by Clement's Tamatoa, a 50-foot-long crab who has a history with Maui and is currently in possession of the demi-god's powerful fish hook. Suffice to say, there's beef. Does that make their rivalry surf and turf?

Finally, we have a coconut monster creatures the Kakamora, who prove to be an early threat. Moana, which finds the young woman setting out on a vital voyage to help her people, will also feature the vocal talents of Hamilton veteran Phillipa Soo, with Disney stalwartsRon Clements and John Musker directing. The movie will be out in the UK on December 2.

Stranger Things Season 2 would be ‘like Harry Potter’

With the first season of Stranger Things currently putting a big fat grin on the face of the Netflix-watching world, thoughts are turning to a sequel. Nothing’s confirmed but if there’s no return trip to the Upside Down planned, we’ll eat our Dungeons & Dragons board. And how would it play out? Well, Harry Potter-ishly in short.

The Boy Who Lived is the parallel its creators are using to explain the way they see Mike and the other kids’ stories developing. "We’ve been talking about Harry Potter, even though it's weird to compare,” co-creator Matt Duffer tells Empire. "I like that you're revisiting these kids and watching them grow up on a year-to-year basis.”

Expect the story to pick up right where the first instalment left off. “If Netflix want to do [another run], Season 2 would function almost more like a sequel than it would ‘Season 2’. We're leaving that door open if people like the show."

Warning: mild Season 1 spoilers follow

The first season wrapped itself relatively neatly, with only a thread or two left untied ("We didn't want to do The Killing or the Homeland thing where you stretch one storyline out,” stresses Matt Duffer), but the town of Hawkins, Indiana has many secrets yet to spill. "There’s a mythology in terms of the evil that’s happening in the town that we dip our toes into this season,” expands Duffer, "but it isn’t actually explored: it’s only scratching the surface of what this thing is.”

"Without giving anything away, when you open the door to alternate dimensions, there’s a lot you can do. We’re not really boxed in!"

Jessica Chastain will join Jake Gyllenhaal in The Division

With Jake Gyllenhaal already in place, Ubisoft game adaptation The Division is upping its star quotient even further. Jessica Chastain is now in the midst of making a deal to join Gyllenhaal.

The new movie will be based on the game's basic story, in which the player becomes an agent off the Strategic Homeland Division, which is looking for the origins of a devastating smallpox outbreak. As the Division begins to rebuild its operation in a dystopian New York City, it'll also have to deal with the crime that has popped up in the wake of the epidemic.

There are no further details on what either acting will be playing, though we'd figure they'll be operatives working for the titular organisation. Ubisoft is putting all the pieces in place (so expect a director to be announced soon enough.) And it's just the latest game-to-film project from the company, which also has Assassin's Creed on the way, starring Michael Fassbender.

Chastain has worked on several films recently, including Miss Sloaneand The Zookeeper's Wife. She's attached to star in Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut, Molly's Game.

Black Mirror returns in October

If you haven't been feeling terrified by the technological and sociological future, you clearly haven't seen enough people wandering the streets playing Pokemon Go. But to reinfuse that creeping feeling of dislocation and panic, Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror is headed back to screens courtesy of Netflix, and now we know it'll premiere on October 21.

Netflix has taken advantage of a TV press tour to announce more details of the six episodes is has backed from Brooker and producer Annabel Jones as part of a third "season" (we feel like it should be "series", given its UK roots.)

Brooker and his team have gathered a typically eclectic bunch of concepts, directors and actors for the new episodes, which will launch on the streaming service at the same time. So get ready for San Junipero, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis and directed by Owen Harris, Shut Up And Dance featuring Jerome Flynnand Alex Lawther, directed by James Watkins, Joe Wright directingNosedive, which stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Alice Eve and James Norton, Men Against Fire featuring Michael Kelly, Malachi Kirby and Madeline Brewer directed by Jakob Verbruggen, Hated In The Nation, which has Kelly MacDonald and James Hawes in the director's chair and finally, Playtest, starring Wyatt Russell and Hannah John-Kamen, directed by 10 Cloverfield Lane's Dan Trachtenberg.

Topics covered this time include social media and video game testing but not Pokemon Go. Still, as Brooker says, "It’s fair to say that this season, some of the ideas are because we were aware of the greater progress of the world, that you’ve got to go two steps forward to stay ahead of reality at the moment. There are things that are more demented then Pokemon Go within this season." Cannot. Wait.

Mackenzie Foy will be The Nutcracker's Clara

With Lasse Hallstrom in place to direct, Disney's new version of The Nutcracker is coming together. Now the movie has a leading lady, with Mackenzie Foy on board The Nutcracker And The Four Realms.

Originally written by E.T.A. Hoffman as a story called The Nutcracker And The Mouse King and famously turned into a hugely successful ballet by Tchaikovsky, the basic plot follows a young girl named Clara who receives a nutcracker doll from her godfather one Christmas Eve. Seized with the need to see her present as the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Day, she's transported into a fantastical world rent asunder by a conflict between gingerbread soldiers and an army of mice.

Ashleigh Powell has written the latest adaptation, and Foy will be Clara. The movie already boasts the talents of ballerina Misty Copeland, and Hallstrom is now in pre-production, though there is now official release date yet.

Foy, who kicked off her film career as Renesmee in the final twoTwilight films, scored healthy critical attention as the younger Murph inInterstellar. She'll next be heard as part of the voice cast of The Little Prince, which arrives in the States on August 5 but has yet to lock in a UK release.

Meryl Streep ready to join Emily Blunt in Mary Poppins Returns

Busy making preparations for Mary Poppins sequel Mary Poppins Returns, director Rob Marshall is looking to wrangle a reunion for two of his Into The Woods stars. He already has Emily Blunt as Mary, butMeryl Streep is now in talks to be her cousin.

David Magee has written the script, which draws on material from author P.L. Travers' other Poppins novels that followed the original. The story this time finds the magical nanny returning to the Banks family in Depression-era London to find that her charges Jane and Michael Banks have now grown up. Michael has three children of his own, and they all need a little help re-discovering the joy in life.

Poppins will need the help of street lamplighter Jack (to be played byHamilton musical god Lin-Manuel Miranda, who recently departed the show he created and starred in to pursue other projects) and cousin Topsy, which will allow Streep to once again show off both her award-winning acting ranging and her proven singing voice.

Marc Platt (who also worked on Woods) will be the producer, whileMarc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are handling the music chores. The movie should be arriving just in time for Christmas 2018.

Chris Evans wanted as Lionsgate's Jekyll

Place your bets! We might be in for a case of dueling Jekylls. While Universe has been busy seeding its connected monster universe, which includes Russell Crowe appearing in The Mummy as Dr. Jekyll, Lionsgate has also been developing a film loosely based on the story of twisted split personalities. The studio now has Chris Evans attached to play the lead role.

While the Universal version has its own spin, the Lionsgate movie would be based on Steven Moffat's 2007 BBC series. Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry are at work on a script that would focus on Tom Jackman, a modern-day descendent of Jekyll who has inherited his condition through genetics. So he sets up a secure basement in which he can be stepped into a chair and monitored by a nurse as he changes. The Mr. Hyde in this case has enhanced strength and a raging personality that can also be a charming devil. Neither man remembers what the other one does while inhabiting Jackman's body, and they communicate using recordings. Of course, Hyde manages to get out one night and goes in search of Jackman's family...

The movie is still hunting for a director, and Evans' isn't 100% confirmed yet. There will also be his busy Marvel schedule to factor in, with two Avengers: Infinity Wars films to consider. He'll next be seen inGifted, out on June 16 next year.

Empire Podcast #222: Paul Greengrass, Andrew Stanton, Lindsey Collins

On this week's Empire Podcast, we welcome two directors returning to amnesia-based franchises. First up, Andrew Stanton pops by with his producer Lindsey Collins to discuss the return of memory-afflicted fish in Finding Dory. Then, Paul Greengrass drops in to discuss the return of memory-afflicted CIA assassins in Jason Bourne. Hopefully we can jog their memories through pod form.

You can listen to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page, ourSoundCloud page, this RSS feed (please note – we've switched to a new feed) or by pressing play below.

https://soundcloud.com/empiremagazine/222-paul-greengrass-andrew-stanton-lindsey-collins

Kong: Skull Island producer Alex Garcia reveals Kong’s height

2017 will see Kong burst onto the silver screen for the eighth time inJordan Vogt-Roberts’ Kong: Skull Island. The first trailer and postermay have already arrived, but little has been seen of the new, rebooted primate just yet. Luckily, producer Alex Garcia was on hand to reveal a few tidbits about the ape’s scale in our latest issue.

“He’s his own species,” Garcia told us. “He’s going to be 100 feet tall.” That's a fair bit taller that the beast's original 1933 height, which was estimated to be only around 25m. His growth spurt may have something to do with Kong's upcoming face-off against old foe Godzilla in Godzilla Vs. Kong, planned for release in 2020 – and not least because Gareth Edwards’ monster stood 350 feet tall when we last saw it moonwalking back into the ocean…

But what of the mysterious island’s terrain, which has seen various incarnations since Kong’s 1933 movie debut? “There are jungles, sulphur pits, bamboo forests, a variety of different environments that are both wondrous and incredibly dangerous.” Sounds like the perfect playground for a 100 foot ape, then.

Skull Island takes place in 1973, seeing Kong hunted down by Tom Hiddleston’s SAS tracker James Conrad, Brie Larson’s photographer Mason Weaver, and Johns C. Reilly and Goodman.

Kong: Skull Island is released on March 10, 2017. For more on everyone’s favourite giant ape and much, much more besides, be sure to pick up a copy of our newest issue, in all good and evil newsagents now.

Empire Podcast: Star Trek Beyond spoiler special with Justin Lin & Simon Pegg

In its 50th year, Star Trek looks like a franchise set to live long and – well, you get the idea. Star Trek Beyond has blasted into cinemas around the world, and so naturally, we decided to have a big old bumper Empire Podcast spoiler special to mark it. Clocking in at two hours and six minutes, it's marginally longer than the actual film we're here to talk about.

To help us on our two-hour mission, we invited Star Trek Beyond's director, Justin Lin, and its co-writer/co-star, Simon Pegg, into the pod booth for extensive spoilery chats. Plus, we assembled three ofEmpire's biggest Trek nerds together to discuss the film in sometimes needlessly forensic detail. As ever, there are plentiful spoilers throughout this podcast, so make sure you've seen the film first.

You can listen to the Empire Podcast via our iTunes page, ourSoundCloud page, this RSS feed (please note – we've switched to a new feed) or by pressing play below.

Luke Scott talks his sci-fi thriller, Morgan

They say the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. And, just like father Ridley and siblings Jake and Jordan before him, Luke Scott is headed down the directorial path with his feature-length debut,Morgan.

The premise might sound a little shopworn – a group of people are trapped and subsequently hunted down – but there’s more to it than initially meets the eye. “[Morgan’s] a genetic facsimile of a human being. She’s not a robot, or an android, or a clone,” Scott told Empire, suggesting this is a different beast to last year’s A.I. sci-fi, Ex Machina.

Kate Mara plays the risk analyst tasked with assessing a scientific breakthrough in Scott’s “very violent” thriller, finding much more than she bargained for in five-year-old artificial human, Morgan (played byThe Witch’s definitely-not-five-year-old Anya Taylor-Joy). “There’s an element of Frankenstein in there,” Scott continues. “It really asks questions about the philosophy, morality and ethics of genetic work.”

Will Morgan go full Terminator or find herself exterminated? Find out when the film arrives on September 2. Read more on this (and much, much more besides) in the latest issue of Empire, on shelves now.

Narcos: Wagner Moura speaks about Pablo's fate

Spoiler territory is tough ground to tread these days. Whether it’sGame Of Thrones, House Of Cards or, heck, even an episode ofEastEnders, avoiding the latest twists can be a social media nightmare. But when it comes to historical fact, you can’t really complain – especially when Netflix have a big ol’ spoiler splashed right across their advertising for Season 2 of Narcos.

“Pablo dies, yeah.” But this attracted Wagner Moura to the role of Escobar even more when signing on for Season 1. Where its inaugural 10 episodes covered just over a decade, Season 2 looks set to flip that device on its head, instead focusing on Escobar’s final year. “It’s now about this guy running,” Moura told Empire, “he’s being hunted byeverybody. He starts a war against not only his enemies, but the country itself.”

But Moura’s exit doesn’t spell bad news entirely: “the idea since the beginning was to keep talking about the drug trade, and there are so many things to talk about.” So, while Pablo may be gone, Narcos’ drug war looks set to rage on.

Season 2 arrives on Netflix on September 2. Read more on this (and more upcoming shows and films than you can shake a stick at) in the new issue of Empire, on sale now.

Jason Bourne launches top of the US box office

His enemies may not agree, but America was clearly happy to see the return of Matt Damon's oft-amnesiac super spy Jason Bourne. The new, eponymous film about the man, directed once more by Paul Greengrass, earned $60 million at the US box office, according to studio estimates.

Launching after a nine-year break (at least in terms of the main Bournemovies, not counting The Bourne Legacy) the new one enjoyed a kick-off that was much more successful than Legacy, and with a overseas earnings around $50.1 million, it has already crossed the $100 million mark, racking up more than $110 million globally.

Star Trek Beyond saw a relatively hefty second-week drop from last week's start at the top, but landed second with $24 million for a current US total of $105.7 million. It was enough to stay ahead of a second new arrival, comedy Bad Moms, which had a healthy debut, earning $23.4 million. Not bad given its $20 million budget.

In fourth we find The Secret Life Of Pets, as the Illumination animation continues to do well, taking home $18.2 million for more than $296.1 million domestically. Worldwide, the film is creeping towards the $400 million mark. Horror movie Lights Out also maintained a healthy run for its second week, adding $10.8 million in fifth and crossing the $42 million barrier – which is especially good given its sub-$5 million budget. A Lights Out sequel has already been announced, and we can expect brisk business when the original movie finally arrives here and elsewhere later in August.

Ice Age: Collision Course, on the other hand, continues to underperform compared to its franchise predecessors. The chill really has set in on this one, as it dropped two places to sixth and adding $10.5 million for a sorry $42.1 million total in the States to date.Ghostbusters slipped to seventh and made $9.8 million, for $106.1 million in the US and $158.2 million worldwide so far.

Thriller Nerve kicked off its run with a less-than-impressive $9 million over the weekend, but had sneakily opened on Wednesday to get a jump on the competition, meaning its actual current total is a hair over $15 million. With a $20 million budget, it still has a chance. Finding Dory, on the other hand, continues to show its box office dominance. The latest Pixar success story has more than $469 million in its Stateside bank after seven weeks on release, and has only recently started expanding globally (it opened here in the UK this weekend) and is up to $830.5 million worldwide, knocking on the door of the billion-dollar club with a fin. Can you really knock with a fin? We'd ask Dory, but she's forgotten. Finally (not fin-ally, we're not terrible), The Legend Of Tarzan prepared to swing its way out of the top 10, falling to 10th with $2.4 million. The latest interpretation of the hero has taken in $121.8 million in the States and more than $309 million globally.

Marvel Studios offers update on the next two Avengers films

Back in May, directors Anthony and Joe Russo announced that the next two Avengers movies would not be Infinity War Part I and II as originally detailed, and that they were "very different films". Now Disney and Marvel Studios have officially confirmed that the first of the two will simply be known as Avengers: Infinity War.

As for the other? No one is saying just yet. For now, the movie is saddled with the moniker Untitled Avengers, which we presume is a casualty of Marvel's internal story team (including the Russos and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely) changing things up when it comes to the tale they're telling. You've got to figure that the second film will still be dealing with Josh Brolin's Thanos to some degree, but it appears the story will not quite be one giant narrative across two movies.

All we know for now is that it will indeed feature Thanos finally arriving to try to conquer everything in sight, with whatever version of the Avengers and a group of other heroes (Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange and Brie Larson's Captain Marvel most likely, plus potentially some of the Guardians Of The Galaxy gang), teaming up to fight him as Alan Silvestri's music plays.

Of course, it's all moot until here on April 27 2018, when Infinity Warfinally arrives and whatever the other movie ends up being called is scheduled for April 26, 2019. Before then, we still have a number of Marvel adventures to see including Strange's introduction in a couple of months, a second Guardians and Thor: Ragnarok.

Adrianne Palicki joins Seth MacFarlane's new TV series

Now that the spin-off pilot that was to have focused on her and Nick Blood's characters from Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't going forward, it appears Adrianne Palicki won't be returning to the main show any time soon. She's signed on for the female lead on Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane's new live-action comedy drama.

The series, which has yet to land on a title, is a sci-fi tale set 300 years in the future on board the Orville. As the name might clue you in, it's not exactly a top of the line exploratory ship in the vein of theEnterprise. But its crew will still face their share of challenges from without and within their own ranks.

MacFarlane, who usually prefers to be a producer or handle voice duties for his shows, is playing Ed, the captain of the ship, with Palicki as Kelly Grayson, his newly-appointed first officer... who just so happens to also be his ex-wife. And MacFarlane has also recruitedScott Grimes, who plays a regular role on one of his animated series,American Dad, is Gordon, Ed's best friend and the man he hires to fly the ship.

In the States, the Fox TV network has ordered a straight-to-series batch of 13 episodes, but it remains to be seen whether MacFarlane's mostly magic touch on animated shows can extend to live-action, as his last attempt, Dads, stumbled through one unsuccessful season.

Joe Carnahan to re-write the Uncharted movie

After years stuck in a development cave, it was beginning to look like Sony's attempt to make a movie based on the Uncharted game series might be doomed to limbo lingering. Now the studio is hoping that The Grey's Joe Carnahan might be the man to wrangle it out into the world – at least in terms of the script.

The writer and director is now aboard to punch out a brand new draft of a project that has seen work from such varied filmmakers as Seth Gordon and David O. Russell. Josh Oppenheimer, Thomas Dean Donnelly, Neil Burger and Cormac and Marianne Wibberley are just a few of the names who have had their hands on the screenplay in the past.

Its a confusing state of events, as the Uncharted series would seem to be a no-brainer for movie-fication. It's a globe-trotting, loot-hunting set of games for the PS3, following Indy-alike hero Nathan Drake on his trips to the likes of El Dorado, Shambala and the Iram of the Pillars. Along the way, Drake quips many a quip and shoots many a henchman. And it has a subject matter that Carnahan thinks could work well. “Archaeology today is in itself an antiquity, but that world has always fascinated me. Especially when you go to a museum today and wonder how a piece got there to begin with,” he tells Variety. “Plus, the property itself is so popular that it was hard to turn down an opportunity to work on it.”

But despite his clear excitement, he won't be able to direct it, as he's busily preparing to make Bad Boys 3 early next year. “In a perfect world I would love to do both, but right now, I’m only on board to write the script,” he says. Given the endless stalls on this one, he may yet get his chance, even if he's not available for a couple of years...

Thor: Ragnarok: New behind-the-scenes glimpses

The cameras have been rolling for a few weeks on Thor: Ragnarok in Australia, and now both director Taika Waititi and actress Tessa Thompson are offering peeks behind the scenes. First up isThompson, who posted a picture of her character Valkyrie's sword to her Instagram page.

Thompson's caption for the picture also offers a look at how much fun she and the rest of the cast are having making the new Thor movie: "Day 18 update: I have a lot of bruises. And suddenly abs from laughing so much. And I never want to not have a sword again". She's been posting about hard work and early starts, but it all seems to be in service of something enjoyable.

And though the movie promises to be as epic and dramatic as you might imagine from something that sees the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) andChris Hemsworth's Thor meet up in space, a battle for the future of Asgard and appearances from the likes of Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum and Karl Urban, Waititi is also bringing his own sense of humour to the adventure. Part of that was expressed during the Marvel panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, to which the director sent a comic short purporting to show what Thor was up to during Captain America: Civil War. It has yet to show up anywhere (hopefully it'll be a part of the Blu-ray or download release), but part of the film included Thor's continuing investigation into the Infinity Stones and the vision he had during Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Waititi posted a still from the short focusing on Thanos to his own Instagram account.

New image of Tom Cruise and co. from the Mummy set

With shooting on Universal's new monster movie The Mummy still under way, director Alex Kurtzman, star Tom Cruise and the other cast and crew have moved from the UK to Namibia in Africa. Co-starAnnabelle Wallis posted a look at the main cast to her Twitter feed, which you can see below.

We also now have an official synopsis from the studio, which reads thusly: “Thought safely entombed in a crypt deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient queen whose destiny was unjustly taken from her is awakened in our current day, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.”

A couple of notable people are missing from the image (which also includes Jake Johnson and Courtney B. Vance), as Sofia Boutella is playing the queen in question and has been photographed on set in costume. Then there's Russell Crowe, who has a small role as Dr. Henry Jekyll, intended to start expanding out a shared monster universe that will eventually encompass the likes of The Wolfman, The Invisible Man, Frankenstein's monster and more.

It might all hinge on this first movie's success however, and The Mummy is scheduled to arrive in the UK on June 9 next year.

Game of Thrones season 8 will be the last

All men must die, as they say in Braavos. And by extension, all award-winning fantasy dramas must also die, alas: HBO have confirmed thatGame Of Thrones will conclude at season 8.

We already knew that next season will arrive slightly later than usual, and that it’ll only be seven episodes long. And it had long been rumoured that things would finish up with season 8 – especially given all the key characters appeared to be lining up in preparation for the mother of all wars. Now, we’ve had confirmation from HBO themselves.

“They have a very specific plan about the number of seasons they want to do,” said HBO programming president Casey Bloys, during a Television Critic’s Association event. “Believe me, as the new guy coming in, if I could get them to do more, I would take 10 more seasons. But we take their lead on what they think they can do the best version of the show.”

Bloys did, however, float the possibility of a future Game of Thronesspin-off series, which could exist in the world of Westeros with a new set of characters.

“We’ve talked about it, it’s something I’m not opposed to, but of course it has to make sense creatively. I’m not sure that the guys could really wrap their heads around it when they’re just about to start production. It’s a pretty intense production, they’re about to start production soon. I’m open to it. The guys weren’t opposed to it, but there’s no concrete plans for it at this point.”