Film Stories with Simon Brew Simon Brew

Two films in this episode that for different reasons needed a fair amount of time to come to the screen.
Dungeons And Dragons: Honor Among Thieves didn't turn up until 2023, yet for many years, there was a rights battle over which studio could make a D&D movie. Even when the rights were sorted, challenges still lay ahead.
With The Phantom Of The Opera meanwhile, the plan had originally been to have the movie filming by 1990. Yet a separation delayed the movie, and when it returned, an actor by the name of Gerard Butler was all set for his singing lessons...
Stories of both are told in this episode.
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In a special episode of the podcast, Fiona Shaw CBE is the guest, as she joins to chat about her career, and her latest movie, IF.
Topics of conversation in this chat? The problem with her bathroom, plus working on films such as Super Mario Bros and The Avengers. Then there's her time working with Terrence Malick, her work with Brian De Palma, and a very special film too that's on the horizon for her.
IF is in UK cinemas now.
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The Halloween franchise was at a crossroads after Rob Zombie's 2009 movie, Halloween II. There was only one logical thing to do next: er, Halloween 3D, which was set for the early 2010s. The first in a line of false starts, that'd eventually take us to 2018's wildly-successful reboot/reimagining.
Some reshoot work on that was done for the ending too, and the ending of Rocky V (1990) was an area of much disagreement. Sylvester Stallone had wanted to take the Rocky films back to basics, bringing back director John G Avildsen too. Yet what was expected to be one of 1990's big tickets didn't go to plan.
Stories of both are told in this episode...
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With his new film, Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes, now out in cinemas, director Wes Ball joins the Film Stories podcast for a long chat about the new film, and his career to date.
From his early shorts, to his fast work on Celebrity Apprentice (and boy, is there a story there), we then move through to The Maze Runner, The Mouse Guard, and right the way through to Apes...
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It's taken nearly 400 episodes, but a Star Wars film finally takes centre stage. It's 2019's saga-ending The Rise Of Skywalker, a film that was announced in 2012, and went through, well, 'changes' over the ensuing years.

The planned remake of Road House actually started life roughly around the same time, and there were a couple of false starts. But when it was finally ready to go, filming seemed to go without too much trouble. It was only in post-production that the problems started to mount...
Stories of both are told in this episode.
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In a special episode, Drew Pearce joins us for a chat about his journey from making British TV show No Heroics through to writing the brand new blockbuster The Fall Guy.
Key moments? Getting stuck in Los Angeles thanks to an Icelandic volcano, landing the job of writing Iron Man 3, working out what his hourly rate was for penning a $1bn blockbuster, the last-minute call for Hobbs & Shaw and a whole lot more...
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