THE WORLD’S NUMBER ONE SCI-FI, FANTASY & HORROR MAG!
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EXCLUSIVE!
SUPERMAN &NEWLOIS SERIES, NEW
THE WALKING DEAD
PROBLEMS – THE DUO FACE THEIR TOUGHEST CHALLENGE EVER!
THE END IS NIGH! COUNTING DOWN TO THE FINAL SEASON
THE IRREGULARS SUPERNATURAL SHERLOCK ADVENTURES!
WORLD EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS! Captain America and the destiny of the shield looms over Marvel’s newest Phase 4 instalment
PLUS!
ALIEN | DOCTOR WHO | INVINCIBLE | BATWOMAN RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON | FOR ALL MANKIND DEBRIS | CLARICE | SYLVESTER MCCOY | MR BENN
THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER
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THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER
THE MCU’S ODD COUPLE GET THEIR OWN DISNEY+ SERIES TO EXPLORE WHO’LL BE THE NEXT CAPTAIN AMERICA IN
WORDS: TARA BENNETT
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SUPERMAN & LOIS
? ST E E L F O N MA RS F THEAND HIS STA O N O I ERS ELBING H IBLE V S S O P TODDM A N & L O I S Y R R E E C V E U N ER OD ’VE SEEECUTIVE PR ABOUT S U P U O Y K T THINK AGAIN. EX DIFFEREN THINAIN WHAT’S EXPL S CAIRN AN S: BRY WORD
BSOLUTELY NO superhero can match the impact of Superman. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the Man of Steel first appeared in 1938’s Action Comics #1 and subsequently ushered in the superhero genre. Over the decades, this pop culture icon became a symbol of hope and justice. His image and S-shield proved to be merchandise gold too, gracing lunchboxes, bed sheets, apparel, mugs, action figures, colouring books and much more. Then there’s the countless television shows, comic books and movies, each putting their own spin on his legacy. And therein lies the rub. Some would argue the Superman creative well has dried up, that it’s all been seen before. But leave it to uber-producer and Arrowverse gatekeeper Greg Berlanti to come up with a contemporary twist on the Big Blue Boy Scout’s canon for the new TV series Superman & Lois. “My question initially was, ‘How do you do a Superman show that isn’t the same as has already been done?’” showrunner Todd Helbing tells SFX. “Not just on TV, but in
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features as well. Man Of Steel obviously shifted tones quite a bit, but it was all Superman in the same time period. Smallville had already done the teenage years. Greg Berlanti had an answer pretty quickly. He was like, ‘Well, let’s just do Superman and Lois married with kids.’” Superman & Lois presents a unique situation for a new venture. These versions of the characters, portrayed by Teen Wolf’s Tyler Hoechlin and Grimm’s Elizabeth Tulloch, had already been established over numerous appearances in the Arrowverse, with the two most recently chipping in to defeat the Monitor during the epic Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover. So, in the early stages of the series’ development, Helbing pitched Hoechlin and Tulloch the pilot and season arc over dinner. “It’s an interesting dynamic, because Tyler and Bitsie had already played these characters in a handful of episodes and had worked on their interpretations of the characters,” Helbing says. “But when I explained to them what we were trying to do and the tonal shift, they got on board pretty quickly. There are subtle changes they make – not necessarily in performances, but in attitude. They knocked it out of the park in all the Arrowverse episodes
SUPERMAN & LOIS
SUIT YOU, SIR
Superman has a new look
Superman actor Tyler Hoechlin’s revised threads are generating plenty of buzz. Designed by Laura Jean Shannon and constructed by her Los Angeles-based company in conjunction with Creative Character Engineering, the new-look costume gives a modern edge to a timeless classic. Its sleeker look scraps the thicker cape straps, ditches the neckline, revamps the metallic belt and polishes up the colours. “When Tyler first appeared in the Arrowverse, that costume was not built to sustain a season,” Helbing offers. “It only had to be for one episode first. Then it became two, and then three, and then four. By the time this show was going to start shooting, that suit was on its last legs! But it’s a new show, it’s a new take on a familiar superhero. We just felt collectively that we should update it and change it, and pay homage to all the amazing suits that came before it.”
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INVINCIBLE
ROBERT KIRKMAN EXPLAINS WHY
INVINCIBLE IS THE BIGGEST SUPERHERO DRAMA ON TELEVISION WORDS: BRYAN CAIRNS
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INVINCIBLE
N THE SURFACE, MARK Grayson appears to be your average teenager. He attends high school, has crushes on girls and gets bullied. What separates Mark from his peers is that his father is Omni-Man, the most powerful superhero on the planet. That’s a lot of legacy to live up to. So, when Mark begins to develop his own abilities, the 17-year-old couldn’t be more enthusiastic to follow in his father’s footsteps. But as Mark learns about power and responsibility, a murder mystery and a family secret deliver a one-two punch to his gut that he may never recover from. That’s the crux of Invincible, Amazon Prime’s upcoming animated TV series. “This is a very human, grounded, dramatic story,” executive producer Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) tells SFX. “It’s about a son trying to live up to the expectations of his father. It’s about a boy who has lived a very normal life, in a crazy superhero world, who is now being drawn into that crazy superhero world. He’s learning that even though he’s idolised these people, and even though he’s always wanted to be a part of his father’s world and do all the things he can do, it comes with consequences. It’s a heartbreaking tale, to a certain extent. “But, as we’re doing that very human story, we’re telling the biggest superhero story that’s on television,” he continues. “It’s going to have world-shattering, universe-affecting scope and stakes. As this series progresses from season to season, the story grows exponentially. That is very much going to set it apart from other, live-action superhero shows. “And Mark’s arc over the course of the first season is quite dramatic, where he goes from being this novice superhero, who has no idea what he is doing, to facing the biggest challenge he could possibly face,” Kirkman adds. “He’s squaring off against somebody he would never fight. There’s a huge shift in his character.”
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THE IRREGULARS
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THE IRREGULARS
HENRY LLOYD-HUGHES AND ROYCE PIERRESON ARE HOLMES AND WATSON IN NETFLIX’S FRESH TAKE ON ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S CHARACTERS. BUT THE REAL STARS ARE THE FIVE FRESH-FACED -SOMETHINGS PLAYING IRREPRESSIBLE URCHINS
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WORDS: JAMIE TABBERER
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RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON
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RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON
PRODUCER OSNAT SHURER AND WRITER ADELE LIM EXPLAIN WHY RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON IS UNLIKE ANY DISNEY FILM YOU’VE SEEN
ISTOCK.COM
WORDS: DARREN SCOTT
ISNEY HAS DABBLED WITH DARK before – Return To Oz, anyone? – but Raya And The Last Dragon might be the first time that Walt Disney Animation Studios has killed off most of the population and travelled to a post-apocalyptic future to tell a story. Set in the fictional world of Kumandra – with five interjoining lands shaped like a dragon – humans and dragons lived in harmony until an ancient evil threatened all life and the dragons sacrificed themselves to defeat it and save humanity. It’s 500 years later when the evil returns to take down the fractured survivors, and Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), Guardian of the Dragon Gem, blames herself for the cataclysmic events. She sets off on a quest to find the last dragon and restore peace…
For the first Walt Disney Animation Studios film to have a Southeastern Asia–inspired setting, filmmakers made research trips throughout Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore to experience the cultures. The result is a world the viewer will want to be part of as Raya assembles a crew to save Kumandra. There’s a list of Disney contributors as long as a forked tongue who are involved with this film, all having worked on some of the greatest modern offerings from the studio. SFX caught up with two of them, producer Osnat Shurer and writer Adele Lim. What was your journey to Raya’s quest? Adele: When Osnat reached out to me, she said, “We have a young Asian kick-ass warrior with a sword and we have a dragon”, I was like, “I am in, I’m your person for this.” MARCH 2021 | SFX MAGAZINE |
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THE WALKING DEAD
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THE WALKING DEAD
MAY OFFICIALLY BE COMING TO AN END, BUT FANS GOT MORE THAN THEY BARGAINED FOR WHEN A REAL-LIFE WORLDWIDE CRISIS HIT AND DELIVERED NEW EPISODES WORDS: DARREN SCOTT
F THERE’S ONE THING WE’VE LEARNED from AMC’s global juggernaut it’s that the dead don’t stay dead. And that’s true of The Walking Dead – specifically the tenth season which, after a six-month delay for the original finale episode, “A Certain Doom”, has lurched back into life yet again, lumbering to screens this month. An “extension” that plays off the aftermath of what was intended to be the 16th and final part, six new episodes take season 10 to a whopping 22 chapters. When we catch up with showrunner and executive producer Angela Kang, she’s taking a short break from working on material for the Daryl and Carol spin-off, as well as the upcoming 11th season, to chat with us. “I’ll say that, just to set the expectations, these six that are upcoming, they are more intimate, but that doesn’t mean that they’re unimportant,” she explains. “There’s definitely really important character things that are happening, as well as plot dynamics that will then explode back into more scope in season 11.” So why the extension and ultimate delay to a “proper” season? Well, that’s kind of obvious. “When the pandemic hit, we were already in the middle of planning out the 11th season. But that, obviously, disrupted production for everybody. We were in the middle of writing outlines and scripts and departments were working on designs, were building things.” Kang explains that the studio asked them to “pivot on the writing side” to allow them to figure out how to get larger production up and running in future. MARCH 2021 | SFX MAGAZINE |
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SYLVESTER M c COY
WHAT’S BEHIND THE DOOR? SYLVESTER McCOY GETS GORY IN NEW HORROR . BUT THE TARDIS IS NEVER FAR AWAY…
H ome WORDS: NICK SETCHFIELD
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SYLVESTER M c COY
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MR BENN
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9000
MR BENN
IN FEBRUARY 1971, SUDDENLY – AS IF BY MAGIC – MR BENN APPEARED. WE CELEBRATE THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THIS CHILDREN’S TV CLASSIC BY SPEAKING TO ITS CREATOR, DAVID MCKEE
© DAVID MCKEE, ZEPHYR FILMS, ANDERSEN PRESS
WORDS: IAN BERRIMAN
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