So in 2010 there was a film called Grown Ups, with Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade and Rob Schneider. We gave it one star, but it made north of $270m anyway. Why does nobody ever listen? Box office of more than triple your budget - especially when it was quite a high budget, considering - pretty much guarantees you a sequel, and here we have Grown Ups 2. Here's what you bought with all your Grown Ups tickets. Happy now? Happy?

This is the international trailer, not to be confused with the domestic one from a month or so ago. If you care to play spot the difference, please go right ahead. This one makes clear that Grown Ups 2 has replaced the water park with small-town America, but that it's otherwise business as usual (minus Schneider: it seems he couldn't do it).

What that means is there's some gross-out stuff, some goofy stuff, some sentimental stuff, and Poison on the soundtrack. The thrust of the plot sees our old-timers going up against some frat-boys (lead by Taylor Lautner) for alpha-male dominance of the local hangouts. Because it's called Grown Ups, but they're acting like kids: do you see? They also have to operate under the radar of their wives. We'd like to to operate under Salma Hayek's radar too. Does that actually make sense? Meh.

Grown Ups 2, along with the boys, Lautner and Hayek, also stars Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph, Nick Swardson and model Patrick Schwarzenegger (yup, son of Arnold) in his first movie role. Sandler stalwart Dennis Dugan is the director once again, and it's out in the UK on August 9. Remember, if you go and see it, there will be another.

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Following our chat with the still cheerfully equivocal Jackie Chan last week, there's been a little more activity on the Expendables front. Sylvester Stallone, in one of his occasional fits of tweeting, has confirmed once again that Wesley Snipes is definitely showing up for Expendables 3, and that Mickey Rourke is returning. He's also indicated that he has The Raid in his sights and, perhaps most surprisingly, that he's been talking to Steven Seagal after all.

We totally called Snipes a while ago, and Stallone now says he "Talked to Wesley today... he cannot wait to fight to the top again!". The news of Rourke, who sat out Expendables 2, comes in the form of "Mighty Mickey is back..." Sly also puts the call out for "a young Sigourney Weaver..." We haven't finished with the old one yet!

But Seagal is a curveball. Stallone himself said there was "No Seagal, sorry" back in March, and legend had it that Seagal, perhaps the most obviously missing Expendable to date, was boycotting the franchise because of an ongoing beef with producer Avi Lerner. Maybe that's now been ironed out, or maybe it was always nonsense, because suddenly Sly was "Calling Seagal this morning", and a couple of days later had "Just talked to Steven in Moscow*... Sounds great and says he wants to be in EX3, if the part fits". 

As for last year's exhilarating slice of Indonesian tower-block carnage, Sly muses that he's "Thinking about raiding The Raid". Does he just mean stylistically? Or is he talking about going after the likes of Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian for the actual cast? Unlear, but says Sly, "The Raid was an excellent film... We believe we can do better... Raising the bar..." 

Raising the bar from Expendables 2? Good idea! Writing and pre-production are currently ongoing, with Red Hill's Patrick Hughes set to call the shots this time. Production is slated to start in August, for release sometime in 2014.

*Where he's been on a peculiar tour for some months.

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Warner Bros.

WARNING: SPOILERS up in here.

Booze, blow, prostitutes, old ladies ... one of the hallowed traditions of the Wolf Pack is to save the sickest, most depraved debauchery

Admittedly, it’s hardly the most enthralling piece of news about Star Wars: Episode VII, but it’s still fun to see who J.J. Abrams is gathering as his team to get working on the new trip to that Galaxy Far, Far Away. One of the first confirmed members is an old Abrams hand and recent Empire interviewee, costume designer Michael Kaplan.

It’s not tough to see why Abrams would tap Kaplan for the job. They worked together on revising the look of Captain Kirk and co on Star Trekand Into Darkness, and Kaplan also provided the togs for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which Abrams produced.

Kaplan’s CV goes back much further and deeper than just the Enterprise crew. One of his earliest jobs was working alongside Charles Knode on 1982’s Blade Runner. He also counts Flashdance, Fight Club, Panic Room, Pearl Harbor, Curly Sue, Clue, I Am Legend and Miami Vice among his credits. So he’s certainly got the chops to tackle the Lucas universe now inherited (for Episode VII, at least) by Abrams.

Michael Arndt is busy working on the script and, assuming they all make deals, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill are expected to appear in some capacity. Abrams has also said he wants John Williams to write the score, and Disney aims to have the new Wars on screen sometime in 2015. Meanwhile, why not read our feature on Kaplan and other members of J.J.’s behind-the-scenes Trek crew and start taking bets on the next one to get recruited...

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When Empire attended CinemaCon last month, one of the films that struck our fancy, based on an extended trailer, was Dodgeball director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s new comedy We’re The Millers. Now a version of that trailer is online via Warners’ YouTube account for you all to watch. Warning: it’s a Red Band promo, so expect swearing and gross-out gags… 

We’re The Millers finds small-scale pot dealer David Burke getting into a spot of bother. Sleazy kingpin Ed Helms offers him a potentially lucrative job – smuggle a batch of pot across the border from Mexico back into the US and Burke will score $100,000.

There’s a hitch, though: if he goes across alone, he’ll look suspicious. So Burke nabs an RV and starts to recruit a fake family to hide the fact that he’ll be transported several kilos of marijuana. Neighbourhood no-good nerd Kenny (Will Poulter) will be his son, crafty Casey (Emma Roberts) his daughter and stripper Rose (Jennifer Aniston) is the woman he asks to be his fake wife.

When they reach Mexico, they discover the haul is significantly bigger than they thought; and that’s just the start of their problems, which include randy fellow travellers (Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn on good form) and a nasty tarantula bite that leaves Kenny with some trouble in the trouser department.

While there are moments that might make you roll your eyes – of course Aniston’s stripper history is going to come into play at some point – there are enough genuine chuckles to have us anticipating this one. It’ll find its way into cinemas on August 23.

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As the hunger for remakes expands like a hungry space amoeba looking to swallow unwary starships, more and more voices are outraged at the titles in line for a swift reboot. Yet when you learn that 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme sci-fi actioner Timecop has been added to the list, the reaction is surely more of a “huh… Maybe that could work….” Well, Universal wants to try.

The original is a blast of comic-spawned ‘90s fun as Van Damme’s haunted chrono-lawkeeper runs afoul of crooked senator Ron Silver, who is using time travel to help his political career.

Spawned from the Dark Horse title, it ended up with decent (if occasionally wry) reviews and solid box office. It birthed a straight-to-DVD sequel and a short-lived telly spin-off.

Sadly for Van Damme fans, it appears he’s not involved this time around (yet – cue the online petitions), and the studio is now entertaining pitches from writers with a take on how to re-imagine the concept for today. Especially since the film was set in the far-away world of 2004. Ooh... Welcome to the woooorld of tomorroooow!

So what say you? Think Timecop can be reworked without poisoning the memory of a classic? Or should it not be touched, lest JCVD arrive through a portal and kick everyone involved in the head?

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Our first Star Trek Into Darkness spoiler special saw four of the podcast team dissecting the heck of out J.J. Abrams' space sequel for nearly an hour. This go around, it's interview time, and in the hot seat(s) are the writing/producing team of Damon Lindelof, Bryan Burk, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who reveal some very interesting details about Khan - sorry, You Know Who - including whether we'll see him in another installment and when his name first came up in the writers' room...

Also, it turns out Damon Lindelof's mum listens to the podcast. Hello Mrs. Lindelof!

Don't forget to check out our podcast photo gallery here and subscribe to the Empire Podcastvia our iTunes page or this handy RSS feed. 

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As Vin Diesel and the Fast & Furious crew prepare to bring the sixth film to the States (it opens Friday across the pond), they’re talking up possible locations for the seventh movie and beyond. Speaking at the LA premiere, Diesel said he wanted the next film to bring the franchise home to where it all began – Los Angeles. And do you know where he said that first? Why, to us at Empire… Check out the video below (the Vin bit starts at 1.15, by the way). 

"We have to go back to home,” says The Man Who Is Dominic Toretto. “[The audience] want to see if it's all that our characters expected and how they may acclimate now in their new matured state." And what car chaos they get into, of course.

Fast & Furious 6 has been a roaring success here in the UK so far, smashing Universal’s box office records. Given that the movies tend to wander around the world, where else does Diesel think the franchise could head in future? "Something I wanted to do was a race scene, a chase scene, a car sequence, on The Great Wall Of China. Now there's a baller idea. But that wouldn't come until Fast & Furious 8..."

As of right now, James Wan is taking over directorial duties for the seventh film, which is scheduled to shoot this year for release in 2014.

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For his directorial debut – based on his own script – Joseph Gordon-Levitt has gone for an intriguing blend of offbeat rom-com, character laughs and naughtiness. Take a look at the first trailer for Don Jon. 

A sort of Jersey Shore type with a few more brains, Jon Martello (Gordon-Levitt) is known as “Don Jon” to his friends because of his ability to pick up a different girl every weekend. He’s a man who likes to keep himself in shape, loves his apartment, his car, his family and his church… And is also addicted to online porn.

It’s that last bit that causes problems when he meets someone – Scarlett Johansson’s lovely, romantic fellow Noo Yawker Barbara Sugarman – who makes him rethink the idea of casual flings. As they warm to each other’s company (despite his loathing for her favourite idealised romantic comedy films), the small matter of his love for, er, computer-aided stimulation throws a spanner in their relationship works.

He turns for help to Julianne Moore’s Esther, who cautions him that he’ll have to choose between his virtual activities and real, actual intimacy.

With Glenne Headly as his mum and Tony Danza as his dad, the film also features the likes of Brie Larson and Lindsey Broad. From the looks of this first trailer, Gordon-Levitt’s found a vein of funny stuff, particularly Jon singing along in his car…

Don Jon is out on October 18 in the US and November 15 over here.

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