Benicio Del Toro looks Lively

Universal Studio’s Argentine arm has tweeted a new still from Oliver Stone’s Savages, a first look at a film that we’re plenty intrigued about. It’s a crime drama that will hopefully mark a return to form for a director who, even his greatest fans would cede, has been a little off the boil lately.

Adapted from Don Winslow’s novel, Savages follows two low-scale marijuana growers — uni grad Ben (Aaron Johnson) and ex-Navy SEAL Chon (Taylor Kitsch) — and their attempts to rescue their (shared) girlfriend O (Blake Lively) from a Mexican drug cartel boasting the henchman power of Benicio Del Toro.

Throw into that heady mix Uma Thurman as O’s mother and John Travolta as a DEA agent and you’ve got all the hallmarks of a film Kitsch recently described to Empire as “Pulp Fiction meets GoodFellas“. If so, we’re guessing that this scene either ends with a dance-off or Del Toro dangling in a frozen meat wagon. Click on the pic for a closer look.

“This is right in Stone’s wheelhouse,” Kitsch told us when we caught up with him at the John Carter junket. So would the finished Savages be a Hard-R Stone experience? “It’s gotta be,” Kitsch said, “Uma Thurman and John Travolta wouldn’t sign up for anything wishy-washy.”

Check back from more from Kitsch on the film next week. Savages is out on September 28.

The star on The Matrix and LOTR

Yesterday was an epic day at Empire. In case you weren’t one of the throng squeezed sardine-like onto the internet for the great man’s webchat, Nicolas Cage was here to field all manner of questions, from the wise to the plain wacky, and all things in between.

When he wasn’t elucidating on his experiences in a haunted Romanian forest or talking us through his Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance prep in Stanislavskian detail, he was sharing his favourite movie lines (“Vive la fucking France, man!”) and joining the ongoing Best Sandwich Ever debate with a roast lamb, tomato and rocket affair.

Along the way, there were a couple of interesting Cage titbits worth sharing. The first was that he’s open to the idea of a Wicker Man sequel. Now before you run screaming “Not the bees! Not the bees!” (if it’s not too late), this was delivered with half a smile and a wryness that suggests it could be nothing more than a pipe-dream. But still, can you imagine?

Us neither.

James McAvoy IS Vincent Hanna

Eran Creevy’s second feature, Welcome To The Punch, looks set to establish him as a filmmaker to watch. Upscaling from smart Brit thriller Shifty, Creevy’s latest unleashes the greatest maestrom of gangster mayhem on London’s docklands since The Long Good Friday. Screen Daily has laid its mitts on a first look at the film’s protagonist, copper Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy), on the trail of a cabal of high-level villains.

Welcome To The Punch pitches McAvoy and ex-con Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong), recently returned from his Icelandic hideout, into a very uneasy alliance as they try to expose a high-level conspiracy. That’s right: it’s the carnage-happy stars of Wanted and Green Lantern unleashed on the streets of East London. Remember the olympics, lads.

Creevy and his crew took time out of last summer’s Canary Wharf shoot to tell Big Screen about the film. “I want to do a French Connection, or a Heat, an Infernal Affairs, Hard Boiled-style film, but set in London,” the director told The 02 crowd. “I wanted it to be aspirational, make London slick – make it all glass chrome, skyscrapers, and nuanced performances.”

Judging by the new still, Creevy has nailed that sharp, neon-tinged aesthetic. This is the most Michael Mann-like thing you’ll see this side of Long Beach.

Co-starring with McAvoy and Strong are actress-of-the-moment Andrea Riseborough, Shifty‘s Daniel Mays, and Peter Mullan. There should be a credit for one Ridley Scott, too. He took time out from Prometheus to lend a hand in the editing suite.

Welcome To The Punch is out in the UK later this year.