The James Bond franchise has long been a lightning rod for discussions about tradition, reinvention and gender representation. With Daniel Craig’s departure from the role of 007, speculation over who might don the iconic tuxedo in the upcoming James Bond 26 has run rampant. While some fans have been vocal about their desire to have Aaron Taylor-Johnson step into the suit, there's an ongoing debate regarding whether a woman could or should take over the mantle. Now, former Bond girl Gemma Arterton has entered the chat.

In a recent interview with The Times, Arterton, who appeared in Craig’s second outing as 007, Quantum of Solace, weighed in on the possibility of a female James Bond. Needless to say, her take was as bold as the character she once played. Known for her refreshingly candid remarks, the Hansel & Gretel actress didn’t hesitate to question whether the franchise’s traditions should bend to accommodate modern ideals. She explained:

Gemma Arterton’s take on a female James Bond strikes a chord with what seems to be a widely held sentiment: it’s just too much of a leap for many fans to handle. One could argue that the backlash would likely be as dramatic as any Bond car chase, given how deeply the character is rooted in tradition. From Ian Fleming’s original vision back in 1953 to Sean Connery’s suave debut in 1962’s Dr. No, James Bond has always been written and portrayed as a specific kind of man.

The King's Man alum’s comments could spark further debate in the ongoing discussion about what James Bond should look like in the 21st century. While some fans and critics advocate for a female 007 as a progressive move, others believe that changing Bond’s gender fundamentally alters the character's essence. Gemma Arterton’s perspective on the debate over a female Bond indicates that she is aware of the shifting conversation around gender norms. However, her call to “respect tradition” aligns with those who are hesitant to see iconic characters reimagined too drastically.

The idea of a female James Bond has been floated by fans and even some industry insiders for years, with names like Lashana Lynch (who played an MI6 agent in No Time to Die) sparking conversation about a potential gender swap. But the franchise’s producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have repeatedly maintained that Bond is, and always will be, male. As reported by the Independent in 2021, Broccoli remarked:

Tradition will probably reign for the time being as the powers that be continue their search for the next Bond contender. And, as the search continues, fans can stream most of the Bond franchise, including Quantum of Solace, with an Amazon Prime Video subscription.

Gemma Arterton's latest project, the animated Buffalo Kids recently hit the 2024 movie schedule and is expected to be available to stream soon with a Max subscription.

Just like crazy gadgets and classic villains are important to James Bond movies, so-called "Bond girls" have been crucial to the franchise's success. Obviously society has changed quite a bit since Dr. No was released in 1962, and so have the roles these women have played in the adventures. They aren't just a love interest to Bond anymore, though some are, of course, nor do all of them have ridiculous names though some definitely do. Really, it's just all the women who have played important roles,  throughout the years, like the 32 on this list. 

Ursula Andress (Honey Ryder)

The O.G. Bond girl is Honey Ryder, played by Ursula Andress. Bond (Sean Connery) famously meets her as she strolls out of the ocean in a bikini on a small island owned by the titular Dr. No. It's not only one of the most iconic moments of the Bond series, it's one of the most famous in Hollywood history. 

Michelle Yeoh (Wai Lin)

Academy Award-winner Michelle Yeoh first came to Western cinema acclaim as a Bond girl. After years of success in Hong Kong, Yeoh's Hollywood breakthrough came as Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies, starring Pierce Brosnan as Bond. 

Barbara Bach (Anya Amasova)

Actor Barbara Bach is famous for playing a Bond girl in one of the best Roger Moore movies. Bach, who is the wife of Ringo Starr, played a Russian spy named Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me. Bach was, in fact, the spy who loved Bond. Or Bond was the spy who loved her. Both ways work. The same movie also features one of the best henchmen in Bond history, Jaws. 

Shirley Eaton (Jill Masterson)

The third movie of the Bond franchise, Goldfinger, is pretty almost universally praised as the best of the series. It's certainly the best of the Connery era, despite what some critics claim. Shirley Eaton plays Jill Masterson who meets her demise in one of the most famous scenes in the series when Bond finds her covered in gold paint after her death. 

Tanya Roberts (Stacey Sutton)

Roger Moore's final appearance as James Bond came in 1985's A View To A Kill opposite Tanya Roberts who starred as Stacey Sutton. The late Roberts had a fairly short-lived career in the mid-80s before reviving it as a regular on That '70s Show in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She'll be forever remembered for her moments as a Bond girl. 

Carey Lowell (Pam Bouvier)

Carey Lowell is best known for her two-season run as ADA Jamie Ross on Law & Order in the '90s, but years before that, she was a Bond girl. Lowell played Pam Bouvier, a capable ex-army officer-turned-informant on the cartels Bond is chasing in the Timothy Dalton-as-Bond flick Licence To Kill. 

Teri Hatcher (Paris Carver)

In 1997 Teri Hatcher was coming off an incredibly successful run as Lois Lane in the TV show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. She parlayed that in a role as James Bond's love interest in Tomorrow Never Dies, named Paris Carver. 

Jane Seymour (Solitaire)

In the United States, Jane Seymour is probably best known as Dr. Michaela Quinn in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. About 20 years early, she starred as one of the best Bond girls ever, Solitaire, in the first Roger Moore-era Bond movie, Live and Let Die. 

Léa Seydoux (Madeleine Swann)

Léa Seydoux actually starred in two James Bond movies, both featuring Daniel Craig as 007. In both Spectre and No Time To Die, she played Madeleine Swann. She also holds the distinction of being the only actress to play the mother of a James Bond child, which is revealed in the final movie of the Craig era, No Time To Die. 

Halle Berry (Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson)

Before the 21st Century, the producers of the Bond series rarely picked huge stars as Bond girls. That wasn't the case in 2002 when Halle Berry starred as Jinx Johnson in Die Another Day. Berry had just won an Academy Award and was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood when she played Jinx, who was every bit Bond's equal in all ways. 

Maud Adams (Andrea Anders And Octopussy)

Maud Adams is one of two women who have starred in two James Bond movies as Bond girls. Her first, Andrea Anders came in 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun. Her second, and larger role, came as the titular Octopussy in the movie of the same name. Adams also holds the distinction of being the only one to have the same name as the movie. Pretty cool. 

Famke Janssen (Xenia Onatopp)

While she's best known these days for playing Jean Grey/Phoenix in the X-Men movies, Famke Janssen also starred in one Bond movie, GoldenEye, as the ridiculously named assassin Xenia Onatopp. It's one of the sillier names, but the character is all business. 

Diana Rigg (Teresa di Vicenzo/Tracy Bond)

For many Brits, Diana Rigg is known for playing Emma Peel in the '60s spy show The Avengers (no relation to the MCU). For many Americans, she's best known as Olenna Tyrell on Game of Thrones. For Bond fans, she'll always be Tracy Bond, James' first wife, who he married in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the lone film starring George Lazenby as 007. 

Gemma Arterton (Strawberry Fields)

While Quantum of Solace usually ranks pretty low overall among Bond aficionados, Gemma Arterton deserves a lot of praise for his work as Strawberry Fields. While Strawberry Fields is one of the silliest names in the canon, at least it's not an innuendo. 

Daniela Bianchi (Tatiana Romanova)

Daniela Bianchi is an Italian actress who brilliantly played a Soviet spy in From Russia With Love. Tatiana Romanova, the character Bianchi, set the standard for the capable foil to Bond, rather than a damsel in distress as Honey Ryder was in Dr. No.

Maryam D'Abo (Kara Milovy)

Timothy Dalton only got to play Bond in two films, but in one of him, he got to star opposite Maryam D'Abo, who played the classical musician Kara Milovy. The Living Daylights is, like the other Dalton movie, Licence To Kill is underrated, and along with that, D'Abo's excellent performance. 

Kim Basinger (Domino Petachi)

Okay, okay, so Never Say Never Again isn't an official James Bond movie, but it does feature one of the biggest stars to ever play a Bond girl. Kim Basinger was already a big deal when she signed on to join Sean Connery in his return as 007 in the remake of Thunderball. 

Denise Richards (Christmas Jones)

The producers of The World Is Not Enough took a lot of grief for casting Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones. Critics complained that she couldn't be taken seriously as a doctor, or something. It was pure sexism because Richards was fine in the role and fit the mold of a Bond girl perfectly. Her stupid character name wasn't her fault, either. 

Eva Green (Vesper Lynd)

Vesper Lynd is one of two Bond girls who actually married the super spy. Eva Green plays Lynd in Casino Royale and like the other woman who married Bond, Tracy, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Lynd doesn't make it to the end of the movie. She is killed in front of Bond in Venice in one of the most tragic endings to any Bond movie. 

Grace Jones (May Day)

Without question, May Day, played by Grace Jones, in A View To A Kill is one of the most intimidating Bond girls. She's bold and built like a truck. She's a woman of few words, but she can intimidate with nothing more than a look. Grace Jones wasn't in a ton of movies over her unique career, but maybe she should have been more based on this. 

Jill St. John (Tiffany Case)

Jill St. John, who plays Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever has had a long career, going back to the 1950s. In 1971, she starred alongside Sean Connery in his return to the role of 007 and she holds the distinction of being the first American Bond girl. 

Sophie Marceau (Elektra King)

Elektra King, played by Sophie Marceau, is a quintessential Bond girl. She's both Bond's lover and his enemy in The World Is Not Enough. As such, Marceau plays both vulnerable and vicious and the French actress nails both. 

Bérénice Marlohe (Sévérine)

Skyfall is consistently ranked as one of the fans' favorites and that's in no small part to Bérénice Marlohe, who plays Sévérine. Marlohe hasn't starred in many English-language films, in fact, Skyfall was her first, but you'd never know if from the French actor's performance in the Bond universe. 

Mie Hamna (Kissy Suzuki)

Let's be honest, Kissy Suzuki has to be the silliest name ever. It's just ridiculous. That doesn't mean that actress Mie Hamna's performance as the Japanese ninja/spy in You Only Live Twice was silly. The Japanese actress didn't speak much English, but she left an impression on moviegoers, despite her lines being overdubbed. 

Izabella Scorupco (Natalya Simonova)

Natalya Simonova, played by Polish actress Izabella Scorupco, is a stereotypical Bond girl who is a bit of a damsel in distress but turns out to be very capable when teamed with Bond. Scorupco. The multi-talent Scorupco is also a singer and even hosted one season of Sweden's version of Top Model. 

Ana De Armas (Palona)

We couldn't have this list without Ana de Armas, but she doesn't play a typical Bond girl. The character, Palona, is not Bond's lover, nor is she his enemy. She's his equal in many ways, as a green CIA agent sent to help Bond. De Armas is pretty darn awesome in the role, fighting side-by-side with 007. Of course, even before starring here, she was already a pretty big star. 

Carole Bouquet (Melina Havelock)

At the end of The Spy Who Loved Me, the words "James Bond Will Return in For Your Eyes Only, but after the success of Star Wars, the producers of the franchise pivoted and made Moonraker instead to add some sci-fi to the series. Actress Carole Bouquet auditioned to be the Bond girl in that movie but lost out on the part. Luckily, she landed the role of Bond's ally, Melina Havelock, in For Your Eyes Only when it was finally made. 

Lois Chiles (Holly Goodhead)

Moonraker is... not James Bonds' finest hour, but it's not that bad either. One thing that no one can argue, Dr. Holly Goodhead is the dumbest name in the history of the franchise. Sure, there's always been some sophomoric humor to Bond girl names, but actor Lois Chiles has the unfortunate luck of starring as the character with this over-the-top name. 

Claudine Auger (Domino Derval)

French actress and model Claudine Auger played one of the most famous Bond girls in Thunderball. Her sultry performance set a new standard for the archetype. Auger, who played Domino in the movie, wasn't in a lot of movies American audiences would recognize, but she did represent her native France in the Miss World pageant in the 1950s. 

Lana Wood (Plenty O'Toole)

While she's in the running for the silliest name, Plenty O'Toole doesn't have plenty of screen time, lasting only a few minutes before being thrown out of a window of Bond's hotel room in Diamonds Are Forever. She's played by Lana Wood, sister of the late Natalie Wood. 

Britt Ekland (Mary Goodnight)

Britt Ekland, who was once married to Peter Sellers, stars as Mary Goodnight in The Man With The Golden Gun. Let's be honest here, the writers of the movie were not kind to the character as the British agent isn't a very smart or capable spy. That's on the writers, not Ekland. 

Cassandra Harris (Countess Lisl von Schlaf)

Australian actress Cassandra Harris had an interesting and tragic life. When she starred as Lisl von Schlaf in For Your Eyes Only, he husband in real life was none other than Pierce Brosnan. How's that for meta? Sadly, Harris died of ovarian cancer at just age 43 in 1991. Her mother AND her daughter both died of the same disease in their 40s as well. 

Disney+ Deep Cut is a recurring feature looking at some of the more obscure or interesting items in the Disney+ library.

Over the last couple of decades, video games have become a more frequent source of inspiration for big-budget films. Nearly every studio has tried its hand at one game adaptation or another. While we've recently seen some real success with mainstream adaptations like the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, most game adaptations end up getting panned by both critics and the fans of the games they are based on. 

For a studio like Disney, it’s been much more common for video games to be based on their characters than to make movies based on games, but there was one time that Disney tried and failed to launch its own franchise based on a video game: 2010’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

The Prince of Persia movie seems to have been largely forgotten by history. Perhaps this is because the movie isn't actually all that bad. It's not a masterpiece, but a lot of video game movies are actually perfectly decent, and this is one of them. It's also a somewhat surprising movie to discover when searching around Disney+ because it’s a rare case where Disney entered into a licensing deal in order to use somebody else’s IP rather than to use its own. 

What Was The Prince Of Persia The Sands Of Time? 

The Sands of Time was an adaption of the same-named 2003 video game that successfully rebooted Prince of Persia as a video game franchise, but while key elements from the game are used, they tell a very different version of the story. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the prince, names Dastan, who accompanies his brothers in an invasion of the holy city of Alamut that is rumored to be producing weapons they plan to use to fight the Persian Empire. 

Dastan’s father is killed following the battle, and the prince is suspected of murdering his father, causing him to flee with Tamina (Gemma Arterton) the princess of Alamut, and a mysterious dagger that it turns out has the ability to reverse time.

The dagger and its abilities come from the game, as does the unlikely, and somewhat unwilling, relationship between the two heroes. The rest of the story is largely new, but it was co-written by Jordan Mechner, the man who created the original game, so it had promise.

Prince Of Persia Was An Attempt To Recreate The Pirates Of The Caribbean Magic

The modern Disney company is still the king of animation, and thanks to the acquisitions of Star Wars and Marvel, it's found success in live-action films as well. But when it comes to purely Disney-branded properties, only the Pirates of the Caribbean films have given the studio its own successful modern live-action franchise. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was an attempt to recreate that same magic, as it came from the same producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

The similarities between the two franchises are pretty easy to see. One could easily envision Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley in the roles played by Gyllenhaal and Arterton. Alfred Molina even plays a sort of comic relief mentor with unclear motives that feel like an attempt to recreate Jack Sparrow, though Molina’s part is significantly smaller. 

The Sands Of Time Isn’t A Lost Masterpiece, But It’s Fun And Worth A Look 

While Prince of Persia The Sands of Time wasn’t a Pirates of the Caribbean size hit, it did become the highest-grossing movie based on a video game up to that point in time. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to transform the film into the franchise it was aiming to be. 

Still, rewatching the movie for the first time since it came out, I can’t argue that I didn’t have some fun with it. Perhaps if it had been given a sequel it could have found its footing and become something excellent. If you have a Disney+ subscription and you happen to come across this one, give it a look.

In 2015, a year dominated by spy movies, the one that stood out for its sheer originality and bold zaniness was Kingsman: The Secret Service - based on Mark Millar’s popular Icon Comics series - which spawned an even more bizarre sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, two years later. Co-writer and director Matthew Vaughn has returned for a third installment called The King’s Man, which will focus on the origins of the titular intelligence agency during the early 20th Century.

Of course, as is the case for most prequels, The King’s Man cast employs a whole new (and very exciting) ensemble, including two-time Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes. We shall start with him as we explore who is playing who (a phrase that may actually have more than one meaning in this case) in one of the most anticipated 2021 movies. 

Ralph Fiennes (Orlando, Duke Of Oxford)

Leading The King’s Man cast as Orlando, a Kingsman member (and the Duke of Oxford), is Ralph Fiennes, who has previous experience in comic book movies (Alfred in The LEGO Batman Movie) and spy movies (James Bond’s “M” since Skyfall). Of course, his most famous franchise is the Harry Potter movies, in which he played the ruthless Voldemort. 

The Shakespearean-trained performer is one of cinema’s most respected British actors today with two Oscar nominations (Schindler’s List in 1993 and 1997’s The English Patient) to prove it. His resume is full of plenty more Oscar-nominated films such as The Constant Gardener from 2005, Martin McDonough’s dark comedy In Bruges in 2008, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, and the animated Kubo and the Two Strings, just to name a few.

Harris Dickinson (Conrad Oxford)

As Ralph Fiennes’ onscreen son, Conrad, in The King’s Man, we have Harris Dickinson, who made his critically acclaimed feature-length film debut in the coming-of-age, LGBTQ+ drama Beach Rats in 2017. The British actor was cast as real-life kidnapping victim J. Paul Getty III in the FX miniseries Trust the following year. 

Also in 2018, he played a telekinetic teen in The Darkest Minds, but had an even bigger year in 2019 when he joined Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance cast as Gurjin and appeared in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil as Prince Phillip. In 2022, Dickinson will appear in another sequel (The Souvenir Part II) and the star-studded mystery drama Where the Crawdads Sing.

Gemma Arterton (Polly Wilkins)

Previously working with Ralph Fiennes in Clash of the Titans before appearing on The King’s Man cast as the trigger-happy Polly Wilkins is Gemma Arterton. The fellow Brit already knows a thing or two about kicking some ass onscreen. 

Gemma Arterton previously appeared in Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla in 2008, the video game movie Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in 2010, and 2013’s action-packed reinterpretation of a Grimm Brothers’ classic, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, as Gretel. Outside of action movies, Arterton has also appeared in comedies like Netflix’s Murdery Mystery and led the cast of the FX/BBC produced, miniseries period drama Black Narcissus in 2020.

Rhys Ifans (Grigori Rasputin)

Playing an exaggerated version of Grigori Rasputin in The King’s Man is an almost completely unrecognizable Rhys Ifans. Like Ralph Fiennes, Ifans is also a veteran of comic book movies (Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012 and 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home), the Harry Potter movies (Xenophilius Lovegood), spy movies (Oliver Stone’s Snowden, if that counts), and playing Oxford-based royalty (Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous in 2011). 

Ifans is also well known for playing Hugh Grant’s roommate in 1999’s Notting Hill and starring in period pieces like Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The fantasy genre has also been a recurrence in Ifans’ career and which will continue with HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones prequel, House of Dragons.

Matthew Goode (Morton)

Our next (and certainly not last) comic book veteran on The King’s Man cast is Matthew Goode. The British actor started getting noticed as Mandy Moore’s love interest in Chasing Liberty and Scarlett Johansson’s cuckolded love interest in Match Point before playing Ozymandias in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen in 2009. 

Goode has also done various period pieces both on the big screen (such as 2008’s Brideshead Revisited and The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch in 2014) and the small screen (he landed recurring roles on both the Downton Abbey cast and on Netflix’s The Crown). In 2022, the Silent Night star will reprise his role as the vampiric Matthew Clairmont on the romantic supernatural drama A Discovery of Witches for its third season.

Tom Hollander (King George/Kaiser Wilhelm/Tsar Nicholas)

Juggling three roles in The King’s Man (namely King George, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Tsar Nicholas) is Tom Hollander. This actor began to gain notoriety as part of the ensemble cast of Robert Altman’s 2001 murder mystery Gosford Park and 2005’s Pride & Prejudice adaptation before playing an antagonist of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies called Lord Cutler Beckett. 

In fact, Tom Hollander has played a number of antagonistic characters, such as Lance Corkoran on the acclaimed AMC miniseries The Night Manager and the unhinged Gary in Netflix’s Bird Box in 2018. Among his better known roles as of late, Hollander played long-time Queen manager Jim Beach in Bohemian Rhapsody and made his comic book adaptation debut on HBO Max’s animated Harley Quinn series as the voice of Alfred Pennyworth in 2020.

Daniel Brühl (Erik Jan Hanussen)

Yet another The King’s Man cast member with previous comic book adaptation experience is the Spanish-born, German-raised Daniel Brühl, who plays real-life Austrian-Jewish charlatan Erik Jan Hanussen in the film. American audiences began to take interest in Daniel Brühl after he played Nazi soldier turned autobiographical movie star Fredrick Zoller on Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds cast. 

However, he is even better known internationally by now as Zemo in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War and on Disney+’s Falcon and the Winter Soldier cast in 2021. He also has two Golden Globes for 2013’s competitor driver biopic Rush and TNT’s suspenseful period drama The Alienist and made his directorial debut in 2021 with the Berlin-set social commentary Next Door, which he also stars in.

Djimon Hounsou (Shola)

As Kingsman agent Shola, we have Djimon Honsou, who has starred in Marvel movies (and lent his voice to Disney+’s What If…? cast) as the Kree warrior Korath. However, he has also appeared in DC movies Constantine, Aquaman, Shazam!. 

Djimon Hounsou also has two Oscar nominations for Steven Spielberg’s Amistad and the International crime thriller Blood Diamond and also starred in the Best Picture-winner Gladiator between them. The King’s Man is only the latest franchise endeavor that Hounsou has participated in after starring in How To Train Your Dragon 2, Furious 7, and A Quiet Place Part II most recently.

Charles Dance (Herbert Kitchener)

As real-life, World War I-era British Army officer Herbert Kitchener, we have Charles Dance, whose long and esteemed career is filled with connections to most of his fellow The King’s Man cast members. He played a Bond villain in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, starred in Gosford Park and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, and  was Tywin Lannister on the Game of Thrones cast. 

Charles Dance also had a recurring role on Netflix's The Crown and will soon star on the streaming platform's series adaptation of the DC comic The Sandman. Dance has also worked with director David Fincher on Alien 3 and the 2020 Netflix original Mank, was part of the Underworld movies cast, and played the main human villain of Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019.

Saving the world has not looked so old school since… well, the first Kingsman movie, probably. For that, you need an ensemble who know what they are doing and that describes The King’s Man cast to a T.

If you’re going to make a mess on a set like co-writer/director Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man, there had better be a good reason to do so. The first prequel in the Kingsman Cinematic Universe definitely has some good excuses to get dirty, as World War I has broken out and the world needs saving. Along for the ride is actor Gemma Arterton, whose career in espionage cinema is about to get a boost thanks to an impressive set-piece for her character Polly. As it turns out, her huge King’s Man shootout was extremely messy, but surprisingly sweet; so much so that it helped the process of shooting the epic explosion of cheese and bullets. 

As shown in the marketing for Vaughn’s latest entry into this ever growing cinematic world of spies, Ms. Arterton’s character is an expert marksman who isn’t afraid to clean up after the messy boys she runs with out in the field. Sometimes that leads to one hell of a mess, and a climactic third act showdown has Polly taking out her foes from the cover of a shack storing wheels of cheese. Hailing bullets aren’t the only distraction, as those dairy parcels all messily explode when struck by the numerous rounds heading her way. Thankfully, as Gemma Arterton told CinemaBlend on behalf of The King’s Man press day, it wasn’t actually cheese she was filming with: 

One take of high intensity “cheese” explosions is certainly enough, especially when it yields the results that are seen in The King’s Man’s trailers and commercials. The scene itself is even more exciting, as Gemma Arterton’s Polly really does clean up the field of battle with her sharpshooting prowess. Much like her fictional counterpart, Arterton only needed one shot to get the job done. Or at least, that’s what she initially thought.

After all of that “one take, because of the mess” business, some time had passed during the production of the film, and it was business as usual for Gemma. Polly continued to break codes, take some well earned shots and even tangled with Rasputin (Rhys Ifans), just as the film required. But then, as Ms. Arterton discussed below, Matthew Vaughn came back with a special request to send her back to custard-soaked hell: 

It may not have been as hellish as one would expect, as Gemma Arterton’s claims of having fun are easily verified by how she tells this story. Not to mention that The King’s Man definitely benefits from the veteran of such films as Quantum of Solace getting to make her own heroic quips and kills in the field. Still, you could imagine what her face must have looked like upon first getting the call to step back into the shack, custard explosions and all. Though it is hard to be mad when the results look like the material shared in this clip dedicated to Polly “the Marksman”: 

The holidays are known for what feels like an explosion of sweet treats for all to enjoy at every turn. It’s only more fitting that Matthew Vaughn and Gemma Arterton got to create a huge scene in The King’s Man that symbolizes that very truth, and in a movie that does take place around the holiday season. Thanks to such memorable tactics, Polly and the rest of the nascent Kingsman organization are hoping to land a powerful blow; both on the battlefield and at a theater near you. 

You can judge for yourself how successful those efforts are, as the movie is set to open tonight in early showings, ahead of its full debut on December 22. Just don’t forget to bring your sweet tooth.

Any actor will tell you, there are some jobs that you shouldn’t take if you can help it. Normally, the role of a Bond Woman is something that could be seen as a blessing, as the role of women in the James Bond franchise has evolved quite a bit in the recent era of films. But when the role is something akin to the classic Bond Girl stereotype, like Gemma Arterton’s Strawberry Fields in 2008’s Quantum of Solace, the opportunity doesn’t feel as golden; especially when there are some who have criticized her for accepting the opportunity.

Arterton discussed as much with The Sun, as she was promoting her new FX/BBC series Black Narcissus. And naturally, whenever someone connected to the Bond legacy is being chatted up, the subject of how they enjoyed their time will come up in conversation. Gemma Arterton explained the changes she would have made, as well as where those criticisms came from, thusly:

In Quantum of Solace, the character of Agent Strawberry Fields did feel like a bit of a regression to the stereotypical Bond Girl archetype. Complete with a ridiculous name, a successful seduction by 007 himself, and a death that worked as a contemporary remix of the same fate met by Jill Masterson in Goldfinger, Gemma Arterton can’t be blamed for her own criticisms of the role in hindsight. Also, those boots must have been a pain to wear, so flat shoes certainly would have been an improvement.

The presence of such a character in Quantum of Solace feels all the weirder when you consider how progressive the dynamic between Daniel Craig’s James Bond and Olga Kurylenko’s Camille Montes was. As there was no romantic connection built into their mission, as James was still mourning the death of the woman he’s previously fallen in love with. The strictly business approach with Camille worked very well in Craig’s second 007 outing. It makes the eventual treatment of Gemma Arterton’s character all the stranger, though the years since her performance as Agent Fields have given her a wide variety of exciting roles to make up for it.

Following her stint in Quantum of Solace, Ms. Arterton’s resume would see would-be blockbusters like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters mingling with more dramatic fare like Their Finest, and most recently the FX/BBC series Black Narcissus. And, potentially most exciting, is the fact that Gemma Arterton is heading back to the world of action packed espionage with her role in The King’s Man. Only this time, she’s going to get to fight as hard as her male counterparts, and with just as many gadgets, in the prequel to the Kingsman franchise.

While it was a step back for women in the James Bond franchise, there’s still some fun to be had with the character of Strawberry Fields. Quantum of Solace sees her being resourceful, witty, and very helpful to James Bond’s mission against Dominic Green. Perhaps if the film wasn’t being made in the middle of an infamous writer’s strike, there could have been some further rewriting that would have elevated the character into more of a modern color. Despite the role being what it is, at the very least we can thank Ms. Fields for introducing the world Gemma Arterton’s talents, and keeping her in the game as long as she’s been.

We’ll have to wait until March 12th to see The King’s Man make its way to theaters, but you can watch all three parts of Black Narcissus with a Hulu subscription. And if there’s more adventure to be had in the new year, you can see it for yourself with our 2021 release schedule.

Big budget movies are often the most highly-anticipated films of a given year. But behind the scenes, some actors purposely steer away from blockbusters due to their own past negative experiences with them. Before the upcoming The King’s Man, Gemma Arterton has had her share of high-profile work. She was a Bond Girl in 2008’s Quantum of Solace and the leading lady in the ancient fantasy pieces Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Gemma Arterton hasn’t had the best luck with her pick of big movies. Quantum of Solace isn't one of the more popular Daniel Craig’s Bond films. Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia critically and/or commercially flopped. She hasn’t returned to a big film in some time, but The King’s Man was a different story. Here’s what she recently said about her experience on the prequel:

The actress could be thinking back to a past experience on a movie set where she was forced to lose weight. A few years ago, she opened up about being measured and told what to eat and not to eat by a “big, fat, obese producer.” And she was talking about dried apricots! By the way, one dried apricot is eight calories. She called the experience on the unnamed movie “traumatic.”

Her Prince of Persia costar Jake Gyllenhaal stopped signing onto blockbuster films for nearly a decade following their experience on the Disney adventure. He recently said he “learned a lot from that movie” and from then on picked his roles much more carefully. Gyllenhaal just returned to the blockbutser realm to play Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home.

The King’s Man is Matthew Vaughn’s prequel film to his successful Kingman films starring Taron Egerton’s Eggsy and Colin Firth’s Harry. This movie will turn back the clock a century to a time before the secret service agency was as well-established. Gemma Arterton plays a working-class character named Polly who runs a covert network of “cleaners” and “butlers” placed in locations around the world to be spies.

In her recent inteview with Harper’s Bazaar, Gemma Arterton described her character of Polly as the “brainiest person in the room.” She joins an impressive cast including Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode, Stanley Tucci, Daniel Brühl, Djimon Hounsou and Rhys Ifans, who will actually play the legendary Rasputin.

When CinemaBlend’s own Gabe Kovacs visited the set of The King’s Man back in early 2019, writer/director Matthew Vaughn said the movie holds relevance to a modern audience, even if it takes place circa World War I. The King’s Man helmer believes the film’s time period has many parallels to the current political climate. Although the year means there will be less cool gadgets to look forward to from the film.

The King’s Man is coming to theaters on September 18.

We spend quite a bit of time talking about how actors physically prepare for roles -- particularly in big-budget action movies. However, Chris Pratt's "What's My Snack" and other fun social media moments sometimes belie the fact that not all of losing weight for a movie is a cakewalk, or even pleasant. In fact, Gemma Arterton recently spoke out about the process of filming a movie and confessed that people on the set reportedly pressured her not to eat, even going so far as to have her filmed while she worked out. The actress revealed:

In principle, Gemma Arterton doesn't necessarily seem to have an issue with the personal trainer or her requirement to stay in shape for the project. Movies (particularly tentpole action films) are intensive endeavors that demand performers to remain in top physical form. Her problem with this particular situation (which she eventually referred to as "traumatic") seems to lie more with the fact that she appears to view the perceived micromanagement of her diet and workout schedule as an overreach. With this mentality, we can marvel at the physiques of superhero actors like Josh Brolin or Ray Fisher all we want, but if Arterton was guilted into losing weight, that's less marvelous.

Gemma Arterton did not mention this specific film by name during her appearance on The Guilty Feminist podcast, but some have already begun to theorize about the possible film in question. The former Bond girl has previously spoken out about the uncomfortable process of losing weight for her role as Tamina in 2010's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, so that certainly seems like a viable option. Beyond that, the video game adaptation filmed in Morocco, which means that could be the production referred to in her comments. Prince of Persia star Jake Gyllenhaal notably increased his own muscle tone for the movie as well, so it would obviously prove interesting to be able to go back and see how the production monitored his diet and workout schedule at the time, too.

In the years since this incident reportedly took place, Gemma Arterton has fashioned herself as a champion for the equal treatment of women in the film industry. She claims that her personal ideals have caused her to miss out on roles, but she feels it is worth it to stand for equality between actors and actresses. That said, she seems to have remained fairly busy in recent years (with stellar performances in films like The Girl With All The Gifts and Their Finest), so it looks like she's continuing to find success on her terms.

If you're looking for more information related to the rest of 2017's major theatrical releases, then take a look at our movie premiere guide and fill out your moviegoing calendars accordingly!

Here’s a sentence you should be quite used to hearing at this point: Netflix is putting together a fantastic sounding series that a cast of superstars have signed on to join. In this particular case, it’s a miniseries adaptation of the classic novel Watership Down, and the four actors with their names and voices in the hat are Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ John Boyega, Iron Man 3 villain Ben Kingsley, X-Men leader James McAvoy, X-Men beast-man Nicholas Hoult, and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters’ Gemma Arterton. Feel free to stand there with your mouth gaping open for a while.

This new take on Watership Down, which will be told across four hour-long installments, will be a co-production with the BBC, which explains why this whole cast comes from across the pond. It also implies that the subject matter will be treated with staunch maturity, lest anyone fear this project would resemble the Dreamworks Animation spinoffs that Netflix is fond of picking up. It’s hard to imagine this classic story being told with anything less than steely-eyed seriousness.

Published in 1972, Watership Down is author Richard Adams’ powerful tale of anthropomorphized rabbits navigating the dangers of the surrounding world in escaping the impending demolition of their warren. This new take will be written by My Big Fat Diary’s Tom Bidwell and directed by 300: Rise of an Empire helmer Noam Murro. The novel was famously made into the somewhat disturbing 1978 feature from Martin Rosen, as well as an animated TV series, so it’ll be interesting to see how this version will compare and if it will be worth the effort.

A badass in live-action, John Boyega will get on with more of the same in animation as Bigwig, named for his fluffy appearance. He is the rabbit who knows how to fight better than most, and his size is a big help there. If you want someone to take on a tough job, you call up Bigwig.

James McAvoy will handle main character duties as Hazel, a leader among bunnies whose talents aren’t limited to getting others motivated and inspired to further the cause. Something that someone who plays Charles Xavier should have no problem with.

Hazel’s younger brother Fiver will be voiced by Nicholas Hoult. Fiver is the one who sees the trouble coming to the Sandleford warren. With his visions comes wisdom, as well as the feeling of responsibility for the things that he sees.

No stranger to playing villains, Ben Kingsley will take on voicing the antagonist General Woundwort, the Chief of Efrafa whose single-mindedness helps him capable of seemingly anything he wants. His reputation precedes him, and his efforts will not be taken lightly.

As the soft Angora rabbit Clover, Gemma Arterton won’t be playing a character as important as the rest, but her role has changed from one adaptation to the next. The fact that Arterton is voicing her probably means the Hutch rabbits will play a decent enough role in the story.

There were other castings as well. According to TheWrap, Broadchurch star Olivia Colman will voice Strawberry, English comedian Miles Jupp will play Blackberry, Victor Frankenstein’s Freddie Fox will voice Captain Holly and Suffragette’s Anne-Marie Duff will take on Hyzenthlay.

Netflix has been busy lately. Earlier today, the streaming giant ordered up another season of Wet Hot American Summer, and there are roughly a billion shows coming in the future. It’s not clear exactly when we’ll get to see Watership Down hitting the binge-ready service, but we imagine the animation will take a while. At least there are only four hours, though. And considering how rarely Netflix likes to end shows, we can probably expect an announcement for a Tales from Watership Down adaptation coming in the future.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters had some seriously mixed reactions from its viewership. There were horror-comedy fans out there, who absolutely adored it, while on the polar opposite side, many critics called it a flop. Either way, talk about a sequel has been going on since the first film’s release in 2013. Last year, word came out that we’d be seeing a Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 2 hitting theaters sometime in 2016, but a couple months later, the project took a huge blow when filmmaker Tommy Wirkola walked away from the sequel. Now, word on the block is that the sequel is back on with a new helmer at the lead, French director Bruno Aveillan.

The news is still currently being treated as rumor as The Tracking Board is claiming to have exclusive info from a source close to the project. According to the publication, Paramount is looking to add some more excitement to the franchise, and is currently searching for a new writer to pen the Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton sequel. But, they have apparently added the renowned director Bruno Aveillan to the project, and the sequel is moving forward. No further plot details have been shared, but it will continue to follow-up with the witch-hunting brother/sister duo, most likely going up against an even greater threat. The studio apparently wants a rewrite pumping up the excitement in Tommy Wirkola’s script, so we can’t be sure how different it will be than the original helmer’s intention.

Bruno Aveillan seems like an odd choice to attach to the comedy-horror franchise. The renowned director no doubt has a hefty creative resume, but is far more recognized for his experimental art/directing, and work in the fashion industry as well as with many established international stars on commercials and advertisements. Aveillan was originally set to break into the studio feature world with a Universal fairy tale spin. The Cinderella feature, with a script written by Ann Peacock (writer of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe screenplay) didn’t move forward. Now it sounds like he may be getting another shot in the fairy tale film genre which happens to be increasingly popular these days.

Though there’s no official statement that the stars will return, last time we chatted with Jeremy Renner several months back, he implied that there would definitely be a sequel to the witch hunting adventure but he was not signed on with the project, implying that they were probably just waiting for the script to be written to reach out to the stars. If the latest news proves to be true, the ordered rewrite should hopefully be done in due time, and while we aren’t looking at the 2016 release date previously promised, at least things are moving forward. It sure will be interesting to see what this prominent artist's take on the supernatural duo will be, especially as his feature film debut.

Up until now, the only screenplays that Christopher Nolan has written have also been directed by him, but that pattern is about to change in a major way. Variety is reporting out of the Toronto International Film Festival that Gemma Arterton and Tim Roth are now set to star in The Keys to the Street, an adaptation of the Ruth Rendell novel of the same name that has been adapted by Nolan and co-writer Michael Stokes.

According to Amazon, the story centers on a woman named Mary Jargo (Arterton). As a means to get away from her psychotic ex-boyfriend (Roth), she takes a job housesitting in Regent Park - one of the most snobbish areas of the city - and while doing so begins to help and feed the homeless people who live nearby, as nobody else in the neighborhood will. After befriending a group of homeless people, Mary discovers that some of them are being murdered and having their heads put on the spiked fence that surrounds the park. The heroine takes it upon herself to solve the murder, and in doing so begins to come out of her shell and face her own personal demons. Also set to star in the film is Max Irons (Red Riding Hood), who will play a man that Mary has an affair with.

Czech director Julius Sevcik is officially attached to direct the film, and production is scheduled to begin at the start of next year in London. According to the trade, the project has been in development for years now with Arterton long attached to play the lead role. Said Executive Producer Kirk D’Amico in a statement, “We think that audiences will love how Christopher Nolan and Michael Stokes have adapted this popular English mystery novel… with a dark edge." Given that Nolan's previous credits include Inception, The Prestige and Memento there's plenty of reason to be excited.

Arterton had a sizable hit earlier this year when she starred in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, which wound up making $225 million globally on a $50 million budget. She will next be seen staring in the Brad Furman-directed thriller Runner Runner with Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck. You can watch the trailer for the movie below:

Roth, meanwhile, most recently did some work in France with writer/director Eric Rochant, starring alongside Jean Dujardin and Cecile De France in Mobius. Later this year he will have a major role starring alongside Nicole Kidman, Frank Langella, Parker Posey and more in Grace of Monaco, the Oliver Dahan-directed Grace Kelly biopic that's expected to be making an Oscar run this fall.

When a film’s subject matter almost guarantees it won’t be one of the year’s biggest movies, the print side of an advertising campaign will often trade in plotlines for good looking actors and actresses. Is a thriller about offshore gambling not quite your cup of tea? What about a thriller starring the eternally youthful Justin Timberlake?

That’s what the marketing team behind The Lincoln Lawyer director Brad Furman’s Runner Runner are hoping, as they’ve released three colorful character posters for the film, courtesy of the IMP Awards website. Obviously this is all a sweeping generalization, as I have no insider information on Runner Runner’s target audience, but it seems like pretty solid conjecture. Timberlake and co-star Ben Affleck have a solid fanbase who will go and see anything these guys put out – and Gemma Arterton as well, I suppose – so it’s sometimes best just to hang onto the actors over a film’s storyline.

Why am I straight hating on debt and offshore gambling as the defining elements of this movie? I don’t know really. Runner Runner just looks like a hundred other midrange thrillers that populate the non-tentpole summer landscape. Which isn’t to say it won’t stand far above the lackluster tripe, but I’m not sure the below posters, showcasing Affleck and Arterton, make me feel that much better about it.

In fact, both of the above images were already seen in the film’s first poster released last month, even though Timberlake is looking off in a different direction. They're not all that dissimilar to the second poster either. You can see both of them below for proof.

So I’m just saying if this movie was truly amazing, it probably would have sprung for better posters. So what is this plotline I keep needlessly criticizing?

Timberlake plays Richie Furst, a college student who blows all of his tuition money playing online poker. He figures out how to crack the website and figures out it’s being run from a remote island by the corrupt Ivan Block (Affleck), who soon takes Richie in as his protégé. An FBI agent (Anthony Mackie) attempts to get Richie to turn on his boss, and the pressure reaches its boiling point.

While you’re wondering why Mackie didn’t get his own stylish poster, check out the film’s trailer below, and judge for yourself how investing a plotline this is when Runner Runner releases in theaters on September 27, 2013.

In 1994, Neil Jordan gave movie vampires a sexy makeover with his brooding adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire. Nineteen years later, he's taken on another adaptation of a vampire drama, this one based on the play Byzantium by Moira Buffini. Unfortunately, despite offering plenty of blood and sexual content, his latest vampire tale lacks bite and sex appeal.

Saoirse Ronan stars as the tormented Eleanor Webb, an eternal 16-year-old who has lived with her mother Clara (Gemma Arterton) for over 200 years. They scrape by with the money the latter earns through sex work. But don't expect the frantic frenzy of high-speed sex seen on True Blood. Despite implied heightened senses, there's little supernatural about these two, beyond their ability to live forever, take a beating, and grow their thumbnails to be the perfect piercing tool for severing a victim's veins. These vampires don't even have fangs.

Having stripped away so many of the standard vampire tropes, Byzantium feels lacking, missing out on a long-established and engaging mythos. Buffini does attempt to build one of her own, which involves a sexist and classist brotherhood of vampires that sees these women as abominations. It's an interesting backstory, but one unfortunately drawn out through a series of staggered flashbacks. These clunky leaps from past to present make the film feel like an eternity, and sadly the past's plot is far more interesting than the present. The former centers on the fiery Clara and features rape, revenge, rebirth, and redemption, while the latter is led by a gratingly angst-ridden and painfully passive teen who silently hates her mother and endlessly wallows in resentment.

While Ronan's gorgeous blue eyes try to bring some life to the role of Eleanor, she's such a passive character that it's a chore to follow her as she mopes around, killing those close to death and pining for a mortal boy with a very old-school look (Caleb Landry Jones). It's a shame that so much of the story centers on her when Clara is so active and Arterton so vibrant. But even with solid supporting turns from Jonny Lee Miller, Daniel Mays, Maria Doyle Kennedy (Downton Abbey), and Tom Hollander (Hanna), Byzantium is meandering and lifeless, much like its maudlin protagonist. It's a shame. I was really looking forward to this one.

For our complete Tribeca Film Festival coverage, click here.

Long before Twilight dominated the pop culture landscape, director Neil Jordan had women swooning over the elegant undead with the Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt vehicle Interview With a Vampire. Nearly twenty years has passed, and as a follow-up to his work on the bloody historical drama series The Borgias, Jordan has returned to vampire tales with Byzantium. But this time around, we find the female of the species may be more deadly than the male.

Based on the play by Moira Buffini, this drama centers on two vampires, mother and daughter, who have "lived" side by side for two centuries before their world was thrown into spin by a deadly pact. Gemma Arterton of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Saoirse Ronan of Hanna star as mother Clara and daughter Eleanor respectively. We got a sneak peek of each as set photos and a gorgeous still were released as well as a poster. Now, you can see them in action thanks to the film's international trailer, viewable below:

Revealing rich colors, a moody tone and loads of drama, this trailer is gorgeous and compelling. But as a major fan of Interview With a Vampire, I expected nothing less. Then while Arterton plus Ronan is a strong beginning, this vampire drama's cast also boasts a strong supporting cast that includes Jonny Lee Miller (TV's Elementary), Caleb Landry Jones (The Last Excorcism), and Tom Hollander, who last menaced Ronan in Hanna as a whistling hit man. In short, this looks like it should be scintillating and sensational.

Byzantium had its world premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. Its theatrical release will begin in Russia on April 11th, with openings in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Brazil to follow. IFC Films will be distributing Stateside, but no release date has yet been announced.

With eye-catching appearances in Quantum of Solace, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Clash of the Titans, English beauty Gemma Arterton has become a sort of go-to girl when a macho movie needs some sultry eye candy. Notably, this sort of sexy sidelining is not really a reflection of Arterton's talent—critics generally cheered her starring role in Stephen Frear's plucky dramedy Tamara Drewe—but rather the tiresome trap that many young, lovely and vaguely exotic ingénues fall into. But hey, if stepping into this niche allows Arterton to share screen time with some of the world's most sought after leading men while snagging some sizeable paychecks, it's not all bad…even when the movies are.

Nonetheless, Arterton continues to be a hot property in Hollywood, and Variety reports she has signed on to her next arm-candy role, which will put her alongside Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake in the upcoming thriller Runner Runner. The film focuses on a Princeton student—played by Timberlake—whose online poker hobby loses him his tuition money, before ultimately landing him at the side of the shady website's proprietor, played by Affleck. How Arterton's character factors into the plot is unknown as her role is solely listed as "Timberlake's love interest;" however, if Runner Runner is a typical thriller, it's likely this love interest will have little more to do than be a possible victim of her beau's dangerous life choices. In other words: yawn.

Perhaps the long-delayed Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, in which she co-stars with Jeremy Renner as a bounty hunter-styled reinterpretation of the fairy tale kids, will prove a chance for Arterton to show what she can do in a meatier action role. But with a release date bumped to January, a traditional dumping ground on the release schedule, it looks like this action feature will not be her salvation from these thankless girlfriend/love interest/sex object roles.

Runner Runner will shoot late June in Puerto Rico.

Haunting leading man Sam Riley, best known for playing tortured Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis in Control, has joined the cast of Neil Jordan’s vampire fantasy thriller Byzantium, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Riley will play Darvell, a man allegedly caught in the middle of a deadly pact formed between a mother-daughter vampire pair, played by the seductively alluring Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan. The casting news was confirmed in a trade report that Jordan’s production will receive crucial funding from the Irish Film Board, which was announced yesterday. "The investment by the IFB in Byzantium will ensure that the project can be produced in Ireland, bringing with it international investment and ensuring Irish talent are attached to it," producer Alan Moloney said.

Jordan’s film is being adapted by Moira Buffini from her own stage play. In addition to the aforementioned leads, Jordan has cast Daniel Mays, Caleb Landry Jones and Uri Gavriel, according to IMDB.

Jordan is drastically shifting gears with a vampire thriller, coming off of the lyrical mermaid romance Ondine, with Colin Farrell. Then again, Jordon is nothing if not unpredictable. His last three efforts have been Ondine, the vengeance drama The Brave One with Jodie Foster, and Breakfast on Pluto, which isn’t easy to categorize. All three were excellent, though, and I expect big things from Byzantium, particularly with the cast Jordan has put together. He’s filming now, so expect to see it in theaters by the end of 2012.

Vampires have infested our pop culture. They’re in our books, on our television sets, and swarming across our movie screens. At the very least, this latest vampire project sounds more interesting than a Twilight sequel … on the other hand, everything sounds more interesting than a Twilight sequel.

Oscar winner Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Michael Collins) has signed on for Byzantium, and he’s lining up Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton as his vampire leads, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Moira Buffini’s original script tells the story of a mother-daughter team of vampires who sometimes pose as siblings to lure their prey. Jordan will reunite with longtime producer Stephen Woolley to help get this project off the ground, and they're eyeing an October start date for the production.

“I love the horror genre and we’ve been working on this for three or four years. I sent it to Neil and he liked the script,” Woolley told the trade.

The good thing about Jordan is he’s fully capable of circumventing the traps of any genre, which is why Ondine wasn’t a conventional mermaid movie and The Brave One was a much-better-than-average vengeance thriller. I’m excited to see what he can do with Ronan, who has delivered a pair of powerful performances for Joe Wright (most recently in Hanna) and no doubt will thrive under Jordan’s leadership and direction.

Despite the fact that it was, uh, Clash of the Titans, the sword-and-sandals disaster spectacular directed by Louis Leterrier managed to make $493.2 million worldwide earlier this year, helped partly by the fact that it opened in the spring without much competition around it. And while we have plenty of reasons to expect the forthcoming sequel to go better, new director Jonathan Liebesman being the biggest one, there's no reason for Warner Bros. to fix the one thing that wasn't broke the first time: the release date. According to Coming Soon, the studio has set Clash of the Titans 2-- probably called Wrath of the Titans-- for March 30, 2012 release date.

This also makes sense given what Liam Neeson said a week ago about shooting starting in March. A little under a year of post-production on a project this big sounds pretty necessary, especially given how much heat they took for the lousy special effects the second time around. Sam Worthington will be reprising his role as half-god warrior Perseus, with Neeson and Ralph Fiennes also back to play squabbling gods. Gemma Arterton, who seemed unsure about her participation a few months ago, seems to at least be contractually obligated to return as well. I'm sure she's hoping, as we all are, that things go a little better this time around.

Rip Torn has decided to spend his waning years as some sort of crazed alcoholic who will probably end up in prison, so that means he’s definitely out of the picture when Men in Black 3 gets up and running. In the previous two movies Torn played Zed, the head of the Men in Black organization. They’ve may have found the perfect replacement. Pajiba says it’s Alec Baldwin.

The genius thing about this is that Baldwin, in addition to being a comedic demi-god, already has experience taking Rip Torn’s job. The two were paired up on 30 Rock, back before Torn went nuts. Alec’s Jack Donaghy character was the apprentice and successor of Torn’s billionaire corporate mega-mogul. This time he’ll actually end up playing Rip Torn’s predecessor, the head of MIB back in 1969. As we learned a few months ago Men in Black 3 will involve time travel.

According to the report Baldwin is currently in negotiations to join the cast, as are Gemma Arterton and District 9’s Sharlto Copely. Arterton will be a secretary back in the 1969 version of the MIB and Copely will play what Pajiba describes as a “fast-talking Yoda type alien”. Copley has made the transition from hanging out with aliens to actually becoming one.

Already in the cast along with Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith reprising their traditional MIB roles, is Jemaine Clement. Like Copley he’s playing an alien, but he’s the movie’s villain.

There are two Gemma Artertons working in movies today, each with a completely separate fanbase. If you're a fan of loud, somewhat empty action movies you've seen Arterton in Clash of the Titans, Quantum of Solace or Prince of Persia, and like her for being a beautiful if somewhat mute sidekick to the male hero of the piece. If you're a fan of other kinds of movies, like the dark kidnapping drama The Disappearance of Alice Creed or the newly released Stephen Frears comedy Tamara Drewe, you may have met the Gemma Arterton who takes chances, who is consciously trying to get away from the giant blockbusters that made her famous and prove that she's far more than a pretty face amidst the explosions.

The fact that Arterton is so frank about the fact that those blockbusters-- none of them well-received critically-- weren't rewarding to her, and the fact that she's making these weird little movies at all, makes her one of the most interesting actresses working today who everyone wants to brush off. In Tamara Drewe, based on Posy Simmonds' graphic novel that itself was inspired by Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd, Arterton plays the titular character, a London-based columnist who causes a huge stir when she moves back out to the country home where she grew up. I talked to Arterton about the movie's own criticism of paparazzi culture and how it relates to her own fame, making a movie that no one necessarily expected to be a comedy, and why, much as she loves it, she really doesn't think Tamara Drewe is going to win an Oscar. The movie is out now in limited release.

The movie parodies celebrity in this interesting way, and there's so much crazy stuff out there written about you. You're kind of like the character in that way. It seems like the parody element would be familiar to you.

I think it's funny to highlight things like that, especially using actors who can parody themselves in a way. In the UK it's become this obsession more than anywhere. I find it's time that we start making movies about this weird culture that we now live in. People think they have access to people, or they idealize people that are absolutely destroyed inside but look great from the outside, and how hopeless that is. Ii don't have much experience on that front, but i definitely have a little insight. It's something that baffles me, and I've consciously detached myself as much as I can from it.

You had that year or two where you were all of a sudden everywhere ,in big movie after big movie, and you seem to be kind of consciously backing away from that.

Yeah, I never really thought that I'd work in film. It's such an intangible thing. I didn't expect to be in those types of movies, and I got very carried away with taking on jobs for the sake of it, and just doing it. I didn't really think about the repercussions or what I wanted out of a career. I just wanted to act. I've learned a lot in that time, and I've really been able to reflect, about I don't want to get typecast, because that's utterly boring for me. i've always been interested in very raw performances, dark, not pretty, not perfect. I seem to be playing these girls that are just arm candy really. Even though the producers try to justify that they are this, that or the other, it isn't that. It is pretty much what it is. For me I think it's much more representative of me to do these more eclectic [roles]-- and it interests me. And also the experience is kind of more rewarding. It's more intimate, you get more out of it.

You don't really know how to feel about Tamara for a lot of the movie. Even at the end you don't know if she's the heroine.

Yeah, she's kind of the anti-heroine in a way. Out of all the characters in this piece, she's the closest to the Far from the Madding Crowd character. She is completely that promiscuous, selfish, but utterly charming, and additive and intoxicating. I remember when I read it I said, I don't know if I could play her, because i can't work her out-- which is exactly why I needed to play her. Ultimately you like her because you can relate to her. A lot of women can relate to her in some degree. Everyone has had that time in their life where they're going, "What did I just do? How on earth did I do that, and how do I stop it?" And kind of delight in the thought of it afterwards. She's not perfect, and that's kind of refreshing.

When this premiered at Cannes, some people really loved it and some really hated it. Do you think people didn't expect the movie to be as funny as it is, being a Stephen Frears movie?

Honestly it really is strange, this film. It doesn't tick any specific boxes in terms of genre, and neither does Stephen. The film is a peculiar thing, and people don't know how to take it. When I saw the script I felt the same. "I like this, it made me laugh, but I don't know what it is, and how on earth are we going to achieve this?" It's a very understated film. I think if it were in anybody else's hands it would have gone terribly wrong, but Stephen got it right somehow. He doesn't put pressure on himself, and he doesn't expect himself to create a masterpiece every time.

That's a rare attitude.

Yeah. Someone said to me the other day, such bloody nonsense, they said "Oh, are you excited about this being considered for an Oscar?" and I said, "Have you seen the movie?" I'm not putting it down, because I love it, but it's not going to get an Oscar. None of us intended that. Why is it that everyone thinks that if you make a movie you want to get an Oscar. Sometimes you just make movies for the fun of it.

A rumor popped up last week that had everybody buzzing: Gemma Arterton to play the new Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott's Alien prequel. A representative for the actress was quick to shut it down, saying that there was "no truth" to the story, but Arterton is saying something completely different.

Entertainment Weekly had a chance to speak with the actress, who is currently at the Toronto International Film Festival, and she confirmed that she has been in discussions about the film, saying, "“The honest truth is that Ridley Scott has approached me to meet with him about something in the next few weeks. He saw Alice Creed and loved it.” This however, means nothing as Scott currently has not only the Alien prequels coming up, but also the Monopoly movie, The Kind One, a Gucci biopic, Stoker, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Truly any of those films could include a role for a hot British actress. Arterton went on to say that she would be more than happy to be in the prequels, however, saying, "I’d love to get buff. But maybe I’ll be playing an alien! I wouldn’t mind that, actually. I like dressing up. That’s why I became an actor in the first place."

We'll likely hear more about this story in the coming weeks, but, for now, don't get too excited. There is just as much chance that Arterton will be the new Ellen Ripley as there is that she will be playing Mr. Moneybags' wife.

If you’ve only seen Gemma Arterton in big budget productions like Quantum of Solace, Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia, you’re really missing out. Lucky for you, Arterton has something new hitting theaters on August 6th and while The Disappearance of Alice Creed may not have been showered with cash and effects like those other productions, it’s certainly far more powerful.

Arterton stars as Alice Creed, the poor young woman Vic and Danny (Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston) target in their kidnapping scheme. They confine their terrified victim to a room while they move along with their plan to make some quick cash at her expense. What Vic and Danny don’t know is that Alice has no intentions of being a good hostage and obeying their orders; she wants to fight back and survive.

For someone who only knows big budget Gemma, Alice Creed Gemma is absolutely going to blow them away. The actress was well aware of the stereotype she was developing and signed on for this project in an effort to show what she’s capable of and boy does she, but it wasn’t easy. During our recent chat, Arterton talked about the difficulties that came along with playing the role as well as the massive payoff and so much more. Check it all out in the interview below.

How’d you get involved? Did the just script come your way or did J approach you?

No, he didn’t. The script came my way because the casting director, Lucy [Bevan], is an advocate of mine, but J wasn’t really at the time because he’d only seen me in [Quantum of Solace]. She said to him, ‘Oh, you should meet Gemma,’ and he was like, ‘I don’t know. I don’t think she’s up to it. Is she? I mean, she’s a Bond girl.’ But Lucy said, ‘Just meet her.’ Anyway, so I came in and I didn’t know any of this, I just came in and I loved the script and I really wanted to do it and had to do this really demanding scene in the audition, which is just horrible to have to do that in the audition, but I did it.

He offered it to me on the spot and then when he told me that story months later, I said, ‘How could you have made such an assumption?’ He said, ‘Well, you know.’ I said, ‘Fair enough.’ That’s the reason I did the movie as well, because I had an idea that people are thinking that I couldn’t do this sort of movie and I needed to test myself. Until then if I was going up for stuff it was always the girl who is in love with the guy, the girl who is hot, the girl who is oh whatever, no substance, no interest. And then this one came along and I was like, wow. First of all, she’s a woman, she’s not just a girl and she’s flawed and complex and she’s kind of like an animal in this film and it would require some acting. [Laughs] But also, more than the role, it was the film itself. I just loved the story. For a British film as well it was so tight and it felt European, French. It felt like a movie I would go and see. My favorite directors are like [Michael] Haneke and [Lars] von Trier. It had that kind of feel.

Even if this is the type of material you want to work with, it’s still tough stuff to handle. Did you have any apprehensions about it?

No, there wasn’t apprehension, it was more fear of not being able to do it. I’d wake up in the morning and dread the scene ahead, not for the physical demands, but I didn’t know if I was able to convey what the scene needed; act it, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to act it because I’ve never been terrified in my life. I didn’t really know how you act that.

Wow, you would never think that!

Oh, thank you. I don’t know, I just work with the actors really. Every time I got freaked out that I wasn’t going to be able to do it, Martin or Eddie would give me this amazing performance, which you can’t help but be affected by. And that was how we did it really. I just used to get myself worked up into a state and they would then come in and we did the scene and it was really full on. Some days I was crying all day and I’d be like, ‘I don’t want to cry anymore!’ I really would try not to cry and I couldn’t see at the end of one day and J was going, ‘Just one more,’ and you’re not really supposed to do that to your body. You’re not really supposed to put yourself into that position. It was really exhausting, but it was so satisfying, the most satisfying job I’ve ever done.

Did you have any rehearsal time with Martin and Eddie or even just some time to get to know each other and get a little more comfortable with each other?

I think, as an actor anyway, you get used to not having that time really. You kind of get to know each other as the job goes on. We kind of all threw ourselves into this situation and everybody knew we were going to just trust each other. But we did, we had three days of rehearsal, three days to like five days or something of rehearsal, which was mostly spent rehearsing the moves of the kidnap, which is kind of a real icebreaker, ‘Hello, my name is Gemma, now you can carry me and I’ll kick and scream and punch and then you can pretend to be cutting off my clothes.’ I learned very quickly that these were people to trust and they were very respectful, ultra respectful actually, too respectful to some degree because they were very careful with me.

I swear to God, in my short career I’ve worked with some amazing actors, some of the best actors in the world, but I’ve never felt anything like what I felt in this film because they just went for it and they gave me everything that they had every single time, even if the camera wasn’t on them. And I’d do the same for them; you get something out of doing that. I’ve worked on movies before where the actor doesn’t hang around for the reverse and you have to do it to ‘x’ and the box and whatever and it’s so not acceptable in my book. You get so much out of reacting off of somebody. And so they would just do that and they would stop, check I was all right, snap out of character, be silly and jump on the bed and then they’d get back into it. Proper acting, none of this walking around as the character all day, it was proper acting, snapping in and out.

Where’d this one fall in terms of all of the other films you’ve done?

[Alice Creed] happened right in between Prince of Persia and Clash, so I just finished Prince of Persia, which was six months, I went on to do this, which was a month, took a week or so off and went and did Clash.

This was a fast shoot.

Four weeks, which is nuts. I don’t think it ever happens where you make a feature in four weeks. The minimum I’ve done is nine weeks before this.

Were they ridiculously long days?

Because we were working in a studio most of the time we didn’t have the light issue, so I think we were starting at like eight and finishing at eight, which is a usual day I suppose.

Sounds pretty reasonable.

But it just felt like forever. [Laughs] And also, we were doing six-day weeks, so it was really full on. But it was right that it was full on because it was a relentless piece and we all needed to be like, ahhh, all the way through it, so I didn’t really get a breather. Martin didn’t get it. I think he had one day off, Martin, because he’s in pretty much every scene. It was really exhausting, but the characters are exhausted. It all fed in, it all worked. We were filming it on this island, called The Isle of Man, which is really close to the mainland in England, but not quite, so you really are sort of stranded there. So we weren’t able to go back home and it was a bit claustrophobic and we were all feeling a bit of cabin fever when were making it, which actually worked.

What’s it like going from massive production to something smaller like this?

It is a different world. I just felt liberated to be honest. Even though making a big budget movie is thrilling because you see all these special effects and stunts and amazing costumes and sets and the money is just being chucked at everything and you don’t have to use your imagination much because everything is there. You can also, on the flipside of that, get completely lost within that and the story can get lost within that as well. The spectacle takes over. I was just like, ‘Oh what is it, acting again? Oh yeah.’ I need to find a piece where I can really act and it’s not about anything but the story and telling the story in the best simplest way possible. It was liberating because we didn’t ever think this movie was going to be a #1 box office hit, that it was going to change the world or change movie making; it was always just a movie that we wanted to make. There was no expectation of it. We didn’t even think that people were going to like it really because of the content. We knew it would shock or it would make people feel uneasy.

The first portion of the film is certainly hard to watch, but when you get past it, you realize how necessary it was.

It’s true. That was my initial reaction when I started reading the script because I was like, ‘They want me to play woman, the woman?’ She was called ‘woman’ and she’s woman being kidnapped and it was kind of like, why would I want to play this, it’s horrid. But it was, it was necessary. She’s petrified, she thinks she’s going to die, she thinks she’s going to be raped, she thinks all of these terrible things happening to her, then she’s humiliated and so she hates these people and you need to see her be that humiliated so that you’re on her side when she gets it. I remember then I was like, ‘Oh, okay, alright.’ The audience is just about to walk out when it changes, just about to. I think if it had gone on for a minute longer they would walk out. [J’s] very clever in that way. He really knows film and he’s a real film geek, he really loves it and dissects films and really knows about it. It was really great working with someone that planned everything so meticulously because this was his first movie, this was his baby. And so we didn’t need to worry about anything; he was on it.

That’s unbelievable for a first feature.

It’s funny because he’s a friend of mine, now, and we hook up occasionally. Ever since this film screened at Toronto last year, it’s just taken off for him. He gets like six scripts a week sent to him with offers of huge money and all that and I love him because he’s still not found the right thing even though he’s getting offered everything. He really cares about the integrity of filmmaking. I really hope that he finds the right thing and just becomes the well-respected director that he deserves to be because he’s a real talent.

So what else do you have coming up?

I have another film coming out in about two months called Tamara Drewe, which I love. I’m really proud of it. It was my favorite job ever to work on; I had the best time on it. Stephen Frears directed that and it’s kind of black comedy. Very British, but it’s very well received. It’s already out in France and there are pictures of me in these bloody hot pants everywhere. I can’t stand the hot pants shots, sorry [laughs]. Anyway, so there’s that and then I’m doing a play in London over Christmas called The Master Builder with Steve Dillane and then next year I will be doing Clash, but I’ve got a few other really exciting films happening, but I can’t talk about them yet because they’re not 100%. But it’s all starting to go into the direction that I feel like, yeah, it’s because of this movie, because of Tamara Drewe, I’m starting to get the roles that interest me, that I really want to make.

Is that a hint that you’re doing more comedy?

Actually, no. One of them is kind of weird, like really weird and another one is sort of comedic in its kind of strangeness as well, but not particularly, not necessarily; quite serious.

We’ve seen Gemma Arterton in two big budget productions this year alone, Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia, and though neither represent what she’s capable of as an actress, she'll be back for more. During a chat about her upcoming film, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Arterton revealed that her role in Clash 2 is likely to be small, and even admitted which of the two blockbusters she liked better.

She confirmed that she'll appear in the Clash sequel, but didn't really sound all that enthusiastic about either the movie itself or her contractually obligated role in it:

Acknowledging that Clash was drubbed by critics even though it was a hit, Arterton said, “To be honest, I just don’t know what is going on in the film industry. I was talking to a director yesterday who I love and he always makes brilliant films and he goes, ‘Oh, I struggle to make my films.’ I’m like, ‘How? Your films are amazing! How?’” She continued, “How can something like ‘x’ get made and get so much money put into it and they don’t even know what the script is sometimes and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll put up $200 million for that movie.’” Then she threw Prince of Persia into the mix, “My friend was saying, ‘I think Prince of Persia was better than Clash of the Titans,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I agree.’ And they said, ‘But it wasn’t as big a success,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I honestly don’t know why.’”

She was even willing to criticize 3D, the technology that both helped Clash make so much money and earned mocking from nearly everyone who saw it: “The boost in the ticket price, but also the fact that you can’t record it. So a lot of people had to go to the cinema to see it. That’s why they’re all doing it, I think honestly, not because it’s the future of filmmaking.”

Arterton certainly has a handle on this industry and the acting to chops to make use of it. If you’ve only seen Clash and Prince, please make an extra effort to hit the theater on August 6th to catch her in The Disappearance of Alice Creed. Sans grandiose effects and costumes, she really shines on screen. Plus, check back next week for my full conversation with Arterton during which she talks about working with such tense material and provides a little preview of what she’s got coming up, other than Clash 2.

I’m not sure who decided Gemma Arterton was the next, big, hot Hollywood commodity, but after watching her mostly suck in Clash of the Titans and having my television invaded by her presence in the never ending stream of Prince of Persia ads, I’m sick of seeing her face. Michael Bay, it would seem, is not.

Just a few hours ago word broke here that Michael Bay is kicking Megan Fox off of Transformers 3 and replacing her with some other empty-headed nookie girl. Now word comes from The Wrap that this empty-headed nookie girl could be Gemma Arterton.

According to their sources she’s “in the running” which could mean just about anything. Probably it means Michael Bay will make her wash his car before deciding if he wants to hire her. She’s just one of the people on The Wrap’s list. Other names include Bar Rafaeli, Miranda Kerr and Brooklyn Decker. All three are your standard, Maxim model types, which fits the mold of exactly the sort of actress you’d expect Michael Bay to go after.

Whoever Bay hires, she won’t be playing Megan Fox’s Mikaela character. They’re removing her from the picture entirely and finding a new love interest for Shia. Of course like Megan Fox, not one of them is even remotely a realistic dating possibility for Shia’s somewhat dorky Transformers character. But then after his recent comments trashing the last movie maybe Shia’s headed out the door with Megan? Rumor has it she was fired for dissing Michael Bay and his movies, if Bay let’s Shia get away with the same doesn’t that mean he has a double standard? Oh wait, he’s Michael Bay. Of course he does.

Van? Check. Location? Check. Masks? Check. Gun? Check. Vic and Danny (Eddie Marsan and Maritn Compston) had it all planned out. Kidnap a young woman, hold her for ransom and take off with the loot. But all that changed when they opted to take Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton).

That’s about all the plot detail I can give without spoiling one of The Disappearance of Alice Creed’s many twists, and revealing just one would tarnish the experience. Once the theater lights dim hold on tight, because writer-director J. Blakeson jumps right into the action. This is no glorified depiction of a kidnapping where someone’s thrown into a room with a cot and served food when necessary. Alice is kept completely restrained not permitted to do a single thing on her own, even go to the bathroom. If you’re able to get through the onset of her abusive and humiliating ordeal, the payoff is huge.

It’s established early on that Vic and Danny have no intention to kill Alice--they simply want the money-- but Vic’s all-business attitude keeps the tension high. Marsan is scary. Alice is terrified of him and the audience is too. In fact even Danny is wary of his partner and fears upsetting him. Vic has his eye on Danny at all times, dictating his every move and reprimanding him whenever he deviates in the slightest.

Danny’s seemingly more benevolent nature provides some much-needed breathing room. There needs to be a sense that Alice has some chance of survival and Blakeson offers that hope as a contrast to the other kidnapper. He further relieves the viewer from the anxiety by including a particularly amusing running gag involving a bullet-shell casing. In an effort to hide a minor accident, Danny must keep Vic from finding this casing and tries just about everything to get rid of the evidence. Well, everything but the right thing.

Even with these bits of comic relief, Alice Creed is an extremely tense experience from beginning to end. After getting through the sheer terror of Alice assimilating to her confines, several more shocking revelations unsettle things even more. When a film shows you twist after twist, it’s easy to feel as though you’re being jerked around and left with a constant doubt about any plot development. But with a movie like this, which provides you with just three characters and a small handful of locations, these bumps in the road are wholly necessary and vital to keep to the story interesting.

Another element that is essential to the success of this film is a proper cast, and this one couldn’t be better. Marsan and Compston make Vic and Danny multifaceted, believable characters, which helps maintain the tension as Alice Creed goes from a kidnapping film into something almost entirely different. But Alice Creed herself is the film’s centerpiece, and Arterton doesn’t hold anything back, pouring every ounce of herself into Alice. Her terror feels so real it’ll break your heart, making you feel as though you have something personal invested in the situation.

After the first 20 minutes, some may find Alice Creed too troubling. It’s not a film for everyone, but the more brutal moments only make for a more exciting experience. Know what you’re getting yourself into before taking a seat because The Disappearance of Alice Creed is an exceptionally powerful and terrifying story. If you commit to accepting that from the start, you’ll undoubtedly enjoy this thriller.

Follow along with all of our special, Tribeca 2010 coverage right here.

As it turns out, summer is practically right around the corner. Two months from now Iron Man 2 premieres, and from there it's a quick jaunt through May before we get the biggest video game adaptation of the summer, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Disney is committed to making sure you don't forget about Jake Gyllenhaal and his abs, so a new trailer for the film as debuted over at IGN.

Being the second trailer, it's allowed to go a little more into the plot in addition to focusing on the nonstop action. Of course, the plot is preposterous-- it's a movie about a dagger that can turn back time, for Christ's sake-- but I'm at least glad they're bothering to explain it to us. This trailer makes it clearer than ever that Disney is aiming for another Pirates-style franchise with this one, and despite the absence of a Jack Sparrow character, the banter between Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton at least keep the tone Pirates-esque. Prince of Persia is far from overtaking Iron Man 2 as my most anticipated movie of May, but trailer like this one at least pique my interest. Check it out below.

Disney has released a new Prince of Persia featurette, and it’s the best so far. In the trailers, you don’t really get a sense of what really went in to making this thing. It’s all quick cuts and effects shots, it’s impossible to tell whether they’re actually standing in a desert or just in front of another one of Hollywood’s increasingly tedious blue screens. But this new Journey Behind the Scenes makes it clear that yes, they actually went out and filmed in the sand. They even built a couple of sets. Real actors in real environments? What a novel concept. Now just show it to me in 2D, and Prince of Persia will be my favorite movie of the year.

Check out the new Prince of Persia featurette, “Creating An Epic”, below.

If Gemma Arterton weren't already the luckiest girl in the world for getting a one-night stand with Daniel Craig before meeting her end in Quantum of Solace, she's now working on Clash of the Titans and playing Sam Worthington's love interest, demi-goddess Io. It may be a while before the British actress can establish herself as a star in her own right, but at least she's got some excellent male companionship in the meantime.

Now we've got our first look at Arterton in the film, thanks to her fansite Gemma Arterton Online. Wrapped in a giant shawl and staring out to sea, she brings to mind Odysseus' Penelope, though I hope she gets to be a bigger part of the action than the woman who waited years and years for her husband to come back from battling mythical creatures. I'm also imagining that there's some rockin' battle gear underneath that shawl, because if you're going to have the Worthington male eye candy, Arterton must follow. Anyway, check out a larger version of the photo above here.