Film Stories with Simon Brew

It started as a magazine article, and ended up as a global phenomenon. Yet the journey to 1986's Top Gun wasn't a straightforward one. You have cast members unsure if they wanted to commit and a studio that took a long time to decide it wanted the film. Then, director Tony Scott started shooting the movie in a way that, er, Paramount Pictures wasn't keen on. For the second half of this episode, it...

Now here's a man with a whole bunch of stories. Malcolm McDowell joins the Film Stories podcast for a special episode, where we go through his stories. The conversation takes us from ITV's Crossroads to his latest release - The Partisan - which is in cinemas now (and on digital from 27th October.) We find out where Burscough comes into his life, there are stories about Peter Sellers, a bit of Mich...

The first screen adaptation of The Running Man saw four different directors fired, the final director come in once filming had begun (while Arnold Schwarzenegger and his lycra were away from the set). Schwarzenegger would lament the final film, and Stephen King - who penned the original novel (as Richard Bachman) - wouldn't be hugely impressed either. But still: there's a reason it's still talked...

Well, where do you start? Michael Kurinsky is a man whose built a career that saw him drawing enormous pictures of The Beatles, to a dream of working for Warner Bros, to years with Disney, years with Sony Pictures Animation, and then the jump to the place he was in awe of. His Warner Bros experience saw him working on the film Scoob!, and then he was offered his lifelong ambition: the director's c...

The Shawshank Redemption, just starring Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford in the lead roles? It might just have happened, if writer/director Frank Darabont hadn't turned down a life-changing offer to let someone else direct the film. Instead, he dug in, and put together - across a testing production - a film that's gone on to be very highly regarded. Even after it flopped at the box office. The late Ro...

A lot of the story of Quentin Tarantino's debut movie, Reservoir Dogs, is very well known. The tale of a man working in a video store writing scripts, and becoming Hollywood's hottest filmmaker in a matter of years. But still: there are also tales of sticky blood. Of casting fly-bys. And of a ban that actually was nothing of the sort. The second film story in this episode? The DIVX disc, a format...

Twilight and The Hunger Games set the bar high for young adult movie adaptations in late 2000s/early 2010s, and when Veronica Roth's Divergent series of books came onto the market, a deal was soon struck. The plan? A trilogy of movies, which soon expanded to four films. The challenge? Making them to hit an annual release slot, against a backdrop of overlapping schedules and keeping the audience in...

In this special episode of Film Stories, Samara Weaving, Jimmy Warden and - yes! - Muriel the dog join Simon for a chat. Jimmy has written/directed the film Borderline, which arrives in the UK on demand in September 2025. Samara Weaving stars in the film, and the pair talk about the movie, a weird Junior jigsaw, getting permission from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Celine Dion, a bit of Bill & Ted, an...

The late, great Terence Stamp's death at the age of 87 has left behind an incredible body of work, but what a gamble The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert was. He'd never headlined a comedy, he'd never done a musical, he wasn't keen on Australia - and yet he agreed to sign up for a low budget Australian indie that over three decades later, is still awash with stories. The second half of...

Returning to the Film Stories podcast is writer/director/producer Chris Columbus, as his new movie - The Thursday Murder Club - arrives in cinemas, with Netflix release due at the end of August 2025. He talks Simon through the movie, and where it was when he came to it. They also chat about Hugh Grant's hair in Nine Months, films he's produced such as Didi and Patti Cake$, and we get a bit of a gu...

Writer/director Roger Kumble had never made a film as he approached the back end of the 1999s, but had two very acclaimed plays under his belt. This, he figures, was his moment, and in under two weeks, he wrote the first draft of what would become Cruel Intentions. And while the project would soon pick up momentum, it still required him to get on his knees and basically beg one of his lead stars t...

In a very special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon chats to cinematographer and director Mikael Salomon. The pair go through Mikael's extraordinary career, that's taken him from Denmark to Hollywood and back again. And Mikael tells his stories: his early years, how he came to the attention of James Cameron, working on The Abyss, Arachnophobia, Always and more, and then turning to direct...

In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon is joined by director Matt Shakman. They were chatting at the junket for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which is now in cinemas. But this conversation went in lots of different directions. For your eardrums here, we go into Dick Tracy, Gremlins 2, the Star Trek film that never was, and the career-changing letter he wrote when he was young....

The very future of the James Bond movie franchise was resting on The Spy Who Loved Me. Producer Albert R Broccoli was contending with the dissolution of his business partnership, a potential rival film, and an underperforming previous 007 film. Plus, questions about his leading man. And it was a leading man causing conversations when it came to Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach. Where was S...

The behind the scenes stories of two movies, starting with Naked Gun 33 1/3, a movie that saw franchise director David Zucker opt to step back, and thirtysomething Peter Segal make his directorial debut. The problem? There was a comedy to make, and Segal was struggling to get a connection with his leading man, the late Leslie Nielsen. 2000's Cast Away meanwhile would be a movie that contributed to...

He's currently - at the time of recording - touring the UK with his Mr Swallow show, but Nick Mohammed is also one of the leads in Deep Cover, a really impressive UK film that's riding high on Prime Video. In this Film Stories special, he talks to Simon about his ventures into movies, joining Slow Horses, the impact of Ted Lasso, and his love of magic... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg...

Nearly 500 episodes in, and the Film Stories podcast finally arrives at a Godfather film. Specifically, The Godfather Part III, a fascinating project whose behind the scenes story went on for over a decade. The number of attempts to get the film made climbed into double figures, named such as Sylvester Stallone, Madonna and John Travolta were amongst those linked. But also: writer/director Francis...

In a very special episode of the Film Stories podcast, director Ilya Naishuller joins Simon to talk about his new film, Heads Of State. Thing is, they talk about a hell of a lot of other things too before they get there. Nunchuks, sausages, Hardcore Henry, grief, CG on a pint of bitter, Nobody, trying to work a clapperboard... quite a conversation this, with some fruity language included. Heads Of...

1992's Aladdin is one of Disney's most successful animated films. There have been sequels. There's been a live action remake. A Broadway show. Yet on one point in 1991, a day known during the production as 'Black Friday', things went very wrong. And the creative team had less than 18 months to turn things around. The story of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze (1991) was one o...

James Wan and Leigh Whannell knew they wanted to make a film. They knew they had barely any money. They knew they could afford one room, and a couple of actors. They figured they could keep costs down by chaining the actors up. Made for around $1m in the end, the journey to 2004's Saw was a difficult one. And its behind the scenes story is told in this episode. Plus, actor Domnhall Gleeson and dir...

In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Alex Garland joins us for a conversation about his latest project, and some of his other work too. That latest work is 28 Years Later, which he's returned to write the script for. He talks through his desire to write something he didn't have to direct, and also, some of the threads of the story. Plus, there's a bit of Warfare and Devs in the conver...

Christopher Nolan. A filmmaker long linked with James Bond. A man who loves his spy movies. A man who's got to the point where he can make pretty much any film he likes. 2020's Tenet remains arguably his most divisive, but talk of the film is also wrapped up in the lockdown year of 2020, and his split from long-term studio partner Warner Bros. We dig into the story here. Then! Gina Gershon is co-s...

Chums, talk to producers. They have great stories. For this latest episode of Film Stories, Pixar's Mary Alice Drumm joins me for a long chat about her new film, Elio, and also a long chat about her career. We go from Warner Bros Animation - Quest For Camelot, The Iron Giant! - through to Cinderella II, Curious George and a whole lot more. And then she lands at Pixar, and the story takes further t...

In the 1970s and early 1980s, it was VHS vs Betamax. But in the 2000s, with companies keen to build on the success of DVD, a fresh movie format war sparked. In one corner? It was Blu-ray. In the other? HD DVD. The latter was best positioned to emerge victorious - but it all came to a head over a few days at the start of 2008. Dan Gilroy had built up a career as a Hollywood screenwriter, but only m...

In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon is joined by writer/director Dean DeBlois. He's the co-writer and co-director of the original How To Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch films, and after writing and directing the second and third Dragon movies, he's now done the same with the live action remake. Why did he do it? We get into that, as well as live action films that he's come...