Film Stories with Simon Brew

In the late 1980s, Kevin Costner - pre-Dances With Wolves - first had the idea for what became the Horizon movie saga. A hugely-ambitious series of westerns, that he'd ultimately star in, co-write, and direct. By 2026, two films had been made, only one released, and around ten minutes shot of a third. So what's happened? For the second half of this episode, Simon is joined by director Andrew Stant...

The plan was for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to spend around six months in the UK for the filming of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick had been mulling the film for decades, and considering a couple of other projects, too. But the shoot of Eyes Wide Shut would ultimately be his final film - and it's end up in the Guinness Book of Records. For Ben Elton, he was keen to pursue making the fi...

The art of movie testing isn't just about researching finished films. It's also testing the very concept of a movie, that can determine both whether it gets made, and what it gets made for. In a special episode of the podcast, a man who you may not have heard of joins Simon. Yet Kevin Goetz has certainly had some impact on the films you watch. His new book - How To Score In Hollywood, written with...

It was very different times for Marvel when, in the 1990s, it struck an assortment of deals over screen rights for its characters. For the purposes of this tale, the Incredible Hulk, for whom Universal snapped up the rights. The deal done then continues to have some ramifications now, but the first fruits of it? Ang Lee's 2003 movie Hulk, starring Eric Bana. Arriving the year after Sam Raimi's Spi...

Brian De Palma's soaring 1987 crime drama The Untouchables nearly went in some very different directions. Jack Nicholson as Eliot Ness? Bob Hoskins as Al Capone? And what's more, the film's legendary sequence on the steps of Chicago's Union Station was pretty much made up on the fly. The story is told in this episode, as well as the brief attempt to get a prequel movie - Capone Rising - off the gr...

Director Angel Manuel Soto has just brought Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista together on the big screen, in the Prime Video hit THE WRECKING CREW. Growing in Puerto Rico, he was some way away from the man who'd direct BLUE BEETLE for Warner Bros and DC. And in this special interview, he tells his incredible film story. And it involves loo roll! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adc...

Quite the double dose in this episode of Film Stories. Firstly, the story of how Fatal Attraction came from the roots of a short film at the start of the 1980s. How directors such as John Carpenter turned it down. And how the infamous battle over its ending led to one of the iconic movie thrillers of the 1980s. Then! It's only Sam Raimi! Chatting about Send Help, movie frame rates, For Love Of The...

Ric Roman Waugh has directed films such as the newly-released Shelter, along with Greenland, Greenland: Migration, Kandahar and more. And in this far-reaching conversation with Simon Brew, he takes us through his latest film and body of work. Not least the unusual connection between Simon and Ric's fathers, thanks to Paint Your Wagon. A tenuous link, surely, but one the pair get into! Learn more a...

Two very different films in this latest episode of film history podcast Film Stories. Firstly, it's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, an infamously difficult production that saw director Gareth Edwards fashion a war tale in the Star Wars universe - and then reshoots become Hollywood trade press fodder. Coming off the back of two James Bond films meanwhile, director Lewis Gilbert reckoned he might be a...

One of the more bizarre projects to come out of a Hollywood studio in the late 1960s, Paint Your Wagon felt like a turning point movie. Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood - and they're both singing? How did that happen? Turns out it's quite a story. Then, ahead of an appearance at the BFI to talk about his work in David Lynch's The Elephant Man, Dexter Fletcher joins Simon for a chat about it. That, an...

She's a comedian, writer, actor and film nerd, and Tiff Stevenson also is a go-to for hosting things on boats, it turns out! In this Film Stories special, she talks about her role in a film called Slotherhouse. A horror slasher movie, with a sloth in it. As the pair discuss, it sounds like both an intriguing and terrible idea, yet it somehow works! It's one of the many movie discussions that come...

Regular episodes of Film Stories with Simon Brew resume for 2026, with two very different films in the spotlight. First up there's Cameron Crowe's superb Almost Famous, a film he got the greenlight to make in the aftermath of Jerry Maguire's success. A hugely personal story, here's how it stumbled at the box office, but found new life. Then, from the same brain that gave us Phone Booth comes Colla...

In this long chat about Song Sung Blue and his other film work too, writer/director Craig Brewer joins Simon Brew to chat about his film story. The pair chat about what led to the Neil Diamond-inspired Song Sung Blue coming to life, as well as the influence of films such as The Commitments and Shadowlands. Plus how his late father had a dramatic impact on his career, a bit of Hustle & Flow, and -...

To celebrate Film Stories turning 500 episodes old (and then some!), a very special live recording took place in London in November 2025. Long-time Film Stories supporter Romesh Ranganathan joined Simon Brew on stage to go through his, er, 'storied' cinema career and talk movies. This show is rated 15 for language. You probably could have guessed that. A video version of this show is available on...

In a very special episode of Film Stories, writer/producer/showrunner/novelist Chris Chibnall joins Simon for a long chat about his work and career. Topics covered? Glad you asked. They chat about Death At The White Hart, Chris' first novel, that's now available in paperback, and also heading towards televison. They talk about Agatha Christie's Seven Dials, heading to Netflix in January. And other...

You want a Christmas movie? Look no further than Rocky IV, surely the raging highlight of the Rocky saga. Written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, and with montages coming out of its armpits, the movie was not without a few challenges (and injuries.) Not least: how do you follow up the relentlessness of Mr T's Clubber Lang from Rocky III? The answer arrived in the sizeable shape of Dolph Lundgr...

Now in UK cinemas is the spoof movie Fackham Hall, which crosses the likes of Airplane! with Downton Abbey. But how do you write a spoof movie? And what are the challenges? We've brought together 66.6% of the writing team The Dawson Brothers to tell us more, and explain why a CG house was required to make a sex scene involving pigs... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There was originally a plan to bring the much-loved Christmas book The Polar Express to the big screen in live action, with Rob Reiner potentially directing. But eventually, the project ended up with Robert Zemeckis. Looking for something between live action and animation, a different kind of technology was to be used for the film - but would audiences respond to it? Especially when they tried to...

Dan Cadan may not be a name familiar to too many, but he's had quite the career. In this special Film Stories episode, he tells his tale of how the lad growing up in Huddersfield went on to work with Guy Ritchie (including writing a remake of The Wild Geese), Stephen Graham, Madonna and more. Then, getting a film made, the sole UK release from the Fox International label, Walk Like A Panther. He t...

Go down the box office charts for 1992, and you need to look a long way before you find The Muppet Christmas Carol. Directed by Brian Henson, the movie was in 45th place at the box office that year, with surprisingly few choosing to check it out on its initial cinema release. The film had come together following the death of Muppets creator Jim Henson, and there'd been some difficulty cracking wha...

In a very special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon is joined by two of the team behind Disney's new animated movie, Zootropolis. There's producer Yvett Merino, an Oscar-winner for Encanto, who came to Zootropolis 2 hot off the heels of Moana 2. And then writer/director Jared Bush returns to the podcast, for what's becoming a very welcome annual check in with the chief creative officer of...

After the, cough, 'underwhelming' A Good Day To Die Hard in 2013, the assumption was that the Die Hard saga had run aground. But for a while, that wasn't the case, and by 2015, there was a plan hatched for one final movie in the series. Bruce Willis was set to return as John McClane, Len Wiseman - after Die Hard 4.0 - was coming back to direct. And this time, we were going to be told the origin st...

In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon is joined by Oscar-winning production designer Nathan Crowley. He won his Oscar for Wicked, and you can now see his work in Wicked For Good on the big screen. This chat takes in those films, as well as Christopher Nolan's garage, nine seconds with Ridley Scott, early work with Francis Ford Coppola, and a whole lot more... Learn more about you...

In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon brought Mark Kermode and Jenny Nelson to his home town of Birmingham in the UK. There, Mark and Jenny were on stage to talk about movie music, as they talked about their new book, Mark Kermode's Surround Sound. You're getting the full, lively conversation here, complete with audience questions at the end. With huge thanks to the team at the M...

Director Ruben Fleischer's latest film is the third in the Now You See Me franchise, entitled Now You See Me Now You Don't. A movie stuck in development for a fair amount of time, it's now in cinemas. In this Film Stories special, Reuben tells the story of how he got involved in the film, in a conversation that also takes in films such as Zombieland, Gangster Squad, Venom, a little bit of Uncharte...