Film Stories with Simon Brew
Film Stories with Simon Brew is a podcast that looks to dig into the stories behind popular movies.From troubled productions, to rights issues, to difficulties with release to films nearly falling apart, the podcast will be looking at the stories that don't always seem apparent when watching a movie! The podcast is hosted by Simon Brew, the founder of Den Of Geek. Support the podcast at www.patreon.com/simonbrew. Thank you!
Episodes
March 30, 2026 • 60 mins
In 1980, an option was taken out on Judge Dredd with a view of getting a movie of Mega City One's legendary law enforcer to the big screen. In the years that followed, it looked like Tony Scott might direct a film based on 2000AD comics' most famous character, with Arnold Schwarzenegger sniffing around.
In the end, 1995 saw a seasoned movie star in Sylvester Stallone and a twentysomething British film director called Danny Cannon ...
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March 27, 2026 • 38 mins
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett work as filmmakers under the collective name of Radio Silence, and they've been out and about promoting their new film, Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come.
The poor pair had to suffer a conversation with Simon for their sins, that touched on the new movie, on films such as Abigail and Devil's Due, plus tips of the hat to very expensive chairs and the Sega Dreamcast console...
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March 23, 2026 • 52 mins
No two ways about it, 2000's X-Men movie was a massive gamble. At a time when studios needed movie star vehicles, 20th Century Fox found itself without a summer blockbuster due to a delay on a Tom Cruise film. It'd already greenlit and backtracked on X-Men once.
When the film finally got going? Well, there'd be well-reported behind the scenes problems. A star who wasn't cast until shooting began. And a story that requires a fair ...
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In person, Simon got to meet - after years of interviewing them remotely - writers/producers/directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord. Chaos absolutely ensued.
In this Film Stories special, they talk about Project Hail Mary, the second best Rocky film, choosing to do a project because it's a good idea for a change, and a whole lot more...
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At the end of 1997, Kevin Costner's second film as director - The Postman - made its way into cinemas, at the end of a difficult year for Warner Bros. The $80m, three hour movie would be savaged by critics, and fail to find an audience - but there was quite the story behind the film, before and after.
There's quite a story too to Wag The Dog, a movie that could fit into the schedules when a far more expensive project was hit by a ...
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March 13, 2026 • 48 mins
Here's a special episode of Film Stories with Simon Brew, where Simon is joined by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Drew Goddard. Drew was in town to talk about his script for Project Hail Mary. But as you're about to hear, the conversation goes off in a lot of different directions: from directing Bad Times At The El Royale and Cabin In The Woods, to writing The Martian, to, er, Police Academy...
Project Hail Mary is in UK cinemas fro...
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March 9, 2026 • 84 mins
Jared Leto was the reigning Joker. Todd Phillips couldn't get the films he wanted to do off the ground. The DC range of movies was having a whole range of challenges for Warner Bros. And constant changes at the studio were leading to regular challenges of direction. In the midst of this, a relatively slim production, Joker, would have notable ramifications.
Similarly slim, Cat's Eye marks the first credited screenplay for a man ca...
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March 2, 2026 • 71 mins
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 Stanton, chatting about his new film In...
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February 23, 2026 • 76 mins
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 film Maybe Baby, having enjoyed succ...
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February 20, 2026 • 63 mins
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 Bob Levin - digs into this. And i...
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February 16, 2026 • 46 mins
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 Spider-man, it turns out there was an...
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February 9, 2026 • 45 mins
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 ground as well.
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February 6, 2026 • 49 mins
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!
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February 3, 2026 • 79 mins
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 Game and futuristic prison movie...
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January 30, 2026 • 46 mins
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!
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January 28, 2026 • 74 mins
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 able to get interest in a film take...
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January 26, 2026 • 78 mins
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, and a bit of Alan Rickman, and invit...
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January 16, 2026 • 33 mins
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 up in this chat...
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January 12, 2026 • 63 mins
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 Collateral. There aren't many film you...
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January 5, 2026 • 53 mins
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 - just before we're cut off - Rocky ...
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