Spielberg and Zemeckis on 25 years of Back to the Future, 80 years of Clint Eastwood, 4 Soldiers of Fortune, 7 Samurai, Quentin Tarantino's 10 best bits, Sylvester Stallone's 6 worst injuries, 15 doodles by Tim Burton, 14 Celebrity Dreams, 1 hot threesome and 88 more amazing exclusives! Click here for you complete issue sneak preview
What's inside the new issue?
Full details on all the news, features and reviews inside our special birthday issue, with a sneak peek inside the issue.
Exclusive Kick-Ass T-Shirt
Subscribe to Empire and get your free Kick-Ass T-shirt by French Connection, with a colour scheme exclusive to us!
The biggest - and best - movie magazine on Earth, Empire was launched in 1989, initially intended as a sister magazine to the hugely successful music magazine, Q until it developed its own identity. It was developed under the working title, Project Odeon, but when it was pointed out - not inaccurately - that Oskar Deutsch's brainchild might have a few problems with an independent film mag using its name, the thinking caps went on. Legend has it that founding editor, Barry McIlheney, went to Leicester Square one day in search of inspiration, and found it when he saw the Empire cinema. To think, if he'd gone to Soho, we could have been called Madam Jugs' House Of Sex.
In the intervening years Empire has had a complement of eight full-time editors, one Acting editor and one Big Cheese Guest Editor by the name of Steven Spielberg. Despite the fact that we launched a magazine with Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder, on the cover for Great Balls Of Fire - this in a year when Batman, Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, Lethal Weapon 2 and Ghostbusters 2 were all released - Empire has grown to become the most read movie magazine in the world. Knowlegeable, yet cheeky, irreverent and always willing to take pops at sacred cows, Empire's tone has set it apart from many rival mags over the last 250 issues and should hold us in good stead for at least 250 more.
