In our latest podcast - Empire Podcast** #50, counting fans - Mark Wahlberg talks about a whole host of things, including Ted 2, Transformers 4 and Entourage: The Movie.
Below is the podcast itself, with Wahlberg's interview starting at 10.10, but we've also filleted out choice chunks of movie news, transcribed them all and popped them after that for your reading pleasure.
First up, Ted 2. Presumably now the characters are established, the sequel will need to be more story-driven?
"Yeah, I talked to Seth [MacFarlane] a little bit about it when we were preparing to do our things for the Oscars. Look, I’ve never done a sequel before and I’ve always been apprehensive about it, but he comes from television, he continues to write character stuff – he’s great at it." *
"And so when he started telling me these ideas, I was like, ‘Dude, I’m in. Don’t worry about it. Let’s do it.’ But he was also saying what he wants is more of John and Ted… I can’t wait. I can’t wait to spend another three months with him, because you learn a lot from him and I’m always stealing a bunch of stuff. "
On the Transformers 4 front, Wahlberg also explained how that gig came about.
"Michael [Bay] and I had an amazing experience working together on Pain & Gain. That movie is insane. It’s like Boogie Nights meets Pulp Fiction meets Fargo. Michael made that movie for $25m and then he asked me if I wanted to work with him again, told me his idea and I said, ‘I’m in’. It’s very different from the other three."
But who is his character in Transformers 4? "I play a man," comes Wahlberg's response. "Who has a child." And what about the stories of Michael Bay saying the film is going to be smaller than the other three? "It will [be smaller]," he explains. "It will just be a couple of people in a room talking."
Finally, what is the current state of play with Entourage: The Movie? How did it come to be, after years in the wilderness?
"It wasn’t supposed to be a movie and I just kept saying, ‘There is going to be a movie!’ and everybody was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ and then people would call Doug [Ellin, the show’s creator] and be like, ‘What’s he talking about?’ and then all of a sudden it was everywhere we went and they're like, ‘When is the movie coming out? Where is the movie?’ And then, all of a sudden, there is a movie."
Can we expect a cameo? "Well, I could tell you there was one very uninspired thing," he reveals. "They wrote a cameo for me playing myself as a producer of a television show – a television show one of the guys is trying to get a part on." Whether that actually has been signed off remains to be seen, but keep your eyes peeled for the show's producer (and inspiration) when it finally comes to cinemas.
Ted 2 has no announced release date yet, with the Mark Wahlberg and Jack Reynor-starring Transformers 4 aiming for June 27, 2014. Entourage: The Movie, meanwhile, is still in its early production stages, though Warners have given it the green light.
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