Ever wondered what it looks like when **Paddington **Bear tools up? Us neither, but here it is and it's kinda cute. There, laid out next to his battered brown valise, are all the tools at the bear's disposal when he sets out from the muggy Latin American jungle for London, England: hat, duffle coat, GE M134 Minigun marmalade sandwiches. No passport but you can't expect a bear to remember everything. Note the canonically-correct label - 'PLEASE LOOK AFTER THIS BEAR. THANK YOU' - that's been attached to the little spectacled bear since Michael Bond penned his first arrival at Paddington Station back in 1958. This **Paddington **will not, stresses director Paul King, be messing with the formula. Instead, it will drop the ursine hero into a heightened London where his good-hearted but clumsy ways bring chaos and mayhem wherever he goes. Unless - DUM-DUM-DUM! - Nicole Kidman's vengeful taxidermist can hunt him down and stuff him. Yikes.{Paddington}
Okay, it is departing from the Paddington of yore a little bit. The days of Paddington suffering the ire of grumpy Mr. Curry before heading home for tea are over and there's real menace in his big-screen debut represented by Kidman's Millicent. Luckily, he has a new family to look out for him in the Browns (Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville) and a kindly surrogate uncle Mr. Gruber (Jim Broadbent).
For much, more more on the bear with the stare mark your diary for the next issue of Empire, on sale on October 30. Paddington will be in cinemas on November 28.