Friends From Work

Marvel co-stars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson bring their banter to a new spin-off of the MEN IN BLACK franchise. Total Film goes on set to play third wheel and discover that this could be the first of many buddy movies…

- Jane Crowther

It’s not often that Total Film can step out of our office and straight onto the set of a major SFX blockbuster – we’re usually travelling to LA, Atlanta, NY, Vancouver. But on this bright August 2018 morning, we can pop out of TF Towers at Bankside, trot across Millennium Bridge, and arrive at Ludgate Hill in front of the imposing St. Paul’s Cathedral, to find ourselves slap bang in the middle of an ET battle.

Destroyed cars smoke in the street – one of which has been lobbed unceremoniously into the side of a building – while debris litters the pavements. As TF crouches near a trashed Eat emporium, suit-clad Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth (Paul Smith if you’re asking) cower behind an MIB classic Jag (black, of course), dodging alien crossfire and discussing how to fight back. “We need more firepower!” Hemsworth yells in a British accent, directing Thompson to unlock a treasure trove of high-tech weaponry hidden in the car’s exhaust pipe, wing mirrors and hubcaps. The two then stand up, a united front, and blast the aliens back…

Of course, being that this is a spin-off of the 1997-2012 Men In Black franchise charting the adventures of secret agents keeping alien activity on Earth legal and unseen by human eyes, all is not quite as it appears. Though we’re still within the M25, we’re not actually privy to the intergalactic destruction of one of London’s most famous streets. We’re on a meticulously reproduced version of it, on a stage at Leavesden Studios near Watford. Though the crew did close Ludgate Hill over a couple of nights earlier in the week to get their master shots, this carbon copy that has every detail right –