Yes, Peter Jackson, I’m looking at you. It’s all your damn fault. Why did you have to make such a success out of LoTR? Now we’re gonna be stuck with swashbuckling, semi-historical epics, with giant CG battle scenes, funny looking helmets, swords glistening with blood in the afternoon sun. The other companies won’t let this craze rest until someone pops up with the next big thing that they can all ape. It’s gonna be the same as all those lame SciFi movies from the late 70’s, trying to jump on the bandwagon after Star Wars. And then the 80’s gave us all the rip-offs from Indy Jones (King Salomon’s Mines with Richard Chamberlain and High Road to China with Tom Selleck).
So, not to make this just a rant, which actual historical figure or event is next to be butchered? My €0.02: Caesar.
There are two Hannibal Barca movies being planned (one with Denzel Washington and another one with Vin Diesel), although I doubt they’ll survive much longer, the Denzel one has been in pre-production for 10+ years.
Gladiator II is in the works. They are apparently planning on making it a sequel/prequel ala Godfather part 2
Here’s a more original idea: King Kamehameha. The Rock is going to portray the 18th Century King of Hawaii.
I wish they would make one about the conquest of Mexico or of the fall of the Inca empire. Not enough movies about that stuff, IMHO.
It’s been done. However, so as not to offend Muslims, Mohammed could not be shown in any way (not even an off-camera voice or shadow). That kind of made the story difficult to tell.
What’s this about Gilgamesh? Are they going to make a movie about that Epic? I haven’t heard of that.
I saw bring the movies on. Though I’m a fan of Epics, so I’m probably biased. Even if they screw them up, at least we migth get more people to read some of them…or at least be aware of their existance.
Makes me wonder how long before somebody tries to make “The Song of Roland” into a movie?
It has all hollywood ever seems to need. Huge battles, larger-then-life characters and unambigous good vs. evil. However, it would royally piss off the Muslim community if they kept it the way it was written(With the bad guys being “Pagans” who worship both Muhommad and Apollo).
I’ve seen a couple about the Incan Conquest. Royal Hunt of the Sun is based on the play of the same name by Peter Shaffer (who is best known for Amadeus and Equus. It stars Christopher Plummer as Atahualpa (?!), Robert Shaw as Pizarro, and is largely lacking in history. As with Amadeus he takes serious liberties with history in order to address “larger issues” such as faith, power, etc.; consequently, Pizarro is portrayed as a man who grows to have great respect for the captive emperor and tries his best to save his life, but the bastardly de Soto insists on killing him. In reality it was the reverse: Pizarro ordered his death even after the ransom while de Soto was appalled.
Aguirre: the Wrath of God , a German film about the search for El Dorado with some of the Pizarro clan thrown in for good measure; it’s a very good movie in it’s own right, but it is historical fiction as opposed to a straight-out depiction of the takeover of Cuzco.
I’d love to see a film depiction of the de Soto expedition (I’m a bit counter-revisionist in my concept of Hernan de Soto- while I concede his butchery, his bravery and valor in battle cannot be denied) or of the life and loves of Herod the Great (the brief life of his second queen, Mariamne, reads like Shakespeare).
I just saw that someone’s also making a movie of Beowulf.
IMDB is not quite up-to-date. The latest news about it is here.
It’s going to star Gerard Butler, who will be making a splash (maybe) later this year as The Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera.
Hollywood used to make tons of epics. The only new part of this list is the CG battles. Epics have come back in fashion because LOTR made assloads of money. It’s not surprising at all- blame the Hollywood system where if a movie makes money, somebody else will try to imitate it to get his share.
They did that in '99, starring Cristophe Lambert, which should tell you all.
I know, and that’s what I’m ranting about.ö The studios will try to find material for the next couple of years that fit that description, totally destroying the genre. That’s the problem with Hollywood today. William Morris Agency calls someone at Warner and says that Tom Cruise wants do do an epic if they can find the right project. They might get Malkovich to sign on in a supporting act if the movie is filmed somewhere close to France, say former Yugoslavia, where labor is cheap. Warner goes to some production companies and they think about the faux-fantasy bandwagon and come up with a legend, in public domain. No rights to pay to an author for a bestseller, just get a committee of writer chimps thumping out a script and hire a script doctor to tidy up the mess after. Cruise, of course, has provisions, and so the original story gets butchered in the process. Two years down the lane something awful hits the screen.
Peter Jackson did a project no one (except New Line) had faith in, and he didn’t hire high profile stars, asking for 30 mill and a % of the gross. So he was free to tell the story. It will not be the case of all the ‘me-too’ projects.
I think the Lambert Beowulf was a sci-fi movie, and a direct-to-video one at that. It might have been a sci-fi “updating” of the classic legend, but I doubt it strived for accuracy in any way.
Frankly, I think the Best Picture successes of Braveheart (in 1995) and Gladiator (in 2000, right?) have as much to do with this wave of historical epics as Lord Of the Rings. Since Troy is out and we’ve already seen trailers for the Colin Farrell Alexander and the Vin Diesel Hannibal (as well as King Arthur with Clive Owen and The Rock’s Hawaiian epic), these all must have been in production for quite a while.
(There was supposed to be a second Alexander the Great movie directed by Baz “Moulin Rouge” Lurhmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but this one seems to have been abandoned.)
Kingdom in Twilight, according to the IMDb, is currently in post-production. It’s a German/South African production, and I’ve yet to hear of any American studios picking it up for an American release. It’s English working title was The Ring, but that, of course, had to be changed.
I discovered this film while reading up on Max von Sydow, and was pleasantly surprised to see Alicia Witt in a starring role, as well as Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3) as “Brunnhild”. Granted, I’ve never seen miss Loken in anything besides T3, but I’ve adored Ms. Witt since watching her on the sitcom Cybill. (The movie Fun (1994) is a fascinating yet disturbing film.)
Can anybody tell me more about Ms. Loken, and Benno Fürmann (who plays “Siegfried” in the film)? I really hope this movie can get a relatively wide American release. Hopefully, some of the Hollywood epics being planned don’t pan out, and someone decides that this film would help fill the perceived need for more epics in American theatres.
