Direct Download Links For New Beowulf Trailer

More mythic mo-cap murder and moral murkiness in medium, big and bigger standard-res and 480p, 720p and 1080p. So to speak.

Direct Download Links For The First Beowulf TV Spot

See a nice, short, sharp burst of new Beowulf in small, medium, large or 480p, 720p and 1080p Quicktime.

Direct Download Links For New, Red Band Beowulf Trailer

This Bewoulf trailer is apparently an internet exclusive. How come a film getting released, we hear, with a PG-13 is getting a red band trailer you might ask. No idea, I might answer. I wish I only had a clue about that.

Choose from FLV and Quicktime versions.

Direct Download Link For The Comic-Con Beowulf Teaser

This is seriously fascinating stuff. The Comic-Con trailer for Beowulf is now available in 720p Quicktime and crummy old FLV.

A lot of bad Beowulf news surfaced recently and none of the footage so far released lived up to my expectations - in CG terms at least - but I'm still hopeful that this will indeed be a great, great film.

Direct Download Link For International Beowulf Trailer With More Material

The international trailer for Beowulf has footage not in the US cut. Enjoy.

Direct Download Links For The Beowulf Trailer

You can finally see how Beowulf struts his stuff.

Take a big standard def version for now, with HD coming imminently. In the meantime, I have to go, quickly...

[EDIT: Here's the HD platter for you. 480p, 720p, 1080p]

[EDIT: Thanks to those of you who added links in the comment section]

The LA Times Talk Beowulf

Two Beowulf pictures have turned up in a new LA Times piece. I'll pop them at the bottom of the post.

[EDIT: And now better versions have turned, up so I put them even further down. These new versions seem to show Zemeckis' framing, which was quite a thrill. Thanks to all of you who mailed them over]

The LA Times discuss the film at length, though defininetly not from the viewpoint of having seen the whole thing because it's some ways from being complete. Here's a hit-list of their intriguing tidbits (not all new news, and many of the points probably not quite true, but it is nice to see them compiled) and, sadly, it isn't all good news:

- The film is "a minimum of PG-13". Honestly, the script was definitely R-rated, so I was surprised and disappointed to hear "the producer and director purged the script of foul language, used an array of blood colors ranging from crimson to green and dreamed up gravity-defying nude scenes." Gaiman misses the swearing, and says so.

- Grendels mother's feet appear like "sharp stilettos merged with bestial hooves".

- Beowulf battles Grendel in the nude but "Beowulf's naughty bits are obfuscated by random objects in the foreground", a la Austin Powers, but not for (deliberate) laughs.

- The characters age from teenagers to septugenarians, courtesy of the CG skins on their motion captured skeletons.

- Neil Gaiman said of Crispin Glover's casting: "Then we got on the subject of Crispin. Bob said he would never work with him again because he never hit his mark and didn't understand how scenes cut together. But as he went on, you could see Bob realizing that was completely irrelevant if Crispin was in a motion-capture suit covered in dots, every move recorded."

- Oh, and mentioned here only as a curiosity, we learn that Ray Winstone's character in Indiana Jones IV is called Mac.

Poll Dance

The first film ick poll is over, the second is about to begin. Here's the results of the first go round - surprising, actually, as Be Kind, Rewind was out in front for a very long time. Perhaps my recent barrage of Beowulf info had something to do with this.

Eye To Eye With Beowulf

You might recall the big heap of Beowulf images I posted here at film ick. They originally appeared online at Aint it Cool and, after they were quickly pushed into pulling them down, I hosted them for a week or so, until the legal quagmire got too deep. Until now, they were probably the best idea I had of how the film was shaping up. The billboard images from last week added a little too - including our first look at Grendel.

Just now, though, I've been reading Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman's script (excitingly, the script bears the name of the cast member it belonged to, but I won't reveal who in case they get into trouble) and I'm even more excited for the film than I already had been. And you probably already know I'm absolutely nuts for Zemeckis and Gaiman, not to mention 3D cinema.

Simply put, this script exceeded my every expectation. Not only is it a lean, vicious retelling of the story, but as it whips along it drips evocative images from every paragraph.

Be wary of spoilers as you read on...

So, here's a little from the opening to whet your appetite. We begin in Herot, the greatest mead hall in all the land as a rowdy crowd of thanes celebrate their victories. Hrothgar, "as fat a King as you are ever likely to see", is carried in on his portable throne, "draped in nothing more than haphazardly wrapped bed linen as if he just came from f*cking". He beats on his chest to be put down, and then proceeds to hand out treasures.

His first award is for Unferth his "wisest advisor, violator of virgins and boldest of brave brawlers" - but Unferth is busy at the 'p*ss pit' asking "So, if Christ Jesus and Odin got into a fight, who do you think would win?"

This raucous party, half drunken orgy, half celebratory ceremony is quickly cut short:

Suddenly THE GREAT DOOR EXPLODES as if something of tremendous force rammed into it, splintering the wooden frame and buckling the great iron hinges... but the door holds.

HROTHGAR'S eyes go from sleepily closed to wide as saucers. PEOPLE start sitting up, worried. Warriors reach for their swords and kinves and spears.

There is a pause. A BEAT OF SILENCE which goes on almost longer than we can bear and then...

There is a second EXPLOSIVE RAM to the frame of the massive door, breaking it free from its hinges and causing the wood to splinter.

For a brief moment, we see the SHADOW OF A MONSTER from behind the broken door.

Then it enters. Candles snuff out with the cold wind that accompanies it. HROTHGAR rises in his seat, terrified.

HROTHGAR
My sword! My sword!

Unferth and Aesher draw thier weapons. The horror on their faces hints to us the nature of the monster which has erupted into the mead hall. They stand frozen in astonishment.

THE GREAT FIREPIT suddenly ROARS larger and wilder than before, consuming the spit and pig in its flame. What was once a warm source of heat suddenly becomes dangerous and ominous.

We see the MONSTERS SHADOWS cast onto the heavy stone wall of the hall by the golden light of the firepit. It isn't just one shadow, it's many shadows overlapping eachother, dancing wildly together to composite a figure of massive size. The interloping shadows overtake the SHADOW OF A THANE... it lunges forward and lifts him up above it's head... there's a HORRIFYING RIPPING SOUND and the shadow thane is suddenly two shadows, a pair of legs and an upper torso.

And the destruction continues, until Hrothgar confronts the monster. It flees, still semmingly unafraid, just somehow done here. Hrothgar identifies the monster as Grendel.

Next:

GRENDEL, silhouetted by the cool light of the full moon, shambles into his lair - a cave mouth inside of which there
is a placid pool of clear water. He is dragging the bodies of TWO DEAD WARRIORS into the cavern.

Grendel drops the bodies of the dead warriors into a corner f the cave where the bones of mean, both bleached and fleshy, litter the floor. It is a strange and unnverving place.

A mask is dropped onto the floor. A mask constructed from the skulls of two baby whales and decorated with bits of human hair and bones... painted with mud. From its size we can imagine that Grendel likes to wear it.

Someone else is there...

GRENDEL'S MOTHER is sitting a little way away, in the shadows near the cave pool and swathed in a dark cloth. What we can see of her skin glitters, like gold.

Grendel's mother's VOICE is melodious and young.

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
Grendel? What have you done?

Grendel turns suddenly, surprised by her voice - like a boy who has been caught masturbating.

GRENDEL
Moth-er? Where are you?

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
Men? Grendel, we had an agreement. Fish and wolves and bear and sometimes a sheep or two. but not men.

GRENDEL
You like men.

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
These men are too fragile, Grendel. They do me little good. And you must be more crafty. Bring them to me alive, at least... with their seed intact. You see, they will hurt us if they can. They have killed so many of us, the Giant-breed, the Dragon-kind.

As you can see, Gaiman's up to his usual tricks with folklore in the greater context - Dragons alongside Giants alongside Grendel.

Months later, Grendel attacks again. Hrothgar despairs:

HROTHGAR
When I was young, I killed a dragon, in the Northern Moors. But I'm too old for dragon-slaying now. We need a hero, a Siegfried, to rid us of this curse upon our hall.

UNFERTH
I say we trap the beast. Brute strength fails against such a brute. Let us use cunning.

HROTHGAR
These creatures know cunnng, Unferth. They are cunning.

UNFERTH
Our people wait for deliverance, my King. Some of them pray to the Christ Jesus to lift this affliction. Other sacrifice goats or sheep to Odin or Heimdall.

They need a hero and, of course, that's where Beowulf comes in. He journeys across a tempestuous sea to find Hrothgar, and to pledge to kill Grendel.

After his first meeting with the King, they immediately spark up a banquet in Herot, knowing it will lure the monster in...

This first confrontation occurs around the fourty five minutes mark - so you know it won't be the last. But it is fought as though it is. Bloody, relentless and absolutely without restraint they set about each other with everything they have, and anything they can grab. Smashing, punching, headbutting, kicking, biting, slashing, throttling... the repeating, resounding slam of viscera on viscera again and again and again.

There is no out-and-out victor this time, but one side does far more than draw first blood and the stakes are set even higher for their future confrontations.

What we have, in essence, is a bloody, sweaty dragonslaying story but at full scale, visually and narratively. The mythology is suitably epic, the images make the saga resonate at every turn, the ideas are teased out subtly, exposing the depth of the story in ways that, perhaps, we care about far more than most of the poem's original audiences would ever have even dreamt of. This is the Beowulf that makes sense for a 21st Century audience without perverting or denying the truth of the original tale.

A few years back, Zemeckis had recruited Gaiman to write another screenplay for him, adapted from Nicholson Baker's The Fermata. Like the original book, that script full of upfront sexuality and featured a protagonist of dubious morality, to say the least. Zemeckis was looking to make a resolutely adult film, away from the all-ages fare he was best known for. He just has: Beowulf will satisfy that desire also, without a doubt.

As such, I think Beowulf might be quite a hard sell to casual audiences - a motion capture film, released widely in 3D is something we might assume to be family fare, not a lusty, grimy epic. Another marketing problem might be that the characters' outlooks are also a little alien, in some respects, though truly universal in most. I don't the numerous references to incest will help much either.

Where I have no doubt it wil succeed, however, is with critics and movie lovers. This is the bareknuckle version of The Lord of the Rings and I think people will honestly be knocked onto their behinds. On the page, it is hard, fast and perfectly under control and with Zemeckis in charge, I think we can expect a bullseye that splits the target.

On page 110 of the script, Gaiman and Avery have noted 'We are utterly convinced of it: this is where our budget is going'. They've certainly got a point - though I won't tell you just what incredible, but hellish, spectacle they have invented. But I might note on every page 'this bit won't be cheap either' - and that, I suppose, is one of the amazing assets of the performance capture technique. Fashinoning an epic battle between man and winged beast above the moors (just for example - hint hint) would take, relatively speaking, little more resource than creating a small, intimate scene in the King's chamber. In making Beowulf in this fashion, Gaiman, Avary and Zemeckis have been able to imagine whatever it was they wanted, knowing that their only limitation was the vision of Zemeckis, the cast and crew - and if you ask me, that's no kind of limitation at all.

Bewoulf opens in the US in November. Go see it.

Robert Zemeckis' Christmas Carol

Bob Hoskins has been speaking to Empire and revealed that he's reteaming with Robert Zemeckis for a version of A Christmas Carol. Superb.

Hoskins won't be playing Scrooge, however - he's just gonna be Mr. Fezziwig. The lead role has instead gone to Jim Carrey. The film is going to be created using Zemeckis' beloved performance capture - preumably at Disney, as part of the new set up there.

This might finally be a truly great version of this overfilmed yarn - possibly definitive, and slamming a cork in the bottle before any more mediocre/sub-par rehashes trickle out. Here's hoping, anyway. I'll cross my fingers from now until, oh, I dunno Christmas 2010 or whenever the film is eventually released.

And as I've been reading the Beowulf script this morning, Zemeckis is very much in my good books at the moment (not that I haven't always loved his films).

Billboard Bonanaza

The full set of billboard images at Film Focus make for some good browsing. Here's my favourites: a nice look at Grendel from Beowulf - the character Crispin Glover will be playing; Horton Hears a Who; something from The Spiderwick Chronicles, which intrigues me a little as Mark Waters is directing and it's just outside his comfort zone.

Movie Minesweeper - The Classic Bangladeshi Edition

- Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf will screen in 3D at IMAX venues as well as over 1000 digital screens across the US so, really, you have no excuse. Also, some posters for the film have been revealed, and they're quite striking in their way.

- Joel Siegel has passed away. A former roommate of Terry Gilliam and long time film critic, he recently became infamous for his walk-out protest during a screening of Clerks 2.

- Slate have a nice slideshow on 'the secrets of Brad Bird'.

- Penny Marsall is going back to the diamond (Is that apt slang? I don't know anything about sport at all) with a film about Effra Manley, the first woman inducted into the Baseball hall of fame. Apparently, Hilary Swank and Demi Moore are front runners for the lead.

- Liam Neeson is set to star in Richard Eyre's The Other Man opposite Juliette Binoche. Charles Wood has co-written the script with Eyre. I'm keen to see who will shoot this - Eyre has a great taste in cinematographers.

- Roland Emmerich's 10000 BC had pretty much fallen off of the radar, but MTV just picked up a blip.

- The Weinsteins have got their oar in the waters of Korean animation too, now.

- The Sun have spuriously misinterpreted Daniel Craig to suggest he's quitting Bond after the next film.

- Latino Review have Sam Raimi weighing up two options: The Grays or No Man's Land. They each feature alien invaders in some fashion or another.

- A paparazzi snap of Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf together on the Indiana Jones set has been unveiled.

- Jason O'Mara has taken the lead role in Life On Mars US.

- Kristen Bell has been snapped on the set of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which she stars with Russell Brand. Yes, that Russell Brand.

- The MPAA have filed law suits against two sites that help pirates do their dirty bidding.

- Jim Carrey's Sober Buddies seems to be in slightly bad taste.

- This is hilarious, and disturbing, and (almost definitely) not true : a Paris Hilton biopic is in development, to star Lindsay Lohan and with a Britney Spears soundtrack.

And I'm going to publish this now and then make moves on a second Minesweeper in a couple of minutes. I've got a pile of things to get through, but I don't want to keep this post hanging any longer.

Where The Toy Things Are

The first image from Where the Wild Things Are has popped up online and, yep, it looks really quite exciting indeed. I've popped it below with more snaps from the New York Toyfare. There's Beowulf and the Hulk's silhouette, and if you go over to the coverage at Wizard, you can see plenty more - including well distributed, much discussed, boring snaps of vehicles from The Dark Knight and Speed Racer. Yawn.

But this Wild Things image. Now. There's something, eh?

Seems Like We Know How Beowulf Is Going To Begin

TheBeat are reporting that IDW will be publishing a Beowulf comic book adaptation, and published the first page which you can see below. It seems to suggest how the film will begin, don't you think? I'm actually really excited by this sort-of-glimpse-type-hint.

Chris Ryall will write, Gabriel Rodriguez will... er... art.

Movie Minesweeper - The Rich Tea Edition

- Variety have been chatting to the 3D boffins handling Beowulf.

- Sicko goes sci-fi with Repossession Mambo in which a man made of artifical organs has to go on the run after he fails to make payments for his heart transplant. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker are to star, while Miguel Sapochnik is to direct.

- John August is hooked on Tower Defense games.

- Remy the rat is energy efficient - even if the acres of renderbots that brought him to screen might not be.

- Both the IESB and Latino Review claim to have Voltron exclusives. In fact, they're each more or less recycling the same loose info about Justin Marks. Latino Review have more details, I suppose, but they're also much more excitable about the whole thing. Jeez. They really suck for this dumbed-down toy-movie dreck over there.

- Meanwhile, IESB also have casting details for the robot voices in Transformers.

The Road To Endor, But Not Venice

Neil Gaiman has reported on his blog that, actually, Beowulf probably won't be at the Venice fest. Shame.

A week ago, or so, Gaiman mentioned a meeting with Guillermo del Toro. I didn't think that alone was necessarily news - del Toro is attached to the Death film as a producer, and they're probably still working on trying to get it moving forward. But then I received a few e-mails on the matter, and realising people were really interested, I started asking around.

Now, this might not come to anything and, frankly, I think the Death explanation is still more likely, but there's some buzz about del Toro coming onboard another Gaiman project as producer. This time, it's an adaptation of the novel The Road to Endor, scripted by Gaiman and Penn Jilette - first mentioned here last November. And indeed it does seem to be the sort of film del Toro would be very interested in - in fact, I expect the rumour to blossom and bloom and become 'news' that del Toro is to direct the film before long, as if he doesn't have enough on his plate. We'll see, however, what actually does become of all of this.

I promise to keep on investigating, bad at it as I am.

Movie Minesweeper - The From The Room Across The Hall Edition

- Nicolas Cage won't be in Capone Rising after all. Perhaps there won't even be a Capone Rising. If there is, then Gerard Butler is still going to be the young Sean Connery.

- The Australian Daily Telegraph seem to think there's the possibilty of one more Star Wars film for cinemas. Nonsense. I think it will be at least ten years until Lucas announces more Star Wars feature films.

- Ubisoft have developed the videogame tie-in for Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf.

- CelebritySmack have a shot of Madonna, movie director. Apparently, Filth and Wisdom is only a short. That's merciful.

- Surprise surprise: Hope Davis will be in Charlie Kaufmann's Synecdoche, New York and once that's wrapped, she'll shoot Genova with Michael Winterbottom.

- Trent Reznor is trying to turn his album Year Zero into something more audiovisual, perhaps a film. Apparently, he's talking to 'A-list people' in order to do so. Sadly, this likely means David Fincher and not, say, Mark Romanek.

- Fox are planning a movie based on The Sims. Sim City I can see - the hurricanes and Godzilla-alikes might make for fun - but The Sims? Isn't this just every sitcom ever? Maybe they can do a cross-license and bring back Friends at the same time, as the same project.

- Tell me why. I don't like Monday Monday.

- Lodge Kerrigan is to write and direct a remake of Les Voleurs. This is a very good thing. We'll never get to see In God's Hands - stupid god and his clumsy hands - but at least we have something to look forward to again on the Kerrigan front.

- Rintaro, director of the animated Metropolis, is the latest to get going on a CG Penguin film. Apparently, the film is going to be kind of Franco-Japanese, somehow. Great name, though: Yona Yona Penguin.

- The BBC have comissioned Outcasts, a rather serious sounding new sci-fi series. Expect the American remake to follow.

- HorrorMovies have a rather exciting new clip from Hostel 2.

- And... Eli Roth is making strides with his Trailer Trash project, smaller steps with his Grind House 'sequel'. He's also pretty clear that he's done with Hostel, and won't cook up a third installment.

- There's going to be an Ocean's 14 but not a fourth Jason Bourne film? Suits me just fine. I won't lose any sleep over that outcome.

- A Lone Ranger film from the Pirates of the Caribbean team. Not for me, thankyou.

- US readers can see two clips from Sicko. [EDIT: Or download directly instead]

The Look Of Zemeckis' Mars Story

Berkely Breathed has been interviewed by Ken Plume, who asked about working with Robert Zemeckis on Mars Needs Moms:

I haven’t started working with him, as he’s finishing Beowulf. But his folks seem dedicated to preserving the look of my art. They were fanatical about this with Polar Express. We’ll see. You never know really. It’s all a gamble in Hollywood.

I think he can trust Zemeckis. Well, I trust him anyway.

Spielberg And Jackson Each Directing Their Own Tintin Film

Here's yet another case of Robert Zemeckis being at the cutting edge of film technique and technology...

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are each directing a film in a planned trilogy of Tintin movies, with no indication yet of who will direct the third. Perhaps this deal was instrumental in The Lovely Bones landing at Dreamworks.

Now we know the next two films from each of the two directors - unless Spielberg squeezes another film in the middle somewhere. I'm quite confident Jackson's film will be the better of the two. For obvious reasons.

Apparently, a 20-minute test reel already exists, demonstrating the motion capture technology and the resulting images.

Spielberg said "Herge's characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul which goes far beyond anything we've seen to date with computer animated characters". Yeah, right, Steve. I don't believe a word of it. I bet they're great, really great, but what, exactly is lacking emotion or soul in, say, King Kong, Gollum, Buzz, Woody, Sully or Mike? And this old claptrap about motion capture offering more nuance and 'reality' than conventionally animated characters is starting to get very, very tiring. It simply isn't true.

Jackson said "We're making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people - but real Herge people!"

I hope they know what they're doing. Polar Express was a warning shot over the heads of the mo-cap world, perhaps, and if Zemeckis can come a little unstuck with this tech, I don't know what hope anybody else will have. Beowulf is going to be the tester - if that works, then it can be done; if not - who knows? Monster House style caricature might be the only attainable answer, for now at least.

Vincent Comin' Atcha, Knick Knack Back On The Shelf?

When The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D is re-released this October, a newly steresocopic remix of Vincent, Burton's early stop-motion short that simply begs to be read as autobiography, will be added to the start of the show.

Where this leaves Knick Knack, the Pixar toon that preceeded Nightmare last year, I don't honestly know, but it may still be in there, censored bosoms and all. Here's Chuck Viane (again), speaking to The Hollywood Reporter:

When you have an evergreen title like Nightmare, it is very important to give the fan a chance to sample something new. Each year on bring backs, we are going to try to add some value.

Bring-backs plural. I guess we'll be getting another chance to see Chicken Little before too long, then - and a good thing too, it was only on 84 screens first time around. Real-D has given Disney a fresh reason to repeat cinema engagements.

Estimates have the 3D cinema count approaching 1000 in the US by the time Nightmare returns in October, possibly hitting 1200 in time for Beowulf in November.

Regarding the 3D projects Robert Zemeckis is setting up at Disney, Viane hints that an announcement is drawing near. Expect to see John Carter of Mars in the title list somewhere.