Runelords - the Movie (Director Announced)

[ergeheilalt]

(borrowed from the Runlord's website)

CHRISTIAN DUGUAY SIGNED TO DIRECT
$80 MILLION EPIC ADVENTURE ‘THE RUNELORDS’

‘Crash’ McCreery Signed to Design Characters

LOS ANGELES, MAR. 1, 2004 – Christian Duguay, who directed “The Art of War” (a Franchise Pictures production distributed through Warner Bros.) and epic miniseries Emmy winners “Hitler: The Rise of Evil” and “Joan of Arc” has been signed to direct the $80 million epic adventure “The Runelords”, the first of three films based on the internationally best-selling novels by David Farland, it is announced today by the producers. Scheduled to commence principal photography in Prague, Czech Republic in July, “The Runelords” is a co-production between Franchise Pictures, Story Island Entertainment, Canyonlight Entertainment and Entertainment Business Group (EBG).

Duguay states, “At the heart of The Runelords lies a world grappling with issues that closely resemble the ones we¹re dealing with today: A clash of civilizations, charismatic leaders and their unsavory agendas and perhaps most important of all, the struggle to live in harmony with nature. Set against this, is an inspired love story that asks universal questions about the values we live by, the values we take for granted and humanity’s eternal search and struggle for ways to improve ourselves and the world we live in.”

Runelords’ Producer Anne Marie Gillen (“Fried Green Tomatoes”, “Under Suspicion”, “Straight Up”) adds: “Christian’s extraordinary passion for this epic is operatic in scope. He will be combining elements of otherworldly landscapes and choreographed movement that will amaze and entertain audiences from all over the world. We couldn’t be more thrilled with his unique vision of the franchise.”

Gillen also announced the signing of Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery to conceptualize Christian’s vision for Runelords. Crash is one of the world’s most prolific character and environmental designers (Jurassic Park I II & III A.I., Terminator II: Judgment Day, and most recently M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Village’) and the designer behind such celebrated characters as the dangerously gothic Edward Scissorhands, the moonlit skeletal Pirates of the Caribbean, and Danny Devito’s sinister nemesis of Batman, The Penguin. Crash comments: “I am looking forward to bringing some creative, original ideas to an already inventive and imaginative property in the hopes of making Runelords a unique and satisfying movie-going experience.”



Published in 1997, “The Runelords” was the first novel in the series and was followed by “Brotherhood of the Wolf”, “Wizardborn” and most recently “Lair of Bones”. The first installment weaves a mixture of magic and myth, romance, valor, wonder and bravery.

Duguay, who began his directing career in his native Canada, has been twice nominated for an Emmy for his television work. His feature film credits include “The Art of War”, “The Assignment” and “Screamers”.

Elie Samaha is executive producing and Joseph Merhi is producing for Franchise Pictures, which has a standing domestic distribution deal with Warner Bros. The other producers are author David Wolverton (whose pen name is David Farland) for his company Story Island Entertainment, W. David McBrayer and Richard Shaw for Canyonlight Entertainment and EBG, which is headed by Rob Holt and John J. Lee, Jr., with development and production president Anne Marie Gillen.

EBG’s Bruce Auerbach is handling electronic games and merchandising and Pamela Pickering is handling international sales at AFM.

I'm excited. I really like these books and seeing them in film will rock.

Erge

 

[WayneLigon]

Duguay, who began his directing career in his native Canada, has been twice nominated for an Emmy for his television work. His feature film credits include “The Art of War”, “The Assignment” and “Screamers”.

The guy who directed Screamers... is directing this? Sweet Baby Jesus, I hope he had a brain tumor or something when he did Screamers, #3 on my all-time hit parade of worst offenses to the art of film.

Sad.

 

[ergeheilalt]

Word is from the owner of the site (apparently a friend of the author), the director and the author (David Farland) are hitting it off quite well.

I just hope it's good. I'm still a bit shaky on who I would cast for the various parts. I do think the Rock would make a convincing Raj Ahten - at least visually.

Erge

 

[KChagga]

I do think the Rock would make a convincing Raj Ahten - at least visually.

Erge

Sweet Jesus, NOOO. No Rock. No Rock. No Rock anywhere near these films.
You know how many endowments of appearance Raj Ahten has? Rock is an ugly dude. Definitely not even close. On top of that Raj Ahten would look middle eastern and the Rock is not that.
I have no idea who could play Raj Ahten realistically. I think the only way to do it correctly would be to never actually show him directly on screen. To look upon Raj Ahten would make you fall under his control anyways.

 

[ergeheilalt]

Sweet Jesus, NOOO. No Rock. No Rock. No Rock anywhere near these films.
You know how many endowments of appearance Raj Ahten has? Rock is an ugly dude. Definitely not even close. On top of that Raj Ahten would look middle eastern and the Rock is not that.
I have no idea who could play Raj Ahten realistically. I think the only way to do it correctly would be to never actually show him directly on screen. To look upon Raj Ahten would make you fall under his control anyways.

Good point, but the Rock at least has the Brawn, Grace, and Metabolisum going for him. For anyone to be the Raj Ahten, he'd have to have the bulky - somewhat exotic - looking apprearence. I picture Indhopal as a roughtly middle eastern, arabic looking place (similar to the Old World in the SoT novels). I cannot think of someone who would be a better Raj Ahten - tho I'd be glad to entertain other ideas.

 

[Shadowdancer]

The guy who directed Screamers... is directing this? Sweet Baby Jesus, I hope he had a brain tumor or something when he did Screamers, #3 on my all-time hit parade of worst offenses to the art of film.

Sad.

Really. I enjoyed "Screamers" very much, and often recommend it to people as an overlooked science fiction gem. I've had no complaints from anyone I've recommended it to so far.

 

[Mistwell]

Elie Samaha is executive producing...

I've dealt with this guy concerning Franky the Fly.

All I can say is that him being the EP makes it extremely likely this will be a bad movie, and drastically increases the odds it will be out for a week and then hit the videos. The odds are he won't spend the money necessary to make it a good film, he won't let others spend it, he won't promote it, he basically will treat it like a disposable item - squeeze it for whatever it is worth in a short period of time, and then dump it.

Now, there have been rare exceptions to that attitude, but they are few and far between. People generally have to prove to him first that it IS a good movie before he will MAKE it a good movie. Yes, that's right, he comes at it as a catch 22 from the start.

Samaha = bad news. Thank god he isn't married to Tia Carrera anymore.