The Return of Sword & Sorcery Cinema?

[nikolai]

We were talking about this before the boards crashed, when the thread was lost. Things may be looking quite bright for a S&S cinema revival. The only real S&S films this decade have been 'The Scorpion King' and 'Dungeons & Dragons' (and possibly Bloodrayne too). But things are looking up. From what I can remember, here's a brief status report:

* Bran Mak Morn - a film staring REH's other Barbarian is currently in production by Working Title.
* Red Sonja - her second outing has just been announced by Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla Films.
* Elric - Universal have the rights, the script, Moorcock's blessing and the project is moving along.
* Conan - WB seems keen to continue the franchise, though the film has been in development hell for some time. Hopefully progress will be made soon. Meanwhile an animated version of 'Red Nails' is going straight to video.
* Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser - Dark Horse have recently got their hands on the film rights, and are trying to stir up some interest.

On the mythic side, two Beowulf adaptations are out.

* Beowulf and Grendel - a straight down the line arty Icelandic version (thanks Wayneligon).
* Beowulf - an animated/CG/motion capture production (thanks Wayneligon).

Several S&S videogame adaptations are also on the way.

* World of Warcraft - is being produced by Legendary Films (thanks Insight).
* Dungeon Siege - is being made into Uwe Bolls magnus opus.

I'd be interesting in hearing everyone's thoughts.

 

[Klaus]

I bought the DVD to Curse of the Ring/Ring of the Nibelungs, a made-for-TV production that aired on Sci-Fi recently, and it is head-and-shoulders better than both D&D movies, for instance. Not LotR material, but it is as good as Dragonslayer, and would've merited a theatrical release.

 

[Insight]

Blizzard/Vivendi just announced a World of Warcraft live action movie.

 

[WayneLigon]

June 16th will be the limited US release of Beowulf and Grendel.

 

[Brakkart]

Heres another fantasy movie, this one is out in October I believe. No trailer as yet, but the background legend makes for interesting reading:

http://www.eragonmovie.com/

 

[Ranger REG]

Heres another fantasy movie, this one is out in October I believe. No trailer as yet, but the background legend makes for interesting reading:

http://www.eragonmovie.com/

This I don't understand. How is it that this book get to have a film adaptation and not Dragonlance.

To Hollywood: What the HELL?!?!!!

 

[Brakkart]

This I don't understand. How is it that this book get to have a film adaptation and not Dragonlance.

To Hollywood: What the HELL?!?!!!

Well my guess would be that Eragon is one movie. There is absolutely no way they could do justice to Dragonlance with anything short of a trilogy. Look on the bright side, if a movie about dragon riders does well, it only increases the chances of seeing Dragonlance made. Hollywood LOVES a bandwagon after all.

Me? I'm just glad to see that the success of Lord of the Rings is starting to have this effect and make Hollywood take another stab at doing fantasy films.

 

[horacethegrey]

This I don't understand. How is it that this book get to have a film adaptation and not Dragonlance.

To Hollywood: What the HELL?!?!!!

Because Dragonlance isn't a household name and I highly doubt the Chronicles books have ever made the New York Times bestsellers list. Regardless of what people think of Eragon (I have no opinion, cause I've never read it), it's the better known series, and thus insures a built in audience for a movie.

But back on topic.

* Elric - Universal have the rights, the script, Moorcock's blessing and the project is moving along.

Never read the novel, but I pretty much know the gist of it. The thing is, is Hollywood or the American audience ready for an albino antihero who's the very opposite of Aragorn?

* Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser - Dark Horse have recently got their hands on the film rights, and are trying to stir up some interest.

I'm quite surprised that Dark Horse is pushing to make a movie of this. Let's hope they can get it done like they did with Hellboy.

 

[nikolai]

Here's the F&GM link. They're working on a treatment (a pitch of the story) & concept art, so it's really early in the process, but at least someone is doing something.

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=35790

I didn't include Eragon in the list because it seemed to be to be pretty derivative "Lord of the Rings meets Sword in the Stone" style high fantasy. But things are looking very bright for fantasy in general, mainly due to films aimed at kids like Potter & Narnia & His Dark Materials & so on. I hope some of that magic will cross over into S&S.

This I don't understand. How is it that this book [Eragon] get to have a film adaptation and not Dragonlance.

I think when both Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter hit the cinemas and did very well it sent all the studios scrambling around looking for other fantasy and children's fantasy projects to work on. Eragon was released and got to the top of the book charts at just the right moment, it's that simple really.

 

[CCamfield]

I really don't think of (World of) Warcraft as swords & sorcery, but it might be good, in any case.

I'll be happier about these projects when they're being FILMED. The ratio of semi-developed versus actually filmed movies is pretty high.