I fully realize that a $47 million dollar budget is not exactly “indie” but when you consider the dedication, passion and wrangling that’s taken to put Outlander together, along with the grassroots promotion that the film has relied on for the last year or so (and then throw in the fact that the film has been in pre-production for years), it really does feel like an indie film, even if the budget isn’t.
I’ve been tracking the project since late 2006 when it was announced that James Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Jack Huston, Ron Perlman and John Hurt had all been cast in the project. This is not your run of the mill Viking film. From the official website, we get this updated synopsis:
An age old battle rages amongst the stars. Kainan’s people have been fighting the Moorwen, fierce animal-like creatures for dominance. When his space craft crashes into the fjords of ancient Norway it’s with dismay that Kainan realizes that he wasn’t the only survivor. A second passenger, a Moorwen also emerges from the wreckage and into the time of the Vikings, intent on causing harm to those it perceives have wronged it. As the Moorwen kills everything in its path, Kainan has to try and get the feuding tribes to work together long enough to destroy the beast before it destroys them all.
Yes, you read right: spacecraft. We’re talking aliens vs. vikings. Sweet lord. I know it sounds ludicrous but don’t run away just yet. The video and set photos all suggest that this could actually be pretty good and frankly, anyone who’s ballsy enough to pit aliens against vikings is good in my books.
Outlander made it’s first few distribution sales during the Berlin Film Festival and at the moment, is scheduled to open in Russia on September 4th. The Weinstein Company holds the US distribution rights and hopefully, we’ll have a chance to see it at some point this year.
I’ll be keeping you posted on new updates as they develop. At this point, I’m ready to see an official trailer, even if it is in Russian.
This discussion currently has 30 responses.
March 7, 2008
Vikings.. Aliens.. what’s not to love? The only thing that could improve it would be some miniguns and chainsaws.
March 7, 2008
I have to confess as a connoisseur of Viking films, I am looking forward to this one. At any rate, it’s got to be better than Pathfinder…
March 7, 2008
I’m feeling TJ’s irony in full force…
And Mercurie…you’re soooo right. Pathfinder was a disaster. Too bad because it certainly had a good idea and some excellent visuals.
March 7, 2008
Marina, really? One of the main reasons I avoided Patherfinder was its awfully dark steel-grey palette. The visual look of that film was quite embarrassing for a studio film. Everything about that film screamed ‘amateur’
March 7, 2008
I disagree. Yes, it was dark and steel-gray, even some of the mountain scenes with lots of snow, but I think that added a bit to the mood of the film. To be honest, I didn’t have too many complaints about the look of the film (except for the fact that the Vikings, who looked so damned good) were generally moved over quickly and we weren’t really given a chance to take in the details (which appeared to be there though I haven’t seen the film since and can’t say if that’s true or not). The major problem was the piss poor acting and even worse story. THAT was laughable.
March 7, 2008
yea, visually I’m just going from the trailers. the reviews and general sense i got from the film was so poor that i avoided it. sounds like I made the right choice.
April 22, 2008
Sounds like the movie is still about a year away but wicked sweet poster goodness:
April 23, 2008
The thing that killed Pathfinder here in Iceland, and will most likely kill Outlander as well if it ever hits the theater is that they have the actors speak Icelandic. I don’t know if foreigners can sense it but the Icelandic in Pathfinder was fucking horrible and hilarious at the same time. It murdered any sense of dread and suspense hearing these actors trying to sound bad ass while babbling their lines in a language they don’t know. It was embarrassing to watch and made me cringe in my seat.
The Viking characters in Pathfinder are masked most of the time so getting Icelandic actors to dub for them would have been much easier and would have worked much better. But since Icelandic is spoken by such a small number of people I guess the filmmakers thought it didn’t matter.
Outlander uses Icelandic as well for their viking characters but I don’t know how much of the film will be in Icelandic. Hopefully not much.
So if any of the filmmakers behind Outlander are reading this. Please spend some time in the ADR with an Icelander to help the actors in the film pronounce the language properly.
April 29, 2008
“The thing that killed Pathfinder here in Iceland, and will most likely kill Outlander as well if it ever hits the theater is that they have the actors speak Icelandic.”
No one speaks icelandic in Outlander. All the vikings speak english and the aliens (caviezel and not the monster) speak an alien language that is actually ancient Norse (it’s a dead language that only one or two people can actually speak and they taught the actors their lines)
Also, I assume the movie will be in theaters before the end of the year.
April 29, 2008
“I assume the movie will be in theaters before the end of the year”
I sure as heck hope so! I’m getting pretty excited about it!
May 19, 2008
On the poster, Im the dude with the axe! If the Movie turns out 2 be half as good as it was fun 2 shoot…SMASH HIT!!
June 12, 2008
This can’t be from Diana Gabaldon! It is a complete shame to the series if so! If it is then I hope it flops, because it is awfull to twist the wonderful story that Gabaldon created and became a best-seller for.
June 12, 2008
Worry not Natalie, this isn’t at all based on Gabaldon’s books…just shares the same title!
If this were, in fact, a shameful take on the books, I’d wonder who the hell was playing Jamie!
June 13, 2008
I know it’s a very late response but ancient norse is basically Icelandic.
June 16, 2008
Hey James…I’m anxious to see the movie too. But man, fun to work on? I guess actors have more fun than transport,lol.
Remember the mud and the cold rains?
I hope it gets released this year. I think it could be a fun movie to watch.
June 17, 2008
ive noted that the names are from the book beowulf just not the name beowulf
June 18, 2008
I read somewhere that the film was originally supposed to be Beowulf but funding fell apart or something so they changed the plot a bit.
June 18, 2008
“I read somewhere that the film was originally supposed to be Beowulf but funding fell apart or something so they changed the plot a bit.”
Not exactly. It was originally written as beowulf with space aliens with all the same names and stuff (some differences in plot details) but basically this was years before there was a sudden upsurge in interest in viking movies and all the suits that liked the script told the writers that no one liked beowulf when they were made to read it in school so they changed all the names and stuff and possibly some other details to distance the film a bit from the poem.
Later, the script was picked up by Ascendant pictures who shortly after made a deal through “Wild Bunch” ( a french company) to sell distribution rights. One of the first deals was for the Weinstein Company to distribute the movie in North America. A German company (VIP medienfonds) was in a multi-picture deal to finance a bunch of Ascendant’s movies, and Karl Urban was picked to play Kainan.
THey did all kinds of pre-production work on the current script, but then some funding (inclear which funding though it could be that VIP wasn’t able to provide as much as they hoped) fell through. THey had scouted New Zealand and had Weta lined up to do the armor and effects work but that all fell through for the same reason. Their budget was reportedly halved. Original estimates were that the movie would have cost 70 to 80 million but the initial reported budget when they were forced to move the production to Nova Scotia and Newfoundlan was in the neighborhood of 30+ million. However Ascendant’s site says the films budget was 40 million, and reports indicate the final cost of the movie is actually about 47 million.
The script has remained pretty much the same for a number of years. They might have toned down some of the effects sequences, but mostly it was the locations that changed with the budget.
While the movie looks amazing I have heard that the movie wasn’t without hiccups as there was reportedly tension on the set due to them “trying to make a 100 million dollar movie for half the money.” And in all fairness that’s exactly why they moved to Canada. And if the reports from cannes from Fangoria and the Frightfest folks are to be beleived it sounds like they may just have succeded at that.
June 19, 2008
OK. This sounds like a very cool idea to mix genres like that and I hope they succeed. I just hope they do better than the Icelandic Beowulf film made a couple of years ago.
June 19, 2008
“OK. This sounds like a very cool idea to mix genres like that and I hope they succeed. I just hope they do better than the Icelandic Beowulf film made a couple of years ago.”
‘Beowulf & Grendel’ is such a wierd oddity of a movie. The story itself is somewhat compelling, but the movie is very very uneven. Most of this has to do with Grendel himself. He comes off almost like a joke. And you can hardly keep yourself from laughing when one of the first few shots is of an absurdly fuzzy kid. The film makers really really wanted the audience to kind of relate to the “monster” by making him do silly things like bowling with skulls and peeing on the door… If the movie tried harder to stick to the Viking perspective it probably would have been a better film.
And the other horrible thing: Sarah Polley’s accent is just wrong…. ohhhh so wrong! Whether vikings would be talking english at all doesn’t matter. Her accent should have at least matched those around her.
All the scenery where they filmed in Iceland was pretty though.
June 20, 2008
There is a documentary called Wrath of Gods that chronicles the making of the film and all the shit they had to go through in order to get it made. It’s been getting more praise than the actual film it documents.
I know the actor who played Grendel and I know he didn’t want to go on stage in Toronto after the premiere.
July 6, 2008
i think its a retelling of beowulf i hope so the last few movies about beowulf were just BAD!!!!!!
July 7, 2008
I don’t recall any aliens in the original Beowulf. And I don’t agree that the last few movies have been shit. I wasn’t a fan of Zemeckis’ Beowulf but Sturla Gunnarsson’s “Beowulf & Grendel” is all kinds of awesome.
July 8, 2008
“I don’t recall any aliens in the original Beowulf…”
Nope, But Outlander’s premise is basically *what if Grendel was actually a space monster?* The film was reworked a bit from that original concept and Grendel became the Moorwen and Beowulf became Kainan. Applying modern sensibilities that try and tell us that magic and monster’s cannot exist to ancient mythological texts is kind of where the genesis of Outlander began. The Sci-fi is basically a way of explaining how a monster is possible.
July 10, 2008
The international trailer is on my website now.. Looks cool!
http://outlander.solsector.net/
July 11, 2008
That looks pretty bad ass.
Put up a post about it on Twitch.
July 11, 2008
That’s great! thanks.
July 19, 2008
OK, I had the privilege to see the full preview of this film tonite. I was way impressed, and the audience reaction was huge! And honestly I am not a big fan of vikings or aliens, or even super hero comic books. But this is a BIG film that was a treat to watch! Riveting, engaging, beautiful sets, great performances and even a Johnny Depp look alike. Like any great film, there was huge emotional pull, and you got involved and cared about the characters. Plenty of action for the action for the special effects and gore junkies, but I think you’ll be getting a lot more than you bargained for when you see this film. I sure did!!!!!
July 20, 2008
You caught the L.A. Screening Ken? Cool, I envy you. I got invited but I’m just too far away to have been able to make it. Nice to hear that the crowd was really into it.
December 22, 2008
Very much after the original posting, but a correction. While Icelandic is very conservative, the pronunciation has changed dramatically from the Old Norse. It’s the grammar that has been more conservative (esp. the morphology). Many specialists in Old Norse will use a modern pronunciation when working with the texts, but that is just a convention.
I’ll be very curious to see what kind of a job the actors have done with the language. And I want to see this film soon!