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!

http://outlander.solsector.net/

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.

I know the actor who played Grendel and I know he didn’t want to go on stage in Toronto after the premiere.

‘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.

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.

If this were, in fact, a shameful take on the books, I’d wonder who the hell was playing Jamie!

I sure as heck hope so! I’m getting pretty excited about it!

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.

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.