First trailer for "Beowulf"

[jetsetter]

In July 1997, novelist Neil Gaiman and screenwriter Roger Avary wrote a screen adaptation of Beowulf. The script had been optioned by ImageMovers in the same year and set up at DreamWorks with Avary slated to direct. The project eventually went into turnaround after the option expired, the rights returned to the Avary who began assembling the financing through his Killing Zoe producer, Samuel Hadida. In January 2005, producer Steve Bing, at the behest of Zemeckis who was wanting to direct the film himself, paid the writers an undisclosed sum for rights to the Beowulf script. Avary accepted the deal and relinquished the directing reins to Robert Zemeckis to direct the film. Beowulf, estimated to have a preliminary budget of $70 million, was announced to be a motion capture film similar to Zemeckis' The Polar Express. The following June, Columbia Pictures entered talks with actors Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Brendan Gleeson, and Robin Wright Penn to be cast in Beowulf. With the film having a motion capture approach, the actors would be committing to performing in a regular film rather than a computer-animated film.[3] In August 2005, actress Angelina Jolie joined the rest in the cast, taking on the role of Grendel's Mother. Producer Bing, who did not finalize a distribution deal with Columbia Pictures, arranged new deals with Paramount Pictures for U.S. distribution and Warner Bros. Pictures for international distribution.

At Comic-Con International in July 2006, Neil Gaiman said Beowulf would use the voices of actors Angelina Jolie, Crispin Glover, and Ray Winstone. Describing the film as a "cheerfully violent and strange take on the Beowulf legend", Gaiman said Beowulf would be released on November 22, 2007. The following October, Beowulf was announced to be projected in 3-D in over a thousand theaters for its release date in November 2007. The studios planned to use 3-D projection technology that had been used by Monster House, Chicken Little, and 3-D re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas, but on a larger scale than previous films. Beowulf would additionally be released in 35mm alongside the 3-D projections.

Trailer in various sizes: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/
Official movie website: http://www.beowulfmovie.com/


I'll be there.

[teenkiller]

A few months ago I attended Crispin Glover's screening of his film What Is It? He did a Q and A and briefly spoke of his role in this upcoming film. He talked about how surprised he was that Zemeckis had asked him to be in the film after suing him back in the 80s over the use of his image in Back to the Future 2. At the time I didn't even realize that it was stop motion and that Crispin's voice would only be used. I don't know anything of the Beowulf lore so as of now I am on the fence about it. Well thats all for now GOoD JOURNEY my fellow schmoes.

[APzombie]

Yea i thought it was funny he convinced Crispin after that BTTF2 situation. Interesting.

Anybody else find the the trailers pixel skewing really tedious, especially around in the dark areas? I tried it on every HD setting and it still looks horrible.

[crodger]

Awesome!! Count me in

[Drewza89]

Originally posted by APzombie

Anybody else find the the trailers pixel skewing really tedious, especially around in the dark areas? I tried it on every HD setting and it still looks horrible.

I had the same problem. Aside from that it looked awesome. I heard there would be two different cuts. The loons on the imdb boards are saying ther will be an unrated or NC-17 DVD. Anyone know anything?

[Silverload]

It looks great, but why isn’t this live action? The CGI characters moved around so stiff it’s hard to take them serious. I guess the 3D is good reason for the CGI, I guess.

Also, this would have had me bouncing off the walls had it had the surrealistic fluidness of hand drawn animation. I don’t know, I just feel hand drawn animation brings so much more to the table then CGI, it’s a shame Hollywood abandoned it.

[FLAME_ON]

man... that "In The House- In a Heartbeat" song could make any cinematic sequence chilling and intense.

But good lord, count me in on this... looks incredible... plus it's fucking Zemeckis of course. Can't wait!

[Rick-James]

...

[Rick-James]

Looks awful, and very creepy.

[Scarfather]

I can't speak for the quality of the movie itself, but that was a fucking awful trailer.

But I can speak on one point of the trailer.

..
..
..
...
.

Call me fucking delusional if you will, but wouldn't The Polar Express, Monster House, and likely Beowulf be TIMELESS FUCKING CLASSICS is they were in live-action with CGI? Instead of completely animated?

What should be timeless classics by Zemeckis are bound to be forgotten in the animated shuffle. You could argue that if an animated film is truly great, it is a classic besides, which is very true, but all films that come to mind, (Toy Story, The Lion King, and going back to Alice in Wonderland and Steamboat Willie), are very much cartoon films.

For Zemeckis to make animated films that constantly strive to look real just bears the question: Why not just make them for real?

[Moviefan1234]

They should of just made it live action. BEOWULF is a story that is best told as a motion picture that isn't animated. Some stories are meant for animation, but this is not one of them.

[Cronos]

never liked this way/style of animation, just doesnt look good to me, i'll be checking it out though since Glover is in it

[Backstabba]

That looks hella weird...
But interesting too...

I'll be seeing it hoping for some good action, and for Ray Winstone.

[God of War]

Here are some screenshots, curtesy of MOI. :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_1.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_2.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_3.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_4.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_5.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_6.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_7.png

[God of War]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_8.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_9.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_10.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_11.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_12.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_13.png

[God of War]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_14.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_15.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_16.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_17.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_18.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/ChiefThunder/Movie%20Screens/beowulf_19.png

[electriclite]

Originally posted by Scarfather


For Zemeckis to make animated films that constantly strive to look real just bears the question: Why not just make them for real?


The thing is Zemeckis probably wants to make an actual computer animated film, but the problem is that it takes an incredible amount of skill to animate HUMANS believably. Because people, unbeknownst to them are experts at knowing how people move. So we're highly critical when we see humans rendered on screen. Which is why animators practice for yeeeeeeeeeeeeeears to learn now to capture that believably. . . . which is also why lots of animated characters are animals.

Look at Pixar. They didn't devote an entire film to human characters till the Incredibles. Before that you had the very short shots of the family in Toy Story. But from that they progressed in the same way Disney progressed from the deer depicted in Snow White to the accurate depiction of deer in Bambi. But that took YEARS, 15 in that case. With Toy Story it took 4 years to get to the level where they good accurately animate Al the toy collector, and then another 5 years to be able to do an entire film with human characters (The Incredibles).

Of course time is money and studios want a product out quickly. Also a lot of producers are more concerned with owning the trendiness of "the latest in computer technology" then the legacy and craft of it. So that's where motion capture comes in. You place markers over actors' bodies and film their movements at specific angles and then place a CGI skin over that. Saves a lot of time and subtracts a lot of the trial and error that is involved in honing a craft, and you still get to call it animated.

[bigred760]

It looks alright; though I'm not convinced that this computer image capture or whatever was the way to go. It's still got a great cast headed by the underrated Ray Winstone.

[MickeyKnox]

Looks completely awesome, i'll be there November when this bad boy comes out.

[Shockwave]

Looks pretty cool, but i hope GRENDEL looks cooler then those pictures show. Doesnt seem very menacing or animal like.:(

[TylerDurden182]

I'm not digging the look.

[Cronos]

i really don't like how it looks....at all

[Badbird]

If you're gonna spend $150 million on an animated movie, why not just make a real movie?

LOTR, Narnia, etc. have shown time and time again that you can do that with these kinds of movies.

Being animated will just alienate the 300 loving frat boys they are hoping will see this.

Plus it can't possibly be better than Christopher Lambert's 1998 Beowulf that was so awesome it made any DVD player that showed it bleed candy and give you a million dollars.

[AndrewDB]

Man.. the Rotoscoping in this is incredible.. I thought it was real first..

I might see this... I'm a HUGE Gaiman fan..partly because he wrote Neverwhere, but, this.. I think I might wait for reviews..

[Superplasmatron]

Originally posted by teenkiller
A few months ago I attended Crispin Glover's screening of his film What Is It? He did a Q and A and briefly spoke of his role in this upcoming film. He talked about how surprised he was that Zemeckis had asked him to be in the film after suing him back in the 80s over the use of his image in Back to the Future 2. At the time I didn't even realize that it was stop motion and that Crispin's voice would only be used. I don't know anything of the Beowulf lore so as of now I am on the fence about it. Well thats all for now GOoD JOURNEY my fellow schmoes.


I had to download that flipping movie, Chrispin's got a lovely house, and lovley cars, thanks to that lawsuit, is this movie all computerised like that horribly final fantasy film, I hate it when thay do that, looks niobly to say the least.

[Superplasmatron]

Originally posted by APzombie
Yea i thought it was funny he convinced Crispin after that BTTF2 situation. Interesting.

Anybody else find the the trailers pixel skewing really tedious, especially around in the dark areas? I tried it on every HD setting and it still looks horrible.

Chrispin Glover is taking on any old shit to fund the 3rd part in his trilogy, jesus he even appeared in epic movie.


I was looking faward to this film I love Beowulf, but this film looks like a fucking Xbox game, bah!

[Jig Saw 123]

Why the hell is this animated? From the poster it looks like it was real...

[Superplasmatron]

Originally posted by Jig Saw 123
Why the hell is this animated? From the poster it looks like it was real...

nothings real, its a film, oh right you meant live action, umm looks shit don't it, damn them!

[Jig Saw 123]

Yeah live action,:p, I expected it to look kinda similar to the Lord of the Rings.

[teenkiller]

I just watched the trailer. I'm not at all familiar with the story but if nothing else I can say the visuals look stunning. Some of them any ways. The people themselves don't look fully convincing. Well thats all for now GOoD JOURNEY my fellow schmoes.

[BananaDancer]

I thought the recent restricted trailer was great. Some very cool footage, its incredible how real it looks.

[X-Nightcrawler]

*long cat-like yawn*

Whoa, that sure looks boring. What a lame trailer.

[BananaDancer]

Theres a new beowulf trailer up, still pretty impressive
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/