ShockTillYouDrop.com

Source:Ryan Rotten

April 23, 2007

Outlander is not the sub-title for the latest "Children of the Corn" film. Instead, it's the moniker for a new creature feature coming from The Weinstein Company that pits Vikings against a new menace. And if you say Karl Urban plus a dismal box office, you're wrong. This new period piece finds Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) as a being from another world who brings his battle with another alien foe, known as the Moorwen, to Earth. Vikings get caught up in the middle and bloodshed ensues. Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Sophia Myles (Doom) and John Hurt (V for Vendetta) co-star with Howard McCain directing and co-writing.

Shock caught up to producer Don Carmody for an update on the project.

"The creature is looking good," producer Don Carmody tells us. Shock spied a look at the Moorwen during a visit to Patrick Tatopoulos' shop - and we found it accurately depicted the style of work we've seen from him in Godzilla and the "Underworld" films; later, an early peek at the beast found its way online here. "I just saw two more rough sequences with the creature where it's looking really, really cool."

Carmody says Outlander conquered a rough start and endured an even tougher shooting schedule "sloggin' through the mud in Newfoundland and Halifax. It was challenging because my partners had tried to mount [the project] before in New Zealand with WETA and $65-70 million dollars. So they came to me and asked if I could help them raise the balance of the financing. I said if everybody is on the same page, we can do it, and as long as it's all up there on the screen we can do it. I think we succeeded, it was really tough."

Presently, McCain is whittling down a three-hour cut (!) of his film. "The aim is [to release the film] for late-October, but the picture is running long," Carmody chuckles. "We're getting down to length and that may delay us a little, that's always the toughest thing." He adds that everything is on schedule FX-wise and that Outlander boasts an estimated 580 visual effects shots.