Hollywood has worked its magic on Joseph Delaney's source material, infusing its Lancashire setting with swords-and-sorcery glitz. Diehard fans are reading t' riot act
With Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy already set to equal the box-office success of the Kiwi film-maker's Lord of the Rings triptych and Game of Thrones storming the small screen, it ought to be a golden age for swords and sorcery. In reality, Hollywood tends to throw us the occasional fantasy flop (2006's Eragon, 2011's inferior Conan the Barbarian remake) and the odd attempt to push fairytale fare through a high-fantasy filter (last year's Snow White and the Huntsman or this year's Jack the Giant Slayer).
Sergei Bodrov's Seventh Son, for which the first trailer dropped earlier this week, at least looks like an attempt to revisit traditional 80s-style swords-and-sorcery fantasy in the style of Willow or Dragonslayer. The film's sumptuous cast features the Dude and his sometime paramour (Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore) as sorcerer Master Gregory and his witchy nemesis Mother Malkin respectively, as well as Narnia's Ben Barnes, Game of Thrones's Kit Harington and the ever-wonderful Olivia Williams. Here's the synopsis:
In a time long past, an evil is about to be unleashed that will reignite the war between the forces of the supernatural and humankind once more. Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), the last of the Falcon Knights, had imprisoned the malevolently powerful witch Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) many years ago. But now she has escaped and is seeking vengeance. Summoning her followers of every incarnation, Mother Malkin is preparing to unleash her terrible wrath on an unsuspecting world. Only one thing stands in her way: Master Gregory. In a deadly reunion, Gregory comes face to face with the evil he always feared would someday return. He has only until the next full moon to do what usually takes years: train his new apprentice, Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), to fight a dark magic unlike any other. Man's only hope lies in the seventh son of a seventh son.
Bodrov, the Russian director whose films Prisoner of the Mountains and Mongol: The Rise to Power of Genghis Khan were both Academy Award nominees for best foreign film, is an intriguing choice to take charge of the camera. Furthermore, the movie itself is based on a much-loved children's fantasy series, Joseph Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice (known as The Wardstone Chronicles outside the UK). Unfortunately, that's where much of the positive stuff ends.
I won't pretend to have read the novels, of which there are an impressive 12, but acolytes have been taking to web forums and the IMDb's message boards to berate the film's title change – as well as the decision to age up the main characters and ignore the very Lancastrian setting of the books – almost since the film first got the green light two years ago. Bridges, who appears to be adopting a sort of mid-Atlantic twang in the trailer, is "playing a skinny, malnourished bloke who lives a few days' walk from Burnley, FFS", according to one angry commenter on the Bleedingcool.com forum.
Over on IMDb, another fan writes: "I was so excited when I heard that the Spooks books might be made into a movie. Imagine my horror when they cast 20-year-olds to play 13-year-olds? Then they quite happily state that the movie will be nothing like the books. So what was the point in associating this movie with the book series when they have completely rewritten it? Bleh … Thank you Hollywood for ruining YET ANOTHER movie."
In the two years since that thread was posted, studio Warner Bros has replaced 27-year-old Sam Claflin with 31-year-old Barnes as (14-year-old) sorcerer's apprentice Tom Ward, which can only add to the "ageing up" distress. What's strange here is that Warner Bros is the same studio that gave us the Harry Potter films, which were notable for their refusal to change many details from JK Rowling's books – and were rewarded with the highest box-office gross of any film series in history. Game of Thrones may be deviating rather dramatically from George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels (with the full permission of the author, of course), but the elements of the source material – in particular the old world accents – remain intact.
The Hobbit trilogy, likewise, has been stretched into radical new forms as Jackson vies to ape the success of the rather more epic Lord of the Rings – but no one has yet attempted to saddle Gandalf with a Californian brogue. So why has The Spook's Apprentice been dealt such a poor hand? One can only assume it is because Delaney's books are less well known than their more celebrated counterparts.
Fantasy fans, are you happy enough simply to see a bit more swords and sorcery in cinemas? Or should Seventh Son have held true to its source material? For those who have yet to make up their minds, Bodrov's movie hits UK cinemas in October, but doesn't arrive in the US until January. So far, there's no official Australian release date. Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 days ago.
With Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy already set to equal the box-office success of the Kiwi film-maker's Lord of the Rings triptych and Game of Thrones storming the small screen, it ought to be a golden age for swords and sorcery. In reality, Hollywood tends to throw us the occasional fantasy flop (2006's Eragon, 2011's inferior Conan the Barbarian remake) and the odd attempt to push fairytale fare through a high-fantasy filter (last year's Snow White and the Huntsman or this year's Jack the Giant Slayer).
Sergei Bodrov's Seventh Son, for which the first trailer dropped earlier this week, at least looks like an attempt to revisit traditional 80s-style swords-and-sorcery fantasy in the style of Willow or Dragonslayer. The film's sumptuous cast features the Dude and his sometime paramour (Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore) as sorcerer Master Gregory and his witchy nemesis Mother Malkin respectively, as well as Narnia's Ben Barnes, Game of Thrones's Kit Harington and the ever-wonderful Olivia Williams. Here's the synopsis:
In a time long past, an evil is about to be unleashed that will reignite the war between the forces of the supernatural and humankind once more. Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), the last of the Falcon Knights, had imprisoned the malevolently powerful witch Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) many years ago. But now she has escaped and is seeking vengeance. Summoning her followers of every incarnation, Mother Malkin is preparing to unleash her terrible wrath on an unsuspecting world. Only one thing stands in her way: Master Gregory. In a deadly reunion, Gregory comes face to face with the evil he always feared would someday return. He has only until the next full moon to do what usually takes years: train his new apprentice, Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), to fight a dark magic unlike any other. Man's only hope lies in the seventh son of a seventh son.
Bodrov, the Russian director whose films Prisoner of the Mountains and Mongol: The Rise to Power of Genghis Khan were both Academy Award nominees for best foreign film, is an intriguing choice to take charge of the camera. Furthermore, the movie itself is based on a much-loved children's fantasy series, Joseph Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice (known as The Wardstone Chronicles outside the UK). Unfortunately, that's where much of the positive stuff ends.
I won't pretend to have read the novels, of which there are an impressive 12, but acolytes have been taking to web forums and the IMDb's message boards to berate the film's title change – as well as the decision to age up the main characters and ignore the very Lancastrian setting of the books – almost since the film first got the green light two years ago. Bridges, who appears to be adopting a sort of mid-Atlantic twang in the trailer, is "playing a skinny, malnourished bloke who lives a few days' walk from Burnley, FFS", according to one angry commenter on the Bleedingcool.com forum.
Over on IMDb, another fan writes: "I was so excited when I heard that the Spooks books might be made into a movie. Imagine my horror when they cast 20-year-olds to play 13-year-olds? Then they quite happily state that the movie will be nothing like the books. So what was the point in associating this movie with the book series when they have completely rewritten it? Bleh … Thank you Hollywood for ruining YET ANOTHER movie."
In the two years since that thread was posted, studio Warner Bros has replaced 27-year-old Sam Claflin with 31-year-old Barnes as (14-year-old) sorcerer's apprentice Tom Ward, which can only add to the "ageing up" distress. What's strange here is that Warner Bros is the same studio that gave us the Harry Potter films, which were notable for their refusal to change many details from JK Rowling's books – and were rewarded with the highest box-office gross of any film series in history. Game of Thrones may be deviating rather dramatically from George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels (with the full permission of the author, of course), but the elements of the source material – in particular the old world accents – remain intact.
The Hobbit trilogy, likewise, has been stretched into radical new forms as Jackson vies to ape the success of the rather more epic Lord of the Rings – but no one has yet attempted to saddle Gandalf with a Californian brogue. So why has The Spook's Apprentice been dealt such a poor hand? One can only assume it is because Delaney's books are less well known than their more celebrated counterparts.
Fantasy fans, are you happy enough simply to see a bit more swords and sorcery in cinemas? Or should Seventh Son have held true to its source material? For those who have yet to make up their minds, Bodrov's movie hits UK cinemas in October, but doesn't arrive in the US until January. So far, there's no official Australian release date. Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 days ago.