Tarsem Singh's Immortals had its coming out party at WonderCon in San Francisco this weekend. On Friday they revealed the first character posters for the film, and at the panel on Saturday they screened the first teaser trailer for the film. Find out the details after the jump.
While they called it a teaser trailer, it may as well have been a full length trailer as it showed everything.
The trailer shows us beautiful women, including Freida Pinto as Phaedra. Shots of a huge showdown on a battlefield with thousands of soldiers, mythological weapons like fire whips and a bow and arrow which shoots laser-like arrows in machine gun-like rapid fire. A gigantic mountain collapses, a huge total wave coming towards land. There is a shot of the men fighting from an angle which appears to either be below the ground or if the men are suspended in air above the camera with the clouds upwars in the background. It's beautiful, but I'm not sure whats going on. There is a lot of slow motion and tons of shots with computer generated backgrounds.
Singh said he approached the film as a mix between a Caravaggio painting and Fight Club, but it seems he achieved 300 but with mythical Gods. Or at least that seems like the consensus. If that sounds like a film you want to see, you're probably going to dig the trailer. If that sounds like a horrible idea, you might want to avoid the trailer whenever it hits (which I'm guessing will happen sometime next week).
The movie is being promoted as "from the producers of 300" and I'm sure some audiences might even think this is somehow related the the Zack Snyder film — the cinematography is very surreal, stylized and epic looking, but also fake and unaturalistic.
Here are some quick observations from the Q&A:
Luke Evans describes Zeus as "a father, caregiver, lover," and says he created a character with flaws, a God with many layers and insecurities.
Henry Cavill says he tried to give his character a "softer side."
Cavill says it's was easy to work with Mickey Rourke and to act scared of his character because Rourke is "a scary dude."
Tarsem says he ensured that his DNA made it into the film. He said he came in with dark coffee while the producers had skim milk, and they achieved something in-between which is both accessible and a film he can call his own.
Tarsem says he tends to shoot longer takes, landscape shots, and is not known for fast cuts, so it was little trouble for him to shoot the movie for 3D.
Producer Mark Canton says that the 3D version of the movie will look great but he's betting the collectors edition of this movie will end up being viewed more in 2D.
Singh says the most difficult part about making a movie like this was to get a studio to agree to let him make it, after that everything went smoothly.
Cavill says the new Superman suit is still in development and that he has yet to try it on yet.
Tarsem says his influences are everything he read, watched, read in his life. Everything he learned in art school, bad tv, discover channel...
To train for the film, Cavill says he eat very little and practiced mixed martial arts.
Hercules is not in the movie despite IMDb's claims.
Tarsem said he came into the feature directing late in the game because he loved directing commercials and music videos.
He didn't want to do action like Chinese film.
Tarsem chose young actors to play the Gods because he believes if you have to be immortal, you would choose to look young.
Cavill says he would love to make a scifi space-based movie.
Tarsem on why hes making Snow White: "As long as I can add my DNA, I don't have children right now, so the only way I can pass my legacy on is through my films."
Isabel Lucas says that she enjoyed working with Tarsem because his sets are so fun as he runs around giving hugs to everyone. She praised his passion and enthusiasm as something that comes through in the film.
Tarsem says you can't make a movie on Greek mythology without taking liberty and pissing off a lot of people, "it's just a matter of figuring out how many people you're okay with pissing off." He did his homework on Greek mythology, but he also wanted to change it up and add something new. And that besides, Greek mythology is so very inconsistent from different stories.
