"Beowulf" being made into a movie?

[cloudy]

I saw somewhere that they were entering preproduction, I think, on a movie based on Beowulf.

Has anyone else heard anything about this?

Won't it be hard to translate it into film?

edited to add: I found some links for a movie made in 1999, but I've heard they're trying it again.

 

[Guest]

There was a crap film a couple years ago called Beowulf, sci-fi loosely based on the medieval legend. Can't imagine anyone making a film based on the actual epic narrative. P.

 

[cloudy]

There was a crap film a couple years ago called Beowulf, sci-fi loosely based on the medieval legend. Can't imagine anyone making a film based on the actual epic narrative. P.

That's what I thought, Perdita. It would seem very hard to make the actual legend into a movie....but maybe it's just me.

I love that old story, btw.

 

[Guest]

Googled:

1st June 2004: Beowulf & Grendel Update:
Gerard Butler has taken the lead of Beowulf in director Sturla Gunnarsson's adaptation of the epic poem about a Norse hero battling the troll Grendel. Although the title seems to suggest more of a bizarre love story!

Friday 12th March 2004: Beowulf Update:
Darclight Films has signed up Scott Speedman to star in their adaptation of the classic poem Beowulf. The script has been written by Andrew Rai Berzins and will be directed by Sturla Gunnarsson. The movie follows a young hero who leads a troop of warriors across the sea to help rid a village of a marauding monster. But here the conventions end. The code of the warrior is the law of the land and Beowulf is the greatest warrior of them all. He's brave and powerful, aware of his fame and a little bit full of himself - the medieval equivalent of a rock star - aware, but not entirely happy, that a hero-myth is rising up around his exploits. Beowulf prefers to see himself as an ordinary man, but for his particular skill in slaying monsters. url

 

[cloudy]

Thank you.

I was beginning to wonder if I was losing my mind.

Still wondering how the story will work on film....

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

If the misalliance they produced from Isaac Asimov’s short story series “I, Robot” is any guide, the only thing they will probably keep is the name.

On second thought, if Will Smith’s performance can pull the robot film out of the crapper, look for it under a modernized spelling: “B-Wolf!”

BTW:

Best quote in a film critique of “I, Robot” goes to the Seattle Times A&E editor, Doug Kim : “There definitely seem to be cows in the future, because there's a lot of leather in this flick.”

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

That would be an excellent film for someone to make. It would probably be hard to do correctly, but it would be great to see on film.

 

[Guest]

IBest quote in a film critique of “I, Robot” goes to the Seattle Times A&E editor, Doug Kim : “There definitely seem to be cows in the future, because there's a lot of leather in this flick.”

Thanks, Burley. Between that and the trailer I've seen enough. P.

 

[SnoopDog]

I have heard the term Beowulf very often and I also know it's an old poem/story.
But can someone please tell me what it's about and who wrote it ? It sounds pretty interesting to me.

By the way, I've never seen the flick 'Beowulf' with Christopher Lambert but I have very bad things about it.

Snoopy

 

[Liar]

I think it's doable. I've seen a great stage adaptation of the legend, which did a very good job in capturing the spirit of it. So it lends itself well to a script. But it can very easily be turned into another "heroes and swords are 'it' right now, so let's dig something old up and make a movie out of it" FX extravaganza in hollywood hands. I suspected this a lot earlier, following the first year of LOTR success.

#L

 

[cloudy]

I have heard the term Beowulf very often and I also know it's an old poem/story.
But can someone please tell me what it's about and who wrote it ? It sounds pretty interesting to me.

By the way, I've never seen the flick 'Beowulf' with Christopher Lambert but I have very bad things about it.

Snoopy

For Snoopy:

Beowulf , written in Old English sometime before the tenth century A.D., describes the adventures of a great Scandinavian warrior of the sixth century.

A rich fabric of fact and fancy, Beowulf is the oldest surviving epic in British literature.

Beowulf exists in only one manuscript. This copy survived both the wholesale destruction of religious artifacts during the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII and a disastrous fire which destroyed the library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571-1631).

The poem still bears the scars of the fire, visible at the upper left corner of the photograph. The Beowulf manuscript is now housed in the British Library, London.

You can read a translated version here

 

[SnoopDog]

As I already said in my PM cloudy, thnx a lot for the link. I just downloaded the text and now gonna read it.

The illustrations are quite cool as well.

So thnx for the effort.

Snoopy,

 

[Remec]

I saw somewhere that they were entering preproduction, I think, on a movie based on Beowulf.

Has anyone else heard anything about this?

Won't it be hard to translate it into film?

Not at all. What I remember of reading Beowulf was very visually stirring, you could almost imagine a storyboard forming as the poem was being read.

Remember, anything can be made into a movie.

The trick will be to see if anyone these days is really going to be interested in something drived from "Beowulf" since it's pretty tame compared to a lot of things in modern cultural narrative entertainment.

 

[SnoopDog]

Re: Re: "Beowulf" being made into a movie?

Remember, anything can be made into a movie.

Couldn'T agree more.

Just recently they said, there are thing that can't be done. Some movies that couldn't be adapted to the big screen.
Then there came LOTR. I'll say no more !

Snoopy

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: "Beowulf" being made into a movie?

Remember, anything can be made into a movie.

E.g., "Troy". It's a matter of intent and artistry. I doubt Beowulf will be more than a costumed action flick.

Perdita

 

[SnoopDog]

Re: Re: Re: "Beowulf" being made into a movie?

E.g., "Troy". It's a matter of intent and artistry. I doubt Beowulf will be more than a costumed action flick.

Perdita

I haven't read it yet but from what I know it could make a great flick, if they decide to do it properly and live up to the myth.
(Because they already tried with a cheap action flick and failed)

As soon as I got it formatted and printed out I'll read and tell you what I think.

By the way, did I catch the word 'Middle-earth' in it ? Did John Ronald Reul steal that ???

Snoopy

 

[Guest]

In "Annie Hall", Woody Allen tells Diane Keaton (as she talks about going to college), "Just don't take any course where you have to read Beowulf." It's a slap on the too average type of English class where the classics can be made utterly meaningless and boring by an academic.

Snoop, read the "translation" but look at some of it in the original to get a sense of what this writer calls "the alliterative style and pacing".

best, Perdita

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Originally posted by Remec
Remember, anything can be made into a movie.

I don't entirely agree.

Stories that can’t be done because of the images they depict – Like Lord of the Rings – could always be made. They were necessarily limited in scope, due to production costs, and had to employ either scaled down casts or be limited by what makeup, stop-action photography, or puppetry could produce as non humans, in any live-action films.

Animation could always handle that kind of fantasy, but until recently, there were few markets for any but children's animated films in North America.

Stories that still can’t be done are those where most of the action takes place in a character’s mind. This is the part of an adapted novel which is usually missing, or communicated through metaphors – think 2001 and what the Monolith stood for – even in successful films

Cinematically illustrating novels where most of the action of the story’s development takes place in a character’s mind can be quite difficult – maybe impossible. They can only get away with a Monolith once in a long while. Meanwhile, critics hate voice-over narration, and audiences are not too far behind.

In any case, trying to find a metaphor to fit without disturbing the overt action of the story may be too difficult. Voice over narration will not work, if the narrator isn’t supposed to understand what is happening.

Finally, in films budgeted toward a mass market release, any necessary symbolism cannot be too obscure, or a large segment of the audience will miss what is not clear and on the surface.

 

[Levin]

Alas, it is true.
Heard it on BBC.
In the wake of Potter anything seems to be reconsidered that is slightly doable for film...

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The real trouble with making a film of Beowulf is that not much happens in the poem. It’s been some years since I read it (John Gardner wrote a very good novel called “Grendel” that tells the story from the monster’s point of view), but I do rememeber that the action consisted mainly or feasting and boasting and mead-drinking, followed by a few of Hrothgar’s (was that his name?) men disappearing, more feasting and drinking and boasting, and then finally Beowolf fights with Grendel and rips his arm off. As far as I can recall, that was it.

As I recall, the most interesting part was to see how the author had tried to give this obviously pagan poem a Christian gloss, which made about as much sense as a clerical collar on a Viking berserker.

---dr.M.

P.S. They’ll have to add a love interest. Ten to one Hrothgar will have a sexy daughter.

 

[SlickTony]

and then finally Beowolf fights with Grendel and rips his arm off. As far as I can recall, that was it.

Well, then he had to go and fight Grendel's mother, and that about did him in.

And you're right about the necessity of Hrothgar having a sexy daughter--there was no love interest in the original story.

 

[ferociouskittycat]

Just passing through, saw the light on thought I'd drop in

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Well, then he had to go and fight Grendel's mother, and that about did him in.

Right! Right! And that was so weird, the part about his mother. Who ever heard of a monster having a mother? And why didn't Beowulf fight her right at the start instead of fooling around with Junior first?

As I recall, it had a very tacked-on feeling, along with all these hymns and nods to Jesu.

And hi there, kittycat. Welcome to the fens. (Beowulf was the first time I'd heard the word "fen". Had no idea what it was.)

---dr.M.

 

[cloudy]

Right! Right! And that was so weird, the part about his mother. Who ever heard of a monster having a mother? And why didn't Beowulf fight her right at the start instead of fooling around with Junior first?

As I recall, it had a very tacked-on feeling, along with all these hymns and nods to Jesu.

And hi there, kittycat. Welcome to the fens. (Beowulf was the first time I'd heard the word "fen". Had no idea what it was.)

---dr.M.

Didn't he have to swim to the bottom of a lake to fight Grendel's mother?

It's been way too long since I read it.

 

[SensualMale]

Jeez ...

... and I thought you were talking about Beowulf clusters Wrong number, sorry!