Elric Movie (Thread part II)

[L'Etranger]

Dear Elric Friends and "Moorcockistas",
let's make life easier for all and start a new thread that continues the Elric Movie discussions here.
Berry explains in [broken link] why too long threads render the system cumbersome and perhaps some of you, especially those who have come to MWM just recently find the long threads too time- consuming, if not too repetitive at times, and appreciate more palatable chunks to work through.

Okay now, who has the first casting suggestion on Elric Movie Thread Part II?

L'E

[Hans von Hammer]

Well, since it is here, i am going with it, for i agree that it is tiresome to wander for 51 pages of replies,,,

And I will just reinstate my opinions on the movie

Elric - Vincent Cassel or BEttany (Yeah, all right, you guys convinced me Depp is not the right choice... damn, he's awesome, but he is not Elric)

Soundtrack - Ennio Morricone all the way, he is perfect in every note, and must be yet more incredible nowadays (LISTEN / WATCH Once Upon a Time in the West - or Once Upon a Time in America, both are greaat movies with incredible scores by Morricone)
or Phillip Glass or Danny Elfman, both are great.

Director - well, i think that no living director is at an Elric Movie stature, but sure enough MM and everyone else here is going to find one, i could only point out those who should NOT be in there, hehehe...

as to the "extras" subject that has appeared from time to time, i have to say i am willing to go to the MOON, if the movie is shot there...

[Lurue-Blackheart]

I would fly to egypt to be an extra lol

i think a good elric would be Jude Law but i dont know if he has the anti-hero acting ability. He would look like a good elric though.

Director- MM and peter jackson together would be Godly

Do you think they will use the already made stormbringer replica for the movie?

[Michael Moorcock]

I'm all for a new thread, but I don't want to repeat my own replies here! :)
So let me just say I am currently rooting for Paul Bettany as Elric and
Aishwarya Rai as Cymoril. I would love Johnny Depp to be Rakhir the Red Archer, which would give him more room for wit. Maybe Ben Kingsley as Sadric (who appears in the first film, if only at his own funeral...) and Simon Russell Beale as Yyrkoon. I want the actors to be well-trained and familiar with doing Jacobean melodrama, since that kind of actor knows how to put lush lines across and still keep authority.
At this point, the producers, the studio and myself are all on the same page as far as this last point is concerned.
As for music, I like the idea of Glass, certainly. I also wonder if Blue Oyster Cult's 'Black Blade' couldn't be used, but suspect it wouldn't be in keeping with the rest of the movie. Also Hawkwind are capable of producing some very atmospheric music. But I have no strong ideas about this yet. My main interest at the moment is seeing a finished script which can then be shown to actors!

[Kalessin]

Since part I of this thread is unlikely to get read any longer, and I only posted on it yesterday, I hope people don't mind me reposting this here:

*Gasps for breath after racing through 51 pages of posts in order to be able to reply with a clear conscience*

Wow! Absolutely fantastic to hear that my all-time fave fantasy world (all my RPs tend to be littered with Melnibone references ;) ) might now be brought to life. Equally great to see that one of the only three post-war fantasy writers actually worth reading (imo) - with the other two being Robin Hobb and (sorry MM) Tolkien - is so willing to actively engage in dialogue with his fans on this forum.

Ok, mildly sycophantic opener, check. Now to add my own 2p to the 'great debate' (Mr Moorcock - if you're reading this and get bored of my waffling, it'd be great if you could glance at the last couple of paras before moving onto the next post!).

I'll agree with our host that Jack Ryder looks perfect for the part of Elric, but having seen him in Eastenders, I refuse to believe that his acting skills are up to the task. Dunno about Bettany and Law - both seem just about ok, but I'm still a bit dubious, both because they're getting a teeny bit too well-known (especially Law), and because their faces aren't quite aquiline enough. Damn, why does Richard E. Grant have to be so old? A few years ago he'd have been perfect! James Marsters could probably pull it off pretty effectively, but as a cult-TV character, too many viewers would probably struggle to disassociate him from Spike. One chap who I feel could play the role that hasn't been mentioned thus far (that I've seen) is Ioan Gruffud - methinks that he'd probably do a pretty decent job, though still not ideal. My personal conclusion would be that Mike's idea of scouting out the theatre scene is probably the right move. There must be at least one completely unknown top-rate young Shakespearian actor with suitable aquiline features out there! Just don't let Pitt near it at any cost! He was godawful in Troy.

Theleb Kaarna - has to be Gary Oldman

Smiorgan Baldhead - I'm struggling to see how he's being cut out - I can easily see his part being cut down to 'undeveloped sealord', but without using him at all, who's going to lead the fleet? For that matter, without Smiorgan, the who idea of Stormbringer always killing Elric's close friends will be weakened. Ah well, I assume Messers Moorcock, Weitz and Weitz know what they're doing! Shame though - he'd be perfect for Brian Blessed!

Cymoril - I've always pictured her as looking very young and innocent, while being quite a bit older. Someone almost ethereal, as if a strong breeze could lift her up and carry her away....

Arioch - I originally thought of Jeremy Irons, but Bowie is perfect!

All the Melnibonean nobles should be English Shakespearean actors, imo, and the same goes for the people of Quarzhasaat - just for the 'old-kingdomer' feel.

Jean Reno would be a great catch methinks - a truly top-rate actor. Dunno who he could play though.

Moonglum is...tricky. Can't think on anyone who'd be even vaguely suitable right now, him being the slightly deformed lunatic he is.

Soundtrack's going to be awfully important. If you look through the list of popular action flicks, most have great soundtracks. The Rock and Gladiator are both pretty mediocre in many ways - and both are really made by their soundtracks. I certainly don't think heavy metal is the way to go - although it would be a great opportunity to re-release all that old Hawkwind stuff! Pure instrumental is deffo the way forward, but it should sound really... alien, especially for the Imrryr stuff, rather than apeing traditional Classical music.

Can't wait to see Elric in action! I can already see it in my mind - a shot of the sword moaning in anticipation, then Elric's eyes blaze, and the sword croons in delight as he attacks. We see the first few die, and then the shot pans out to overlook the whole battlefield, with Elric a whirlpool of destruction in the centre, before the camera pans in to see the raw horror in the eyes of the dying, as their souls are sucked into Stormbringer's raving maw. Fantastic!

Ahem, got carried away there. One thing that rather perturbs me though is how on earth you're going to represent the various languages. If you'll excuse a quotation:

Dyvim Tvar was no stranger to the High Speech - as a Melnibonean noble he had been taught it as a matter of course - but the words seemed nontheless strange to him, for Elric used peculiar inflections and emphases, giving the words a special and secret weight and chanting them in a voice which ranged from bass groan to falsetto shriek. It was not pleasant to listen to such noises coming from a mortal throat...

Good luck to the actor who has to do that!

Actually...thinking of that scene...aha! Brian Blessed as Straasha!


Oh, just leaving the film proper for a moment, once the film emerges (assuming it does), there will be an opening for a miniature line/wargame to go with it. Pleeeease don't give the rights to those bastards Games Workshop, like you did first time round! (I hope they're still paying plenty of royalties for all the 8-pointed stars on those Chaos figures!)

For probably the best place to get an overview of the state of the fantasy miniatures market, see here:

http://marbles.frothersunite.com/

Oh - one more thing, Mike, if you're reading this (and haven't gone to sleep in all my waffle), since you're putting down your mainstream fantasy pen, can we hope for some more comic fiction? Dancers at the End of Time is probably the funniest thing I've read in years - more on those sort of lines would be fantastic!

Endless post over.

[Michael Moorcock]

Well, as I said, I think Paul Bettany has both the looks and the acting skills, also the kind of body (strong, wirey but not too muscle bound).
Even if he does have one arm bigger after doing Wimbledon, it'll be okay so long as it's his sword arm...
I haven't read Robin Hobb but I must say the stuff looks tasty. Anyone else recommend Hobb ?
Steve Eriksonn's the guy I think is doing something fresh with heroic fantasy. Anyone else like him ?
At this stage Yishana's getting, at my suggestion, the Smiorgan part. And don't worry -- the Weitz brothers are determined to make the sword take a central place in the drama. I also agree about good Shakespearian actors and I think we should also work out accents for all various parties before the movie shoots.
I wouldn't like to see GW doing the miniatures and I suspect they won't, since Universal will be doing the dealing and my guess is that GW not only won't cough up the kind of dosh Universal will want but that Universal will look askance at 'their' product being ripped off... After all, I signed a deal with Universal, not GW.
I'll check out that site. I really liked the Britton's standard size LOTR figures and actually bought a couple (well, they were on sale) recently.
Linda's threatening to tell everyone that I bought LOTR figures so I thought I'd admit it now so she doesn't have power over me any longer.
:D
And I do understand the popularity of LOTR and am not arguing with it. I don't like it myself and have said why, but I can also understand why people DO like it. My only argument is with crazed fans who are to Tolkien what fundamentalists are to Jesus. I'm sure both T and J would have been equally disturbed by them. I have had my own share of
people who tell me they 'are' Elric and so on and it makes me very uncomfortable. I have literary heroes that others don't share, but I'd never dream of turning their work into some sort of gospel. (Oops, sorry
JC)...

[Michael Moorcock]

Um, that's not Britton but Britain's... Sorry, Dave. As far as I know you haven't started producing Lord Horror miniatures yet. Though it's a great idea...

[Michael Moorcock]

Bugger. I meant to mention that Storm Constantine's new POD company is publishing my two comic thrillers, The Chinese Agent and The Russian Intelligence. They should be out some time next year.

[Kalessin]

Bugger. I meant to mention that Storm Constantine's new POD company is publishing my two comic thrillers, The Chinese Agent and The Russian Intelligence. They should be out some time next year.

Ace stuff! I'll look out for them!

Heh - I know what you mean about Tolkien nuts - and about LoTR. It is as much fairy-tale as epic/saga, but sometimes that's what one needs. If I'm ill and feeling really rotten - I read Tolkien, but if I'm feeling fit as a fiddle and want to read something that actually makes me think, I read Homer.

Hmmm... just saw the Philip Glass idea aired above. I can see that working (actually, Stravinsky and Shostakovich could be handy in places...)

Oh - and re: Hobb - her 'Assassin Trilogy' is superb - the rest is just well above average (although with an 'average' area dominated by dross like Eddings that ain't saying all that much).

[TheEighthSon]

I haven't read Robin Hobb but I must say the stuff looks tasty. Anyone else recommend Hobb ?
Steve Eriksonn's the guy I think is doing something fresh with heroic fantasy. Anyone else like him ?

I've said it before, I'll say it again... I LOVE Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series!!! I was halfway through the first book and I already knew it would be up there with the best!!! As soon as Midnight Tides comes out in paperback, if it hasn't already (need to go shopping, I do) I'll be reading the whole lot again!!! Has to be paperback... all the rest are, and there's only one guy whose books I'll buy in hardback (take a guess who that is). I'm a tightwad, and hardbacks are just too darn expensive when you buy as many books at once as I do. Maybe I'll read them all one day!!! All I know now is I've read less than a quarter of my collection and it's still growing... I must be bloody crazy!

I haven't read Robin Hobb's stuff yet, but I bought the whole lot of her extended Farseer/Liveship/Tawny Man books the other month (9 or so, yes?), along with Battle of Corrin in trade paperback, and one of Feist's books (King of Foxes, is it? Can't remember offhand), from Waterstones in Leeds.
For one, I wouldn't have bought the whole lot if I didn't think they'd be worth reading.
Two, it was expensive, and was kind of a birthday treat. I don't normally pay full price if I can avoid it. Like I say, I'm a tightwad. :D
Three, the fantasy section is towards the back of the shop, next to a then-unmanned till point, which meant I had to carry them across the floor very carefully to avoid looking like a pratt if I dropped them!!!
Four, the security guard was watching me all the time with a very dubious look on his face. Couldn't resist the parting shot of "See, I'm paying for them!!!" as I approached the checkout.
The assistant loved me... He managed to fit them all into four carrier bags (with a little attention to spatial orientation he could have done it in three, and helped to save the environment :lol: )

I can just imagine his face if I'd pulled out the change bags full of silver!

[devilchicken]

And I do understand the popularity of LOTR and am not arguing with it. I don't like it myself and have said why, but I can also understand why people DO like it. My only argument is with crazed fans who are to Tolkien what fundamentalists are to Jesus. I'm sure both T and J would have been equally disturbed by them. I have had my own share of
people who tell me they 'are' Elric and so on and it makes me very uncomfortable. I have literary heroes that others don't share, but I'd never dream of turning their work into some sort of gospel. (Oops, sorry
JC)...

Have you ever seen any of those people from the Tolkien society? My god - those people are strange, almost as bad as those Star Trek freaks who stick cornish pasties to their foreheads and dress up in spandex. Never understood that.

I was quite annoyed by the negative reviews that a lot of those people gave to Peter Jackson's adaptation of LOTR, which by Hollywood standards was a pretty faithful adaptation. It seemed that any deviation from the sacred text was treated almost as heresy. I find it surprising that people so often fail to understand the limitations of the cinematic form. What works in a good book, does not necessarily translate into a good movie. You have to work within the limitations of the media.

I researched Tolkien as part of my publishing course at university. What was interesting about LOTR is that Tolkien never wanted to write it - he would have been happy just to have the Silmarillion published. But the publishing industry being as it was in post WW2 England, no publisher would touch it.

LOTR was as much a creation of Tolkien's publisher, Rayner Unwin who wanted a sequel along the lines of The Hobbit, but using the source material from the Silmarillion to flesh out middle earth. When it was finally published Tolkien was greatly aggrieved about having to split the book up into 3 volumes, as that necessitated rewriting of the text (and by all accounts he was quite a slow, methodical writer). Again it was a publishing decision - due to the fact that the cost of paper post WW2 was so high it mean't that the first print run of LOTR would have been too expensive to do in a single volume. In fact, it took over 25 years for the book to get anything approaching the sort of popularity it has today.

[TheEighthSon]

(although with an 'average' area dominated by dross like Eddings that ain't saying all that much).

I bought a load of Eddings' stuff when I first started reading heavily, which meant at the time the whole Belgariad, Malloreon, Elenium, and Tamuli serieses, having had a lot of people reference him as a great author, etc, etc. I haven't read his more recent stuff...
I don't need to. Since he only has one plot you really only need to read one series and you've read them all. Jesus H. Christ on a skateboard they were hard going after a while...
Ok, so as far as the Belgariad/Malloreon serieses went there was an 'in-story' reason given as to why certain things in the second were so similar to what had been written before (if you've read it, you'll know what I mean when I refer to 'The Event', or 'Events').
What was his excuse with the other two serieses??? I wish I'd read the Elenium/Tamuli first... At least they're fewer books in all to reach the same conclusion!
BTW, I don't like D&L Eddings' work. What gives you that impression? It really is dire...

I have had my own share of
people who tell me they 'are' Elric and so on and it makes me very uncomfortable.

Honest... I'm sure they only mean in a metaphorical sense... They're not really Elric, or are they???

I find it surprising that people so often fail to understand the limitations of the cinematic form. What works in a good book, does not necessarily translate into a good movie. You have to work within the limitations of the media.

The reverse applies also. I've read plenty of books that were so... what's the term... I'd like to say crap, but that's not entirely objective enough... I'll settle for 'bad'. I've read plenty of books that were so bad I had to force myself to finish them (I've never not finished reading a book/series I've started, except for Lustbader's Pearl Saga- see elsewhere for my foolishness with THAT :oops: ). However, my thoughts as I read them were that they'd make good TV/film material.

Take Stephen Donaldson's Gap Saga... I heared good stuff about him, so I picked the entire series up one day and read it. Great story, nice detail, good plot twists... everything that would contribute to a great series, except for an engaging writing style- YAWWWWWwwwwWWWWWwwwwNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!! !
I'm falling asleep just thinking about it- had to force myself to finish that one. He should not be allowed near a word processor. I haven't read Thomas Covenant. After reading the Gap Saga I scratched his other stuff off the list altogether.
The Gap Saga, however, would OWN as a four part Sci-Fi Channel miniseries.

Works both ways...

Heh - I know what you mean about Tolkien nuts - and about LoTR. It is as much fairy-tale as epic/saga, but sometimes that's what one needs. If I'm ill and feeling really rotten - I read Tolkien, but if I'm feeling fit as a fiddle and want to read something that actually makes me think, I read Homer.

It is a fairy tale, yes, but it's a bloody good one!!! :lol: And if nothing else it's a good foundation to start from. As to the above, if I'm feeling ill and rotten I just watch Homer! :P

[Kalessin]

re: TheEighthSon:

I think I agree with more-or-less everything you just said - except for the last statement. If I watched the awful travesty that was 'Troy' while ill, it'd probably kill me!

[Anonymous]

Hoorah!!!!!!!!!

Good on ya, Mr Moorcock! I cannot tell you how thrilled I am about your Film project! I read and re-read Champion Eternal series many times since ’85. (Elric and Corum are my favorite books!! )



Paul Bettany as Elric….Yay!!!

Johnny Depp as Rakhir the Red Archer…..Perfect!

Ben Kingsley as Sadric..Brilliant!

Simon Russell Beale as Yyrkoon?
Not familiar with him. Shakespearian? Yeah. Yrkoon is around the same age as Elric? Phisically the Yang to Elrics Yin? Mebbe Brad Dorriff
from Excorcist 3, LOTR and Dune?

Aishwarya Rai as Cymoril. – Breathtaking! Love the idea of different ethnicities!!! What a Babe!!

Hawkwind or Blue Oyster Cult's 'Black Blade- RE-done or RE-mixed for a title tracks? Amon Tobin? Sigur Ross?


~~~Sidenote: Have you ever read Nick Cave’s book- �And the Ass saw the Angel?- Just curious)~~~~~~~

[sn0wball]

Elric Actor

When I first read the books and somewhen came up with the thought of how them could be turned into a movie, I could but bemoan that Klaus Kinski is dead.

I have no idea, if he is known in the US at all, but he was a great german actor, born 1926, died in 1991. If you see him as a young actor, for example in Aguirre: The Wrath of God or even in Cobra Verde, well, he could surely depict an albino in rage and in calm as well.

Since resurrection AND rejuvenation are probably out of budget, there is a young and living german actor, who is said to be a reminiscent of Kinski : ars Rudoplh. I doubt that the movies he played in made it over to the US, but from what I have seen, I guess he would be up to it.

Well, to cut a long story short, he would be my suggestion for playing the role of Elric : Lars Rudolph.