Questions?

AD

Finder of things, Doer of stuff
What I would like to do in this thread is compile any questions you might have about the film itself. If you have any thoughts about the movie, post them here and we'll try and address as many of them here as possible. For the time being I'll be trying to keep any major spoilers out, so when the movie comes out we'll be able to come back and compare the questions to the film and possibly talk about whatever interesting angle you might be thinking about.

One thing I've been wondering is how exactly the Moorwen gets on Kainan's ship in the first place. Does he capture it somehow and then it wreaks havok on his ship? Does he crash accidentally? (maybe because of a meteor shower or something). Did the monster sneak on board? I'll be looking forward to finding out when I finally see the movie

What about you guys?

(please note that if you have managed to see a test screening or worked on the film, we do want to keep spoilers to a minimum for now. But we do have spoiler tags here. just put the spoilerific text between the apropriate tags. {spoiler}text{/spoler} except with square brackets would be the appropriate usage and should work like this:
Hah! Gotcha! No spoilers here.
Just roll your mouse over the black area to read the text.)
 
i read your post on receiving that promo reel and i have some questions on that. when exactly was that reel made? was it recently or the same time as that promo trailer?

also some other random questions on the movie:

how much time is shown on the world kainan is from and is it just flashbacks?

you mentioned before about a video game and is that still a possibility?

and does the ending of the movie allow for the possibility of a sequel or does the story end there?

thanks and i'll probably have more questions at a later time.
 
i read your post on receiving that promo reel and i have some questions on that. when exactly was that reel made? was it recently or the same time as that promo trailer?
Hmm those are all good questions. THere's one or two that I think I can address.

The promo reel is as old as the Promo Teaser we have in the media gallery. It was made before the movie was filmed to raise money to actualy make the movie. THat's part of why it mostly features people from the art team and preproduction crew... all people who's contributions pretty much ended before the film was shot in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

It served a similar purpose but is not the same as the Promo Reel that Wildbunch recently took to the Berlin film festival. That Reel contains completed footage from the film.

how much time is shown on the world kainan is from and is it just flashbacks?
I assume it's only a few short scenes... possibly even flashbacks. Most of the movie will be a viking movie with a monster.

you mentioned before about a video game and is that still a possibility?

That's more a rumor than anything but it's a possibility. I haven't come across anything recently to indicate something in the works. However, while filming, a number actors and things were scanned by Eyetronics, most likely to make digital versions of the actors for the effects crew to manipulate... A side effect of this is that you automatically have perfect models for use in a game that would be identical to the actors you see in the movie.
 
I know that you mentioned before that Outlander will be shown at Cannes. You also stated how it will be similar to what was shown at the Berlin Festival some months before. My question is what's the purpose of showing at Cannes if they already sold distribution rights when they showed footage in Berlin? Are they trying to get more countries to join in distribution or is it all done and its just being shown to build some positive word of mouth?
 
I know that you mentioned before that Outlander will be shown at Cannes. You also stated how it will be similar to what was shown at the Berlin Festival some months before. My question is what's the purpose of showing at Cannes if they already sold distribution rights when they showed footage in Berlin? Are they trying to get more countries to join in distribution or is it all done and its just being shown to build some positive word of mouth?

Previously I was wondering whether they would show the same reel as at berlin, but now we know the showing in Cannes won't be the same because this time they are screening the entire film. Anyway, the purpose will still be the same. Partly it's a chance for the companies that have bought rights to see the film and secondly it will be there to sell rights for the territories that are still available. There are quite a few areas that are taken but there are still some notable ones that we either don't know of or that are still available.
 
I have a question about the Weinstein Company and their involvement in this film. I read an article in some newspaper a few days ago where it stated they were in Cannes looking to get rid of some films they were involved with. I've heard in the past that they buy lots of films early in the process only to have them sit on the shelf for later release. Sometimes those films don't see the light of day or they get bought off by another company for distribution.

My question is do you think that's the case here with Outlander? That they are lost in the shuffle of so many other films in the Weinstein stable that they might get sold off to another party or heaven forbid be sent direct to DVD? I only bring this up because its going on close to 2 years and still this movie is not being mentioned for release here in the US. I actually feel they might be better off going to a different distributor because as I mentioned before the Weinsteins have that track history of buying alot but selling few.
 
I have a question about the Weinstein Company and their involvement in this film. I read an article in some newspaper a few days ago where it stated they were in Cannes looking to get rid of some films they were involved with. I've heard in the past that they buy lots of films early in the process only to have them sit on the shelf for later release. Sometimes those films don't see the light of day or they get bought off by another company for distribution.

My question is do you think that's the case here with Outlander? That they are lost in the shuffle of so many other films in the Weinstein stable that they might get sold off to another party or heaven forbid be sent direct to DVD? I only bring this up because its going on close to 2 years and still this movie is not being mentioned for release here in the US. I actually feel they might be better off going to a different distributor because as I mentioned before the Weinsteins have that track history of buying alot but selling few.

It's an interesting theory, though not one I've heard of. I don't have a lot of faith in the weinsteins distribution process after the Grindhouse fiasco, but they've been involved with Ascendant before with films like Lucky Number Slevin. One of the questions I've had is also exactly how involved they were in the production process, and how much money they have tied up in their distibution rights... whether they footed the bill for a larger chunk than their initial investment. There were some localtabloid (Nova Scotia) rumors that the weinsteins themselves at one point were on the set acting as exec producers...perhaps medling and that there was a lot of tension on set revolving around the Production company "trying to make a 100 million dollar movie for half that price." Also keep in mind that the initial reported budget was in the 30+ million range, most sources still say the budget was 40 mil, but that the most recent reports peg the actual cost at 47 million. Some of the discrepancy may just be that the earlier figures are solely for the initial filming and don't include post production costs.

Personally though I don't really like entertaining conspiracy theories. The Weinstein Co just has a bad habit of waiting till the last minute to really start advertising their movies.

The other thing to remember is that the movie has only really been finished since the end of january, and spring is kind of a sucky time to release movies anyway... It's where most studios dump stuff they don't have faith in. I don't like that we haven't heard anything out of TWC yet but if it does end up comming out August 8th stateside I'll be happy.
 
Personally though I don't really like entertaining conspiracy theories. The Weinstein Co just has a bad habit of waiting till the last minute to really start advertising their movies.

I'm not going to address the other issues in this thread (I don't even know why I started reading it) but I DID want to talk about Weinstein.

Weinstein has a bit of a different marketing strategy then the other movie studios. They tend to throw most of the budget for the film at the film itself - the result for that is that at the end of the day, they don't always have the money to throw into things like marketing and advertising.

I can also tell you that the Executives at Weinstein play an important role in deciding how advertising and marketing dollars get spent - if a majority of them like the movie and can convince the others to go along, the film gets boosted appropriately. Vice versa if a majority of them don't like the film.

Traditionally, Wienstien spends much less money and much less time on advertising, depending on the likes or dislikes of the executives. As for there actual participation in the filming process, that's a whole other story that I know knowing about.
 
I'm not going to address the other issues in this thread (I don't even know why I started reading it) but I DID want to talk about Weinstein.

Weinstein has a bit of a different marketing strategy then the other movie studios. They tend to throw most of the budget for the film at the film itself - the result for that is that at the end of the day, they don't always have the money to throw into things like marketing and advertising.

I can also tell you that the Executives at Weinstein play an important role in deciding how advertising and marketing dollars get spent - if a majority of them like the movie and can convince the others to go along, the film gets boosted appropriately. Vice versa if a majority of them don't like the film.

Traditionally, Wienstien spends much less money and much less time on advertising, depending on the likes or dislikes of the executives. As for there actual participation in the filming process, that's a whole other story that I know knowing about.

So are the Weinsteins the one that put up money for this film or was it Ascendent Pictures? I thought the Weinsteins were just the distributors and not the actual producers of this film? I actually agree with you that they do tend to spend less money on advertising and stuff like that, not having the financial backing in its arsenal like it once had when it had Miramax in its corner.

Also AD, when they showed this film at the screening a few months ago was the producers that were there the people from Ascendent Pictures or were the Weinsteins in attendance as well?
 
So are the Weinsteins the one that put up money for this film or was it Ascendent Pictures? I thought the Weinsteins were just the distributors and not the actual producers of this film? I actually agree with you that they do tend to spend less money on advertising and stuff like that, not having the financial backing in its arsenal like it once had when it had Miramax in its corner.
It's not quite so simple. Ascendant is the production company. They entrusted sales to wild bunch who almost immediatly (at Cannes even but back in 2004/5) sold North American rights to The Weinstein Company. It was one of, if not, the first distribution deals made for the film. With independant productions it's not uncommon to raise money by pre-selling the distribution rights. So basically whatever stake The Weinstein Co. put up for the rights went to making the movie.

Most of the funding came from VIP which is a German investment fund. And presumably there were other financing arrangements made. Blue Rider pictures is some kind of film production lending firm that had something to do with the arrangements for Outlander. Before a movie gets shot a lot of work goes in to make sure they have the money on hand to actually finish the film. And if costs go up (say, with a rising dollar) then that money has to come from somewhere.

Don't forget that at one poin't they went and shot extra effects scenes on soundstages in LA including one where they built a section of Kainan's ship and sunk it in a large water tank that was decorated to look like seabed. (supposedly Jim was there for these shots too). This was May/June? of '07. So either someone decided they were missing stuff or they got more money to do shots they had previously cut for budget reasons. (and of course there's a slim chance they were redoing stuff but from what I understand that wasn't the case).

In the end though we don't really know how much money the weinsteins actually put up for their rights

Also AD, when they showed this film at the screening a few months ago was the producers that were there the people from Ascendent Pictures or were the Weinsteins in attendance as well?

That, I'm unclear on. It's possible it was neither (unlikely) though from what I understand there were producers as well as Jim Caviezel in attendance so possibly it was all of the above that were there.
 
That, I'm unclear on. It's possible it was neither (unlikely) though from what I understand there were producers as well as Jim Caviezel in attendance so possibly it was all of the above that were there.

If this the Cannes Film Festival, I can confirm that the heads of Wienstein were present at the festival, though if they saw the screening or not I would have no idea.
 
If this the Cannes Film Festival, I can confirm that the heads of Wienstein were present at the festival, though if they saw the screening or not I would have no idea.

Yeah, not in the festival itself per se, but in the associated Marché du Film. It was a pair of market screenings for potential international distributors.
 
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