April 17, 2007

New Loch Ness Monster Movie

There is a new Loch Ness Monster movie on the horizon. Entitled The Water Horse, it is scheduled to open in theaters on Christmas Day, 2007.

The following information is old, but I thought that I would share this regarding the film.

Over the next few days, I will be sharing storyboard images from the film here on Cryptomundo.

The Water Horse – Weta’s Joe Letteri creating Visual Effects

Weta Digital’s Joe Letteri, who was a member of the Academy Award-wining Weta Digital teams that created the visual effects for “King Kong,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” will serve as the visual effects supervisor on the upcoming Walden Media, Beacon Pictures and Revolution Studios co-production “The Water Horse.” Most recently Letteri, along with Weta Digital colleagues Brian Van’t Hul, Christian Rivers and Richard Taylor, won the Oscar for Achievement in Visual Effects for the groundbreaking work on “King Kong” at the 78th Annual Academy Awards on March 5th.

“The Water Horse” will be brought to the screen by director Jay Russell (“Ladder 49,” “My Dog Skip“), with screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs (“The Shipping News,” “Chocolat“) adapting King-Smith’s (“Babe, The Gallant Pig“) book. The film will be produced by Robert Bernstein (“Charlotte Gray,” “Mrs. Brown“), Douglas Rae (“Charlotte Gray,” “Mrs. Brown“), Barrie Osborne (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy) and Charlie Lyons (“Firewall“). The film is expected to begin production in May, 2006 in Scotland and New Zealand.

Based on Dick King Smith’s acclaimed story, “The Water Horse” tells the magical story of a lonely boy in Scotland who finds a mysterious egg on the shore of a loch. When the egg hatches, what emerges is a “water horse,” a mythical sea monster of Scottish legend. But as the rapidly growing beast becomes harder to conceal from those who see it as a threat, the boy must find new ways to protect the misunderstood creature.

Letteri joined Weta Digital in 2001 as Visual Effects Supervisor for “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King.” Prior to joining Weta, Letteri was a Visual Effects Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. Weta was formed in 1993 by several New Zealand filmmakers, including Peter Jackson.Movies online

And this latest news on the film.

“Water Horse” Brings CG Nessie to Life

“After succeeding with “Narnia” and “Terabithia,” Walden Media is bringing another children’s fantasy book to life in “The Water Horse.” This time it’s the Loch Ness Monster, as actor David Morrissey reveals.

“The Water Horse is a film about the Loch Ness Monster,” he stated. “It’s all set in the second World War. It’s about a little boy who discovers the Loch Ness Monster but also it’s really about him, his father has gone missing in the second World War and he isn’t coming back, so the film is really about a little boy learning to let go, let something he loves go. I play a guy called Captain Hamilton who’s part of the British army. There was a very real danger in the Second World War that the Nazis would come into England via the lochs and lakes in the North Sea. He sets up there to patrol those channels and to make sure that there isn’t an invasion there. While he’s there, he falls in love with the little boy’s mom and that causes trouble.”

Nessie will be created by the CGI team at Weta. “Yeah, we did it down in Weta in New Zealand where they did ‘Kong’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ and stuff like that. There’s a lot of geeky guys down there making little models. It’s Warhammer heaven really. But it’s a great operation down there.”

For his part, Morrissey just had to be a cog in the CGI machine. “I haven’t seen the monster. All I saw of the monster was a very big guy in a very short ‘Lord of the Rings’ T-shirt with a scaffolding pole and a tennis ball at the end. That’s a hell of an acting trip for me.”

Look for “The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep” in theaters Christmas 2007.”Rotten Tomatoes

As Loren reported here on Cryptomundo last year, Weta is doing the effects on the Cryptid project as well.

Filed under Bigfoot Report, Cryptid Cinema, Cryptotourism, Cryptozoology, Lake Monsters, Living Dinosaurs, Loch Ness Monster, Movie Monsters, Sea Serpents