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Tuesday, October 10, 2006 http://www.thegeorgian.ca/index.cfm?iid=1923&sid=14598

Big budget film being shot on west coast
By Glenda McCarthy

There's a certain buzz in Frenchman's Cove, located in the Bay of Islands.

A number of residents of the community are currently working on building a replica Viking ship. The project is for a big budget Hollywood film which will spend one week of its production schedule shooting in the surrounding area.

A science fiction movie with the title of Outlander, it is currently classified as in pre-production.

Don Carmody is the executive producer of the film. Mr. Carmody, who has under his belt such big name movies such as Chicago, Gothika, The Whole Nine Yards, and the Porky's franchise, says they will be filming in Little Port located just past Lark Harbour as well as in the Gros Morne area.

"(The plot of the movie) involves a village of Vikings that are being terrorized by an unknown monster. A stranger appears and he knows the secret of the monster and helps them fight it."

The movie will star James Caviezel who is best known for his role as Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. He also starred opposite Ashley Judd in High Crimes and was the title player in The Count of Monte Cristo.

British actress Sophia Myles plays Mr. Caviezel's romantic interest. She had the starring role in Tristan and Isolde and a supporting role in Underworld.

Mr. Caviezel's rival in the movie is played by Jack Huston, a relative newcomer to the industry.

Mr. Carmody says Mr. Huston has good roots - he is the son of Tony, nephew of Anjelica, grandson of John and great-grandson of Walter Huston. The production will shoot for a week in Newfoundland starting on Oct. 16. The rest of the movie will be shot outside of Halifax.

However, Mr. Carmody says they didn't intend to shoot in Newfoundland.

"I had been to Newfoundland before, but on the St. John's side. We were looking for spectacular scenery but I wasn't thinking of Newfoundland originally. We had location scouts scouring British Columbia."

He says the film's production designer was on a website for Newfoundland and Labrador and came across some amazing sights. They chartered a plane and were astonished by the vast scenery.

"It was a bit of a revelation," he says.

Shooting for the film is scheduled for 11 weeks, one of which will be spent on the West Coast of the province where they will shoot funeral scenes.

"The ship is being shot and duplicated digitally so it'll look like there are a number of ships. The two main scenes we're using it for involve funerals."

Mr. Carmody says a Viking funeral requires the body of the king to be set adrift on the ship and set on fire.

"It (the ship) will be burned and I'm not sure what is going to be left to the boat. It depends on how quickly we get the shot and how often we set it on fire."

In the meantime, he would like to use as many local people as possible in the film as extras.

The official website for the movie has not been set up, but Mr. Carmody promises it will be coming soon.

"We'll post images from the film and such," he says.

The movie will be released in approximately a year under the Weinstein company.

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