Jazz

Looks like Viggo is in London filming this movie!!!!

Here are pictures from the set!

addicted2much

Thanks for the pics.

Jazz

Doesn't he look like he's from the mafia? Or he's the new Neo in Matrix?

Jazz

A shot of Viggo from the Globe in London:



The bruises and markings are from him playing a mobster.

teena1013

thanks for the new pics, jazz. looks like viggo fits the russian mobster role to a T.

Jazz

Oh yeah, he looks like he's well suited to play that mobster. But that doesn't surprise me, he has a huge range of acting talents to play just about anything.

Jazz

Viggo is coming back to Toronto this September!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'Eastern Promises' Premiere at TIFF "Likely"
12 January 2007 14:41:09

Source: Playback Found by: scriptgirl



Quote:
Cronenberg, Lantos roll on Promises

The thriller Eastern Promises marks the first collaboration between David Cronenberg and Robert Lantos in seven years, but it hasn't been for lack of trying.

"Various scripts came up during that seven years. We went back and forth, and ultimately came upon this script," says Lantos on the phone from L.A. "[Eastern Promises] was the film David wanted to make."

Lantos was on board to produce the Cronenberg-penned Painkillers in 2004, but the project was shelved after the director lost interest in the script.

Eastern Promises, a 20/80 Canada/U.K. coproduction, is from an original script by Steve Knight (Dirty Pretty Things) and is currently in production in London. Paul Webster (Pride & Prejudice) of London's Kudos Pictures coproduces.

The story follows the ruthless Nikolai - played by Cronenberg's History of Violence leading man Viggo Mortensen - who is tied to one of London's most notorious Russian crime families. His world is threatened when an innocent midwife, Anna, played by Naomi Watts (21 Grams), uncovers evidence against the family.

"The script is full of life and interesting, really accurate details that really ring true about people and places," Cronenberg told Playback in an earlier interview, pointing to Knight's ability to combine character-driven narratives with a strong plot.

"It is brilliantly written and extremely timely," says Lantos, who coproduces through his Serendipity Point Films (Being Julia, The Statement) in Toronto. "It deals with the impact upon the world of the post-communist rising class, which is frequently fuelled by illegal, violent activities."

Lantos is concurrently in post-production in Toronto on Jeremy Podeswa's adaptation of Anne Michaels' novel Fugitive Pieces, which wrapped in Ontario and Greece in the summer. The story follows a young boy's escape from Nazi-invaded Poland during World War Two.

Following Promises, Cronenberg and Lantos are slated to film the satirical drama Maps to the Stars, which would mark their fourth collaboration. The pair previously joined forces on the controversial Crash (1996) and the sci-fi thriller eXistenZ (1999).

Of Promises' A-list cast, Lantos says Cronenberg secured Mortensen and Watts, noting that "actors want to work with David." Their salaries are likely a factor in the film's large budget, which stands at $30 million, according to Lantos, though he wouldn't elaborate on their contracts.

Following the 12-week shoot, which is set to wrap in February, Cronenberg will return to Toronto, where post-production on Promises will be done at Deluxe Sound & Picture.

Lantos says a fall premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival for Promises is "likely" because the film won't be ready in time for Cannes. Lantos and Cronenberg rocked the prestigious French fete in 1996 with Crash and its erotic violence.

Unlike Crash, Promises, like Cronenberg's A History of Violence, will have more of a "mainstream presence" and no censorship problems, according to Lantos. "Crash was an extremist film. The subject matter [of the two films] is unrelated... but this film has its own extremes," he explains.

However, the producer dismisses the thought that the Baron of Blood has become more of a mainstream filmmaker following the widespread success of Violence, which has grossed an estimated US$58 million worldwide.

"He would think that is preposterous," Lantos says. "David doesn't see himself as a mainstream filmmaker. He crafts unique films that have his signature on them."

Of his last four films, Lantos has only seen critical and box-office success with 2004's Being Julia, which grossed over US$14 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Two other projects - Where the Truth Lies (2005) and The Statement (2003) - failed to hit the $1-million mark in North America, and met with middling reviews. Ararat (2002) grossed just under US$3 million worldwide.

But Promises has sold to countries including Australia, Germany, France and the U.K. Lantos is planning for a massive marketing launch for its theatrical release in fall '07.

"No one can predict how a film will perform... but I can say with certainty that it will be highly present in the Canadian, North American and international markets," Lantos says.

Focus Features handles U.S. and international sales, while Alliance Atlantis MPD is the Canadian distributor.

ryllsome

great pix jazz is that claire forlani with him in the pic?

i hope this film will be shown worldwide.

Jazz

I'm sure it will, you guys got to see History of Violence did you? It's the same director.

Viggo as a mobster, can't wait!

Jazz

This article contains SPOILERS! So beware.

From French magazine Studio:

By Serge Grunberg

While shooting in London his next thriller about the Russian mafia , Eastern Promises, with Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel, David Cronenberg opened the doors of his film set only to Studio’s special correspondent who is a specialist in the world of "The Master of Horror".

David Cronenberg is about to become a true London film-maker. After Spider shot in the different suburbs of the London capital the Canadian master came back to London for his latest opus. The director is faithful to his team and all his collaborators are there: Peter Suschitzky (his director of photography), Carol Spier who’s built the sets of almost all his films, Ronald Sander his editor, Denise Cronenberg his costume designer and his favourite composer, Howard Shore.

But the one we notice first and foremost is of course Viggo Mortensen, who is starting his second film with David Cronenberg, after A History Of Violence, (which was a thundering entry in the thriller genre by the master of intelligent gore.) When he appears, getting out of a black limo, in front of a Russian bath situated in a small London street, I can't recognise him. The actor is one those perfectionists who works on his roles to obsession. In order to immerse himself in his character, a fearsome mafioso, he spent his summer holiday in Russia. He came back slimmer and transformed. He is so scary that all the clients from a bar ran away in a panic the minute they noticed the tattoos on his hands. These tattoos are the work of another old "gang member", Stephan Dupuis , the special effect make up artist.

Vincent Cassel as a Tormented Soul

Co-written by the film-maker and Steven Knight (Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things) and produced by Paul Webster (notable for discovering James Grey with Little Odessa and the Yard), the film describes the confrontation between a midwife (played by the superb Naomi Watts) and a gang from the London Russian underworld run by a frightening godfather (played by the great German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl), his son (Vincent Cassel), and a "rising" henchman (played by Viggo Mortensen.)

Cronenberg really loved Irreversible by Gaspard Noe, (he rang me so I could congratulate Gaspard in his name), which must have influenced his choice in casting Vincent Cassel. The latter who was helped with the dialogues by a Russian coach (all protagonists speak Pouchkine language or a "slavised" English) totally immersed himself in his character, a tormented soul whose rage can at anytime turn into a criminal folly. Between takes his perfect bilingualism made him the perfect life and soul of the set.

As in every one of Cronenberg’s films none of the characters are simple or appear what they seem to be. They all experience some metamorphosis and mutation. This old "Cronenbergian" practice of horror and terror irrevocably rubs off the heroes' actions and destiny. We are talking here about the Vor v zakone; these Russian gangsters, set up against an infinitely cruel society, have generally lived through the gulag atrocities and have built for themselves an implacable survival mentality.

Unlike the yakuzas in Japan, they have a "Crime code” that expresses its hierarchies and degrees of violence with tattoos. On the writers' advice Stephan Dupuis mainly got his inspiration from the Russian Criminals Tattoos Encyclopedia by Dansig Baldaev, which is a true museum of horrors from the prison population.

These tattoos condemn the bearers not only in the eyes of the authorities but also in the eyes of their peers. Everybody can read here a personal story with its "specialties", and accidents in an extremely hieroglyphic coded language.

This voluntary body mutilation asserts the heroic deeds of its bearer as much as it isolates him for life. We remember Vaughan's words in Crash , this character obsessed with car crashes (who ends up voluntarily meeting his own death in the Continental in which John Kennedy lost his life): "Tattoos are fate."

In Quest of Perfection

The team is shooting in the huge kitchen of the restaurant that the Godfather uses as a front. Armin Mueller-Stahl is preparing a borsch. Just like the other dozens of wonders cluttering the tables, this dish is the work of Silvena Rowe, the high priestess of Russian culinary art, whose TV shows and books fascinate the English public. There must be fifty people on the set, but everything is like a well-orchestrated ballet in which each movement is minutely calculated.

About Cronenberg, all the actors say roughly the same thing as Vincent Cassel: "He allows us to suggest how to play a scene, to re-shoot a scene or a line. But it is reassuring to be certain that at all times he knows exactly where he is going." As for Peter Suschitzky, he admits to me: "David and I are the same. We don't like to decide beforehand. Even the editing. We study the set and we discuss, then we prepare the scene.”

All the actors present, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Vincent Cassel are looking for perfection under the watchful eye of the director, whether they may be shooting a group scene or on their own for a close up. “We talk but we work hard and the miracle happens: the scene takes shape and life in front of my eyes . I discover that the scenario I read a month before has been transformed by a passion everyone shares.”

Shooting in Winter

In this dark Russian tale where prostitutes are traded like cattle, where thugs have their throats slit at the barber's, where succession crises are solved with murder, where no one seems to be what they are, passions flare up and reach boiling point. Sometimes, like when I saw Viggo Mortensen with his dark shades and dark suit, as sharp as a knife, the snow on the East End cobbled stone alleyway wouldn't melt. A kind of Moscow cold for a tragedy full of noise and fury.

teena1013

okay i skipped reading the article when i saw the word spoiler.

when is the film scheduled to be released? i hope it's a worldwide release.

Jazz

I think David is looking to have it ready in time for the TO film festival coming up in September. After that, it will probably be another month for it to come out. Who knows? But a mob movie, looking forward to seeing that!

Jazz

A picture from Eastern Promises

teena1013

thanks for the new pic, jazz. who's that guy with viggo?

Jazz

I'm not sure, I couldn't place him.

Someone on LJ went to the rough cut screening of Eastern Promises and wrote down her thoughts. Does contain some spoilers but I read through it and it wasn't enough spoilers for me to know what the movie is about. However, it does mention two scenes with nekkid Viggo. But it's all classic Cronenburg to be honest.

'Eastern Promises' Pre-Screen Review

So, last night I was lucky enough to be in the first pre-screening audience for the new Cronenberg movie "Eastern Promises" starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts. Okay, so I wanted to see it mostly because it was Viggo...who can blame a girl?

Anyway, I have to say it was really interesting. Viggo gives a great performance as the "driver" for the Russian mob boss's family. He shows off his linguistic skills, yet again, speaking Russian and using a very good Russian accent throughout the movie (and this is from a woman with an Eastern European background). Watts is also very good as the midwife who gets caught up in the family as she tries to use the diary of a young Russian girl who dies in childbirth to find the baby's family. The other supporting roles are also very well played, with the boss's son being particularly distasteful.

Cronenberg is up to his old tricks with this script, playing with the ideas of public versus private identity, and the relationship between sex and violence. As I saw the film (which is still in its rough form), it was very graphically violent at times. This is not a film for the faint of heart! In the same way he handled it in "A History of Violence" the violence is neither glorified, nor sugar coated. For me it was upsetting to watch and the hands were in front of the face for several parts of it. As I saw it, it will have at least an R rating, if not NC17. While I understand that he was portraying a subculture with very different mores and a brutality most of us will be fortunate enough to never experience in our lives, I still found it hard to watch.

(SPOILER ALERT!) In one scene Nikolai (Viggo's character) is attacked while in a steam bath. Normally watching a sexy man roll around on a floor naked would be something you'd enjoy. The fact that it is one of the most graphic fights in the film however, kept those hands over my face through most of it...classic Cronenberg! There's also a sex scene with Mortensen, but the fact that it's with a teenage Russian girl whose been duped into becoming a sex slave, and he's doing it as a command performance for the boss's twisted son, makes it anything but erotic.

The ending was probably my least favorite part of the film. I'm not sure why, but it just felt very pat. There were lots of loose ends tied up, that might have been better left hanging, and others left hanging that you wondered about. I think for me, I either wanted them all left hanging, or all tied up, not a little bit of each. I almost would have preferred it without the last two scenes which jump several months into the future.

This movie left me with much the same feeling as I had leaving "A History of Violence." It was an excellent film with great performances, but definitely not something comfortable to watch. Then again, that's not surprising with David Cronenberg's work. It will be interesting for me to see what the final cut looks like.

Oh, and the final cap to my evening? As I walked out of the mall to my car, there was a driver, waiting by his big black sedan, on a cell phone speaking Russian. I think the only thing that kept me from being completely creeped out was that he didn't have any tattoos on his hands.