Another badass hero heading to cinema screens

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My apologies for today's delayed update. It's Murphy's Law that as soon as your resident office techie is away that the Internet connection collapses for long stretches. Plus, I haven't been feeling very creative and writer-ly this week so working up the inspiration to put fingers to keyboard and actually structure a blog post has been challenging. Anyway, on with the show...

If you don't have much of a familiarity with classic pulp fiction novelist Robert E. Howard, then you probably aren’t aware that brutish barbarian Conan wasn’t his only fictional creation. Solomon Kane was another of Howard's grim, battleworn heroes - a 16th Century Puritan who wanders the world with the sole goal of vanquishing evil, particularly in dark supernatural forms. Think demons, sorcerers, vampires...

Alas, I haven't read any of the Kane stories, but I have a friend who adores them, and I have to admit the series sounds fantastic - kind of what the Van Helsing movie should have been like if it was taken seriously.

Anyway, it turns out it may not be long before we see a Solomon Kane film. Shooting took place in Eastern Europe last year, with James Purefoy in the title role. Fans of "swords, sex and sandals" show Rome will remember Purefoy as arrogant, occasionally stark-nude warrior Mark Antony.


Solomon Kane is an independent production, and is still waiting to land a deal with a major distributor, but hopefully the film will be hitting cinemas worldwide sometime in 2010.

Helped no doubt by some nifty concept art, I must say my enthusiasm for Solomon Kane has been seriously elevated by an early review from Ain't It Cool News's Harry Knowles. Although he is prone to hyperbole, as usual, Knowles's praise for Kane generates a great deal of excitement in my geeky heart. I want to see this movie. Now!

In the meantime though, while I wait for Solomon Kane's release, I'm consoling myself and passing the time by checking out writer-director Michael J Bassett's blog, and following him on Twitter. Yay for the age of cyber-stalking...

Comments

MJenks said…
Oh, yes, Van Helsing. Yet another movie where Hugh Jackman just shows up. Though, I must say, I did like Van Helsing better than I liked Wolverine (could have been the presence of Kate Beckinsale, though).

I'll keep an eye out for this and, should it ever make it to theatres, keep it on my radar.
10:22 PM
Pfangirl said…
There were parts of Van Helsing I liked a lot (character treatment especially) but the storyline was as incomprehensible as The Avengers and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I'm holding thumbs Solomon Kane gets a cinema release. Call me prejudiced but I tend to look down on films that go straight to DVD. I'm definitely adding the collected Solomon Kane books to my reading wish list though.
11:03 AM
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