Castlevania and Iron Bow have uncertain futures due to script issues and the WGA strike! We get wind of these miscarried films though the professionals at Variety:
Rogue Pictures has halted “Castlevania,” the live-action adaptation of the Konami vampire videogame that it is co-producing with Crystal Sky Entertainment. Sylvain White (“Stomp the Yard”) was set to direct, and production was slated to begin in April in South Africa. Spyglass, meanwhile, has postponed “Ironbow,” a film about 15th-century Swiss crossbow legend William Tell, which was slated to begin production next spring with Kevin Reynolds at the helm.
Both films were unplugged because they needed additional script work that wasn’t possible because of the writers strike.
With a budget around $40 million and franchise aspirations, Rogue reluctantly shelved the picture, preferring to wait for a strike resolution and get it right. White is still committed, and the genre producer has at least four other production starts for 2008, including remakes of “Last House on the Left” and “Near Dark.”
This is the first I have heard of Iron Bow. A movie about a crossbow master is what we have been missing! I hope that in the future when the strike is resolved, this project comes to fruition. I see drinking games arising out of this film; every time William Tell fires a crossbow bolt – you take a shot. It saddens me that the day I find out about this movie – I learn that I will have to wait for it.
Castlevania has had script issues for a while now and maybe time is a blessing for this project. You certainly do not want to rush the film and with a budget of 40 Million – you will need wisdom to make this picture well, with such slender means. Video game films do not have a good track record, and if Rogue hopes to make Castlevania a franchise; they will have to buck that curse.
It is no surprise that abortions of films are starting to happen due to the writer’s strike. It only takes one gear to stop for a clock to be “broken”, and unless you have Doc Brown to take you back – you best fix the problem pronto. If the strike goes on – I wonder if we will see theaters run dry. Every week something has been released for as long as my memory has existed…. that would be strange indeed. If we are not entertained, we will be left to our own devices, riots will break out in the streets, cats and dogs living together, the end of the world as we know it! (hack Ghostbusters quote). The writers have all the power of Sauron, they rule us all!
