There must be something about the movie “300” and Albuquerque.
First, we hear that “300” producer and writer Frank Miller will come to the Duke City to direct his new film, “The Spirit.”
Now, we hear that one of the stars of “300,” Gerard Butler, who was King Leonidas in the film, will be here to film his new film “Game.”
What’s bringing them here? The Albuquerque Studios, said “Game” filmmaker Brian Taylor.
“The studios are large enough. They’re like 58 feet tall, bigger than the studios in L.A. we did our last movie at. We need the space to be safe and we can do it.
“It’s a crazy action.”
His last movie was the action thriller “Crank.”
This movie, however, is an action flick with lots of explosions, car chases, bullets flying and fight scenes.
“It’s a lot about control. It’s set five minutes in the future about a guy who’s wrongly in prison and needs to get back to his wife and daughters,” said Taylor.
The crew scouted the state last week and found just what it was looking for, Taylor said.
“New Mexico is a beautiful place and between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and the booming film industry, we were down there last week and we scouted, we were surprised at all the locations that looked West Coast, or East Coast, or urban.”
But it was the giant Albuquerque Studios complex that piqued his interest.
Cool. Blowing stuff up always makes for a good film.
Producer Skip Williamson from Lakeshore Entertainment said, “We did a little bit of scouting around and every 20 minutes there was a different landscape and that caters to what we do as filmmakers.”
Plus there’s lots of room to blow stuff up.
The production crew will start setting up shop at Albuquerque Studios soon, and in a loft Downtown. Filming will be from Nov. 5 to Feb. 5, though the producers will be here by mid-September.
“We have lofts Downtown. We don’t want to tell you where, ’cause all the girls will chase Skip around,” said Taylor.
WHO IS THIS SPIRIT ANYWAY? Last week we wrote about the new liveaction version of “The Spirit” that will start shooting at Albuquerque Studios.
The film will star Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes as a pair of femme fatales, Samuel L. Jackson as The Octopus, and Gabriel Macht as The Spirit.
But people keep asking, “Spirit who?” Sure, we all know Batman, Superman, The Fantastic Four, the Superfriends. But, those in the know say that those superheroes (especially Batman) wouldn’t exist without The Spirit. Many, actually, saw Batman as a lowbudget ripoff of The Spirit.
The Spirit comic books were started by Will Eisner, the godfather of graphic novels. DC Comics has released a new series of “The Spirit” books that explain The Spirit’s story:
The first “The Spirit” was published as a newspaper insert in 1940. In that first episode, criminologist Denny Colt is killed by a goo that the madman Dr. Cobra was going to use to destroy the city.
Though he’s pronounced dead, Colt didn’t die.
He lets everyone — everyone except the police commissioner — believe he’s dead.
By the second episode, he’s already donned a very Batman-esque face mask and has turned into quite the ladies’ man and crime fighter.
Eisner took a hiatus of writing and illustrating while he was serving in World War II, but came back and continued the series in the 1950s. He did write others, but none nearly as successful as “The Spirit” series.
The story of The Spirit’s creation, however, was never fully explained. Did the goo from Dr. Cobra gave him special powers or not? There are several times he should have died, but did the goo protect him — or did it keep bringing him back?
Eisner died in 2005.
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