Topic: The REAL Castlevania Movie

[Belmonto]

Fanvision is making the REAL, REAL FAN movie! (in Italy)
With a Famous actors, Ancient castles and Special effects!

Links :

1) Official Trailer - www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqtGucdfGyg
2) Interview at the local TV - www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxdit2k0-fU
3) Movie Casting - www.youtube.com/watch?v=grla8QlpvFA
4) Location Photos - www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_-QFnROPYs

So, in 2011 we're getting TWO Castlevania Movies:
one official (by Konami) and one "unofficial" (by Fanvision)

[Richter]

Well it's good to see fan projects being made, I have no idea what was going on in your trailer. Also, there is no official movie in 2011.

[Belmonto]

More info about the upcoming movie (by Fanvision) :

The name for this movie is "Vampire Killer Nova Era",
was chosen (instead of "Castlevania") to avoid any lawsuits from Konami.
ALL the other things (characters, spirit, idea) were taken from the Castlevania games.
So this is TRUE Castlevania movie. They have the Great cast and professionals,
such as martial arts master, who has played stage with Jet Li and Jackie Chan.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Vampire_Killer_Nova_Era
http://www.fanvision.webs.com/

Konami is making the "Castlevania" movie too!
But the current status is unknown. It's going to be released in 2011, but maybe it will be delayed again.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania:_The_Movie

[Sumac]

They have the Great cast and professionals,
such as martial arts master, who has played stage with Jet Li and Jackie Chan.

Martial artists in Castlevania movie? 
Why it sounds a bit...strange.

[Inccubus]

I thought the official CV movie was thankfully indefinitely on hiatus?
I read the script outline and it was crap.
It was like Anderson really wanted to remake Dracula and was forced to do it in a CV context using Simon as the lead.

[Nagumo]

The new director James Wan and some producer are trying to get a proper budget for the film. That's the last thing I heard about it at least.       

[Valtiel]

The core problem right now is that with the current Hollywood creativity standards it would be a total pain making a CV movie that isn't just Van Helsing with a whip.

While it didn't capture the magic of CV, Van Helsing definitely "stole" the subject, the characters, the timeframe, the historical period, the castle design, the "family vs Dracula" theme, even stuff like silly subweapons and the overall goofyness of the saga. In many, many ways (mostly wrong but hey) Van Helsing feels like a CV movie.

Besides, in their current state "genre movies" are essentially "Micheal Bay for dummies". And CV makes the familiar un-familiar. Imagine a script that tries to explain to the target of such movie (ie everyone and their granny) that the villain they're so familiar with isn't exactly what they are used to and he resurrects every 100 years and Death is his lackey and he's got a dhampyr son and there's a family that hunts him every time and there goes half the movie in convoluted exposition. And here insert the inevitable "ok this story is great but we're Hollywood and we will improve it somehow" twist, which, if we are lucky, is gonna be that Dracula is actually an alien and the Vampire Killer is turned into a 19th century machine gun and Rinaldo Gandolfi invented the first holy-water-powered motorcycle.


I could write a coherent story for a CV movie that would work for the fans. I doubt anyone could write a story that would both please the fans and pass the scrutiny of the producers.

[corneliab]

Just saw that trailer.

Why are these people even bothering? It's amateurish to the core. Yuck.

[thernz]

first holy-water-powered motorcycle.

Belmont on holy-water-powered motorcycle fighting off skeletons in motorcycle please.

[Valtiel]

Belmont on holy-water-powered motorcycle fighting off skeletons in motorcycle please.

Imagine the trailer. Shot 70s style.

Ominous music and camera panning of a girl running at night in the woods...

Voiceover: "For centuries, evil has returned to torment the land of the living..."

The girls moves out of the scene, and you hear the typical offscreen scream as she's caught.

"But TONIGHT one man will put an end to it, forever"

Camera panning of the holy-powered motorcycle rear wheel spinning and lifting dust...

"Gerald Butler is Simon Belmont..."

insert closeup

"... a hero on an impossible mission..."

shots of Simon whipping some CG skeletons

"... Shia laBoeuf is John Morris, his trusted spunky sidekick..."

closeup of laBoeuf dressed like a cowboy and gunning down werewolves

"... and Rihanna is Marie Renhart"

let your imagination fly

"... a sexy witch in the making..."

shot of the singer naked for some preposterous reason

"... who choose to side with Simon against the forces of evil. Against them the legions of hell will be unleashed, including Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft, Rose McGowan as Carmilla and introducing..."

long ominous camera panning

... "George W. Bush as Count Dracula".

[thernz]

The lack of CV64 characters is disappointing.

[Valtiel]

The lack of CV64 characters is disappointing.

Not mainstream enough.

[Nagumo]

I could write a coherent story for a CV movie that would work for the fans. 

             

Now I'm curious.

Anyway, if I would make a film about CV then the first thing I would do is to make sure I had enough room to push my own ideas by either asking permission to tell the story of an untold event in the timeline or by making it an AU if I really had to. Though most people would probably consider that a pretty big fuck you, so yeah.           

But who am I kidding. ;___;     

[Belmonto]

Just saw that trailer.
Why are these people even bothering? It's amateurish to the core. Yuck.

I've forgotten to tell you the one very important thing.
The trailer was made BEFORE the decision to create this movie!
The 3D effects were made by just one man (by Diego Vida himself)
and it was shot by just two men (one was holding the camera)!
So, there is no surprise that, despite of the exciting atmosphere of this trailer, the quality is "not so good".

But the film will be WAY BETTER, and it will be "really professional", unlike the trailer.
And Diego Vida (director/producer) is hardcore Castlevania fan (like we are )
so I believe that the film is in the good hands.

P.S. You can send to Diego Vida all your ideas about the upcoming movie.
This is a chance for YOU to become the part of Castlevania!

[Valtiel]

             

Now I'm curious.

I'm not flaunting unprecedented writing skills; fact is, pleasing fans is incredibly easy. If I said "please fans and write a good movie" I would have raised a challenge, but pleasing fans? Just drown the script in fanservice, stick to the original material and you're good to go.

A CV movie for the fans wouldn't be that hard to write. A pre-title sequence foreshadowing or depicting Dracula's origins; a first action sequence of the unnamed hero pulling some whip stunts on some creatures in ominous looking woods (but in daylight, building the tension but not delving deep into horror-themed material yet). At this point...

... in a normal movie you'd need to insert something like, well, a cast. Other characters. The hero gets the village at the foots of the mountain where Drac's castle is. We're introduced to the love interest. We get to know who he is. We get some exposition on the story.

But we can skip that. It's a movie for the fans. They don't need explanations. I can drop in that Drac is reborn every 100 years without much explanation - they already know. Heck, I can have Simon enter the castle 20 minutes into the movie, no question asked, and have him meet the Girl™ or the Supporting Cast Sacrifice™ inside the castle and keep the movie afloat by throwing the fanservice around at every corner. And as a fan, I would be probably pleased by 90 minutes of nonstop fanservice action with daggers and whips and thrown axes and holy cross lightbombs. More than with a movie that raped the game's continuum in order to have a narrative.

However, such movie would be unwatchable for nonfans. That's why I mark the difference between a movie that pleases the fan and a good movie that pleases the fan. The second is horribly hard to realize because it would require you to re-interpret the source material (it can't stand on its legs in terms of narrative, pacing and story) and doing so while pleasing fans is very hard. I would also assume there's some sort of curse looming over making a movie about a videogame while still aiming at having a movie that works as a film on its own, because everyone who tried failed miserably.

Think of all the Street Fighter tie ins: they stomped on the source material in order to make a more universal product, and made horrible movies that displeased the fans.
The tie-ins that *sort* of worked? Mortal Kombat. Silent Hill (till the last 20 minutes at least). As movies they were fairly terrible, but they stuck to faithful fanservice and the fans appreciated them for it.