This morning’s Irish Times tells of a new version of the King Arthur story being shot in Wicklow.
We were joking with our German production partners about some parts of the Czech Republic, especially in Prague, becoming so familiar from being used for “medieval” location work that they’re starting to turn into another version of Vasquez Rocks. For those of us who live in Ireland, this is also slowly starting to happen with some locations in and around the Wicklow Mountains (probably the best-known films to use these locations being Excalibur and Braveheart — in the latter case Mel Gibson got so fed up with the awful weather in Scotland, after a week or so, that he had the whole production moved over here for the remaining five weeks of shooting.)
…A brief quote, in case the story’s been designated premium content: “The makers of a $90 million Hollywood movie about King Arthur and Merlin are scouting Ireland for fifth century lookalikes – and men with long hair and beards are top of the list.
“Over 1,000 extras will be used in the biggest-budget film shot in this country.
“The movie will be filmed on location in Kildare, Wicklow and Dublin and one of the main battle scenes will be shot in Ballymore Eustace in Kildare over a six-week period.
“Extras will appear in the film as forest people, Picts, Saxons and villagers in a massive set being constructed in Kildare.
“The film-makers are planning on making a realistic and gritty tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table set between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages.
“A massive set of Hadrian’s Wall and fort is currently being constructed for the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie.”
Might be worth taking a run down there sometime in the next few weeks to have a look around… Meanwhile, all too typically, the Irish Times story doesn’t mention the writer. According to Variety, this turns out to be David Franzoni, credited with story and one draft of the screenplay on Gladiator. Interesting to note also, from material in Variety, that it appears they’re going for an “R” rating on this film. (“Gritty” being the code word that tipped me off to go looking for references to the rating.)
