Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista blaze through hell on earth in this post-apocalyptic action western conjured from the mind of Game Of Thrones’ Author George R.R Martin & Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson – the mastermind who brought us ‘Resident Evil’ and ‘Monster Hunter.’ Brace yourself for a heart-stopping journey through a nightmarish wasteland that redefines the apocalypse genre.”
WATCH THE TRAILER
In The Lost Lands isn’t just another apocalyptic flick – it’s George R.R. Martin’s twisted vision of love. It was snatched up by director Paul W.S. Anderson many years ago, one of three George R.R Martin stories that were optioned by the film-makers before ‘Game of Thrones’ was even made. “That was before George became the biggest thing on television,” Anderson shares. “All three stories are about love, but its the George R.R. Martin version of love, a twisted form of love with unhappy endings.” This dark gem, promises the author’s signature blend of passion and pain. Forget happily ever after – Martin’s love bites, and it bites hard. Three years of creative sweat birthed a script worthy of Martin’s twisted tale about a witch (Milla Jovovich) who is hired by a queen to hunt down a werewolf. With the story locked and loaded, Anderson and crew put their cinematic beast into production.”
“What I really liked about it was that it’s a twisted love story with a quite surprising ending,” the director says. “To me it was a wonderful opportunity to make a quest movie, with a witch and a gunslinger going on an adventure together and falling in love along the way.” Anderson felt reminded of movies he loved as a kid, especially spaghetti westerns of the sixties and seventies. “I love the stories of people being forced on an adventure together, even though they don’t trust each other, like for example in ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’ or ‘Two Mules For Sister Sarah’.”
Also, there from the start was the movie’s star, Milla Jovovich, who has quite some experience in the action genre, having starred in her husband Paul W.S. Anderson’s other franchises like ’Resident Evil’, ‘Monster Hunter’ & ‘The Three Musketeers’. She says, “‘In The Lost Lands’ is a very dark fairy tale, but it’s an action adventure as well. It’s like the Brothers Grimm meets sci-fi. We tell the story of a witch that hires a guy to take her to the Lost Lands to hunt down and kill a werewolf, to take possession of his magical skin.” “We shot this movie in a very different way,” says Anderson, talking about his directorial vision for the film. “I didn’t want to go out and shoot on a real location. The last movie I did (Monster Hunter), was set entirely on location. We never went indoors, we never went on a soundstage. And I felt I had pushed practical location photography as far as I could. And I was looking for a completely different look for the world of ‘In The Lost Lands’.”
Anderson went all-in on digital wizardry, two years before production even started his VFX team crafted a mind-bending world entirely digitally, which meant no large sets were needed, giving the audience something, they have never seen before. “I had this idea that I wanted to fold the actors into these really spectacular images that should almost look like paintings come to life”, he continues, “I am a huge fan of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, and when we were planning the movie I always said the movie should look like the graphic novel that Bosch never created. It should have the feeling of a twisted painting.” The film-makers leant very heavily on the work of Bosch and Breughel to create their backgrounds, and then the actors were lit to match. “We did that on the Unreal Engine which is a videogame engine,” says Anderson. It’s very fast to work in Unreal. We could work very quickly.”
WATCH A CLIP
Paul W.S. Anderson’s advice to cinema goers is to watch his film on the biggest screen possible, “I think the movie above anything else is incredibly theatrical. It’s got everything you could want from a theatrical movie: the big imagery for starters. I don’t think any movie looks like this. It’s got a very unique look. You can’t see anything like it on television. It’s got an amazing sound, it’s got big action, big emotion, big visual effects. I think that’s what the cinema needs right now. We need to make movies that make people want to leave their homes, to stop streaming. I’m not knocking streaming, but there is something to be said about the experience on the big screen. When the right movie comes along. And I feel that ‘In The Lost Lands’ is just that, the right film for a great experience at the movies.”