IEG steps in on ‘Borgia’ budgeting
June 19, 2002
By Stuart Kemp
LONDON — Graham King’s Los Angeles-based financing and production company, Initial Entertainment Group, has boarded Neil Jordan’s “Borgia,” completing the picture’s financing structure, the producers said Tuesday.
King’s company has worldwide sales rights outside North America to the $55 million production, with 20th Century Fox retaining North American rights, the result of a deal struck during the Festival de Cannes.
IEG sealed the deal this week after Myriad Pictures — the Los Angeles- and London-based indie sales, financing and production company — pulled out last week after failing to agree on a budget with the movie’s producers.
Also, according to a statement, Ian McKellen will be added to a cast that already includes Ewan McGregor, Christina Ricci (as Lucretia, the illegitimate daughter of Roderigo), Jean Reno, Antonio Banderas and John Malkovich.
British producer Stephen Woolley is co-producing the project with Imagemovers’ Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey.
“Borgia,” a historical drama set during the 15th century, follows the corrupt Borgia family, which includes siblings Lucretia and Cesare and their father, Roderigo, who went on to become Pope Alexander VI and ran the 16th century Vatican as a crime syndicate.
Woolley, who runs London-based production outfit Company of Wolves with writer-director Jordan, said the movie is scheduled to begin shooting in October in Umbria, Italy, and at Babelsberg Studios in Germany. Filming is expected to last through February.
Rapke and Woolley hailed Jeff Berg at ICM as being central to the refinancing of the movie.
“Jeff has done a heroic job of shoring up last-minute financing after we agreed to part ways with Myriad,” Rapke said.
“It’s been something of a miracle putting together a new financing package at such speed,” Woolley said. ” ‘Borgia’ promises to be a truly spectacular European production, a U.K.-Irish-Italian-German co-production that will highlight the best of European talent in front of and behind the camera.”
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The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Ian McKellen (Gandalf) may be joining the the production of the film ‘Borgia’. Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) was also attached to the film but has since dropped it. [More]
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Craig Parker (Haldir) is the first confirmed actor from the cast of LOTR:FOTR who will attend the Ring*Con2002 in Bonn, Germany in November. For more information about the Ring*Con2002, look here!
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Highlights of the recent MTV Awards will be shown on UK Channel 4 on Sunday June 23, 2002 at 2.40pm. Thanks to JLS for the information!
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Shot in 1999, before the already-released The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky (2001) and Innocence (2000), Paul Cox’s 14th feature is a moving account of a real-life hero. Molokai: The Story of Father Damien is set between 1873 and 1889, during the time that the Belgian missionary priest (David Wenham) devoted himself to the care of victims of leprosy. [More]
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One of the prevailing strategies in tournament decks today is the Run N Gun – or what is sometimes called the Super Fellowship. High powered characters, lots of Archery, and huge pools of twilight being generated. If you want to build a deck like that, move on. Stop reading this article. This article is about having fun and destroying your opponent’s hand so that he can do nothing.
To those of you who have stayed, welcome. Discarding is a fun strategy you can work into decks and in fact build into a deck on its own (I currently have two that I run).
First, discarding has been around since the beginning of the game and was, at first, the most abused strategy in the game. The first two major erratta’s to the game came to cards that forced discards – Far Seeing Eyes and Mirror of Galadriel. Both cards could cause your opponent to discard his hand before he could do anything about it. Does this sound like a strategy you would like to use?
Well, the first thing you might ask is whether the discard strategy is a viable strategy. The answer is a tough one – yes and no.
Discarding cards from your opponent’s hand is a great strategy for both fellowship and shadow (although Fellowship has a slight advantage here). By eliminating cards in the opponent’s hand, you are reducing the danger factor and the randomization that is caused by not knowing what is your opponent’s hand. As the shadow player, if they have no hand, you know they have no pumps. As the fellowship player, if they have no hand, you know they have no minions. This is incredibly important in making the deploy and move decisions in the game.
Discarding cards from your opponents draw deck is a great strategy for both fellowship and shadow as well (although shadow has a slight advantage here). Decking (the action of causing your opponent to discard his draw deck) your opponent of all his cards can have major ramifications to the game. A lack of a draw deck means a lack of hand and a lack of the unknown in the game. For Shadow it can have other implications as well – specifically a game winning condition if the right card is out.
So what cultures have obvious Hand and Draw Deck discard functions? Well, at the moment just 4 – Elves, Dwarves, Sauran, and Isengard.
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