Production
Wandering Star optioned the film and book publishing rights to Solomon Kane in 1997 from the Robert E Howard Estate. In 2001 it was announced that Christopher Lambert was offered the role of Kane and was seriously "considering it as it's a very compelling part." At this point Don Murphy was a producer on the film, with Samuel Hadida of Davis Film and Paul Berrow and Michael Berrow of Wandering Star Pictures, and was attempting to set up the film with New Line Cinema. Murphy left the project in 2003 under a cloud when the negotiations fell apart with New Line. Things went quiet for a while during which time several scripts were developed around the African adventures of Solomon Kane from the classic text.
Then Michael J Basset was hired as writer and director of the film, with a brief to write an origin story based loosely on the Howard poems and classic text, and in August 2006 he finished writing the script. Finally on October 1, 2007, it was announced that James Purefoy was cast as the lead.
Principal photography began in Prague on 14 January 2008 and was scheduled for a 12 week shoot. Director Bassett says of James Purefoy that he "is a delight to work with; he is giving his heart and soul to this. He's in brilliant physical shape and his sword fighting is just brilliant to behold and he's finding depth and sophistication within the character in ways I really hoped he would." As of the end of February, sets were still being built for the later part of the production, and Max Von Sydow and Mackenzie Crook had yet to begin shooting. Jan Cileček, a Czech artist produced a number of sculptures for the film and there are some photographs available on his website.
An article in the Daily Mail states that during the production Purefoy was injured while staging a sword fight with a stuntman, resulting in his receiving five stitches to the forehead. The article also mentions that Bassett is into extreme measures "so his cast and crew have been working in the cold, the rain, and as much mud as possible.".
On April 16, Michael Bassett posted a message on his blog saying "Principal photography is completed on Kane. Now for the long-haul of post-production to get it all into shape". He also says that everything is set up for the future parts of the trilogy, which "will tap more completely into Howard's original stories." Finally he mentioned that "the final scenes of the film were shot in England on the North Devon coast. It was all done on a private estate which used to belong to the real Sir Richard Grenville."
On April 7, 2009 Bassett announced that production of the film is complete. On October 23, 2009, Bassett announced on his blog that "Kane is slowly gearing up for its first set of release dates at the end of this year and early 2010."
According to Paradox Entertainment CEO Fredrik Malmberg, the film's budget was $40,000,000 USD.
Read more about this topic: Solomon Kane (film)
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