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Ukafa is still in Bulgaria

Despite Lionsgate apparently not being at Comic-Con (as apparently erroneously reported in Empire), I get the distinct feeling that this is the calm before a storm of publicity. At least, I presume it is, though it’s likely that Lionsgate are still just dragging their heels on publicity for the Conan film.

So, it’s a slow news day, but I came across an interesting little snippet at MMAJunkie:

It looks like Australia isn’t on “Sapp time.”

Gargantuan heavyweight and entertainment personality Bob Sapp (11-6-1) today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that he has been pulled from a fight with Soa Palelei (9-2) at “Impact FC 2: The Uprising – Sydney.”

Sapp, who is currently in Bulgaria after recently completing work on a remake of “Conan the Barbarian,” said he received an email today from the Australian MMA startup informing him that the promotion would not fly him to Sydney for the July 18 fight because the plane ticket is too expensive.

Now why is Sapp still in Bulgaria, when principal photography has been over for a good few weeks? Presumably, this is for the secondary work which goes on after principal photography: reshoots, voiceovers, promotional pictures, whatnot. It appears Ukafa’s work is done.

Yet despite Sapp having finished his time on Conan, we still haven’t seen pictures of Ukafa, either from Bulgarian paparazzi or official shots. We don’t even have photos of any of the other major cast members. Contrast this with Thor, where we’ve seen publicity shots of the titular thunder god, Odin, Loki, and Jane Foster, in addition to behind-the-scenes footage and movie stills: we haven’t seen anything for Khalar Zym, Tamara, Ukafa, Marique or Corin. We don’t even know who’s cast as Lucius, Ilira or Fassir, who were important secondary characters in the leaked casting call. All we’ve seen from Conan are stuntmen, harem girls, and liberated refugees from the set of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but — get yer act together Lionsgate!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 2:56 am and is filed under Conan Movie Rumours. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Fayric

    Well Bulgaria is probably a nice place for vacation, but what i dont understand is why our spy, Serge, hasnt shared what his Conan-like burglar skills provided when he went there to find out the truth about this secretive production. Did they hire Sapp as guardian of the tomb (where they keep the footage)? That could be a reason he is still in Bulgaria, and why not so much photos has leaked;) (by the way, these “leaks” is all of Momoa, coincidence or part of the promotional plan?)

    I think the reactions on the pics of momoa has been good enough for them to come forth with some of the other cast. Or, they want to ride on the unexpected good reactions of the Momoa pics for a while before throwing out som hideous over-photoshped pics of people with cheap armory and tribal trinkets (that might make the fans that just crawled out of the pit of despair plunge right back in)

  • http://none Blake

    With some of the secondary characters Lucius, Ilira and Fassir it could be that they were written out of the script. The film from my understanding has gone threw alot of changes such as Fariq becoming the female Marique as played by Rose McGowan.

  • m

    like you say taranaich ,must be a slow day ,this isnt really news. Look the honest to god truth is this: they dont have to show anyone shit right now. I’m certainly not defending these idiots, but the have plenty of time to start up a buzz.they have plenty of time to “get their act together”.Now I’m not debating whether they do or dont but they do have a year and about four or three months until they claim the movie will be released.Now,on the other hand, comic con is so huge they would be stupid not to give a taste now( if they have something substantial like a good scene ready to show with music, you dont wanna show a clip of a guy running around on a horse that looks like stock footage) rather than build a buzz next year, which would be a little too close for release. However,they could also wait until the end of the year to start generating a buzz and release photos and teasers , and still have time to build hype. I hope thor is gonna be good. marvel movies have been letting me down.

  • Steve Dilks

    M: Dig out that old demo dust it off and send me a copy! Fayric: Someone famous once said; “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” I forget who. Actually I am more amused by that damning review than anything else. When you send off stuff to be reviewed in big magazines what you are essentially doing is asking for free publicity. If you can’t take someone ripping your blood,sweat and tears to shreds in front of a whole community you are trying to appeal to you probabley shouldn’t pick up a pen or guitar at all…(Ian sword-brother, take note!) Despite the negativity I will proudly post the review on my web page,hah!

  • Steve Dilks

    Just too add- at least they didn’t notice the bullet belt I was wearing in the inlay photo is actually made of plastic. And I took the piss out of Manowar…Anyway, just to mention that in the same pages of said magazine is an advertisemement for a doom band doing a gig in Camden on Saturday 27th August at The Unicorn Pub. They are a three piece band from Liverpool and go by the name of (wait for it)…”The Beatles”. Hah! I mean… “Conan”. They have an album out called “Horse back battle hammer”. I heard some of it on myspace- a bit sludgy for my tastes but its a free gig so what the hell I’m there! If nothing else but to frighten them threats of Paradox entertainment lawyers if they insist on keep using ther character’s name. If that doesn’t work I’ll show them a pic of Jason Momoa with a skirt on.

  • http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

    On a side note, that released picture from Thor makes me cringe. Power Ranger goes medieval! Kirby’s Thor worked wonderfully for the comics, but alongside the other Avengers based on their Ultimate versions, they look laughable! Like someone said in AICN: Ozymandias wants his outfit back!

    As for Conan, well I’m betting they’re hoping for the fact the movie won’t look so cheap after post-production. They don’t have a huge set built on a mountain, they don’t have fancy costumes, they don’t have a workshop crafting arms especially for the film, they have nada. Just footage that will be heavily edited with color correction and CG backdrops. I’m betting they’re holding off mosty of the publicity in order to put together a trailer, as a the means to give the audience a decent first impression of a not so epic production.

    There might have been a large sum invested, but obviously a large chunk of it is destined to post-production, special effects, marketing and to acquire one or two big names for the cast, since little did we see of any effort to try and make this look like the Hyborean Age in the richness of sets, props, costumes and varied shooting locations.

    By the way, I stumbled upon a script draft for this movie yesterday and I couldn’t help but notice they’ll slaughter Conan’s village -once again-. Can anyone confirm that? Why, oh why, another revenge movie…Have they learned anything from ‘Superman Returns’, not to copy the original film for a reboot?

  • Ian

    Steve,
    No worry dude :)
    Just glad to see your back on the horse again,which means you take this sort of reaction with a pinch of salt.Good man!

    As far fetched as this is,i think those guys know this film will sink
    and didn’t expect the the negative reaction from the fans which is like ive said before,is all over the web and decided to scrap the movie and leave it for the experts.haha!!
    Wishful thinking on my part.
    I don’t want this movie with what ive seen so far.I really don’t and
    I expected more than this.But the moment i saw Nispel taking over i knew for sure it will turn out like this.Another Pathfinder skinny hero movie.And from the interviews ive seen of momoa i don’t really like him.And as for his fight scenes i noticed when fighting two at once he enters the fight exactly the same way by kicking the shin of one and then focas on the other opponent.Which looks lame!
    Nispel reminds me of one of my old Art tutors with his take on heros.
    Bah!!to hell with them all!!! :P Cast them out of Valhalla!:P

  • Finn

    Sapp is kind of an international entertainment nomad. He may actually have had other work lined up in Bulgaria that he was occupied with until he was supposed to get on the plane to Australia.

    About remakes – I saw clash of the titans recently. They deviated a lot from the original movie (ok) but wound up creating something inferior (not ok). It would have been better if they had just copied the original.

    The people in charge of this movie know what they have, just like the people in charge of Thor know what they have. It is a strategic decision to release or not to release information, to let the critics review the movie or not before the movie is released in theaters, etc.

  • http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

    I actually walked out of Clash of Titans 30 minutes into the film. Why do you need to rewrite Greek Mythology as if some retarded script writer thinks he’s got a better story than millenia old classics? As if that wasn’t enough, the “original” plot is a huge mess weaved together to impress visually, but at its core, it insults the intelligence of anyone over 10 years old.

    But above all, it’s very poorly directed. It takes a great effort to turn Liam Neeson, Raph Fiennes and Danny Huston into laughable caricatures of themselves. Even Sam Worthington, away from Cameron’s diligent perfeccionism shows his true colors as an unlikable self-involved plastic faced brat.

    Now let’s see, Louis Leterrier: Studied ads and publicity. Worked with Jean-Pierre Jeneut (who single handedly ruined Joss Whendon’s Alien Ressurection Script). Worked on a few L’oreal Ads. Then we have: “The Incredible Hulk”, a soulless corporate reboot to the franchise packed with non-stop action and scarce storytelling, in order to “repair” Ang Lee’s overly artistical (and vastly superior) psychological version.

    Does it all sound familiar? If you want the studio to have full control over how your product should look and feel like, no one better than publicity directors. They won’t argue, they won’t go over the budget, they won’t miss the deadlines, they won’t develop a vision of their own, they’ll just read the script they’re given, shoot the damn thing, take their cash and call it a day.

  • http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

    Well, actually in the case of Aliens Ressurection, Fox also was to blame for demanding Ripley back, forcing Whedon to write her in. It’s like Cameron says, filmmaking is a battle between business and aesthetics. If you don’t get someone with enough influence in the industry to run the show, you’re actually seeing something directed by a room full of braindead corporate drones. You can almost imagine those highly imaginative, teary-eyed brainiacs sobbing when Bruce Willis blows an asteroid as Steven Tyler screeches under the american flag in the background. Classic cinema.

  • Finn

    Haha, yeah a mannequin could do a better job than worthington, and the whole anti-religion, anti-gods thing doesn’t work for classical greece.

  • http://www.theexpendablesmovie.com Gunnar Jensen

    Dude relax comic con is just around the corner and i´m sure that we will see earlie footage then and right after comic con photos will pop up every other week trust me i´m sure of it

  • Fayric

    Ralph, its not just that Conans village is slaughtered, its the village “Cimmeria”, making conan the last cimmerian, driven by revenge. oh, blissfull ignorance. The horrible script has been the main issue for this movie to be a disaster IMO. But “they” claim it has been revritten a whole lot since, belive it or not.
    The original clash of the titans was far from true to the classical myths, but Ive heard the new version is ten times worse.
    Had no idea Joss Whedon wrote Alien ressurection! used to think it was all right (because Jenuet is always a visual treat), but now I really have to re-evaluate that movie. I heard Whedon is both directing and writing the avengers movie, which gives me high hope for it. Also, I think Thor can surprise us, beeing directed by Kenneth Branagh (well Branagh used to be a really great director at least), and I think that show that marvel is taking this project serious enough and actually focus on the characters (because lets face it , he is no action director even if he had a eery sense of timing once).
    But its a bit much with heroes now, they really need to take a break.

    Just one more thing I think you, ralph, might like. How about Doug Jones as the Riddler in the next batman movie? I cant let go of that thought.

  • http://deleted Stampfer

    @ Taranaich: It’s frustrating that only a few photos from the new Conan movie were published so far, but everyone can find a little bit more material if you watch carefully the well known sources in the Internet. One example is the official website of the Nu Boyana Film Studio which presented not only the first official picture of Jason Momoa. There are more shots of the movie which you can find and they exist there for weeks! It’s maybe not sensational, just a little bit more material. The kind of Making-of-stuff, not including character-pictures, but this is better than nothing I presume.
    There’s a slide show at the homepage (“Nu Boyana Studios – Film Production”), which begins with a shot of a plane with a “Just Married”-banner. A few moments later this slide show stream shows the shooting of scenes for Conan. I must confess that my claim isn’t approved, it’s not official or clear mentioned at the website, but I’m sure it’s Conan-Material. You can see a movie set in a big natural cavern at the Rhodope Mountains in the south of Bulgaria, a perfect location for a fantasy movie. These caves are part of the so called “Bridges of Wonder” and were used in ancient times as a sanctuary by the Thracians. There are also two photos of a battlefield scene with horsemen and a lot of stunt-work. Last but not least you can discover a few shots from a distance of the Slave Market set at the Black Sea coast.
    At the end of the “Nu Boyana Promo” reel you can see the standing “Roman Set” of the Nu Boyana backlot. It’s well prepared and looks like a Lost City with a shattered statue in the centre. I think that this is a Conan set too.
    The website’s section “Locations / Nature” shows a few places where the movie was shot, beautiful and fascinating landscapes, the “Sticking-Up-Stones” (a geolocical phenomena) near coast city Varna or the “River of Stones” at Vitosha Mountain for example.

    Another source of infotainment is Twitter. Actress Rachel Nichols wrote some interesting things like “James and Alison Nichols are now in Sofia, Bulgaria – finally. I have never been more happy to see my parents. All is right with the world.” // “four days of remote-location work ahead. no phones, no internet, no contact with the outside world…and no chance i’m going to stay sane.” // “hello all! have been getting killed with night shoots, but all is well. wish i could Tweet a pic, but i don’t want to get in trouble! xxx.” // “oof. just had a grim wax-ident. apparently Bulgarian candles leave a lot to be desired. my sweatpants are pissed. so is my right hand. bah.” // “forget the “wax-ident”. now we’ve got to manage the “back’s-ident”…i was riding a horse bare-back all day and my butt has twin blisters!”

  • http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

    Nice scouting Stampfer!

    Well, Fayric, I have faith in both Favreau and Whedon when it comes to the Avengers movie. What I don’t think is gonna work is this whole concept of several superheroes in a single movie. X-Men got away with it because there were a bunch of unknowns. But from X2 on, Hale Berry demanded more screen time, and they ended up killing Cyclops to open room for her piss poor performance. Wolverine got more screentime than anyone else because the studio demanded that. And X3 proved that trying to make hundreds of mutants on screen look fantastic is going to cost -alot- of money, or else it all looks very fake.

    As for Doug as the Riddler, I think he would do a fantastic job. As would Josesph Gordon-Levitt, as it’s been rumoured. But I just don’t see Nolan going there. The Riddler’s modus operandi is too similar to how the Joker was approached in Dark Knight, and comparisons would be innevitable.

    If Nolan’s following the hero’s journey, the first movie was about the birth and rise of the hero, the second about hell breaking loose and the hero pushed to his limits, the third is the one in which the hero overcomes his predicaments and ultimately triumphs.

    And who’s Batman’s greatest nemesis? Not the Joker. It’s himself. This was implied in Dark Knight and will probably be revisited. So if I were to guess, and also based on how Dark Knight ended, we might be in for a “The Fugitive” kind of film, Gotham against Batman, a film less centered on a particular villain. We might see the Catwoman, rewritten as a vigilante whose moral fiber isn’t as strong as Bruce’s, in order to highlight his uniqueness. Who knows?

  • m

    um whats rachel doing with her right hand again… ?nice!I honestly have no investment in who plays what in the next batman movie, I’m sure whatever it is nolan will deliver. I dont know about thor, we’ll see. I for one am glad ed norton is of hulk and avengers as he is too good an actor to deserve to get treated like dirt by marvel like that. those flicks ( though ralph i liked the norton version a hair better the bana one is underrated, cept ‘ the end sucked.)dont deserve him.I am slowly hating marvel , which saddens me as they were such an fun part of childhood.my favorites though were the ec comic reprints i was exposed to : weird science the haunt of fear tales from the crypt, a natural progression of the pulps to comics. they wouldve done great conan stuff had they had the chance.

  • http://www.ralphdamiani.com Ralph Damiani

    Did anyone see what they did to the Green Lantern?

    http://www.latinoreview.com/news/green-lantern-first-look-10506

    I can’t decide if I like the concept of an organic armor but it looks too CGI…or if I think the whole thing would’ve worked better as a costume (but then I think of Thor). Either way, that mask looks pathetic. How do you mess up with the Green Lantern’s mask? Just look at any Alex Ross painting…Jesus.

  • m

    jesus gunner i almost got you mixed up with gunnar hansen of texas chainsaw massacre.I thought we were graced with the presence of celebrity1

  • Ylur

    “Jason has some awesome new pics to show you.

    We just can’t release them yet.

    Stay tuned.”

    On Jason Momoa website.

  • Wolfie

    Some pics on the official movie Facebook page:

    http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=27696&id=112956242054096

  • Wolfie

    Just copy-paste that entire address, don’t just click the active part.

  • Fayric

    Warning: of topic again
    @ m, Ralph: I agree the next bats movie will probably make use of the outcast hero theme they opened up for in dark knight. However, batman is quite used to that in the comics; IMO he has been a vigilante the public dont know if they can trust for many years now(what separate him from the classic batman, and also part of the contrast between him and Superman they have been building for a while). Also, even if I really like the concept, I dont really see the fugitive scenario because Gordon still know the thruth about batman beeing basicly a good guy (and gordons in charge now, right?). I think they will focus on batman rather than any particular main villain, but probably show how he gets darker and more cruel, ruling the underworld with fear, and eventually rethinking his “no killing” policy as representing rock bottom. I think it will give a large focus on Gordon too, perhaps even tell it from his pespective when hes trying to figure out if bats has finally turned to the dark side or not (allowing the audience to not now for sure where they have their main hero).

  • Fayric

    @stamfer. To tell the truth, I dont think those twitter remarks gave much more info about anything. Now that at least some good quality pics has come out I see no reason to just publish everything that remotely resembles a Conan movie rumor. But its good to know its out there.
    @wolfie
    Thats a good full frame of the “riding picture”
    Nice colours.

    I think most of the pictures show momoa as really grim and darkeyed, you think there will be any place for Conans Gigantic Mirth in this?
    The reason I ask is, Nispel said early on he really liked Conans melancholy sides, and that those was what set him apart from other heroes (he also said he had to look up what “mirth” was in a dictionary). I know many conan fans like him dark and grim, but for me, hes also very carefree and full of life. (also Momoa has called Conan “the strong silent type”. I have to say it looks more and more as a remake of “the barbarian” in a reimagined art direction (but I dont really want to bring up milius superior care for detail in art direction again).

  • Fayric

    And if you think Nispel is a nobody that is going to ruin this, I know that already and dont agree. So far he has done no major blunders IMO, and a good director for this movie as it now is. I just think he has the same kind of love for Milus Conan as many of you others here, and that is going to mess up this movie, because Im afraid he will just repeat the misstakes again, like making conan more like the introspective kull in personality.

  • m

    this could be a veiled remake of conan, no doubt. theyre trying to do this cross appeal of the character: hire relatively attractive unknowns but retain roles for popular character actors( lang,perlman).make the claim to lure conan/howard fans by stating this version is closer to howards work, knowing the risk that most hardcore fans of anything are particular and skeptical. And keep the plot similar but not so different as to remind people of the old milius movie, a sort of indirect remake.Any rumors on the plot that were heard( if theyre true at all) point to a simliar outline. Nispel more or less has already done that with his remakes,so where you and I may see reminders of ctb others may not.i think though the focus in this flick will be the action, I dont think the sequences will be dull, if theyre not good this movie is sunk.@ralph: the green lantern pic reminds me of the old flash tv show. No interest in this at all.as much as i like alex ross , i never cared much for his conan. seems a lazy effort compared to his other work.

  • m

    When it boils down to it, I do think this movie has a chance to entertain.it likely will not become the cult classic conan the barbarian has become, but so what? I’m just glad theyre not holding back on the violence, sounds superficial but its crucial to make us believe this verison. ultimately I’d rather see an r rated conan flick than a pg or pg13 one we’ve all seen what happens there(cough kullsuckscough)or a pg13 thor ( I dont see how it can be made credible unless they were telling the story of a mythical thor not marvels)or any pg13 comic book superhero these days.( except batman maybe).And i would never give this movie any chance at all had they rated it otherwise(cough kull cough redsonja cough suckconan the destroyercough cough choke).Anyway, enjoy your weekend all

  • Finn

    Yeah the best thing going for this movie is that it will be rated R. Oh, did they say it will be rated R?

  • Taranaich

    Oh Lord, don’t get me started on Mishmash of the Cretins…

    Ralph, it does appear the film is going by the “Conan is the last of his people” plot. In early drafts, he was the last Cimmerian altogether, but I think – at least, I dearly hope – that in subsequent drafts, he’s only the last of his village. It isn’t much better, but at least this way, the film isn’t altering history to remove the Irish and Scottish from history.

    Stampfer, thank you very much for the tips! I’d come across a few of them before, but the Nu Boyana stuff is new to me. I’d been following Rachel’s Twitter recently, but I wasn’t sure if it was technically newsworthy. Perhaps I’ll post the Conan-related ones anyway, just as food for thought.

    Ylur, cheers for the heads-up! I’ll keep an eye on the site.

  • Ray

    When I was in Bulgaria I had the privilage of hanging out with Bob Sapp. The guy is like a little kid in this monsterously huge body and is definitely entertaining to be around.

  • Change

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    Chek this out!
    http://www.areyouagoodperson.org/
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