Screen Daily is reporting that Olga Kurylenko, the unreasonably cute star of “Quantum of Solace,” “Hitman,” and the upcoming mud-and-blood epic “Centurion,” has signed on to star in “Empires of the Deep,” a preposterous-sounding sci-fi adventure that also happens to be the largest Chinese 3D production ever, budgeted at $100 million. Also joining the film, which is currently shooting in Beijing: Anthony Arendt the 3D camera operator for “Avatar.”
The US-Chinese co-production is directed by Michael French and Jonathan Lawrence. Show of hands — does anyone know who in the hell these guys are? Didn’t think so. A trip to the movie’s IMDB page doesn’t turn up much, showing a cast made up entirely of unknowns. Seriously, Olga is the biggest “name” in the cast (and in case you’re curious Steve Polites and Yanfei Shi are other leads).
And what’s it about? Well, officially (and try not to giggle here), it “”tells about a young man’s adventure in the undersea mermaid kingdom in order to save his father, while encountering ferocious sea monsters and gets involved in large-scale battles in the seabed between mermaids, monsters and demons.” So a kind of aquatic “Avatar?” With mermaids a-plenty? This thing just sounds laughably bad.
Originally, the film was being directed by Pitof, the former effects guru of the Jeunet/Caro films (he later directed the abominable “Catwoman” for Warner Bros.) and starred Monica Bellucci as the mermaid queen, which would at least be enough to pique our interest, even if in the so-bad-it-could-be-amazing way. Now the project just seems sad. Even more mind boggling, who finances a $100 million movie with absolutely no talent behind it?
At the very least it will prove whether or not a movie jutting out at you in 3D will be enough to get people to see the film, since this certainly doesn’t have any on-screen or behind-the-scenes talent to get people interested. We’ll let you insert your own “Zoolander”/Merman joke here.