Fantasy blockbusters have become a Christmas custom - and this year's offering is a talking dragon in Eragon. Director Stefen Fangmeier talks to Donald Clarke
In 1966 (or so) every studio wanted its own James Bond. Adventures featuring rival agents such as Flint, Modesty Blaise and Matt Helm were duly commissioned. Something similar is happening this decade with the fantasy movie. Blame Peter Jackson. Five years ago, when the first of Jackson's fine The Lord of the Rings films was propelled towards a welcoming public, the bearded Kiwi achieved the impressive feat of establishing a new Christmas custom. A generation of children has now come to expect some fantastic adventure featuring mythical beasts to explode into their cinemas just in time for the opening of the first window on the advent calendar.
In 2004, the year following the release of the final picture in the Rings trilogy, it looked as if this new custom may already have died out. Then last year, Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - the opening shot in a franchise that could, in theory, last decades - reclaimed the season for satyrs and swordsmen. Next December the first film in the adaptation of Philip Pullman's classic His Dark Materials trilogy will be unspooled.
The fantasy movie is now every bit as much a herald of Christmas as the first robin or I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here! Nobody, therefore, should be surprised to hear that 20th Century Fox has embarked on its own cycle of magical adventures. Eragon, which features Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich and some blond teenager named Edward Speleers, comes from the Talking Dragon School of fantastic whimsy. Young Master Speleers (actually rather good) stars as a farmer's son who, after happening upon a dragon's egg, finds himself impelled to lead a rebellion against Mad Malkovich's reign of terror. Did somebody mention Star Wars?
"I think Fox were aware that they were one of the studios that passed on Lord of the Rings," Stefen Fangmeier, the film's appropriately named director, explains. "But it does centre around a dragon and the studio was concerned that all films concerning dragons have flopped before. It was important that we get the relationship between the dragon and the boy right. She ends up being a mother figure. It is very much like the Greek mythology."
Steady on, Stefen. The allusion to Greeks and their mothers could lead us any number of unwelcome places. At any rate, though dragons have not been good box office in the past, Eragon does have a significant potential fan base out there.
Christopher Paolini's source novel - a big thing with embossed lettering on the front - has sold more than two and a half million copies in the US alone and is now colonising airport bookshops all over the world. Even for those immune to sword and sorcery, the story of the book's success is a fascinating one. Paolini, who was home-schooled by his parents in a remote corner of Montana, began writing the book when he was 15 and typed the last full stop when still short of his 19th birthday. His fearsome-sounding parents published the book themselves and encouraged their son to get out there and promote the book aggressively. Paolini, dressed appropriately in billowy black pants and a lace-up shirt, obediently made his way to as many libraries, schools and bookshops as he could manage. On his travels, he encountered Carl Hiaasen, the popular crime writer, who, impressed by the young man's performance, recommended Eragon to his own publishers. The book, inevitably the first in a trilogy, clicked with fantasy fans and has made fortunes for all involved.
SO WHAT DID Fangmeier make of the Paolinis? We have heard some worrying stories about those families that decide to go it alone in Montana.
"They are a very tight-knit family," he says. "They are very nature-bound. Living in that place gives you scope to create. When you live in the city there are so many distractions. And, yes, I got the impression that his mother and sister have very strong personalities. They would be over his shoulder as we were talking saying: 'That is not what you thought.' They were encouraging him to be strong. And that comes through with the dragon in the book being a very strong mother figure."
Yikes! We are back to that mother thing. Considering his isolated upbringing, it must have been particularly disconcerting for Christopher to find himself suddenly confronted with a representative of the movie industry. Fangmeier, one of Hollywood's most respected visual effects boffins, seems a nice enough fellow, but I don't imagine too many people of his type happen through rural Montana.
"I flew out to where he lives, just 200ft from the Yellowstone River," Fangmeier explains. "They have this humble two- storey house. I told him what I had in mind. There was a strong reaction to what I had done differently. But I could see he was very excited that it was going to be turned into a film. I deeply respect his discipline in creating this world and crafting Eragon."
SUCCESSFUL AS THE book undoubtedly was, there is still no guarantee that Fox has found its own fantasy cashpoint. Eragon and its sequel, Eldest, though popular, have not achieved the breakthrough success enjoyed by The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books. The books sell mainly to a dedicated fantasy readership. The studio, perhaps aware of the film's limited potential, has been somewhat cautious about throwing too much money at the project.
"This is probably the biggest film they have ever handed to a first-timer," Fangmeier, a German, raised partly in Texas, says proudly. "But the film only cost around $100 million (more than €75 million) to make, which is actually quite cheap for this sort of thing. The Harry Potter films are costing $150 million or $200 million. Even Narnia cost $180 million or so. It helps that I didn't get paid all that much. It also helps that I am not one of those big, established directors who wants to outdo their buddies. I have seen that on films I have worked on. It can become a bit of a pissing competition for those guys."
So what is the magic figure? How much money does Eragon have to take to guarantee the sequel will get made? "I am not really into the specifics of that," Fangmeier says cautiously. "You look at the Superman film this year. Relatively speaking, it didn't do that well. But they will probably make a sequel of that. It is hard to say."
Filmed in Hungary and Slovakia, Eragon looks pretty much exactly as you would expect it to look. The armies are composed of adequately hideous quasi-humanoid beasties. The hero's dragon, voiced mellifluously by Rachel Weisz, combines cuteness with aggression to tolerably charming effect. The characters all have names that would look right at home arrayed behind Carol Vorderman before being set upon by the contestants on Countdown: Hrothgar, Durza, Arya, Galbotrix. Indeed, the film ticks the fantasy boxes so assiduously it hardly needs to be seen at all.
There will, however, be phalanxes of Eragon fans scrutinising the images carefully to ensure no radical alterations have been made to Paolini's sacred text. "Hail drazadian121!" farxspat45 may well type to his friend. "Have you noticed that the proto-elves' armour carries the decoration of Zardavian on the right rather than the left breast? Don't these film-makers know ANYTHING?!??!" I hope Fangmeier has prepared himself for the onslaught.
"I have been corresponding with one 14-year-old fan for the last few years now and he gives me all the feedback," he says. "So I hear all about the controversy that the Urgals don't have any horns in our film. I have heard the complaints that the Elves don't have pointed ears and all that kind of thing. I regard it as a compliment that they are so interested."
If those fantasy fans don't take to Eragon, they need only wait another 12 months. We still have three His Dark Materials films, three Harry Potter films and, if the climate allows, six Narnia episodes winging their way to us through the enchanted ether. The children of Bond were puny beasts by comparison.
Eragon is on general release