Thursday, July 01, 2004

Boadicea to be featured in four Hollywood Films

Return of the queen: "Hollywood has four films in development about the British warrior queen. One of them, Warrior, is being produced by Mel Gibson, partly with money from the proceeds of his film The Passion of The Christ (a rare example of fundamentalist Christian money backing a project with a pagan heroine). Along with a DreamWorks project called Queen Fury, Paramount's Warrior Queen and another called My Country, the race is on to get what Variety magazine called 'Braveheart with a bra' to the screen first."

This author seems to think Mel Gibson's version will probably be the most lavish. However, I was concerned that his director's understanding of the Iceni's uprising is a bit spotty. This was also noted by the author:

"Gavin O'Connor, the director enlisted by Mel Gibson to make his Boadicea picture, told Variety last month that he expected his film to buck the trend for female-led epics faring badly at the box office. "What drew me," he said, "is that she was driven by personal revenge. Her goals were never political and never went beyond avenging her slain husband and child. She managed to bring together all of these warring tribes to stand against the Roman empire. It is a masculine story with a female point of view."

It is worth pointing out that Boudicca's husband was not slain by the Romans, nor was her "child". "In fact," says Fraser, "her daughters were raped by the Romans and she was flogged."

Maybe, at least, the costuming will be more authentic, not like the cheap Halloween costumes of PBS' Warrior Queen.

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