Frankly, I had never heard of the fantasy novel “Eragon” till Hollywood decided to turn it into a feature length movie (that goes to show how much read books). The interesting thing about this film is not so much the story but the fact that it spent 61 weeks on the NY Times best sellers list when it was first published. Now what is even more amazing is that the author, Christopher Paulini wrote this novel when he graduated high school at the age of 15. Yes, you read me right, I said fifteen years old. Heck, my head was still buried in comic books and console games when I was 15 (well, I’m still a comic book fan and I do take a jab at the controller every now and then). Christopher has just released a second novel in the “Inheritence” triology which debut at the top of the best sellers list.
There was a short behind-the-scenes featurette that is circling the internet but I do believe that it has not been sanctioned by 20th Century Fox for release thus highly illegal so do grab it quick before it disappears. Last time I checked it is still there. 20th Century Fox will be producing the film and it stars Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Speleers and Robert Carlyle. This would be the first film for director Stefen Fangmeier but he was the visual effects supervisor at ILM (I.ndustrial L.ight and M.agic) for films like “Lemony Snicket’s”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Master and Commander” just to name a few. What I’m really interested to see is how a visual effects artist, when thrust into the director’s chair, will conceive the film.
Click here or the picture to download the featurette