Merrick here...

Some people are giddy that director Albert Pyun is undertaking his long ago promised follow-up to THE SWORD AND THE SORCER, called TALES OF AN ANCIENT EMPIRE. We've recived some nice mails from people ecstatic to see photos of this long-in-coming project.

And, not surprisingly, others are bitching that we're devoting too much attention/site space to TALES here on AICN.

Here's how I see it: whether you love or hate TALES (or simply don't care), Pyun & Co. are doing *exactly* what I (personally) wish every film maker would do with their movies: they're providing large quantities of media (including FX previz and a look at marketing materials in progress) to sites like ours for the fans to enjoy FROM THE OUTSET. They seem to be taking us along for the production journey. No coy hinting, no slick tap dancing & innuendo, no information manipulation like we've recently seen with larger scale projects. Just plain ol' "We're making a movie, here's some stuff to look at."

Is this publicizing their film? Sure. But no more so than any sanctioned material that is systematically released by studios later in production/post production process. The difference here is timing: the TALES material came to us starting from Day 1 of filming...and is still coming in. Essentially, we're wathcing it being made. Wouldn't we have been orgasmic to have seen the same kind of consideration & material coming out of projects like IRON MAN, STAR TREK, the BAT films, etc.?

It's my hope that this TALES material may entice other productions to adopt approaches/tactics similar to Pyun & Co. There's been some experimentation with the notion already (Danny Boyle's SUNSHINE being an example), but it would be awesome to see the idea pushed further.

With all of this in mind, here's a new wave of material from TALES OF AN ANCIENT EMPIRE. You can find our first batch (HERE).

Enjoy!

Here's a bevy of character teasers/filming announcements that pretty much speak for themselves.

BELOW: an FX test for an ocean sequence featured in the film (TALES has corsairs and asian pirates). This is from a South African FX house called Suspended Animation (website HERE ).



We've also fgotten word that the great Scott Paulin will appear in TALES as a "blind beggar vampire". Paulin was Deke SLayton iun THE RIGHT STUFF so that makes him cool beyond cool in my book.

Jennifer Siebel has also joined the cast.

She's married to San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, & you can find more of her extensive credits HERE.

Finally, if you're on the "many projects should never be PG-13" bandwagon (as I am), you may be happy to hear that TALES is being described as "balls out R rated film".