Remember when adverts were turned into giant events, with tv premieres and hype? One of the biggest names to hype up their ads with gigantic campaigns was Pepsi, who usually enlisted a variety of megastars aswell. One of their most famous and popular ads was the Gladiator advert, featuring Beyonce, Britney Spears, Pink and Enrique Inglesias. Not exactly the Nolans in terms of star power. It was a great ad, looking more like a short film (which it was) and having a great cinematic feel. No surprise then, that the director Tarsem Singh has gone on to do some really interesting film work.
His first film was The Cell, a film that explored the workings of the mind long before Chris Nolan started spinning totems. That movie featured Jenifer Lopez (clearly Tarsem is comfortable with popstars) trying to solve crimes by going through a serial killer's mind. It was flawed, and not a hit, but there's no denying it's absolutely stunning. The same can be said for his follow up, The Fall, another slightly hollow film but with breathtaking settings and scenes, all done with his own money on his own time. If you see it (and you should) you'll see why he did that - there's no way any studio would have funded it as it was.
Now though, he's going a little more mainstream. Immortals is an action adventure of the swords & sandals variety, with the requisite references to 300 and shiny armour included. It stars new Superman Henry Cavill, and appears to take bits and pieces of mythology in order to tell the story. Much like the dreadful Clash of the Titans, Gods feature alongside humans too. Now we have a trailer, where you can see a bit of the Tarsem style on show - I'm not sold on the movie yet (it looks a little dull, story wise), but you can't deny it looks good. And it would want to, for he's following it with a version of Snow White with Julia Roberts, so you can bet the studio are expecting this to make a tad more than the three million The Fall made. Check out the Immortals trailer and the trailer for The Fall too (worth a look) below - the movie opens in November.
Good to see Mickey Rourke's accent skills haven't improved.
