Genre: Horror/Comic Book Adaptation.
Studio:
Universal.
Production Company:
Pacific Western Productions/Dark Horse Entertainment/Universal Pictures.
Project Phase: In the Can.
Who's In It:
Jamie Lee Curtis; Donald Sutherland; William Baldwin; Sherman Augustus;
Cliff Curtis; Joanna Pacula; Marshall Bell; Julio Mechoso.
Who's Making It:
John Bruno (Director); John Hensleigh, Dennis Feldman, Chuck Pfarrer (Screenwriters);
Gale Anne Hurd (Producer); Mike Richardson (Executive Producer); Todd Moyer, Dennis E.
Jones (Co-Producer); David Eggby (Director of Photography);
O. Nicholas Brown (Editor); Joel McNeely (Musical Score); Phil Tippett Studios (Special
Digital Effects); Steve Johnson, Eric Allred (Robotic Effects Designers); VisionArt, Cinesite Hollywood, Vincent J. Guastini Productions (Special
Makeup Effects); Joel McNeely (Musical Score); based upon the comic book mini-series Virus written by Chuck Pfarrer and published by Dark Horse Comics.
Premise: While seeking refuge in the eye of a typhoon, an American tugboat crew finds a Russian science research vessel floating adrift, all hands on-board missing. As they begin to piece together the mystery concerning the ship and her purpose at sea, something on-board starts to piece together the necessary components it needs to subjugate the human race...from whatever and whoever it can find.
Release Date: January 15, 1999.
Comments: The four-issue mini-series could be best described as a mix of Leviathan meets The Thing meets Alien. Gale Anne Hurd brings with her a solid track history of genre films: she's the producer behind The Terminator series, Aliens and 1997's The Relic. Thumbs up to Herd for casting Jamie Lee Curtis in the lead (an actress who can clean and scope automatic weapons just as easily as the other male action heroes out there, fellas.) With a budget of $50 mil behind them, an alien menance endangering all of Mankind and visual effects supervisor-turned-director John Bruno at the helm, this one's got drive-in feature written all over it.
Rumors: Unknown.
Scoop Feedback:
Late 1996... [Thanks to Christian, 'pkalapa' and 'Super M' for the information nuggets!] May 25, 1997... Virus is currently in production in Virginia. The 'ship' is an old missile tracking ship converted at a naval yard in south Norfolk over the course of four months. It is painted with Cyrillic letters, leading to the theory that it's Russian (as opposed to Chinese as in the comic.) [Scoop handed in by 'martinized'.]
August 19, 1997... "Major FX, action, and stunt scenes for the film Virus were filmed at Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina in about 7 sound stages. The sets were huge! All portrayed the interior of a ship, with no shortage of pipes and valves. One main set, the 'tank room' was filled with 4-5' deep murky water. On set, there were NO real metal pipes. (All pvc painted.) All the hundreds of turn-valves are fiberglass, and some of them were made of rubber. (Presumably for stunts!) Groovy looking creatures, including small rodent-like critters with lots of sharp dangerous looking make-shift appendages." [Submitted anonymously.]
September 21, 1997... Joel McNeely is scoring the picture. [Submitted by 'Brently'.]
Here are some first-hand reports from people involved or who walked on the Virus set. Let's get the good news out of the way first:
"Virus filmed in the Chesapeake Bay, with a converted Navy ship doubling as the Russian vessel. Also, there are at least 2 special tug boats being created for the film, one of which is capable of sinking over and over again. Filming began in April, with the stars staying at the Waterside in Norfolk." [Handed in by 'smorr'.]
...that's it. We've been constantly getting emails about the film's alien/robotic hybrid being a lemon. Codenamed 'Goliath', this creature has reportedly cost a million dollars and won't function at all, forcing the plans of director John Bruno to be modified. As the situation grew deserpate the production realized that the film will need extensive CGI in post-production for the hybrid creatures. This looks to be the real reason why the film got delayed from October '97 to a early 1998 release.
Here's a sampling of the mail we've been getting:
"Was on the set of virus and the main mechanical giant T2-like robots that cost a reported million dollars a piece did not work, the company that made them are being sued by the studio. Most of the scenes will be replaced by CGI which is being done by Star Wars effects man Phill Tippett." [Handed in anonymously.]
"Virus wrapped shooting months behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. Apparently the dailies look horrible, too. Looks like Universal made another Waterworld." [Anonymous.]
"The film is now at 75 Mill and climbing. Jamie Lee hates working on the film and with the director. The actors are taking the film over to make it work due to John Burnos bad communication skills, and poor direction. The Main Effects star a Giant T2 Robot with Spider Legs called Goliath. It does not work on set and has put production behind. And the company who built it (ALL EFFECTS CO.) is being sued. Phil Tippet will add his CGI magic over the clunky robot to fix any or all effects problems." [Sent in anonymously.]
But 'The Phantom' had some positive things to say about the second generation creature effects:
"Buddy of mine worked on the creature fx unit. The animatronic creature is awesome. Also, apparantly the first creatures developed by the effects house for the show were very unsatisfactory and after numerous breakdowns and production down-time were scrapped in favor of more computer animated work. I was working on another movie in Wilmington and stopped by the set in stage 7 and it was incredible. A boat on a gimble with rain and wind equipment around it. It should be close to in the can by now." [Signed 'The Phantom'.]
December 7, 1997... Although Universal won't admit it, we've heard this picture is going to be pushed back until summer 1998, probably around August. Uh oh. [Thanks to anonymous.]
January 6, 1998... The 'Phantom' scoop from September 23rd is confirmed by another of our scoopers. The 'second generation' effects, as the scooper called them, "look very cool." These new FX were created by Steve Johnson's XFX team, whose creations were said to look very remeniscent of Star Trek's Borg. These were attained mostly by makeups and people in character suits. Other FX, including a scene which scared the hell outta Jamie Lee Curtis and involved "big, bald bloated faces were created by Vincent J. Guastini Productions. [Scooped anonymously.]
It's also been confirmed that the movie's new release date is August 14, 1998.
April 14, 1998... Phil Tippett Studios is still working on an expensive CGI sequence for the end-of-movie "bad guy" scenes. Earlier reports of the failures with the practical animatronics on-set proved accurate, and hopes to save the FX in the film's ending now lie with Tippett Studios. [Scooped by 'Mr. Clark'.]
April 16, 1998... Our favorite rogue of the high seas, 'Pirate Bob' landed a treasure trove of fresh plunder for us...
"While attending Lost In Space they had a sci-fi table set up and they were giving away various items. One item was a postcard for Virus. I unfortunately do not have a scanner so I cannot scan the picture. Which I assume is either the teaser poster or the real poster. It shows a robotic looking face. A camera lens-like eye with a device on the side of the 'head' and a bolt of lightning coming out of the device. The lightning bolt strikes down and hits Earth which is in the lower right corner. In the lower left corner it says, VIRUS and below that the tag line, 'It is Aware'. It also says that it is #1 in a series of 3, but this was the only one that was there.
"It also has a complete credit listing on the back which is as follows:
"Universal Pictures and Mutual Film Company
present A Dark Horse Entertainment/Valhalla Motion Picture production
Jamie Lee Curtis|William Baldwin and Donald Sutherland|"Virus"
Marshall Bell|Music By Joel McNeely
Co-Producers Todd Moyer Dennis E. Jones
Robotic Effects Designers Steve Johnson and Eric Allred
Edited by Scott Smith|Production Designer Mayling Cheng
Director of Photography David Eggby A.C.S
Executive Producers Mike Richardson Chuck Pfarrer Gary Levinsohn Mark Gordon
Based On The Dark Horse Comic Series "Virus" Created By Chuck Pfarrer
Screenplay by Chuck Pfarrer and Dennis Feldman
Produced by Gale Anne Hurd|Directed by John Bruno|A Universal Release
"It also has the website for the movie listed as http://www.virusthemovie.com.The website only has the main cast list and a synopsis with a picture different than the postcard I have and the August 14th release date."
A link is up now at the bottom of the page. [Ahoy 'Pirate Bob'! You did good, matey!]
June 28, 1998... The film is again delayed...now all the way until the start of next year.
July 20, 1998... The Wizard World comic convention was held last weekend in Chicago, and if you attended you could have had the opportunity to see Virus director John Bruno display footage from his baby. Lucky for you we had a family relative on the scene so you'd be informed about it! Check out 'Uncle Seven's review of Bruno's talk and read about what Wizard World attendees saw of the film...
"I just attended the Chicago Wizard World convention where John Bruno and Marshall Bell were present to talk about Virus. They also showed the official 'G' rated trailer, 6 minute behind the scenes video, and about 20 minutes of the movie - that's right, 20 minutes. The director had the whole movie with him on tape so he decided to play a good chunk for us: the scene involved the discovery of the manufacturing plant within the ship utilizing the human parts and the mechanical (played much like the comic), progressing into the scene introducing the Terminator-like creature made from the ship's captain (with gunfight), then...he just let it keep playing. The mock autopsy of the Termintor/captain, the explaination of the 'living energy' that was transferred from Mir to the Russian vessel (a difference from the comic), and the ressurection of the Terminator creature in a way you will have to wait and see for yourself.
"Anyway... I digress. The movie was pushed to January 15-16 area for now because of Halloween: H20. This has not made the movie's creators very happy as the film has tested surprisingly well ('especially with the female crowd' said John Bruno). The movie will still open in Europe this fall. The only cuts made to the movie involved some extended special effects and also some gore (which Bruno said will be added to a special edition on DVD/Laserdisc most likely, as he has learned a good lesson from his friend James Cameron: 'Save everything')
"The Goliath creature was expensive as previously reported, but the main problem was the lower half of the beast. The upper portion used about 20 people to manuever correctly and looked good. The lower half didn't work as well - hence the CGI sequences (which look very good from what we were shown at least) The creature basically needed help walking... and running.
"Bruno apologized to the crowd for the delay in the release, but there really wasn't anything he could do about it. Maybe he showed us more of the movie because he felt bad. Marshall Bell is quite a character, but really didn't add much in the way of information. Most of the movie was filmed inside an actual ship that was purchased for some odd-thousand dollars and turned into a large set. The shots of the ship in the hurricane are actually a 50 foot recreation of the ship instead of CGI (with CGI hurricane of course.)
"Bruno wouldn't comment on his next movie, but he did ask the Dark Horse representative for permission before a negative reply was given. Hint? Then he just told us that we would know what it was if we heard it.
"PS: Donald Sutherland is actually quite amusing trying to act like a tough tugboat captain - although I don't believe he was trying to be amusing. Bruno said that the movie got a lot more laughs than he expected when tested - not in a bad way either. Bruno also said that the latest totals put the movie around $60 million to make, but that was still over his initial budget.
"Oh yeah. The latest news about Spider-Man: Bruno said that Cameron still really wants to do it, and it is on Cameron's slate. Bruno has read the actual script and said 'It's Bitch'n.' "
[Thank you 'Uncle Seven'. You were always our favorite Uncle.]
December 8, 1998... "Saw the trailer for Virus in front of Psycho this weeekend. It loks like it will either be really cool or fucking stupid depending on how it was executed. From what I could tell (despite all the fast-paced editing) was that the monster is less CGI and more live-action which makes it look all the more realistic and frightening.
"Jamie Lee Curtis looks hot and there are a lot of clips of people running and screaming through the boat. My only complaint was that in the final scene of the trailer we see Jamie Lee resting with her back to a wall and suddenly a metal claw rips through from the other side scaring her and the audience. It was identical to the scene in The Relic which was used as the final scare in that trailer as well." [Thoughts dropped by John Henderson.]
January 7, 1999... Viewer feedback from someone who's seen Virus. SPOILER ALERT: a character's fate is revealed in the following scoop:
"I attended a screening of Virus 4 months ago, and I gotta tell you, it was one of the worst films I've seen in recent memory. Universal had billboards up and advertising on the tour trams which mysteriously disappeared shortly after this screening. The film is dull & predictable, the F/X shoddy and probably the 'Worst Performance By A Good Actor' award this year (or whatever year this P.O.S. gets released) will go to Donald Sutherland as the mangy ol' salt sea pirate who gets 'borgified' during the course of the film. The trailers are out there now, but I sure don't see anything different. BEWARE." [Did 'Fusion2015' at least enjoy the popcorn?]
The Tag Line:
"It Is Aware."
Official Web Site: www.virusthemovie.com
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