Beowulf is a 2007 American adult animated epic medieval fantasy action film produced and directed by Robert Zemeckis, and written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, loosely based on the Old English poem Beowulf. It features the voices of Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman, and Angelina Jolie. The film depicts a modern interpretation of the poem, with certain changes to aspects of its story. It was produced by Shangri-La Entertainment and Zemeckis's ImageMovers and features characters animated using motion-capture animation, which was previously used in The Polar Express (2004) and Monster House (2006).
Beowulf premiered at Westwood, Los Angeles on November 5, 2007, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 16 by Paramount Pictures, with Warner Bros. Pictures handling international distribution. It grossed over $196 million and was generally well received by critics, though there was criticism towards its deviations from the original poem.
Plot
In 507, Geatish warrior Beowulf travels to Denmark with his band of soldiers, to slay Grendel, a creature that killed King Hrothgar's people during a celebration in the mead hall Heorot. Beowulf becomes attracted to Hrothgar's wife Queen Wealtheow.
To lure out Grendel, the men loudly celebrate in Heorot while, to ensure a fair and equal fight, Beowulf strips naked and relaxes. Grendel arrives and as they fight, Beowulf discovers that Grendel has hypersensitive hearing and ruptures the creature's eardrum. After Beowulf severs his arm, Grendel escapes back to his cave and dies. Grendel's mother swears revenge. In thanks for defeating the monster, Hrothgar gives Beowulf his golden drinking horn, which commemorates Hrothgar's victory over the dragon Fafnir.
Grendel's mother travels to Heorot and slaughters Beowulf's men in the night. Hrothgar informs Beowulf and Beowulf's best friend Wiglaf that Grendel's mother is the last of the Water Demons. Hrothgar's adviser, Unferth, offers Beowulf his sword Hrunting to slay Grendel's mother. Beowulf and Wiglaf travel to the demon's cave, where Beowulf enters alone and confronts the demon, who takes the form of a beautiful, gold-covered naked woman. He tries to kill her but she uses magic to melt Hrunting, after which she seduces Beowulf and promises to make him king in exchange for the horn and a son. Beowulf accepts the deal and they kiss.
Beowulf returns to Heorot with Grendel's head and announces that he has killed Grendel's mother. He recounts embellished stories of a fight, claiming that he left Hrunting impaled in Grendel's mother and lost the horn in the battle. In private, Hrothgar asks Beowulf if he truly killed Grendel's mother. Despite Beowulf's calling her a hag, Hrothgar is not fooled. The king indirectly reveals that he had also been seduced by the demon, their tryst resulting in Grendel. As a shocked Beowulf realizes the implication that the curse of Grendel's mother has now been passed on to him, Hrothgar declares Beowulf to be king upon his death. He then jumps from the castle parapet onto the sea below to his death. Grendel's mother claims Hrothgar's corpse and the crowd kneels to the newly crowned King Beowulf, fulfilling their bargain.
Fifty years later, the elderly Beowulf is the estranged husband of Wealtheow, who has converted to Christianity. Beowulf has a mistress, Ursula, but his tryst with Grendel's mother has left him sterile. On the anniversary of his victory against Grendel, Unferth returns the horn, which was found on the moors. That night, a nearby village is razed by a dragon. It transforms into a golden humanoid figure, who gives a message to Beowulf: the sins of the father have returned to him (referencing the Faustian bargain with Grendel's mother that he agreed to). Beowulf confesses to Wealtheow about his affair with Grendel's mother and they reconcile.
Beowulf and Wiglaf go to the cave, and Beowulf enters alone. When Grendel's mother appears, Beowulf throws her the horn, but she refuses it. The dragon attacks Beowulf's castle, threatening Wealtheow and Ursula. Beowulf arms himself and confronts the dragon. After a grueling fight, Beowulf kills the dragon by ripping its heart out, severing his own arm and losing his sword in the process. The dragon transforms into its golden humanoid form, before being washed out to sea. A dying Beowulf reveals to Wiglaf his affair with Grendel's mother and his son's identity, but Wiglaf insists on keeping his legacy intact.
As the new king, Wiglaf gives Beowulf a Norse funeral. Wiglaf finds the horn and sees Grendel's mother give Beowulf a final kiss as his burning ship sinks into the sea. Grendel's mother floats on the water's surface and seductively beckons Wiglaf towards her. He wades into the sea with the horn, before pausing halfway in the surf. They both stare at each other with Grendel's mother waiting and Wiglaf tempted, but showing resistance.
Cast Ray Winstone as Beowulf, the title character. Zemeckis cast Winstone after seeing his performance as the title character of the 2003 ITV serial Henry VIII. On the topic of the original poem, Winstone commented during an interview, "I had the beauty of not reading the book, which I understand portrays Beowulf as a very one-dimensional kind of character; a hero and a warrior and that was it. I didn't have any of that baggage to bring with me." Winstone enjoyed working with motion-capture, stating that "You were allowed to go, like theater, where you carry a scene on and you become engrossed within the scene. I loved the speed of it. There was no time to sit around. You actually cracked on with a scene and your energy levels were kept up. There was no time to actually sit around and lose your concentration. So, for me, I actually really, really enjoyed this experience." Unlike some of his castmates, Winstone's animated counterpart bears little resemblance to the actor who was in his early 50s when he filmed the role; Winstone noted that his computer-generated counterpart resembled himself at the age of eighteen, although the filmmakers did not have a photo for reference. Winstone also played a dwarf performer, and the "Golden Man"/Dragon. Crispin Glover and Angelina Jolie as Grendel and his mother, the antagonists. Glover had previously worked with Zemeckis in Back to the Future when he portrayed George McFly. Zemeckis had found Glover tiresome on set, because of his lack of understanding of shooting a film, but realized this would not be a problem as on a motion-capture film he could choose his angles later. Glover's dialogue was entirely in Old English. Jolie had wanted to work with Zemeckis, and had read the poem years before but could not remember it well until she read the script and was able to recall basic themes. The actress recounted her first impression of her character's appearance by saying "... I was told I was going to be a lizard. Then I was brought into a room with Bob, and a bunch of pictures and examples, and he showed me this picture of a woman half painted gold, and then a lizard. And, I've got kids and I thought 'That's great. That's so bizarre. I'm going to be this crazy reptilian person and creature. Jolie filmed her role over two days when she was three months pregnant. She was startled by the character's nude human form, stating that for an animated film "I was really surprised that I felt that exposed." Anthony Hopkins as King Hrothgar. Hopkins noted in an interview that since Zemeckis is an American, he was not certain what accent Hopkins should use for the role of Hrothgar. Hopkins told him, "Well, Welsh would be my closest because that's where I come from." It was also his first time working with motion-capture technology. Hopkins noted, "I didn't know what was expected. It was explained to me, I'm not stupid, but I still don't get the idea of how it works. I have no idea [...] you don't have sets, so it is like being in a Brecht play, you know, with just bare bones and you have nothing else." When asked if he had to read the original poem of Beowulf in school, Hopkins replied: "No, I was hopeless at school. I couldn't read anything. I mean I could read, but I was so inattentive. I was one of those poor kids, you know, who was just very slow, didn't know what they were talking about... So I tried to get around to reading Beowulf just before I did this movie, and it was a good modern translation. It was Trevor Griffiths, I'm not sure, but I couldn't hack it, and I tend to like to just go with the script if it's a good script." John Malkovich as Unferth. Malkovich became involved in the project because one of his friends, who had worked with Zemeckis, "spoke very highly of him. I had always found him a very interesting and innovative filmmaker. I liked the script very much and I liked the group involved and the process interested me a great deal also." He found the experience of working with motion capture to be similar to his experiences working in the theater. He also found the process intriguing: "Say you do a normal day of filmmaking. Sometimes that's 1/8 of a page, sometimes it's 3/8th of a page, normally let's say it's 2½ pages, maybe 3. Now it's probably a little more than it used to be but not always. So you may be acting for a total of 20 minutes a day. In this, you act the entire day all the time except for the tiny amount of time it takes them to sort of coordinate the computer information, let's say, and make sure that the computers are reading the data and that you're transmitting the data. It interests me on that level because I'm a professional actor so I'd just as soon act as sit around." Malkovich also recalled that he studied the original poem in high school, and that "I think we got smacked if we couldn't recite a certain number of stanzas. It was in the Old English class and I think my rendition was exemplary." Brendan Gleeson as Wiglaf, Beowulf's lieutenant Robin Wright as Queen Wealtheow Alison Lohman as Ursula, Beowulf's concubine when he is an old king Costas Mandylor as Hondshew Sebastian Roche as Wulfgar Greg Ellis as Garmund Tyler Steelman as Young Cain, Unferth's disabled slave which he continually abuses for the slightest mistake. Dominic Keating as Adult Cain Rik Young as Eofor Charlotte Salt as Estrith Leslie Harter Zemeckis as Yrsa Fredrik Hiller as Finn of Frisia
Production Development Author Neil Gaiman and screenwriter Roger Avary wrote a screen adaptation of Beowulf in May 1997 (they had met while working on a film adaptation of Gaiman's The Sandman in 1996 before Warner Bros. Pictures canceled it). The script had been optioned by ImageMovers in the same year and set up at DreamWorks Pictures with Avary slated to direct and Robert Zemeckis producing. Avary stated he wanted to make a small-scale, gritty film with a budget of US$15–20 million, similar to Jabberwocky or Excalibur. The project eventually went into turnaround after the option expired, to which the rights returned to Avary, who went on to direct an adaptation of The Rules of Attraction.
In January 2005, producer Steve Bing, at the behest of Zemeckis who was wanting to direct the film himself, revived the production by convincing Avary that Zemeckis' vision, supported by the strength of digitally enhanced live action, was worth relinquishing the directorial reins. Zemeckis did not like the poem, but enjoyed reading the screenplay. Because of the expanded budget, Zemeckis told the screenwriters to rewrite their script, because "there is nothing that you could write that would cost me more than a million dollars per minute to film. Go wild!" In particular, the entire fight with the dragon was rewritten from a talky confrontation to a battle spanning the cliffs and the sea.
Animation and visual effects