I don't know whether to celebrate or run sobbing into oncoming traffic.
Probably due in no small part to the success of "Fellowship of the Ring," Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn"--once adapted into a Rankin-Bass animated film--is going to be filmed again, this time as
a live-action movie.The amazing thing is, they're casting many of the actors who voiced the same characters in the cartoon! This is their main cast, so far:
King Haggard: Christopher Lee
Mommy Fortuna: Angela Lansbury
The Skeleton (and Captain Cully): Rene Auberjonois
Molly Grue: Mia Farrow
(slams on brakes) SCREEEEEEECH.
Wait. Molly Grue--Mia Farrow?!? MIA FARROW????
Okay, the 'toon came out in '82, so I can see why Mia's not playing Amalthea again, even if that was the only performance by her I've liked--but Molly Grue? I'm not going to be able to make the leap from Tammy Grimes' to Mia Farrow's voices. But we'll see.
One of the movie' two directors was a producer for the first version. The other director has a background in special effects and editing, primarily in Monty Python and Terry Gilliam movies. (Unfortunately, the first director also directed
"Nukie." Hold me...I'm scared.)
The movie's site has a truckload of storyboards, designs, CGI tests--no horses with plastic horns, that's a good sign--and so on. Check it out! Does it fill you with joy, or dread, or a combo platter?
Like one reviewer at the
IMDB entry, I too wonder why the 1982 film isn't available on DVD (outside Italy...I even checked Amazon.co.Japan, but the film was never released there at all).
Trivia: Peter S. Beagle, author of "The Last Unicorn," was a co-author of the Ralph Bakshi "Lord of the Rings" toon. (He's fully in charge of the new "Unicorn" script.)
