The epic poem, “Beowulf” is one of those pieces of storytelling that is as revered as the ancient Greek myths. Dating back to at least 1000 AD, it tells the tale of the heroic titular warrior and his battle against the evil beast, Grendel. There’s also Grendel’s mom and a dragon thrown in there too, but for the purposes of time and relevance, we’ll stick to Beowulf and Grendel.
In 1971, John Gardner wrote “Grendel,” which tells the events of the “Beowulf” legend from the perspective of the monster. That story is being brought to life thanks in part to the Jim Henson Company.
If you’re scratching your head and wondering, “didn’t they make a Beowulf movie and Angelina Jolie was in it or something?” Well you’re right, they did. Back in 2007 there was an adaptation of “Beowulf” and the “they” responsible for it was Robert Zemeckis. The director used the same realistic animation techniques that he had previously used for “The Polar Express” to create a uniquely different take on the original epic poem. This time around for Beowulf on the big screen will be considerably different.
For this project, Jeff Bridges (“Tron“) has been cast as Grendel, with Dave Bautista (“Blade Runner: 2049“) as Beowulf. Other notable stars include Bryan Cranston as King Hrothgar, and Sam Elliott as The Dragon. Elliott also worked with Krzykowski on his previous film, though not as a dragon. Legendary musician and producer T Bone Burnett will be providing songs for the movie, as well as acting in it. Here’s hoping he gets to play Grendel’s mom.
This upcoming take on the classic mythos is being adapted from “Grendel” by writer and director Robert D. Krzykowski. Krzykowski’s previous work was the independent film, “The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot.” Helping bring the film to life though will be the Jim Henson Company, with Brian Henson listed as one of the film’s producers. If there’s any company that could possibly bring the world of fantasy into a live-action reality, it’s the Jim Henson Company. After all, this is the group that helped make the “Five Night’s at Freddy’s” movie stand-out by developing the animatronic creatures.
With the project still being fairly early in development there’s no set release date, but you can always tide yourself over with the original epic poem. Because it’s not everyday that we can end an article referring you back to epic ye olde English poetry, which you can read here.
