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Hollywood goes to Hell!

Arthur J Pais

There are less than eight months to the end of the millennium -- and Hollywood, not satisfied with the apocalypse movies such as Armageddon -- is going ahead with over a dozen films in which the devil or the evil has to be fought hard.

'As millennium nears, Hollywood is giving the Devil his due,' writes film critic Jack Mathews. To the list of such films as The Ninth Gate from Roman Polanski (Rosemary's Baby) and End of Days in which Arnold Schwarzenegger attempts to rescue a woman marked as Satan's bride, add The Crow: The Salvation directed by Bharat Nalluri, the British director, who was named two years ago as one of the top 50 young talents by the trade publication Variety.

Nalluri, who is in his early thirties, has directed two low budget films including last year's Killing time starring Kiefer Sutherland. Though the films were not hits, his work drew the attention of Miramax, a division of Walt Disney, which has marked about $ 12 million for The Crow: The Salvation. The budget is at least five times that of Nalluri's previous film.

The film-maker, based in Birmingham, joins a rising group of film-makers of Indian origin who are headed to Hollywood: Night Shyamalan is directing his third feature film, starring Bruce Willis, on a budget of over $ 35 million. Shekhar Kapur is to start directing a film for Warner Bros in two months. And Jay Chandrasekar has been signed by Miramax to direct a $ 3.5 million comedy set in a small town.

Miramax offers a quaint slate of films including the highbrow Shakespeare in Love and Life is Beautiful, both Oscar-winning hits, as well as high quality horror/suspense films. The latter are released through its division, Dimension.

The Dimension films, which make a quick profit for the company, help finance riskier and artistic ventures such as The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love, which take a much longer time -- in some cases over a year -- to recoup their investment.

The crow: salvation is the continuing saga in The crow series which has grossed over $ 250 million worldwide in movie theatres and through video sales.

The film stars Eric Mabius as the undead avenger; the first Crow starred Brandon Lee, who was killed accidentally on the film's sets. The new film also stars Kirsten Dunst (Interview With The Vampire) as a woman who joins a wrongfully accused man to solve not only a murder but a sinister conspiracy. The movie, currently being shot in Utah, will be ready for Halloween.

The new Crow offers the story of a murdered boy who returns to life, grows up to become a hit man and discovers that he has superpowers just as the war breaks out between heaven and hell.

The Devil movies outnumber the Angel films (City of Angel and What Dreams May Come To among them) released in the last 12 months.

"Everybody gets crazy at the end of the millennium," director Taylor Hackford (Devil's Advocate), said in an interview.

Nalluri and Miramax are certainly betting that there are enough crazy fans out there to make The Crow: The Salvation one of the year's big hits.

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