Fans of the blunt and mesmerizing Titus Pullo of the short-lived "Rome" series rejoice, their main man, Irish actor Ray Stevenson, is about to be unleashed in a new movie that is wrapping production in Canada: "The Punisher: War Zone" director Lexi Alexander (Green Street Hooligans).
photo credit HBO
The director recently posted great inside details on her blog regarding the production of the film:
"All right, people. It's done. Well, except one exterior scene that we couldn't shoot because of the snowstorm, which we will have to shoot in the near future...40 nights of shooting in the freezing cold. I'm surprised my cast & crew showed up every single night...There were a few surreal incidents that happened during the shoot. One was that for the first week of shooting, every time Ray Stevenson stepped in front of the camera, it started raining. It gave us all goose bumps because Ray portrayed Frank Castle with all his pain and history so well that the rain was perfect for the dark mood and feeling of those scenes... I'm sure everybody will think I used rain machines, but cross my heart and hope to die, there were no rain machines."
Ray Stevenson is the new Punisher in 'Punisher: War Zone'.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Wenk / Lionsgate
Wizard Universe got an exclusive chance to talk to Ray on set about the movie.
“This is in no way to be seen as ‘Punisher 2,’ or even ‘Punisher 3,’” says Stevenson of the fact that the movie is the third take on Marvel's vigilante character, but is not a sequel to either of the previous films.
“It’s going full-on for the Garth Ennis and Tim Bradstreet take on Frank Castle. We’re staying very, very true to the authenticity of the comic books. The whole look of the film, the mise en scène, has that light and dark, harsh sodium colors. Frank Castle is definitely the predator.”
Director Lexi Alexander had even more good production dirt to share:
"The other even more bizarre incident was during a scene we call the Alley Fight. The location looked beautiful and pretty much everybody was mesmerized by the colors and lights we had chosen for it. It wasn't until the next day when we watched dailies in my trailer that we realized there was a huge lit-up skull -- identical to the Punisher skull -- glowing through the front door of a building in the background. I immediately complimented my DP and the key gaffer on the great idea, but they were as stunned as I was. Nobody had planned that. It just appeared...The cast was fantastic and they all exceeded my expectations. Ray was so intense and he really, really became the Punisher."
"The Punisher: War Zone" is scheduled to be released the 12th of September, 2008.
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