Versus, crossovers and shared universes

With Marvel's impressive wave of success in theaters, it seems everyone wants to jump on the "shared universe" bandwagon, as if it was some kind of new thing. DC of course launched a Batman v Superman movie, followed by bigger crossover stories like Justice League. Universal announced a slate of monster movies set in the same universe, starting with a Tom Cruise-starring Mummy, and we even get a new King Kong movie as an introduction to an upcoming King Kong vs Godzilla. Hell, rumor has it that we will also see a Men in Black / 21 Jump Street crossover in the near future!

But none of this is really groundbreaking. At all. The original King Kong vs Godzilla was made in 1962, and was only the third episode in the Godzilla saga. Universal Monsters practically invented the concept of a shared cinematic universe in the 1940s, starting with the amazing crossover Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man. And even Marvel tried its hand at it as early as the 1980s, with the special episodes of the Incredible Hulk, co-starring Daredevil and Thor.

TV series have also been doing this for a long time: long before Flash and Arrow teamed up, viewers could watch The Pretender's Jarod visiting the Profiler squad, or Chuck Norris lending a hand to Sammo Hung in a Martial Law / Walker Texas Ranger crossover. And in the 60s, Batman and Robin crossed paths on-screen with the Green Hornet and Kato!

In fact, you don’t even have to be very old to remember a couple of relatively high-profile crossovers that hit the screens in the 2000s. Freddy vs Jason had been announced for a few years when it was finally released in 2003, and the clash of boogeymen was an entertaining revival for both franchises at once. Then in 2004, we got Alien vs Predator, followed three years later by its sequel Requiem. They kept the Aliens and Predator sagas alive during the long gaps between their respective official episodes.

But crossovers were invented way before film and TV entered our lives. Readers have seen Arsène Lupin meet Sherlock Holmes, or rather Herlock Sholmes (the name was slightly changed at Conan Doyle's request) in a couple of Maurice Leblanc’s novels. The encounter was brought to the screen in a German film serial as early as 1910, where the detective became Sherlock Holmes again.

Long before that, Ivanhoe joined forces with Robin Hood in Walter Scott’s novel Ivanhoe, and we can trace back the idea of crossovers to Homer’s tales of Gods and Heroes. Greek mythology was one of the first known cases of shared universes, with Zeus and Hera showing up in all kinds of stories – so it should come to no surprise that Italy would come up with a movie called Hercules, Samson and Ulysses in the 1960s!

Of course, Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein have also had their share of cinematic crossovers: the detective met Jack the Ripper on screen twice, and Frankenstein was confronted to Dracula, Santos, Jesse James and numerous other characters. But Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein? Not yet. We're working on it, remember?

Screen versions of Frankenstein

With Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy teaming up on the big screen, Bernard Rose winning awards with his indie modern version, and The Frankenstein Chronicles unfolding on TV, it's fair to assume that audiences are still interested in the character of Frankenstein. Like Sherlock Holmes, it has been adapted on all types of media and with various tones, and there seems to be no limit to what can be done with the name and the concept behind it. Mary Shelley's original book, however, has rarely been directly adapted, and almost never faithfully. Whereas The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four have been done many times on film and TV.

My favourite Frankenstein movies, by far, are the Hammer ones. I discovered the first, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), when I was 13, and watched the others in no particular order, as it wasn't particularly easy to put your hands on these movies on VHS in the 90s. I would be hard pressed to say which one I prefer, so I would simply point out that Evil of Frankenstein, the third in the series, is my least favourite. The others are all gems, even the underappreciated comedy Horror of Frankenstein, the only one without Peter Cushing. Cushing is fascinating as the Baron in all six films in which he plays him, and one can only wonder what would have happened if Shane Briant had been allowed to take up his mantle after the last outing, Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell. Well, at least he is given a new opportunity to shine in the world of Frankenstein, with his role of Burgermeister Simon Helder in Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy the Universal Frankensteins. James Whale's movies are the first versions I saw, at age 9 or 10, and there's no argument that they're both classics. But unlike Hammer, where the quality has been constant and the storylines creative, the Universal saga has an almost systematic decrease in quality (both in production values and script), to the point where the last movie is a pathetic farce with Abott and Costello, the poor man's Laurel and Hardy. I know this last
film is often considered a good comedy, but I've never understood why, and I'd rather rewatch the cheesy but straightforward previous mashups House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein. One of the most interesting thing about watching the whole saga is to see how they reflect the careers of certain actors: Boris Karloff plays the monster in the first three movies, then leaves the role, and shows up later as a scientist in House of Frankenstein. Bela Lugosi however, who turned down the part of the monster in the first film, plays Igor in Son of Frankenstein and Ghost of Frankenstein, then gets "downgraded" to the part of the monster, and finally comes back as Count Dracula in the Abbott and Costello movie. Finally, Lon Chaney Jr. was the first to reprise the part of the monster after Karloff, and then gets stuck as the Wolfman Larry Talbot in all subsequent outings.

Son of Frankenstein

1973 was not only the year Hammer released its final Frankenstein (Monster From Hell), but also the year of two major Frankenstein films: Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein and Andy Warhol's (or rather Paul Morrissey's) Flesh for Frankenstein. Both refreshing, but both were simply paying a homage to one of the established traditions: Young Frankenstein was a comedic remake of 1931 Frankenstein combined with Son of Frankenstein, and Flesh was little more than a trashy Hammer film, with the Baron being portrayed by Udo Kier as an immoral nobleman who likes to stack body parts in his lab. It was also in 1973 that the overlong TV movie Frankenstein: the True Story tried to adapt Mary Shelley's novel for the first time.

But it wasn't until the 1990s that such attempts occured again. Of course there was the 1994 blockbuster with Robert de Niro and Kenneth Branagh (and John Cleese!), but it came off as a bit pretentious, and not all that faithful to the book. I much preferred the TV movie produced two years earlier by David Wickes, with Patrick Bergin as Baron Frankenstein. Still not the most faithful version, as this honour goes to the 2004 mini-series directed by Kevin Connor (who happens to support our film!)

Connor's version came out the same year as Van Helsing, which was a fun throwback at the old Universal mashups with Dracula, a werewolf and Frankenstein's monster going at each other's throats.

And in recent years, the most enjoyable Frankenstein movie I've seen was... Tim Burton's Frankenweenie! You just can't beat a black and white stop-motion gothic extravaganza.

Memorable versions of Sherlock Holmes

With the announcement of yet a new Sherlock Holmes film, starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, which will coexist with Cumberbatch's Sherlock, Jonny Lee Miller's Elementary and possibly a third Robert Downey Jr movie, some might think that the world might get an overdose of Arthur Conan Doyle's character (not to mention the recent movie with Ian McKellen). In other terms, who needs Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein? The answer is simple: Sherlock Holmes being everywhere is not a recent trend. In fact, Sherlock Holmes NOT being everywhere is just an anomaly that lasted about a decade (roughly, 1999-2009). Otherwise, the character has been seen in countless movies, stage plays, books and comic books, and the thirst for new iterations and variants seems to be inextinguishable.

I won't try to list every film and TV version ever produced, nor will I respect chronological order. I would just like to share which versions affected me most, and are most likely to influence my take on Holmes and Watson (besides, of course, the original stories by Conan Doyle.

As I mentioned earlier, one of my very first contacts with the world of Sherlock Holmes was through Disney's cartoon The Great Mouse Detective. At the same time, TV was also showing the Japanese anime Sherlock Hound, which I also enjoyed a lot. Basil and the Japanese Holmes had the same kind of personality: clever, bold and youthful, with a physical energy propelled by their mental agitation. Both were a good introduction to the "real" Holmes.

Not long after, I discovered Granada's series with Jeremy Brett, which was probably showing for the first time in France. I had recorded The Sign of Four on VHS, and probably watched it hundreds of times. I started reading the books then, and in my mind, Brett was definitely the Sherlock Holmes described in these pages. At 8 years old, I saw the "other" Sign of Four of the 80s, where Holmes was played by Ian Richardson: the actor was definitely appropriate for the part, but the productions he was in didn't stand a chance in front of Granada's.

Other cinematic encounters I had at a young age with Holmes were The Seven-per-cent Solution and the Spielberg production Young Sherlock Holmes. Both were surprising takes on the character, and I found it refreshing that filmmakers could take the liberty of pairing Holmes with Sigmund Freud, or to make up an early encounter with John Watson in high school. I never thought that Nicol Williamson was fit to play Sherlock Holmes, but he did a good job of playing a coke-head detective who falls in love while following a therapy.

When I started watching Hammer movies, I particularly enjoyed The Hound of the Baskervilles with the great Peter Cushing playing the Baker Street sleuth. I think the only complain I had with the film, when I first saw it, was that Holmes was shorter than Henry Baskerville (played by Christopher Lee). I've moved past this detail, especially since I've seen Cushing in other Holmes productions (the BBC series and the TV special Masks of Death): even when the quality was a bit flimsy, he embodied the character perfectly.

I also loved A Study in Terror, where John Neville played Sherlock Holmes on the trail of Jack the Ripper. Probably my favorite non-canonical Holmes movies. There were numerous stories revolving around Holmes investigating the Ripper murders, one of the best in my opinion being Michael Dibdin's novel The Last Sherlock Holmes Story. It was turned into a terrific comic book in 2010. Holmes has the face of Jeremy Brett in this fine piece of work by French authors Olivier Cotte and Jules Stromboni.

Sherlock in New York is a guilty pleasure: the plot is weak and the production values are far from epic, but the casting is extremely entertaining: Roger Moore as Sherlock Holmes (what an odd choice)! Patrick Macnee as Watson! John Huston as Moriarty! Charlotte Rampling as Irene Adler!

The last iteration of the character that really impressed me was Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. I wasn't too sure about the idea of moving the stories to our time, but it works perfectly, and the scripts are as enjoyable as the performances. Elementary, on the other hand, did nothing for me, as I felt it was just another American procedural show ala Bones, Mentalist or Castle.

And yes, I love Christopher Lee of course, but I don't think he really fits the part of Holmes, even when paired with a good Watson played by Patrick Macnee.

Teaser unleashed!

This summer, we finally put the last touch to the film's first five minutes, by doing the 5.1 sound mix with Matthieu Tibi and completing color-grading. So now you can watch a teaser of these first scenes of Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein at the end of the video below, and if you like what you see, remember that the Indiegogo crowdfunding video is still open: igg.me/at/holmes-vs-frank


While you wait for this film to be completed, you can take a look at my first film, which is now out on DVD in Australia and New Zealand under its original title House of VHS. In the United States and the UK, it will come out as Ghosts in the Machine, and the DVD can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

We are also working on distribution for our other feature film called The Girl With Two Faces, directed by Romain Serir, which is now touring film festivals (already 5 selections!)

And more surprises coming soon from Marteau Films!

Cannes 2016

Now that we're back from Cannes, it's time to debrief. What happened there? First, we got a lot of exposure on Parkland's booth: the poster was attracting people's attention, and we were able to show them the first few minutes of the film, which were not quite finished (sound mix is still a few days away) but were good enough to start a conversation.

Usually at the film market, sensational posters are used to promote very cheap movies with low production values. In our case, the footage always surprised the viewers because... well, it looked good. Shane Briant is very classy, John Lebar is menacing, Stephanie Campion is a perfectly british Mrs Hudson... Those of you who pledged for the DVD on the crowdfunding campaign should be able to check for yourself when you receive it in a few weeks. As for the others, the campaign is still open, you can join the project right now if you want to be a part of it: igg.me/at/holmes-vs-frank

What else happened there? Lots of meetings regarding possible coproductions, sales of our movies Revenge, The Girl with Two Faces and House of VHS (which will be on DVD in the UK in September, under the title Ghosts in the Machine) and of Ian Powell's Razors (which will also be released in the UK in a few months)...

But of course, the film we all want to see come to life is Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein. Any good news on this side? Probably, yes. We still can't announce who will play Holmes and Watson, but the financing part is progressing nicely, and we're still looking at shooting in Belgium soon. Keep supporting the movie by joining the Facebook page and the Twitter account, by getting the book from Amazon (version française disponible bientôt !), and by mentioning it to everyone around you. Needless to say, we would rather be filming right now than wait a few more months!

Favourite titles and posters from Cannes film market

Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein: off to phase 2

Three days of filming! That's how far we've gone to this day. Which is really exciting, and at the same time incredibly frustrating, because there's so much to tell and we have to hold back until the budget is assembled.

photo by Alex Pixelle

But still, we have a few nice scenes in the can, including footage with the awesome Shane Briant, who had no problem returning to the world of gothic horror 42 years after Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell. I think the conditions were a little more extreme last weekend than they were on the set of Hammer Films, with a temperature culminating at zero degrees! (celsius of course) Shane was so dedicated that he suggested putting ice in his mouth to avoid making breath vapor when saying his lines.

What are the next steps for Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, you might ask? Of course, completing post-production on what we've shot so far (roughly 5 minutes of film). And then, finding the first real chunk of the budget, the one that will allow us to secure the actors for Holmes and Watson, and set the filming dates later in 2016. Fan support can be provided on Indiegogo as always (and helps a lot), but we're also welcoming private investments: if you're interested in that, you should contact us at marteau at marteaufilmsproduction.com , and we will send you details about the investment opportunities.

Let us know what you think of the first images by leaving messages on Facebook & Twitter!

Igor, pull the switch!

In the recent Victor Frankenstein with James McAvoy in the title role, we have seen Daniel

Radcliffe as his handsome but hunch backed assistant, Igor. To many, it seems that Frankenstein has ALWAYS been assisted by a hunchback called Igor. But in fact, it's one of those urban legends like Sherlock Holmes stating “Elementary my dear Watson” (not once does he utter these words in the original Canon) or Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan saying "Me Tarzan you Jane” (he only says “Tarzan... Jane... Tarzan...”)

So no, there isn't a single trace of an Igor in Mary Shelley's novel, nor is there any character who could have inspired the deformed valet pulling switches in the popular imagery. No Igor either in any of the theater plays that have been staged throughout the 19^th century. No Igor in the first film version of Frankenstein in 1910.

Could we date the creation of this character with the release of James Whale's Frankenstein in 1931? Everyone remembers Boris Karloff being persecuted by a hunchback holding a torch, played by Dwight Frye... Unfortunately, the guy isn't called Igor, but Fritz. Damn. In fact, Dwight Frye appeared in most of Universal Frankenstein films, as a different character each time, but he never played an Igor. J. Carrol Naish plays another hunchback in House of Frankenstein, but his character is called Daniel!

The first time a Frankenstein met an Ygor (with an Y) was in 1939 Son of Frankenstein, the third entry in the Universal saga. Played by none other than Bela Lugosi, this Ygor introduces himself to Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone), and says he used to be his father's assistant – which is rather dubious since we haven't seen him in previous movies. Besides, he's not a hunchback at all, he simply has a broken neck due to his attempted hanging by the townspeople. Lugosi's Ygor returne in the sequel Ghost of Frankenstein, then lived on as the Monster's brain in Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man.

There was no character called Igor in the Frankenstein movies produced by Hammer Films, and the only occurrence that can be spotted in the 60s is the western schlock Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter, where said daughter renames her creature Igor for unknown reasons.

By the time Mel Brooks made his Young Frankenstein in 1973, the hunchback assistant Igor was a given in most people's minds, probably because of a confusion between Dwight Frye and Bela Lugosi's characters. However, Young Frankenstein's Igor played by Marty Feldman marks his real screen debut. Innumerable other Igors would follow, in movies such as Mistress Frankenstein, The Nightmare before Christmas, Frankenstein Italian Style, Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Van Helsing, Crazy Dracula Spring Break Weekend, Christmas at Draculas and even... wait for it... Daughter of Werebitch Meets Skankenstein.

In 2008, there was even a feature animated film starring Igor, with the voice talents of John Cusack as Igor and John Cleese as Dr Glickenstein. In this (dark) comedy, Igors are a race of slaves doomed to assist crazy scientists in their experiments. But our hero has higher ambitions!

There is no character called Igor in Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein.

Shane Briant's Hammer films

Shane Briant, who was recently seen in the series Serangoon Road and in Roland Joffé's The Lovers, will play the Burgermeister of Darmstadt in our movie Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein. Fourty years ago, he starred in several Hammer films before the company sadly went out of business.

Shane started his screen career at the age of 25. After a bit part in Von Richthofen and Brown, directed by Roger Corman, he landed a key role in Hammer's Demons of the Mind (1972), which can be considered as his true screen debut. Oddly enough, his face is proeminently featured on the original poster, even though his name does not among the main actors. Directed by Peter Sykes, who would later direct Christopher Lee in the famous To the Devil A Daughter, Demons of the Mind is not one of the most successful films produced by Hammer. Still, Shane's performance was so remarkable that the studio offered him the lead in their next production.

Straight on Till Morning is a dark thriller directed by Peter Collinson (The Italian Job with Michael Caine). Shane Briant co-stars with Rita Tushingham, who becomes his victim when he reveals himself to be a vicious serial killer. Cruel but handsome, cold but elegant, the young actor came across as a perfect fit for one of Hammer's most famous franchises...

Logically, in 1973, Shane is cast as Peter Cushing's co-star in the new installment in Frankenstein's saga. Playing the immoral young Simon Helder, he becomes the doctor's assistant in Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell, directed by the legendary Terence Fisher.

The infamous baron and his new assistant team up to create a new monster, played by David Prowse (Cushing and Prowse would eventually meet again in Star Wars, where the former plays Grand Moff Tarkin and the latter Darth Vader!). Madeline Smith, Bernard Lee and ex-Doctor Who Patrick Troughton complete the wonderful cast of this incredibly atmospheric entry. Unfortunately, Monster From Hell would end up being both Hammer's last Frankenstein and Fisher's last film, which prevented Helder from ever returning.

The next and last Hammer film for Shane Briant would be Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, a pre-Buffy vampire caper written and directed by Brian Clemens, showrunner of the BBC Avengers. Shane plays the decadent Paul Durward, and shares the screen with Horst Janson, scream queen Caroline Munro and ex-Avenger Ian Hendry. Captain Kronos could have been a great TV series or movie franchise, but Hammer's reign was about to end, along with an era of gothic horror that had started with Curse of Frankenstein in 1957.

Now, Shane Briant is set to return to the world of Frankenstein, where he will also meet Holmes and Watson. You can be a part of this adventure by joining the ongoing crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, which is now collecting funds for the January shoot with Shane. If you want his costume and the set to be gorgeous, contribute now: http://igg.me/at/holmes-vs-frank

Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein - November 2015 Indiegogo video

In case you missed it, here is the updated Indiegogo video. If you like the project, support 'Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein' NOW!

The game is afoot

It is now official: Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein has finally started filming. A gravedigger and a monster in a cemetery! Mrs Hudson in her kitchen! The mad scientist in his lab! Everyone is in place, waiting for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to be cast...

Our actors John Lebar, Stephanie Campion, Stéphane Roquet and Adèle Cazenave brought to life the film's first characters, with the help of a wonderful and dedicated crew. Director of photography Jérôme Alméras has been involved in the project from the start, and production designer Pascal

Chatton joined us last month, with his experience and passion. Costume designer Charlotte Courboules will eventually team up with Pierre-Jean Larroque, and hyperactive special effects artist David Scherer jumped at the opportunity of working on a Hammer-like film. I also had the pleasure of working with my wife Lucie, who made the storyboard for the scenes.

Photos and videos will be unveiled during the next two months, as we work on post-production and on phase 2 of the crowdfunding campaign. When January comes, we will be filming scenes with none other than Shane Briant, Burgermeister Simon Helder himself. So we need the Indiegogo page to become active again, in order to give Shane the best costume and the most lavishly furnished office.

Stéphane Roquet - photo: facebook.com/pixellephoto

Most of the original perks are still available: from the film's poster to a full producer package, you can get unique collectible items or the film's script itself. In a very near future, we should be able to add signed copies of the film's novelization, written by David Whitehead (known to many by his other pen name Ben Bridges). Those who can't wait are welcome to purchase it from Amazon – which also helps production indirectly!

Joining the crowdfunding campaign for Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein will help us complete an ensemble of scenes that will define the movie's tone, and give the project the energy it needs to reach completion. In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on the images taken from the set by our set photographer AlexPixelle!

Lost the link to Indiegogo? Here it is: http://igg.me/at/holmes-vs-frank 

Getting ready

All right, now that we're through the first phase of crowdfunding, with more than 30,000€ already raised, the time has come for filming Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein. Yay! Which means assembling the cast and crew, sorting out the dates, prepping costumes, sets and special effects, storyboarding the scenes... And we're only talking about the first few scenes of the film, the ones that we will be able to shoot thanks to the crowdfunding campaign.

Phase two will include securing the rest of the budget, and hopefully getting some additional help from the crowd in doing so. If we can get the numbers to 40,000 by the end of December, we will film a few scenes with Shane Briant himself in early 2016. Then the main shoot will be in May 2016, if everything goes smoothly (which will be the case, right?)

If you haven't contributed yet, or feel like returning in order to take the campaign to the next level, you're very welcome to join now: http://igg.me/at/holmes-vs-frank

Remember you can watch the original test film on the page, and also listen to a few excerpts from the script, recorded during a public reading in Paris:

If you want a taste of the story before the film even hits the screens, prepare yourself for the script's novelization, which is currently being written by British author David Whitehead. Readers already know him under his pen name Ben Bridges, which he has been using for an impressive number of westerns. He recently wrote the novelization of the movie Day of the Gun with Eric Roberts.

The great detective is no stranger to David, who has already written several original Sherlock Holmes stories, and is also an avid Hammer Horror fan, which makes him the perfect match for a story called "Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein".

As if prepping a shoot and financing a feature wasn't enough, we are also in the process of finding distribution for my first film House of VHS. Festivals, video release... Stay tuned for a few announcements and surprises very soon on these subjects too.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is not a walk in the park. If you just set up a page and leave it there for a month, you can't expect people to show up and contribute out of nowhere. So you have to work constantly on your campaign, sharpen your communication skills... and unless you have a whole team working with you, you will probably get behind schedule. I wanted to keep posting on this blog throughout the campaign, sharing thoughts and updates, talking about Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein films in general, etc. But here we are, 4 days to the end, and this is the first article I write!

Let's share the Indiegogo link right here, because we don't want to forget that piece of information: http://igg.me/at/holmes-vs-frank

The campaign has been very rewarding so far: the goal has been met with time to spare, and now we've raised the bar to €40,000. A lot of people have shown support, sometimes unexpectedly. Many people from the French Sherlock Holmes Society (SSHF) have contributed, and Belgian Sherlockian artist Jean-Claude Mornard has been extremely enthusiastic and generous. Other supports have included famed Sherlock Holmes specialists Roger Johnson, Leslie Klinger, Howard Ostrom and the Baker Street Babes (sounds like a band), Charles Prepolec, David Whitehead - some of them are also Frankenstein or Hammer fans. My first feature film House of VHS has been screened for the first time three days ago, and several people contributed to the campaign after watching it – sometimes with a big sum, which can be considered a good sign!

People have different reasons for contributing – some of them want to see Shane Briant's return as Simon Helder, others want Ben Syder in a Holmes movie again, and others just like what they've seen of the project so far. Once the campaign is over, it will be my responsibility to make everyone happy, and deliver a movie that is entertaining, respectful and unique. And hopefully it will be able to please even the ones who have been snarling at the mere sight of the title.

In four days the campaign will be over, and the amount raised at that date will determine the leverage we will have to raise additional funds and make the film. So the higher it is, the easier it will be to get a big budget and an exciting movie. And it's important to have a list of names to show when financiers ask: “WHO WANTS TO SEE SHERLOCK HOLMES VS FRANKENSTEIN?” Well, do you?

The other side of Cannes: film markets

While most people see Cannes or Berlin as posh festivals where a bunch of stars drink champagne and rub their feet on a prestigious red carpet, there is also a whole other side that is mostly known to industry professionals: film markets.

Getting a film made and seen is not only a creative process involving preparation, shooting and post-production. It's also a business, as is evident when you walk the corridors of one of the major film markets. There are only a fistful of them: Berlin EFM (European Film Market) in February, Cannes in May, the Los Angeles AFM (American Film Market) in November, and a few others in Hong Kong, Dubai, and now in Montreal and Bruxelles for horror and fantasy movies.

The innocent passersby will have a hard time sorting out which film is already completed (and sometimes available in some territories), and which film is still only a title and a poster, waiting for filming or still looking for funding. A quick look at the projects reveals that even today, 40 years after the release of Jaws, there is still an incredible amount of love for shark movies: Sharknado comes to mind, of course, but the market also bears titles such as Sky Sharks, Sharktopus, Atomic Shark, 2-Headed Shark Attack, 3-Headed Shark Attack or even the incredible Raiders of the Lost Shark. If you don't have sharks in the film, you probably should attach a strategic actor to your cast: Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren are still incredibly popular on an international level, as are Gary Daniels, Eric Robert, Danny Trejo and Michael Madsen. Of course, having a film with both Dolph Lundgren and a shark is a double win, as the producers of Shark Lake obviously know.

In a market overflooded with very low budget movies and prefinanced action flicks, it is really hard to secure funding for an ambitious movie like Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein. Until there's a strategic name on the poster, or an indisputable wave of interest for the project, our film remains one of the many posters waiting in line for money. In order to speed things up, we will be running a big crowdfunding campaign starting next Monday, to raise 25,000€ and begin filming a few scenes. If we can pull off this stunt, the rest of the budget will be much easier to assemble – and you will finally get to see Shane Briant, Clement von Franckenstein and a few other familiar faces in an exciting gothic mystery.

Join the effort on Indiegogo next week if you want to watch Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein in the near future and see your name in the credits!

Not dead! Alive!

On this day in 1891, Sherlock Holmes met his doom at Reichenbach Fall... Or did he? Everyone thought him dead for several years, after his battle against Professor Moriarty. But he returned, as if brought back to life by a mad scientist à la Frankenstein.

In a very similar way, the project “Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein” was thought dead for a while. But there's no way I would throw in the towel on this story. There are too many people involved, too many wanting to see it, and hell, even I want to see it more than anyone else!

Finishing my first feature film Houseof VHS took forever, partly because I had to fight off my business partner and say goodbye to a 20-year-old friendship. Also because there was less and less money available, for a movie that barely had any budget to begin with. Also, on a much lighter side, because I had my second child last year. All of this took up a lot of time and energy, and sometimes it seemed that my hair would turn white before the movie would be finished. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to meet a bunch of people who were passionate, creative and talented enough to bring the project to its completion.

Now it's time for Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein to make its comeback. So far, financiers have asked “have you ever made a feature film before?” and “who wants to see a movie called Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein?”. The answer to the first question is now “Yes”, and I hope to prove that the answer to the second is “A lot of people”. In order to do that, we will run a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo from May 25^th to June 25^th, and try to raise the first chunk of the budget.

So if you wish to see the movie come to life, you can have a hand in that by supporting the campaign, not only by donating on May 25^th, but also by posting messages, videos or pictures and by stating loud and clear “I want to see Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein!”

To be continued...

May 2d: St. Boris's Day

Today, we celebrate people with the name Boris. But isn't it ironic that the most famous Boris of all is actually called... William?! Boris Karloff, whom we all know for his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the first three Universal movies, was born William Henry Pratt in 1887, and there was nothing russian about him. A bit indian on his paternal grandmother's side, but no reason for him to choose Boris Karloff as his stage name.

Before he became an icon of horror, he was an intimidating supporting actor in stage plays and a truckload of silent films. He was already 32 when he first appeared on screen. Finding these early performances can be a bit tricky, but you should be able to find a copy of Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927) somewhere.

In 1931, James Whale directed a lavish screen version of Frankenstein, which was not adapted from the book but from a successful stage play. The scientist was played by Colin Clive, but the creature was embodied by an mysterious uncredited actor, whose name was only revealed in the closing credits. Boris Karloff became a star overnight, and returned of course in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein with Basil Rathbone and Bela Lugosi (1939), House of Frankenstein (1944, where Karloff didn't play the monster but a Dr Gustav Niemann), but also played Fu Manchu, Mr Wong (a Fu Manchu ripoff), the Mummy Imhotep, various mad scientists and a bunch of villains who antagonize Dick Tracy and Charlie Chan.

In 1953, the golden age of black & white horror was almost over, and Karloff only played Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for laughs, opposite Abbott & Costello. In 1958, at a time where Hammer Films was taking over gothic horror, he played Baron Frankenstein himself in a weak movie called Frankenstein 1970, where he used body parts from a film crew to create his monster.

In the 60s, he became mostly a guest star in TV shows like I Spy and The Wild Wild West, but he also returned to Frankenstein in a weird little movie called Mad Monster Party, where he provided the voice of Baron Boris von Frankenstein (!)

Boris Karloff died in 1971, but he's very fondly remembered by classic horror fans, along with Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. However, it seems that these three never shared the same bond as their successors Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.

Boris is the name of the dog in Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, and I admit to it being a not-so-subtle wink to Karloff!

2013-2014: House of VHS

Trying to produce and direct a film like Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, when you don't have the money, the experience or the reputation, is a bit hot-headed. The first step, I had been told by financiers, was to go microbudget for a first feature directorial effort. I couldn't really make Sherlock Holmes on a microbudget, so I concentrated on a script that would use as few resources as possible. House of VHS: a haunted house movie, with six characters and a supernatural element. Writing it was a blast, and we decided to film in a house owned by Jean-Noël and his family, located in the Center of France. We set filming dates in August 2013, and started working on pre-production and financing simultaneously... in March. Fast-tracking the project was a good way to make it happen, but also a gamble: what would happen if we couldn't pull it off? Five months before filming, we had zero cast and crew, very little money, and a script that was still a bit deliberately loose (it was designed to be adapted to the actors in due time).

In April, we travelled to the house and took a lot of pictures. I had never seen it before, and being there allowed me to make a few changes in the script, in order to take advantage of what the location had to offer. Then we started casting: in June, we had our first casting call, where we met thirty actors and actresses (out of 270 applications, which was way more than we had expected!). Four actors stood out: Isabel McCann, Delphine Lanniel, Morgan Lamorté and Nafees Hamid. However, we still had a few people to meet, and we needed to cast the last two characters. Two weeks later, we had this second round of casting for House of VHS, with the four actors above and a few new faces, among which Florie Vialens (now called Florie Auclerc-Vialens) and Ruy (who calls himself Ewen Blumenstein). We had found six talented actors who worked really well with each other, and were all very excited to be a part of this project.

Then we gathered the crew. A small one, to be honest: the budget and the house only allowed us to have a full crew of six people, including Jean-Noël and me. We shoehorned in the planning the presence of an SFX makeup artist for two days, but the rest of the gang was only comprised of:

• director of photography
• his assistant
• sound recordist
• unit manager

To be fair, we would have needed twice as many people and twice as much time, but complaining would have led us nowhere. We were lucky enough to enlist François Reumont as director of photography – an experienced TV professional, he had shot a few short films like Zombinladen and Paris by Night of the Living Dead, as well as feature film The Black Door.

Less than two weeks before filming began, Nafees had to drop out due to visa issues (he was a US student living in France), and we had to figure out how to replace him. You would think that the replacement would have been found among the actors we auditioned in June... but in fact, we chose an Icelandic actor called Pétur Sigurðsson, who was recommended by Ewen Blumenstein. He turned out to be great, showing up at the last minute and taking immediately the mantle of his character.

So there we were, twelve people in a house for two weeks, trying to follow a crazy schedule that involved action, special effects... until we realized that the SFX makeup artist had no intention of showing up. After having said that she had prepared and tested everything, she simply stopped returning phone calls. We suddenly had to handle the fact that there was not going to be any on-set special effects in our supernatural/horror film! A heavy rewrite was made on the spot, and I left space for a few SFX shots to be added afterwards. When we got back, we ran a small crowdfunding campaign, and managed to craft a cool gory shot with the people who had made the monster eye for the 'Frankenstein' teaser. After having drawn a few FX scenes and concept sketches that never made it to the screen, Lucie finally storyboarded a new one that we were able to put in the can.


2014

Post-production on House of VHS has been forever, it seems. We are now in the second half of 2014, and it's not yet 100% completed. But we're almost there, thanks to all the people who joined and supported the project. It was not an easy one, but if we can survive this kind of hardcore filmmaking and turn over a satisfying movie, it should be no problem to handle Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein with a decent budget.

2012-2013: Doubting, waiting, rewriting

At the end of the summer 2012, things were starting to slow down. We were getting messages from very interesting people wondering about the project, like Oscar-winning makeup artist Dave Elsey (Star Wars ep III, Mission Impossible, X-Men First Class - he won the Oscar for Wolfman, together with Rick Baker), who said he would love to be involved. But what more was there to do for Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, until funding would come together? So I took some time for other projects. First, I wrote a script called The Werewolf Mummy, an adventure/horror story set during the crusades. Jean-Noël and I also had a pet project: a film version of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, so I worked on developing that script too. And of course, I started working on Jane Clark's movie Slate & Kelly, a buddy cop story set in Paris.

By the end of 2012, I was worried to realize that the company had been in existence for one year, and Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein was still not happening. I started to think that maybe we had aimed too high, too fast, and maybe a microbudget film would be a good way to climb our way up to a serious budget. So I put the first hand to a script called House of VHS, which was designed to use only one location (a house), a supernatural menace (VHS) and a total cast of no more than six characters.

2013

Berlin 2013

During that time, Parkland Pictures and I were discussing the script for Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, and it became clear that it could use a real rewrite. To work on it, producer John Cairns brought in a seasoned writer called Stephen Marians, who used to be a production and writing partner of actor Simon Ward (Peter Cushing's reluctant assistant in Hammer's Frankenstein must be destroyed). Stephen came up with his own version of the script, that I was able to read right after the Berlin Film Market, in March 2013. Then we spent a weekend in London, with Stephen and the Parkland people, examining page by page his version and mine, and sorting out what to keep in each – and what to add, change, etc. I went home with a pile of notes, and assembled the new and improved version of the script.

The final version came together during Cannes, in May. During that same festival, I had a few good meetings about the project, and in June, I went on to pitch it to finance people thanks to a selective program run by a group called Peacefulfish. What I heard there could be summarized as: “sounds great, but what have you done before, where's your first feature film?” Well, luckily enough, my first feature happened to be on its way.

2012: Marteau

Marteau Films Production was incorporated in December 2011, the same month I quit my day job. The plan was simple, and at the same time incredibly ambitious: to figure out how to produce Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein as a French/English genre film, then move on to other projects. At first, things went smoother than I would have thought: talented actors and award-winning crew members were easy to contact, and responded very positively to the script. Within four months, we had a commitment from UK sales company Parkland Pictures to handle the movie. But then came the hard part: financing the project. It took a while to realize that the initial plan wouldn't work. I didn't give up right away on getting French funding, which was a mistake. People wouldn't understand why I wanted to film both in French and English, and French TV channels wouldn't follow us on a genre film. I eventually gave up on the idea of filming in French, which was foolish from the start. But hey, one needs to learn from his mistakes!

Among the first people I met was director of photography Jérôme Alméras. He suggested we shot a short test film, to show as proof of concept. We decided it had to be ready in time for Cannes 2012, and got down to work. The location would be an underground place which used to be owned by monks. The actors would be Dario Costa as Sherlock Holmes (remember, he played the part in the public reading a year before), and Angèle Vivier as a screaming victim of the monster (she will play Christina, the innkeeper's mute daughter, in the movie). Costumes would be designed by Pierre-Jean Larroque, an Emmy and César winner with a taste for period pieces. And we hoped to have a great monster with crazy prosthetics... until we realized how little time and money we had. We had almost none of either. So we settled for a close-up of the monster's eye, which ended up being quite effective. We had a cold sweat a few days before filming, when Jérôme learned that he couldn't be there due to an important meeting for the film he was about to make with Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson (Love Punch). But his assistant Simon Blanchard prepped the shots with him beforehand, using the storyboard drawn by my wife Lucie, and everything went smoothly on set. In fact, I was happy to keep the crew as small as possible, because it felt strange to have so many people working around me: two makeup artists, the costume designer, two unit managers, a propmaster, and four people for the photography (we used an Alexa camera). They were all intrigued by the fact that I didn't have at least one assistant director, but I told them I never had any! Shane Briant provided a deep voice over, Matthieu Huvelin crafted a great music, and the teaser turned out to be pretty acceptable, eventually making it into two festivals (which wasn't the initial plan at all!)

Cannes 2012 was interesting, but Jean-Noël and I went there unprepared, having made no appointment beforehand, and kind of hoping meetings would happen spontaneously. We were partly right, because we met American director Jane Clark, who told us about a film she wanted to make in France – and we're working on it with her now. But we didn't find a pile of money waiting for us, or anyone ready to finance with their eyes closed an expensive film from a first-time director.

After Cannes, I went location scouting in Belgium. I had the best guide in the world: actor Eric Godon, who will play innkeeper Johann Klein in our film. We visited castle Reinhardstein, near the German border, and found all the places we needed in the area: the forest, the village, the inn, the Burgermeister's office... I came back with a good idea of what the film would look like. We were supported by the French Sherlock Holmes Society and its president Thierry Saint-Joanis, who said he would lend all the furnishing and props needed for the Baker Street set. At that moment, we were pretty confident that the film was about to get made, to the point where we issued a press release in June, right before I left for Belgium. When I returned, numerous websites had spread the info, and a few magazines had mentioned Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein with our promotional poster (by Gil Jouin, who had designed with his father Michel the French posters for Return of the Jedi, Young Sherlock Holmes, etc). A lot of people thought that filming was imminent. Well, it turned out it wasn't. Two years later, we haven't even started. Is everything ready? Yes. What happened since then? Wait till next entry!

2010-2011: The script!

Once I had my mind set on writing Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, I went through documentation again. I looked up more Holmes books, comic books and movies, re-read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein of course, and also went through countless Frankenstein films (although I can't say I learned a lot from watching Blackenstein).

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

One of the things that came out of my research was the existence of a real Franckenstein family. That's right, with a “c”. Their name is not a coincidence: Mary Shelley was visiting Europe with her husband and Lord Byron when she wrote the book, and they had been near Castle Franckenstein not long before. In the book, they're a Swiss family, whereas the real family is German.

The current Baron is Clement von und zu Franckenstein, who happens to be... an actor! Starting as a bit player in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (of course), he went on to play bigger parts, with Jean-Claude Van Damme in Full Contact, Bruce Willis in Death Becomes Her or Michael Douglas in The American President (where Clement plays the French president, despite being a German raised in the UK!). He was also in another Mel Brooks film: Robin Hood, Men in Tights. My script features characters based on his father Georg, his uncle Clemens and his grandfather Karl. More on this matter later!

The script came together easily enough: I had a map of the characters, their relationships, the main plot and the subplots, and defining the sequence of events was a natural process. Oddly enough, several elements from Zorro vs Sherlock Holmes ended up in this story: two antagonist brothers (something that derived from The Sign of Four, my favorite Holmes adventure)

I had a first draft in June 2010 (the same month my first child was born, would you call it a coincidence?), and I handed it to my wife and to Jean-Noël. With their notes and a few new ideas I had come up with, I made corrections and invited ten friends to a group reading in September. We had a good talk afterwards, especially about the ending – it was almost unchanged since the time I was working on Zorro vs Sherlock Holmes, and it didn't feel quite right. The rest of the script everyone liked, but the ending was putting most people off. I came up with a new version within two weeks, and had another reading in October, with a group made of both people who knew the story, and people who hadn't read any version yet. This time around, the reactions were very positive, and it felt like the script was in the right place.

2011

Time had come to think of how it could be brought to the screen. I had written the script in French (the exact title then was Sherlock Holmes contre Frankenstein!), but when I was scanning casting ideas in my head, a lot of them were English-speaking actors – which of course made sense, Holmes and Watson being British characters. So I decided I should translate the script into English. I was familiar with the language, but writing 19th century dialogue is different from writing an e-mail or even a term paper. So I took my time, enlisted the help of a fat English dictionary and Conan Doyle's full Canon, and came up with a version that sounded English enough to me. A friend of mine introduced me to a charming British lady called Stephanie Campion, who made a lot of corrections and set up a public reading of the scripts with professional English-speaking actors. The reading took place in February 2011, in the parisian pub Carr's: it was a regular informal event where the small audience would discuss a play or a script with the author. The feedback was good there too, and it was great to have real actors read the script out loud. I felt the relationship between Holmes and Watson worked quite well, which was important to me – Dario Costa and Damian Corcoran played the detective and the doctor.

Damian Corcoran & Dario Costa

The next step was to reach out to actors, production companies, and put the project on tracks. Or so I thought. Remember, at that time I had no real idea of how the filmmaking industry worked, and I knew absolutely no one there. So I sent out letters, e-mails, to a few agents and French production companies. It took me some time to realize that no French producer would touch in a thousand years a project called 'Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein'. There are barely any genre movies made in France, and the few that are produced have a contemporary setting, or at least take place in France. A film with British characters investigating a supernatural matter in 19^th century Germany is not something that the French financing system will support. But I was more lucky with my messages to agents: the first actor to express interest in the script was Shane Briant. I was leaping with joy when I heard back from him, and he said he would meet me (he lives in Australia, but was headed to London and we saw each other in Paris). Hammer fans remember him of course as Peter Cushing's assistant in Terence Fisher's Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell, and I had named the Burgermeister in my script after his character: Simon Helder. When we had this meeting in August 2011, we discussed the script, Hammer films, etc., and he said he would be happy to play the part and support the project. Not long later, Clement von Franckenstein also said he really liked the script, and wanted to be in the movie. It turned out nobody had ever asked him to play Baron Frankenstein before me – I guess I'm more candid than most!

At that point, I thought the best way to move things forward was to create the means to produce the film myself. But flying solo is a scary thing. So I contacted Jean-Noël, and asked him whether he would create a production company with me. He said yes, and in a way, this is where the story really begins!