Trivia
Paramount Pictures hired Knott's Berry Farm in Orange County, California, to produce a walk-through maze based on the new Beowulf movie for its 35th Annual Halloween Haunt, held every October at the theme park. Sony Pictures The Grudge 2 was the only previous maze produced at the Haunt by a major movie studio.
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According Ray Winstone, he and his fellow cast spent days filming in blue skintight suit, "showing up all your lumps and bumps in all the wrong places. Which can be hard when you're standing in front of Angelina Jolie, who looks stunning in hers."
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According to visual effects supervisor Jerome Chen, close to 300 cameras were used, compared with 64 to 72 for The Polar Express.
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In some areas, release prints were delivered to theaters with the fake titles 'Epic' or 'Sally'.
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Most of the time when Grendel is talking in the movie, he is speaking Old English, the language in which the original poem was written, which in sound resembles modern Swedish. Interestingly, he never speaks in the original poem. He only sings a song of sorrow (which most people take to be a wail) when Beowulf rips off his arm.
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Roger Avary had originally intended to direct. Robert Zemeckis' friend and partner Steve Bing, who produced The Polar Express, purchased the script for $2 million so Zemeckis could direct
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The name "Beowulf" is a kenning of the Anglo-Saxon words for "Bear." A kenning is a phrase that is substituted for the usual name of a person or thing. It is typically comprised of two terms, with the first word added to the second in a way that conveys a meaning neither word has alone. Therefore "Beowulf" comes from "Bee-Wolf," meaning "Bear."
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Model Rachel Bernstein (uncredited) was the body double for Angelina Jolie in the film's nude scenes.
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Crispin Glover portrays Grendel in a similar motion-capture method as Andy Serkis did for Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Glover and Serkis were both born of the same day; April 20 1964.
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Writer Roger Avary directed a musical version of Beowulf for the Parisian stage after his debut film Killing Zoe.
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