The first trailer has been released for filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson's (Resident Evil, Monster Hunter) upcoming adaptation of In the Lost Lands. That started life as a short story by Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin and this take will star Milla Jovovich (Hellboy) and Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy).
In the movie, "A Queen sends the powerful and feared sorceress Gray Alys to the ghostly wilderness of the Lost Lands in search of a magical power, where the sorceress and her guide, the drifter Boyce, must outwit and outfight man and demon."
Paul W.S. Anderson co-wrote the script with Constantin Werner, while producers include Jeremy Bolt, Anderson, Jovovich, Bautista, and Jonathan Meisner through their production company Dream Bros Entertainment and Werner.
While this does look like just another Paul W.S. Anderson movie, Martin has been supportive of the project and shared the following on his blog last November:
"Paul W.S. Anderson, whose previous work includes Hunter Hunter, Event Horizon, and the Resident Evil series, directed the film. Anderson and Constantin Werner wrote the adaptation, based on my short story. 'In the Lost Lands' was one of my earliest fantasies, first published in 1982 in the anthology Amazons II."
"A long time ago, I had hoped to write a series of stories about Gray Alys and those bold enough to buy from her... but life and other stories intervened, and somehow I never got around to writing that second tale. But who knows? If the film does well enough, maybe I will finally write that sequel. In my copious spare time."
"Until then, do check out the movie. It’s dark and twisted and atmospheric, and a lot of fun."
Something that makes In the Lost Lands unique is the fact it's reportedly the first movie to be shot entirely using virtual production.
"I just did a movie [In the Lost Lands] that was entirely against a bluescreen," Anderson previously said. "We built some sets, but everything was shot in the studio...we spent a year building all of the backgrounds before we shot any of the foregrounds. Which meant that the director of photography knew exactly where the sun was gonna be."
"If we're doing an exterior, and the sun is kinda low to the horizon, and the sun in the virtual world is ten degrees above the horizon, he will stick his light ten degrees above the studio floor," he continued. "I think it's a different way of working, but I think visually it's very, very powerful. I think on a go-forward basis a lot of big studio movies will be embracing the same kind of methodology."
"What we did was we built all the backgrounds in Unreal, which is a videogaming engine...I do think it's a radical methodology. Because no one's made a movie like this before," Anderson noted. "I think it's a whole new way of working that's much more cost effective and ultimately delivers a better end-product than a lot of recent innovations like the Volume."
In the Lost Lands will be released in theaters on March 7, 2025. Check out the first trailer and poster below.