'Seventh Son' premieres in Beijing

Julianne Moore in fantasy film "Seventh Son" [Photo/China.org.cn]

The first fantasy foreign film to hit the China market in 2015 will be "Seventh Son," which premiered in Beijing Thursday.

The film is directed by Sergei Bodrov and stars Ben Barnes, Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore, who just won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama for her performance in "Still Alice."

"Seventh Son" is based on the novel "The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch" from The Last Apprentice series, a dark fantasy series of books by British author Joseph Delaney. The story centers on Thomas Ward (Ben Barnes), a seventh son of a seventh son, and his adventures as the apprentice of the Spook, master John Gregory (Jeff Bridges). They fight the malevolently powerful witch, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) in a certain time in the Middle Ages.

The visual effects to produce monsters, witches, and dragons are marvelous since the team also produced "Godzilla" and "300: Rise of an Empire," the studio said. Legendary Pictures even saved bankrupt visual effects house Rhythm and Hues Studios during the production phase by giving them US$5 million in February 2013 to complete their work for the film.

But things still didn't move forward smoothly for the film. It was originally announced that Academy Award winning A. R. Rahman and Tuomas Kantelinen would compose the score for the movie. However, in 2013, both Rahman and Kantelinen left the project and Marco Beltrami took their place.

The film was originally scheduled for release on Feb. 15, 2013 but the date was moved back several times due to post-production issues and the film unfortunately got caught in a significant business divorce when the film's production partner Legendary Pictures parting ways with Warner Bros., the company that initially intended to distribute the film. Legendary later sold the distribution rights to their new partner Universal Studios, which eventually decided to release it in China in January and in the United States on Feb 6, 2015.

The film first opened in France and Lebanon on Dec 21, 2014 and has earned US$35.7 million so far in Russia, Romania, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

The film will hit Chinese theaters on Jan 16, 2015 in 3D, IMAX 3D and the Chinese domestic big screen format DMAX 3D.