Tis the season for awards self-promotion. One of the Awards Season hopefuls generating strong buzz this year is David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, which features a terrific performance from star Viggo Mortensen. The movie took the grand prize at Toronto and, despite its rather high level of violence, many experts agree it could be a strong contender for this season's major awards.
To help promote Eastern Promises' Awards campaign, director David Cronenberg was on hand with a small group of press for an impromptu cocktail party at swank Il Cielo in Beverly Hills last night.
The conversations were casual, so I kept my trusty recorder in my pocket, but I'll do my best to paraphrase some of the news that came out of a great conversation I had with Cronenberg.
The first topic of discussion was The Fly Opera. And yes, you heard me right. Cronenberg recently flew in from Paris where he was helping to cast the singing talent for the operatic tranlation of The Fly. (Check out the official site here) The show doesn't open until July in Paris, but it is already completely sold out in the city of love. It will hit Los Angeles soon afterwards in September of 2008.
Cronenberg admitted he is not an opera afficianado by any means, but found the idea intriguing as a means of bringing the more modern ideals of his film to the operatic stage. Early buzz for the show is very strong.
The conversation then shifted to praise of Eastern Promises, which Cronenberg accepted with a fair bit of modesty.
What struck me personally as interesting about Promises was the fact that (and this has been discussed in many reviews) it almost seems like the first part of a continuing story. So could Eastern Promises 2 happen?
Cronenberg answered enthusiastically that he would absolutely consider returning to this storyline, but it would all hinge on the interest of Viggo to revive the role of Nikolai and the interest of financiers to fund a sequel. To date, Eastern Promises has collected just under $18 million worldwide. If the movie starts collecting major awards, that number could increase dramatically.
ReelzChannel will continue to follow this story and the rest of the awards campaigns throughout our extensive Awards Watch coverage culminating with the 2008 Oscars in February.