Magnet Releasing has just announced that they’ve picked up US rights to Neil Marshall’s Centurion. The official synopsis of the historical action film-
CENTURION is set during the war between Roman soldiers and Pict tribesmen during the 2nd century Roman conquest of Britain. Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, 300) stars as Quintus Dias, Roman centurion and son of a legendary gladiator who leads a group of soldiers on a raid of a Pict camp to rescue a captured general (The Wire‘s Dominic West). The son of the Pict leader is murdered during the raid, and the Romans find themselves hunted by a seemingly unstoppable group of the Pict’s most vicious and skilled warriors, led by a beautiful and deadly tracker (Olga Kurylenko from Quantum of Solace), who are hell bent on revenge.
Magnet will release the film in theaters sometime this summer as the sixth entry in their second Six Shooter Film series, which was decidedly action-themed this year. The other five films released have been Bronson, Red Cliff, Ong Bak 2, District 13: Ultimatum and The Warlords. That’s a helluva lot of badassery and death, and Centurion sure seems to fit in well with them.
Magnet’s parent company Magnolia is going to help set this one up for a wide release, and both sides seem excited.
“CENTURION is a blood drenched masterpiece,” said Magnolia/Magnet SVP Tom Quinn. “Neil has made an action movie that delivers on every level, and fans are going to go wild for it. There couldn’t be a better film to wrap up the ‘Six Shooter’ series.”
Neil Marshall adds, “I’m incredibly happy that CENTURION has found a home of such quality and prestige, and amongst such high caliber company too! I look forward to collaborating with Tom and everyone at Magnolia on the forthcoming US release. If history is written in blood, then CENTURION is hardcore history – bloody and brutal!”
Lame and masturbatory press quotes aside, the movie does look like a ton of fun. Check out the trailer if you haven’t already.
We’ll let you know an official release date and theater listings as soon as we get them.
17 comments
Looks awesome. Good job magnolia, although now thats another blu-ray for them to fuck up. Ya win some ya lose some. Now, its time for get Valhalla Rising a distribution deal…. Magnolia? Lions Gate? Anyone?
FASSBENDER!!!! HELL YEAH!
I'll give it a rent. I really enjoyed The Descent but the only thing I took away from Doomsday was the cooked-alive scene, which I'd rather just have not experienced.
DOOMSDAY was insufferable rubbish. CENTURION looks the goods, though.
doomsday was pretty hampered by some pretty terrible editing, and it's plot (and main character) was taken so much from the road warrior and escape from new york that it never really had an identity all its own.
I think you need to watch me again. Me not very good. Main charcter in me very boring and derivative. Plot is scattershot and sluggish. Me wish Rhona Mitra's looks were equal to acting ability.
I thought the first 20 minutes of Doomsday were excellent, but what the other posters said above became very true. As soon as the real action starts the editing becomes really insufferable, clearly in there to hide poorly choreographed action. Rhona Mitras character never becomes anything but a boring cipher, and when they get to the renaissance fair town that aesthetic immediately becomes a gimmick the film doesnt even try to pay off on and it immediately becomes a painful slog to the end from there on out. Like Marshal just wanted to shoot ye olde timey looking things and couldnt give a shit less if it added a thing to the action or the story. It might be Carpenter, and it starts as good Carpenter, but quickly becomes a really cheap and heartless facsimile thereof.
I wanted to like Doomsday…I didn't though. Is Sean Pertwee in this one? If so, in which horrible way does he die this time? I'm kind of enjoying the continuing gag. Pity they couldn't work him into the Descent as a random hiker who falls down a hole.
I walked away from Doomsday with… uh… well, not much, actually. There were car chases and… cannibalism, maybe? There was definitely a castle in there somewhere… And Malcolm McDowell… Guess I should give it another day in Netflix court…
"the best John Carpenter film in 20 years!" – I could not agree more. I thought doomsday lost a bit of steam towards the end with the weird middle ages nonsense, but before I could think about it too much, the movie was back to road warrior mode and severed heads were flying and splattering on the camera.
Looking forward to this. Also, I'm totally onboard with the Doomsday love. I dig it's Z-grade-Italian-knockoff-of-late 70s/early 80s-genre-flicks spirit. It's wonderful schlock.
Trailer looks good. Finished film couldn't be too crash hot if Rodrieguez preferd Armored over it. That said, Marshall has made two horribly crap films in Dog Soldiers and Doomsday (sort of what would happen if you gave a 12 year old directions to write something "like, you know, Tarantino, just a bunch of shit from other old films mish mashed together") and then let Michael Bay loose on it with a budget of 45 dollars.
But the first two thirds of The Descent were really tightly put together, so I'm definately willing to give Centurion a shot.
As for Doomsday being the best John Carpenter film in twenty years…? Yeah, that made me LOL very hard. Isn't that sort of like winning the special olympics?
@ unknown user – You should be drawn and quartered for not liking Dog Soldiers you faggot.
People that hate doomsday have no soul.
Are we ever going to see Marshall's preferred director's cut of Doomsday? I seem to recall him saying that with an extra ten or fifteen minutes the film flows better, but I don't know if that cut ever made it to DVD or not…
Doomsday should have been a lot more fun. I was totally onboard with the concept of the rescue mission through Mad Maxtown and Medieval Knightburg, but the whole evil government plot took itself waaaay too seriously and sucked the life out of the film. Also, why the hell was there NOT a battle royale between the knights and cannibals? Centurion looks like it has promise.
Whats that woman beater Fassbender doing in this?
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