Mumbai: From the filmmakers of Lord of the Rings and Hobbit comes yet another epic adventure film, Mortal Engines! The movie is slated to release in India in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on 7th December, a week before the film’s US release. Directed by Christian Rivers, Mortal Engines is based on Philip Reeve’s book by the same name.
The film stars Hugo Weaving, Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Jihae, Ronan Raftery, Leila George, Patrick Malahide and Stephen Lang. Academy Award-winning team, Peter Jackson alongside Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens
brings their magic back with an extraordinary screenplay that takes the film from page to screen.
The film goes hundreds of years in the future after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event,
a mysterious young woman, Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar), emerges as the only one who can stop
London — now a giant, predator city on wheels — from devouring everything in its path. Feral, and
fiercely driven by the memory of her mother, Hester joins forces with Tom Natsworthy (Robert
Sheehan), an outcast from London, along with Anna Fang (Jihae), a dangerous outlaw with a bounty
on her head.
Talking about how Mortal Engines came to the A-Team, writer Philippa Boyens said, “There were a
lot of projects coming at us after the Lord of the Rings films, and a lot of them were fantasy
projects,” Boyens says. “I got an email from Pete, asking me to take a read of this book. He didn’t tell
me too much about it, because he wanted my honest opinion. And from the very first sentence of the
book I was hooked. I kept reading, hoping it was going to make me fall in love with the characters,
hoping it would have an amazing ending, and it did, all along the way. So I wrote Pete back and said,
‘Hell, yeah. This is an extraordinary story.”
The idea of moving cities was so fascinating to Jackson that he said, “Society has rebuilt a semblance
of what it used to be, except the cities are now actually moving,” Jackson says. He loved the concept
of cities on wheels devouring each other, and the tale’s narrative and emotional elements of love,
compassion, vengeance, and liberation. “You are always looking for stories with humanity,” Jackson
says. “Mortal Engines has that.”
Mortal Engines visual effects are created by a Weta Digital team led by Ken McGaugh, Kevin Smith,
Luke Millar and Dennis Yoo.
On board as producers are Zane Weiner (The Hobbit trilogy), Amanda Walker (The Hobbit trilogy)
and Deborah Forte (Goosebumps), as well as Walsh and Jackson. Ken Kamins (The Hobbit trilogy)
joins Boyens as executive producer. Universal will distribute the film worldwide.
Genre: Epic Adventure
Cast: Hugo Weaving, Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Jihae, Ronan Raftery, Leila George, Patrick
Malahide and Stephen Lang
Directed by: Christian Rivers
Writers: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson
Based on the Book by: Philip Reeve
Produced by: Zane Weiner, Amanda Walker, Deborah Forte, Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson
Executive Producers: Ken Kamins, Philippa Boyens
