Funding secured - Mannerheim film may start shooting in August

Shooting of a full-length film on Finland’s wartime military commander, Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim, could begin as early as August this year.
      The production company Solar Films organised a press conference on Wednesday, at which it was announced that the project had a new source of financing, after a previous sponsor pulled out.
      Peter Nylander, CEO of the British-Swedish betting company Unibet, said that the company is involved in the project, but he did not mention how much money was involved.
     
The securing of one large sponsor and many small ones prompted producer Markus Selin to declare that shooting would start on August 17th, and that the movie’s premiere would be in October 2010.
      Later at the press conference, the disembodied voice and image of director Renny Harlin appeared by video link from his home in Los Angeles. The director asked journalists to be quick with their questions, because he was in a hurry to walk his dogs.
      Harlin struck a more cautious note than Selin. He said that the launch of shooting was not yet certain because not all of the funding has been secured.
     
“The scale of the movie has also been cut back. The framework will be domestic.”
      Harlin says that the script has been altered in order to save money. The budget has been reduced from EUR 15 million to just EUR 10 million.
     
Markus Selin, will the film start shooting in August?
      “You could say that. However, nothing is certain.”
      Have you hired anyone for the crew?
      “No, we will start hiring next week. We have constantly had 20 people working with this.”


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Renny Harlin´s film crew for Mannerheim biopic includes double Oscar winner (3.12.2008)
  Mikko Nousiainen to play Mannerheim in upcoming film (27.11.2007)
  Mannerheim film project is moving once again (26.5.2009)
  Can a movie about Mannerheim reach an audience of a million? (3.3.2009)
  Danish Nordisk Film pulls out of Mannerheim film project (24.2.2009)

Links:
  Mannerheim on the Internet Movie Database
  Solar Films
  C.G.E. Mannerheim (Wikipedia)