Renny Harlin's film crew for Mannerheim biopic includes double Oscar winner

Movie's first night put back to January 2010

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Finnish Hollywood director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight) has manned the film crew for his upcoming Mannerheim biopic of the legendary WW II Finnish War Marshal and sixth President of Finland (1944-46) C.G.E. Mannerheim with foreign talent.
      The film’s art direction will be handled by 43-year-old Briton Steven Lawrence.
      Lawrence, who arrived in Helsinki earlier this week to check out some filming locations, has previously worked as the principal art director on Batman: The Dark Knight, the Bond film Casino Royale, and three Harry Potter films among others. Lawrence was also responsible of the art direction of another World War II film, Enemy at the Gates.
     
Apparently not all of the film crew tasks have been agreed on yet.
      For one, there is no information available yet of who is going to be the film’s principal cinematographer. Presumably he, too, will be found through Harlin’s Hollywood contacts.
      On location the working language will be English, even though the film’s screenplay is in Finnish.
      The film’s line producer is going to be American Michael Flannigan, 45, who already arrived in Finland some time ago.
      In California Flannigan has worked with the Millennium Films production company, which produced for example Harlin’s 2007 Samuel L. Jackson vehicle Cleaner, as well as Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia.
      In addition to Cleaner and The Black Dahlia, Flannigan’s production credits include films such as Mad Money, 88 Minutes and Blonde Ambition.
     
The most famous person in Harlin’s film crew in his chosen field is the principal make-up artist Greg Cannom, whose more than 30-year career in the business includes multiple Academy Award nominations and two wins for Mrs. Doubtfire and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
      Cannom, whose exact title is "special effects makeup designer", is going to be a pivotal member of the team, for the film covers several decades of Mannerheim’s life.
      Most recently Cannom transformed Brad Pitt from a young lad to an aged man in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Cannom will face the same task with the Finnish actor Mikko Nousiainen, who has been hired to play the part of Mannerheim.
     
Harlin’s film’s Finnish cast was announced already some time ago, but additional actors at least from Sweden, Lithuania, and Poland are still being sought for certain roles. An actor with a Tibetan background is required to play the part of the Dalai Lama.
     
The production company Solar Films has quietly shifted the first screening of the movie back to January 2010, from an earlier launch date of October 2009.
      In actual fact the postponement seems a trivial one, given the long history of the project, which dates back nearly a decade while funding was secured and a screenplay was fine-tuned.
      The latest decision suggest that shooting has got going more slowly than forecast, and also perhaps that Renny Harlin's directing commitments in the United States have kept him tied up for longer than had been anticipated.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mikko Nousiainen to play Mannerheim in upcoming film (27.11.2007)

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

Helsingin Sanomat