Forbidden Empire

Вий (2014)

Timing: 2:8 (128 min)

5.884/10
298

5.702/10
104997

5.2/10
7000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 16

Actors and characters

Release date

2014-01-30

Country

United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic

Production

Russian Film Group, Marinsgroup

Genre

Thriller, Adventure, Mystery, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction

Budget

$26 000 000

Revenue

$39 539 416

Website

Director

Oleg Stepchenko

Actors

Jason Flemyng, Aleksey Chadov, Agniya Ditkovskite, Yuriy Tsurilo, Olga Zaytseva, Aleksandr Yakovlev, Igor Jijikine, Valeriy Zolotukhin, Nina Ruslanova, Viktor Bychkov
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Alexey A. Petrukhin, Ruslan Ustinov, Gleb Fetisov, Oleg Teterin, Alexander Kulikov, Anatoly Sergeev, Aleksey Ogurtsov, Oleg Lyubaev

Operator

Vladimír Smutný

Composer

Artist

Audition

Editing

Petr Zelenov
All team (44)

• Initially, to demonstrate that the film was in production, Alexey Petrukhin and Oleg Stepchenko shot a promotional trailer for the film in 2006, in 18 hours, in which Petrukhin himself played the role of Khoma Brut. In early 2007, this teaser was released in cinemas, although the script had not yet been written; the film's actual production began only a year later, and filming was completed only in March 2012.
• Vincent Cassel, Christian Slater, Tim Roth, Sean Bean, Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, and Pierce Brosnan were all considered for the role of the main character – traveler and cartographer Jonathan Green. Official negotiations were held with each of the actors.
• The prototype for the main character – Jonathan Green – was Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan (1595-1685) – a French engineer and military cartographer, author of the books “Description of Ukraine” and “From Transylvania to Muscovy.”
• The main character's carriage was specially designed and built by one of the German automotive corporations. The design turned out to be so modern that its technical characteristics can compete with the latest cars, but externally it remained a model of transport from the 18th century. The carriage cost $75,000. There is also a duplicate carriage worth $23,000, which was used for filming interiors.
• The total number of people involved in the film crew throughout the entire production of the film was 923.
• Work on the set design took more than 6 months, and as a result, an entire village of 21 houses was built, with a guard tower, a high palisade, antique cannons and other attributes characteristic of 18th-century Ukraine.
• According to Valery Zolotukhin, the most difficult moment for him during filming was smoking a pipe. As it turned out, Valery Sergeevich had long given up this harmful habit.
• Model Natalia Vodianova was supposed to star in the film, but her contract forbade her from changing her appearance. The role required her to get a haircut and dye her hair. As a result, the role of Nastusya went to Agniya Ditkovskite.
• A technology called "local GPS" was developed specifically for filming, which solved the problem of combining virtual and real sets.
• Five different looks, involving varying makeup and costumes, were designed for just one traveler, Jonathan Green.
• The wings of the monster characters were made and filmed separately, as synchronizing them live was difficult – they were very heavy.
• The Czech National Postal Service issued a series of commemorative postage stamps featuring the film's characters.
• The youngest actor in the film was 8 months old during filming, while the oldest was 71 years old.
• "Viy" became the highest-grossing Russian film of 2014, with box office receipts of 1.2 billion rubles, and the fourth in the list of the most successful domestic projects in the entire history of distribution (as of June 2015).