The Lost and Forgotten Stop-Motion Animated Monster Film THE PRIMEVALS Will Be Completed and Here's a Trailer
It’s been years since I heard about a live-action/stop-motion monster movie called The Primevals. It’s something that I completely forgot about until this news popped up that the film was actually going to be completed, and that announcement came with a cool trailer for you to watch.
There's a good chance that some of you have no idea what The Primevals film project is. Well, it’s a “lost movie” from Full Moon Features that was being created by animation legend David W. Allen (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Willow, Puppet Master).
This was a passion project for Allen, and he was working on it for decades. He completed the live-action photography in 1994, and the film was “intended to be the company’s largest production, with a long post-production plan intended to complete the hundreds of stop-motion effects shots.”
Unfortunately, Allen passed away in 1999, leaving the film unfinished. But now the studio is picking up the pieces to finish it, and they have launched an Indiegogo campaign to help make that happen.
Full Moon founder Charles Band has gathered together a talented team that will be led by Allen’s protégé Chris Endecott (Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool) to finish FX and sound. Band told Comingsoon in an interview:
“There were maybe roughly 90 shots that he left. It changes because there were various storyboards, but we’re hoping to pull off about half of those over the next eight to 10 months, which will allow us to finish the movie. Again, it won’t have every bell and whistle that David would’ve wanted, but we’re actually going to release an alternative version that will be in the special box set, which will actually be the slightly longer version. Where there are shots that we were not able to complete, there’ll be live action storyboards, which is kinda cool. So people who follow this can see the slightly truncated, finished, polished version you can watch as a movie, and you can see the slightly longer version that would have had the 40, 50 shots that they would’ve done in addition to the ones we’re finishing. It’s so exciting to review the material that was produced, including the live action stuff we shot forever ago all over the place. We built sets in Romania, our studio. We went to the Italian Alps. The live action material is great, but all of the animation shots that they were able to do are, for someone who’s a freak for stop motion… they’re just magical.”
Full Moon Features is hoping to raise $175,000 dollars to complete the Blu-ray release of the film, and if you donate there are a few perks. People who donate can get a copy of the movie, 35mm film strips, bound scripts, storyboard art, collectible statues, and more. Band went on to say:
“We need everyone’s help for our Indiegogo campaign in addition to the money we’re kind of pulling together, hopefully people will throw in a few bucks. It’s a movie that I think will be every bit as good as any in the Ray Harryhausen canon. I love Ray Harryhausen, so I’m not just blowing some smoke. I really think that they’ve created some amazing shots.”
The cast of the live-action aspects of The Primevals includes Leon Russom (The Big Lebowski, A Quiet Place) and Richard Joseph Paul (Quick Change, Full Moon’s Oblivion movies).
I’m actually pretty excited about seeing this film get completed and released. I really like what I’m seeing here in this trailer, and it looks like it could be a fun movie to watch! I kinda dig the old-school, Harryhausen filmmaking vibe that it has.
Watch the trailer below and let us know what you think!