Paul W.S. Anderson on Bringing George R.R. Martin’s ‘In the Lost Lands’ to Life and How to Make a Blue Screen Film That Actually Looks Good

variety.com:

Paul W.S. Anderson more than three decades to make a fantasy feature. The cult filmmaker has ventured into just about every other genre — often juggling a few at once, as with the zombie action and corporate dystopia of the “Resident Evil” series, or the occult horror and space exploration of “Event Horizon.” But a medieval story of knaves and nymphs had eluded him until his new feature “In the Lost Lands,” an adaptation of a George R.R.

Martin short story. A “be careful what you wish for” parable with bleak, bloody consequences, the film stars Dave Bautista as Boyce, a royal-employed hunter that enlists the abilities of wish-granter Gray Alys (Milla Jovovich, perfectly cast as a figure Martin’s story describes as “a slender, small, somehow ageless woman with wide gray eyes.”) “I was always a kid that loved to read.

I excelled in Greek mythology, Egyptian and Norse myths. I feel like I was preparing to play a character like Gray Alys my whole life,” Jovovich says. “She’s compelled to grant people wishes, but she understands that it’s a curse.

That made me understand how vulnerable she is, and how isolating that would be.” The two lone wolves traverse a wasteland of vast canyons, derelict cityscapes and blazing oil fields, digitally rendered on blue screens.