More about this project:
From the official press release:
Legend of the Red Reaper is a female perspective on the sword and sorcery genre. What could possibly go wrong?
Legend of the Red Reaper had a unprecedented streak of bad luck. Shady producers embezzled 40% of the production budget, the director of photography passed away during production, the director and remaining producers and even some of the cast quit. Just when everyone thought the production was through, lead actress Tara Cardinal picked up the pieces. She worked relentlessly to re-finance the production, self-financing hundreds of thousands of dollars out of her own savings, working part time as a wrestler on the independent circuit and completing a highly invasive medical study like her idol, Robert Rodriguez. She even put her house on the line – and lost it. While raising funds she re-wrote the script to accommodate the new team and was the only producer on set for the remainder of the production.
Post production produced even more obstacles. The post production house lost two of her reels, losing several important scenes wounding the project. Where many other film makers have called it quits, Cardinal instead hired a total of 5 editors, and even edited a portion of the film herself incorporating a new storyline to make up for the missing footage. Armed with an action packed rough cut, she pitched her nearly finished movie to studios and independents alike, and her journey made news in the Hollywood Reporter, the Mary Sue, and Indiewire.
Much like the movie, an unexpected hero emerged in the form of legendary movie mogul Uwe Boll. Seeing potential in the Red Reaper franchise he put his full weight behind the project, guiding post production with his expert team.
Not one to rest on her laurels Tara Cardinal grabbed fellow fantasy author Alex Bledsoe and knocked out the first of a 4 book series prequel to the film. The first book “Sword Sisters” released Dec 3, 2013 and was gobbled up by fans of the genre.
Film Festivals clamored for the much anticipated film and the project snagged a total of 9 awards. Iconic film news sites like Ain’t it Cool and B*tch Flicks gave it phenomenal reviews calling it “complicated” “progressive” “pull no punches and hit some great emotional beats” “able to shift from curb-stomping she-devil with a sword to soft and delicate, sometimes in the same scene”, recognizing the inherently complex nature of an indie drama couched in sword play, wrestling moves and all out brawls.
Her battle wasn’t over yet. Just two days before the German release the movie was uploaded to a torrent site. In the first weekend it was downloaded at an estimated rate of 10,000 copies per hour. It rapidly became one of the top downloaded movies of the month, estimated in the millions of illegal downloads.
Piracy still won’t stop the release of this relentless movie, and the heroine behind it. Scooped by Millennium Entertainment, a subsidiary of Millennium Films (Hercules, Conan, Expendables) the franchise is poised to sweep North America April 15th and multiple markets world wide this summer.
Wow, now that is tenacious film making. I never even heard of this but feel obligated to now watch.