The third installment in the popular supernatural series, UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS wrapped just before Easter after 10 weeks of shooting in and around the New Zealand city of Auckland. A prequel to the previous UNDERWORLD entries, RISE OF THE LYCANS situates itself in the 12th century, when vampires rule and the titular werewolves are revolting. While Kate Beckinsale doesn’t again don the neoprene to battle her enemies alongside hybrid lover Michael (Scott Speedman, who also doesn’t turn up), this reworking of history does allow for the return of several (dead) faces including, Bill (SHAUN OF THE DEAD) Nighy as ancient elder Viktor (pictured from UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION) and original story co-creator Kevin Grevioux as Raze. Stepping in to once again essay Lucian—this time as the male lead—is Michael Sheen, joined by Rhona Mitra, “fresh” from DOOMSDAY, playing Viktor’s vampire daughter Sonja. Making his directorial debut is the franchise’s production and creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos, the French-born artist who brings over a decade’s worth of experience from an amazing array of genre features, from PITCH BLACK, DARK CITY and GODZILLA to I AM LEGEND and THE RUINS.

While all of the above—with the exception of Mitra—are attempting to get as much done as possible on the next-to-last day of shooting, Fango does get to speak to very casual producer Richard Wright, himself making his third trip into UNDERWORLD. “This film doesn’t have quite as big a budget as the first film, but it’s even more ambitious than the second,” he says, sitting back in a trailer within earshot of the main studio, which contains several of the sprawling and massively impressive sets that truly set the scene for ancient mayhem and doom. “We’re creating an entire world in what we’re calling a parallel, alternate 12th century. We’ve built a castle and kitted out an entire army with swords, crossbows, spears, armor and horses. So it’s every bit as ambitious as UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION, but it probably won’t be considered as violent, because there are no guns. Everyone dies by sword, crossbow bolt or having their heads chopped off. There are other ways to die, and we explore them all.”

Tatopoulos Studios creature suit technician Guy Himber concurs with Wright, and adds, “We’re not as makeup-heavy on this show as on the previous ones. It’s really all about the werewolves. So we’ve brought a couple of rigs from other projects that we’ve retrofitted to use for some of the damage. We have a couple of Lycan heads that get cleaved in half, and an arm that gets chopped off. There are a lot of body rips, plus some human props we’ve brought in to help us do things like heads getting punched in. We have an appliance we did for the character Viktor kills at the end of the first UNDERWORLD, where he gets a deep slash on the side of his face; it was a real over-the-top blowout, and one of our favourite gags. We’ve used that about three or four times here in various places for big ripping wounds.” Keep your own face turned toward this site and FANGORIA magazine for more coverage as RISE OF THE LYCANS approaches its currently unscheduled screen debut. —Michael Helms

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