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Gentlemen,

Our friends at the UK's biggest and best movie mag Empire have just sent me a mail about a world exclusive they've just posted on their site - some behind the scenes footage of a stunt scene being filmed last night on the set of The Mummy 2 in London - surf to CHECK IT OUT! and enjoy....

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Well it had to happen. The British media got their knickers in a huge twist over a percieved slight to a British historical figure (Jason Isaacs character has some historical details cribbed from a UK MP Banastre Tarleton, whose nickname incidentally was "The Butcher"!) and poisoned The Patrot's chances of making major moolah in the UK...

LONDON (Reuters) - Hollywood's War of Independence epic "The Patriot", slammed by English critics for trampling on history, had a dismal start at the box office in Britain, figures showed on Monday.

The film earned just one million pounds in Britain and Ireland in its first weekend, its distributor said. The summer extravaganzas "Gladiator" and "Mission: Impossible 2" both made around four times as much.

"The Patriot should have been one of the big summer films in the UK as well as elsewhere," said Mary Scott, box office editor for the trade publication Screen International.

She said damning reviews had had a major impact.

"It is typical Hollywood ego to just go ahead and make something they think everyone will see and like regardless. It will certainly be a blot on Mel Gibson."

She credited the poor showing mostly to publicity about historical inaccuracy and anti-English bias.

"None of the press has been behind it," she said.

"The Patriot" made $35.2 million on its opening weekend in the United States, making it second top earner after "The Perfect Storm", and remains in the top five.

ENGLISH DEPICTED AS BRUTES

Gibson stars as 18th century American Benjamin Martin, who takes up arms when his South Carolina mansion is burned down by King George III's dastardly Redcoats.

English reviewers have been up in arms over the way the movie plays fast-and- loose with the facts and depicts the English as church-burning, baby-killing brutes.

Gibson also starred in and directed "Braveheart", where he played 13th century Scotsman William Wallace who tries to rally his countrymen to eject the English.

The U.S.-born, Australian-bred actor has taken a beating in the press over "The Patriot" and been accused of having a vendetta against the English.

In the Mirror, columnist Tony Parsons asked: "Will the British boycott the Patriot? Will we deface those giant billboards where Mel smoulders and pouts?"

He despairs that they won't, but many British viewers seem to have given the film a miss.

It was in sharp contrast to the success of the animated film "Chicken Run" featuring the voice of Mel Gibson as American hero Rocky the Rooster who swoops to the rescue of a group of English hens.

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Guys,

Sean Bean talked to The Sunday Times (Sunday-Times.Co.Uk) in the UK yesterday about many things including LOTR....

"Sean Bean has always been a risk-taker. He's been in a Bond film and a Harrison Ford hit but, to the public, he's TV's Sharpe. He could be aiming for Hollywood, but he's allowed himself to be anchored down by television and small-budget movies so he can remain living in Britain. It's a constant tightrope walk, from which he's toppled more than once as the years have taken him from twentysomething sex symbol to a thrice-married 41-year-old father of three daughters. But nothing quite sums up his bumpy career path more than his latest role as Boromir in the $300m epic trilogy based on The Lord of the Rings. From being out of work for more than a year, Bean is now locked into filming the three instalments concurrently in New Zealand. Shooting started last October and will span 18 non-stop months. The opening film is not released until Christmas 2001. It's the biggest, longest, most expensive piece of Hollywood risk-taking and one kept highly secret by its backers, New Line. It has also sent fans, and the rumour mill, into overdrive.

The whispers have portrayed the film as a Titanic in the making, full of tensions on the set. Like James Cameron, the director Peter Jackson is a perfectionist who has been consumed by the project for the past 10 years. Having launched Kate Winslet's film career in Heavenly Creatures, he co-wrote the LOTR screenplay and has stubbornly hung on as a succession of film companies took an interest and then became unnerved by the scale of the enterprise. "It is," says Bean, "totally unbelievable. I am dipping from one script to another, all printed in different colours, because all the films are being done at the same time. The whole thing was cast very late, and I think it was touch and go right up to starting. It is a bigger investment than Titanic and a lot of careers are sitting on this right to the end."

That includes Bean's. He admits he never got around to reading The Lord of the Rings, by J R R Tolkien, the former Oxford university professor who delivered the bestseller in the mid-1950s. The novels are set in the Third Age of Middle-Earth, an invented prehistoric era populated with hobbits, elves, trolls, orcs and humans. "To me, it is a grown-up fairy tale that is dark and sinister," says Bean. "But it is an incredible fantasy that is quite wonderful and leaves you full of hope."

His 39-year-old director will be sharing that hope. At a point a few years ago when it looked as if the trilogy would finally be made with European film fund cash, Sean Connery was pencilled in as wise wizard Gandalf; Nicol Williamson as Saruman, chief of all wizards; Isabelle Adjani as Arwen, the young elf warrior, and Greta Scacchi as the elf Galadriel, wise and visionary queen of Lorien. The new line-up features Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Christopher Lee (Saruman), Liv Tyler (Arwen) and Cate Blanchett (Galadriel). Elijah Wood plays the young hobbit Frodo, who inherits a seemingly innocent ring from an elderly cousin, Bilbo, played by Ian Holm. Viggo Mortensen comes in as Aragorn, a human raised by elves and the rightful king of Gondor. Mortensen was a replacement for the Irish-born actor Stuart Townsend, currently on stage at London's Donmar Warehouse in Orpheus Descending. With Townsend's departure, rumours began of uneasy working relationships on-set. The actor, whose credits now make no mention of The Lord of the Rings, said through his agent that he would sooner not comment.

There is no doubt Jackson is demanding much from his cast, who are working at an exacting pace in far-flung locations in the South Island's snow-capped Southern Alps and the North Island's volcanic plateaus. Toes have been trodden on, egos hurt. But Bean, who worked for months in fairly basic conditions in the Crimea while making five series of Sharpe, is dismissive. "Peter Jackson has been waiting to go on this for years, so what do you expect?" he asks. "He is demanding and incredibly talented. He has had the models, the graphics, the costumes in his head for years and can finally see the reality of it. He is creating something that has never been seen before.

"I put work in a compartment of life and just get on with it," he says. "Whenever I feel like complaining, I think of how hard some of my mates work, and the days when I was a welder. If they could see the ancient forests and old ivy twisting around trees on the locations for this, a lot of people would pay to have a chance of doing it."

L8r,

Ozymandias

Penthouse Suite,

Ozymandias Towers,

Dublin,

Ireland.

If you're involved in the Irish or UK movie industries I want to hear from you!

Mail me at ozymandias@dublin.com