Jerry Bruckheimer
Even though he's the king of blockbuster-producers, created hit TV franchises and has a keen eye for what the public wants, Jerry Bruckheimer knows the expectations are high for his two summer 2010 releases: the high-octane video game adaptation Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and the fantasy epic The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, inspired by the famous Mickey Mouse sequence in the immortal Disney animated film Fantasia. "It scares the hell out of me, but that's okay," he admitted with an assured smile as he spoke to us recently on the set of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
The film, originally developed by and starring Nicolas Cage, expands upon the famous Fantasia sequence that featured the apprentice casting a spell upon mops and brooms to help with his housecleaning, only to have things go horribly awry. Things are far more complicated in this live-action incarnation. Cage plays Balthazar Blake, a sorcerer seeking a talented apprentice to help him end a long war between good and bad wizards -- the Merlinians versus the Morganians. Blake finds promise in a young NYU student name Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), and the two must tackle the evil Horvath (Alfred Molina), who is freeing his evil compatriots whose souls are trapped in ancient containers called Grimholds. Naturally, supernatural mayhem starts to rip Manhattan asunder.
"I love concepts that are really fascinating, and it's a great concept," Bruckheimer says of the film. "To do a magical, contemporary movie is a blast. I haven't seen anything like this, and I like to do things that I hope are fresh and different." The original Sorcerer’s Apprentice poem was written in 1797 by Goethe, and then later adapted into an 1897 symphonic poem by Paul Dukas, which became the inspiration for the Mickey Mouse sequence in 1940's Fantasia. This version will no doubt be a special effects tour de force, if the first trailer is any indication.
For the first part of our Sorcerer set visit, we visited the production office at Steiner Studios, lead by the film's unit publicist Michael Singer. We were privy to plenty of production art and stills used by production designer Naomi Shohan, including numerous illustrations of sets like an underground lair, the exterior of Balthazar's home (which looks like Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum), and his curiosity shop, the Arcana Cabana, whose interior set dressers filled to the brim with a half a million different objects. We also perused illustrations of various creatures in the film -- there are wild scenes involving statues coming to life, including a Chinese parade dragon, the steel gargoyle eagles on the Chrysler Building, stone wolves and the Wall Street bull.
We then walked through the Bedford Armory in Brooklyn and its numerous sets, including a Chinatown beauty salon and a Chinatown building facade -- an exact replica of a building they shot on Eldridge Street -- where the flame-filled dragon chase takes place. We also strode through magician Drake Stone's opulent marble penthouse apartment, which was still in construction and where a major battle takes place. And we found an amusing sign in the beauty salon set: "Dress set: Take no product till after shoot." (Don't worry, we didn't touch nothin'.)
Then there was the impressive underground lair, inspired by an old subway turnaround (some reportedly still exist today). In the story, the lair was originally a turnaround that was turned into a research lab and then an NYU storage facility. This is where the famous Fantasia sequence is reenacted in live action and where Blake initiates Stutler into the world of magic. Singer declared that that it is the biggest interior set he's ever worked on. It is remarkable in terms of its detail, including everything from dirty, rusty sinks to stacks of old, outdated machines and textbooks that may not show up in close-up on screen but add to the dark atmosphere. Giant Nikola Tesla coils loomed over us -- no, they weren't active or we probably would have been fried instantly.
An object called the Merlin Circle sat at the center of the lair on the rotating train platform, covered in circles with symbols that represent different domains of sorcery. During a scene involving a conjuration with fire, grates underneath spewed forth actual flames to surround Cage. And during the Fantasia sequence, the set got flooded (and drained) quickly. A special computer-controlled lighting grid looming over the set allowed filmmakers to light the set any way that they wanted.
Despite its heavy effects budget, Bruckheimer sees more than smoke and mirrors in this sorcerous tale. "I think the relationship between the apprentice and the sorcerer is a great relationship with a lot of humor in it," says Bruckheimer of the film's two protagonists. "I like this kind of genre a lot, where you can use humor and be serious. [Director] Jon [Turtletaub]'s got that wonderful sense of humor. He's a great character director and a good storyteller, and the combination of Nic and him is exciting to me."
Stay tuned for Part II, coming soon!
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