K19: The Widowmaker News Archive 2001

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January 9th

Jam Movies-Cast/Crew to film in Toronto for 55 days and newspaper confirms the date I gave in 1st update. "Star-powered sub-By -Claire Bickley- Toronto Sun Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson are also steaming towards Toronto to co-star in the big-screen thriller K-19: The Widowmaker. It's the true story of Russia's first nuclear ballistic submarine, which suffered a malfunction in its nuclear reactor on its maiden voyage in the North Atlantic in 1961. Ford is cast as Capt. Nicolai Zateyev; Neeson plays his second in command. Kathryn Bigelow, who has rivaled Hollywood's biggest boy directors in the testosterone rush department with her genre films Point Break, Strange Days and Blue Steel, is directing. The project reunites her with producer Joni Sighvatsson and screenwriter Christopher Kyle, with whom she worked on her upcoming mystery film The Weight Of Water. National Geographic (their film division is co-producing) and Bigelow spent four years researching the story and Bigelow has been to Russia to interview survivors of the incident and the captain's widow. Cast and crew will be here for 55 days from Feb. 19, with more shooting scheduled for Russia and Iceland"
 
February 21st

will Harrison show us his stuff in K-19? Just got an email from Sherry who picked up on an article discussing Harrison's paycheck, how long he'll be working on this movie and what about him showing his stuff. "Hi, I just read this article and not sure if you'd want this or not for your site. -Harrison Ford negotiated a sweet deal for his upcoming movie K-19: The Widowmaker. He's collecting $25 million for 20 days of work! The epic story of Russian nuclear submarines in the '60s will take months to film at a cost of $85 million, but they've condensed all their star's scenes into under three weeks. Harrison has also decided he wants to do more acting and less action, so there will be no stunts for his Russian commander character. And when the commander and his crew have to strip naked (to avoid nuclear contamination), the camera will avoid Harrison." Well, that's it!! I refuse to see this movie if Harrison is not going to be a team player. Note to the Liam fans, they never mentioned him not doing this :)


February 20th

received an email early this morning that offers a different perspective regarding the script survivors have expressed their disappointment with. As visitors know, the K19 sailors had problems with the overuse of words such as "Vodka" and "drink", plus some other issues with the script. Here is the note from 'Supporter' - "Hi, I've been following up on the K-19 development since December 2000. I was briefly involved in K-19 production while it was in Montreal. I had a chance to read the script. I didn't see anything offensive towards the Russian sailors in the script. Moreover, it looked as a story of courage, bravery and sacrifice to me. Therefore, I was surprised to see the anger of the survivors that was expressed so publicly on the Russian television. Yes, there are words "vodka" and "drink" in the script, but they are used only in the appropriate situations. Since the crew members became the victims of the poor boat project management, it's strange that the sailors don't say the real truth about the technical issues of the first K-19. They should be angry at the ones who was behind that disaster." Please note that 'Supporter' also sent a url address to a site which "described in detail all technical problems the boat had when it was launched."


March 22nd

Enormous turn-out for casting call in Halifax...here's the report from "Halifax Extra" "I arrived at the building where the open casting call was being held and only expected about a couple dozen people or so. Well i was very shocked when i arrived to see at most 1500-2000 men ages 16-65yrs of age standing in line outside of this building for up to 3 hours. When you did finally get inside, they then took your measurments and snapped a polaroid of you. They went on to ask if you had any boating, military, or welding skills (oh and if you could operate any kind of machinery). Very exciting feeling knowing that you may get on as an extra in the April 5th-12th shoot being done in Halifax. The casting people are taking what they call "hundreds of people" for this shoot..But judging from how many people were their today,,well i say only a third will make it."

March 15th

Remember the question I asked 2 days ago? "Has Harrison and Liam's characters names been changed to "Captain Alexei Vostrikov & Captain Mikhail Polenin"?" I've been informed by a couple of people that this is indeed the names to be used in the movie. So, has the other cast members names been changed? It would make sense if so....Hopefully soon, Intermedia will be releasing a full cast/crew list....

March 5th

Summary of Liam's appearance on The View -"He was there mainly to answer questions about the upcoming UNICEF auction. They did ask him about Harrison's salary for 20 days of work. I was glad to hear him say he didn't know where that story came as Harrison was to be working on the movie for 73 days, the same amount of time that he was. He also stated that Harrison was worth every penny of that salary. Unfortunately, no other mention of the movie was made."

May 24th

The directors chair signed by Harrison went for $420. I'm delighted to report that Paul, a site visitor, was the highest bidder online ($361). Even though he lost out after online bidding expired, his high bid helped bring in more money to an important cause..Thanks Paul

May 11th

Something interesting your going to see in the movie. Thanks to SteveFX for the info. "Not sure if you covered this but just in case. There will be some scenes in the movie where the actors will be aged about 20 years. This will be for the parts where some of them will reflect back on the event in 1961. Not sure if Harrison or Liam will be aged but I thought it was interesting Harrison had filmed scenes over in Russia at a cemetery. Could this be one of those type scenes?"

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