‘Sandokan’ Sails Again: Lux Vide Revives the Legendary Pirate, Showcased at Fremantle Presents at the London Screenings
On board his ship, Sandokan and his pirates are deciding on their next move. The boat moves and creaks, the sails flutter in the wind, and the crew gives a lusty hurrah as the course is set for Singapore. But a pirate has forgotten his hat, and the scene needs to be redone. The director Jan Michelini (“The Medici”) in his video village keeps the cameras rolling, and the English dialogue coach, Denise McNee, corrects a pronunciation – “‘ransom,’ not ‘ramson.'”
At Lux Vide Studios in Formello, a town on the outskirts of Rome, the sky and sea come courtesy of a 360-degree OLED Wall in 24K resolution, 4.5 meters (15ft) high and 70 meters (230 ft) long. The boat is one of three constructed especially for the new series, which began filming in April.
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“Give me C21,” says Stefano Leone, the visual effects supervisor. A tap on the computer and the sea turns from a moderate swell during a tropical day to a glittering sea in the moonlight. Leone explains that some of the CGI – a tiger and a snake – have been real challenges.
Michelini enjoys the artifice: “The fun part about this is we are in Rome, and we’re navigating in the waters of Malaysia. A bit like Salgari, the author of the, books did because he never traveled. He was a huge intellectual. He studied a lot, spending all his days in the library, but the only trip in the boat was in the Adriatic Sea. We’re doing the same: we’re dreaming of faraway places.”
Italian author Emilio Salgari wrote his 11-book series in the late 19th century. The inspiration for several films, “Sandokan” was also a hit TV series in the seventies, starring Kabir Bedi, and became one of the most successful Italian TV series with an instantly recognizable theme song.
“When I agreed to do the series, the first thing I said to the producers was we have to secure the rights to the theme music,” Michelini says. “I gave it to our composers, and it became part of the identity of the show.” For Michelini, the inspiration goes back to the swashbucklers of his own youth, “Indiana Jones” and “The Mummy” films.
Playing the titular lead is rising Turkish star Can Yaman. Having arrived in Italy four years ago to play the role, Yaman used the delay in production to forge a career on Italian television in the series “Violet Like the Sea.” But his relief is palpable that the project finally got the greenlight: “There’s a nostalgia behind it,” Yaman tells Variety. “People had a lot of expectations about me, and that creates a huge burden of responsibility. I had to be excellent to also prove myself to everybody: the world, my Turkish people and the Italians. Because when you’re a handsome boy, people say stuff. But I think I’m kissed by God.” He laughs, before adding apologetically, “Sandokan would think the same way.”
You can see what made Yaman a star in his native Turkey and has led to his meteoric rise in Italy via a leading role in “Violet Like the Sea.” In preparation for his latest role, Yaman trained for two months, losing 10 kilos in the process, learning his fight choreography and benefiting from a background in basketball, which had won him a scholarship in his native Istanbul to study law. “When Sandokan fights, it’s like Aikido, he dodges a lot.” He sees his character as a multifaceted trickster, a man of action, but also very spiritual: “He’s a leader but not authoritarian. When he has to decide something, his people huddle. It’s like a parliament. Sandokan has this charisma of persuading everybody: we also see all those vibes of democracy.” Between takes, Yaman huddles in front of a monitor to study his performance, with one ear to the dialogue coach.
Playing Lady Marianne Guillonk, the British Consul’s daughter who Sandokan kidnaps, is Cornish newcomer Alanah Bloor (“Waves”). Following her training at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), Bloor won the part in December and had three months to prepare, arriving in Italy for filming in April: “It was a blessing that I came in at the end. Luca Bernabei and the others had really locked what it was going to be, and I was working in Liverpool and catching up on the skills I would need, like horse riding. I was actually at my grandfather’s 70th when I got the call, I had the role.”
Bloor shows zero nerves and nails take after take, even as more seasoned performers make the odd mistake: “Where’s my hat?” There’s certainly a risk in having a major series led by two unknowns, but both Alanah Bloor and Can Yaman channel the fiery determination of their characters to lead the way. Coming to the end of a 15-week shoot – producing eight episodes – on location in Calabria and on Union Island as well as the Lux Vide Studio at Formello. The cameras roll, and the sea and sky, with a click of a mouse, become a tropical afternoon and a gentle swell, and Sandokan sails once more.
Variety spoke with series creator Luca Bernabei. He is also the producer of the series, as well as the CEO of Lux Vide.
Why do you think that this particular IP will appeal to the market?
It’s no coincidence that the TV adaptation of 1976 still holds the record for the highest viewership for a TV series in Italy. Sandokan’s story has an extraordinary level of escapism that transports audiences straight into the heart of the jungle. Today, people desire to disconnect from reality more than ever, which is why they demand stories with immersive power. We are all tired when we get home, and we just want to detach from everyday life and watch something that takes us elsewhere, living the adventures that we dreamed of when we were children. This even happened to me during a screening, where, as the producer, I was supposed to be there to take notes but when the lights came up, I didn’t have any, so I had to watch it again. I’d been truly having fun.
How does ‘Sandokan’ fit into the studio’s international strategy?
The main challenge for European production companies today is to keep up with high production standards despite rising costs and shrinking budgets. To remain competitive, we must be productively creative, which is what we did for Sandokan and what we want to achieve for all our productions. For the first time in Europe, we built a 300-meter panopticon with OLED walls, employed the most sophisticated CGI technologies on the market, and, in Calabria, reconstructed an entire 19th-century consulate along with a tropical harbor full of ships. Add decades of professional experience and great dedication and you’ll get a sense of how we managed to spend only €30 million [$31.5 million] for a project that looks like a €60 million [$63 million] production.
How did you get so much out of your budget?
To be straightforward, when we were approaching the project, my head of production told me: “I strongly advise you not to go ahead with less than €36 million, or it’ll be a bloodbath.” Meanwhile, on the distribution side, we were advised by Andrea Scrosati, [Group COO and CEO Continental Europe of Fremantle, our international distributor for this series and mother company] – that we needed to stay well below that number to make a profit. Finally, we managed to cut consistently – we’re talking millions. I had to make some of the toughest and riskiest decisions I’ve ever taken as a producer. Not refining the budget on paper by playing with numbers, but by being productively smart and undertaking a massive effort of production engineering. It wasn’t just cosmetic adjustments, it was real, effective cost-cutting. We made the impossible possible.
What was pre-production and production like on the show?
Our pre-production phase lasted more than one year. We made some crucial decisions, like shooting most of the naval scenes in the studio with the OLED walls. But I don’t want to spoil too much, let’s save some surprises for when you see it on screen! It took thirty years of experience as a producer, what I believe to be the best production team in Italy and a wonderful director, my friend Jan Maria Michelini (we’ve been working together for more than 20 years), who still teases me about the crazy efforts we put him through. When we were hurrying to close impossible days, Jan literally loaded the camera on his shoulders to get the work done. That’s the way to achieve these kinds of results: by having collaborators who are better than us, who give their heart, their passion, and their faith.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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