2 days ago I posted about Neil Gaiman’s upcoming new book. Yesterday I revealed my obsession with Labyrinth. Today I tie both of those posts together with a discussion about the upcoming film, Mirrormask.
Mirrormask comes from the creative minds of Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, and the Jim Henson Company. The conventional story is that Gaiman and McKean got together with Lisa Henson, daughter of the late Jim Henson, and were discussing the upcoming 20th anniversary of Labyrinth. The discussion led to the fact that Labyrinth was made with relatively little money at the time and, though not entirely successful at the box office, has been wildly successful over the years in the video/dvd market. They also began to discuss doing a sequel of sorts to Labyrinth which led to the beginning stages of Mirrormask. Mirrormask is not a sequel in the true sense of the word. Mirrormask is more of a sequel in the spirit of Labyrinth.
What Jim Henson strove to do with all his work was to introduce new and innovative ideas to the filmmaking process. He felt like he had succeeded with this on some level with Labyrinth. Gaiman and McKean have continued this spirit of innovation by making a largely digital movie with the look and feel of Dave McKean’s unique artistic style. They have essentially taken McKean’s 2 dimensional artwork and made it 3 dimensional….made it come alive.
Mirrormask centers on Helena, a 15 year old girl in a family of circus entertainers, who often wishes she could run off and join real life. After a fight with her parents about her future plans, her mother falls quite ill and Helena is convinced that it is all her fault. On the eve of her mother’s major surgery, she dreams that she is in a strange world with two opposing queens, bizarre creatures, and masked inhabitants. All is not well in this new world – the white queen has fallen ill and can only be restored by the Mirrormask, and it’s up to Helena to find it. But as her adventures continue, she begins to wonder whether she’s in a dream, or something far more sinister.
Needless to say I’m very excited about this movie. I’ve always been amazed by Dave McKean’s art and, of course, am geeky over Neil Gaiman. The Mirrormask website is amazing and you can check out a trailer for the movie in the Previews section. This is the second trailer that they have done and I liked the first one better. This one does not really have “the voice over guy” and it makes the trailer seem very odd and disjointed. The old trailer tied everything together better. Check it out anyway because it looks fun and bizarre. The movie was shown with critical success at Sundance a few months ago.
So when will Mirrormask hit theatres? . I had that same question which I posted to Mr. Gaiman. My question/statement “I realize that if there was Mirrormask news you’d tell us but we’re getting impatient….” made it onto Neil Gaiman’s journal and can be seen here if you scroll down just a bit. I didn’t put my name on the question this time but was embarrassedly thrilled when I saw it there word for word this morning! I was on Gaiman’s website once before and its a unique thrill to be a small part of that large online world.
