USA: MICHAEL DOUGLAS AND VAL KILMER SPEAK ABOUT THEIR NEW FILM 'THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS'

Record ID: 386615

  • Title: USA: MICHAEL DOUGLAS AND VAL KILMER SPEAK ABOUT THEIR NEW FILM 'THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS'
  • Date: 18th September 1996
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA (SEPTEMBER 18, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) DOUGLAS SAYING HERE YOU HAVE A GREAT SCRIPT, JAWS WITH PAWS. YOU HAVE THIS THRILLER THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, YOU LEARN ABOUT A WHOLE OTHER CULTURE, YOU LEARN ABOUT THE PERIOD, YOU LEARN ABOUT LIONS, YOU LEARN ABOUT THIS TRIBE HERE (ENGLISH) KILMER SAYING HE IS FASCINATED BY BEING THERE BUT WHAT HE HAD TO
  • Embargoed: 3rd October 1996 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES AND ON LOCATION, SOUTH AFRICA
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA4XSH1H0RUNBBJQTRC9R5SXPE2
  • Story Text: "Jaws with paws", that's how Michael Douglas described his latest film "The Ghost and the Darkness" based on a true story of two ferocious man-eating lions which terrorised the Tsavo community in Africa in 1896.

    Preying on labourers working on one of the British Empire's most ambitious railway construction projects, the two male lions - dubbed "the Ghost" and "the Darkness" - slaughtered an estimated 135 people over a three month period.

    Douglas, the world-weary big game hunter Remington, inherits the unenviable task of tracking and killing the two beasts with the help of co-star Val Kilmer and a group of Samburu warriors.

    Kilmer plays Irish engineer John Patterson, sent to Tsavo to complete construction of the railway bridge which will open up the southern African interior to the British Empire.

    Shortly after Patterson's arrival "the Ghost" and "the Darkness" begin to pick off labourers and locals in an unprecedented series of attacks which suggest the lions are killing purely for pleasure.

    As local people and labourers flee the area in terror, railway construction halts much to the fury of the British Imperial establishment.

    Based on the Patterson's original journal "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo", published in the Spectator magazine in March 1900, "The Ghost and The Darkness" was written by two-time Oscar winner William Goldman ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men").

    The film was directed by Australian Stephen Hopkins ("Predator 2" and "Blown Away") and shot on location in South Africa over four months.

    A 380 man crew, thousands of extras, thirty Samburu warriors from Kenya and five trained lions joined forces with Douglas and Kilmer on location.

    The film makers even built their own railway line and transported a steam locomotive hundreds of miles overland to add authenticity to the movie.

    "The Ghost and the Darkness" premiered in Los Angeles on October 3.
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