Viy (2014 film)

Viy
Russian film poster
Directed by	Oleg Stepchenko
Produced by	Alexander Culicov Leonid Ogorodnikov Alexey A. Petrukhin Sergey Sozanovskiy
Written by	Aleksandr Karpov Oleg Stepchenko
Based on	"Viy" by Nikolai Gogol
Starring	Aleksey Chadov Valery Zolotukhin Anna Churina Charles Dance Agniya Ditkovskite Jason Flemyng
Music by	Anton Garcia
Cinematography	Vladimír Smutný
Edited by	Oleg Stepchenko
Production company	Russian Film Group Мarins Group Entertainment
Distributed by	NBC Universal Russia
Release date	30 January 2014 (2014-01-30) (Russia)
Running time	146 minutes
Country	Russia China Czech Republic Ukraine Germany
Language	Russian English
Budget	$18.5 million
Box office	$39,539,416

Viy 3D (Russian: Вий, internationally known as Forbidden Empire, and in the UK as The Forbidden Kingdom) is a 2014 dark fantasy film produced by Russian and Ukraine Film Group and Marins Group Entertainment and loosely based on the Nikolai Gogol story Viy. The film was released in cinemas in Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan on 30 January 2014, in the United States on 22 May 2015 and in the United Kingdom on 1 June 2015.

The film is directed by Oleg Stepchenko, based on the first manuscript of Nikolai Gogol. The film has been in production since December 2005 and stopped several times due to lack of funding. In October 2012, the filming was completed. Viy was a huge commercial success, even breaking a record for opening weekend in Russia, but was met with mixed reviews in media.

Early 18th century cartographer Jonathan Green undertakes a scientific voyage from Western Europe to the East. Having passed through Transylvania and crossed the Carpathian Mountains, he finds himself in a small village lost in impassable woods of Ukraine. Nothing but chance and heavy fog could bring him to this cursed place. People who live here do not resemble any other people which the traveler saw before that. The villagers, having dug a deep moat to fend themselves from the rest of the world, share a naive belief that they could save themselves from evil, failing to understand that evil has made its nest in their souls and is waiting for an opportunity to gush out upon the world.

In 2006, Russian producer Alexey Petrukhin and Russian director Oleg Stepchenko decided that they wanted to make a film based on the horror story of Viy by Nikolai Gogol. By then, two other projects based on Gogol’s tale were in production, such as Taras Bulba film from 2009 and The Witch from 2006.

In order to secure the title, they needed without any further delay to release the information on the forthcoming project. In the course of three days, they filmed a teaser trailer where the role of Khoma Brutus was played by Petrukhin himself. Only after that did the active production of the film begin. When the teaser was shown in theaters, the script was not yet written and the actors were not cast. The story kept growing and changing until it turned from a simple screen version into a big-budget fantasy thriller.