Everyone involved in the making of Revelation points to one particular moment in Malta where strange fiction turned into startling and frightening fact. Udo Kier explains, 'It was my first day on set and we were filming the opening crucifixion scene in Imtahleb. I was dressed in a centurion outfit and I had to order a Legionary to thrust the Spear of Longinus into Christ's flesh. It was a bright clear day with blue skies as far as the eye could see. But as we came closer to shooting the scene, a small cloud appeared on the horizon and, as it got nearer, it turned dark and lightning bolts started shooting out. It stopped right over the exact spot we were filming as Stuart called 'Action'. Now, I'm not a superstitious person but I did feel a higher power was trying to tell us something. The rest of the crew ran for shelter and everyone remarked how scary it was. You tell me that wasn't divine intervention!'
JONATHAN WOOLF , PRODUCER
Although born into a film dynasty, Jonathan Woolf didn't enter the movie industry until he was 33 years of age. The son of Sir John Woolf and nephew of James Woolf, the founders of the British production institution Romulus Films, Jonathan started his working career as an investment banker in the City of London. In 1993, he joined the family business to oversee the management of the Romulus Films investments and also trained as a corporate financier and fund manager. After putting the bulk of the Romulus Films back catalogue, including the classics Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, The African Queen, Room at the Top and The L-Shaped Room, under long-term contract with Carlton, all except Oliver!, The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File, Woolf decided to apply his canny financial know-how to reviving the long-dormant production side of the business. Revelation marks his debut feature as a producer.
Jonathan Woolf explains, "Frankly, my father initially dissuaded me from entering the film industry. He struggled in his early years and didn't feel the film business was a decent profession for his son. So I took up investment banking instead. But film was obviously always in my blood as both of my grandfathers were also in the industry. My father's father CM Woolf started the Rank Organisation with Lord J. Arthur Rank, and, on my mother's side, Victor Saville was a famous producer and director in Hollywood. Of course, there was my Uncle Jimmy too".
After making their last movie in 1974 with The Odessa File, the legendary British independent film company, Romulus Films, mark their high profile return with Revelation, a mystical adventure thriller joining the supernatural and arcane religious beliefs with the modern cyber skills of the computer age. "I call it 'The Thinking Man's Raiders of the Lost Ark' ", says producer Jonathan Woolf, "Because it's a fantasy adventure with a truly remarkable base in reality". Director, writer and producer Stuart Urban agrees with Woolf, adding, "Revelation is very much a quest movie with real thought-provoking substance. There are hundreds of books and websites devoted to the themes we cover - the Knights Templar, the occult, the mysteries of sacred geometry in European religious sites, ancient astrology, alchemy and the secret links between the dark sciences and Christian society. Sir Isaac Newton was as committed to alchemy as he was to discovering the laws of gravity. That's in Revelation along with lots of other startling facts that have never found their way into film before until now".
Founded in 1948 by brothers John and James Woolf, Romulus Films is responsible for such landmark British films as Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1950) starring James Mason and Ava Gardner, John Huston's The African Queen (1951) starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn and the classic 'kitchen sink' dramas Room at the Top (1958) and The L-Shaped Room (1962). With thirteen Oscars, and countless other international awards to their credit, Romulus Films and the Woolf brothers discovered some of Britain's most memorable screen stars. James Woolf died in 1966 but John continued the company's good work with the blockbuster musical Oliver! (1968) and the critically acclaimed thriller The Day of the Jackal (1973). He was knighted in 1975 for his contribution to the British film industry and, after his death in 1999, his 44-year-old son Jonathan decided to use his experience as an investment banker in the City and apply his canny financial know-how to reviving the company's feature film production area.
Woolf left the City in 1993 to manage the Romulus Films investments and also trained as a corporate financier and fund manager. He continues, "Romulus had a successful film library which I managed until I put the bulk of the titles under long-term contract with Carlton who now oversee the entire back catalogue apart from Oliver!, The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File. Since starting at Romulus I was always being approached to finance movies but never thought the time was quite right to take the plunge. Then the financial dynamics changed, the British woke up to the fact that American appeal was important, and the figures looked promising as long as one clearly got the right script, the right director and the right cast".
And Woolf found the right script to spearhead the Romulus revival totally by accident as he explains. "I was tidying up my office at Christmas, 1999, and found this script lying at the bottom of a huge pile of papers. I decided to take it home for some light holiday reading and ended up really enjoying it. The script had been in the office for five years and had come with a covering letter by the writer, Frank Falco. But while I liked the script - it contained the germ of a brilliant idea - I knew it would need rewriting. In its original form, it was too British, too parochial and took a typical police procedural approach'.
See www.revelation-movie.com To read more.
