Solomon Kane movie poster released

Movie posters are cool. When I was just out of high school, I worked for an AMC theater for a good three years and was a projectionist for most of that time. No matter what I do in the future, it really seems like that will always be one of the best jobs I’ll ever have had.

It was at that job where my boss rewarded two of us for a task WELL DONE by giving us each a poster for Terminator 2 before it was even out in theaters. I was in awe of it. I still have it despite receiving it in 1993.

Another thing I like is finding new movie projects that intrigue me and give me something to look forward to. Like seeing the trailer for I Am Legend the first time, or finding out that Lord of the Rings was being made in a live-action film.

Now, this isn’t exactly a Peter Jackson masterpiece, but it does seem interesting. It’s called Solomon Kane and you can see the poster below.

The poster rocks. It reminds me of a mix between The Matrix, V for Vendetta and The Gunslinger, a book by Stephen King.

I hadn’t heard of Solomon Kane until I saw this poster and in reading up on it, the history of the character sets off my “awesome” alert.

Kane was a fictional character in books written by Robert E. Howard in the 1920’s. He is described as a somber looking man, a 16th century Puritan, who does nothing else but wander the world vanquishing evil.

The Movie Blog says this about Kane, who will be played by James Purefoy:

“James Purefoy has been cast as puritan swordsman Solomon Kane in a movie of the same name to be made from the stories of “Conan the Barbarian� creator Robert E. Howard. Kane is a 16th century soldier who learns that his brutal and cruel actions have damned him but is determined to redeem himself by living peaceably. But he finds himself dragged out of retirement for a fight against evil.�

Wikiepedia has an cool description of the character and his weapons of choice:

Howard describes him as a somber and gloomy man of pale face and cold eyes, all of it shadowed by a slouch hat. He is dressed entirely in black and his weaponry consists of a rapier, a dagger, and a couple of flintlock pistols. During one of his latter adventures his friend N’Longa, a black African shaman, gave him a voodoo staff that served as a protection against evil, but could easily be wielded as an effective weapon. It is revealed in another story, “The Footfalls Within,” that this is the mythical Staff of Solomon, a talisman older than the Earth and unimaginably powerful, much more so than even N’Longa knew. In the same adventure with N’Longa, Kane is seen using a musket as well.

Another thing that’s fun to do when you find out about a movie or show that comes from old books, is to possibly read a few of them and see what it’s all about.

The stories of Solomon Kane were published in a pulp magazine called Weird Tales, which also had some H.P. Lovecraft short stories that I’ve tried to read.

You can find out more about Kane’s stories at Wikipedia. The movie is set to start filming this month and be released sometime in 2008.