Beowulf

Production

Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. released Beowulf in November 2007. Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary wrote the screenplay, freely adapting the medieval poem. Robert Zemeckis used motion-capture performance with computer-generated imagery, his second collaboration with the technique after The Polar Express.

Story

In the sixth-century Danish hall of Heorot, King Hrothgar’s revelry is repeatedly torn apart by the monster Grendel. The warrior Beowulf arrives from Geatland to challenge the creature. After killing Grendel, he is drawn into a complicated bargain with the monster’s mother and decades later faces a dragon.

Reception

Beowulf grossed over 196 million dollars worldwide. The film was widely cited as a milestone in the development of performance capture animation, though it also reopened debates about the so-called uncanny valley in digital human faces and the artistic limits of the technique.