New chapter in Eoin’s career with premiere of Artemis movie
HAVING SUFFERED A NUMBER OF FALSE STARTS OVER THE YEARS, ARTEMIS FOWL THE MOVIE HITS OUR SCREENS THIS FRIDAY
WHEN Eoin Colfer gave birth to the character Artemis Fowl from his writing desk in his native Wexford around the turn of the millennium, he could scarcely have imagined the dizzying heights the character and series would scale.
Having garnered a cult following among avid readers over the last 20 years, this Friday the 12-year-old criminal mastermind will explode onto the silver screen as he makes the jump from the pages of Colfer’s books to a major motion picture starring the likes of Dame Judy Dench, Colin Farrell and outstanding young talent in Lara McDonnell and Ferdia Shaw in the title role.
In fact when he first started writing Artemis Fowl, Eoin was still teaching at Scoil Mhuire in Coolcotts.
‘I spent a great few years at Scoil Mhuire,’ he recalls. ‘In fact, a lot of the characters in Artemis Fowl come from the children there. It was a really great time in our lives and we got on very well with everyone there. Just before Artemis came out, I had decided to take a leave of absence from teaching. I went to the Principal Pat Goff and I said I really wanted to have a crack at this writing for a couple of years.
‘Now I fully expected that I’d be back within the couple of years, but here we are 20 years later and I’m still plugging away.’
Colfer’s self-deprecating charm is evidenced in the term ‘plugging away’. He has sold over 25 million books worldwide and Artemis Fowl has been translated into over 40 different languages. It was a whirlwind from the very start for the best-selling fantasy series.
‘I had been writing for several years and a book that I did “Benny and Omar” did very well in Ireland and Germany for some reason,’ Eoin recalls.
‘I thought that was the way it would be. I’d write something, sell a couple of thousand copies, pay for a nice family holiday during the summer and move onto the next one. But then for Artemis I got an agent and within weeks it started to sell very well. Then I signed a deal with a movie deal attached and that really felt like winning the lottery!’
While the books continued on their hugely successful trajectory, the project of adapting it to the big screen stopped and stalled over a number of years.
‘For the first three or four years I met loads of directors,’ Eoin said. ‘Some of them were really big names and for the first couple of years I was convinced it was going to happen every time. After four or five years, I decided I just didn’t want to give it any more emotional energy. The books were doing great and I felt that I should just concentrate on that. I was still flying out to meet this director or that director, but I stopped really believing that it would happen.’
However, Eoin began to hope just a little bit when he met with Belfast actor and director Kenneth Branagh.
‘I was asked to meet him in London, and I was already in London so I said great let’s do it!’ he recalls. ‘I listened to him and he seemed so enthusiastic and we had a great chat. I remember thinking “It’s such a pity this won’t happen.” I was really hopeful and I thought it would be lovely to see the movie taken on by an Irish director at the top of his game, but 50% of me thought that this was just too good to be true.’
However, Branagh’s interest was genuine and he ultimately signed on as director, something which pleased the Wexford writer immensely.
‘I think it’s a very Irish thing to keep things low key and not talk about them too much,’ Eoin smiles. ‘I’m only 99% convinced that it’s happening right now and the film is coming out on Friday! I’m still trying not to get too excited about it. Part of me feels like if I get too excited, I’ll ruin it. For some mad reason, it won’t come out and I’ll be left thinking to myself “See? That’s because you got too excited about it!”
There’s plenty to get excited about, however. While the film boasts an impressive cast including the likes of Dame Judy Dench and Colin Farrell, it’s the young actors that have impressed Colfer the most.
‘The casting has been brilliant,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘We’ve got some amazing newcomers. Okay, so you have Judy Dench and Josh Gad who are both immensely experienced and talented actors, but the question mark hung over the two newcomers Ferdia (Shaw) and Lara (McDonnell).
‘They are both amazing. Lara has a lot of scenes with Judy Dench, so it was pairing this legendary actor with someone brand new, but she took to it instantly and was absolutely great. Judy loved her! Similarly Ferdia has a lot of scenes with Josh Gad, who is himself very experienced, but you would think that he was doing it all his life. We’ve been very lucky with the casting, although I assume there were plenty of auditions.’
While the Artemis Fowl book series has garnered a cult following since the first hit the shelves nearly 20 years ago, fans are being warned not to expect everything to be exactlythesameasthe books.
‘I think most fans will be happy with it,’ Eoin ponders. ‘I suppose some people can become quite emotionally attached to what they would deem the “sacred text”. But it won’t be the same as the book. I’d ask that fans of the book approach it with an open mind and just watch it as a movie. I think most people will and they are used to seeing how film adaptations work with the likes of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Basically though, it will stand or fall on whether it’s a good movie. If it’s good, the changes will be accepted.’
So in terms of changes, how much of an input did Colfer have on what made the movie?
‘It has the same skeleton, but it’s completely different,’ he says. ‘They took some liberties to make it a better movie, which I completely understand. For example, in the books we don’t get into Artemis’ back-story and what made him bad until book three. We just can’t wait that long in a movie, so they had to kind of front-load the back-story if that makes sense. We find out initially what makes him thewayheisandasa result, we’re rooting for him.
‘They were very good for keeping me in the loop. They regularly sent me scripts and updates on casting and set design and that kind of thing. There were no changes that I majorly disagreed with. I’ve no doubt that if I had, they would’ve said “well we’re spending millions on this thing, so tough!” But they were really good every step of the way.’
Artemis Fowl is arriving on our screens at a very strange time. As a result of Covid-19, it will be beamed into our homes on streaming service Disney+ without the glitz and glamour of a red carpet première. Although odd, in many ways it seems perfectly in-keeping with the modesty of the author. Although still busy with interviews (his record, he tells me is 20 in one day), when the film arrives on Disney’s streaming service on Friday, it will just be a normal day for Colfer as he continues to work on the next book from the comfort of his garden.
‘The whole red carpet thing is not really my scene,’ he says. ‘We do get invited a lot, but I think I’ve only attended one film première. I know Jackie (Eoin’s wife) and the boys (Finn and Sean) were looking forward to it and had hoped to attend the LA and London premières. I suppose it would have been nice. Usually I only dig out the tux for the Opera Festival, so I would’ve got two outings out of it!
‘The plan would have been for me to leave the LA première, straight onto a flight and on to do even more press for another few hours,’ he continues. ‘I don’t mind not doing that. Nobody wants to do that! It would’ve been nice for the lads, walking the red carpet with Judy Dench. Something to remember. It’s funny, but it’s a different world that the film is coming out into.
‘Before all this (Covid-19) I would’ve said this stuff was my number one priority. Now the priority is to make sure my Mam is safe, to make sure the lads are adhering to social distancing and that everybody stays well. Priorities have changed for everyone and in some ways that’s lovely.’
So as Artemis Fowl arrives on Disney+ on Friday (June 12), although the realisation of a dream, it will be without fanfare for one of the county and the country’s most successful authors. He will wake up like it’s any other day and go to work.
‘Yeah, well I’m lucky in that my day-today stuff hasn’t changed too much as a result of all this Covid stuff,’ he says. ‘My office is in the garden at the moment, so I’ll just be doing the same thing. I had the first of a new series of books ‘The Fowl Twins’ come out last October, so I’ve another one coming this October. As well as I’ve a play called ‘Holy Mary’ coming out. It was due to be staged in May, but now that’s been pushed back to October as well. October is shaping up to be a busy month. It looks like I might not get to much of the Opera Festival again this year. Well...you never know. I might catch try to catch one of the Singing Pubs or something!’