No official word yet on when Outlander will hit theatres

Corner Brook - While the rumour mill on the Internet is churning out all sorts of talk, there is no official word yet as to when the movie filmed in the outer Bay of Islands nearly two years ago will be released in theatres.

The opening and closing scenes of the Viking epic sci-fi thriller "Outlander" were shot in Little Port on the outskirts of the scenic Bay of Islands in October 2006.

Some big-name movie stars, such as Jim Caviezel, John Hurt, Sophia Myles and Jack Huston, were in the area for the filming, joined by about 100 locals who stood in as background characters.

The premise of the movie is that Kainan, a space traveller played by Caviezel, crash-lands into earth around the time of the Vikings, and brings with him a Moorween, a ferocious and bloodthirsty alien, which is set loose in the crash. The accidental tourist must then get two feuding Viking clans to work together in order to defeat the Moorween.

Don Carmody, the Los Angeles-based executive director of the movie who was in western Newfoundland to oversee the production, recently told The Western Star the movie is now out of his hands.

"The movie is finished and delivered to the Weinstein Company," he said in an e-mail. "I do not have any further information on their release plans."

Requests for an update from the Weinstein Company on the release of "Outlander" have went unanswered, but a promotional poster for the movie is circulating around the web and some Internet sources say the movie may be released in late summer or the fall.

The Weinstein Company was created in March 2005 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax Films in 1979.

While at Miramax, the Weinsteins' released some critically acclaimed and commercially successful independent films, including "The Cider House Rules," "Pulp Fiction" and "The Piano."