Chemical Wedding Movie Poster Unveiled

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Video from Chemical Wedding Set

A video provided by the Reuters press agency from the shooting set of the upcoming Chemical Wedding film, written by Bruce Dickinson, can be found at this location.

In a segment in which Bruce discusses the upcoming movie, he states: “My experience with stages is obviously Iron Maiden and that sort of stuff but you know, I’ve directed a few videos over the course of my rock n’ roll past and I enjoyed them. I enjoyed directing videos, writing movies a completely different thing. I wrote a couple of absurd comic novels that came out as well and you know, they did OK actually. So, writing is something that’s always sort of interested me, so this seemed like a good opportunity to learn the process really.”

“The Chemical Wedding” Film Press Release

Filming of the supernatural horror thriller Chemical Wedding is well underway. Based on an original screenplay by Bruce Dickinson, the film directed by Julian Doyle, veteran second unit director and editor of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Time Bandits and Monty Python’s The Life of Brian. Julian wrote and directed Maiden’s partially animated promotional video ‘Can I Play With Madness’.

Chemical Wedding stars Simon Callow as a reincarnation of Aleister Crowley, dubbed ‘the most evil man in Britain.’

Crowley was a major Edwardian figure and a scandalous character. A Cambridge graduate, he became an infamous mystic and occult scholar and although he died in 1947, his books are still in print and he remains a major focus for the occult world. In the film, Crowley’s spirit is re-animated by a superconductor mainframe, transforming the shy and stuttering Professor Haddo (Callow) into the charismatic but sexually depraved Crowley who wreaks havoc with the students and faculty of today’s Cambridge campus. The cast will be rounded out with cameos from Dickinson and other Python regulars.

The film should be released sometime in 2008 with Bruce supervising the soundtrack.

“The Chemical Wedding” Film Goes Into Production

Bruce Dickinson’s film about occult legend Aleister Crowley (infamous as “the wickedest man in the world”) has finally gone into production, according to Fangoria. Produced by London-based Focus Films, the movie, entitled “Chemical Wedding”, stars Simon Callow (IMDb) — of “Amadeus”, “Shakespeare in Love” and, appropriately, “The Phantom of the Opera” — as a Cambridge professor who becomes a reincarnation of Aleister Crowley (a role that, at various points, Malcolm McDowell and Roger Daltrey were said to be attached to); John Shrapnel, Kal Weber, Terence Bayler and Geoff Breton also star.

Crowley, who lived between 1875 and 1947, has been Bruce Dickinson’s idol for many years. The Iron Maiden song “Revelations” is said to refer to Crowley’s classic claim that he was the “anti-christ 666″ reincarnated. In other words, the Devil himself.

Although Bruce isn’t planning a successor to his 2005 solo album “Tyranny of Souls” in the break before Maiden’s next summer tour, he doesn’t rule out getting together with producer/guitarist Roy Z to work on some new music for the soundtrack.