George R.R. Martin’s In the Lost Lands wraps filming with Milla Jovovich

It’s only been a few weeks since the announcement that Martin’s book Hunter’s Run (co-written with Gardener Dozois and The Expanse scribe Daniel Abraham) is getting a big screen treatment, but there’s already more news on the Martin movie front. The Song of Ice and Fire author took to his blog this week to announce that another movie based on one of his works, In the Lost Lands, has wrapped filming.

In the Lost Lands is based on a short story of the same name which Martin published in 1982 as part of DAW Books’ Amazons II anthology. It’s a fantasy story about Gray Alys, a marauding sorceress who could procure the denizens of her fantasy world anything they might wish…for a dangerous price. As the opening line of In the Lost Lands reads, “You can buy anything you might desire from Gray Alys. But it is better not to.”

Here’s what Martin says about the story on his blog:

"In the first decade or so of my career most of what I wrote was science fiction, set amidst the Thousand Worlds, the shared background of dozens of my stories and my first novel, DYING OF THE LIGHT. “In the Lost Lands” was a bit of a departure; a pure fantasy. (I loved fantasy just as much as SF, but back in the 70s and 80s there was not much of a market for fantasy shorts). It was meant to be the first in a series of stories about Gray Alys, a mysterious sorceress in a distant, magical realm, who provides her patrons with whatever they might wish… if they are foolish enough, to buy from her. You deal with Gray Alys at your peril."

Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista to star in new George R.R. Martin movie

The adaptation of In the Lost Lands has a pretty strong creative team behind it, with director Paul W.S. Anderson at the helm. Anderson has made a ton of big-budget action/horror films over the years, including Monster Hunter, Event Horizon, Alien vs. Predator and the Resident Evil movie series. His frequent collaborator and wife Milla Jovovich stars as Gray Alys, which is just a little funny considering that “Alice” was also the name of the character invented for her in the Resident Evil movies. Dave Bautista stars as Boyce, a drifter who serves as Gray Alys’ guide on her journey into the foreboding Lost Lands. Constantin Werner (Pagan Queen) serves as a writer and producer on the movie.

Martin notes that he always intended to write more Gray Alys stories, “six or eight or ten” of them. He compares her to another character from his collected works: Haviland Tuf, who similarly featured in a slew of short stories which were collected into a book called Tuf Voyaging. “Alas, for whatever reason, I never wrote that second Gray Alys story,” Martin lamented. “(I did begin one, long ago. Got two pages, I think, then set it aside, and never returned to it). Why? Damned if I know. It was a long time ago. I always liked the character, though.”

Martin also revealed that a tie-in graphic novel is planned to go along with the movie, which will include his original 6,000-word short story and explore the “larger, darker, more expansive world of the film.”

"And who knows? If the gods are good, and IN THE LOST LANDS turns out to be a hit, maybe we’ll get to tell the further adventures of Gray Alys after all. I have a sheet of ideas around here somewhere…"

In the Lost Lands is currently in post production. Martin expects it to be in theaters sometime in 2024.

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