HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films present Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time, an epic action-adventure set in the mystical lands of Persia. A rogue prince named Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) reluctantly joins forces with a mysterious princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) and together, they race against dark forces to safeguard an ancient dagger capable of releasing the Sands of Time—a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world.
“We love bringing audiences into new worlds they haven’t yet explored,” says producer Jerry Bruckheimer, “and ancient Persia is one of the most wonderful of them all. It has such a rich heritage of imagination and fantasy, and we’ve tried to honor that in Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time. We tackle epic films, from Armageddon to Pirates of the Caribbean, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time falls right in line with those kinds of movies. It’s got enormous imagination, enormous scope and phenomenal action.”
Jordan Mechner created his seminal Prince of Persia video game in 1989. “I was looking for a universe that hadn’t yet been done in video games,” says Mechner. “The early days of video games were like the early days of cinema. We looked to previously established genres, like sword-and-sorcery and science fiction, to find things that would work in this new medium.”
Adds director Mike Newell: “I love the idea of it being a living myth that you are watching. This is a story that’s absolutely real and extraordinary—a non-rational, non-physical universe as we now understand it. These things happen in this film.”
It wasn’t Dastan’s birthright to become a prince—it was his destiny. As a boy in 6th century Persia—one of the greatest empires the world has ever known— young Dastan is a street urchin, parentless and penniless. Threatened with severe punishment by a Persian Army captain after defending a youngster caught stealing an apple, Dastan is first spared, and then adopted, by the noble King Sharaman, who detects a touch of greatness in Dastan. Raised alongside Sharaman’s sons Tus (Richard Coyle) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell), and taught the ways of wisdom and nobility by his adoptive father and beloved uncle, Nizam (Sir Ben Kingsley), Dastan retains his rough edges while growing into a strong young warrior.
“What appealed to me about the story is the notion that everybody has great potential,” says Kingsley. “And this is where I thought it would be a very affirming film, particularly for young people—to realize that whilst you might be a child of the streets, it doesn’t mean that your potential is any less than that of a child from the palace. Our film is an examination of the potential of a child coming into adulthood, and the choices he has.”
Dastan, driven to prove his worth, leads the attack on Alamut, a peaceful holy city which is reported by spies to be hording weapons that are supplied to Persia’s enemies. But in fact, Alamut holds a much deeper and greater treasure—the legendary Sands of Time, which gives mortals the ability to turn back time. Dastan comes into possession of an ancient glass-handled dagger, the key to accessing the Sands of Time, but King Sharaman is assassinated and Dastan is accused of the crime. Now on the run and desperate to clear his name, Dastan finds himself in an uneasy alliance with Tamina, a feisty young Alamut princess whose family has guarded the Sands of Time for centuries, and who will do whatever it takes to protect it.
Dastan and Tamina, who are like oil and water from the start, are challenged to survive the unforgiving desert and some even more unforgiving enemies—from the wily Sheikh Amar (Alfred Molina) and master African knife thrower Seso (Steve Toussaint) to the deadly attempts of the Hassansins— each one trained to kill with their own lethal techniques. It will take all of Dastan’s bravery and fighting skills, as well as Tamina’s cunning, in order to uncover the one truly responsible for the king’s death, and for him to discover the nobility that truly lies within.
According to Gyllenhaal, the filmmakers had an interesting perspective about the film’s fantasy backdrop. “It was Mike Newell and Jerry Bruckheimer’s initial and brilliant idea that this film be based in reality. Mike said, ‘I want this movie to be based in the mentality of sixth-century Persia, where they believed in fantasy becoming reality, that you could find a dagger that could turn back time and have no doubt in the possibility of that happening because that’s what they would have believed back then.’”
At a time when European civilization was but a dim gleam on humanity’s horizon, mighty Persia was creating great cities and buildings throughout its vast and mighty empire: Persepolis, Baghdad, Susa, Pasargadae, Arg-é Bam, Isfahan. The Persian Empire at its height stretched from the Euphrates in the west to the Indus River in the east, and from the Caucasus, Caspian, and Aral seas in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in the south. In addition to Iran itself, the empire included what are now the modern nations of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the eastern parts of Turkey and Iraq and their surrounding regions.
Two great works of Persian literature greatly influenced Mechner: the Shahnameh, a massive work written by the great poet Ferdowsi in approximately 1000 AD and considered to be the national epic of Iran, and One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of stories dating back to the ninth century that incorporated ancient Persian, Middle Eastern and Indian folktales and legends. Mechner recognized that he could build an alternative world based upon the historical realities of ancient Persia, creating new mythologies about a culture that had created so many of its own fantasies for thousands of years.
Mechner created a protagonist who defied gravity with his acrobatic acumen, yet remained governed by the laws of physics and human capability. “With Prince of Persia, I wanted to create a character that felt like flesh and blood—like if he missed the jump, it would really hurt,” he says.
Mechner was not only creating a character who leapt from one precipice to another; the young video-game genius was also taking a giant leap himself, seeking new technologies to bring his world of Prince of Persia to life as fully as possible. “The world of the Prince of Persia video game was fascinating,” says executive producer Mike Stenson. “It had a wonderful fantasy aspect about it, and the Sands of Time element introduced in the 2003 game was perfect for the big screen. We felt that we should have elements of the game, but, just as we did with Pirates of the Caribbean, develop our own story, taking off from what was given us. But we think we’re being true to Jordan Mechner’s vision of the game.”
Newell was, of course, tapped to direct the big screen’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Says Bruckheimer, “Mike can do just about any kind of movie, from Four Weddings and a Funeral, which is a dramatic comedy, to Donnie Brasco, a hard-edged, gritty street movie. And then he goes and does Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which had just the right blend of adventure and mystical fantasy that we were looking for. Mike has a really wonderful palette that he paints from, and that’s very important to us. We want an entertaining film that appeals to a broad audience, but also something special, that concentrates on character and story.”
“The more exquisite, the more dark, the more agonized, the more true to our fallible human natures a film can be—that’s a good Brit picture,” says Newell. “But lately, I’ve been really interested in great, big entertainment—Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is exactly that—great, big entertainment—and I’m very pleased to have it.”
What qualities make a hero? The role of Dastan required an actor who could be multi-layered: dashing in the classic-movie mode; wily, with a sense of raffish fun; burdened with the underlying gravitas of poverty; and driven to become a better man. Gyllenhaal had already demonstrated his serious acting chops in such films as David Fincher’s Zodiac, Sam Mendes’ Jarhead and Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, which brought Gyllenhaal an Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA Award.
“Jake Gyllenhaal is an actor that I’ve been watching and wanted to work with for a very long time,” says Bruckheimer. “He’s a wonderful actor, exceedingly handsome and a great gentleman. Jake is also incredibly dedicated. He did an amazing job training himself for Prince of Persia, putting on an enormous amount of muscle—fight training, sword-fighting, parkour training, horse-riding. And he continued to work out and train every single day of the more than 100-day shoot.”
View: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Premiere Pictures
