TOURIST BOARD WELCOMES 'TITANS' RELEASE AS BOON FOR TENERIFE

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Monday March 29 2010

TENERIFE'S tourism chief predicted that Hollywood blockbuster Clash of the Titans would boost tourism in the island on Monday.

by JAMES TWEEDIE

Cabildo government tourism minister José Manuel Bermúdez said that the 3D epic, which was partly filmed in Tenerife's Mount Teide national park and at the Los Gigantes cliffs, would draw much-needed tourists to the recession-hit island.

Speaking at a press conference at the Tenerife Arts Space (TEA) in the capital Santa Cruz, Mr Bermúdez said that the tourist board's public relations firm in London would make the most of the film's worldwide release next month to promote the island, pointing out that the Harry Potterfilms had made London a more popular tourist destination.

He insisted that the film's setting was not a matter of chance, but of hard work by his department which invited location manager Robin Higgs to the island to scout out the scenery.

Mr Bermudez added that the forthcoming final episode of the sixth series of TV drama Lost – the highest-rated programme ever – features a flashback to Tenerife in 1867, although the scene was filmed in Hawaii.

Journalists were shown a trailer for the movie cut with interviews with the cast and crew.

Director Louis Leterrier was shown saying: “Unlike locations I’ve seen many times in movies, this was brand new, with black and white lava, and green trees, and strange cloud formations.

“It felt like we were above the world, in a place that hadn’t been touched by human hands.”

Production designer Martin Laing added: “We could have gone to New Zealand, but Tenerife has a wonderful light and flavour.”

Recalling his first view of the famous cliffs at Los Gigantes on the west coast, producer Kevin De La Noy said: “There was nothing quite as gratifying as my first trip down there, looking up to the heavens where these great vertical cliffs rose 300 or 400 metres out of the water.”

The latest telling of the ancient Greek legend of Perseus and Andromeda references the 1981 classic of the same name, starring Lawrence Olivier alongside stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen's fantastical creatures.

Harryhausen also created the dinosaurs and other monsters for the Hammer production One Million Years B.C. – possibly the most famous film ever shot in Tenerife.

The new Clash of the Titans features Avatar star Sam Worthington (pictured) as Perseus, Alexa Davalos as Andromeda, Liam Neeson as Zeus, king of the gods, and Ralph Fiennes as Hades, god of the underworld.

The film will premier in Tenerife on Tuesday March 30 at 9pm at the Santa Cruz' Yelmo cinema.

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