Oxford producer Victor Glynn talks to Katherine MacAlister about how his small film made it big

An animated table football team has finally brought Oxford’s Victor Glynn the kind of success he has always dreamed of.

His new movie The Unbeatables, which opens on screens across the country tomorrow, is already being billed as the summer blockbuster.

Featuring a stellar cast of Rupert Grint, Ralf Little, Rob Brydon and Alistair McGowan, the heartwarming tale started out as a small budget movie but has ballooned out of all recognition, cinemas across the world clamouring to show this surprise underdog of a film, which opens in 600 cinemas nationally.

Revolving around a boy called Amadeo, he is the best table football player around, who finds himself being whisked off into the world of international football to tackle his rivals in real life, and save his village, friends and of course win the heart of the girl he loves. Based on real footballers, thinly veiled, The Unbeatables premiered on Sunday in the West End to great acclaim.

“It was a great relief because it went down very well and people really liked it,” Victor says. “We got a real sense at the premiere that it was really going to work, that it would go and go...”

The Jericho resident, who has worked at Blackwell’s bookshop part time for the past four years while co-producing the English version of the film, is understandably delighted with the results and already co-ordinating the resulting sequel and TV series.

So what’s it like to have been sitting on such a massive blockbuster? “Fantastic, but its been a tough journey. I had a triple heart bypass, another key player had a stroke, there was a strike. It’s been a massive undertaking, but we are all so proud of what we have achieved and just hope everyone else now enjoys it.”

The idea came about four years ago in Argentina when fellow film-maker Juan Jose Campanella, who won an Oscar for best Foreign Film in 2010, wanted to make a $2m Spanish film based on a children’s story. Backed by Jorge Esyrada Mora, with the director of Despicable Me on board, Victor was brought in to produce the English version of The Unbeatables, which was far more complicated than originally thought.

Having written an appropriate script, “there were things they can say in Argentina that would have the PC police here in seconds in the UK. They have a different approach,” he says diplomatically. “We wanted to make it very British from a football perspective so there’s lots of jokes in there and gags.”

Victor then had to fit the words into the animation, often having to change them to fit the timing of the mouths, depending on whether the lines started with a consonant or vowel. The lip syncing alone took months to process. When you think that in a normal action film you will shoot 2-3 minutes a day, in animation, to make one frame of 3D takes 20 hours, that's 24 frames a second and there’s 97 minutes of film, so it’s a very, very long process and took four years to do in a studio in Argentina.”

The budget soon spiralled to $22m and Spanish investors were brought in.

“If it had been done in LA it would have cost over $100m,” Victor says proudly.

The resulting film The Unbeatables will be shown all over the world, opening tomorrow with screenings in Oxfordshire’s Odeon and Vue cinemas and running until October half term.

“If it takes a quarter of what Toy Story manages we will be pleased,” Victor, 57, adds.

And what if people don’t like it? “They will,” he smiles, “And I’ll be right there on the opening night when they do, soaking up the atmosphere.”

SEE IT
The Unbeatables is released in UK cinemas tomorrow. 
Go to theunbeatables.co.uk for more information

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