HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE

HEAVY METAL, the English version of the illustrated French science-fiction/fantasy/horror magazine, METAL HURLANT, had been published for about five years when an animated version began development. The producers were Ivan Reitman and the publisher of HM, Leonard Mogel. Gerald Potterton, who had assisted over a decade earlier with the animation for The Beatles' YELLOW SUBMARINE, was hired as director.

The premise was for the film to be an anthology of different tales from the magazine, all tied together by an overarching threat of an overwhelming evil force. Included were sequences based on Moebius' "Arzach" and "The Long Tomorrow", Richard Corben's "Den", and Bernie Wrightson's "Captain Sternn", among others.

One sheet poster Style A by Chris Achilleos.

A huge cast and crew were hired to make it all happen. Notable artists participating in the production of the Canadian-made film included Chris Achilleos, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Richard Corben, Mike Ploog, Bernie Wrightson and many others. Voice actors included John Candy, Harold Ramis, Jack Flaherty and Richard Romanus.

One sheet poster Style B by Richard Corben.

Possibly inspired by Ralph Bakshi's feature-length animated films HEAVY TRAFFIC, WIZARDS, THE LORD OF THE RINGS and FIRE AND ICE, animation for HM consisted primarily of a combination of stop-motion cel animation and rotoscoping. The most recent advancements in Computer Generated Imagery (aka CGI) were also used. Invented by Max Fleischer (Betty Boop, Koko the Clown) in 1915, rotoscoping is a painstaking process in which live actors are filmed and their figures traced off of each frame onto paper where the image would then be inked on an acetate cell to be colored and filmed again, one frame at a time; the idea was to enable more accurate movement and action.

The score was written and conducted by Elmer Bernstein, but it was the rest of the music that is best remembered: tracks from Black Sabbath,  Blue Öyster Cult, Nazareth, Grand Funk Railroad and other popular rock groups of the period.

This informative article, a special section devoted to the making of the film, was published in the August 1981 issue of HEAVY METAL magazine:

Distributed by Columbia Pictures HEAVY METAL was released on 7 August 1981. Made for the modest amount of just over $9 million ($67 million in 2023 dollars), it grossed $20 million and was considered a success despite mixed reviews.

I saw this during its initial run and was amazed at the visuals. The story? Not so much, but it's well worth a watch if you've never seen it.

Lobby Cards:

Production cels:

Image showing transition from live action to animation cel.

Animation cel portfolio:

Pencil art portfolio: