At the instigation of Mysterious Pants, the Backbrain scouted out Attack of the Giant Gull (US/Canada-2002; dir. Jonathan M. Parisen), which does appear on the Internet Movie Database as a video release, though no release date is actually given.
After a bit of a search, I found a conceptual poster mock-up that was done for the film by Shawn L. Fratis:
Fratis is a digital artist who “created many models and test shots” for the film, “including fire/explosion effects”. He also did “effects and animations of the giant seagull attacking New York”. [ref] In his resume, he lists the film as an “uncompleted project”.
Here are some test SFX shots [ref]:
This independent film is listed as being produced by Parivision Entertainment. I think it fair to say that it was a low-budget project that may or may not have been completed.
Cool! Mystery solved! Thanks for the investigation- I had been wondering about this thing for years but could never find anything substantial about it.
Hi, I’m Shawn Fratis. I had started on this project with Jon Parisen a bunch of years ago but we never got around to completing it. Since then, I got sidetracked with other projects and Jon had talked about completing it with a different artist but I’m not sure if that ever happened-I don’t think it did. I’ve mentioned starting it up again to him but both of us have just had too much going on to get around to it, though I’d love to finish it ‘cos it was a pretty cool idea. It had a great script-really fun and goofy. It was meant to be a send-up of “The Giant Claw” (we even talked about using a rubber seagull to really add to the effect!), plus it was meant to be a bit of a tribute to Ray Harryhausen, who we are both big fans of. It was supposed to star Conrad Brooks (from the Ed Wood movies) who we had both worked with before. Maybe someday!
We really wish that you guys would finish this project. It looks like a lot of fun. It’s always sad to see when a film, especially one featuring a giant monster, doesn’t get completed. You’re always left wondering what if??
Thanks for the information, Shawn. It really looks like it could have been an entertaining film. There have been plenty of take-offs of other kinds of “Giant Things” flicks, but I can see a heap of potential in a giant seagull. The fertiliser industry alone would be very excited. 🙂
“The fertiliser industry alone would be very excited. ”
HAH! That gives me all kinds of great visual ideas! 🙂