A steampunk-superhero web series has become a surprise hit for the Conyers prop-weapons company Museum Replicas Limited, whose idea of filming an ad for fantasy costumes has taken on a life of its own.
"Archangel: From the Winter's End Chronicles" follows the adventures of a Batman-style vigilante in 1893 London who fights a pirate gang that flies around in sci-fi airships. It's the brainchild of Dave Di Pietro, the director of new products at Museum Replicas. The two episodes released online last month-featuring surprisingly fancy sets and special effects-have more than 12,000 Facebook fans hungry for the "Victorian science fiction" genre known as steampunk.
"There's talk of doing an official comic book as well as a series of novels and maybe even a movie," Di Pietro told the News.
The idea of the company making its own adventure series is partly inspired by Rockdale's moviemaking boom. "We are blessed to be such a Hollywood hub of the East in Atlanta right now," Di Pietro said.
Museum Replicas and its parent company, Atlanta Cutlery Corporation, are based in a castle-shaped building at 2147 Gees Mill Road. Atlanta Cutlery started here in the 1970s as a knife-maker. In 1983, Museum Replicas was founded as division specializing in swords and armor-some historically accurate, some fantasy models. Today it also sells prop weapons and costumes based on such films as "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings."
While the general public is welcome to shop at the Gees Mill showroom, Museum Replicas also often sells props to local and national movie and theater productions.
"We supply ‘The Originals.' We supply ‘The Vampire Diaries,'" said Di Pietro, referring to two locally filmed vampire TV shows. "We made the knife for James Bond in ‘Skyfall.'"
They've also made armor for everything from "Monty Python's Spamalot" to the new Dracula movie currently in theaters. All the manufacturing is done by India-based Windlass Corporation-the maker of the U.S. Marines dress sword-which bought the Conyers firm in the 1990s.
Di Pietro, who joined the company in 2002, has a film background as well. An amateur movie-maker in high school, he spent more than 13 years working at Paramount Pictures Home Video before moving into the weapon-making world. In recent years, he has directed TV commercials and co-directed a short, live-action Batman fan film.
When the company recently launched a line of steampunk costumes, jewelry and fantasy weapons, Di Pietro got the movie-making itch. Museum Replicas has made online videos to advertise its products before-some of them a bit "off the wall," he said, such as a Conan the Barbarian-themed one.
But Di Pietro wanted to try something new-an original character with a story to tell. He came up with Archangel, the crime-fighting alter ego of a former spy who faked his own death and now lurks in a lair hidden under a cemetery. The first episode is a simple short film showing the hero using his "decoder ring" to unlock a mausoleum-in real life, part of Atlanta's Oakland cemetery-and descending to his secret headquarters, which is a set built in a Museum Replicas warehouse.
His bosses were impressed, responding with, "You did this with zero budget. What could you do if we threw some dollars at it?"
A lot, as it turns out. Episode 2 of "Archangel" is a 15-minute adventure featuring ray guns, giant airships flying in the sky, and a sci-fi weapon that disintegrates an enemy's head. Much of it was filmed in Atlanta's Pullman Yard with a cast of nearly 50 people.
The response has been so positive that "Archangel" has gone from being an ad for steampunk products to a product itself. Di Pietro, who writes and directs the series, is working on episode 3-it will be set inside one of the giant airships-while fielding possible book and movie opportunities.
Part of its success is the untapped steampunk market. The genre is popular enough to have entire steampunk fan conventions-Museum Replicas is attending one in South Carolina soon-but there are few TV shows or movies set in its Victorian sci-fi world.
"The first guy who does a real steampunk movie will roll in the bucks-and it might be us," Di Pietro said.
To catch up on "Archangel," see its website at archangeltheseries.com.
