First Official Images of Peter Jackson’s ‘Lovely Bones’

Published by Jeff Leins on: April 19th, 2009

Empire Magazine continues their streak of world exclusives with an image from Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones.  Based on the best-selling novel by Alice Sebold, the film follows the story of 14-year-old Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) after she’s raped and murdered.  She watches over her family from heaven as they grieve and start to uncover the mystery surrounding her death.

Also starring are Rachel Weisz and Mark Wahlberg as her mother and father, Susan Sarandon as her grandmother, and Michael Imperioli as the police detective on the case.  The Lovely Bones is scheduled for theaters on December 11, 2009.

This image shows the vision Jackson has for her “In-Between,” which is a sort of purgatory Susie stays in between Earth and Heaven.

USA Today also has an official image from the film and quotes from the director himself.  Speaking about the story and the image above, Jackson says, “It’s God-less in the sense that when Susie dies she finds herself caught in a place between Earth and Heaven — she is in an ‘In-Between,’ as Alice Sebold calls it. We wanted this world to be ruled by Susie’s unconscious desires. Susie’s ‘In-Between’ begins as a powerful, beautiful and mysterious place — it is familiar and strange, comforting and sad; a young 14-year-old girl’s idea of ‘heaven.’ It is quite like the world of dream, using the magic of metaphor to convey Susie’s psychological and emotional life.”

Pictured below is Stanley Tucci who plays George Harvey, the film’s villain.  (Click this one to enlarge to full size.)