Roger Avary to Direct Return to Castle Wolfenstein
It’s kind of a shame when you see talented filmmakers getting sucked into movie franchises that are below them, just to make a buck. Roger Avary wrote and directed Killing Zoe and The Rules of Attraction (based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel), and also helped write Pulp Fiction with Quentin Tarantino. Lately, however, he is one of the people on the forefront of the dubious wave of video game to movie adaptations, the results of which are never all that exciting. He wrote the screenplay for Silent Hill, a movie I had high hopes for but that ended up being pretty terrible, and he was also recently hired to write a movie based on the Driver video game series. Now we have learned that Avary will be getting behind the camera again, for the big screen version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Yawn.
In theory, a Wolfenstein movie could be cool; the game takes place in a 17th century castle occupied by the Nazis in 1943 under Heinrich Himmler. There are rumours about experimentation with paranormal phenomena and the occult, and U.S. Army Ranger B.J. Blazkowicz is sent in to investigate. However, you also have to remember that Wolfenstein 3D was the precursor to id’s Doom series — in other words, another brainless first-person shooter with little in the way of story or plot. Based on how poorly Doom fared on the big screen, I don’t really have much hope for this either. The film is being produced by Samuel Hadida (Silent Hill, the Resident Evil movies, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer).
Comments (3)
Avary doing bad makes me sad. that rhymes.
Rules of Attraction over time for me went from ‘wtf surprise’ to ‘guilty pleasure’ to ‘legitimately good film’ – theres a lot going on in that weird little movie.
i own killing zoe but havent watched it in years. i think i will again soon, and not just for milky white Julie Delpy boning.
Posted by Goon on August 3rd, 2007Isn’t this the game in which the final boss is Hitler wielding two mini-guns? That would be great to see on film.
Of course, I’m kidding and I hope Roger Avery decides to go make a good movie again instead of this. Rules of Attraction and Pulp Fiction are two of my all time favorite films.
Posted by Rian on August 4th, 2007This film isn’t based on the original first person shooter, but the sequel which came along much later. The sequel featured more storyline, but nothing in the way of character development and it is far too complicated for a film. Still, shouldn’t film writers have the responsibility of developing a simple idea into a tangible experience? To say that a movie will be bad simply because the game isn’t a movie to begin with seems pessimistic to say the least.
And Rian, Hitler isn’t in the sequel so you’re not going to get anything in the way of Hitler with miniguns either.
Posted by Jason on December 24th, 2007Leave a Reply