Film Junk » Games

Brad Pitt Producing Dark Void Video Game Adaptation

Sean — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:12:29 +0000

The game's not even out yet and it's already been optioned. Probably because it has jet packs!

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Kevin McKidd Confirms Involvement in Call of Duty Movie

Sean — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:01:28 +0000

When the latest game sells 4.7 million units in 24 hours, I think a movie is a no brainer... but would it be modern or WWII?

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Peter Berg to Direct Army of Two Video Game Adaptation

Sean — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:46:27 +0000

Over the past few months, we've seen director Peter Berg drop out of a couple of upcoming projects including the robot boxing film Real Steel, and the remake of Frank Herbert's Dune. Clearly he's in demand after directing Hancock, but what exactly has he been freeing up his schedule for? Well, we already know that he's going to be directing Universal's Battleship movie, but now in addition to a board game movie, it looks like he has added a video game adaptation to his list of potential projects as well. Yay? A recent article in Variety examines some of the properties that EA is licensing out to TV, movies and comics. Among them is the previously announced big screen version of Army of Two, about two mercenaries working for the U.S. military who get caught up in a political conspiracy in the Middle East. We knew that Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) was writing the script and that EA was co-producing the movie with Scott Stuber (The Kingdom, Role Models), but according to this article, Peter Berg is now attached to direct. Interesting. It seems that his work on The Kingdom makes him an ideal candidate to direct this movie, but is it a good choice career-wise? Are you interested in an Army of Two movie from Peter Berg?

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Sony Acquires Rights to a Risk Movie

Sean — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:29:53 +0000

Yep, you read it right... the game of global domination is coming to the big screen. Apparently Universal isn't the only studio getting into the business of making movies based on board games. Sony Pictures announced today via their Twitter account that they had "acquired motion picture rights to classic board game RISK". No other details were made available at this time, but it is a Hasbro property, which means that Sony probably stole it away from Universal, who signed a 6-year strategic partnership deal with Hasbro earlier this year. (They are currently developing movies based on Monopoly, Candy Land, and Battleship, among others.) Perhaps the rights were still owned by the estate of French film director Albert Lamorisse, who invented the game back in 1957? At any rate, I'm wondering if Sony actually ended up scoring the game with the most cinematic potential of the bunch here. I mean, sure there aren't any characters associated with the game, but the possibilities are endless for a generic war movie -- especially one that delves into the strategic elements of planning a campaign. It will still require a writer and director with a bit of talent to make it worthwhile, but somehow it seems like less of a stretch than most of these other board game movies. I know one thing... Risk has a pretty hardcore following among the geek crowd, so at least they've got that going for them. Feel free to debate the potential brilliance and/or insanity of a Risk movie in the comments below.

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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Trailer Starring Jake Gyllenhaal

Sean — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:29:42 +0000

After a low quality version of the trailer found its way onto YouTube earlier today, IGN has wisely decided to unveil the official trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time a few hours early. I have to admit, I've been pretty curious to see what Jerry Bruckheimer and Mike Newell could do with this video game franchise on the big screen. All the right elements are here for an epic action/fantasy film, but will it just turn out to be another terrible game-to-movie travesty? One thing I can say after watching this trailer is that it looks very... expensive. I mean, the amount of special effects on screen here are ridiculous, at times almost on par with that 5-minute clip from Roland Emmerich's 2012. Although I like what I see of the costumes and scenery, I'm not too sure about a lot of the weird CG effects. But hey, it's cool because Jake Gyllenhaal is running up walls! It's hard to say if there's actually a decent story underneath all this, but the sad thing is it looks like it could easily be a massive mess on par with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. At least they could have waited for part 2 or 3 to unveil this much craziness! What do you think? Prince of Persia hits theatres on May 28th, 2010; the trailer is embedded after the jump.

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Will Wright’s Spore Becomes a Movie

Sean — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:45:22 +0000

Here's another head scratcher of a movie coming down the production pipeline over at 20th Century Fox. According to Variety, Fox is teaming up with EA to bring Will Wright's evolutionary sim game Spore to the big screen as a CG-animated film. The game allows you invent a creature that can be guided over time from single-celled organism through to complex, intelligent species to an advanced civilization capable of intergalactic travel. Chris Wedge (Ice Age, Robots) will direct from a script that is being written by Greg Erb and Jason Oremland (The Princess and the Frog). As crazy as this sounds, it still makes a little more sense than The Sims movie which is apparently in development. At least with this I can see it being similar to Pokemon or the animated adaptation of the Ricky Gervais book Flanimals, although the screenwriters will have a lot more room to create their own characters and storyline. Either way, this movie may still be a ways off, since Wedge is also attached to direct Leaf Men for Fox and the live action flick The Invention of Hugo Cabret for Warner Brothers. What do you think? Stupid idea or really stupid idea? What will be the next non-plot-driven game to hit the big screen?

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Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller Joins Resident Evil: Afterlife

Sean — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:01:42 +0000

In a press release issued earlier this week, Sony Screen Gems announced that the fourth Resident Evil movie has officially started production in Toronto. As you are probably well aware, Paul W. S. Anderson is "back in his triple threat capacity" as writer, director and producer of the flick, but what you may not know is that Resident Evil: Afterlife is being shot in 3-D! Pretty exciting, right? Okay, maybe not. Although the plot is still being kept under wraps, Anderson offered the following tidbits:

"Alice's battle with The Umbrella Corporation isn't finished. Last time we saw Alice, she let them know she was coming after them. It's time to settle the score."

Milla Jovovich will, of course, reprise her role as Alice, and both Ali Larter and Spencer Locke will continue their roles from Resident Evil: Extinction as Claire Redfield and K-Mart respectively. There is one new addition to the cast that should have fans of the video game series somewhat interested, however: Wentworth Miller will be playing Chris Redfield, Claire's brother, and one of the main characters from the very first Resident Evil game. Miller is best known as Michael Scofield from Prison Break, and seems very suitable for the role, at least as far as matching the in-game cinematics and stilted voice acting (ha). Shawn Roberts will also be taking over the role of Wesker from Jason O'Mara. What do you think, could this be the best Resident Evil film yet? Are you glad to see Paul W.S. Anderson back in the director's chair or would you have rather had Russell Mulcahy pick up where he left off?

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Screen Gems Looking To Reboot The Resident Evil Franchise

Kasper — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:28:20 +0000

As the cost of bringing back Milla Jovovich, the star of the Resident Evil franchise, has been rising with every movie, Screen Gems are now thinking about turning the fifth entry (the one after the forthcoming Resident Evil 4: Afterlife) into a reboot of sorts. However they don't seem to want to force this decision through, leaving it more as a possible solution if Jovovich decides to up her fees once more for the fifth movie. Which is to say, this isn't the definitive end to the current storyline, but it most likely will be. So what will a fifth quasi-reboot be about? So far they are calling it Resident Evil Begins, the focus being on a special military unit that fights a powerful supercomputer which has run amok and hundreds of scientists who have turned into flesh-eating monsters after an accident in the lab. But all that is a whole lot of "what if" and "then what". The fourth movie has yet to even begin production and will hit theaters about a year from now on August 27, 2010. It is being directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and will be shot in 3D like all the other mediocre horror flicks as of late.

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Bioshock Movie Gets 28 Weeks Later Director

Sean — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:10:49 +0000

There's been a slight change in plans for the upcoming Universal Pictures adaptation of the hit video game Bioshock. Gore Verbinski (The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean) was originally slated to direct this as his next project, but according to Variety, he has decided to relinquish the director's chair and take on a producer role instead. He will be replaced by Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who is best known for his critically-acclaimed film Intacto and 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Danny Boyle's post-apocalyptic zombie thriller. The reason for the change is mostly an economic one; the Bioshock project was put on hold earlier this year when the budget began to balloon to $160 million. Universal decided to move the production abroad to take advantage of tax breaks, but this left Verbinski unable to direct due to his other commitment to the animated film Rango. Fresnadillo, who is also attached to direct a remake of X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, will be a solid choice in my opinion. If anything, I am even more enthusiastic about the project with him at the helm, although I guess there is a question of whether or not the movie will suffer from a drastically reduced budget. What do you think, is this a good move by Universal?

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Is Steven Spielberg Taking Over the Halo Movie?

Sean — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:49:44 +0000

I'd recommend taking this next story with a grain of salt, but if it turns out to be true, it could be pretty huge. The folks over at IESB recently heard from a reliable source that Steven Spielberg is currently in talks to pick up the pieces of the abandoned Halo feature film project as producer. He is apparently a big fan of Stuart Beattie's adapted screenplay of the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach. Is this something worth getting excited about? Possibly, although let's not forget, Beattie also wrote the script for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Beattie expressed interest in directing the movie himself, but only after he gains some experience directing his upcoming film, Tomorrow, When the War Began. As for Neill Blomkamp, who was attached to direct back when Peter Jackson was in charge of the Halo movie, he stated that he would probably not direct Halo even if he was asked again. I still firmly believe this movie will happen eventually, and if there's one person who can see it through, it's Spielberg. It might seem a bit far-fetched, but Spielberg is supposedly turning into a big video game geek after helping EA design Boom Blox and now working with Microsoft on Project Natal. On top of that, Dreamworks is in desperate need of a blockbuster right now. So it could happen... maybe? Keep your fingers crossed folks.

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inFAMOUS Movie Based on Video Game in Development

Sean — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:31:01 +0000

It's already been a big month for announcements regarding video game to movie adaptations, but if you thought the flood was going to stop after Comic Con, think again. Sony has announced that they are in the early stages of bringing the recent Playstation 3 game inFAMOUS to the big screen, after picking up a pitch by screenwriter Sheldon Turner (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Up in the Air). The deal is for seven figures, and former Marvel head honcho Avi Arad is among the producers on the project. The game, which just came out back in May, focuses on protagonist Cole MacGrath, a bike messenger who is caught in an explosion that grants him electrical powers. He can choose either a good or evil path as he attempts to fight the chaos that the city has fallen under. Sheldon Turner had this to say about the game:

"What excited me most about the game was it was the first of which I've come across that had a big idea and a character arc... It is, I believe, the future of gaming. The game, while big and fun, is at its core a love ballad to the underachiever, which is what our hero, Cole McGrath, is."

The first game with a big idea and a character arc? Hmm... I'm not so sure about that, although I have yet to play the game. Anyway, like so many of the other movies based on games in development, it could still be a while before this actually heads into production (if ever). Are you interested in an inFAMOUS movie?

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D.J. Caruso to Direct Dead Space Movie

Sean — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:25:21 +0000

Looks like EA's sci-fi/horror game Dead Space is the latest video game property to be set up as a feature film, with director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia, Eagle Eye) signed on to head up the adaptation. Caruso will direct and produce along with EA, who are currently accepting pitches from screenwriters. No studio has been set as of yet. The game centers on an engineer named Isaac Clarke (an amalgamation of science fiction writers Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke), who is sent to investigate a distress signal from the interstellar mining ship USG Ishimura. He finds the ship plagued by an alien virus that turns humans into zombie-like creatures known as "Necromorphs". During his investigation he discovers that the ship's captain was an agent of the Church of Unitology sent to steal a religious relic known as "The Marker", which is when all the trouble started. The game was critically praised for its tense atmosphere and stellar graphics, and sold over a million copies. The movie is believed to be a bridge between the second and third game, which are currently in development. Variety notes that EA also has movies based on Army of Two, The Sims and Mass Effect currently in the works, but if this is going to help support for the release of new games, I suspect we may see a Dead Space movie sooner than the others. Are you interested in seeing Dead Space on the big screen or will it be just another Alien clone?

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