Movie or Series?

[The_Pink_Moose]

I am going to begin soon on a screenplay based on the sony playstation game Final Fantasy 7. I am having a dilemna however. I do not know whether to make it a movie or maybe a series like Roots. See if you have played the game youd know what I'm talking about when I say I coul severely shorten it in order to fit it into a three hour movie (that would be minimum). Or I could just simply let it all go and include most of the huge events and what not and make it into a series somehow, say maybe two hours an episode. But Id like to know what you guys think I should do.

Theres one thing I think you guys hsould know too. When I played the game I was hooked on it. I got addicted. It became my life. And I started enjoying this game more than I had ever enjoyed any movie. And when I thought to write a movie based on it, I realized that if it oculd be done, it would be one hell of a movie. But anyway, I thought to myself that if I was gonna do this that I was gonna do it for as long as it takes and make it absolutely perfect, in my mind at least. And this would be my ultimate prize and I could hopefully sell it off or possibly get funding to direct it myself or whatever, after getting clearance from sony and squaresoft as well. But anyway I started rambling but I guess you guys know how much I want to write this now I guess. But I guess I'm just asking you guys waddya think it should be. Movie or Series?

[Nightflyer]

It's easier to write for a movie, with T.V series you have a certain amount of pages you can use and thats it, so you have to fit everything you want into those pages. Where as a movie you have no restraints you can write for as long as you want. (Although they say try not to go over 130 pages.)

Hovever, if you think you can fit all you want in a Teleplay, go ahead.

[tolga009]

I agree with Crynot and say write a movie. Besides the page limitationsa and what not for a series, it is very difficult to write a 13 episode series. I am still writing a series, and it has been over ayear and I still haven't got the 13 episodes.

Write a movie, no matter how long 3, 4 or even 5 hours, at least if you have more than 4 hours of stuff, then you can make it a sequel like movie of two parts, rather than 13 whole episodes for a series. Cause as far as making a series, along with the pilot, you must have 13 episodes to start with.

[R. P. McMurphy]

Tolga pretty summed everything up for this matter. I will also say make it into a feature film instead of a long TV series like Roots. You can still get most of your ideas on the big screen, even if you have a time limit of some sort. If I remember, FF7 was a long game, but lots and lots of parts can be left out and you will still hold up a great, long story.

[Tuukka]

Also a script based on FF7 would be very expensive to shoot because of all the SFX. TV in general can't afford that kind of budgets, so it's definitely a better idea to write it as a movie.