In the ongoing lottery of which video game is being picked up for a movie treatment, the next number to come up is now Dead Island, the zombie survival game that Lionsgate thinks would make for a good feature film.
In the press release announcing the partnership, there’s an entire paragraph dedicated solely to the game’s teaser trailer, which was admittedly one of the better trailers of the year, if not THE best, movie, game or otherwise. But is that reason enough to make a movie out of it? The release even says the trailer will serve as the primary creative inspiration for the movie.
Why is that? Well, the game itself has been met with mixed reception from critics and gamers. As well-made and heart-wrenching as the trailer was, that sort of emotion is said to be absent from the actual game itself.
If Lionsgate wants to make a tropical zombie movie with heart, I’m all for it, but there’s the curse of the video game movie to overcome, where even great games don’t necessarily translate into worthwhile features. So how will a mediocre one fare?
Watch that trailer one more time:
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