It’s no secret that Hollywood is going to any form of media it can get it’s greedy little hands on to adapt for films. One form of media that’s never transitioned well to film is the world of video games. For decades we’ve seen disappointing adaptations roll our way and it seems that’s not going to stop any time soon.
But wait, could there me some silver lining in this cloud? A juicy new article over at Variety talks about Hollywood’s plans to adapt a host of video games for the big screen in new feature films. But what’s so different now than the past several years? Well apparently studios are learning to work with the game developers that made the material so successful. Try and keep up here.
It’s no secret that Warner Bros. bought out Midway back in 2009, hence the successful “Mortal Kombat: Legacy” mini-series tearing up the interwebs. It’s also no secret that Warner Bros. are planning on working with MORTAL KOMBAT developers on a new KOMBAT film with hopes on starting up a whole new line of movies. But what about the other titles in the works? Midway titles Warner Bros. plan on bringing to the big screen include SPY HUNTER, SPACE INVADERS, PAC-MAN, RAMPAGE and JOUST. While we’ve heard about some of those already a few others are brand new to this guy’s ears! PAC-MAN? RAMPAGE?! The possibilities are endless but let’s hope the studio’s new approach to adapting video games is a successful one!
But Warner Bros. and Midway aren’t the only ones with big ideas. Large game publishers Activision Blizzard, Atari, Capcom, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, Take-Two and Ubisoft, and developers Eidos, Rockstar and Naughty Dog all have projects in the works including HITMAN, KANE AND LYNCH, JUST CAUSE, BIOSHOCK, RED DEAD REDEMPTION, DARK VOID, GOD OF WAR, WORLD OF WARCRAFT, INFAMOUS, LOST PATROL, TWISTED METAL and UNCHARTED. But that’s not all!
Screen Gems are currently working on an adaptation of Capcom’s DEVIL MAY CRY while GK Films are moving forward on plans to reboot the TOMB RAIDER franchise. Hell Electronic Arts even launched their own film division back in 2008! While no projects have yet to come out of that division, upcoming projects from EA do include DEAD SPACE, MASS EFFECT, ARMY OF TWO, THE SIMS, SPORE, MADDEN NFL and DANTE’S INFERNO. A MADDEN NFL movie? Now this is just getting ridiculous. Directors and scribes working with EA on some of these projects include DJ Caruso, Chris Wedge, John Davis, Scott Stuber, Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, Strike Entertainment and scribes like Scott Z. Burns and Dan Harris.
So that’s a whole lot to take in but it’s worth noting a lot of these titles haven’t even been greenlit yet. So we’ve got a ways to go folks. Only thing we can hope at this point is that the studio’s new plan to team up with the game developers for the adaptations is a good one. Time will tell of course.
MORTAL KOMBAT’s Talisa Soto
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