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Dungeon Siege Latest Game-To-Film Adaptation

Posted by simoniker on from the impeccable-heritage dept.

Thanks to Ferrago for their story confirming a film version of popular PC RPG Dungeon Siege is in the works, from the same creators who gave us the 'horrific' House Of The Dead movie, in which Sega's ghoulish gun-game series was shifted to "an island off the coast of Florida, [where] a techno rave party attracts a diverse group of college co-eds." The German producer and director of the forthcoming Dungeon Siege film, Uwe Boll, also currently working on the Alone In The Dark movie starring Christian Slater, breathlessly proclaimed: "Based on the success of House of the Dead, I believe Dungeon Siege contains major crossover potential because of its unique blend of action and fantasy, on the order of Lord of the Rings."

7 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. Shallow by MadocGwyn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why do they keep picking games with such shallow premices, AITD etc.
    Why not Morrowind instead of Dungeon Seige, I'd rather see that.
    I'm sure its to appeal to the mass market, but mass market action games don't always translate well to movies (wing commander).

    --
    Jesus saves, everyone else takes full damage from the fireball.
    1. Re:Shallow by neostorm · · Score: 2, Interesting

      After playing Morrowind so long, it's largest acheivement is the sheer depth and detail of it's world. The only film that would really be able to convey the correct sensation would be... oh... say, a documentary?
      I seriously doubt many people would be willing to sit through a 3 hour film on the native flora, fauna and various cultures and religions dotting the island of Vvardenfell. ;)

      But seriously, because movies for mass-appeal, as a rule, are shallow. I wouldn't have the smallest amount of faith that they could satisfactorily tell a story based in the Elder Scrolls universe. Film makers today are completely incapable of doing something so deep, and it would most certainly blemish the franchise.

  2. Hm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The house of the dead game was mediocre and the house of the dead movie was a Wyrm-tainted net drain of energy on the universe. "The House of the Dead" the movie had no positive side-effects in any way at all-- not for the producers, who failed to make money, nor for the actors and other artists involved, who now have a horrible stain of intense mediocrity on their record, nor for the audiences, none of whom enjoyed the movie.

    However I'm almost curious about Alone in the Dark. I like Alone in the Dark and I like Christian Slater. Too bad that, most likely, when faced with a video game that contained actual effective atmosphere, elegant storytelling, and emotional relevancy, the movie producers will fail entirely to understand the game and merely give us a going-through-the-motions cardboard-cutout "hollywood movie" which connects with no one.

    Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider 2, House of the Dead.. I tell you, the noble if horrible history of the Video Game Movie has dropped precipitously since the turning point marked by the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat movies. I wonder with some sadness if we will ever return to the level of gloriously barely-acceptable, deliciously anti-anti-camp that the genre held at its peak: Super Mario Brothers.

    "TRUST THE FUNGUS!"

    -- Super Ugly Ultraman

  3. bad idea by NSash · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It used to be that only good/popular games were made into movies... Sure, there was a buzz surrounding Dungeon Siege at launch-time, but everyone who bought it realized within a few days that it was completely shallow. Dungeon Siege was like a stone dropped into a lake. It caused a moderate splash, then it completely disappeared. If someone's making a movie based on this, it just shows that it's too easy to make movies.

  4. Sure, but... by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Funny

    When will they be making a movie based on Typing of the Dead?

  5. Re:I knew it by Haeleth · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Has there been a decent movie-from-computer game film yet?

    I think we can take it for granted that there never will be; Hollywood will always take title and premise and try to force them into an established stereotype.

    Look at what happened with Wing Commander, for example. The games had already developed into what were essentially movies with bits of space shooting in between the clips; the story was deep and well-established, and the films themselves were watchable, if nothing else (certainly compared to other FMV productions of the era!). They even starred Mark Hamill! It was obvious that a cinema release would be moderately successful.

    So they abandoned the existing story and universe, and made a submarine film instead, which bombed.

    Are there any decent game-from-movie adaptations?

    The original Star Wars arcade game wasn't half bad...

  6. It's all part of Uwe Boll's master plan. by Etone · · Score: 2, Funny

    He wants to destroy the credibility of gaming in general and the concept of gaming overtaking movies as a source of entertainment for the general populace.

    In shorthand, that's:

    1) Buy the rights to make unbelievably bad movies about games with paper-thin pseudo-plots, thereby destroying any chance for a good game->movie script to ever get greenlighted
    2) ???
    3) Profit!