Upcoming Game Movies And Their Likelihood to Suck

Via Kotaku, a story on the Destructoid site about upcoming game movies and their likelihood to suck. Mr. McVengeance runs down the upcoming pixels-to-big-screen adaptations, and amazingly it appears the situation isn't completely hopeless. Just mostly. From the article: "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Probability of Suck: Moderately Low. This gives me mixed feelings on the fact that there are two writers. First is the guy who actually wrote the script for the game, which is a good thing. Second, we have the writer for 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Then, we have Jerry Bruckheimer working as Executive Producer. Y'know, the guy who's name is attached to Pirates of the Carribean and a whole host of other films? I think this film will end up doing OK. I'll be interested in seeing who gets the job as director."

Comments

Re:Prince of TiVo

[lymond01]

THey need to make the Prince not superhuman. His little leaps and swinging around poles should not be Daredevil-simple. Make him scared to try it. Sure he'll get better at it, but make it realistic...how would you feel if you had to wall run along a pit of spikes?

Re:Executive Producer Means Nothing

[EnderGT]

Out of curiosity, which 5 would those be? According to IMDb, there's only two - "My Best Friend's Birthday" and "Grind House" (upcoming).

Other "Tarantino films":

• Kill Bill vols 1 & 2 - Wrote and Directed, but did not Produce
• Jackie Brown - Wrote and Directed, but did not Produce
• Pulp Fiction - Wrote and Directed, but did not Produce
• Reservoir Dogs - Wrote and Directed, but did not Produce
• From Dusk 'Til Dawn - Wrote the screenplay and was Executive Producer, but did not Direct
• Four Rooms - Wrote and Directed his segment, but is credited as Executive Producer

Re:Game Movies vs Book/Movie

[jmorris42]

> You like the 1st thing you experience, and nothing else can live up to it.

Not at all the reason. The problem is Hollywood is broken. Only talentless hacks can stand working within the studio system so almost everything that crawls out of Hollywood sucks. That and the tendency for screenwriters (ones adapting a novel to the screen, as opposed to people who write original screenplays) to confuse themselves with authors, and producers/directors who feel qualified to impose their 'artistic vision' on an author's work. Guys, if you really had the talent you could write your own material instead of blowing a wad of money optioning the rights to a successful story.

Yes, film, TV and novels are different mediums and some things must bend to fit. Lord of the Rings would have required a miniseries of massive proportions to film faithful to the books and would probably have been BORING. But the movies did a wonderful job of remaining faithful to the ideas and feel of the original material even when they made massive cuts and alterations.

David Lynch made such a turd from Dune the original author had to go on CNN on opening day and disown it, saying "I wrote a book about a man who thought himself a God. They made a movie about a man who becomes a God." It took Sci-Fi Channel, working with virtually unknown people in Europe (read as outside the Hollywood system) to produce a version worthy of the name. Yes it also had to drop a bunch of material on the floor and change stuff to stitch the story back together but what remained was recognizable as Dune.

Then you get horrors like Starship Troopers, where Hollywood allows a man who states, in the promotional documentary for the movie no less, that he took on the project to make a mockery of the novel and so poison the ground that no serious attempt would ever be made to film it. And they expected the fans to flock into theaters for that?

Or how about the most abused novel of all time, Tarzan of the Apes. How many times has that one been screwed up by Hollywood? And each attempt screws it up in totally different ways yet none even bother to even get the basic storyline even half correct. It looks like all they pay for is the name because they promptly go off and write a totally new story about a guy raised by apes. Has even one at least got the language thing right? In the book when Tarzan reaches civilization he speaks fluent French and can read and write Engish. Yet how many versions have him show up as a illiterate naked savage? The whole core concept of Tarzan is that he understands our ways perfectly well... and rejects them as debased and wicked, opting instead for a simpler existence as a 'noble savage'. A load of fetid dingos kidneys if you ask me, but if I were doing a novel of the book I would respect the original authors intent. No, the only explanation is Hollywood doesn't care. They think that it is only the brand name that sells.