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Microsoft Wondering About This Movie Thing
Via some considered analysis at Joystiq, an interview at the Mercury news with Microsoft's Robbie Bach. The article touches on a number of pieces of the Xbox business, and is quite interesting, but folks are focusing on his comments re: the Halo movie. From the piece: "Does it make sense for Microsoft to be in the movie business? It's not what we do, nor would I anticipate us ever doing it. So it's a different business with a different business model. We happen to have great intellectual property with Halo that could be made into a great movie. The No. 1 criteria for us is we have to be confident a great movie is going to be made. It doesn't matter if Universal and Fox do it or somebody else does it. Frankly, if we didn't think a good movie would be produced, we would rather have no movie."
Hey, Microsoft ... get Uwe Boll to do the Halo movie. He has an impeccable track record of making excellent movies based on video games!
And oh, IMDB is a den of lies. Ignore whatever's said there.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
If we(microsoft) cannot make a movie that will pull in $300+ million, then we would rather not waste the effort to milk the fanbase.
"NASA's Rollercoaster For Moon Rocket Escape"
Xonk?
The last game movie I saw was Doom and the only similarity was the name, I guess. The greatness of a game is that you can be the hero, you can interact, make good or bad moves, die, cheat... In a movie.. all that is GONE. You are just seeing somebody else play for you. Boring.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
With such Classics as:
Mortal Kombat
Street Fighter
Super Mario Bros.
Wing Commander
Tomb Raider
Doom
Silent Hill
Blood Rayne
House of the Dead
who wouldn't think of making videogame movies; after all its like a licence to print money and all of the games still retain their appeal in the marketplace.
Seriously, if the Halo movie is made I would bet that every Halo game after it is released has awful sales. Videogame movies tend to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in order to get $20 for the meat off of the carcus. I honestly can't believe that anyone with any business sense would allow their videogame licence to be made into a movie.
they should make a movie about a software company trying to dominate the world.
It might not be a bad thing for a company outside of the movie industry to have a hand at a videogame movie. The movie industry is so corrupt...if they have any inkling that an idea will turn profit, they proceed without caring about the quality of a film. Microsoft or any other company outside of the industry would have to invest so much money into such an endevor that they would have to be confident that the product would be great. MS would have more at stake with IP such as Halo, as well. A great movie based on the title would push more copies of the game and more Xbox 360 consoles. So, really, it's in MS's best interest to create a quality product if they do go ahead with this. And MS actually has the money to do this and do it well...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Consider, for instance, the Zune. Beyond being a potential flop, it showed the culmination of Microsoft getting sick of 3rd party partnerships and jumping it in themselves. PlaysForSure was M$ intellectual property (kind of) that they licensed out to try and leverage the market. Horrible failure. The Zune is a complete reversal, where they entered a non-MS-dominant market fresh and tried to win, getting directly in there. I think if it fails, it will because they waited way too long till the market was saturated, and not because of any product weaknesses.
Like the Xbox. They've taken industry titans head on, and well, they've won. This was once again direct involvement. Same with many of their video games, ie-Bungie. For those of you who didn't know, Bungie is owned by Microsoft. Direct involvement.
I really think M$ is going to set up a small studio to at least control the project, even if they don't develop it all the way. I can't see them just handing out the IP to Halo to a movie studio and saying have fun with it.
For those of you who didn't know, Bungie is owned by Microsoft. Direct involvement. I believe, Bungie was bought by Microsoft after announcing Halo, thus Microsoft 'bought' themselves a very promising video game for their upcoming console.
If they really are commited to making a good video game movie, I cant see this as a bad thing. Being selective of the director and storyline can only be a good thing. I would love to see a serious sci-fi movie set in the Halo universe. I vote for Bruce Willis as Master Chief or pull a total Shamus and freak out everyone by making Master Chief turn out to be Uma Thurman.
I do hope they hold out for a good writer and good director. I know hulk was a disaster but I would love to see Ang Lee, he can make great action films given a decent screenplay. Or if they want to go truly serious sci-fi why not go with John Woo? If they are looking for a budget director how about David Frankel yea he is best known for Devil Wears Prada and Sex in the City but he did a fantastic job with Band of Brothers.
As long as Bay and Boll are kept far away...
"We happen to have great intellectual property with Halo that could be made into a great movie." ...Anyone else wondering why they worded it so poorly? Who cares about intellectual property? You either have a great series or you have a poor series, the fact that you own some legal crap for it shouldn't be an issue.
"Halo would make a great movie, we want to give it a try" would be 100% better since it sounds human and not lawyer based.
I like muppets.
MS could have a good movie handed to them on a floppy and still find a way to zune it up somewhere between ad launch and release.
Remember, it's the singer, not the song.
Say it with me.... T R O N
Hey guys, I suppose most of you already saw the Halo 3 trailer shown at E3. I think it is AS spectacular as ANY standard movie today. They should do a movie in that line. The Halo series are strongly based in its CG Graphics so some more won't hurt. It would be a disaster if they try to do it with real people.
When MS bought Bungie, Halo was nothing like it was today. First, it was going to be a Mac-exclusive game. Second, it was going to be a strategy game, on a squad level. If I remember correctly, the art style was mostly constant throughout development, but the gameplay changed considerably.
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I'm gonna have to go ahead and...um, yeah...sorta disagree with slashdotters here.
Although most video game movies do suck, Halo has a couple things going for it that give it a good chance of defying the norm. First of all, Halo is a MS flagship product. They aren't going to give creative control over to people who care/know little about the story or game. Second, they are going to give it the financial backing it needs if they are going to make it. Third, Halo has a well developed storyline complete with their own "Halo Bible". I would say that the Resident Evil storyline was pretty well developed too, though.
Anyway, I think it has a chance at being a great movie. I would like to see Master Chief come to life on the screen.
Then again, I may be an idiot because I'd love to see Lucas do it, as long as he has no hand in casting or the script. I'd give him the FX and fight scenes any day.
We happen to have great intellectual property with Halo that could be made into a great movie
Is it just me or M$ is talking more and more about "intellectual property"?
If they are moving from a software development company based in copyright to a "intellectual property" company where movie rights and patents are going to be more and more important, then it is no wonder how disastrous Vista's development has been.
It is not only bureaucracy and red tape. They are becoming a company run by lawyers and bean counters that needs goverment protection to be able to assert their "intellectual property". With goverment protection comes goverment regulation, so they are becoming entangled in the lobbying game at Washington.
It looks to me like they have lost it.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
It's called Aliens:
;)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/
It came out a little earlier than I expected (like oh 20 years ago) but it even has some of the same characters!
Comparison fun:
Dropship Design - Pelican Design
Sarge - Apone
Elites - Xenomorphs
Flood - Facehuggers
Space Marines - Space Marines
Good times!
PS - yes I know that there is a Jonesy "Lost Cat" poster in one of the levels, but some of this stuff (Sarge especially) goes a little past homage
What? Xbox won? When?
Microsoft bought bungie.
You have a case of rose colored glasses.
They need an "Aliens Returns" movie, that pretends movies III and IV didn't happen.
With the pro makeup artists, they can still doll Sigourney up enuf to make her hot and bluescreen away her walker.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
UH... Microsoft isn't exactly in the literature business either, but that hasn't stopped them from producing a series of books set in the Halo universe. I like Halo, so I gave the books a shot. Let's just say the books prove Microsoft doesn't give a shit about how poorly its IP gets used in other media. Therefore, the movie will happen, for good or for bad.
I'd think that Ballmer would have quite a future in pro wrestling--after all, he certainly knows how to use chairs effectively... :-)
A huge number of them are pornographic in number and the fast majority of them suck. The problem is simple.
An original manga has characters with personalities and certain traits that make them characters. This is in any half decent manga more then just the base traits. To put it simple, Beldandy from Ah My Goddess is more then just a female with a complex hairdo and some funky facial makeup. Same as for instance spiderman is more then a guy in red and blue jumpsuit.
Most of the porn doushinji however does not bother in the least with any characterization beyond the barest physical resemblance. The author wants to do a porn because that is extremely popular and chooses a popular title to take base his characters on.
In the second frame the character drops their clothes, develops a pair of tits that would give a cow back trouble and behaves as generic slut A being raped by faceless guy B.
In a way this reminds me of game movies. They are not made out of a love for the original subject matter, all they want is to produce a movie to take in lots of cash and so they want to associate it with the a popular license but in the second take they loose all resemblence to the original material and just make what they wanted to make in the first place.
There are good doujinshi, fan material that wants to respect the original material and tells a new story but one that is firmly based on the original material. Were the characters look and act as you expect them too.
Some erotic 'fan' material is in fact made by the original author who just made some material not directly acceptable in his mainstream publication. I have read material by several european strip makers who did this.
The good fan art creators do not seek to redo the original authors work, they only make the barest minimum change (basically they ask "what if" and then let the original authors creations live that scenario out).
My rant above sounds confusing because while it will be obvious to anyone who ever read bad fanworks and a great one it is still hard to get across why the two are different.
But basically it is the reason WHY you make your version. Do you do it out of love of the original OR because you want to make a lot of money of its name?
Most game movies seem to follow the latter and it is why the Doom had so little in common with the real game. It was not made out of love of the game doom, it was made out of love for the money the Doom name could deliver.
Same with Tomb Raider. It wasn't Tomb Raider, the movies were closer to Tomb Raider 3 or 4 (she never had assitence in the original classic game only when the franchise died did she get those annoying brats tagging along, I leave it to you if they caused it or were a symptom)
It was not going to be mac exclusive. It was going to be released for the mac first, then for Windows.
I followed that saga with bated breath until the final blow when MS bought Bungie and moved them all to the redmond campus. There was much outrage since the Mac people really didn't have that great selection of FPS in the first place and the product was due to be released in a short time (weeks maybe? don't remember). Everyone was worried that MS would kill the Mac and PC versions to keep it a flagship exclusive for their upcomming XBox. MS promissed that halo would be released for the PC and they kept to their word and released Halo for the PC some 2 FUCKING YEARS LATER!
Consider, for instance, the Zune. Beyond being a potential flop,
I think if it fails, it will because they waited way too long till the market was saturated
poor products are irrelevant
market saturation is irrelevant
you will be assimilated
you will learn to service us