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John Rhys-Davies Notes The Pitfalls of Game Movies
Veteran actor John Rhys-Davies sat down with GameDaily Biz to talk about his role in Uwe Boll's latest failure of a movie, 'Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King'. Davies is surprisingly candid about his interest in the role, and pretty much nails the numerous problems of making film adaptations of games. "One or two may succeed, and I hope this is one of them, but the structure of a game is completely unlike the structure of a film. And it shows the despair of the studios and producers that these movies even get a look at. If we had good writing, it would not happen. I think that right at the moment, the film industry in Hollywood is in a crisis because we have successfully excluded young and able talent for so long that now there is nothing left."
Speaking of John Rhys Davies and games, he was the narrator for Sierra's Quest for Glory 4, one of the best adventure games ever. His deep, slightly creepy voice really added to the murky atmosphere of Mordavia. Too bad no one cares to make a movie out of QFG.
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It's a German tax thing. Basically, everyone wins whether or not the films make any money - if the film loses money, the investors get a generous write-off, and if it makes money, the investors pay less tax on the profit than they would have on the original investment (it's a reward for investing in film).
Hang on, here's a link: How the flick does boll keep making movies
According to Wikipedia: In the DVD commentary of Alone in the Dark, Boll explains how he funds his films: "Maybe you know it but it's not so easy to finance movies in total. And the reason I am able to do these kind of movies is I have a tax shelter fund in Germany, and if you invest in a movie in Germany you get basically fifty percent back from the Government."
It's simple.
His movies make money.
Why does anybody even expect "high art" from Hollywood?
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Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, while not universally liked (some hate one, some hate the other, some like both, some hate both), were successful enough.
The Resident Evil movies make money.
Silent Hill was generally well-accepted, even by critics.
These movies are all far from good IMO (though Street Fighter does have a hilarious Raul Julia as M.Bison), but they were successful as far as I know.
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And honestly, for brainless mind numbing I was bored and there was nothing to do movie, that I went into with 0 expectations, it was not half bad. Granted there were a good dozen of so movies I could have gone to see, but going alone while wife is at work.. would result in a serious drop in my life expectancy.. okay maybe not that bad.. but plenty of nagging.
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