Almost every video game could be a movie, including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
It would be nice if videogame blogs didn't act like it's a big deal when one person says a videogame-to-movie adaptation is "not impossible." Most such adaptations are "not impossible." In fact, the vast majority of videogames that have come out in the past few years and enjoyed even a modicum of success have been looked at by some Hollywood producers and/or executives as a potential movie.
The fact that project director Haden Blackman said "never say never" about that becoming the next "Star Wars" movie doesn't mean much of anything, but of course lots of blogs got worked up anyway. Trust me, I could write daily on this blog about how somebody in the film business is thinking about maybe optioning some videogame. It's only worth even raising an eyebrow (or leaving a comment with your thoughts on how they "better not f*** this one up") if there is at least an option deal (as with "Mass Effect"), or better yet it's actually set up at a studio (like "Bioshock"). Then there is at least a better chance of it turning into a movie than pretty much every other videogame on Earth has.
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
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While the Force unleashed videogame clearly has plot holes the size of Wampa dung the storyline and production values are ten times better than what Lucas offered up in Episode 1 the movie, I certainly do not begrudge forking 5 times the movie ticket price for it. Halo is by far the biggest opportunity Hollywood continues to waste time on signing a cheque for if only to show how much better it can be over poor efforts like Doom and Tomb Raider which saw big videogame franchises ruined by studio greed and lack of creative vision.
Posted by: Aidan Minter | October 03, 2008 at 01:25 PM
Timely post as a few days ago I looked at exactly this issue and particularly the rather strange tipping point issue that we now have in development or production, over 80 films being based on games. This is everything from WoW to Sims and as you pointed out obvious Halo clones like MassEffect. I created a nice compilation video too on the last post on personalizemedia, which actually lists all the current films based on games as well as a suggestion that games are becoming more culturally relevant as story 'foundations' - given their place in society.
Posted by: Gary Hayes | September 30, 2008 at 01:08 PM