Video games to movies

Random thoughts:

Despite my age, I'm a reasonably avid gamer with some good hardware, currently playing Fallout 3.

I wish I knew the answer on the game-to-movie thing.

Hitman game series is one of my alltime favorites, but IMO the movie was horrible, moreso considering that its not a story that needs lots of special effects to be effective. The movie's production quality was high, add a good screenplay and decent acting talent....winner.

Fallout, Half-Life, and Oblivion series would be tremendously expensive to bring to the screen.

 

You have to blow it up if you want to get the room at the Tinsdale Tower and all the extra tasks and items that go along with it. Just make sure you detonate the bomb AFTER you've done everything in Megaton..

 

Lets flip the script for a minute. I was recently invited to play the new Tron game for PS3 (still in development). It was, without a doubt, the worst game I've ever played. I have more fun playing games on my Blackberry than I did playing this. It's almost like Disney picked a generic engine and attached the Tron name to it. Sad to see them tarnish a franchise like this, but this isn't the first time and definitely wont be the last.

 

The answer is incredibly simple.

Its very very very very difficult to make ANY good movie now that movie studios have become big corporations turning out fast food.

It used to be that each movie had a General (usually the director) and once that person took charge they made the final decisions , for better or worse. This resulted in a lot of really bad movies and a lot of really good movies.

Now everything is a commitee and everyone wants to stay in each others good graces so everything is a compromise. There is a lack of 'vision' in Hollywood.

Watch the documentaries on making Blade Runner, Alien, Godfather, Jaws, Terminator, Aliens, Star Wars... there was a single filmmaker behind each with a vision...they werent worried about what movie they were making next. They werent thinking about what trendy event they were going to be seen at that night. They lived and breathed the movie they were making.

Thats not coming back. Get used to it.

There will be a revolution in filmmaking soon...as soon as independents can figure out how to monetize showing their films on the internet. Once we (independent filmmakers like myself) can release our own films and not have to go through a studio its going to be amazing...

You have to realize that a studio takes EIGHTY PERCENT of the gross revenue when they release a film. At some point the deck will flip and the filmmaker will keep 80% and the web distributor will keep 20%...

 

Haven't blown it up, but used the residents for target practice a couple of times.

 

The first Resident Evil movie wasnt that bad. I enjoyed it.

 

Time?

How long does it take to work through a deep game? Days, weeks, months?

At best you're going to get 3 hours in a flick, and that's not going to be as interactive as the game.

Really, its the same reason many movie adaptations of books are bad.

 

I never played Resident Evil so I don't know what the game played like. But I thought the first 2 movies were pretty good action flicks. Third one, not so much.

Also never played Tomb Raider but the movies weren't too bad.

DOOM the movie was pretty bad. After DOOM II the game was not so hot, either.

I would love to see a movie of Half-Life. That's my all-time favorite game and if done by someone who cares it could be a great action/sci-fi movie.

 

I dont know if it is too late (Graphism has evolved a lot..) but you should try resident evil. It is the best non car games i have ever played. Not as fast paced as Half Life (less shooting..). But again , first one is from 1995 (?) so you might not enjoy it visualy.

 

Well, I've been making games and "interacting" with Hollywood for over 16 years, and there's a variety of reasons, some pointed out already.

One of the biggest failings though, aside from a studio just cranking out a movie, is that the screenwriters for game-movie translations don't play or understand games. They get a basic treatment and just run with it. And often game publishers sign their rights away when they license out their game to be made into a movie and have no say whatsoever in the adaptation. I could write a book about this whole topic but it's boring, depressing, and well, whatever. Additionally, because the studio spends money on the game license, they don't want to spend it on the talent to write a good movie. They often rely on the title and the hoopla for the game (and any star power they might be attaching) to bring in the faithful and more into the theaters. Generally doesn't work.

There is one game publisher/developer that has been shopping their game to be made into a movie, but they want absolute control over it. So far, many years later, Hollywood isn't having any of it, and thus that game isn't going to see the light of day on the big screen anytime soon.

But on the flip side, I have a friend who is an established screenwriter, worked on many successful movies, and he is a gamer. Recently, he went back to do 'justice' to a game-gone-movie that was just a travesty. Universally panned, and he knew it could be done better and he decided to take on a game-to-movie transition. Had numerous meetings, the project was green lit, all was going to be made whole again. Then the studio hit some financial bumps, and the project was put on indefinite hold. Oh well.

 

I dont think its who you are referring to but from what ive heard Blizzard is going to be VERY hands on with the Warcraft movie....thats one of the reasons I dont think it will get to production.

You have Sam Raimi, one of the biggest directors in the world (which cracks me up since ive known him since Army of Darkness), Blizzard which is arguably the most powerful and autonomous developer in the world, Legendary Pictures who has major muscle having made the Batman films and finally Warner Brothers who are notorious control freaks.

For the life of me I cant see that leading to production...Way too many Uber-Powerful chefs in that kitchen...

 

Nope - not Blizzard, you're right, not who I'm referring to.

As for WC heading to the big screen, this stuff goes in and out of production all the time. I remember having the Men in Black script on my desk nearly 7 years before it actually got made. And that's when they had Stallone and Schwarzenegger tied to it, not Smith and Tommy Lee. Laughable I know (Hollywood for years was trying to get Stallone and Schwarz in a film together), and thankfully never came to pass. But WC making it to the screen, could be next year, could be 5 years from now, could be never.

 

You sound like you're 'in the know' so do you remember 'Isobar' ? I worked on that for almost a year before the entire thing was shelved...That was one of the first times I remember a studio spending tens of millions and never getting to production....lol

 

I wouldn't say I'm in the know, but I'm definitely not ignorant about it. Crimson Skies is another one, Spielberg was tied to for a while (and a movie my friend turned down), but I think, I'm spacing, but that other 'artsy' movie that had Gwenyth Paltrow in it, stylized with giant robots, similar style as Crimson Skies killed off any hope of CS getting made.

I greenlit Johnny Mnemonic as a video game. Dumb, I know, but when I greenlit it, it was starring Val Kilmer in it (then eventually Johnny Depp was tied to it) and sounded really cool. When they announced finally the last change would be Keanu, I was like "kill it! kill it!"

 

slightly off topic, I know...

has anyone used iTunes as a first-release for a movie? i.e. instead of straight-to-video/DVD, straight-to-iTunes?

while some musicians have had a lot of success using iTunes as their venue to stardom, for the most part it hasn't revolutionized music. In some ways, it has made the corporation-controlled, one-hit-wonder nature of pop music worse.

 

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and I was involved in it peripherally...lol

Johnny Mnemonic was a hit on paper w Kilmer or Depp...cant kick yourself for that one.

I bet BIG TIME on Chronicles of Riddick....Vin was huge..Twohy had a good track record...great script (that was later butchered to get the running time down) .

lost my ASSSSSSS on that bet

 

Good question I dont know the answer to.

I would think if someone had done it successfully there would be a stampede to do it from indies...but nothing like that going on. We are all still waiting

 

Okay, so in a movie, who would play Leisure Suit Larry and who would play Tawni...?

 

I want to know who would play Frogger...

 

Smeagol

 

It was, even the folks at Id Software are not proud of it but by far this has to be the worst. (Anyone here want to admit they had something to do with this?)
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I helped out a few days making the Yoshi puppet. But I cant take the blame...