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Is Gears of War another video-game movie that won't suck?
A film based on the sci-fi video game Gears of War went into development in 2007, less than a year after the game became a smash hit on Xbox 360, and producer Wyck Godfrey now tells us the film is close to production. He has a screenwriter and director on board: Underworld's Len Wiseman.
"It's moving along," Godfrey said last Friday in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he was promoting The Twilight Saga: New Moon. "Len Wiseman is involved. Chris Morgan did a rewrite. We're waiting for a draft."
Morgan wrote the screenplay for Wanted, and Wiseman also directed Live Free or Die Hard. Variety reported that Billy Ray has been hired to rewrite Morgan's script.
Wyck's priority is to get the script right: He knows making a good movie out of a popular video game is dangerous territory.
"Video games are hard because they don't have a story, usually," Godfrey said. "They have a concept and a world, and you really have to create the story, so that's been the thing we've been working on. We'll get there."
Gears of War is a third-person shooter in which players look over the character's shoulder; it is set on the planet Sera, where soldiers battle subterranean aliens called the Locust Horde.
By Bodybagphil at 11:33 AM ON 11/10/09
I cant wait until they make a movie out of World of Warcraft! That game has a serious background story.
By ???? at 11:50 AM ON 11/10/09
Can somebody say "Starship Troopers"???
By asfm at 12:24 PM ON 11/10/09
I really can't stand GoW. Very mediocre game, but it would translate very well to film.
I'd much rather see a Warhammer 40K film, which GoW is obviously riffing on, but a GoW film could be very enjoyable.
But I don't see any reason to expect it to be good. Resident Evil translates very well to film, and they butchered it. Doom could have translated well to film, and they butchered it. Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter... all of them.
It's not difficult to adapt a game. The problem is there is never any talent behind it. That's why people are making a big deal out of WarCraft - because there's talent behind it. If GoW has the talent, it can and probably will be a good film. The subject matter of the game itself is barely relevant in relation to the quality of the film. It's all about who's making it.
By seawalker at 12:26 PM ON 11/10/09
I wish someone would make a decent adaptation of Starship Troopers. Heinlein's novel was a lot more than just a "bug hunt". The movies were a damn travesty. They got almost nothing right.
By asfm at 12:29 PM ON 11/10/09
Bodybagphil, I can't actually tell if that's meant to be sarcasm, because you're wrong.
They aren't making a World of WarCraft film, they're making a WarCraft film. The WarCraft IP has been around since the early 90s, and it DOES have a serious background story.
There is a sprawling mythos that dates back, in some detail, to literally the creation of the planet. World of WarCraft is a spinoff of the sadly lesser known (though supremely popular within its own genre) WarCraft series of RTS games.
People keep namedropping World of WarCraft, but it's not a World of WarCraft film. It's not even called World of WarCraft. So I really hope you are joking.
By Bodybagphil at 12:54 PM ON 11/10/09
asfm, I was not even aware there was talks of a film for Warcraft. I was not joking, i was just wishing. Did not know it was actually being talked about. I was not specifically talk about "World of Warcraft" i was referring to the entire "Warcraft" series of games, which all lead into another, and all have the same background. I should know, i have played every Warcraft version out there, and have play WoW for 5 years now. I have even read every book and story in game.
By shadow at 2:10 PM ON 11/10/09
Who cares about Gears of War... make God of War!
By Vano75 at 5:09 PM ON 11/10/09
sod GOW, Warcraft and all that... Pacman is the way forward!!!!
By dummy at 10:10 AM ON 11/11/09
Get your facts right "Sci Fi" Wire. Of all venues, you'd think here they could get info in an article right. The Locust are not aliens, and it never really says that "Sera" is another planet, more like an empire, or region. The Locust were lost and secret experiments, gone very wrong, and rose to destroy civilization on "Emergence Day". I don't think the difficulty with making this movie will be lack of story, because had this author done his research, he/she would have seen that there is a very rich and deep story pertaining to Gears of War.
By Boybagphil at 10:37 AM ON 11/11/09
"The Locust were lost and secret experiments, gone very wrong, and rose to destroy civilization on "Emergence Day""
I would call that an alien and a bad guy....
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Boybagphil:
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