Instead of paying attention to my group members today during a project meeting, I decided to surf IMDB, looking for the oh-so-wonderful video game movies. All in all, I’ve dug up 17 movies, along with a little summary. Go grab some tissues so that you can cry your eyes out about how your favorite games are being bastardized. I now present to you some upcoming video game movies.
Probability of Suck:Moderately Low
American McGee’s Alice is getting the big screen treatment. We have Sarah Michelle Gellar set to play Alice, and the director is Marcus Nispel. Nispel’s debut into Hollywood films was 2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. His next movie, Pathfinder, is to be released soon (trailer looks good). The screenplay is being writter by two brothers, neither of whom have writing experience. Unfortunately, I’ve never gotten to play through the game, although I’ve heard and read plenty about it. If this director has improved in the quality of his filmmaking, then I’ll have some faith in this movie being made.
Probability of Suck: Very High
Is Carmen Sandiego really worth turning into a movie title? I guess I can see this title working as a mystery, but there really isn’t much else here apart from the title and the red trenchcoat. I don’t expect this to get anywhere beyond development hell, and sit on a shelf for years to come. If it does get made, I expect it to visit extravagant places around the world, and end up flopping because of a third rate story.
Probability of Suck: Very High
Here’s a title coming to us from the writer/director of Alien Vs. Predator, Resident Evil, and Mortal Kombat. With Castlevania being a solid and well constructed game, I think it’ll fail in this director’s hands. He’s used to showing games that are all about mindlessly beating the crap out of each other or trying to eradicate your enemies with guns or an assortment of other weapons.
Probability of Suck: Unknown
It’s restricted to those who have IMDB pro, which I am not a part of. Never played the games either, but wanted to let people know that it’s apparently out there.
Dead or Alive *comes out Oct. 20 in US*
Probability of Suck: Almost Certain
Historically, fighting game movies aren’t that good (remember Street Fighter?). Dead or Alive is certainly no different. With a rating of 4.1, this film from the director of The Transporter seems like it’ll be a mindless beat-em-up that’ll probably be a bane for the video game community.
Probability of Suck: Bet on It
Directed by Uwe Boll. Next.
Probability of Suck: Moderate
I can’t really judge how good/bad of a story Fear Effect had. I threw the game into my closet after five minutes, because of trying to struggle with the controls and failing. Hard. The director is one I am unfamiliar with. It seems that he’s done a lot of work in Chinese cinema, but nothing horribly famous (Coolio was in one of his more recent films, though). The writer, on the other hand, gave us the beauty known as House of the Dead, and House of the Dead 2 (a TV Movie, I guess?). I’m giving the game the benefit of the doubt, and hoping it had a good story.
Probability of Suck: Low
While this is the director’s first feature-length film, he’s had plenty of experience in 3-D animation and special effects. I think he should be able to come up with a decent enough vision as to how the Halo world will look. Also, one of the writers did 28 Days Later, which I rather enjoyed. Plus, he’ll have Peter Jackson as the Executive Producer. That job title doesn’t mean much, though. It just means that he’s involved tangentially in the film, but they want his name attached to the product.
Probability of Suck: Moderately Low
So, we have Vin Diesel as Agent 47. Rest of the announced team is pulling experience from Swordfish, Die Hard 1&2, and the X-Men series. Depending on who the director ends up being, that could bring it up quite a bit in terms of its potential suckage. I’ve never been partial to playing the Hitman series, but I think there’s a good chance for this to be a decent movie.
Probability of Suck: Very High
The writers have no real experience writing movies, so that’s a big strike against them. Their work includes Arnold Schwarzenegger: A Popumentary. Also, I don’t particularly like World of Darkness (as an RPG system). It’s way too emo. So, expect this movie to be no better than Underworld.
Probability of Suck: Very High
Ugh. One of the producers bulk of work has been in pornography. The writer’s only other work has been a script in 1995 that got a 2.1/10. The other producer and executive producer are working on Alice. While Max Payne had a story, I have a feeling this is gonna get butchered.
Probability of Suck: Bet on It
Let’s start off with this: the director uses a fake name: “mink”. His 2nd film (also his most recent) was Steven Segal’s “Into The Sun”. I have a feeling this is going to blow harder than Uwe Boll’s work. If that is even possible.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Probability of Suck: Moderately Low
This gives me mixed feelings on the fact that there are two writers. First is the guy who actually wrote the script for the game, which is a good thing. Second, we have the writer for “The Day After Tomorrow”. Then, we have Jerry Bruckheimer working as Executive Producer. Y’know, the guy who’s name is attached to Pirates of the Carribean and a whole host of other films? I think this film will end up doing OK. I’ll be interested in seeing who gets the job as director.
Probability of Suck: Very High
The first one was bad, the second one was atrocious. This one doesn’t look much better. It’s the same writer, and a new director. The majority of his work seems to come from music videos, and so I expect this to be blaring with bad MTV music. Ashanti is attached to this film as well, as though she’s supposed to bring credibility to it.
Probability of Suck: Low
Tom Clancey is going to be a part of this project, which bodes well. Then we have the scriptwriter for the video game, another plus. We have another screenwriter who has done The Sum of All Fears and The Manchurian Candidate. Finally, we have the director of Friday Night Lights. Overall, this cast that’ll be working on the film makes me say that it’ll be good. While I didn’t enjoy the Splinter Cell games, I did think that the story was nice. So, I hope this’ll turn out well.
Probability of Suck: Moderate
I was expecting this to have a crappy crew attached to it, but I was somewhat wrong. One of the writers does a bunch of comic movies (X2&3, Fantastic 4, Avengers), and the other one did the screenplay for the Pirates of the Carribean movies. Starring in this film is the Rock, though. I like him in a comedic situation, especially when he was on SNL, but not so much as a pure action hero. Yet, isn’t this the game where you just drive as a car, fighting off other cars trying to derail you? Seems kinda like Carmen Sandiego here…
Probability of Suck: Very High
The director is that of “Mr. 3000” and “Drumline”. The writer did “Tomb Raider”. A winning pair we have here for a fighting game movie. I expect this to be on the people’s lists of top 10 worst video games.
