VideoGameMovies Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As is often the case with the translation of any geek property to the screen, this Friday's release of Max Payne seems to elicit just as many hopes and doubts as one would expect from a big-screen adaptation of a popular video game (well, one not directed by Uwe Boll, that is). So, coming from a position of relative ignorance when it comes to most titles (trust me, my PS2 gathers more dust than yours does), what's the current reading from fans on a film proudly rated PG-13, although based on a series of M-rated games?

And for which upcoming projects are you most hopeful: Halo -- that is, with or without Peter Jackson? Gore Verbinski's BioShock? Jerry Bruckheimer's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time? (And just when is The Rock's Spy Hunter coming out anyway? Do you care?) (Should I?)

As for my fellow ignorati: does this look to you like an appealing action movie regardless? Which video-game movies worked best despite your lack of familiarity with the source material? My vote goes to the first Resident Evil, with some moderate supporting love going to Silent Hill and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within -- no great blasphemy intended.

Oh, and just to keep things jumping, any thoughts on the following titles, or any left out, are more than welcome: DOA: Dead or Alive, Doom, Double Dragon, Hitman, the Mortal Kombat films, Street Fighter, Super Mario Brothers, the Tomb Raider franchise, Wing Commander.

In a rather unexpected box office shift, MGM has announced their plan to move the video game-to-movie adaptation Dead Or Alive from the middle of this month until the first part of December. Typically, a move such as this one is done for a high profile movie with major monetary expectations from the studio. DOA will now be bringing its sexy-female-fighters-on-an-exotic-island plot into direct competition with some of the biggest films of this half of the year.

Now I know there will always be a crowd for this style of movie -- particularly when it includes a beach volleyball scene* -- but I'm seriously baffled by the wisdom of this move. Common wisdom holds that video game movies tend to be poor box office performers, and this flick looks like it could very well live up to that proud tradition. Maybe MGM is hoping if they throw it into the middle of the holiday season it'll tank quickly, and they can take it off the market in a hurry.

*Seriously, what the heck? If you, as a movie maker, feel the need to stick a beach volley ball game into the middle of your martial arts movie, maybe you need to reevaluate the direction of your flick. And if you, as a movie watcher, feel the need to go see a martial arts movie because it has a beach volley ball scene in it, maybe you need to get yourself some action. Of the non video game movie kind. I'm just sayin' ...

Much has been made of the coming Halo flick, particularly as the film with the most potential to finally break through the video-game-to-movie stigma and deliver unto us a great film based on a popular video game. This hope has taken another small setback, however, as the film's release date is rumored to have been bumped back into 2008 sometime. This has caused some to speculate that the anticipated film is locked up in what studios infamously call "development hell," a worrisome state indeed. The script still exists, and the studio (and Bungie) are still supposedly happy with it, so hope is certainly not lost yet. It's just wandering around wishing it had brought a map.

I continue to wonder about the wisdom of this film. Granted, it has an appreciable built-in audience base and a good premise for solid alien action -- but hey, so did AVP. Can the video game story line of Halo support a silver screen movie? I think the answer to is probably yes, as movies have been written on far, far worse story lines in the past. The question really lies with the studio, and whether they can bring us a desirable product.

What do you get when you mix Mission Impossible with Silent Hill? According to the people at Mindfire Entertainment, you get the Eidos videogame Fear Effect. And, apparently, box office gold. Following this unchallengeable logic, Mindfire has decided to option out the film rights on said video game, and they are currently in talks with director Stanley Tong to bring this monstrosity to life. The film plans to follow the storyline of the Playstation game, but instead of being set in an alternate reality, it will take place ten years into our own future. Mindfire CEO Mark Altman says he hopes to get the film together in time for a late 2007/early 2008 release, based on a screenplay by television scribe Steven Kriozere.

Okay, there are some real challengers out there these days hoping to break through the "videogames don't make good movies" barrier. Several big names with good stories, including the likes of Halo and Metal Gear, are being brought to the silver screen in hopes of finally turning the vast videogame market into a viable big screen option. I do not, however, think this film is the one to do it. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong. Fans, feel free to convince me this is a good idea -- I'm 100% willing to have my mind changed.

As we told you yesterday, Screen Gems has announced they will begin filming a $50 million dollar version of the popular fighting video game Tekken this fall. Dimension had originally picked up the rights to Tekken at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival but the film was dropped in the divorce to Disney. Didn't they learn anything from the Street Fighter and Mortal Combat movies? Fighting games don't translate well into a compelling movie plot. The script will be written by Face Off scribes Michael Colleary and Mike Werb, who are capible of turning out a good story. But I still tend to believe you can't make lemonade without the lemons. Mr. 3000/Drumline director Charles Stone III is also attached. At least it's not Paul WS Anderson (not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson) or Uwe Boll, who appears to be on a mission to ruin as many video game franchises as he possibly can. Why has nobody picked up the rights to a Zelda film yet?