Hill Writing Just Cause: Scorpion Rising

Date December 13, 2011GamesToFilm Just Cause

Heat Vision is reporting that Bryan Edward Hill will write the Just Cause film which is now officially titled Just Cause: Scorpion Rising.

Hill is a comic writer who co-created the Image comic 7 Days From Hell, which is being adapted for the big screen. The comic proved to be Hill's entry into Hollywood as he was also hired to write teh film, selling a speculative script to Universal along the way. Hill also worked with Dolph Lundgren to write 2005's The Mechanik.

Producers Adrian Askarieh and Eric Eisner are developing the project. Touristas screenwriter Michael Ross turned in the first draft.

Square Enix, who also developed Tomb Raider and Hitman, released the Just Cause video game which focuses on a black ops agent codenamed the Scorpion (aka Rico Rodriguez) who enters a guerilla war to overthrow a dictator. Just Cause 2 was released earlier this year and sold more than 3.5 million copies with a third game currently in production.

Just Cause: Scorpion Rising will focus on the origin of the Scorpion as Rico Rodriguez becomes the secret operative.

Lara Croft Will Search for Parents in Reboot

Date December 1, 2011GamesToFilm Tomb Raider

Digital Spy talked to producer Graham King who is working through the Tomb Raider script and talking to directors for the reboot.

How far along are you with the Tomb Raider reboot?

We just got the script in now so we're going through that creatively and going through that creative process, bringing in directors to talk to. Then I get that horrible job of sitting with 25-30 young girls that want to play Lara Croft.

Poor guy. What lessons do you think could be learned from the first two Tomb Raider films?

For me it's re-inventing the wheel a bit, it's a reboot. We're going back before she was Lara Croft, so it's a much more emotional character piece. She's in search of her parents. I think there's a lot. One of my favorite movies of this year was Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the way they rebooted that franchise. I thought it was fantastic and took a lot away from that for Tomb Raider. It shows you that you can go anywhere with it.

The script was written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, who also wrote Iron Man and Cowboys & Aliens.

David R. Ellis Reviving Clock Tower Adaptation

Date November 28, 2011GamesToFilm Clock Tower

Through Bloody Disgusting, Maria Lewis is reporting that David R. Ellis is on board to direct Clock Tower, bringing the project out of Development Hell.

Ellis describes the film as a "cool" supernatural horror. "Clock Tower is about a spirit force that takes over peoples bodies and makes them do really horrific things," he said. "It kind of goes from body to body searching for people with an elevated heartbeat. At the right time it gets in there and people go crazy and start killing other people. It's really well written and it's going to be a lot of fun."

The project has been in development for years and concerns a young woman who receives a disturbing phone call from her estranged mother warning her not to come home. When she investigates, she uncovers a terrible supernatural truth from her past.

Clock Tower currently has a 2012 release but with Kite and The Briar Lake Murders also on the director's schedule, I wouldn't expect a rush on the video game adaptation. Ellis's other credits include Shark Night 3D, Cellular, Final Destination 2 and Snakes on a Plane.

Martin Weisz in 2008, Eric Valette in 2007 and Jorge Olguin in 2006 have all been previously attached as directors. For a full report on the film's progress to date, check out the GamesToFilm progress report.

Origin Story of Lara in Tomb Raider Reboot

Date November 20, 2011GamesToFilm Tomb Raider

Superhero Hype talked to producer Graham King who said the upcoming reboot will focus on the origin of Lara Croft, just like the new game.

"Listen, the box office, they weren't disasters but I find it interesting that the story that we're telling is really the story before she became Lara Croft, so it is a character piece. It does have a lot of really great characters, but it's a lot of action and a lot of fun, and for me, it's something very different. I've not really done a movie like that before, but I really gravitated to rebooting this franchise and we're going to give it a shot."

The rebooted film with Lara's origin story sounds similar to the new video game in terms of focusing on the character and how she came to be the Tomb Raider we all know from the earlier games. Once a director is announced, the project should gain momentum beyond casting rumors of Olivia Wilde.

King also produced In the Land of Blood & Honey, Angelina Jolie's directorial debut. Jolie previously played Lara Croft in the first two Tomb Raider films.

New Line Bringing Rampage to the Big Screen

Date November 17, 2011GamesToFilm Misc News

Heat Vision is reporting that New Line Cinema is adapting Rampage, the 1986 arcade game featuring three giant creatures destroying cities.

John Rickard will produce and is meeting with writers to develop a story for the project. Rickard's previous credits include co-producing Jack the Giant Killer, Final Destination 5, Horrible Bosses, Hall Pass and 2010's A Nightmre on Elm Street.

Midway Games, which was acquired by New Line's sister company Warner Bros. in 2009, owned the rights to Rampage. New Line plans to use CGI to make a smartly-budgeted monster movie with comparisons to Ghostbusters and Independence Day.

The concept of the game revolves around a trio of mild-mannered humans who are mutated into a giant Godzilla-like lizard named Lizze, a werewolf named Ralph and a gorilla named George who fight the military while destroying buildings. The Atari Lynx port added a special fourth character named Larry, a giant rat. Players controlled the monsters and moved up levels when a city was destroyed.

Along with the multiple console ports, the game also received a sequel titled Rampage: World Tour. Rampage 2: Universal Tour, Rampage Through Time, Rampage Puzzle Attack and Rampage: Total Destruction all followed.

Jovovich on Resident Evil Set in Leather Costume

Date November 15, 2011GamesToFilm Resident Evil: Retribution

The Daily Mail posted a few photos of Milla Jovovich on the Resident Evil: Retribution set wearing a tight leather costume.

The film is currently shooting in Toronto.

Ken Levine: No Rush for BioShock Film

Date November 14, 2011GamesToFilm BioShock

Industry Gamers asked BioShock creator and Irrational Games head Ken Levine about the film adaptation which is quickly losing steam.

In May, Levine said the movie was still on the minds of Irrational Games but that the timing wasn't right so focus has shifted back to the game.

"We got very close to having it get made – we had a deal in place and a director. But for us there's no burning [desire] to have a movie made just to get it made. For us and for Take-Two, it's really got to be something that will a) give the fans something that they want, and b) for those who don't know BioShock, really introduce them to something that is consistent with the game, and is it going to be a good representation of the game."

"There are differences between games and movies, no doubt, but the movie has to draw from the same DNA in terms of the world and the story beats. But you know, we don't have a need to get it made."

With no rush to get the project made, BioShock has entered a realm that many GamesToFilm adaptations get stuck in - Development Hell.

How Tea and Rewrites Factored into Super Mario Bros.

Date November 10, 2011GamesToFilm Misc News

The Guardian talked to producer Roland Joffé about the events behind Super Mario Bros. and how tea played a vital role.

In 1991, producer Roland Joffé made a trip to Japan to secure the movie rights to Super Mario Bros. by persuading Nintindo president Hiroshi Yamauchi with boxes of tea over a 10-day courtship. "It was an expensive process. Though not as expensive as if we were the likes of Paramount or Disney with $5m to spend on the rights." Joffé's offer began at just $500,000, rising to $2 million, with the promise he wouldn't do "a sweet, little lovey-dovey story." Nintendo ignored the studios' offers and signed away creative control to the producer. "They looked at the movie as some sort of strange creature, [intrigued] to see if we could walk or not."

Joffé and his directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, co-creators of the TV show Max Headroom, wanted Mario to grow up. Shooting in a cement factory in Wilmington, North Carolina, the film follows Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi as they are transported to an alternative universe ruled by humanoid dinosaurs. "This wasn't Snow White and the Seven Dinosaurs. The dino world was dark. We didn't want to hold back," continued Joffé.

When major distributors flew in to the set to hammer out a deal for the movie, they were shocked by what they saw. There were extras playing streetwalkers, fetish outfits and monsters that looked like rejects from Tod Browning's Freaks. The distributors didn't write any checks and a 10-day rewrite was ordered. Morton said, "[The producers] changed the material to accommodate the comments that were coming back from the studios, which was: this was supposed to be a kids' movie."

Calmed by the script changes, Disney-owned Hollywood Pictures purchased the distribution rights. However, when the script reached the cast and crew, the diretors considered walking out and rebelling. "We thought, maybe as we're shooting we can steer it and make it into the film we wanted," said Morton. "We were wrong: we were unable to do that and it became a huge mess." A Los Angeles Times article detailed the on-set problems which ended with box office failure. "We were like lepers in Hollywood. To this day people say: 'You did Super Mario Bros? Oh God.' It was 20 years ago, but it's still there. What can you do?"

"Yamauchi correctly saw that we had a tiger by the tail," said Nintendo's former US head of sales and marketing Peter Main. "He was very adamant that we stay tightly focused on video games, without being distracted with other 'leverage opportunities'." Super Mario Bros. 3 earned $500 million in the US alone and Nintendo stuck with what they know best.

Despite the film's failure, Joffé never saw the tea again. "It was an interesting and rich artefact and has earned its place. It has strange cult status." He never heard what Yamauchi made of it. "They never phoned up to complain. Nintendo were very polite. I'm sure they had their own feelings, but they never sent the tea back."

Since Mario Bros., no other Nintendo property has found its way back into movie theaters.

New Screenwriter Hired for Asteroids

Date November 9, 2011GamesToFilm Asteroids

Heat Vision is reporting that Universal Pictures has hired Evan Spiliotopoulos to write the screenplay for Asteroids, replacing Matthew Lopez on the project.

The plot was most recently described as:

The remnants of human civilization are living on far-flung colonies within an asteroid belt alongside aliens. The survivors were led to believe that this alien civilization was benevolent, rescuing them from doom, but ultimately discover that the aliens have engineered Earth's destruction, and soon will do the same for the rest of humankind.

Spiliotopoulos' other credits include Snow White and the Huntsman and Charles Fort, both set up at Universal. In 2007, the screenwriter produced Battle for Terra, an animated film featuring a similar plot. When the planet of Terra is targeted by humans as a suitable replacement for Earth, an inhabitant named Mala plans to stop the alien threat from taking over her home world. The humans' plan of a hostile invasion includes a device which will turn Terra into a habitable environment for themselves but poison the native Terrians in the process. More about the film can be found at IMDB with an official site and trailer being available here.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing the project with Roland Emmerich possibly in the director's chair.

Facebook Game Monster Galaxy Becoming Animated Film

Date November 7, 2011GamesToFilm Misc News

IGN is reporting that Gaia Interactive and Radar Pictures will turn Monster Galaxy, a popular Facebook game, into an animated feature film.

Radar selected Gaia's Monster Galaxy based on the artistic visuals and the ongoing success of the game. Monster Galaxy has reigned as a top 10 game on the Facebook platform for a consecutive six months, peaking at over 15 million users per month. The game attracted a similar following when it was launched on the mobile platform in September 2011.

The movie promises to bring fans a similar aesthetic, bringing its unique "Moga" characters' rich story and charming artwork to the big screen, while leveraging Radar Pictures' vast experience in the movie industry and Gaia Interctive's place among active social gaming communities.

Radar's owner Ted Field has produced over 60 movies that have generated nearly $7 billion in revenue, including The Last Samurai, Jumanji, Pitch Black and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

"Gaia has always been focused on offering our highly-creative user base a fun, social environment to share their interests," said Mike Sego, CEO of Gaia Interactive. "When Radar Pictures approached us about turning Monster Galaxy into a film, it seemed like a perfect fit for our goal of entertaining a broader audience. From Gaia Online, to Facebook, to mobile – and now into a movie – we're thrilled to be expanding the Monster Galaxy experience to a wider audience."

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