Clearly A 'Gamer' Movie
 

Is it me, or are there a lot of writers in Hollywood who play role-playing games?

A lot of the recent vampire films seem to borrow a lot from the White Wolf World of Darkness milieu. John Carpenter's Vampires, Blade I & II, Wolf... all seem to use elements from the WOD line. And a lot of the plot points from movies like Swordfish borrow from games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun.

Other movies these days seem to have a lot of super-powerful characters banding together to go after a big heist... with personalities so contrasting that you can almost see a dice-wielding GM hiding behind a referee screen saying, "OK, so you're all relaxing at a bar when you see a tall skinny man nail a notice to a wall that says, 'WANTED -- Adventurers to Seek Long Lost Artifact'".

Desperado reminded me of that kind of scene, as did Oceans 11 and of course Predator. Does anyone else know what I am talking about?

Re: Clearly A 'Gamer' Movie
 

Those have been movie/story staples since long before RPG's were around. Those archetypes have probably been around as long as story telling itself.

As for Hollywood borrowing directly from specific games, it's possible. Keep in mind though that those games aren't 100% original themselves, the originality of the game comes from taking all the pieces and creating a playable game out of it. The objects, personalities, etc. are all borrowed or inspired by previous sources as much as any other creative work. I'd like to see Shadowrun if Gibson never published a book.

The Blade movies were based on a comic book that came out before Gary Gygax ever put a dungeon and a dragon together, and Oceans 11 is a remake of a rat pack film. Like renaldow said, everything is borrowing from everything else, RPGs included.

del Toro does admit that in Blade II he was inspired by Doom or some such shooter game, and mimics it in the opening fight scene.

Re: Clearly A 'Gamer' Movie
 

No.

Arcade and Hackers are my favorites.

Someone needs a wedgie.