V-ism

I can confirm that Mindfire Entertainment, those that brought you the House of the Dead movie, has Dead or Alive on their slate of crappy movies in development.

I also heard something about Max Payne and Halo being made into movies, but it's really just talks.

finbogg

A better question might be: Has there ever been a decent movie made from a video game?

I can't think of any.

edstein

I would consider Mortal Kombat decent. Mortal Kombat II, now that was some real crap.

Not A N00b

I enjoyed Resident Evil quite a bit.

WOWZY

Yeah I forgot about that.

RocShemp

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was decent for what it was. Though I really want to know if it's true that it was some "genius" at Square Pictures that came to the conclusion that Americans (and all other non-Japanese people I suppose) don't like fantasy and chose to make it Sci-Fi without any market research whatsoever. If it's true, I hope s/he was fired. Why make a movie based on FF for North American audiences if you don't think they like fantasy.

Aside from that, as a previous poster mentioned, it did have elements of Final Fantasy (a character named Sid, Earth is alive, magic - in this case spirituality- versus technology)but would have been much better had it been done along the lines of that alternate opening sfeatured on the DVD. Aki's narration is totally different (and a lot more interesting) and in a way it made me think of the magitech armor of Final Fantasy VI.

Still, the film managed to keep me entertained so I suppose it was decent enough.

And the first Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil were both enjoyable videogame to movie adaptations.

finbogg

I agree, Final Fantasy:Spirits Within was a good movie (or at least I enjoyed it. But I would argue that this is not a movie made from a game since it has little or nothing to do with any of the Final Fantasy games. The only thing it has in common with the games is the title and that fact that Square made it. Personally, that disqualifies it for me.

Now, Mortal Kombat I can't judge since I haven't seen it, but I can say that Resident Evil was mediocre at best. The games do a much better job of establishing mood and story than this movie does. Mila Jovavich is the only thing that makes that movie worth watching.

RocShemp

In a way I have to agree with you on Final Fantasy . It wasn't actually based on any of the games and therefor doesn't count as a video game based movie. But it shares enough elements with the Final Fantasy games to be considered another story in the everchanging FF Universe. It's just a story that never made its way to becoming a game.

And if that's how you felt about Resident Evil you will not like Mortal Kombat . it has a very thin plot. It's a lot of fun (Raiden and Johnny Cage are portrayed very well by Christopher Lambert and Linden Ashby) but doesn't have a lot of "meat" to it. But whatever you do, avoid the pathetic sequel at all costs. I hear they Threshold still plans to make a third film and Ed Boon and John Tobias have actually blamed the second instalments many failing on New Line Cinema. Last I heard they were having an online vote as to which character should bite it in the third film (apparently title Mortal Kombat Domination) and there was talk of Christopher Lambert returning to play Raiden (but I'm not sure about the veracity of any of this).

rfduncan

I actually will admit that I enjoyed Tomb Raider. It definitely kept the backgrounds of the original game's characters and had an interesting storyline...

RocShemp

As hated as it is, I actually enjoyed Wing Commander even though the Kilrathi looked liked shaved cats that were put in the microwave too long. But the film was really hurt by not having an ending and apparently there was a whole subplot that explains that Captain Sansky and Admiral Wilson were traitors resultin in Wilson dueling to the death with Blair and Sansky hanging himself (explaining why the hell he suddenly disappeared from the film). Supposedly these scenes and several others were cut cos the Kilrathi looked so crappy. But considering how bad they looked in the few scenes they did show, they should just have left them in as the film would have made better sense.

RocShemp

Tomb Raider felt like a Sinbad movie so I enjoyed it. But didn't the director say the DVD was going to feature a re-edited version of the film (though not a director's cut)? What I saw was identical to the theatrical cut. What happened?

Also, anyone have any idea how the card game deleted scene was supposed to fit into the movie?

V-ism

I believe I heard some mumbo jumbo about making Duke Nukem into a movie as well.

RocShemp

I heard about that too. In fact, wasn't there a thread here (or was it Movie Talk?) once about the Rock supposedly being tapped for the role of Duke?

Oh yeah, there's an unofficial live-action Tekken movie called The Avenging Fist starring Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. I have this movie and it really has nothing to do about the game but that's because the movie went into production without having secured the rights to the game from Namco and when Namco caught wind of this they sued the hell out of them and they were forced not only to change the original title (The Legend of Tekken) but apparently they also had to change most of the plot and pay a sum unkown to me as per Namco's terms. What's left is a weird jumble of different genres that features characters that have a passing resemblance to Howaorang(sp?) and Kazama but the plot does not relate to any of the games.

Last I heard, as a result of this fiasco, Namco decided to start production of an "official" Tekken movie and were reportedly attempting to sign on Jackie Chan in a starring role (Lei perhaps?).

Also, as I had mentioned in a previous reply, Namco and Sammo Hung were in negociations to film a movie based on Soul Calibur which Sammo Hung was expected to not only direct but also star in (as who, I have no idea). Reportedly Namco was also trying to sign on Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao to get "the three brothers" back on screen for the first time in I don't know how many years. The budget was $50 million US. As to what happened to this project is anyone's guess. IMBD claims the film was to be released in 2002 and some fan sites claim the film was to begin production in 2003.

RocShemp

Seeing the thread about American McGee's OZ reminded me that for a while Wes Craven was set to direct a movie based on American McGee's Alice. I remember reading (in IMDB and some other website) that some young Canadian girl (apparently experienced in thatre but a newcomer to film, if memory serves) was cast in the role of Alice. Anyone know if this project is still underway?

V-ism

On Wes Craven's official website, Alice is listed as the only project he's working on. I don't know too much about it, except that it's supposed to be CG animated.

Here's the Duke Nukem official movie website: http://www.dukenukemthemovie.com/

RocShemp

I'm not too sure I like the idea of it being all CG as it'd really hurt the runtime. CG animated films rarely make it past 90 minutes (with the exception of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and even then it was just barely if you exclude the end credits). Even though that's not necessarily a bad thing (sans cend credits Dark City was only 90 minutes and it was damn good with the only flaw being the opening narration) it does limit the amount of time they'll have to tell a well thought out story.I just hope whoever is hired to write the script keeps that in mind while s/he is typing down the story.

RoQuEr

hmm will dukenukem have to pay royalties to the evil dead writers? They only stole every other line......

RocShemp

I doubt it. If that were the case Sam Raimi and his brother (not Ted but the one who's a doctor) would have been getting royalties ever since the first Duke Nukem game. Besides, it's not like they ever bothered to copyright the actual lines (is that even possible?).

El Gray

No, it was just a matter of poor timing. I think the movie was delayed due to suckiness, and the GBA game had already dropped several months before.

RocShemp

According to a DVD review at this site, The Final Encounter starring Dean Cain (very crappy movie BTW) was based on a videogame called Warhammer. That game sounds vaguely familiar. Anyone here played it and seen the movie to know if there's any truth to this claim?

mikehunt

which one? 3, 4, or 5 as those games were basically a movie where you occasionally flew a mission. Seriously, although it's been a while, I think those games had more full motion video in them than game play. The movie had some issues, but stayed fairly close to the overall plot from the games, although they made Paladin a frenchman instead of a scott

El-Kabong

Shame, shame, shame on you all. How could you possably forget about the Henry Thomas / Dabney Coleman masterpiece: Cloak and Dagger!





True the movie didnt have the same story as the game, but the arcade game was featured PROMINANTLY as a key plot point, and they stold the name of the game for the name of the movie. Funny how they managed to emulate an arcade game onto a NES cart. Mame ahead of it's time, it would seem.

CreatureX

But we already have the movies Aliens and Starship Troopers where Halo "borrowed" many of its ideas from.

mookiemeister

I just checked IMDB and it looks like there will be a new movie coming out based on the game, Alone in the Dark.

Lethal Nemesis

It already came out. It's called "Scarface."