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The Sandbox: Five Rules for Making a Decent Video Game Adaptation

23 October 2009 11:08 AM, PDT | ifc.com | See recent IFC news »

For the past 20 years or so, Hollywood has seemed intent on proving that video games aren't fit to be cinematic source material. How else to explain the dismal quality of the average game-to-film adaptation? But games and movies aren't inherently incompatible, provided that directors use some common sense when heading down that treacherous adaptation path. Here's my list of five guidelines that, if followed to the letter, should help future filmmakers succeed where so many before them have stumbled.

1. Costume changes are okay.

As with comics, video game heroes are often defined by their distinctive get-ups. And in certain instances -- like Lara Croft's snug spelunking short-shorts and T-shirt -- those outfits are capable of making a relatively easy transition to the silver screen. But the rest of the time, keeping a little too close to a game character's clothing makes it impossible to take the material seriously.

I mean, »

- Nick Schager

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Screenwriter couriered C.O.D. check by Paramount

21 October 2009 7:58 AM, PDT | Corona's Coming Attractions | See recent Corona's Coming Attractions news »

Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth has been hired by Paramount Pictures to rewrite C.O.D., an action-thriller that currently doesn't have a director attached to it. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter (because that's what they do, report on stuff), C.O.D. is about a NYC bike courier who has to deliver three live bombs or else another will go off and take out his family. Why can't terrorists just pay bike couriers like everyone else? I guess that's part of what makes them bad guys.

DreamWorks bought the C.O.D. script in March 2008. When Dw split from Paramount, one of the projects that Paramount got custody of was C.O.D. The original script was written by Lars Jacobson. Barry Josephson (Bones, Aliens in the Attic) and former movie executive assistant Neal Flaherty are producing.

Ellsworth got his screenwriting career off to a start with a produced episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was followed »

- Patrick Sauriol

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Giving The 'A Boy And His Blob' Treatment

14 October 2009 7:00 AM, PDT | MTV Multiplayer | See recent MTV Multiplayer news »

This week, WayForward is releasing their remake of David Crane’s single most bizarre game, "A Boy and His Blob." They’ve taken Crane’s bizarre and unforgiving original and recast it as a whimsical, tender cartoon about a kid and his alien pal. If early reviews are to be believed, it's a winning revision. "A Boy and His Blob" is a good model for preserving Crane’s legacy. His originals are simply too strange and cumbersome to play today, so why not remake and re-imagine them for today’s audience? Here are some ideas on where to start.

"Freeway"

For anyone unfamiliar, "Freeway" was one of the first Atari 2600 games ever made and it attempted to answer why the chicken crossed the road. The answer is pretty much what you’d expect. It hasn’t, as you can imagine given its vintage, aged particularly well. That’s why "Freeway »

- John Constantine

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Shou among Angels

12 October 2009 7:53 PM, PDT | JoBlo.com | See recent JoBlo news »

The guys behind Ong Bak are tired of having to dub their movies for international release, so they're gonna make one in English with another martial-arts butt kicker, Robin Shou. Where have you been since Mortal Kombat? Oh wait, that question kind of answers itself... Director Prachya Pinkaew joins forces again with stunt coordinator Panna Rittikrai for City Of Angels, which really should get itself another title; I can think of two other films using it that I wish to hell I hadn't seen.... »

- Tony Lang

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Jarrett Lee Conaway's - Turbo (Short Film)

8 October 2009 6:44 PM, PDT | Latemag.com/film | See recent LateFilmFull news »

In the spirit of Tron Legacy and Gamer comes Jarrett Lee Conaway's Turbo. A short film that combines the the feel good charm of the classic The Karate Kid with near future science fiction. It tells the story of Hugo Park (Justin Chon, Twilight) a misspent youth whose only outlet for angst is a 4D fighting videogame called “Super Turbo Arena”. When Pharaoh King (Jocko Sims, Crash the Series), the Michael Jordan of cyber-sports, announces a tournament to determine who will join his pro-team, Hugo sets his eyes on the prize. But, Hugo isn't the only gamer who wants fame and glory. If Hugo wants to win he's going to have to beat Shamus (David Lehre, Epic Movie), the all time Turbo champ at the local Pandemonium arcade, and Ruse Kapri, a feisty prep girl that knows how to win. Realizing he can't win on his skill alone, Hugo »

- Leigh

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The Flash Game? Oh, What Could Have Been.

8 October 2009 12:54 PM, PDT | Beyond Hollywood | See recent Beyond Hollywood news »

Playing The Flash on “Mortal Kombat versus D.C. Universe” is nice, but let’s face it, when all the Flash gets to do is run around the screen punching people in the back and what have you, it’s not really the Flash. So what would a game built around the Flash character be like? MTV ran across this video on YouTube that purports to the early stages of the Flash game before the project was canceled. I don’t know if it’s real, and neither does MTV, but it certainly looks good. Picture it with more details, more complex movements, and better environments… According to the guy who posted it on YouTube: “When our publisher Brash folded we were about 6 months into full production with about a year still to go on the game so please excuse the roughness of how it looks at this stage. A »

- Nix

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First Footages from the King of Fighters Movie

8 October 2009 9:22 AM, PDT | Beyond Hollywood | See recent Beyond Hollywood news »

Are we dealing with a “Dragonball” situation here? I don’t know, that’s up to you kids to decide. But here’s your first look at some behind-the-scenes footage from Gordon Chan’s upcoming “King of Fighters” (via YouTube). The movie is based on the popular videogame of the same name, and is headlined by Maggie Q. and Ray Park. It’s apparently about a bunch of people who goes to a parallel dimension where they compete in fighting tournaments and try to take down an evil tyrant played by Ray Park. Or something. I’m not sure how the CIA guy fits in there, though. It’s all very confusing, but then again, it is a movie based on a game, so I don’t suppose people were expecting grand storytelling. If anything, it looks and feels a lot like the “Mortal Kombat” movies, where the storyline is »

- Nix

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Spanish Pandorum Poster

2 October 2009 10:08 AM, PDT | JoBlo.com | See recent JoBlo news »

As if we hadn't already shown you enough posters for Pandorum. Here's another one! But in Spanish! The poster is not a visually grabbing as the others, but it's not all bad. As for the movie, if Paul W.S. Anderson has anything to do with it, it's generally watchable. Usually though you only view his movies a couple of times unless it's Resident Evil, or in my case, Mortal Kombat. Our own Chris Bumbray was not terribly amazed with the film however. He could have summed it up in a couple... »

- Niki Stephens

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The Claustrophobic Cinema of Paul (W.S.) Anderson

24 September 2009 12:13 PM, PDT | ifc.com | See recent IFC news »

The old Hollywood studio-hand W.S. Van Dyke -- who directed, amongst countless other things, "The Thin Man" -- once advised a young Orson Welles to "just keep it close, and keep it moving." And an unlikely inheritor of this wisdom is Paul W.S. Anderson, whose latest work to hit screens is this week's "Pandorum," which he executive produced, leaving the directing to German up-and-comer Christian Alvart. Rivaled only by Uwe Boll for the title of worst-reviewed director of the past decade, Anderson's also been one of the most resourceful. Working with the flimsiest material (video game adaptations and remakes) in the least respectable of genres (sci-fi, horror), he's managed to construct a remarkably coherent body of work. With his longtime producer Jeremy Bolt and a loose coterie of actors, he's created a series of films that focus on the expressiveness of claustrophobic spaces and the physical grace of his (mainly) female protagonists. »

- R. Emmet Sweeney

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9 Review

9 September 2009 4:43 AM, PDT | Atomic Popcorn | See recent Atomic Popcorn news »

How does one begin to approach a film they wanted to like?

Before viewing 9, the film had a lot of things in it’s favor, the first being absolutely stunning visuals. That looked to be aided by a strong, possibly original premise about a stitchpunk (my gamer side tells me to stick to “Sackboy”) being the key to humanity’s salvation. Factor in that Tim Burton’s producing, as well as Timur Bekmambetov who dazzled screens with Wanted, and you have what should be a pretty decent animated film.

9 makes sure you know it’s not going to be decent midway through. The plot borrows from every story ever written or filmed about the unlikely hero who is the savior of the universe. Understandably, the trailers did hint that this would be the central driving force but they also pretended that 9 was going to do something interesting with it. It doesn’t, »

- Philip Barrett

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'Gamer' Has Got Game, But These Other Movies Do Not

4 September 2009 11:00 AM, PDT | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »

Contrary to popular belief, movie adaptations of popular video games haven’t been that terrible. “Double Dragon” wasn’t that great, but the rest? Yes, “Super Mario Bros.” was weird as hell, but look at the source material! Dennis Hopper ruling over a dystopian city by turning people into mushrooms isn’t a that much stranger than an 8-bit Italian plumber growing a raccoon tail and using it to fly. The “Street Fighter” movie –- the first one at least -– is one of cinema’s greatest works of camp. Fifty years from now, people will throw Uwe Boll festivals. He is our new Ed Wood. “Doom” had guns and those guns were used on monsters. “Hitman” let us see Olga Kurlyenko naked. See? It hasn’t been all that bad!

No, the problem is when movies treat video games as their subject, not their inspiration. For thirty years straight, »

- John Constantine

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The Three Musketeers To Get The 3D Treatment

2 September 2009 10:18 AM, PDT | ScreenRant.com | See recent Screen Rant news »

Will anything be safe from the 3D makeover? With the way things are going, it doesn’t look like it. We learn today that Paul W.S. Anderson (Death Race, Event Horizon) will direct a new adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers - in 3D no less. He has co-written the script with Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones’s Diary), a script which is said to “modernize” the musketeers.

Whether justified or not, “Oh dear…” is my first thought…

 

This new adaptation of The Three Musketeers can be assumed to have nothing to do with the one we heard about last June, which was planned at the time by Millenium Films. This one is being produced by Impact Pictures’ Jeremy Bolt and Constantin Film’s Robert Kulzer (both companies are financing the project), with Anderson himself co-producing.

There has been many-an-adaptation of The Three Musketeers over the years, with cinematic visions »

- Ross Miller

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A 3-D 'The Three Musketeers' Brings Together 'Resident Evil' And 'Bridget Jones's Diary' Filmmakers

2 September 2009 9:00 AM, PDT | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »

I wish I could say “Slumdog Millionaire” had a little something to do with this (remember what the kids called themselves), but Paul W. S. Anderson’s decision to adapt “The Three Musketeers” yet again for the big screen seems to be solely based on the fact that the title lends itself easily to the 3-D format. Expect it to be called “The 3-D Musketeers.”

It’s hard to see the appeal, even with the gimmick. I’m not sure many moviegoers are still interested in the swashbuckling trio and their pal d'Artagnan. It’s been a long time since Hollywood’s last take on the Alexandre Dumas classic. That version, starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris O’Donnell, and featuring a popular song by Sting, Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart, was anything but a blockbuster hit.

Five years later, another of Dumas’ Musketeers stories, “The Man in the Iron Mask, »

- Christopher Campbell

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The Pull List Comic Reviews: ‘Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter’, ‘28 Days Later’ & ‘Batman and Robin’

27 August 2009 8:00 AM, PDT | The Flickcast | See recent The Flickcast news »

Pull of the Week:

Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter #3 – Marvel – $3.99

Score: 8.0

I want more Beta Ray Bill. There, I said it. As long as Kieron Gillen writes it, I will be picking up anything that has the horse-headed version of Thor in it. Either that or more stories of Galactus and his heralds written by Kieron works too. This issue concludes the miniseries in fantastic style as the much made fun of hero Beta Ray Bill nears completion of his quest to eliminate Galactus. The issue opens with a scene the likes of which had only been witnessed with Galactus’s imprisonment to Annihillus during the Annihilation Wave (which is also shown during the issue) as the fading World Eater discusses the current state of affairs with his two heralds, Stardust and the Silver Surfer.

The opposing forces of the Silver Surfer and Beta Ray Bill play greatly in this issue »

- John Carle

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Warner to take 'Mortal Kombat' online

11 August 2009 10:46 AM, PDT | Digitalspy | See recent digitalspy news »

Warner Interactive has revealed plans to focus the latest game in its recently acquired Mortal Kombat franchise on network play. Last month, Warner received the go ahead to complete its purchase of bankrupt publisher Midway, which included its acquisition of the Mortal Kombat licence. According to a job listing posted by the firm and spotted by Trmk, Warner is looking for someone to "push the boundaries" of online gaming and ensure that Mortal Kombat represents the "gold standard for network play". The listing continues: "WB Games seeks a senior software engineer, network, to help (more) »

- By Andrew Laughlin

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'G.I. Joe' And The Rise Of The Ridiculous Crossover

10 August 2009 12:00 PM, PDT | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »

by Alan Kistler

For years, people have enjoyed the adventures of the G.I. Joe team, a counter-terrorist unit made up of people from all military branches. In the comics, the Joes have repeatedly encountered the alien warriors known as the Transformers, leading to some fun crossover stories.

Now that G.I. Joe has returned -- as a multi-national organization, of course -- to the spotlight with the new film "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" and brand new comics from Idw, I got to wondering what other fun crossovers could occur with this new team. So in the same vein of my list of "Transformers" crossovers, here are some fun team-ups that I think would be entertaining for everyone.

G.I. Joe / X-Men

Everyday there are more mutants, people born with a mysterious X-gene that gives them superhuman traits and powers. The mutant terrorist Magneto and his followers are attacking military bases, »

- MTV Movies Team

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Thq acquires Midway San Diego

9 August 2009 12:16 PM, PDT | Digitalspy | See recent digitalspy news »

Thq has purchased bankrupt publisher Midway's San Diego development studio, Gamesutra has reported. According to the industry website, the Mortal Kombat studio's French and German division have also been sold to holding companies formed by their heads, resulting in a mangement buyout for each regional distribution area. Thq will offer employment to 40 of Midway San Diego's 100 employees, but "specifically excluded from the bankruptcy purchase by Thq is the contract with the Tna iMPACT! video game in development at the (more) »

- By Mark Langshaw

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'Heroes' Star Milo Ventimiglia Serves Up An 'Oldboy' Cinemash

4 August 2009 11:00 AM, PDT | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »

I know what you're thinking. This is the second helping of Cinemash in a single day. I must be lazy. Yes. Yes I am. But that's besides the point. This isn't just any Cinemash. This one features "Heroes" star Milo Ventimiglia. Rehashing the most incredible fight scene from "Thirst" director Park Chan-wook's "Oldboy." Check it out. And then hit the jump to peep and original clip, if only to get an idea of how completely the Cinemash team commits to their send-ups.

Love it.

Video: Milo Ventimiglia Cinemashes "Oldboy"

Looks like something pulled straight out of a "Mortal Kombat" royal rumble match, eh?

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- Adam Rosenberg

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Xbox 360 Review: King of Fighters Xii

31 July 2009 5:21 PM, PDT | BuzzFocus.com | See recent BuzzFocus.com news »

When it comes to upcoming titles, there are two types of games: games that you look forward to and games that you could care less about. King of Fighters Xii is one game I looked forward to, but, after playing, I wish I didn’t. Everything you know and love about The King of Fighters or the Fatal Fury franchise has been stripped away into this watered down and altogether abhorrent twelfth installation of Kof from Snk/Ignition. Let me begin by stating that I am a long time Kof and Fatal Fury Fan. I may not be big into Anime, but I picked up both Fatal Fury featurettes and inevitably, Fatal Fury the Motion Picture. When everyone jumped on board the Street Fighter II (and accelerated, Hyper, Turbo, etc) bandwagon, followed by the Mortal Kombat train, I still held my Kof/Ff characters dear. King of Fighters Xii is »

- Terry Boyden

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'Guitar Hero 5' Has Avatar Support, So Should These - Lunchtime Twitter Poll

31 July 2009 9:00 AM, PDT | MTV Multiplayer | See recent MTV Multiplayer news »

Activision announced today that "Guitar Hero 5" will support avatars, which means you'll be able to bring your 360-made character into the game for explicit rocking-out purposes.

As much as people have sort of poo-pooed the whole avatar thing, I see nothing wrong with them. Games that support them make me feel a little more attached, even if they're only used in menus (like "Worms 2: Armageddon"), so their inclusion in "Guitar Hero 5" is a nifty extra. But it seems like avatar-implementation has only scratched the surface. What other games would you guys like to see your avatar in?

mnolin @multiplayers I actually like the GH5 implementation! Besides, can you imagine Army of Two: the 40th day with avatar support? Pure awesome

hardcasual @multiplayers Avatar: The Last Airbender (Jokes!)

PabloRaphael @multiplayers Left 4 Dead. Avatar infestation Ftw!

mattbanks @multiplayers Mortal Kombat: Avatar Edition

GamesCanTeach @multiplayers Smash Bros on the Wii really »

- Russ Frushtick

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2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2001 | 1999

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