Movie studios don\'t learn their lesson - "Gears of War" purchased by New Line

"No seriously... this one will make a lot of money. Just give us $75M and you won\'t be sorry!"
 
 
 
Daily Variety, 3/21/07
 
New Line nabs \'Gears of War\'
Studio wins rights to videogame
By DAVE MCNARY, DAVE MCNARY, DAVE MCNARY, BEN FRITZ

 
New Line has won feature rights to Microsoft and Epic Games\' hugely popular vidgame "Gears of War," with Stuart Beattie penning the adaptation and Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey producing via their Temple Hill banner.

CAA conducted the auction, which featured a 21-page treatment by Beattie, who wrote "Collateral" and the upcoming "3:10 to Yuma" and "30 Days of Night."

Studio\'s deal is with Epic, the game\'s developer, which held onto all ancillary rights to the property when Microsoft signed on to publish the game. Though not announced yet, a sequel vidgame is assured. If development of both projects goes smoothly, New Line and Epic would surely love to see the film and a game sequel come out around the same time.

"Gears" has sold more than 3 million units and is the most popular game on Microsoft\'s Xbox Live service, which allows players to compete against each other online. Though released in November and available only for the Xbox 360 console, it quickly became the fourth-bestselling game of 2006 in the U.S. It won game of the year kudos at the Game Developers Choice Awards and the Interactive Achievement Awards.

Story, which is only modestly developed in the game, concerns a world reeling from an invasion by aliens known as the Locust. A small group of elite soldiers, including main character Marcus Fennix, who is rescued from prison at the beginning of the game, fight to retake the planet Sera for its surviving humans.

Epic developed an extensive backstory in hopes of utilizing it for a film as well as potential novels.

"We wanted to make an entertainment property that\'s not just for games but for other media," said Epic VP and co-founder Mark Rein.

"I\'m not a gamer, but what blew me away about \'Gears\' was how it captures the mythology of a war mission and how high the stakes are," Godfrey told Daily Variety.

Once Beattie\'s completed the script, Bowen and Godfrey will start looking for a director. They\'re aiming at a summer 2009 release.

"Gears" lead designer Cliff Bleszinski (known in gamer circles as CliffyB) will exec produce the film and consult on its development for Epic.

Game is Microsoft\'s most successful since "Halo," which had an ill-fated life in Hollywood. After developing a script itself, the software giant sold the project to Universal and Fox in 2005. Peter Jackson signed on to exec produce, and Neill Blomkamp to direct, but the project fell apart last fall after the studios balked at the final budget.

Numerous other hit game franchises are in development for feature adaptations, including "World of Warcraft" at Legendary, "Metal Gear Solid" at Sony and "Hitman," on which Fox is starting production March 29.

Many movies based on big game franchises, such as "Doom" and "Super Mario Bros.," have fared poorly with critics and auds. Rein said he and the Epic team considered that history carefully when mulling a movie deal.

"Our first and foremost philosophy is to do no harm, so we debated heavily the idea of doing a movie at all," he said. "But we feel we stacked the deck in our favor by working with the best players."

"Gears" is the third New Line project announced recently for Bowen and Godfrey. They\'re also producing "Dear John," an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks\' bestseller, and crime actioner "Parcour" - both with Channing Tatum attached to star.

Was the $75M remark a joke?  That\'s wayyy too much for any franchise, especially a new one.

I actually don\'t mind some videogame movies, but FPS-based movies tend to be the WORST.  Resident Evil 1 & Silent Hill are still decent movies in my book.  Not great, but worth a rental at least.

Crap, I don\'t keep track of how much Hollywood films cost these days.  I remember reading that book Final Cut about the film "Heaven\'s Gate."  Everyone was upset about that pic costing $35M back in the early 80\'s but I know there have been comparatively bigger flops since then.

[Viper_Fujax]

metal gear solid maybe would translate

hitman i assume would be turned into the transporter type of movie

world of warcraft...no

gears of war seems like itll be horrible. Especially since just because the game is popular amongst gamers doesnt mean the general population will go ape about it.

Gears has a huge backstory of man vs alien invaders. It\'s possible this will work.
 
They just need to take a real movie and slap some familiar characters in it. That\'s the way to go.  Try to appeal to gamers and you\'ll make a piece of garbage.

Crap, I don\'t keep track of how much Hollywood films cost these days.  I remember reading that book Final Cut about the film "Heaven\'s Gate."  Everyone was upset about that pic costing $35M back in the early 80\'s but I know there have been comparatively bigger flops since then.

ahh i think i misunderstood you at first.  Thought you meant New Line was giving Epic $75M just to license the Gears of War name/story.  Then from there they would spend more on making the film.

$75M total to make an action film these days is actually about average.  Doom was $70k.  300 was $60k...

[clips]

gears of war done right, could be somewhere along the lines of silent hill as far as quality, gears done bad would be like those cheezy visuals and effects you see in those sci-fi channel original action movies....

$75M total to make an action film these days is actually about average.  Doom was $70k.  300 was $60k...

Keanu Reeves: WHOA, that\'s cheap!

But seriously, why don\'t they EVER learn? Nobody wants to watch games as movies. Just because they\'re fun to play doesn\'t mean they\'d make good movies.

Resident Evil (2002)

Budget: $32,000,000 (estimated)
Gross: $101,854,457 (Worldwide) (sub-total)

There\'s money to be made somewhere in there. Producers just have to find the right formula, meaning crappy budgets and NO Uwe Boll.

Resident Evil (2002)

Budget: $32,000,000 (estimated)
Gross: $101,854,457 (Worldwide) (sub-total)

There\'s money to be made somewhere in there. Producers just have to find the right formula, meaning crappy budgets and NO Uwe Boll.

Well there\'s always an exception.

The first Resident Evil film was one of the few exceptions.  It was actually somewhat good, and I kinda liked it.  I think it\'s developed a small following on DVD.  Most videogame films don\'t come close to that.

Resident Evil (2002)

Budget: $32,000,000 (estimated)
Gross: $101,854,457 (Worldwide) (sub-total)

There\'s money to be made somewhere in there. Producers just have to find the right formula, meaning crappy budgets and [SIZE="5"][FONT="Impact"][COLOR="Red"]NO Uwe Boll. [/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]

*fixed* to ensure that the most important part of that post isn\'t lost.