Videogame adaptations are now on their way to becoming the next thing that film snobs will hate about modern films.
After the international (read: China) box office effectively saved Warcraft from certain death, the next one up is Assassin's Creed with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, both of whom worked on Justin Kurzel's adaptation of Macbeth.
However, last night, it was confirmed during the livestream launch of Gears Of War that a movie is now in pre-production at Universal, confirming long-held rumours about the gaming franchise's fate. "As a way to support the franchise the next logical step was to make the movie,” explained Rod Fergusson, head of gaming studio The Coalition, to Variety. “We’d done comics and novels in the past but the opportunity to work with Universal to bring the movie to life was perfect."
"They’re two different mediums, and two different audiences in some cases, and I think some video game movies in the past have failed because they tried to make a movie for gamers. If you have this great IP with a deep backstory and lots of lore that you can make interesting stories out of it’s great, but if you just go after the gaming audience then it isn’t going to be a successful movie."
No director has been lined up to take on Gears Of Wear, nor have any actors been cast, however it's been confirmed that Universal will be the studio behind the adaptation. Universal were heavily involved in the Warcraft movie with Duncan Jones and are said to be eyeing a number of gaming franchises for possible adaptation.
Meanwhile, Gears Of War 4 - the latest installment in the series - is set for an exclusive Xbox One release on October 11th and we'll have the review up pretty soon.
