Orange Lounge Radio

according to AICN and Variety.com, Crystal Sky Pictures has bought the rights to Castlevania and will adapt the game to a live action movie... The movie will be written and directed by Paul WS Anderson (Resident Evil 1, Soldier, Mortal Kombat and Alien Vs Predator)... This is a sad day for Gamers and die-hard Castlevania fans alike... Out of all the people to pick to direct this movie WHY HIM... This is why i regret being in the film industry, because we have to butcher these great ORIGINAL concepts just to cash in on the nostagia craze thats going on now... The only plus to this is that it isnt going to be out till after 2006... Anderson intends to remake/ruin "Deathrace 3000" which is another original idea about to go to shit... There has to be one decient director out there that plays video games that could do this... Kevin Smith? Rob Zombie (that would be a wild movie)? Quentin? Even Joss Whedon could do this more justice making it into a crappy WB show called the "Belmonts"... ::sigh:: enough of my rant

(BTW Anderson ALSO intends to produce the next Resident Evil movie AND Dead Or Alive Live Action movie which i might add is in the post production stage as we speak )

Link to the story:

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=21735

Didn't Van Helsing already come out?


>_>



HURR HURR HURR

This is to be expected with the current high popularity of video games nowadays.

The sad fact is that 'good' directors aren't going to be quick to jump on a game-related project, unless they have a specific interest in it (ie. Peter Jackson - Halo, and remember, he's not directing. Perhaps not willing to take direct fan-backlash if it's not up to par? Maybe). Video game films have a horrible reputation with critics and fans alike, and it's something of a taboo in the industry right now, I think. Good directors and even big-name actors tend to keep their distance. They only get sucked in if the casting is done late, and they have a hole to fill in their schedule. It's not until we get a fairly good adaptation that draws in a lot of revenue, that we'll see higher-profile names being attached to game-movie projects and overall respect climb a little bit higher (ie. what's been happening with Comic-book films as of late, so don't think it isn't possible).

The unfortunate consequence there, though, is that we're going to repeatedly see our favourite licences being dragged through the mud until that happens. I mean, it's a sad day when I'm playing an excellent game like Resident Evil 4 and my roomate walks by and asks me if I have any "mind powers like that chick in the movie". Gah! So believe me, though my fondness for Castlevania has waned since all the recent 3D iterations, I'm still plenty upset that the same guy that screwed up one of my favorite games is likely going to run this one through the blender too.

From a studio's standpoint, video game films are a decent source of revenue if: costs are kept down, and DVD sales are high (ie. Resident Evil 1, which somehow miraculously spawned a sequel despite poor box-office receipts). See, unfortunately, more of your friends will rent or buy the film on DVD then they will probably admit. Even if you heard that 'X' film was awful and skipped it in the theatre, if you're a fan, you'll probably rent it out of curiosity ar some point (even if just to see how badly they ruined a really good video game). That's why studios are going to keep hiring guys that made a quote 'succesful' game movie, simply because they have experience in a genre hollywood doesn't understand. We're going to keep seeing Paul W.S. Anderson and Uwe Boll game-movies for a long time if something doesn't change soon (If either of them get the rights to Metal Gear Solid, I'll cry. Seriously).

I'm really hoping that the Silent Hill movie shows hollywood that we can have a successful translation of a video game to film. Directors need to start making movies that the fans will love. They always try to make a general movie, that will bring in the money from non-fans rather than take a risk and make it too 'niche'. But if you ask me, if they make a movie that fans will love rather than dumb it down for the public, they'll see more success that way. Think of Advent Children. It's not a really accessible movie if you haven't played FFVII. But despite that, it generated big sales. It's just probably never going to happen in hollywood, because the studio would simply never have it. Why shut out audiences, when you can screw around with the game's idea and script to make it more appealing to John Q. Public? They just don't seem to understand that mentality makes for a game the fans hate, and an all around sub-par movie anyway. Then they go and scratch their heads and wonder where they went wrong.

As much as I don't like Halo, (just never got on the FPS bandwagon) it has the biggest opportunity of saving the video game film industry. I mean, if they prove to hollywood that a property based on a game can earn $$$, maybe they might start taking it a little more seriously, and better directors will start to take interest. As long as Halo fans everywhere salivate over the movie like they did with Halo 2 and go see it opening day, it's all but guaranteed. That's really the only reason we're getting this movie: Studio bigwigs sat around their round table and thought, 'Gee, what a great idea? The 18-24 male demographic is going to be gouging out their eyeballs to see this one, based on sales of the game (but.. how will they see it with no eyeballs..?), so we can't lose!' And Ta-Da! We have a Halo movie in the works. I just really don't get how an FPS gets turned into a movie. I look at DOOM and I just think it doesn't really work. But that's just me.

Okay, okay, I didn't mean to rant bitterly here. One of the more interesting things I wanted to point out (the actual reason I felt inclined to post this), had to do with the Tarantino name-dropping. According to a recent poll on Gamespot, (which was something like 'Who do you want to see directing a game movie?') Quentin Tarantino won by a massive landslide. Apparently, everyone out there seems to think he's the man to save our games. But I'd always heard that Tarantino hates video games.

In a recent interview with the writer of the Silent Hill screenplay, Roger Avary, one of the questions Edge Online posed was about the nature of the failure of many game based movies. Here's the full quote.

EDGE: Would you say that the way in which the movie industry's treatment of games has evolved is directly linked to the sophistication of the games themselves? In other words, have the movies been disrespectful, or have the games been too simple?

AVARY: Often, you have movies that are made by people who have no idea what a control scheme is or what a gaming experience is like. Christophe is a gamer – the guy may be a filmmaker and a lover of cinema, but he loves his games. Quentin Tarantino, on the other hand, is not a gamer. He has an actual disrespect for gaming. I shouldn’t speak for him like that, but the truth is that he’s said "what am I gonna do, stick my dick into a Nintendo hard drive?" He doesn't realise, of course, that a Nintendo machine doesn't have a hard drive even if you did, in fact, stick your dick into it – that's a floppy drive [laughs]. But Christophe understands the interactive experience, and I think that as the older generation of filmmakers die off and a newer generation who are more comfortable with gaming experiences come around, those adaptations will naturally become more faithful, understanding and respectful.

(The full interview is here: http://www.edge-online.co.uk/archives/2 ... ry_tal.php )

So in this quote, Avary is trying to say that the industry needs directors that actually play these games to be succesful. I'm still not sure about Cristophe Gans on Silent Hill (and I'm really not sure about Avary in general), but we'll see. Anyway, the point here is that Quentin would have no idea how to make a decent translation of a game into a movie. Hell, despite all the hype of his name being attached to a project, he could screw it up badly just because he doesn't really get it. I think the answer here is a little of column A, a little of column B. Having a good director does not necessarily mean a better movie, albeit a dramatic increase in quality. What we really need are directors that A) Actually like the game their movie based on and have their heart in the project; B) Have PLAYED and FINISHED the game countless times; C) Have respect for the source material, and are not likely to stray far from it.

Can someone tell me why directors are never able to make a movie exactly as it progressed in the game? Why do they always have to make up new crap? People WANT to see Resident Evil 2, the game. Just like it was in the game. Write us some better dialogue and bam, instant hit. But of course we never get what we want. We only get what Hollywood thinks we're going to want. 'The game just doesn't translate well to film. Sure it was cool as a game plot, but as a film, it'd never fly.' they tell us. 'We need to make some new crappy plot that doesn't hold a candle to the game's, for you to like it!' Right..

And another thing..

Off on another tangent, Is it just me, or does the PSP's supposed 'no port!' rule sound an awful lot like this? 'Even though we can put 3 PS discs onto one UMD, no one's going to want to play Resident Evil or Final Fantasy VII on their PSP. Sure we can compile all the Dragon Quest games onto two UMD's and release it in Dragon Quest crazed Japan, but it'll never sell! Who wants to play their favourite old games on a handheld?' I'll admit, not everyone wants a Playstation Port machine. But with the lack of good games (well, simply GAMES for that matter) on PSP, isn't a port something that can be developed relatively quickly to take advantage of this situation? Is it just me, or aren't some good ports a no-brainer? I mean, geez Sony, don't tell me there isn't a market for retro games. Modders aren't hacking into the PSP to put old games on there as we speak, of course not. Someone really needs to explain to me how the no port rule ensures high quality original games in this age where every new release has a number 2, 3 or 4 just after the title; or is based on something we've already played anyway. Can someone in the industry tell me that honest-to-goodness, no one wants to play compilations like Metal Gear Solid+VR missions, Final Fantasy I-VI or Suikoden 1+2 to play on the freaking BUS or something? That'd rock.

If it's indeed true that Sony's policy is that developers simply can't port old games to the system, what exactly are we supposed to be doing with our PSPs? Play music and video that we don't have an out-of-the-box 1st party program and USB cable to encode and transfer? Browse non-functional websites (the awesome OLRPSP excluded of course, Loki)? Sit and pray that the dead pixel fairy doesn't visit us in the night? 'Cause there sure aren't any games coming out for this thing, and last time I checked, PSP didn't stand for UMD movie whore. Like I enjoy going to load up Sin City and being accused of watching PSP porn by passers-by while I have 15 minutes to kill. Bottom line: The PSP's a damn expensive paperweight. Either start putting out some good new games, or at least give us some good OLD ones.

So... uh.. I can't really remember what I was talking about anymore. I think I'm done shoving my proverbial two cents down your throat now. Anyway, I'm not angry and bitter that we're getting all these announcements of more game rights being bought out by film studios. I'm just pessimistic that people in the film industry actually know how to handle games, and that the people who know how to artfully craft films have no interest in the genre. Still, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

(Feel free to agree/disagree with anything. Sorry about the freakin' novel, it's my first post. ^^; )

I still haven't taken my PSP online, that feature just doesn't excite me. I don't want to go online with consoles/portables unless it's for strictly playing games. Browsing websites with no keyboard is not fun.

Also, to note, I thought the first Resident Evil movie was pretty decent. The 2nd one was horrible, I won't touch the third. I'm still waiting on the dvd release of Double Dragon(Dragon Wagon anybody?).

Writers only have to do one thing:

JUST FUCKING PORT THE GODDAMN GAME PLOT. 0 EFFORT, LOTS OF MONEY, YES?

Fucking. Idiots.