Capcom Plans More Crappy Video Game Movie Adaptations
Japanese-based video game developer/publisher Capcom has revealed it plans to make a new batch of horrible video game movie adaptations. Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto says he hopes his company will revitalize video game movies just as Marvel has revitalized comic book movies.
“We are in the process of working out contracts for several offers we received at the Cannes Film Festival last week and hope to make an announcement soon,” Tsujimoto told Bloomberg. “If realised, the projects will have a big impact on the game and movie industries.”
Previous Capcom game to movie releases include the Resident Evil Series, Street Fighter, the 1994 Street Fighter movie, and the prequel/reboot Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which is currently in production at Fox. Lets take a look at a few potential franchise titles that Capcom might be looking to bring to the big screen:
Devil May Cry: A movie adaptation of optioned by GAGA Communications in December 2006, but that option may have run out. The story follows Dante, a mercenary dedicated to exterminating demons, a group which was responsible for the death of his mother and corrupting his brother.
More Street Fighter Spin-Offs: Please lets hope not!
Ghouls ‘n Ghosts: The story of the original game followed a knight named Arthur who had defeat a number of undead and demonic creatures in his quest to restore souls stolen by Lucifer. One of the souls is of his bride, Princess Prin Prin. As Arthur advanced through a series of eerie levels, he picked up a variety of weapons and armor to help him in his quest.
Bionic Commando: Essentially if GI Joe were just about a single soldier. The story follows a super soldier equipped with a bionic arm featuring a grappling gun.
Another Resident Evil Movie: I’m sure Paul W.S. Anderson is waiting for the phone call.
Dead Rising: Essentially a 80% rip-off of Dawn of the Dead. A photojournalist named Frank West ends up trapped in a shopping mall infested with zombies.
Steel Battalion: With the success of Transformers, could Hollywood be interested in a Mech movie? Players controlled bipedal walking weapons platforms called vertical tanks (or VTs) in combat, assault, support, and scout missions.
Mega Man: Mega Man has appeared in over 100 games over the past two decades, and is responsible for more sales revenue than both of Capcom’s next leading franchises (Street Fighter and Resident Evil) combined. Set in the year 200X, master designer Dr. Thomas Light worked to create a humanoid robot who could demonstrate an advanced artificial intelligence program that would allow it to make decisions based on vague commands and directions. With the success of these two test-type robots, Light designed and built six production-type robots. Dr. Albert W. Wily, a colleague at that time and future rival, stole the robots and seized control of the city. Dr. Light converted his current lab assistant into a fighting robot named Mega Man. This story probably has the most potential as a big screen story, but more likely in the computer animated realm.
Geek Deals: Buy Two Blu-Ray Movies, Get One Free
Amazon.com is running a pretty sweet deal for High Definition fanatics. For a limited time, Amazon is offering a special buy-two-get-one-free on 58 selected Blu-Ray movies which are already at least 30% off. That’s typically $40 to $45 for three Blu-Ray movies. The Blu-Ray films include: Blade Runner (Super Duper Five Disc), Pan’s Labyrinth, The Fifth Element, 300, Run Lola Run, The Departed, Unforgiven, Reservoir Dogs, Big Fish, Crank, Wild Things, Crash, Halloween, Evil Dead 2, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Masters of Horror Season 1, and much much more. It’s definitely worth checking out.
Watchmen Release Date and Movie Poster Revealed
Zack Snyder made an appearance at Comic Con to promote his upcoming big screen adaptation of Watchmen. Snyder is one of those guys who talks in sound-bytes. Everything he says is interesting of relevant and he spits out the information in a rapid fire pace, at times almost like a Machine gun. I really tried to capture what Snyder was saying in an easily readable posting, but found the task to be impossible. Below, not only can you find my notes, but also the audiofile from the event.
Audio File Will be Uploaded Shortly.
I wasn’t a fan of Snyder’s 300, but really enjoyed his Dawn of the Dead remake (or at least the kick ass first 15 minutes of it). And I’ve seen Snyder speak on many occasions and have usually found him to be self indulgent and arrogant. That said, I think he might be the perfect person to bring Watchmen to the big screen. His Comic-Con pitch sold me. He’s promising an R-Rated superhero film that will conform to the source material as much as it can (and probably more than most other adaptations). He says he refuses to try to make the film more accessible.
Snyder also revealed the movie poster and release date (3-06-09) for the film, seen right. Click on the image to enlarge.
“It’s an R-Rated super hero movie.”
“I don’t know if Watchmen should come to the people, or if the people should come to it,” says Snyder. “If you get in the place in your life when you need watchman you’ll go find it. I don’t think we’re going to try to make it accessible to teenyboppers.”
“The cool thing about cinema right now is. Look at all the super hero movies we’ve had in the last 15 years. In a lot of ways mainstream cinema audience are where a lot of comic fans were when Watchmen found them. They needed something else, and Watchmen changed what they thought about superheros.”
“I think the mistake, i mean approach is to assume that the movie knows better. Its like when someone says ‘oh we made a movie and you should be happy that we did.’ I don’t assume that at all. I have the upmost respect for the material.”
Sets: “We have a lot of sets we’re building in Vancouver. We’re building a New York City backlot. It’s pretty practical except for the sets for Antarctica and Mars.”
Production Design: “Our plan is to make the movie a little more realistic. The sets do have a style, but it’s not like Sin City. It’s a lot more like Se7en.”
Cast: “The cast in my opinion is basically perfect in the sense that we actually have real actors in this movie and it’s not an exercise in marketing. I don’t know if this means anything, but I made a movie called 300 which didn’t have any stars and a couple people saw it.” [crowd went wild]
Snyder seemed pretty bummed that The Hollywood Reporter beat him to the casting announcement that he was scheduled to make at the convention. He addressed public comments that the cast is may-be too young for the roles.
“In the graphic novel, there is a lot of flashbacks in the movie. And what I didn’t want to do is cast two different actors for each characters. I find that confusing,” said Snyder. “I just didn’t feel like that was what I wanted to see. So I wanted to hire actors who were in the middle of their age and age them up and down.”
Billy will be transformed into a completely computer generated character for Dr. Manhattan. Snyder compares this to some of the digital characters in Pirates of the Caribbean.
“We’ve done some tests and it’s looking pretty cool.”
“I want to see the Pirate Story in the movie. I think it’s really cool and comments on the world a lot. Everyday we talk about ‘Okay, we need a budget for the pirates story.’
Alan Moore: “We all want to please Alan [Moore], and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I don’t want the guy who created the thing to hate it,” said Snyder. “Alan has asked a long time ago that his name not be on the movie. I do talk to Dave Gibbons all the time and he thinks the script is supercool.”
Someone asked if Zack was really considering Keanu Reeves for a role in the film: “I did talk to Keanu [Reeves], and he is a very nice man and a talented actor. That’s all I have to say”
Movie Review: 28 Weeks Later
28 Weeks Later is a perfect example of what I like to call the “Blair Witch Project Effect.” That is when a low budget indie film is given a big budget glossy Hollywood sequel, and the resulting film lacks all the magic of the original. One of the things that made 28 Days Later so great was the shots of deserted London. It felt creepy and real, or maybe it felt creepy because it felt real. And don’t get me wrong, 28 Weeks Later has some incredible shots of the deserted city, which is much more expansive than the first film. They had the money and resources to make it happen. And may-be it’s because it looks almost too good, too glossy, that it just isn’t believable.
The film starts off with the best horror opening since Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, and quickly falls apart soon after. Too many characters and quickly introduced, few of whom you find connection. Who are these people? What are their roles? You probably wont know who the main character is until 30 minutes in. It’s both confusing and frustrating. The story degenerates into a horrible series of badly scripted coincidences, including the token identifiable Zombie bad guy who keeps showing up like a bad penny.
Like the first film, the story becomes very episodic and quickly evolves into a militaristic story half way through (although, 28 Weeks Later keeps with the Zombie chase more than the first film). And like most films in the Dystopian story genre, there are a lot of cool ideas displayed, but not fully explored.
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo offers a few new tricks in terms of cinematography including a reverse Requiem for a Dream/Pi P.O.V. cam showing a Zombie in action. And he even borrows the cool Chopper sequence from Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror. But sometimes the camera direction is too shaky, seemingly just for effect. One sequence has flashing strobe lights which were so intense that I was forced me to look away from the screen (and I’m far from squeamish).
Rating: 6 out of 10