Len Wiseman to Direct Gears of War
Last year it was reported that Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman was in talks with New Line to develop and direct a big screen adaptation of the popular X-Box 360 video game Gears of War. A year later, and the project has now been officially announced. Speculation first began when Wiseman featured the game in the fourth Die Hard film. Wiseman will develop the story with Chris Morgan, whose credits include Wanted and Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. I know, not a hugely promising resume. Pirates of the Caribbean screenwriter Stuart Beattie wrote a draft of the film last year. IESB gave that script a 3 out of 10 star review, calling it ”a DUKES OF HAZZARD out of a possible STARSHIP TROOPERS”.
Wiseman has been working with Morgan on Shell Game, a sci-fi thriller set up at Lakeshore/Columbia Pictures (”Set a hundred and fifty years in the future - a detective is faced with a moral dilemma as he investigates the dangerous black market business of immortality.”). Wiseman, made a name for himself in the business as an art director (Stargate, Godzilla, Independence Day, Men in Black), and went on to direct Underworld and its sequel Underworld Evolution. Wiseman is certainly a step-up from Paul W.S. Anderson or Uwe Boll, and his participation guarantees that it will at least be good to look at.
Released in November 2006, Gears has sold over three million units worldwide, becoming the fourth best selling game of last year (not too shabby for only a two month lead). The game became very popular in the online arena of Xbox Live. Gears of War follows the soldiers of Delta Squad as they fight to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from a relentless subterranean enemy known as The Locust Horde. A video game sequel was announced earlier this year at the 2008 Game Developers Conference. When the film was first announced, New Line has planned on releasing the film in the Summer of 2009, but that timetable is probably unrealistic.
Watch the trailer for the video game below. It makes use of Gary Jules and Michael Andrews somber 2001 cover of Tears for Fears’s Mad World, originally featured in the soundtrack to Donnie Darko.
Len Wiseman To Direct Gears Of War Movie!
Len Wiseman, director of Live Free or Die Hard and penetrator of Kate Beckinsale has signed up to direct Gears of War according to Variety. Wanted and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift writer Chris Morgan is currently writing a re-draft of Stuart Beattie’s version.
“Gears” is Microsoft’s second biggest seller after the “Halo” franchise, and gamemaker Epic always intended to branch the property out into various media, such as films and novels, with an extensive backstory it developed for the property.
New Line had initially aimed for a summer 2009 release for the pic, but further development on the project will now likely delay that plan.
Gears of War joins God of War, BioShock and Price of Persia in the game-to-movie adaptations. It’s becoming a new trend in Hollywood, and its good to see people who aren’t Uwe Boll directing these types of movies.
ThunderCats Movie Model?
UPDATE: A number of readers have pointed out that the above model is 1) FAKE, 2) LAME, 3) “Probably left over from Small Soldiers” and 4) Not worth talking about
Like a good number of 20somethings, a ThunderCats movie makes me want to run far far away and hide from the Langolier that is booming ’80s nostalgia. Furthering my phobia, Snarfs were probably a distant ancestor of LOLCats. Above is an alleged head model rendering of one the film’s combative furballs (probably Panthro) from Warner Bros‘ 2010 all-CG adaptation of the cult cartoon series/ironic mall T-shirts. No lie: it looks like a surfing steakhead vampire from Lost Boys: The Tribe.
The film will mark the directorial debut of Jerry O’Flaherty, a video game art director on Gears of War (he also got a shout out on Daikatana, nice) from a script by Paul Sopocy (Bijou Phillips’s upcoming It’s Alive). Some sites are linking to an old Vanity Fair piece that lists Hugh Jackman and Jessica Simpson in the cast, but that article’s a total hoax.
Brett Ratner Won’t Escape From New York
The good guys at AintitCool have some great news tonight - Bret Ratner is NOT directing the Escape from New York remake! Did you read that? The Ratner is not going to ruin the Snake Pliskin after all!
Apparently the Rush Hour “director” (notice the obvious quotation marks) was given an “achievement in cinema” award at the Savannah Film Festival. Basically, it’s one of those film festival awards where whoever they can get to show up gets an award (a lot of regional film festivals play this game). Anyway, Ratner was asked about the Escape remake, and said that it is happening, but without him attached.
We have no idea who will be replacing Ratner. All we do know is that 300 star Gerard Butler is attached to the project at New Line. Len Wiseman was attached to the project before these Ratner rumors sprung up. With budget problems forcing Gears of War into development hell (or maybe just development heck), maybe Wiseman will find time to Escape From New York after Underworld 3: The Rise of the Lycans wraps. Or maybe New Line will be able to secure a more capable director. I’d love to see someone like Robert Rodriguez, Michael Bay or Guillermo del Toro tackle this remake.