From Screen Rant:
With one of this year’s biggest video game releases in Mass Effect 2 finally debuting today to amazing reviews and fan reception, there’s no doubt a burning interest for getting a feature film made from this property as soon as possible.
What’s the hitch? Well, video game movies suck and Hollywood tend not to respect the source material enough to bring it to the silver screen properly. We’ve seen this again and again but we know this trend is coming to an end sooner or later. As we enjoy the peak of the comic book movie era, the next genre to hit it big will be video game movies. With practically every single major video game having sold film rights to their properties, we will see every video game come to cinematic life eventually.
The good news for the fans of these games are that developers/publishers are finally taking a stand and don’t want low-quality films made of their hardwork, damaging the property’s reputation. We saw this very recently with the halt in production of the Metal Gear Solid movie, and now we’re seeing it from BioWare and their Mass Effect franchise.
In September of 2008, when I started here at Screen Rant, one of the first things I reported on was that Avi Arad, ex-CEO of Marvel studios, optioned the movie rights to 2007′s hit game Mass Effect. Since then, we’ve heard nothing on the project other than it’s supposed to be a big budget epic and other than that, we’ve only had my hopes of Matthew Fox playing the lead to go on.
Well, with Mass Effect 2 hitting shelves today for the Xbox 360 and PC, there’s a “tremendous amount of interest” to get this film made. This is no surprise and I think the game lends it self perfectly to becoming an incredible series of films. And by “think” I mean, it’s a fact – it’s already a beautiful and cinematic experience that’s incredibly engaging. The key to this of course being that this *could* be amazing if done right. That’s one big if in this industry, and the creators of the game feel the same way.
Speaking to MTV, BioWare’s project director on Mass Effect 2, Casey Hudson, had the following to say about the potential feature film:
“Obviously we have a tremendous amount of interest from people in Hollywood to make a major motion picture about ‘Mass Effect… The most important thing for us is, we don’t just want to see a movie get made. We want to see a great movie get made, if it’s going to get done at all.”
“We’re just looking at our options there, but waiting to make sure we have something really right before we do it.”
I’m happy they’re not rushing into this and are going the route of quality of quantity. I can’t even describe how disappointed I would be if they ruined this property. With sci-fi hitting it big in 2009 with Avatar, Star Trek and District 9, it’s a good time to get this project rolling.
What do you think of a Mass Effect movie?
If you haven’t seen it, check out the epic Mass Effect 2 Launch Trailer!
Source: MTV
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Do want.
But want done right.
This could work really well if done right but knowing Hollywood this will probably be extremely half assed cos video games to them are still a play thing compared to the mighty blockbuster.