Video Game Movie News Extravaganza! (I love that word)

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Video Game Movie News Extravaganza! (I love that word)

22 October 2009No CommentPosted by Chris B.

Again, at Slashfilm, we get the skinny on some of the upcoming video game movies coming up in the coming years.

Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter, apparently some muckety-mucks in the video-game movie ... game... talk about their upcoming films, Kane and Lynch, Just Cause, and Hitman 2.

First off, Bruce "McClane" Willis has signed up to play the character "Kane" in the Kane and Lynch movie. They say it's a great action movie premise and will be wonderful - we'll see.

The Just Cause project is moving forward as well, though very little is known about it other than it's lower-budget.

And Hitman 2 is being made, and penned by the Kane and Lynch writer, Kyle Ward. According to the producers, every time they have a script draft, they send it to Eidos and ask for notes. One wonders if they bothered doing that for Hitman 1, since that movie was nothing like the video games. Hitman sort of fell flat in the third act, which is not where you want your action movie to fall flat.

You can read the full article about their upcoming gaming projects here.

Side note - They also claim that Spy Hunter is getting off the ground again?! Spy Hunter, for those of you who don't know, is a movie based on a really old arcade game that was supposedly being made in the year 2003. Dwayne Johnson was signed up. Allow me to quote Wikipedia about the preproduction hell that has been this movie:

In the summer of 2003, Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the 1983 arcade game Spy Hunter from Midway Games. The following September, Universal signed actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to star in the film adaptation based on the game. Screenwriters Michael Brandt and Derek Haas were hired to write the screenplay, though a director had not been decided at the time. Spy Hunter was slated to begin its budgeted $90 million production in spring 2004 in time for a summer 2005 release. In January 2004, screenwriters Mark Swift and Damian Shannon replaced the original writing duo to rewrite the script, with production slated for June. By May, Universal Pictures acquired director John Woo to helm the project. In the same month, the previous screenwriters were replaced by screenwriter Zak Penn to rewrite the script once more. By August 2004, production had been delayed, pushing Spy Hunter back to be released in summer 2006. In April 2005, Penn was replaced by screenwriter Stuart Beattie to rewrite the script. By May 2005, however, director John Woo left the project due to scheduling conflicts. In August 2005, Dwayne Johnson said the film was still developing without a director. Pre-production work was underway with designs such as the morphing Interceptor vehicle driven by Alex Decker. Production was eventually halted for the time being, and Dwayne Johnson was detached from the project.

In May 2007, Paul W.S. Anderson was hired to replace Woo as the director. He will be writing a new script with another screenwriter. It is yet to be determined if Dwayne Johnson will return to the project.

What... the hell? Why bother making the film if you're going to fire every screenwriter you hire??! This movie has had as many pre-production woes as Ghostbusters 3 had a few years back when it was started, then stopped, then started, then stopped until, what, this summer? Yeah.

I've been following news of this movie for years now, and to see it suddenly dredged up was a bit of a startle. We'll see if they actually mean it this time.

--Chris B.