So you’ve watched that Dead Island trailer, played the game (or baulked at the over-inflated prices due to stock shortages), and now it’s time to see the movie!
Yes, you heard me; Lionsgate has today announced that it has optioned film rights from Deep Silver to develop a feature inspired by Dead Island.
“The film DEAD ISLAND is currently in the early development stage with producers attached. Sean Daniel (THE MUMMY, TOMBSTONE, DAZED AND CONFUSED) will spearhead production through his Sean Daniel Company.
A veteran producer with global franchises under his belt, Daniel is to be joined in producing by Stefan Sonnenfeld, who has been a pioneer in the post production field, using the process as a platform to create a unique visual brand with directors including J.J Abrams, Michael Bay and Gore Verbinski. Jason Brown of The Sean Daniel Company and Missy Papageorge for Sonnenfeld’s Sunny Field Productions are executive producing, with Sarah Perlman of Sunny Field Productions serving as co-producer.”
Apparently the movie will be using Dead Island’s first trailer as inspiration, and “will be an innovation of the zombie genre because of its focus on human emotion, family ties and non-linear storytelling.”
Source: Press Release
DrNate86
If they can make a film with the same impact of the trailer then it would be awesome!
Burgess_101
hmm sounds interesting, if they can capture the emotions in the same way the trailer did then i dont see why this cant be a great film !
Origami Killer
That is very good news for me. Just the music in the teaser gets my eyes going…
AG2297
They always say they will do a movie for games these days and then it never appears or falls through. Where is the Halo, GTA, MGS and Assassin’s Creed movies that they were making? I’m afraid I wont get my hopes up until I see it.
Rocket_345
Unfortuantely the one nobody wants to see is going ahead.
jikomanzoku
Yeah, I always thought the point of zombie films/shows was to make social commentary, as in Dawn of the Dead, Dead Set and The Walking Dead (more so the graphic novels than the show there). I really can’t see that happening in a movie adaptation of an overhyped, shonky and third rate game.
Just my opinion of course and everyone is free to disagree. Whatever floats boats ‘n’ all that.
Kennykazey
The Halo film was canned as it would get too expensive. But you could add in the WoW-film on that list.
colmshan1990
That’s the case with most movie scripts or ideas.
To be honest, these things shouldn’t really be made into news stories until they are being readied for production, as most movie ideas and scripts never make it to that stage.
All that’s really happened with some of the mentioned games to movies is a studio bought the right to make the movie, had somebody knock out a couple of scripts, and they realised it would be too expensive to make, or crap, or maybe the game isn’t popular any more.
Other times the people they want involved can’t do it, or won’t do it, and… You get the drift.
The Lone Steven
Appranetly, He who won’t be named approced Hideo and tried to gets the right to do a MGS movie. He was told no. :) There is an actually GTA movie but i think that came out before GTA even existed.
jikomanzoku
It did, it’s an old one and stars Ron Howard of Happy Days and more recently directing fame.
rht992
hey i’m kind of glad the halo film got canned. if it hadn’t been then we wouldn’t have district 9
Jakster123x
Great.
What the hell is “non-linear storytelling”? Surely that’s impossible. Or maybe (probably) I’m thinking about it in the wrong way.
yogh_wayne
That’s when the events of the story are not shown in the normal chronological order. E.g. the movie could start with the middle part, and flashbacks show how the story began and evolved later on. Or see the story completely backwards like in the movie ‘Memento’ :)
colmshan1990
Non-linear story-telling is not impossible, and you’ve probably seen it in movies before, eg. Pulp Fiction.
Foxhound_Solid
Hope it turned out to be a belter….
Sitorimon
If I wrote the script the very opening scene and the very ending scene would be THAT trailer, and I’d spend the movie filling in the gaps.
scavenga
Sinamoi will be played by Temuera Morrison.
(educated guess).
This could be cool though, hope they come through with a stockpile of good makeshift weaponry and hordes of bikiniclad middle-aged zombies!
PoorPaddy89
Love him. Have you seen Once Were Warriors? Bloody depressing, but he’s amazing in it.
scavenga
Yes sir, first film I ever saw him in. It’s absolutely amazing, and dark as all savage hell.
Will probably never watch it ever again, but I’m glad that I did!
Never caught the sequel, “what becomes of the broken hearted” though… It got some mixed reviews.
The Lone Steven
Interesting. If they use the plot from the trailer and expand on it whilst keeping to emotional impact that it had it could work but if a certain director is involved, then it will be a crappy movie.
I really hope will won’t get a film where the super duper fast zombies are involved as they are not zombies imo. I think the slow zombies are in Dead Island.
3shirts
I genuinely don’t see this being much bottle really. Sure it’s a great trailer and kinda fun game but there are dozens of zombie films and several of them DO focus on the human/emotional side.
This is just a cash in
rht992
true but if they managed it it would be amazing. apart the walking dead i can’t think of any zombie films that use the human stories as much more than an excuse for brain bashing
scavenga
Actually, I would argue that most of Romero’s ‘of the dead’ titles deal with human stories and emotions on several levels. For instance, I think both the original ‘Dawn’ and ‘Day’ contain pretty good demonstrations of how humans would act and react if trapped and forced to create makeshift societies within limited areas.