Posts Tagged ‘Film’
Activision files for trademark on Call of Duty film
It was recently made known that Activision has recently filed a trademark on the Call of Duty name when used with “pre-recorded movies featuring comedy, drama, action, adventure, music, theatrical performances and/or animations”.
Now it’s no secret that Activision has made more than enough money off of the Call of Duty franchise and is looking to make even more money off of Modern Warfare 2. However, if they come out with Modern Warfare The Broadway Show, I won’t be buying Modern Warfare 3.
via thatvideogameblog
Warcraft movie director announced
The same guy behind the Spider-Man trilogy has been announced to be the director for the Warcraft movie. Sam Raimi is also responsible for such works as “The Evil Dead” and “Drag Me To Hell.”
Blizzard Entertainment and Legendary Pictures will be working together for the film. So, maybe it won’t be so bad if Blizzard has most of the creative control.
“Sam’s passion for ‘Warcraft’ is undeniable and we know that he will create an incredible film worthy of Blizzard’s phenomenal franchise,” said Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull.
“From our first conversation with Sam, we could tell he was the perfect choice,”” added Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment. “Sam knows how to simultaneously satisfy the enthusiasts and the mainstream audience that might be experiencing that content for the first time.”
There’s a lot of Warcraft lore out there, beginning from the debut of the scourge up to the return of the Lich King. And who can forget all of the novels that spawned along the way? Details are scarce right now, as the movie is still in production. Hopefully more information will pop up in this year’s Comic-Con.
Read (Toronto Sun)
Tags: alliance sucks, blizzard, director, Film, for the horde, legendary pictures, Movie, warcraft, wow
Mortal Kombat Film Producer Sues Midway
If you’ve been following the happenings at Midway you’ll know the company is in dire straits, facing bankruptcy following the failure of Wheelman to pull in the money they needed to keep things going. Recently Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment swooped in with a $33 million dollar offer to acquire most of the company, including of course the Mortal Kombat franchise, undoubtedly the only reason to really put up the cash to acquire the company.
Larry Kasanoff has filed a lawsuit on behalf of himself and his company, Threshold Entertainment claiming that in 1993 Midway granted him the rights in perpituity to the film and TV license for the series. Unfortunately for Kasanoff the clauses in his contract don’t actually grant that; his argument says that they ‘amount to the same thing’. He goes on to claim that Mortal Kombat is much more a product of Threshold than Midway since they claim that the characters in the video games were simply flat, stock archetypes who were developed into actual characters by the production company in the various films and tv series. That of course ignores all the inconsistencies between the depictions of the characters in their films and television series, not to mention that the film takes a certain degree of story-related artistic license. In the film both Kano and Shang Tsung are killed, while as established in game canon by Mortal Kombat II (released two years before the film) Kano was a captive of Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung was still living.
Hitman Movie Getting Sequel?
In a perfect world there would be a direct correlation between a movies quality and its financial success. Poorly made films would founder and their directors would be run out of town at the end of pitchforks with torches following closely behind. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your feelings) some films garner enough money out of sheer hope or curiousity. How many of us haven’t ever seen a trailer and thought “this looks so bad I just have to see it”. Such is often the case with video game movies. Fans go to see them to find out how much of a mess they made of our beloved plots and characters while others get dragged along or go looking for a good action/horror flick.
If there was that direct relationship between quality and profitability we’d never have seen a video game movie after Mario Bros., but they manage to get enough between tickets and DVD sales, so they struggle on. Despite the disdain of both critics and gamers alike for the Hitman movie it pulled in over $100 million at the box office, so it seems that Agent 47 will be gearing up for another shot at the silver screen. Fox has hired writer Kyle Ward to pen the screenplay for the movie. If you’ve never heard of him, that’s probably not a huge surprise since so far he’s only got one released film to his name, though he did write the screenplay for the upcoming Kane and Lynch film. This early there aren’t any other details, but regardless of whether or not Olyphant will be reprising his role, I doubt Olga Kurylenko will be back as sequels like this generally dump the previous love interest to introduce a new one, although many would be happier if they dumped the romantic subplot altogether as there never was one in the games.
BioShock Film On Hold
Unfortunately for men everywhere the film industry is cash driven, which is why we see so many terrible romantic comedies (they’re cheap and rake in a lot of ticket sales) instead of the action-packed extravaganzas we like so much. The more disconnected from the real world a film is, the higher the costs are. More atmosphere means more sets, more costumes, more everything. Coming off his huge success with the Pirates of the Caribbean films Gore Verbinski set his sights on the BioShock film.
Universal Pictures has been behind the project so far, but when the budget rose to over $160 million they halted production. Verbinski has said that he’s determined to get the film made. Universal hasn’t said they’re backing out completely but they are pushing the director to take filming outside of the USA to take advantage of tax credits and Verbinski said London is one of the locations they’re considering. With the incredible amount of special effects and scenery needed to truly portray the eerie underwater city of rapture it’s hard to guess how much Universal expected to be able to make the film for, especially given the epic quality of the Pirates trilogy.