Gears of War Movie: A Harder "Lord of the Rings"

[Keane Ng]

Gears of War Movie: A Harder "Lord of the Rings"

The director of the Lord of the Rings [http://gearsofwar.xbox.com]'."

Len Wiseman, the creator of the gothic-action franchise "Fast & Furious [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320691/]" (otherwise known as "4 Fast 4 Furious").

So: Vin Diesel as Marcus Fenix drifting in a Nos-powered hot rod while mowing down Locust? In my dreams, maybe. Wiseman has his own vision for the movie, and it's a very specific one. "It's going to be much more [on the] science fiction side of it than the creature side of it...I've always been much more of a sci-fi action fan than a horror fan," he said [http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/videogames/343]. "The hope is that we're [going to do] three movies and really cover the bases on everything. Basically a harder-edged 'Lord of the Rings'."

If it sounds like Wiseman's woefully out of touch with what Gears of War is, well, you can at least give him credit for owning the game. "When I was on 'Die Hard,' I had to choose some video game for the background in a scene with Kevin Smith. I was shown about a dozen games and told to 'Choose one to be in the background' and I said 'this one looks really, really cool whatever it is,' and it was Gears Of War," Wiseman, who admitted he's not much of a gamer, explained. "I just really connected with it; the design of it the world, the whole thing. So I actually brought an Xbox 360 to start researching what it was."

Via: CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=206669]

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[mattttherman3]

Well at least this guy has done some good movies already, maybe this movie could break the trend of shitty movies based on games.

 

[ChocoFace]

don't get your hopes up that easily, anything can be ruined.

I never did complete gears of war....hmm

 

[Aardvark]

I've always thought LoTR could have been vastly improved with the addition of firearms and/or chainsaws. Seeing the shire blown apart by Boomers would also have brought me happiness.

 

[Baby Tea]

Well at least this guy has done some good movies already, maybe this movie could break the trend of shitty movies based on games.

Wait wait...WHAT good movies? 'Wanted' is the only one listed that was tolerable (For a mindless action flic).

Underworld? Crap.
Anything with 'fast' and 'furious' in the title? Super crap.
And 'Live Free or Die Hard'? The worst of the Die Hard movies?

This is going to suck.
Especially since he knows nothing about the game, apparently.

Another gaming franchise thrown onto the movie chopping block.

 

[Dogstile]

add orcs lobbing tickers as grenades, and you have yourself a party

 

[ElephantGuts]

I really really hope that this (these) movie(s) turn(s) out to be good because I'd really love to watch a good Gears of War movie, especially after reading the book, which atleast to me showed that the GoW universe definetly has potential to be more than just a videogame. The fact that the director has done good (Edit: well, decent, maybe?) stuff in the past gives me some hope that it'll be good, but it's an ambitious project and I'm afraid that they'll either cut down on it in order to make it more feasible or try to do too much and end up failing.

And the director should definetly play through the games (or atleast watch someone else play them) to get to know more about them, since the movie is all about it the creator should be completely familiar with what already exists in the universe.

I still don't know if I'll dare to hope that this turns out good. After all videogames and movies don't have a particularly good history of crossing over.

 

[Fightgarr]

Why can't they keep these two media apart? (Well money obviously but I can still ask a rhetorical question, right?)
Comparing Gears of War to the Lord of the Rings trilogy is insulting. I literally cannot see how in hell you can plan on making the macho game of the year into anything near an epic which is what Lord of the Rings is supposed to be/should have been in the films.
Thank you, Wiseman, for comparing your movie to Lord of the Rings, I haven't been angry in a while, and you have made me seeth with it. If this movie manages to scrape by with an "its alright" I'll be impressed... I don't think I could be more offended by his Lord of the Rings statement.

 

[Keane Ng]

Well at least this guy has done some good movies already, maybe this movie could break the trend of shitty movies based on games.

Wait wait...WHAT good movies? 'Wanted' is the only one listed that was tolerable (For a mindless action flic).

Underworld? Crap.
Anything with 'fast' and 'furious' in the title? Super crap.
And 'Live Free or Die Hard'? The worst of the Die Hard movies?

This is going to suck.
Especially since he knows nothing about the game, apparently.

Another gaming franchise thrown onto the movie chopping block.

Sorry, Die Hard 2 is the worst Die Hard.

 

[Archon]

Well, I loved Underworld! Huzzah.

 

[Iampringles]

I would really like this film to be enjoyable.

Until then, I shall optimistically hope.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

I don't understand all these movie games. If your going to make a movie game, choose a game with an original setting, other wise its just going to be a cheap Alien movie.

I'm more looking forward to the Prince of Persia movie. The Sands of Time is my favorite game EVAR and I love Pirates of the Caribbean, so it has potential.

 

[dcheppy]

Well at least this guy has done some good movies already, maybe this movie could break the trend of shitty movies based on games.

Wait wait...WHAT good movies? 'Wanted' is the only one listed that was tolerable (For a mindless action flic).

Underworld? Crap.
Anything with 'fast' and 'furious' in the title? Super crap.
And 'Live Free or Die Hard'? The worst of the Die Hard movies?

This is going to suck.
Especially since he knows nothing about the game, apparently.

Another gaming franchise thrown onto the movie chopping block.

Sorry, Die Hard 2 is the worst Die Hard.

Nobody should be excited about this movie. None of those were good movies, except for Die hard 4(which kind of had a comic-action brilliance, but it's not that hard to follow the well established die hard formula), but that was it. His movies have had passable action, but nothing memorable, or even above average. Merely, "not bad" action. Sadly he was also responsible for the really bad writing in most of these movies so I'm not optimistic.

My prediction: A bloated gears movie where the emphasis is on good but uninspired action. He will retain the one note characters from the game(think they're shallow in the game, imagine how out of place they'll be in a movie), and it'll be an awkward mix of dumb oversized stereotypes trying to tackle an epic serious story, which will suffer from too much painful and boring exposition and have very little emotional resonance.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Uuuuugh.

I'm not sure what disheartens me most about this situation. When you're sitting there telling people, "it'll be a harder-edged Lord of the Rings" that's a pretty uninspired idea, isn't it? To say, "we're copying this other extremely long-winded and pretentious movie but we're using this game's characters instead" does not encourage me to pick up tickets for this...

What's the point of this, anyway? Gears the game has shipped two titles and is probably fixing for a third, and nobody was exactly enamored with its story. It's pretty much a shallow excuse to have gameplay. Why would anyone want to see a story better told as a game in a movie theater for three hours when they could play the bloody game? It blows my mind. What's more I'd be more encouraged of Uwe Boll directed it with a resume like this guy has...

 

[Somethingfake]

As soon as I read the articles title. I couldn't help laugh at it.

 

[ffxfriek]

As soon as I read the articles title. I couldn't help laugh at it.

same here

 

[Medic Heavy]

Yeah I really hope this doesn't turn out poorly but the guy's movie's are just mindless action flicks. And i kinda think the story behind Gears Of War is more then just mindless action it's got some depth.(I'm pretty sure I'm on the minority for thinking this though.)

especially after reading the book,

My god someone else who read the book beside me. *high fives

 

[GammaZord]

Len Wiseman and Chris Morgan (Fast and Furious, really?) + Gears of War subject matter = suckfest