Elijah Wood Joins Cast of Double Fine's Broken Age

[Sarah LeBoeuf]

Elijah Wood Joins Cast of Double Fine's Broken Age

The world's most famous hobbit joins Jack Black on the cast of Tim Schafer's Kickstarted adventure game.

Double Fine head honcho and adventure game legend Tim Schafer stopped by Spike TV's VGX to show off some gameplay for Broken Age, the developer's Kickstarter-funded adventure game. Along with game footage, Schafer revealed the latest voice actor to join the cast: former Hobbit Elijah Wood, who will take the role of Shay.

Wood joins Jack Black and a slew of experienced game voice actors [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127384-Jack-Black-Heads-Broken-Ages-Voice-Acting-Cast], including some from previous Schafer projects. Broken Age is Tim Schafer's first adventure game since Grim Fandango; Schafer told VGX hosts Geoff Keighley and Joel McHale that publishers told him to make other kinds of games, but fans never stopped asking for another classic adventure title.

Despite the adventure game's financial snags [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115746-Tim-Schafer-Raises-1-3-Million-Update-Again] along the way, which resulted in it being broken up into two parts. The first half of Broken Age is due out next month, which will be almost two years after the Kickstarter initially launched; hopefully backers will feel that it was worth the wait.

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[Smertnik]

So that's where all that money has gone.

 

[ShakerSilver]

I guess Tim had to have spent that 3.3 million on something.

 

[Bleidd Whitefalcon]

Wouldn't Elijah Wood be kinda expensive? Especially considering that the game has ALREADY hit some financial snags?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Wouldn't Elijah Wood be kinda expensive? Especially considering that the game has ALREADY hit some financial snags?

Either:

A) He's one of the reasons Double Fine have gone overbudget.

B) He's doing this for cheap because he's a fan/friend of Tim Schafer/Jack Black/XXXX

I'm leaning towards option B at the moment.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Wouldn't Elijah Wood be kinda expensive? Especially considering that the game has ALREADY hit some financial snags?

According to what we know from the documentary most of the big names are friends of the studio that are doing small roles or cameos they're doing as a favour for very small pay. Well I assume so, they have not gone into too much detail on how big their voice actor budget is. So in light of that I have come up with alternative theories to how Double Fine can pull this off.

1. Schafer is actually a silver tongued negotiator
2. Double Fine has a secret money pit they've not told us about.
3. Schafer has dirt on all the cast. Them acting in his game is the way they buy his silence

 

[Illessa]

According to what we know from the documentary most of the big names are friends of the studio that are doing small roles or cameos they're doing as a favour for very small pay. Well I assume so, they have not gone into too much detail on how big their voice actor budget is. So in light of that I have come up with alternative theories to how Double Fine can pull this off.

1. Schafer is actually a silver tongued negotiator
2. Double Fine has a secret money pit they've not told us about.
3. Schafer has dirt on all the cast. Them acting in his game is the way they buy his silence

From the VGX spot [http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/u2e4fw/broken-age-vgx-2013--world-premiere-featurette], Tim Schafer hooked up with Elijah Wood through twitter. Given EW has said in interviews that Monkey Island is his favourite game he's probably not asking for vast scads of cash. In fact the VO director said in the last documentary episode that her budget is smaller than what she had for Day Of The Tentacle, that she refuses to stunt-cast people who are just in it for the paycheque, and that the actors are working "Essentially working for free". I take that to mean union scale, in which case complete newbie voice actors will be getting paid exactly the same as the big names.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Wouldn't Elijah Wood be kinda expensive? Especially considering that the game has ALREADY hit some financial snags?

Either:

A) He's one of the reasons Double Fine have gone overbudget.

B) He's doing this for cheap because he's a fan/friend of Tim Schafer/Jack Black/XXXX

I'm leaning towards option B at the moment.

In the documentary they talked about how they like getting voice actors that are all super passionate about whatever project they're in, both because they tend to give much better performances than somebody who's only there for the paycheck, and because they cost far, far less.

Anyway, this game looks so damn good, and I haven't even played very many classic adventure games, although I want to. I can't wait to get my hands on this.

 

[Flunk]

Meh, with Kickstarter you have to accept that you could be throwing your money into a pit. I don't even remember what I pledged for Broken Age at this point.

I agree, I imagine he's doing it because he wants to. Plus voice-acting isn't very time intensive so he can probably knock out all the lines in a day or two.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

You still have to wonder just where the hell all that money has gone if the four million from the Kickstarter AND the money from the IndieFund AND the money from the Double Fine Humble Bundle still isn't enough to get the damn game finished.

It sure isn't on flavour dialogue considering there's no SCUMM-esque interface, instead having a Botanicula "one button does all" interface.

 

[hooblabla6262]

I looked at my girlfriend seconds before the announcement and was like "Elijah Wood is going to be the boy".

Elijah just has that voice where he could easily be a pre-teen boy. To me, it just seemed like the most reasonable fit.

 

[Starker]

You still have to wonder just where the hell all that money has gone if the four million from the Kickstarter AND the money from the IndieFund AND the money from the Double Fine Humble Bundle still isn't enough to get the damn game finished.

It sure isn't on flavour dialogue considering there's no SCUMM-esque interface, instead having a Botanicula "one button does all" interface.

Salaries, basically. Artists, programmers, animators, etc.

Also, Indie Fund did not put money in this project. They financed Spacebase DF-9, among other people, and they recouped their investment in two weeks. DF-9 is developed by a different team within Double Fine.

Also also, inventory items can function as verbs, so there's the flavour text.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I don't think it would be too expensive. He did some voice work for Roosterteeth in one of the Red vs. Blue seasons, and they're not exactly a mega corporation. It wouldn't surprise me if he does this sort of thing because he likes the company.

 

[Yoshi4102]

I don't think it would be too expensive. He did some voice work for Roosterteeth in one of the Red vs. Blue seasons, and they're not exactly a mega corporation. It wouldn't surprise me if he does this sort of thing because he likes the company.

As I understand it, he's a big fan of videogames and has worked with Double Fine before. So good pick!

On the other hand I really like Elijah Wood's voice acting from what they've shown!! Wasn't interested before, am now

 

[Starker]

As I understand it, he's a big fan of videogames and has worked with Double Fine before. So good pick!

On the other hand I really like Elijah Wood's voice acting from what they've shown!! Wasn't interested before, am now

He hasn't worked with DF before, but apparently he's a big fan of Monkey Island.

If you liked Elijah Wood, just wait until you hear the guy that plays the wolf character! Jennifer Hale as the ship's computer and all the other characters are quite good as well. Their voice director really outdid herself this time.

 

[Yoshi4102]

He hasn't worked with DF before, but apparently he's a big fan of Monkey Island.

If you liked Elijah Wood, just wait until you hear the guy that plays the wolf character! Jennifer Hale as the ship's computer and all the other characters are quite good as well. Their voice director really outdid herself this time.

Oops I'm dumb. Was talking talking about Jack Black because they mentioned him too. But yeah I heard that about Elijah Wood! I didn't really listen to the computer chick much, think I'll need to hear more to judge it.