Mass Effect Movie in the Works
Mass Effect [http://masseffect.bioware.com], BioWare's epic sci-fi videogame that looks like a movie, is now on its way to actually becoming a movie.
BioWare [http://www.legendarypictures.com/] co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, along with Mass Effect Project Director Casey Hudson, will serve as executive producers.
The report claims that while a big-screen translation of Mass Effect would require a "massive commitment," the success of Avatar [http://www.amazon.com/Avatar-Two-Disc-Blu-ray-DVD-Combo/dp/B002VPE1B6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1276636916&sr=1-1] has demonstrated that audiences will "follow and invest themselves in non-human characters if given a reason to, which opens the door" for more films in which alien species and settings play a major role. Mass Effect, of course, features numerous alien races interacting in a galactic partnership in which humanity is very much a junior member.
I don't disagree that Mass Effect could be made into a great movie, I'm just not convinced that it should. I've begun to think that the reason videogame movies fail is simply that for the so-called "built-in audience," which is to say gamers, the experience is inevitably diminished. Why would I want to watch Shepard when I've already been Shepard?
Still, the prospect of a Mass Effect movie does have one undeniable upside: We get to play a new round of Cast That Film! Which is a bit of a hairy prospect itself since, as pointed out to me by a Concerned Fan, a lot of Commander Shepards out there are of the female persuasion. So I'm nominating Mickey Rourke [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000620/] for Wrex but beyond that, I'm pretty much out of ideas. Who's it going to be?
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Mass Effect [http://masseffect.bioware.com], BioWare's epic sci-fi videogame that looks like a movie, is now on its way to actually becoming a movie.
BioWare [http://www.legendarypictures.com/] co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, along with Mass Effect Project Director Casey Hudson, will serve as executive producers.
The report claims that while a big-screen translation of Mass Effect would require a "massive commitment," the success of Avatar [http://www.amazon.com/Avatar-Two-Disc-Blu-ray-DVD-Combo/dp/B002VPE1B6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1276636916&sr=1-1] has demonstrated that audiences will "follow and invest themselves in non-human characters if given a reason to, which opens the door" for more films in which alien species and settings play a major role. Mass Effect, of course, features numerous alien races interacting in a galactic partnership in which humanity is very much a junior member.
I don't disagree that Mass Effect could be made into a great movie, I'm just not convinced that it should. I've begun to think that the reason videogame movies fail is simply that for the so-called "built-in audience," which is to say gamers, the experience is inevitably diminished. Why would I want to watch Shepard when I've already been Shepard?
Still, the prospect of a Mass Effect movie does have one undeniable upside: We get to play a new round of Cast That Film! Which is a bit of a hairy prospect itself since, as pointed out to me by a Concerned Fan, a lot of Commander Shepards out there are of the female persuasion. So I'm nominating Mickey Rourke [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000620/] for Wrex but beyond that, I'm pretty much out of ideas. Who's it going to be?
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