The Source Code director could be just what this adaptation of the online fantasy game needs to be a surefire cinematic hit
Movies based on video games have always struggled to achieve a high score with critics. A quick look at the movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes tells us that the best-reviewed example of the form is 2001's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within with a rating of just 44%. Below that, 2010's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time could manage only 40% despite the presence of Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead and director Mike Newell, and 2002's Resident Evil has just 34%. And these are the good ones.
Nevertheless, there is good news for hardcore gamers hoping to see their digital adventures played out on the big screen. A film based on Assassin's Creed is currently in the works with Michael Fassbender in the lead, and playwright – yes, playwright – Michael Lesslie working on the screenplay. Meanwhile, The Amazing Spider-Man producer Avi Arad recently signed up to bring a movie based on stealth action game Metal Gear Solid to multiplexes. Perhaps even more exciting for games players is today's news that the hottest sci-fi film-maker in the world right now, Duncan Jones, is to direct the long-gestating World of Warcraft movie.
Jones is known for Moon, his gorgeously claustrophobic 2009 debut about a man working alone on Earth's satellite (with only a talking robot for company) who appears to undergo a breakdown while nearing the end of his three-year stint. Jones followed that up with the more ambitious techno-thriller Source Code, a genuinely dark take on existential sci-fi themes with a giant beating human heart placed firmly front and centre. What will he do with the world's most popular, massively multiplayer online role-playing game? And is he taking on something of a poisoned chalice, given the critical failure of previous similar efforts?
Jones might do well to examine where things went wrong for those who set out ahead of him. Seamus Masterson of London-based video game marketing company Maverick says the problem lies with the inherent differences in dynamics between films and games. "Narrative in games exists to present the games function," he says. "This really comes first and then the story comes afterwards. Some gamers even see narrative as getting in the way of a game experience.
"There are of course exceptions to the rule, like Heavy Rain and Bioshock, but often the games that have been adapted into films haven't been those which have a lot of narrative there. Film-makers are therefore being asked to adapt products that have less depth to them."
Masterson also points out that the video games industry is relatively young – at around three decades old – and so inevitably draws on film and literary properties when planning new products. This in turn leads to a feedback effect whereby movie adaptations produce ever-diminishing returns. "You are basically making a film that is a thinner version of the property your game was originally borrowing from," he says.
With a movie adaptation of World of Warcraft, which is clearly inspired by Tolkienesque fantasy, Jones is going to have a tough time competing with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, which have a wealth of literary material and pseudo-mythical backstory to draw on. "I'm sure it will be commercially successful but with Duncan Jones you would expect him to want to make something that's critically effective," says Masterson. "How do you make it work for a broader audience? This is probably why it's been six years in development."
Jones is not the first critically acclaimed film-maker to be tempted by a high-profile video game adaptation. Spider-Man's Sam Raimi was previously signed up to World of Warcraft – famously terrible film-maker Uwe Boll also touted himself for the job but was told to bog off – and District 9's Neill Blomkamp cut his teeth working on short-film spin-off promos for the Halo 3 video game that were expected to see him taking on a Peter Jackson-backed feature-length version, until funding collapsed. There is clearly huge potential for the form, which by all rights ought to be competing with comic-book movies in terms of popularity with audiences. That explains why Legendary Pictures, which also produced Christopher Nolan's Batman films, has fought to secure a film-maker with the potential to draw real magic from his fantasy source material.
"I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of games that are regarded as having a real, quality story," says gamer Chris Cartwright, who produces video game trailers. "That is the generally accepted view." Clearly Legendary see Jones as a director with the creativity and nous to bypass such issues: it looks like the video game-based film genre just picked up an extra life.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/jan/31/duncan-jones-world-of-warcraft
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