Thank you for visiting Mr. and Mrs. at the Movies! We have discontinued this blog and have migrated over to our brand new site, Tarpley Movie Talk. If you would like more discussion of movie news, think pieces on hollywood trends and straight-forward film reviews. Please click on over to the new site and check it out.
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**ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOLLOWS**
Challenge: Name one great movie that was adapted from a popular video game franchise. Go ahead, just one. Take a fifteen minute break if you have to, I know this is exhausting.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s been plenty of enjoyable video game flicks. I mean I still watch Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat every once in a while and no one has to tie me to a chair (Don’t get me started on the sequels of either of those franchises). That being said, there isn’t even one great video game movie on my shelf. Or your shelf. I promise. But in a few years that will be a very different story.
Mike Newell’s assistant played through the Prince of Persia games and told him about them right before they started shooting. True story
Okay okay I get it, maybe video games aren’t ready for a great adaption. I mean comic book movies haven’t even had their time yet. Wait, what? Almost every successful blockbuster released since Spiderman was a comic book adaption? What do you mean Marvel’s The Avengers made over 1.5 billion at the box office?! Remember when reading comic books wasn’t even cool? Remember when all the comic book movie adaptions were total garbage?
Until about a year ago I had no faith in Hollywood game adaptions. I’d been burned too many times. What happened in 2013, you ask? Nothing of importance really. But hey, at least the Playstation exclusive The Last of Us was released and became one of the highest selling and critically acclaimed games ever!
I may be a little biased in this department because I bought that game on day one and didn’t leave the house for a week, but this work of art gave me some perspective. Never had a video game brought me to tears like The Last of Us. Hell not even The Pianist could make me flinch, but this game tugged at my heartstrings like they were connected to some creepy porcelain puppet. The voice acting and motion capture tech sold me on performances better than most Oscar winners could.
That game was a sign. No more will we have to face the fear of Uwe Boll or Paul W.S. Anderson adapting our favorite games into something that looks eerily similar to Oscar the Grouch’s house.
He calls himself Uwe Boll but I’m like 90% sure his maiden name is Lucifer
And yes, there is a Last of Us movie in pre-production, but it gets much better from there.
Ubisoft is easily my favorite video game company ever. If you’re not familiar with Ubisoft, they’re the brilliant minds behind franchise favorites such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and every single Tom Clancy game since 1999. That doesn’t even cover half of their fantastic track record. Better yet, back in 2011 they founded Ubisoft Motion Pictures, which currently has six movies in production, all of which are based on Ubisoft video games. This excites me to no end, considering how faithful they promise the adaptions will be.
First on their slate is the Assassin’s Creed movie, due out in 2015. It stars Michael Fassbender (300, Inglorious Bastards, X-Men: First Class) and Justin Kurzel (who directed the Macbeth adaption also starring Fassbender, out this year) is in talks to direct. Fassbender has yet to be in a bad movie and is without a doubt one of the best young actors in Hollywood. Following that trend, Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Lawless, Warrior) is attached to the lead role of the Splinter Cell adaption.
Awe yisssssss
Those actors are quickly becoming household names, and knowing they’re attached to the adaptions of some of the best video games ever has given me even more faith in the future. Pretty soon video game movies will be commonplace in our theaters and on our DVD shelves.
I don’t even care if I graduate college or get a real job anymore. If I’m right concerning this prediction, I will die a happy man.
Thank you for visiting Mr. and Mrs. at the Movies! We have discontinued this blog and have migrated over to our brand new site, Tarpley Movie Talk. If you would like more discussion of movie news, think pieces on hollywood trends and straight-forward film reviews. Please click on over to the new site and check it out.
You can also follow the blog on Facebook and follow Josh Tarpley on Twitter.
Mr. and Mrs. at the Movies 
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