After a brief but intense bidding skirmish, New Line Cinema has walked away with the spoils of Gears Of War, one of the hottest video game titles around. It was Stuart Beattie's treatment for a big screen adaptation that eventually won over game developers Epic.
The interesting aspect is that said treatment from Australian screenwriter Beattie, who's provided the pages for Collateral, the forthcoming 30 Days Of Night and the Russell Crowe / Christian Bale remake of 3:10** To **Yuma, doesn't deviate too much from the original game's plot. Given that there are holes in that story which you could drive an armour-plated truck through, this could be cause for a concerned eyebrow-raise.
Additionally, there's the problem of a genre precedent – there's never been a good video game to movie adaptation. Not one. Super Mario Brothers? Pants. Doom? Moments of okay-ness. Mention Silent Hill and you'll get a slap. Even Halo has hit snags before it's even begun. So the outlook is bleak, but then so was that of main character Marcus Fenix in his one man war against the Locust, an alien species who've been wiping out humans since they landed on earth some years ago (on Fenix's clock that is – the whole thing is set in the future). Fingers crossed this will be the film to break the VG curse, although there's also hope in other game adaptations currently in the works, including Hitman and, yes James Dyer, World Of Warcraft.
No word on casting yet, and our guess is producers are waiting to see if wrestler-turned-actor 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin cuts the mustard with his first leading role in The Condemned in late April before they put him at the top of the list. Yeah, yeah – and no-one thought The Rock could act either, remember? Other contenders, for Empire's money, might include Michael Chiklis, Mickey Rourke (perhaps a little too close to Marv in Sin City, though), or even Mark Wahlberg.
There's no production date set for the moment, but New Line are aiming to get the film out in time for the summer of 2009.