Len Wiseman (Underworlds, Die Hard 4) to direct Gears of War

[Trippy]

Director chosen for "Gears of War" feature

By Borys Kit
1 hour, 22 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - New Line is putting "Gears of War" in motion, setting Len Wiseman ("Live Free or Die Hard") to direct the video-game adaptation.

"Gears," developed by Epic Games, became an instant success when it debuted on the Xbox 360 in November 2006. It became one of the most popular games on the Xbox Live service, overtaking "Halo 2," and sold more than 3 million units worldwide in its first 10 weeks. It received numerous awards, including Gamespot's Game of the Year and the Interactive Achievement Awards' Overall Game of the Year.

Set on the planet Sera, the game thrusts players into a battle for survival between humans and a race of creatures, known as the Locust Horde, that surface from the bowels of the planet. Players assume identities of soldiers on Delta Squad as they fight to save Sera's inhabitants.

Chris Morgan, who wrote the upcoming Universal action features "Wanted" and "The Fast and the Furious 4," has been hired to write the screenplay. Wiseman and Morgan will develop the story treatment.

The movement on the project suggests that the reconfigured New Line won't be confined to horror, thrillers and low-budget comedies but will be able to tackle big-budget projects outside the scope initially ascribed to the Warner Bros. division.

Video-game adaptations have proved a tricky art to master in Hollywood. Some movies have fallen apart because of creative and economic pressures ("Halo") while others have not performed well at the box office ("Doom").

Cliff Bleszinski, the "Gears" design director at Epic, said the tricks to adapting a game are simple: "Hollywood needs to take the source material seriously, win over the avid gamers and make it work for an audience that is young and old, male and female." But he also admitted that that plan is easier said than done.

"Disney made a great movie out of a theme park ride, and somebody is sooner or later going to make a great one out of a video game," Bleszinski said. "Having someone like Len really helps the odds. I think we're going to create something special here."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

[stray]

Not to toss any particular hate at Gears of War, but the whole "Disney made a film out of a theme park ride" thing is dumb. Wrong. Disney made a film out of a theme park ride that was about pirates. Completely different story there! No one should use that to encourage themselves... Unless, they, too, are making a film about pirates. With Johnny Depp in it.

[lamaros]

I would have thought winning over the people watching the film would be the option to go for, rather then just aiming at the small portion of them that are gamers, but what do I know, eh?

[nurtsi]

Wiseman better put his wife on this movie. Can't remember if the game had any women in it though.

[Velorath]

Not to toss any particular hate at Gears of War, but the whole "Disney made a film out of a theme park ride" thing is dumb. Wrong. Disney made a film out of a theme park ride that was about pirates. Completely different story there! No one should use that to encourage themselves... Unless, they, too, are making a film about pirates. With Johnny Depp in it.

On the other hand one of the biggest box office flops of all time was about pirates.

[stray]

Heh, forgot about that. I always see the cover every once in awhile, but have never wanted to see it. Probably something to do with Matthew Modine not making a good pirate. At all.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, at the time a pirate movie based on a theme park ride by Disney starring Edward Scissorhands hardly looked like a sure winner.  It was actually a pretty risky gambit.

[schild]

Hiring Depp, Verbinski, Rush, Bloom, Knightley and Pryce is about as 'unrisky' as you can get.

[CBR990]

Wow gears of War is my Favorite Game ever!!!!!!!! And Underworld is my favorite Movie ever... I cannot wait to see GOW the move now...

[schild]

You obviously don't know how to control yourself or even have any idea of proper forum etiquette. As such, peace out.

[NiX]

That had to be a gimmick account.

[UnSub]

And Underworld is my favorite Movie ever...

I fully support the banning on these grounds alone.

[WindupAtheist]

Hiring Depp, Verbinski, Rush, Bloom, Knightley and Pryce is about as 'unrisky' as you can get.

I missed this at the time, but since the thread has risen from the grave, what the hell. Except for Bloom having been in Lord of the Rings, no one you listed here had ever been involved with any movie where the domestic gross even outstripped the Pirates production budget. Verbinski had a few successes under his belt, but he was hardly known as some sort of go-to hitmaker. Depp was a solid star whose movies typically grossed in the $50 to $70 million range, not a box office heavyweight by any means. Rush and Pryce were good actors with zero box office relevance, and Knightley was some fucking nobody.

In 2003 putting a $140 million would-be summer blockbuster on the shoulders of that crew was HARDLY a sure thing.

[apocrypha]

Underworld is my favorite Movie ever...

Oh shit wrong forum.

[NiX]

Bloom having been in Lord of the Rings

This alone guaranteed Disney the teenage girls, same with Depp. The combination sold the movie to a lot of people.

[WindupAtheist]

Sure it turned out that way in retrospect, but would you have bet nine figures on it five and a half years ago? Without sweating? Depp was by far the more proven of the two, and for all his teenage female fans he had exactly one movie on his record that had (barely) managed to cross $100m domestic.

It wasn't an outrageously risky seemingly-doomed turnaround success story on the order of Titanic or anything, but it was hardly some guaranteed formula for moneyhats.

[schild]

It wasn't an outrageously risky seemingly-doomed turnaround success story on the order of Titanic or anything, but it was hardly some guaranteed formula for moneyhats.

The hype train they generated for it even before release was epic. After the first trailer, it was pure fucking critical mass. It was anything but a gamble. As I said, it was about as "unrisky" as you could get. I fail to see the problem with that wording. Depp insured the girls, nerds, their girlfriends, etc. Jocks would be taken by their girlfriends. Parents loved the old and young cast. It was pretty well played all around. And the advertising was fucking everywhere. Remember, you can make just about ANYTHING popular with enough money.

[UnSub]

It was a risk.

However, my understanding of test screenings is that it rated off the charts, so that is why Disney dumped a lot of money into the promos.

[stray]

As cool as most people have always thought of Depp, I guess even he was somewhat of a risk at the time too. I think the producers thought that he was going to "tap into his potential" in a conventional way, like, "Finally, he's finally playing along and doing Disney movies", and in that sense, it wasn't a risk. Then he confirmed it actually was a risk, by still being Johnny Depp, changing the written character entirely, but won everyone over on his own terms anyways. From my understanding, Sparrow was originally sort of the typical rogue-ish trickster, but still leading man-ish - like Errol Flynn material.. Johnny turned him into a mumbling rockstar pseudo fag, who wasn't at all smooth with women, and with very bad teeth.

[Trippy]

One thing you guys are forgetting is that Pirates was an Jerry Bruckheimer "event movie" and one of the things he often does is pick obscure directors to direct his big budget action movies. This includes people like Michael Bay (Bad Boys), Simon West (Con Air), and Dominic Sena (Gone in Sixty Seconds). I.e. when you go see a Bruckheimer event movie it really doesn't matter who the Director is cause in his formula the director is essentially an interchangable piece.

[WindupAtheist]

The hype train they generated for it even before release was epic. After the first trailer, it was pure fucking critical mass. It was anything but a gamble. As I said, it was about as "unrisky" as you could get. I fail to see the problem with that wording. Depp insured the girls, nerds, their girlfriends, etc. Jocks would be taken by their girlfriends. Parents loved the old and young cast. It was pretty well played all around. And the advertising was fucking everywhere. Remember, you can make just about ANYTHING popular with enough money.

The gamble isn't being made as you hype your completed project, it's made a year beforehand when you have to decide whether or not to sign off on a $100+ million budget for something that may or may not be a hit based on a script (that's sure to be changed) and a list of names. Sometimes you end up with something like Pirates and can kick the hype machine into overdrive in search of the biggest moneyhats ever. Sometimes you end up with a mediocre movie, like Hulk or Superman Returns, that sufficient marketing can push to reasonable success. Once in a while you totally lose the bet and end up with something like Pluto Nash, a turd so foul that you just suck up the nine-figure loss and don't even bother throwing good money after bad trying to hype it.

No, you can't make quite anything popular with enough money. Giant "we may as well have taken ninety million dollars and set it on fire" flops happen.

Also, you're grossly overestimating Depp's perceived box office power going into Pirates. Here's his box office record. There's a total of one $100m domestic gross on there, and only two movies whose total worldwide gross would even cover the production budget for Pirates.

[UnSub]

Also, imo, I think it is pretty clear that the audience is meant to be in Orlando Bloom's corner for most of the film. That Depp steals every scene was a happy accident.

[NiX]

Despite Depp not having a list of blockbuster after blockbuster, he still had appeal to young girls. Especially in the college age range because of drugs and Fear and Loathing.

[WindupAtheist]

Depp had a proven reputation as an excellent actor and solid earner in small-to-medium pictures. Dropping an event picture on his shoulders wasn't some totally kooky off-the-wall idea, but it's not like he had a track record at that level either. Just filming Pirates cost 14 times as much as every penny Fear and Loathing ever made, for example, and I think it was probably Sleepy Hollow that convinced someone that Depp had untapped box office potential.

If Pirates had fizzled out with... say... $80 million worth of teenage girl dollars and not much else, it would have been a huge flop and it would be very easy to say "A movie about a Disney ride? Haha! Depp is a good actor but not really a movie star, their female lead was nobody, and that Lord of the Rings kid may as well be Mark Hamill part two! What were they thinking?"

As it is, I'll bet Pirates hitting it out of the park with Depp in the lead is half the reason we started seeing stuff like Robert Downey Jr. as Iron man, and Edward Norton as the Hulk. There aren't very many guys you can consistently bank on at the $100+ million level, and Will Smith can't be in every movie, so hey, why not start throwing Serious Actors at summer blockbusters? It worked for Pirates!

[stray]

Yeah, that's a good trend (serious actors in blockbusters, i mean).

I don't know if it was Sleepy Hollow per se. Depp's always had "mainstream"/big movie potential. I mean, he's always been really talented, and he's good looking in a way that makes the average good looking actor look normal. It was just up to him how it happened.

Keira Knightly wasn't exactly a nobody. Bend It Like Beckham was one of those weird unlikely hits, and she already was in another Disney type movie. A lot of families and kids already knew of her. But also, she's uniquely good looking too. Few people are going to complain.

[Soulflame]

What exactly is the plot of Gears of War?  Soldiers fight something underground... that's about my grasp of it.  I guess I could see an action film with lots of explosions, and guns with chainsaws on them.  Which would be awesome if done right, don't get me wrong... I just am sort of baffled by making a movie out of this particular property.

[WindupAtheist]

Nah, Knightley's only roles prior to Pirates were Beckham and a bit part in Phantom Menace as one of the Portman lookalikes. Beckham was successful beyond expectations and put her on the map, but it wasn't that huge of a movie. Don't get me wrong, she had potential. Everyone had the potential, and the project did indeed come through with flying colors.

I'm just saying, it's not like we're talking about a Spielberg movie starring Will Smith and Reese Witherspoon that, gosh, somehow turned out to be a hit. They did bank on people with big-movie potential rather than big-movie records.

[lamaros]

Pirates was all Depp and Rush, everyone else was irrelevant.

[schild]

Pirates was all Depp and Rush, everyone else was irrelevant.

Pirates was all Jesse Jane and Evan Stone.

Pirates of the Caribbean was all Depp and Rush.