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Spy Hunter Update
Since word started about a Spy Hunter movie, children have went on to college, a summer and a winter olympics have passed, and Phil Spector murdered someone. Today we have an update from producer Adrian Askarieh via our friends at the moviehole:
‘Spy Hunter’ is such an enormously important project for Universal Pictures and for us. They have supported it financially, and in terms of resources, so much that the plan has always been to get it right. Now, having said that, I think in the last 5 years the business has gone through a change. It’s this paradigm shift that, in my opinion, began in the year 2000. It’s really taking its full form now. People now need to make movies like ‘Spy Hunter’, ‘Batman’, ’Hitman’, ’Star Trek’, ‘Indiana Jones’, and that is exactly what is sustaining this business. Without these movies I don’t think there would be a Hollywood, given the competition from Internet, video games, 500 channels on cable. So ‘Spy Hunter’ falls squarely within that group of movies, because it’s based on a title that has transcended its video game origins. It’s become a huge part of pop culture. People who do not play video games know ‘Spy Hunter’. You have a responsibility to do the right version.
There you have it folks! Spy Hunter is in the shop, because they are concerned about excellence. It is true that in a competitive field, quality will matter most, so I appreciate Askarieh being proactive and wanting to make sure the film is done right. Everyone wants to watch good movies, and they seem to be getting harder to come by some days. (Of course if the movie turns out to be shit, the above statement will make him look like a damn dirty fib master!)
I am just concerned that he may be ill informed about the popularity of Spy Hunter. It was a pretty shitty video game as far as I am concerned, even back in the day I though it was “alright” at best. I do not know anyone that is nostalgic in the slightest for this game, and I know a lot of people into video games. I fear all the reverence being paid to the original game may fall on deaf ears, and after a few years; I would hazard a guess that production costs are not running cheap.
Since news broke that the Rock left the project, we thought the writing was on the wall for this one. Apparently it is still happening, and perhaps it will pull a Superman Returns and make money after being on the shelf forever; but if Doom lost money at the theatre – it isn’t looking good.
“because it’s based on a title that has transcended its video game origins”
…
huh? How the heck has a crappy video game that tried miserably to be updated as a worse than average video game for all of the last-gen consoles, “transcended its video game origins”?
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Hollywood died an honourable death. Then, what rose from the ashes might appreciate itself a little bit more than a crack-whore needing a fix.
The weird thing is, they released a video game for the movie when the Rock was attached to it a few years ago. They mo-capped him for the game, his voice is in it and everything, but they didn’t promote it at all. I never saw a commercial for it. The only reason that I knew about it is because a friend, who worked in the video game store in the mall at the time and knew that I have a thing for Mr. Rock, called and told me that they had it. Here’s the link to the game’s website.
http://www.thespyhunter.com/
Now, if they were so concerned with excellence, why bother to rush and make a goddamn video game for a movie whn they hadn’t even shot a frame of film? I’ve NEVER heard of a studio doing that.
And Spy Hunter isn’t a very transcendent game, in my opinion. No way is that stupid car on the level of such transcendent stars like Mario, Sonic,or Master Chief. Not saying that these are all better games than Spy Hunter, but if I showed my mom a pic of Master Chief, she’d know who he was. If I showed her that car, she wouldn’t know what it was from. They’re trying to save face because they know the thing is in developmental hell right now.
I take it Spy Hunter the game has been updated since i played it on my Commadore64? …………otherwise there is not much sorce material to work with as the the game seemed to never end and you were really just trying not to crash the car while never taking your finger off the machine gun button
There was a Spy Hunter game released for Xbox, PS2, GC, and PC, but it never fared better than average of an average score at best near as I can tell.
They should just all get together and say “Fuck Spy Hunter, let’s do an Elevator Action movie starring Kirsten Dunst and Chris Tucker!”
Dude, they need to make a Tetris movie.