It looks like another video game movie is in the works. The best video game movie to date was probably the animated Street Fighter movie. Since then not much has been worth seeing. It appears Paramount will try to break the curse with a film based on the first person shooter AREA 51. We heard the story at the water-cooler from
Paramount Pictures has hired comic book author Grant Morrison to write the feature adaptation of video game franchise Area 51. Christine Peters will produce through her Par-based CFP Productions with Penn Station’s Dean Georgaris and Michael Aguilar, along with Stan Winston. Paramount picked up to the film rights to Area 51 from Midway Games in 2004. The game was released in April 2005. A spinoff game, “Blacksite: Area 51” will be released by Midway this summer.
Set in the U.S. government’s most top-secret military facility, the storyline revolves around a hazardous materials specialist who is called in to investigate a viral outbreak that could be extra-terrestrial in nature.
I don’t know how you can milk a story from a first person shooter. I would have a hard time making a commercial; unless it was a commercial selling guns. I do think it was a wise idea to get a comic book writer on board, especially Grant Morrison. Morrison has a laundry list of titles under his belt, and may be able to work with little, better than most. He has taken small DC characters and worked magic, perhaps he may do the same with area 51. We shall see.
