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CALL OF DUTY IS BECOMING A MOVIE UNIVERSE - WHAT'S THE POINT?! - bY MR BIFFO

11/4/2017

36 Comments

 
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Sigh. According to reports, Call of Duty is getting its own "cinematic universe", akin to the Marvel movies, as films can no longer just be films these days.

​In an interview with The Guardian Stacey Sher and Nick van Dyk, co-presidents of Activision Blizzard Studios - the film and TV arm of Activision Blizzard - have revealed the company's plans to "use the multi-layered, interconnected approach that has made Marvel’s superheroes a dominant force in cinema to turn the first-person shooter into an all-conquering film franchise of its own".

The article continued thusly: "According to the pair, work on the Call of Duty films has already generated multiple scripts, and involved extensive research with military experts and retired soldiers.

"They are mapping out a Call of Duty universe which will draw on the feel of the different incarnations of the game rather than transposing existing plots. A first instalment could start shooting as early as 2018 and, if all goes to plan, there will be more to follow."


“We have plotted out many years,” Sher told the Guardian. “We put together this group of writers to talk about where we were going.

"There’ll be a film that feels more like Black Ops, the story behind the story. The Modern Warfare series looks at what it’s like to fight a war with the eyes of the world on you. And then maybe something that is more of a hybrid, where you are looking at private, covert operations, while a public operation is going on.”


Van Dyk added this: “It’s going to have the same sort of high-adrenaline, high-energy aesthetic as the game, but it’s not a literal adaptation. It’s a much more broad and inclusive, global in scope - a big, tentpole Marvel-esque movie."

Van Dyk says the aim is to emulate the way Marvel has created “these individual universes that interconnect and a timeline that makes sense with consistent themes and Easter eggs."

I scarcely even know where to begin with pointing out how wrong-headed and stupid and ignorant and depressing this all is.
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DON'T DO THIS
Let's start here: you don't build a cinematic universe by talking about Easter eggs right at the very beginning. That's like starting the design of a new car with the cup-holder.

In fact... you don't even think about building a cinematic universe at all unless you have a property like Star Wars or Marvel. Call me wrong-headed... but Call of Duty is not Star Wars or Marvel. It's not even close. It's a series of tonally very similar, but utterly disconnected, paramilitary shoot 'em ups, which feature virtually faceless, identikit, characters.

You don't need to make an interconnected universe out of that. What would even be the point?!? But even if that was your intention... you don't go about it by forcing it, by assuming that there's an audience there for such a thing, and that your universe of movies will run and run for years. A movie series, a franchise, maybe, but an interconnected movie universe?! It's mental. Getting one film made is a monumental task. Making it a success faces nigh-on impossible odds.

Even Marvel - with all its property, with its broad brand awareness and even broader appeal - only very tentatively entered into cinematic universe building. Look what a mess you get when - as with DC - you set out to make movies with that express intention from the very off. And that's DC Comics - owners of some of the best characters ever created!

Name a single Call of Duty character other than Soap MacTavish (and - let's face it - we only remember him because he has a weird nickname).

Furthermore, Call of Duty is a terrible, terrible property upon which to build even a single movie, let alone a franchise. Marvel, DC, Star Wars... these are cinematic universes based upon properties rooted in storytelling. Surely there can't be anybody who plays Call of Duty for the story?

The plots in the games are functional, and work to serve the gameplay. Nothing more. They're bland delivery methods, regardless of whether you get Kiefer Sutherland or Kevin Spacey to provide a voice. That's a selling point, not a creative one.

More pertinently, the stories in these games exist to convey a world, a setting, for an exciting video game. Not a movie. Not a movie universe. The function is entirely different.
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SEDUCTION OF THE IGNORANT
Activision Blizzard Studios has been in existence around 18 months. It's currently working on an animated TV series based upon the Skylanders property - which, frankly, seems like a far more logical and understandable project than Call of Duty,

Van Dyk and Sher both have years of experience in the film and TV industry, and know how Hollywood works. They were no doubt hired, on the promise of enormous salaries, to get Activision Blizzard properties into cinemas, and that's what they're going to try and do. You can't blame them for that.

No... this is coming from the top of Activision Blizzard. Like so many other games company bosses they're seduced by the superficial glitz and glamour of Hollywood, without really understanding how Hollywood works.

I've never really understood the games industry's fixation on La La Land, but it seems that movie-making is perceived as sexy and garners respect... and making games is the opposite.

That's what it always feels like to me; rather than doing something which feels creatively-driven, it always seems to be borne more from the insecurity of individuals.


HOLLYWOOD HERE I (DON'T) COME!
In my day job as a telly writer, I've had some tentative experiences with Hollywood - and it's every bit as mad as you might've heard. No... actually, it's madder. Like, off-the-scale bonkers.

Frankly, I want nothing to do with it ever again. The industry is built more on ego-stroking, false promises, and high-budget development than it is actual production.


Indeed, the advice given to most Hollywood screenwriters is to make a living - not to get films made. And in Hollywood, you only have to sell your screenplays to make a living. You don't actually have to get those screenplays into production.

Simply put; you just have to keep writing them, and keep flogging them, and with each one you flog your reputation increases and so does your fee, and eventually you might get to sit in a room with Tom Cruise one day, who'll trample all over your work with his "suggested" changes, and nobody will be able to stop him because he's Tom Cruise and he might put a curse on you with his magic Scientology powers.

I've twice been approached by Hollywood agents. The first one I walked away from when she wanted me to sign a contract which gave her 40% of all my earnings - even my work in the UK - whether she had helped to find me that work or not.

The other was a major agent who I "won" as a prize in a Hollywood screenwriting competition. I had several very exciting days where he was talking big about what he planned to do with my screenplay; how it was going to be shopped round all the major studios, and I was going to be flown out to LA, and how I was the best guy ever, and blah blah. Within a week he'd stopped replying to my calls and emails, and I never found out why. 

What I did learn is that I not only needed an agent but a manager and a lawyer too, and they would also be creaming money off of my earnings. Also... they would all be taking producer credits on any projects I got into development.

To make it in Hollywood you have to give up everything, and make it the sole focus of your life. I wasn't prepared to do that, regardless of the potential rewards. I suspect he may have gotten wind of that - I was, at fortysomething, old by "new" Hollywood screenwriter standards, and had more important priorities. I didn't buy into any of it; to me it just seemed nuts.

Who knows?

TELLING STORIES
Having heard stories from friends who have worked out there - and similarly would never go back - you need to be desperate or desperately hungry, and not yet see through the bullshit. I have little time for the superficial.

I want to work with people who are real and direct, in an industry that is real and direct and driven by creative impulses. I don't want to have to decipher hidden meanings behind the big talk, or navigate the weird personalities and paranoia of the people I'm working with, or keep in mind that everything I hear is probably a lie.

Behind the surface glamour of Hollywood is an industry built on hollow promises and distortion and the cosmetic. It's about showing off, about the flash; when the possibility of flying out there arose, the expectation was that I'd have to consider my wardrobe, my greying hair, my teeth - I needed to glamourise myself, all to portray something that I wasn't, that had nothing to do with my work.

Just on the off-chance of selling a few scripts. Um, well... maybe no?

The US TV industry isn't quite as nuts, but having had more recent experience with it... it still isn't far off. One day you're flavour of the month... the next you're off the radar altogether, because you have a life.

As bad as the Star Wars prequels were, I have enormous respect for George Lucas for staying independent. That's what most people forget about him; he built the biggest movie franchise of all time while remaining an independent filmmaker, because he couldn't be arsed with Hollywood's nonsense.

When he was more directly involved - with the original Star Wars - it nearly killed him... so he got out, even moving his operation out of Hollywood altogether, and refused to play their games. He always seemed motivated by the work, for better or worse, rather than the success and ego-stroking. 
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BAD INFLUENCE
Conceivably, the Call of Duty games are sufficiently influenced by Hollywood movies that they could be translated into films... but I'm not sure what it is about them that would cause them to stand out among other modern military movies, other World War 2 movies, or sci-fi war films. 

It could work, of course. They could release the first Call of Duty movie having hired a decent director, screenwriter and cast. They could make a film with a great plot, with memorable, likeable, broadly appealing characters... but it would hardly be a movie version of a Call of Duty game would it? The point of a Call of Duty game is that it's a game. You're in it. You're the main character.

It's interactive, stupid.

I suppose the reason this has pressed my buttons is because of my first-hand experience with Hollywood. It irritates when the PR hyperbole of wannabe movie-makers is regurgitated by the press, and accepted at face value. When journalists are beguiled by the glamour.

Shortly after I left Digitiser, I wrote a freelance piece for a print magazine, for which I interviewed the boss of a UK game developer who told me his big plans for making movies out of his properties.

He clearly wanted me to be impressed, but even at the time - before I gained experience as a screenwriter -  I thought he was deluded, that he was clearly more excited about the prospect of making movies than he was of making games. It felt to me as if he wanted to make films to gain respect, that he wanted me to be impressed by his ambitions as a movie producer.

This was underlined when he told me how nice his car was, clearly thinking I'd be dazzled... 

Years later, entirely coincidentally, a friend of mine did indeed help get a movie made based upon one of the characters the guy owned.

I had all my suspicions confirmed; as part of the deal to get the film made, the guy was insisting that he - with absolutely no experience of screenwriting - was going to write the screenplay himself. Suffice to say, there was no way my mate and his producing partners were going to let that happen. And they didn't.

SICK OF HOLLYWOOD
I guess I'm just sick of Hollywood being held up as some sort of creative Nirvana - the pinnacle of all human achievement - when for the most part it's a horrible, cut-throat, money-obsessed, ego-driven, success-driven, shallow, narcissistic, support network for needy, selfish, damaged, gym bunnies and Botox casualties, who get held aloft as our gods.

I love films, but I hate the way that the people making them are deified, as something more than the rest of us. It's an insult to anybody who has ever done a hard day's work at anything, anybody who has ever taken pride in their job, ever done what they do for the right reasons, rather than to fill some chasm in their soul.

Gaming - at the coalface level - has always felt as if it is driven by passion, not ego. I'm sick of video games company bosses and producers thinking that being a part of Hollywood is somehow more desirable and worthy than making the games themselves.
36 Comments
paul
11/4/2017 10:23:19 am

And this is why people try to make Indy films, I guess.

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Adam
11/4/2017 04:12:22 pm

They shouldn't have bothered with Crystal Skull though!

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RG
11/4/2017 04:51:31 pm

:) funny.

Nicholas Collins
11/4/2017 10:48:33 am

Those last three paragraphs are pretty much exactly how I feel about any element of game / film crossover. I just hate this idea that when a game reaches a certain level of popularity or public awareness, it is deemed culturally significant enough by the gods of cinema to be 'elevated' by the 'superior' medium of film, and that gamers should prostrate themselves in gratitude to cinema for shining a light on our scummy little hobby. Maybe I'm exaggerating, or just revealing my own hangups about how gaming is perceived, but there's definitely this idea that games somehow should aspire to have films made of them, or to become more like them (see Quantum Break), as if they're somehow not sufficient by themselves.

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Biscuits the character
11/4/2017 12:15:46 pm

I don't think it's any different to the kind of thinking that leads to stuff like Shrek Crash n Bash Racing: 'This franchise is really popular, but we're saturating the market to the point that people are losing interest...let's go for a different market then.'. The many reasons this is a shortsighted approach almost certainly doomed to failure are outlined above by 'Biffmonster'

However, sometimes they HAVE to be made out of a love for the movie, otherwise some seriously misguided marketing ethic. Did you know there is a City of Lost Children video game, for example?

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Spiney O'Sullivan
11/4/2017 11:15:24 am

Everyone's desperate for a cinematic universe now, it's the new equivalent of the fad in the 00s where everything had to be designed to be a trilogy (since The Matrix did such a great of that...). WB won't stop trying to pretend that the po-faced Man of Steel deserves to be the foundation of a whole linked series of films, and Sony are apparently especially hungry for one, especially as Ghostbusters probably won't get the one they were planning for it - hence their plans to probably ruin Spider-Man after the second Homecoming film.

Also, I sound like a spoilsport here, but there is nothing more utterly pointless than Hollywood award ceremonies. Are rich beautiful people that insecure that they need a gold statue to remind them that they're loved by everyone? I also really dislike how they use those shows to claim that Hollywood is this progressive fantasy world when in many ways the place was built on various forms of exploitation.

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Pulled Porcupine
11/4/2017 12:06:32 pm

I think that the second and third Matrix films could’ve easily been rolled into one. I think it’s funny how the Red Pill lot appear to have massively missed the point the Wachowskis were trying to make there...

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Spiney O'Sullivan
11/4/2017 12:19:55 pm

There was a point to the second and third Matrix films?

Biscuits
11/4/2017 12:20:13 pm

Even funnier is that they choose a reference from The 'sophomoric initial entry into cod philosophy' Matrix to mean 'informed'.

Far funnier still is that the Wachowskis are now sisters - conflict of interest there fellows?

Pulled Porcupine
11/4/2017 01:08:07 pm

My general takeaway from those films was, much like in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the revolution was if not orchestrated then allowed to happen by the Matrix, as a way of being better able to contain Messianic individuals like Neo, who for reasons which I can’t quite remember (Something Something Plot Device) the machines wouldn’t be able to suppress in the digital world which would lead to lots of people waking up en masse.

In other words, even if you take the red pill, you’re buying into another delusion - that you’ll actually be able to take on the Matrix and win. Maybe the MRAs sobriquet was more apt than they’ll ever know?

Instead, we got that wrapped around a fun-but-overstretched car chase in Film 2 and Hugo Weaving doing a soggy Being John Malkovich impression in Film 3.

Haveyouboughtedfyet
11/4/2017 11:55:08 am

I think the while Marvel universe thing is the worst thing that's happened to cinema since 3D. The point you raise about George Lucas is spot on. Fans have rejoyced at the sell out of Star Wars to Disney, and yet whether you like the prequels or not, we'll never know how George Lucas' overall story would have played out now. Star Wars was his movie, his story and now Disney is just making Fan-service films ("look! There's AT AT walkers in this scene! For no reason!) And we will never know what the George Lucas 9 film series would be like.

My nearest VUE cinemas appear to be under-performing and have a promotion where all tickets are £4.99 for the year. With a Meerkat ticket on a Super Saver Tuesday you get 2 tickets for £4. And yet, as a film fan, the last couple of years I've been to the cinema less that ever. last year I saw 3 movies at the cinema. But I love movies and Cinema prices are ludicrously low! So what's going on?

The industry will blame piracy, Kodi Fire Sticks etc. But the reality is that there's nothing at the Cinema of interest. The best films I've seen recently were exclusive to Netflix, or in the local independant cinema that we are lucky to have. But browsing the Vue cinema line up, it's Marvel, DC, and they all seem to be big explosion filled blockbusters that blend into each other. I saw Transformers, Man of Steel, they all seem to be a 3 hour long fight where you don't care who wins.

Let's hope Call of Duty doesn't destroy mainstream videogames like Marvel has killed mainstream cinema.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
11/4/2017 01:11:05 pm

The MCU might have a few duffers in it that seem to consist largely of tedious drawn-out fights (Age of Ultron...) or just been unmemorable (Thor 2, Iron Man 2), but it's on the whole a pretty solid set of films that have largely very faithfully adapted the comic characters to screen, and did something that at the time was a pretty bold -and risky- idea.

It can't really be blamed for Sony and WB trying to peddle me-too garbage.

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Adam
11/4/2017 09:05:42 pm

At the risk of getting a bit sidetracked, I thought you couldn't use Meerkat Movies codes in conjunction with the Super Tuesday offer?

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Pulled Porcupine link
11/4/2017 12:03:46 pm

Movies based on games are almost always terrible, terrible affairs. The Resident Evil flicks are only really notable in that they’re not complete dogscock, but as action-horror movies go, they’re just OK. I don’t think that they would otherwise be regarded as good films.

The reason that movies-of-games are usually so awful is because movies can’t do the one thing that games do (i.e. involve the player in the action). Conversely, this is why games-of-movies tend to be better.

What’s the best N64 game of all time? Goldeneye, hands down. Yeah, Perfect Dark was technically a better game with AI multiplayer opponents and secondary weapon functions, but even with that big expansion pack whacked in, it was still a *much* slower affair. Plus you didn’t get that same wow factor you did when watching the actual movie on ITV for the umpteenth time. It’s always fun to spot all the obvious instances where Rare had taken design cues from the sets themselves.

What’s more thrilling than watching Luke Skywalker plant a couple of torpedoes in the Death Star’s exhaust port? Actually doing that trench run yourself. What’s better than watching Ripley torch a cluster of xenomorph eggs in Aliens? Actually lighting those fuckers up yourself. What’s more fun than watching Deckard Cain moodily track down Replicants...

There’s exceptions to the rule, obviously (the most infamous being Atari’s E.T.) but done right, video game adaptations of movies can be wonderful things. I’ve yet to see any evidence of that process working the other way around and I wish studios would just stop trying.

It’s for this reason I’ve long admired the work of Uwe Boll. By trashing the IP of titles that in another universe, might have been optioned by a Bruckheimer or a Bay, Boll’s taken that option out of their hands by repeatedly floating his bum offerings in the Hollywood punch bowl. I suspect that wasn’t his intention, but it seems like that’s the effect his films have had.

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Alastair
13/4/2017 01:50:32 am

And lest we forget, the Resident Evil franchise was one of the reasons for the quick shuttering of Judge Dredd's re-emergence into film.

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Senoir Speilbergo
13/4/2017 11:10:08 am

Boll aside, they recently tried to make Warcraft with a respected director at the helm. The verdict: critics hated it, but audiences loved it: 'It's faithful to the game!' was the cry.

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Biscuits the character
11/4/2017 12:08:32 pm

The time is nigh for militaristic horseshit again, it seems. I agree with all points, particularly that even if these movies are good they will be CoD in name only.

Movies are so, so expensive. They are an unbelievable, ridiculous debauch. The notion of making a boatload of them as an initial concept isn't grounded in reality, it's got 'test markets' and 'positive initial outlook' written all over it (76% of people living in an area comprised of families that make over $35,000 a year would not be adverse to a Call of Duty movie! Let's make seven!). As you rightly point out, Marvel didn't set out to do this...it kind of fell in their lap when an already popular and established screenwriter said 'Hey, maybe this movie can follow on from this one...'.

The good news is, of course, that corporate hubris rarely ends well, especially when unfurling its flap near a tub of silt and poppies (attempting to quantify creative endeavours). It would give me immense satisfaction to see that those responsible lost not just the millions of dollars that one movie would require, but the hundreds of millions necessary to make several.

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Darcy
11/4/2017 01:12:09 pm

I think it's hilarious that, with all these developers pushing for "shared universes" with "deep stories" and "extensive lore", the only one that has come close to pulling it off is... Nintendo, who really don't give a shit about all that guff.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
11/4/2017 01:24:01 pm

If by "shared universe" you mean "Smash Bros and sometimes Mario Kart", and then we ignore the part about deep stories or extensive lore, I think I almost see what you're getting at?

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Picston Shottle
11/4/2017 02:21:39 pm

Hollywood, the place, for the most part, stinks of piss. I was there last weekend and my missus said "please, let's not come here again", and it's only a 45 minute drive away.

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DEAN
12/4/2017 10:02:33 am

LOL

You always make me laugh, Picston!
It doesn't help that I always read your post with a Scouse voice in my head but even so...
No offence meant by that, I'm from Devon and drive a tractor and grew fat on cream teas.

Stinks of piss... well the old saying where there's muck there's brass, comes to mind.
Makes you think video game movies are what the World needs/deserves right now. With Greggs, Poundland and Primark the only things really thriving on the highstreet then perhaps that's where we're at. Culture's Anus.

Stinks of piss - I went to Hollywood about 16 years ago and it didn't stink of piss then. I did piss against a couple of walls, though, come to think of it....

Like you both, I wasn't that taken with the place but we had some fun.
I'm thinking of taking my kids there once Nintendoland and Star Wars Land have opened... Tell you what I did love about the place - The light!
Yeah, I know it's 'cause of the smog but wow it was pretty - made everything look a bit like a movie.

Did you go to Universal Studios? If you didn't then you must! It's only about 45mins away and the VIP tour is worth every buck.

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Col. Asdasd
11/4/2017 02:30:56 pm

Personally I can't wait for beloved CoD characters such as Haddock, Bourbon and Captain Chief to come to life on the big screen.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
11/4/2017 02:35:59 pm

Don't forget popular Call of Duty characters Richard M Nixon and John F Kennedy.

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Salem link
11/4/2017 03:20:34 pm

Maybe the talk of Easter Eggs is down to setting all the Call of Duty films around Easter time? You know like they did with the Home Alone movies and Christmas.

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Biscuits
11/4/2017 03:52:51 pm

I predict at least one scene in which a Creme Egg is mistaken for a grenade

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Treacle
11/4/2017 04:03:46 pm

I suppose if they can make a movie out of Battleships then pretty much anything can be spun in to cinematic form. Call of Duty: The Movie, coming to the dvd section of Poundland in summer 2019.

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Kelvin Green link
11/4/2017 05:50:21 pm

"The point of a Call of Duty game is that it's a game. You're in it. You're the main character."

Insert joke about how the Call of Duty games aren't very interactive. Press F to pay respects, etc.

So yeah, I can sort of see it, because the producers of the games have been very clear over the past few years that what they really want to make is films, but keep being forced into adding all this interactive stuff.

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King of Duckhenrys
11/4/2017 06:07:52 pm

There is this weird notion that movies are somehow more credible than games. Not only do you have the awful games to movies, but publishers and developers have tried to stuff movies into games.

Remember when game designers got themselves all hot and bothered over FMV, suddenly started to prance around as 'directors' because they got to yell "Action!" at crap actors fumbling through an awful script? How many of those 'gems' are games you'd still want to play now?

I look at what happened with Wing Commander. It was never the best space sim, but it did world building fantastically well. I loved the original game even though it ran like arse on my A500. It had a cinematic quality, but it was first an foremost a game. When I checked out later editions it had become one awful B-movie with the occasional bit of terrible space dog-fighting (which reminded me of Top Gun on the speccy). Eventually it just ended up a turd of a movie.

Even though FMV isn't really a thing anymore, you still have devs trying to shove 'cinematic' up a game's j-hole, whether it be lengthy cut-scenes, OTT set-pieces, or contrived stories. Because, you know, it's like their creative vision and stuff.

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DEAN
12/4/2017 09:40:08 am

It's not that I don't agree, on the face of it you make a lot of sense but I find it hard to be aggravated by the ambitious.... I mean, shouldn't a person's reach extend their grasp?

"Yeah, sure, absolutely, 100% - OTHER game movies are shit but we've learned from all their mistakes (enter list) and ours is going to school 'em all."

I could see myself believing that.
We all would, right? Think our influence could be that magical ingredient that's been missing? We could be naive and yeah, yeah, yeah, all that drizzle. But.....

I admire people that do something - even on Icarus' wings.
And yeah, if I had a hugely popular video game and Hollywood came knocking, I'd shit my hat with excitement!

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Nick
12/4/2017 10:52:31 am

Not when mountain climbing, no.

But, I see what you mean. The tenacity is admirable. All video game films are crap, most attempts at creating an expanded universe are crap but we can do em both.

They will fail, I'd bet the cat on it, but its nice that the film industry can accommodate these sorts of dreamers. You wouldn't want them as doctors.

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DEAN
12/4/2017 11:32:34 am

LOL - well I take your point too!

Doctors, no. But I met a Dean (position) of a college at Oxford about 5 years ago that was head of stem cell research. He was everything you'd want him to be; young, scruffy and his bedroom was an absolute tip - you know, like how a wizard's might look.
You're probably more interested in what I was doing in his bedroom than anything I might go on to say... suffice to say we made sweet music together. Guitar stuff.
Okay, that's the elephant in the room out the way, this feller and people like him make the World better but I fully appreciate that I'm facing an uphill battle to apply this to a COD flick.
Erm... spirit or something.

Biscuits
12/4/2017 12:02:48 pm

I think the issue is that there's 0 tenacity or ambition involved in Hollywood saying 'Your characters are popular, here's $2 mill for them, we're off to make some shite now.'...

This is not the tale of a scrappy young games designer working his way up from the doldrums to achieve his dream of movie stardom, it's the tale of a man who has found success in a field blindly accepting money for a franchise. You think any of the guys that worked on CoD will be working on the movies?

Let's be honest, if you had made a popular game and Hollywood came knocking, would your hat soiling be initiated by the thought of finally bringing your vision to the big screen and creating art, or by some nice money?

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DEAN
12/4/2017 01:32:43 pm

Both! But where's the split... depends on the game. If it was something designed to be lovely then the weight would be on vision. If it was designed to 'just shift some bloody units' then it'd be on the money - the shift depends on the raison d'être.
What I'm saying is that I'd want it to succeed most at what it was purposed for.

But your greater point - I think you're right and I got sidetracked.

Mr Biffo argues that why do game makers need to feel like they must look upwards at movies and not across from.
And yes, he goes on to explain the folly of such aspiration but.... but like a moth to a flame.... I know I would chance my arm. Whatever the motivation may be.

It's not just games movies, though. I'm a big fan of Steve Coogan and Alan Partridge but boy did Alpha Papa suck.
TV often doesn't translate so well to movies. Star Trek has for the most part but you know what I mean. Sex & The City is another example. I wasn't a big fan but fuck, those movies were just bad.
These attempts missed the point, in my view, but that's not to say they HAD to and were always going to be shit.

But these films keep coming - someone, somewhere is happy.

Okay, just for fun, let me pitch you an idea and see if you bite -

Super Mario Bros

It's 1970s New Yoik, two 2nd generation Italian immigrant brothers bored with their family business and going nowhere fast discover LSD from an art student 'broad'. Her controlling father wants these ne'er-do-wells away from his precious daughter and and and... bored yet?

They could be awesome.

King of Duckhenrys
12/4/2017 02:09:39 pm

I don't think they were even trying with Papa Alpha. Coogan couldn't even be arsed to look like Partridge which says a lot.

The turd in the lunchbox was hilarious though.

Biscuits
12/4/2017 02:51:18 pm

Salient points as ever Dean, though when they tried monkeying with the Mario Brothers' origins for a movie, the results were less than stellar...having said that, I'm not sure I've seen it! Maybe it's a maligned masterpiece...

For what it's worth I would also take the chance, but I would INSIST on some sort of creative input, until they paid me enough to go away, which would probably be not very much at all

A kid called Dave
18/4/2017 10:31:43 am

Let me guess......Ian Livingstone?

But but but but.....BUT....didn't they consider their player base primarily consist of 12 year old squeakers? They won't even be allowed in to watch 100 minutes of Dakka dakka pew pew, fire in the hole, not on my watch cliche 101 and the ones who do get in will be yelling SHAG YA NAN at every bullet fired.

Upon leaving the theatre, our good little brainwashed drones will be in full support of a global military industrial complex and have basic army training under their belt. An endless conveyor belt of perpetual war on all fronts, an ongoing glorification of heroism and patriotism, digital gun, the dream, dead eyed boys, cannon fodder, the nightmare.

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