Bad news today for anyone who likes terrible movies: director Len Wiseman looks to have bailed on the adaptation of the Xbox video game “Gears of War.” The director’s been attached to the film, which follows an ex-convict and soldier named Marcus Fenix who leads an elite group in an attempt to protect the planet Sera from a subterranean race known as the Locust, since 2008, supervising development of the script, originally by “Wanted” writer Chris Morgan, with revisions from Billy Ray (“Breach”).
It has been a key property for New Line in the past, but the LA Times is reporting that the studio have cut back their ambitions for the project, from a “multi-generational epic with a big-canvas feel” to something much smaller, and cutting the budget significantly. As a result, Wiseman will now direct the post-apocalyptic thriller “Nocturne,” which follows a group of survivors of a cataclysm, and traces the circumstances of their survival, for 20th Century Fox. Supposedly, Wiseman is still nominally attached, but the site says that the director “will likely not be a part of it when all is said and done.”
We can’t say we’re hugely disappointed by this one falling apart — we’re not particularly familiar with the game, partly because shouty, testosterone-fuelled games like this drove us away from the form as teenagers. Something that both fans and executives don’t seem to realize is that adapting most video games is a fairly bad idea, because most games, even the best ones, are hugely derivative of cinema and other forms. What made “Hitman” work in game form, for example, makes it look like a direct-to-video John Woo knock-off when transposed to the big screen. When someone can work out how to adapt one of the truly original game properties, like “Shadow of the Colossus” or “Bioshock” (which also seems to be stuck in development hell at this point), then our interest will prick up, but we won’t mourn the passing of yet another “Aliens”/”Starship Troopers” wannabee. Still, the makers of the game will be able to rest on the knowledge that it featured in an Oscar-winning film (it can be glimpsed briefly in a scene in “The Hurt Locker”).