Hey, what to do when you can't think of something on your own? Take the idea from a video game! That's right, another video game big screen adaptation might be coming to the big screen. And even though the game itself isn't out yet, that won't stop Hollywood from grabbing it before somebody else does! Imagine the bidding war for Wii Boggle!
The trades reports on Brad Pitt's production company, snagging the rights to "Dark Void", a video game coming out next year for PC, PS3 and XBOX 360:
“Dark Void” will yield development matter.
Indian giant Reliance BIG Entertainment and Brad Pitt’s Plan B shingle are developing a film version of the upcoming video game, and Pitt could well star as the lead combatant.
The two firms have acquired rights to the Capcom third-person shooter and will develop as a feature. The companies say that the project would be a “potential starring vehicle” for Pitt. No writers have been hired as yet.
“Void” centers on a a cargo pilot named Will (Pitt’s presumed character) who, after crashing in the Bermuda Triangle, ends up in a parallel universe where a band of humans must fight an alien threat they had long been thought extinct. Will and the other humans are outmanned but have a number of weapons and powers to help them beat back the alien incursion.
The game will be released for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in January. CAA repped Plan B and Reliance in the deal; UTA-repped Capcom.
If it becomes a full-fledged film, the project could potentially be made via Reliance’s financing pact with DreamWorks and/or distributed through DreamWorks’ output deal with Disney, though no formal decisions have been made on either as yet.
The project is the first to come out of a development partnership between Plan B and Reliance that was announced at the Festival de Cannes in 2008. The Indian giant has deals with a number of other Hollywood production banners, including Julia Roberts’ Red Om and George Clooney’s Smokehouse.
Video games have had a mixed record on the big screen, with title likes “Max Payne” mutating into critical and commercial flops. But principals here pointed to advantages a “Dark Void” movie would have that its predecessors have not.
“As a game, ‘Dark Void’ was developed with a wide-screen mentality – a world full of adventure presented in cinematic scope and scale,” Capcom senior vp licensing Germaine Gioia said.
