The Gears of War franchise is one of the top-selling video game franchises in history. It’s been said for a while now, that a movie adaptation will happen. Most people expect a GOW movie to be a $200 million plus budget manifestation on screen. Today, we get news that those plans and expectations can be scratched.
Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski recently appeared at San Diego Comic-Con Cinema Blend about the long-gestating game-to-film adaptation, where he said that due to budget cuts by New Line Cinema the project is being retooled as a lower-budget sci-fi film along the lines of District 9.
This jives with recent updates that revealed the film’s $150 million budget had been slashed, original director Len Wiseman had walked away from it, and that the project had “gone back to the drawing board.”
Disctrict 9 is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies. It was an original story, with great action and awesome looking special effects. It even got some Oscar nominations, including Best Picture in 2009. The cost of doing D9? Around some $30 million. How much did it make? About $210 worldwide. So can GOW be done D9 style (low budget), and be successful? Yes it can. As long as the story adaptation is strong, and the effects are well done like in D9, GOW can be successful. I believe it would make more money than D9, since it’s got a huge video game following and plenty of marketing strong points to exploit. And if going low-buget is what it takes for this film to be finally get done, then they should do it already.
What do you think? GOW going D9 style, a better option, than say, going Avatar style?
Love Gears, can’t wait for the 3d game, can’t wait for the film.
the way i see it this is the best way for it to make money…it sure wont make the kind of money that Avatar did because of the fact that it is a video game movie and the negative stigma that goes along with it.
When Neill Blomkamp was set to direct Halo, people were saying he’d be more suited to Gears of War. Now that this has been brought forward, hopefully they can find a worthy director.
Great, Gears of War is going to be the Halo movie all over again, I can tell.
There hasn’t really been any good movies based off of video games, so hopefully Gears of War will break this cycle…hopefully.
I say this is an Amazing idea. Now that I look back at it, District 9 had alot of stylistic things that were very Gear of War esque. So doing the Gears movie like District 9 would be an amazing idea!
Anyone who’s played the game could probably tell you that a super low-budget style adaptation would be the only real way to go. GOW isn’t very much of an epic in terms of the game itself, other than the bookend segments of 2. Most of the game is buildings, courtyards, and trenches–all destroyed–filled with orcs that carry guns. (yes, not literally orcs, but the parallel is too obvious not to draw)
Also isn’t it a bit early to love on D9 so much? Especially when it’s the most racist anti-racism movie I’ve seen since Putney Swope. (well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, BUT STILL!)
I THINK IT WOULD WORK, DISTRICT 9 WAS GREAT AND THE GAME LOOKS LIKE THAT KIND OF CAMERA WORK, HOPE TO SEE IT DEVELOP SOON
I think this could be amazing!! The gritty, in-ur-face look of District 9 would be great for Gears, especially if they make it an origins story showing the initial uprising of the bad guys (I forget what they’re called) briefly shown in the opening cinematic of the first game. I’m excited about this news!
Being a huge fan of the Games I’m hoping they do this well. As for the budget, if done properly (i.e. D9, Paranormal Activity) they can do it. Though I had hoped this wouldn’t happen cause I would have loved to see this movie in all it’s glory done well with great Special Effects. But that also leaves room for error story wise.
In That, I am glad to that they aren’t giving up, and since the budget is small they are forces to focus on the story to reel in the audience which I feel they should be doing regardless.
I think this could be a blessing in disguise. I actually had the chance to work on the first GOW game and I remember everyone saying they were a little scared that they would have someone go at this movie with a huge budget and be more worried about it being a bigs summer blockbuster and not true to the game.
Im happy they are doing it this way.
I don’t see why not. The game a had a similar over the shoulder camera feel. The only part would be the violent shaking of the camera which many people complain about motion sickness.