Originally published January 30, 2018. Updated December 19, 2019.
It’s no secret that video game movies have a tendency to disappoint. In fact, we’ve talked about this at length in the past. Honestly, everyone has their own opinion why, exactly, these adaptations fail. Will we ever receive a good film based on a video game property? What’s the key to ensuring success with these tricky projects? In an interview with IGN, Brad Peyton — director of the upcoming Rampage adaptation — provides his reasoning for why most video game adaptations haven’t worked:
“There’s obviously a pressure to deliver on these things and to ground the movie and to deliver on spectacle and all that, but there also aren’t these expectations to what this character’s supposed to be or what this plot is supposed to be,” said Peyton. “I didn’t know about this quote-unquote ‘video game curse’ until about two weeks after I finished the movie. A lot of times, [studios] attempt to adapt games that have massive followings. When you attempt to adapt something that has an incredibly deep plotline or character or something along those lines, you’re beholden to delivering something. And it’s really a difficult challenge because as a gamer, I know, I play as the hero. That’s an immersive medium, and so, it’s really hard to go up against something that pre-exists.”
“My ultimate goal of this movie was to genuinely remind you, monsters are scary, but monster movies are meant to be fun,” Peyton continued. “With these movies, the challenge is to constantly be unpredictable, and to constantly entertain. And I think the most entertaining stuff is the stuff that, you just cannot see what’s going to come next. So when Dwayne’s like, of course the wolf flies, that’s just a little sprinkling of where these creatures can go and what they can do. We really drilled down on the science.”
It’s comforting to hear that Peyton is actively trying to break the video game film curse, but we’ve been burned before. After all, Assassin’s Creed was supposed to be that film. As was Warcraft, etc., etc. etc. With Rampage, and the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot in the pipeline, fans hopes are up once again. Hopefully these films can succeed where others have failed.
Are you excited for Rampage, or the new Tomb Raider? Sound off in the comments!
“Primatologist Davis Okoye (Johnson), a man who keeps people at a distance, shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent, silverback gorilla who has been in his care since birth. But a rogue genetic experiment gone awry transforms this gentle ape into a raging monster. To make matters worse, it’s soon discovered there are other similarly altered alpha predators. As these newly created monsters tear across North America, destroying everything in their path, Okoye teams with a discredited genetic engineer to secure an antidote, fighting his way through an ever-changing battlefield, not only to halt a global catastrophe but to save the fearsome creature that was once his friend.”
Rampage is set for release on April 20th 2018 and features a cast that includes Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Joe Manganiello, Malin Akerman, Marley Shelton, Jake Lacy, Breanne Hill, P.J. Byrne, Jack Quaid, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Matt Gerald.
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