Len Wiseman to Direct Gears of War

Posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta

Len Wiseman

Gears of War

Last year it was reported that Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman was in talks with New Line to develop and direct a big screen adaptation of the popular X-Box 360 video game Gears of War. A year later, and the project has now been officially announced. Speculation first began when Wiseman featured the game in the fourth Die Hard film. Wiseman will develop the story with Chris Morgan, whose credits include Wanted and Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. I know, not a hugely promising resume. Pirates of the Caribbean screenwriter Stuart Beattie wrote a draft of the film last year. IESB gave that script a 3 out of 10 star review, calling it ”a DUKES OF HAZZARD out of a possible STARSHIP TROOPERS”.

Wiseman has been working with Morgan on Shell Game, a sci-fi thriller set up at Lakeshore/Columbia Pictures (”Set a hundred and fifty years in the future - a detective is faced with a moral dilemma as he investigates the dangerous black market business of immortality.”). Wiseman, made a name for himself in the business as an art director (Stargate, Godzilla, Independence Day, Men in Black), and went on to direct Underworld and its sequel Underworld Evolution. Wiseman is certainly a step-up from Paul W.S. Anderson or Uwe Boll, and his participation guarantees that it will at least be good to look at.

Released in November 2006, Gears has sold over three million units worldwide, becoming the fourth best selling game of last year (not too shabby for only a two month lead). The game became very popular in the online arena of Xbox Live. Gears of War follows the soldiers of Delta Squad as they fight to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from a relentless subterranean enemy known as The Locust Horde. A video game sequel was announced earlier this year at the 2008 Game Developers Conference. When the film was first announced, New Line has planned on releasing the film in the Summer of 2009, but that timetable is probably unrealistic.

Watch the trailer for the video game below. It makes use of Gary Jules and Michael Andrews somber 2001 cover of Tears for Fears’s Mad World, originally featured in the soundtrack to Donnie Darko.

Discuss: Is Len Wiseman the right director to take on Gears of War?

source: Variety

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Tags

Action/Adventure, Screenwriting, Video Game, War, , ,

  • Jay08
    hmmm...great...
  • Christopher Marc
    Wow! Wiseman is a great choice, plus it would be surely interesting to see him take on a science fiction action flick....Len could make any project watchable no matter how bad the script is...I'm shocked how quickly this is moving forward...
  • John
    Well latioreview gives the script an A- so now I don't know what to think.

    http://latinoreview.com/news.php?id=2626
  • Jojo
    Len Wiseman also directed awesome Die Hard 4.

    He is actually a very good choice.
  • Captain Awesome
    "Live Free or Die Hard" hahaha

    But it's a good pairing when you think about it. A mediocre director doing a movie with filled with clichéd characters and a very corny storyline.

    Peter, have you heard the story and dialogue from this game?
  • Christopher Marc
    M+ game rating means we get a solid R movie? or will they go the Max Payne route and turn it into PG-13
  • Caius
    okay while arguably Wiseman is a much better choice for Gears of War, then Paul W.S Anderson or Uwe Boll. But i can't help thinking how the choices for video game movies are going. Die Hard 4 was a decent popcorn action movie, and Wiseman proves his chops well enough to possibly take Gears of War on. But i really hope that he'll actually make the movie worth seeing, unlike Andersons Resident Evil movies or all of Bolls movies
  • edog
    Every other video game adaption has sucked. Why should this one be special?
  • TDryer
    Die Hard 4 was actually pretty good even though it shouldn't have been. This is because of the directing. I'm a huge fan of the gears and it is a pure action game. Die Hard 4 was an 100% action movie, so i think Wiseman will end up being a pretty good choice
  • 790
    If this film turns into a successful franchise you'll see a Halo movie.

    If not then you won't.
  • nick
    i carnt wait to see some locust get sawed in half on the big screen
  • John
    the thing that bugged me was they took way to early of game play. To really tell what the game is like.
  • FR
    Hollywood should just give up on the whole video-game adaptation thing.

    Except for "Silent Hill", which was somewhat decent, I don't think I can name a single movie based on games, that wasn't plain f*cking horrible: Hitman, Street Fighter, Doom, Alone In The Dark, etc. just to name a few.

    As far as the director goes, I would much rather have Christopher Nolan direct it.
    The guy is very consistent, and all his movies are pure quality - Batman Begins, The Prestige, Memento, etc., and of course the upcoming Dark Knight.

    Gears of War is set in a very dark and unique universe, and I think Nolan has the vision and talent needed to successfully transfer it over to the big screen.
  • Chris
    did you know David Fincher worked on that Gears of War trailer? Shame he won't be working on the movie :(
  • charles
    well maybe he'll do a good job. I doubt it because its about a video game.
  • 790
    Well charles, they used to say that about comic book films.

    I'll take the Gears of War movie over a tv show remake any day....!
  • evikone
    Well, I'm quite late in commenting, however, the last Die Hard film was definitely good and the action sequences pretty badass, BUT, this is GEARS OF WAR after all and I can ONLY HOPE that the director GETS the visuals just right. What MAKES the game for me is the graphics (especially how things look, i.e. war ridden world, cars burned, dark, etc) along with the intensity of everything else that goes on (explosions, bullets flying, characters taking cover, gore-ish blood, etc). To me, the game IS A MOVIE and I feel there is a huge challenge for those that WANT to be involved in the production of a picture film. I really hope it doesn't turn out to be another "Street Fighter" movie with stupid actors like Jean Claude Van Dam etc. Or another Resident Evil movie with a different plot and inability to represent the characters properly. Personally, I LOVE GOW so much that I trully hope that they get it right. If not, all I will say on movie release date: F**k!!!
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