In March 2007, New Line Cinema announced they would be making a big screen adaptation of Microsoft’s popular video game Gears of War. Collateral and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl screenwriter Stuart Beattie was hired to pen a script after turning in a 21-page treatment. A few months later Live Free or Die Hard helmer Len Wisemancame aboard the project to direct. Wiseman worked on the script with Wanted scribe Chris Morgan for a year, before moving on to Billy Ray (Breach, Shattered Glass).
LA Times now reports that Wiseman is moving on, after having the budget slashed in half. He is now officially signed on to direct the apocalyptic thriller Nocturne, a project he was developing for 20th Century Fox.
“Emergence Day” should be a term familiar to Gears of Wars fans already, and it looks like movie fans may become very familiar with it. The term refers to that day that the series’ subterranean villains, the Locusts, started to wage war against humanity. Making Of recently spoke with producer Wyck Godfrey, who spilled some details on their current plans for the Len Wiseman-directed Gears film.
Apparently, they’re currently trying to decide if the movie should take place in the time period of the games—in a war-torn post-Emergence Day world—or, if they should start off earlier and depict a peaceful time that’s shattered by the events of Emergence Day.
Earlier today, Russ told you that Billy Ray will be writing a ripped-from-the-headlines movie about Captain Richard Phillips vs. Somali Pirates. That’s not Ray’s only new writing gig, however, as he’s also taking a crack at the Gears of War movie. Last we heard, director Len Wiseman was collaborating with Wanted scribe Chris Morgan on the project, superceding an ill-liked Stuart Beattie draft. Like that fellow with his One Red Paperclip, this sounds like a constant series of uptrades.
Apparently we’re all about the slightly deceptive headlines tonight. Joseph Kosinski is the fx-heavy commercial director who is now helming TR2N for Disney (or TRON 2 for those who refuse to use Disney’s stupid title). We’ve featured some of Kosinski’s work in a past Commercial Directors Spotlight, which if you haven’t already, you should check it out. Some of you might recall that Kosinski directed the popular Gears of War trailer which made use of the Mad World song from the Donnie Darko soundtrack. Well, Kosinski has returned to direct a television advertisement titled “Last Day” for the game’s sequel, Gears of War 2. You can check out the new ad below.
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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.
UPDATE: A number of readers have pointed out that the above model is 1) FAKE, 2) LAME, 3) “Probably left over from Small Soldiers” and 4) Not worth talking about
Like a good number of 20somethings, a ThunderCats movie makes me want to run far far away and hide from the Langolier that is booming ’80s nostalgia. Furthering my phobia, Snarfs were probably a distant ancestor of LOLCats. Above is an alleged head model rendering of one the film’s combative furballs (probably Panthro) from Warner Bros‘ 2010 all-CG adaptation of the cult cartoon series/ironic mall T-shirts. No lie: it looks like a surfing steakhead vampire from Lost Boys: The Tribe.
The film will mark the directorial debut of Jerry O’Flaherty, a video game art director on Gears of War (he also got a shout out on Daikatana, nice) from a script by Paul Sopocy (Bijou Phillips’s upcoming It’s Alive). Some sites are linking to an old Vanity Fair piece that lists Hugh Jackman and Jessica Simpson in the cast, but that article’s a total hoax.
Discuss: Does George Lucas look like a grumpy, retired ThunderCat?
IESB is reporting that that Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman is currently in talks with New Line Cinema to develop and direct both a big screen adaptation of the popular X-Box 360 video game Gears of War and the announced Escape from New York remake.
On March 20th, it was announced that New Line Cinema had purchased the rights to make a Gears of War film, with Collateral and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl screenwriter Stuart Beattie writing the script along with Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, who will be producing it. CAA conducted the auction, which featured a 21 page treatment by Beattie. New Line also announced that the film would hit theaters in 2009.
Released in November, 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 has become a staple in the online gameplay world 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 week earlier the studio also announced plans to remake John Carpenter’s 1981 action classic Escape From New York with 300 star Gerard Butler attached. Butler would play Snake Plissken, the one-eyed convict who must rescue the President of the United States from an inescapable maximum security prison formerly known as Manhattan. The film was set in a dystopian then-future 1997. Kurt Russell originated the role. The 1996 sequel Escape to L.A. was not as popular. Black Hawk Down scribe Ken Nolan is writing the screenplay.
Wiseman has certainly found a home in the geek action genre, after filming Underworld and it’s subsequent sequel. His latest, Live Free or Die Hard has made over $302.4 million worldwide, which is probably enough to give a big Hollywood studio confidence in two big upcoming franchises.
A week earlier the studio also 
