When it comes to making films out of games, mega games like Halo, Assassin’s Creed and Metal Gear Solid usually come to mind. Is New Line Cinema seriously thinking of making a game about Rampage?
As WWE Superstar Zack Ryder would say: “Are you serious bro?” If you are not familiar with Rampage, it’s an old 1986 Midway classic that sees you take control of King Kong and Godzilla-like monsters as they destroy entire cities and so forth.
As reported by the Hollywood Reporter, producer John Rickard is currently looking for a writer to pen the script. Considering that the game is about monsters destroying cities, it might now be a hard movie to write about…
Is this movie a great thing to do for the video game industry? It’s likely to have a big budget no less but I find it hard audiences today will take this movie seriously. It could turn out to be an expensive flop if it’s not done correctly.
Another thing that it might do is further discourage credible movie makers to adapt video games in the future. Assassin’s Creed is a smart series of video games but Hollywood is snubbing it with Steven Speilberg turning it down along with other major Hollywood movie studios.
The one thing the video game industry needs to do is at least adapt one film that would be accepted by the snobby film critics and movie executives. So far, every film adapted from a video game is either a cheap popcorn flick like the Resident Evil movies or total flops like Street Fighter.
If the Rampage movie goes ahead, it could further damage the reputation video games have on the film industry. It’s a sad fact that some film critics still feel video games are not an “art form”. A movie about monsters destroying cities sounds like a fun movie, but it is likely to be rated poorly like most other films of that genre apart from the King Kong movies.
Hopefully in time, video games can be as successful in the film industry as comic book movies are today. The video game industry needs to make a film as excellent as The Dark Knight or even as good as this year’s X-Men: First Class. The Rampage movie isn’t going to cut it but hopefully a movie based on Assassin’s Creed, Halo and Metal Gear Solid should change this.
