A few dozen attempts later, and we’re still waiting for a great, or even good, video game movie (pipe down, weird “Resident Evil” apologists). Hopes were high that 2016 would finally deliver one, with acclaimed filmmakers Duncan Jones and Justin Kurzel adapting “Warcraft” and “Assassin’s Creed,” but the former was a gaudy mess, and the latter just a miserable, incoherent time at the movies.
Nevertheless, studios continue to develop these projects, with a “Tomb Raider” reboot and Dwayne Johnson-starring monster movie “Rampage” hitting theaters in 2018, and “Minecraft” and “Detective Pikachu” hitting further off (the latter could actually be pretty good, with “Gravity Falls” co-creator Alex Hirsch writing). And now one more project, one long in the development slate, is getting a new lease of life, with Deadline revealing that Universal are developing a movie based on the popular game franchise “Gears Of War.”
Now consisting of five games, most recently last year’s “Gears Of War 4,” the series follows a group of hulking soldiers as they take on a murderous alien force known as the Locust Horde, often with chainsaws. The property was first mooted for the movies soon after the first game’s release in 2006: New Line bought the rights, with “Collateral” writer Stuart Beattie penning a script for director Len Wiseman before it all fell apart. But the trade report that the series has now shifted over to Universal, who’ll co-produce with Microsoft.
The companies have set writer Shane Salerno, a veteran scribe whose credits include “Armageddon,” the “Shaft” remake and “Savages,” to pen a script. Salerno’s probably most notable for the projects that haven’t yet reached the screen: he’s been one of the writers on the “Avatar” sequels, and is adapting Don Winslow’s terrific crime novel “The Cartel” for Ridley Scott. Having never played the games, we can’t really see what would make this anything other than a generic “Aliens” knock-off sci-fi picture, but people who get paid more than we do think otherwise, so good luck to them. More news on “Gears Of War” as and when it escapes development hell.