ChristopheGans
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Silent Hill tops weekend box office
Despite a disastrous critical reception, Silent Hill has climbed to the top of the box office following a lucrative opening weekend in which the film grossed about $20.2 million. Of course, this comes at a time when the film industry is in a down cycle as it gears up for the summer blockbuster season. Silent Hill's biggest competition was Scary Movie 4, which was entering its second weekend of release.[Thanks, Sean]
Metareview - Silent Hill (the movie)
You've read our take on Silent Hill, now it's time to sum up what the film critics are saying. Currently, Metacritic has posted 14 reviews, which average out to a 29/100. For the record, this is the last time we will ever — EVER — get our hopes up for a movie adaptation of a video game.Choice quotes: Chicago Sun-Times (38/100) - "My damn brain lit up too much." [Roger Ebert] The New York Times (10/100) - "[Wraps] up like the outrageously overwrought fantasy of a French movie nerd obsessed with horror ... who has been given obscene amounts of money to adapt a video game." [Nathan Lee] San Francisco Chronicle (0/100) - "Nobody gets naked, which on second thought may be a good thing — because when a movie features people getting their skin ripped from their bodies, it pretty much kills the mood." [Peter Hartlaub]
Silent Hill director is a gamer, fo' real
Christophe Gans, the director of the upcoming movie adaptation of Silent Hill, actually played the game — before he got the job. What's more, he loved the game enough to strike a deal with a friend to film Gans pitching his ideas about the movie and later, insert Japanese subtitles. Gans then had the 37-minute tape shipped to Konami headquarters in Japan. Konami ended up screening the tape for the entire staff.Luckily, Brotherhood of the Wolf (Gans' previous film) was just making the rounds in Japan at the time, and Silent Hill's creator, Akira Yamaoka, realized that Gans would be capable of handling the game's movie adaptation (i.e. he wasn't just a delirious fanboy). Needless to say, Gans got the job. "If tomorrow I wanted something else, I would do exactly the same thing,” says Gans.
