Spore-Movie
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Fox making animated Spore movie; Ice Age director onboard; procedural generation, probably not
EA is on a movie-making tear thanks to that deal with UTA; it's got The Sims, Dante's Inferno, Army of Two, Dead Space, and Mass Effect. And now, Variety reports that Twentieth Century Fox is signed on to create a CG-animated movie based on EA's make-anything-you-want sim Spore, with Ice Age's Chris Wedge signed on to direct. To put it another way, they're turning the infinite-possibility space of Spore (read: the whole point of the game!) into a distinctly finite feature film. Procedural generation: out the window. Players as creators: nope! In their place, we'll have a script by the duo of Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, who've written the upcoming films The Princess and the Frog and The Return of King Doug. Blue Sky Studios -- the team behind Ice Age and Robots -- will handle the whole CG-animation part. Keeping watch over their golden goose, EA's Patrick O'Brien and Maxis' Lucy Bradshaw are billed as executive producers. Of the source material, Wedge said, "From every perspective -- visually, thematically and comedically -- the world of Spore provides the potential to put something truly original on the screen." Bradshaw misses the mark even further saying, "With more than 100 million unique creatures uploaded to our website, it's clear that people are passionate about the game, and it will be exciting to offer a powerful medium like film in order to expand their experience with Spore."
EA inks talent agency deal, more game movies coming
In a season of Hollywood blockbusters, it's no wonder why Electronic Arts would want to sink its teeth into the movie industry's delicious celluloid pie. This morning the company announced that it signed with talent and literary agency, UTA, to help catapult its properties onto the silver screen. EA currently has a movie deal in the works for The Sims, as well as plans to bring an animated version of MySims to TV. In addition, earlier this year EA signed a deal with Starz Media to develop an animated prequel to Dead Space, as well as other unspecified franchises. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, as EA notes that this new deal will "significantly ramp up" efforts to bring its IP to other forms of entertainment, such as movies and television, as well as online, print, and social networks. With some of these projects likely to surface this week in San Diego during Comic-Con, are there any EA properties you could see yourself sitting through with a bucket of popcorn in your lap?
