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Someone's actually making a Joust movie
You know us. We normally stick to our own business, avoid trying to tell others how to run their lives. Unfortunately, much like the crabby old woman in the apartment directly below yours, we can't keep our mouths shut about this. Two Hollywood producers, Christine Peters and Michael Cerenzie, have made a new company aimed at the movie goer under 25 years old called CP Productions. The first project? "A new imagining of Midway Games' classic Joust."There are a hundred reasons why this is a terrible idea, but we're going to pick our favorite (besides the fact that it's a game about fighting giant buzzards). Joust was released in 1982 and the movie's due in 2008. That means that the target demo for the film was between 0 and negative 12 years old when Joust came out. Congrats, CP Productions, it sounds like you're off to a great start.
But what does Ebert think about video game movies?
Has anyone ever stopped to think that maybe film critic Roger Ebert's dislike of video games is because he's had to sit through just about every film based on a video game, ever? We can sit around and do our best Tom Servo impressions to Super Mario Bros all we want, but what if your career path was about to be flooded with these monstrosities?You too can feel Ebert's pain as the grand opening of the Balcony Archive contains a wealth of classic reviews from his syndicated TV show. Sure, they may never be able to convince us that The Wizard was a terrible film (Jenny Lewis deserved an Oscar!), but it's nice to know that even back in 1989, Gene Siskel understood why these movies never turn out well: the folks behind them simply don't love the games. He always was a smart one, that man. To the balcony! The Wizard (1989) Mortal Kombat (1995) Super Mario Bros (1993) Wing Commander (1999) Double Dragon (1994) Doom (2005) Resident Evil (2002, 2004) Tomb Raider (2001, 2003) Dungeons & Dragons (2000) Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
2007 sees Kameo on the big screen?
Kameo was a mixed bag, even for a launch title. The game was beautiful, it played reasonably well, but there was just something missing. The characters lacked spark and the world was perhaps a little too saccharine. Still, it was a decent first effort and it was sure as hell a sight better than Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Rare's first Microsoft effort. It looks like the lukewarm reception was enough for Microsoft, as a Kameo movie appears to be in the works, according to IMDB. The director listed is Sunmin Park, who most recently had a hand in the anime feature, Sky Blue. We haven't watched the film, but Siliconera reports that it was a beautiful, though somewhat empty experience. Wait a minute, beautiful but empty? It's almost a perfect match! The only other bit of knowledge we have is that the film is slated for 2007. Anyone think Kameo is worth the ever increasing price of a movie ticket? [Via Siliconera]
Demonik from Grandma's Boy, the worst marketing ever
Any of you remember watching the freakishly awful movie Grandma's Boy? We don't either (thank you selective memory), but those of you who do remember -- we feel sorry for you -- a little game called Demonik was featured as a main plot point. Guess what, the game is real. Demonik is an Xbox 360 game being developed by Terminal Reality and being published by Majesco. The 360 billing doesn't come as much of a surprise given what we saw in the movie was just a touch too good looking to be an Xbox game. Given Majesco's poor marketing -- Psychonauts comes to mind -- seeing Demonik featured in an bad movie isn't too much of a surprise. We didn't rush out to see if Demonik was the real deal after all. Maybe Majesco should start reassessing how they promote their games, putting them in insulting game movies won't help the image. [Thanks, Vlad]
