Echo
Lloyd Levin, the producer behind Watchmen and Hellboy, has secured the rights to Echo in a six figure deal. Echo, a comic book series by Terry Moore, is the story of a photographer who is preoccupied with her personal problems until she gets doused by a form of liquid metal. The liquid is the result of a military experiment gone wrong. After the incident she discovers that she can harness the power of a nuclear bomb. And now the military wants to make her their walking weapon.
Castlevania
Video Game publisher Konami is in final negotiations with James Wan to direct a live-action Castlevania movie. Wan, who helmed Saw, will be teamed with script writer Ian Jeffers. Wan and Jeffers had previouslyworked together on the Kevin Bacon action-thriller Death Sentence. Steven Paul of Crystal Sky Entertainment is set to produce.
The movie focuses on the battle between the legendary vampire Dracula, and the Belmont family of vampire hunters. The battle takes place in a labyrinth like fortress in the Carpathian Mountains. Castlevania debuted as a video game in Japan in 1986, and went on to become an extremely popular franchise in the U.S. Wan and Jeffers had previously worked together the Kevin Bacon action-thriller Death Sentence.
Asteroids
Universal has gained the feature film rights to the vintage Atari video game Asteroids. Matt Lopez, whose recent credits include Bedtime Stories and Race to With Mountain, has been hired to write the script. Atari launched the 2-D Asteroids game in 1979. As the video game industry began to flourish, Asteroids became one of the most widely known titles of the time. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, whose recent films includeTransformers: The Rise of the Fallen, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, will produce.
Comic books remain fertile ground for movie producers to mine. Terry Moore has a strong fan base, and his Echo series is a much enjoyed comic book. You never know how an adaptation is going to turn out, but a movie based on one of Moore’s comics will be interesting to see. Given Moore’s reputation in the comic book industry, and his built in fan base, giving an Echo movie a shot seems like a good idea for the studio.
Unfortunately there’s not much that you can say about the video game to movie adaptations that have been produced. Not much good that you can say at least. Castlevania is a world that you should be able to develop a good movie around. And it shouldn’t hurt that there’s been heightened interest in vampire properties recently. However, the video game to movie track record hasn’t been good. Its an interesting idea for them to try, but I can’t get excited about it because of the dismal video game movies in the past.
And I have no idea where Asteroids came from. Of all of the things that you could pick up for development, how does someone land on Asteroids? Was someone browsing a yard sale, or cleaning out their attic, and came across the old Atari cartridge, and thought, “Asteroids, of course!” I think that this one will be bad. Given the previously mentioned record of past video game movies, I think that Asteroids will crash. And I know that we shouldn’t pre-judge, but having the screenwriter of G.I. Joe scripting this movie just fills me with dread. If his writing was that terrible for a toy franchise from the 80s, then what will he do with a video game property from the 70s?
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