CFP Productions - AREA 51: Synopsis

Press

Prediction: Pen will be most mighty in games

By John Gaudiosi
June 27, 2007

Grant Morrison has written for comic books ("The Invisibles," "Zenith"), video games ("Battlestar Galactica," "Predator: Concrete Jungle") and movies (DreamWorks' upcoming "Sleepless Knights"), so perhaps we should pay attention when he says we're at the cusp of a new era in entertainment.

"Look at something like '300' and it's clear to see that games and movies are developing hybrid forms and cross-influences," says Morrison, now at work taking Midway Games' best-selling video game franchise, "Area 51," to the big screen for Paramount Pictures.

"Within 10-15 years, we'll be moving into a situation where it's all 'games,' I think, and movies as we know them will become less populist and more specialized, in the way that theater, opera and poetry have become in the past."

Morrison believes that the online interactive experience is likely to be the dominant entertainment form of the next century. He imagines it won't be long before we look back with wonder at the idea we used to pay some people so much money to pretend to be other people for our entertainment.

Morrison says that because video game protagonists tend to be "bad-ass" military cyphers, assassins and thugs, adapting them to the big screen can be more interesting to a writer than adapting someone else's "Spider-Man" or "Batman," where the heroes' personalities are established.

"The video game adaptation allows us to create new and more contemporary screen heroes for the 21st century while still enjoying the safety net of an established franchise," he says.

Fans of the "Area 51" first-person shooter games will find some familiar characters in his big-screen adaptation. Morrison, who's finishing the first draft of his script, says Doctor Cray and Mister White will be in the film. As for the team sent in to investigate, they'll be a collection of new characters for the movie. But there will be settings and environments in the film inspired by the new Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game "BlackSite: Area 51," which ships in September; but the story comes from the mind of Morrison.

Like many creatives working in the Hollywood system today, Morrison has played games for a long time; he goes back to the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis in the U.S.) in 1992. He's a big fan of the "Grand Theft Auto" franchise and recently completed "Just Cause" on Xbox 360.

"I think it's always important to honor the source of one's material," he says, "and only by playing games can a filmmaker know what makes them tick and how best to translate game effects into the very different language of Hollywood drama."

Morrison has been developing his own dream game project, "Citizen Death," which he created in 1998. He says next-generation consoles today are just at the point where technology can bring his original vision to life.

When it comes to why many big-screen adaptations of blockbuster games like "Doom" or "Street Fighter" have not translated well to the movie theater, Morrison says many of these films "have tended to feel fairly superficial, disposable and unengaging."

"Perhaps they try too hard to be games and not hard enough to be Hollywood movies, which is of course what they are," he says. "And Hollywood movies stand or fall on making you care about fictional characters. There's often no convincing sense of threat or drama ... and they lack the immersive, exploratory nature of good games."

Adds Morrison: "The abilities and reactions of the heroes are often too unrealistic to be relatable, and that's something we hope to change. Along with all the outrageous action, bizarre visuals and stark, mind-numbing horror... my intention is to add a larger dose of humanity and reality than we may have seen before in this type of film."

Paramount taps Morrison to work on film

By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK, DAVE MCNARY

Paramount Pictures has hired comicbook author Grant Morrison to pen the feature adaptation of vidgame franchise "Area 51." Christine Peters will produce through her Par-based CFP Prods. with Penn Station's Dean Georgaris and Michael Aguilar, along with Stan Winston.

Par picked up to the film rights to "Area 51" from Midway Games in 2004. Game was released in April 2005.

Set in the U.S. government's most top-secret military facility, storyline revolves around a hazardous materials specialist who is called in to investigate a viral outbreak that could be extra-terrestrial in nature.

Georgaris penned an earlier draft of "Area 51."

Morrison is a bestselling comicbook and graphic novel author who has written runs for popular series including DC Comics' "Justice League of America," "Doom Patrol" and "Animal Man." He's also written for Marvel Comics' "New X-Men" and "Fantastic Four."

His revisionist Batman book, "Arkham Asylum" has sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide, while his most recent screenplay, "WE3," is being developed at New Line.

Viacom topper Sumner Redstone owns a majority of shares in Midway Games.

A spinoff vidgame, "Blacksite: Area 51" will be released by Midway this summer.

Morrison is repped by Creative Artists Agency.

(Ben Fritz contributed to this report.)

May 18
Producer presses play on game-to-pic slate

By John Gaudiosi
Producer Christine Peters is gearing up to commit a third of her slate to big-screen adaptations of popular video games.

"Taking game characters out of the game world and into the movie world is a natural transition," says Peters, who likens the move to the wave of comic book movies in the 1970s and '80s.

She already is working on translating Midway Games' "Area 51" and "John Singleton's Fear & Respect" into features for Paramount Pictures, and she is keeping the door open for developing these properties into movie franchises.

Because many video games are being made like a Hollywood production today -- incorporating big-name directors, voice talent, writers and animators -- Peters believes the translation of certain games to the big screen will work well.

"A lot of people have learned their lessons from earlier game-to-movie misfires, and filmmakers and studios are more savvy," Peters says.

A solid, three-act movie is important to sustain a video game adaptation on the big screen, she notes. Additionally, it's important to create a film that appeals to both gaming fans and general theatergoers.

"With 'Area 51,' we're creating a very fun, sci-fi action summer romp that will take you inside the world of the game," Peters says. "We'll take what we can from the game, including the basic setup, and then create an adventure that works on the big screen."

Midway's "Area 51," which shipped recently for PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC, is a first-person shooter that sends players into a secret military base to eradicate a deadly virus that turns men into monsters. Through U.S. Army hazmat specialist Ethan Cole (voiced by David Duchovny), the story unfolds among action-filled shootouts with cyborgs, mutants, aliens and other creatures that inhabit the further recesses of the base and the underground layer below it. In addition to a twisting tale that involves everything from the Illuminati to men in black to alien colonization and government conspiracies, the game features the voices of Powers Boothe (as a radio commander) and Marilyn Manson (as a jar-encased telepathic monster).

Dean Georgaris ("Mission: Impossible 3"), who's writing the "Area 51" screenplay, worked with gaming on "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life."

Peters still is looking for a screenwriter for "Fear & Respect," which Midway has delayed until a 2006 release on the game front. Writer-director Singleton developed the game's story and characters specifically for the video game, and Peters says Singleton can be as involved with the movie as he wants to be. "Fear & Respect" stars Snoop Dogg as a "retired" South Central Los Angeles gang member who's reluctantly brought back into the life.

"We'll cross over what actors we can, but I'd bring in different actors as well since there will be a lot more characters in the feature than appear in the game," says Peters, who adds that she'd want to keep Snoop Dogg in the movie.

Peters will continue to target females 25 and younger with romantic comedies, but her action movies will focus on video games. She says that not every game will make a good movie but that there are a lot of great stories being told in the game world today.