The most successful entertainment offering of all time is not a film franchise or a TV show featuring Simon Cowell. It’s the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which has grossed $3 billion worldwide since it was released on November 10. Holy samoleons. While video game movies have failed to replicate or exceed the success of their inspirations (although Jake Gyllenhaal’s abs are waiting in the wings) maybe it’s just because the wrong people were making them. With that in mind, COD:MW2’s director Keith Arem has been signed to direct a movie, or first person sitter in a theater, as some call them. Arem — who has worked in various capacities on over 500 video games — will not only direct FROST ROAD, but he wrote the script, and of course he is “developing a companion graphic novel with co-creator Brandon Humphreys and artist Christopher Shy. The story “concerns the survivors and victims of an invisible contagion in a small coastal Eastern town” and you know how people like that apocalyptic stuff.
“I’m extremely excited about this story,” said Arem, “and thrilled to have the opportunity to bring the skills I’ve honed in the game industry to the big screen. There’s an incredible talent pool currently working in the game industry, and I hope that the success of ‘Frost Road’ will give other creators the chance to show what they can do on a wider canvas.”
Keith is one of the most talented guys I know…no kidding…so this should be awesome. It’s great to see someone with his talent finally being used the proper way. refreshing even.
jimmy
I hate to be ‘that guy’, but feel it would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the box art for Modern Warfare 1 is featured up there. I’m sure the guy worked on both, though.
To nitpick: The CoD franchise is worth $3 billion, not just the recently released game. Modern Warfare 2 made $310 million it’s first day, making it the largest media release ever, it went on to make a total of $550 million it’s first week. By now it’s maybe up to $700 million (that’s my estimate).
Don’t know how his work will translate to film, but I would like to say that the storyline for CoD:MW2 was tightly written, incredibly risky for such a revered franchise, and advanced the genre for the better. If Frost Road can display the same amount of fearlessness, it could be one to watch.
Oof! The script for MW2 was awful! It jumps from one ridiculous situation to another with nonsensical, jingoistic powerpoint presentations ham-fistedly strung in between. That’s not to say the game doesn’t have some amazing set pieces and awesome gameplay, it does — and I am fucking addicted to it — but to to say the idea that Russia invades Washington D.C. is “tightly written” is putting a little spit-shine on a turd.
Let’s hope he fares better than Chris Roberts, creator of the great computer game AND director of the career-ending for everyone involved film, Wing Commander!
Well, it was tightly written… for an FPS. It’s still a game, and there are conceits we just have to accept for the sake of gameplay. What I appreciate was that those conceits were used to make greater statements about the delusions of modern warfare, mostly in rebuke… and I’m not just talking about the overt plot points that parallel real life events. For example, the assault on DC, when all the modern gadgets -things that were supposed to sanitize war, make it clean, fast, efficient, *easy*- were rendered useless, made for a very powerful scene.
I don’t want to give away too much for those who haven’t played the game, but the jingoism was deliberate; it was there for ironic effect. I can’t imagine how anyone who has played through the game would fail to see this.
I think one of the problems may be that the two audiences are just very different. Let’s face it…those into the video games are not exactly looking for intellectual stimulation or into ‘reading’ a story of any kind, while those who actually go to and pay to see a movie, need it to be a bit beyond the voracious psycho gamer mentality who plays these types of shoot em up games.
I think for video game movies to be sucessful, someone will have to realize that they have to make a movie that is nothing like the video game itself.