Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I've come to the conclusion that if JJ Abrams and I grew up together we would be best friend, but if I was making movies we'd be mortal enemies because that motherfucker puts his cooties all over everything I'd be trying to do.
First it was Dark Tower, but then they couldn't figure out how to make that one work, so he turned Trek into Star Wars + Wrath of Khan, which is great in my book. Then he gets Star Wars and now he's working with Valve to develop video games and movies based on their games.
Okay, so I'm already geeking out over Guillermo del Toro using GLaDOS in Pacific Rim, but a whole movie based around the funky world of Aperture Science... full of snark, dark humor and crazy portal jump-arounds? I see the potential, but don't see how they make it a feature, however I'm dying to see them try.
Half Life on the other hand already has the story, the iconography and the characters and is an easy adaptation if done well. It could be like if Paul WS Anderson made a good Resident Evil movie, except instead of paralleling Romero this one would parallel Ridley Scott and James Cameron.
Now we don't know how directly Abrams himself will be involved, but according to Engadget he will be involved in some capacity. If these films happen they'll be Bad Robot films.
To me this sounds like Abrams is following in Spielberg's footsteps yet again. Bad Robot is becoming his Amblin and while he's off telling every other filmmaker working that he's going to be King of Popcorn mountain he'll be producing a ton of interesting things.
On the gaming side of things, I find if fascinating when filmmakers take an active role in developing titles. Peter Jackson was working with Microsoft a while back, but I don't know if that ever amounted to anything after the Halo movie fell apart.
Can't wait to see the kind of bizarre love child Valve and Bad Robot come up with.
I keep saying it, but damn it... every day proves it truer and truer... it's an awesome time to be a geek.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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