A movie based on the racing franchise will try to out-fast, out-furious Vin Diesel.
By this point, bad movies based on videogame franchises is kind of a cliche. While I don’t really hold my breath for a Halo movie, or whether the Uncharted film will be any good, at least those franchises have strong narratives and characters from which to form a decent film. A racing game with no clear plot or continuous story? Yeah, I’m not sure what Dreamworks’ Steven Spielberg is doing purchasing the rights to EA’s Need for Speed franchise, but production is moving forward with a target release date of 2014 for the vehicular action movie. Spielberg tapped John and George Gatins – writers of the robot-boxing movie Real Steel – to pen the screenplay.
“I’m excited about getting back into the creative trenches with John and George Gatins and my partners at EA to bring to life an exhilarating script based on an epic video game that seems to have been made for the movies,” said Steven Spielberg, head of Dreamworks and director of E.T, Indiana Jones and many other good movies.
This one won’t really be based on the background from any particular Need for Speed game, instead using the license to write a 70s-style car porn movie like Smokey and the Bandit. EA sells the plot with the following buzz words: “[Need for Speed will be] a fast-paced, high-octane film rooted in the tradition of the great car culture films of the 70s.”
EA is thrilled. “They are the perfect partner to take Need for Speed to the big screen by creating the exciting action film that we have always envisioned,” said Frank Gibeau from EA.
As I said, I’m dubious such a film is necessary as a videogame tie-in. Then again, I haven’t seen any movie with “fast” or “furious” in the title and I think about cars only as a conveyance, so maybe I’m not the target audience here. Is anyone interested in a Need for Speed movie?
Source: Game Informer
