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HBO’s Westworld looks to Red Dead Redemption and BioShock for inspiration
While many people only know Jonathan Nolan as Christopher Nolan’s less-famous brother, the younger Nolan has his own rather impressive career in Hollywood. In addition to co-writing The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Prestige, and Interstellar, he is also the creator of Person of Interest and the driving force behind HBO’s Westworld reboot. Originally released in 1973 (and parodied hilariously in the “Itchy & Scratchy Land” episode of The Simpsons), Westworld takes place within the walls of a futuristic amusement park where the life-like robots eventually run amok.
Before you ask, yes, the original movie was written and directed by Michael Crichton.
But in turning the story into a television show, Nolan wants to go beyond Crichton’s original concept and he’s looking to video games for his inspiration. Naturally, Rockstar’s classic western, Red Dead Redemption, is at the top of the list. However, Nolan told Esquire‘s Matt Patches that the underwater world of Irrational’s BioShock also informed his latest creation.
Finally, Nolan cited an “interactive play,” Sleep No More, as a third inspiration. A similar interactive theatre experience, Tamara, directly inspired Tom Zito to develop Night Trap, and other full motion video games, in the mid-90s.
HBO’s Westworld reboot will premiere sometime next year and will star Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, and Jeffrey Wright. The first teaser trailer, which was released yesterday, has been embedded above.
Uncharted movie delayed to 2017; Resident Evil: Final Chapter set for Jan. 2017 premiere
The Uncharted movie is quickly turning into a teenage procrastinator, insisting they’ll come out of their room later, but with no immediate intention of coming out. Sony recently announced (via Variety) that the film has been delayed again, this time until June 30, 2017.
This news comes weeks after it was confirmed by Heroic Hollywood that director Seth Gordon had stepped away from the project. At least two different writers have worked on the script, and with Gordon’s departure, it’s currently being reworked for a third time. A new director has yet to be announced and the film has even struggled to find a lead actor.
We probably won’t see Nathan Drake until he’s rushing out of the door on June 30, 2017 clasping his belt with a piece of toast in his mouth, running to catch the bus. They’ll probably be some jumping involved as well.
In the same announcement, Sony confirmed that Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, which stars Milla Jovovich and is set to be directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, will be released on January 27, 2017.
Posted in Etcetera, News
Tagged Resident Evil, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Red Ash anime funded on Kickstarter as game falls well short
As expected, Comcept’s Kickstarter campaign for Red Ash: The Indelible Legend has failed to reach its goal. The project’s $519,999 total fell quite short of the developer’s $800,000 target. The campaign was poorly run from the start, banking on nostalgia for Mega Man Legends, Kenji Inafune’s name recognition, and the success of Mighty No. 9‘s campaign. That’s game recent which was stealth delay probably didn’t help.
However, Comcept also had a second Kickstarter campaign related to Red Ash in the works at the same time. Red Ash: Magicicada is an anime short film produced by Studio 4°C, and unlike the game’s campaign, the anime has been fully funded, surpassing its $150,000 goal. The production company is proud of Magicicada and call it “a fast-paced, entertaining film in which unique characters explore various stages.” The anime won’t be released until 2017, to coincide with the release of the Red Ash video game.
Red Ash, the game, will continue development with Chinese publisher Fuze holding the purse strings. However, coupled with the announcement of the Might No. 9 delay days before the end of Red Ash’s Kickstarter deadline, and Comcept announcing they secured a publisher well into funding, they’re going to have to do a lot to win back consumer trust.
Nintendo UK will send you random packages in the mail… let’s hope they skip the Bob-Ombs
Have you ever noticed all the ads for companies that offer a monthly (or weekly) subscription for a box of random goodies? If you watch TV regularly, you must have seen at least one of these commercials. They have them for makeup and beauty care products, dog treats/items, snacks, video games, razors, tea, candy, toys/collectibles, books, baby samples, and even multiple places that will send you recipes plus all the ingredients you need to cook that meal. There’s probably even a bunch that I don’t know about. Or don’t want to know about. It’s possibly a little out of control, but people love getting packages and random surprises, so I can see the appeal.
Now Nintendo UK is throwing its hat into the monthly subscription box ring. As an alternative to the popular Loot Crate, which sends out nerdy toys, collectibles, and clothes, Nintendo is set to launch their own box — the “N-Box” (which should really look into maybe having a different name) — which will offer Nintendo items and merchandise featuring iconic characters.
MCV is reporting that the N-Box “will feature toys, clothes and other merchandise inspired by and branded with Nintendo icons such as Mario, Zelda and Pokemon” and that the boxes “are expected to be available individually, with gamers also able to subscribe to a three-, six- or 12-month plan.”
The N-Box is expected to debut pretty soon, and for now will only be available for UK consumers. Yet another reason to be jealous of the UK.
It’s Always Blocky in Minecraft… because Rob McElhenney is directing the movie
Have you heard? Word on the Internet is that there’s going to be a Minecraft movie coming out… sometime. There’s really no information on it just yet. But here’s one thing we do know, the director of the film has been announced to be It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Rob McElhenney.
McElhenney has mad credits on Sunny for creating, writing, producing, directing, and starring as Ronald “Mac” McDonald… not to mention snagging colleague and funny lady Kaitlin Olson. The announcement was made in a succinct blog post from Mojang, which offered no other information about the project. While McElhenney’s ascension to the position remains a temporarily confusing but delightful mystery, we have noticed some fun similarities between Minecraft and several recurring Sunny characters.
Minecraft aficionados will certainly remember the Creepers, which are very reminiscent of the infamous Green Man (Charlie Day’s Charlie, high out of his mind, in a full-body green spandex suit), who first debuted in the season three episode “The Gang Gets Invincible.” And who can forget Day Man and the creepily suggestive Night Man, which viewers may recall from Charlie’s weird musical, “The Nightman Cometh,” from the end of season four. Both characters seem to parallel the protagonist “Steve” and the mysterious Enderman.
With these concurrent elements in mind, McElhenney now seems like a natural fit for the film. It almost begs the question, was Notch just a huge Sunny fan all along?
DJ Khaled, DJ Premier, and DJ Mustard hand-picked the 50-song NBA 2K16 soundtrack
The NBA 2K franchise is well known for its expansive soundtracks, and this Fall’s NBA 2K16 will be no exception. Sporting the largest soundtrack ever included in the series, 2K Games has recruited famed producers DJ Khaled, DJ Premier, and DJ Mustard to curate a 50-song soundtrack for the game. Split into five distinct playlists, each artist also created two tracks that’ll be available only in the game.
You can listen to the entire playlist (minus the exclusive tracks) on Spotify right now, or you can find all 50 songs after the break.
NBA 2K16 will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on September 29 (more…)
Double Fine’s documentary chronicling Broken Age’s development has reached its last episode
In early 2012, Double Fine nearly broke the game industry when they introduced the words “Crowdfunding” and “Kickstarter” to many gamers for the first time. The crowdfunding model has become a fixture of the gaming landscape in the years since, and while Double Fine’s campaign may not have been the first, they certainly made it a viable option that developers such as Brian Fargo and Keiji Inafune would eventually use.
Along with the game that would eventually become Broken Age, Double Fine also produced a behind-the-scenes documentary series with 2 Player Productions known as Double Fine Adventure. In Schafer’s words, he wanted to “show us how the sausage was made.”
After more than three years of filming, and twenty main episodes (along with countless extra “Sidequest” episodes), the documentary reached it’s grand conclusion over the weekend. Originally, the series was an exclusive for Kickstarter backers, but as the game neared completion, Schafer decided to unleash the series to the public early.
Regardless of what you thought of the game, the documentary series has made the whole ordeal more than worth it. As someone who backed the Kickstarter campaign all those years ago, I can’t tell you how inspiring and informative these episodes are. Before this, the world of game development always happened behind closed doors, but no longer.
This series has been different. It’s showcased game development from the very start of the creative process to the release of the game, and it’s aftermath, and it did it with a relatively large studio as well. We like to think game development is all sunshine and lollipops and that everything is all fun all the time, but this series goes to show that isn’t the case. I heartily recommend it, even if you’re not interested in game development because it’s so much more than a behind the scenes, how-to documentary, it’s a captivating look into the creative process.
2 Player Productions recently began work on a Blu-ray release for Double Fine Adventure and you can pre-order it at adventure.DoubleFine.com.
Mighty No. 9 live-action adaptation will be a feature-length film
Over a year after it was first confirmed, Legendary Digital Media, Contradiction Films, and video game developer Comcept announced today that Kickstarter success Mighty No. 9 will be getting its own live-action adaptation. The feature-kength film will be released on “digital platforms,” with no word on a theatrical or physical release.
The Keiji Inafune-developed vehicle already has a cartoon series in the works slated for 2016. In the past, Inafune has spoken at length about how he wants the game to be turned into a multimedia mega-franchise with “comic book, manga, anime, movie, TV drama series” and more.
This is the second time Inafune has worked with Legendary Digital and Contradiction, the first coming in the form of Dead Rising: Watchtower, a mediocre film based on Inafune’s Dead Rising series.
For a game that hasn’t been released yet, the creators and investors of Mighty No. 9 seem to have high expectations for it. Inafune recently launched a pair of Kickstarter campaigns for Red Ash, a Mighty No. 9 spinoff franchise that will include a third-person action game and a companion anime short.
Inafune is certainly promising a lot before he’s delivered anything. Mighty No. 9 will be released on September 15 (and it’ll be playable at this weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con), but his creator has already seemingly moved on to a feature film, a cartoon series, and two other crowdfunding campaigns. That’s a lot for any developer.