It's not so uncommon to see movie studios and producers line up to acquire the rights to a popular video game. But when that happens after nothing but a three-minute teaser trailer, for a game that doesn't even exist yet? That's pretty special. When the short teaser for the upcoming game Dead Island hit the web back in February, rumors flew everywhere about producer Sean Daniel picking up the movie rights-- again, based on nothing but a three-minute teaser. At the time the deal had yet to go through, but like the last survivor of a zombie raid, Daniel is still standing and finally has the rights in hand.
According to Deadline, Daniel is the only producer to emerge from the scrum, and will produce an adaptation of Dead Island for Lionsgate, which has acquired the rights. The actual game finally hit shelves this month, and has sold 2 million units so far. Daniel is a veteran producer who was responsible for the Mummy franchise and a number of other hit titles, and Lionsgate, unsurprisingly, is excited to be in business with him:
“Like the hundreds of journalists and millions of fans who were so passionate and vocal about the Dead Island trailer, we too were awestruck,” said Lionsgate’s Joe Drake. “This is exactly the type of property we’re looking to adapt at Lionsgate: it’s sophisticated, edgy, and a true elevation of a genre that we know and love. It also has built in brand recognition around the world, and franchise potential.”
Here's the trailer in case you missed it the first time around. It obviously gets its power from being told in reverse-- you see the zombie girl die in the beginning, then reverse to find out the story of what happened to her-- but I have serious doubts a large-scale movie adaptation would take the same format. Do you guys think this story, which in effect is just another zombie invasion, will be as powerful told chronologically and over the course of an entire movie?
