Thanks to the internet and viral media, not can images and videos become incredibly popular incredibly quickly, but their popularity can also be tracked. Take, for example, the announcement piece for the video game Dead Island. In less than two days the video, which is actually quite incredible, has gotten more than 1.6 million hits on YouTube and is considered one of the web's must-see shorts. So, naturally, they're going to make it into a movie. HitFix has learned that Sean Daniel, producer of movies ranging from Dazed and Confused to The Wolfman, has purchased the film rights to make Dead Island into a movie. The game itself has been in development for years now and experienced multiple delays, but now is one of the most anticipated of the year (though there is no official release date yet).
Here's the problem with this story: the company behind the game, Techland, has explicitly said that what viewer watch in the video is not actually part of the game, but rather a preview of "the sorts of things that could happen in [the] world." Going further, the situation posed in the video - a father rescuing his daughter from zombies before she turns and attacks him - isn't exactly anything new in the genre. What makes the video compelling is that it's told in reverse, but there is a 0% chance that the movie adaptation will be made in the same fashion.
I will give the video credit for being an incredible advertisement, but this is just dumb. Why would this property be any different than any other zombie movie that we've seen in recent years? What makes it special? This isn't a case of a producer buying rights because of creative or interesting content - this is a case of a producer wanting to make a movie called Dead Island that he can tie into the game and create a brand. Long story short, this is bullshit.
