Sick of all the huge action or sci-fi video game adaptations that are doomed to be failures? Fortunately, a game with a bit more potential is tapped to be coming to the big screen. According to Deadline, the recent Playstation 3 game “Heavy Rain” is being auctioned off for filming rights.
Former New Line head Bob Shaye is reportedly closing in on a deal under his newer company Unique Features, using his own money rather than Warner Bros., with whom he has a first look deal.
We’re slightly intrigued by a film adaptation, as the game focuses more on storyline than action and is already praised for its cinematic qualities and strong writing. ‘Rain’ boasts a David Fincher-esque atmosphere and story lending itself to a sensible film adaptation. Check out the Deadline-supplied synopsis below:
Players hunt the “Origami Killer,” a serial murderer who drowns his victims four days after they are abducted, leaving only a small origami figure and an orchid on the corpse. The game becomes a procedural in which four characters try to solve the crime after another potential victim is kidnapped.
Since the game has such ripe potential for a film adaptation, we hope that it doesn’t go the way of most video game adaptations (crap). But the cynic within us tells us that it’s probably more likely that the film may end up being just a few levels above a direct-to-video level thriller.
Despite the ego of the creator David Cage (indisputably the gaming world's Tommy Wiseau), Heavy Rain is the worst kind of cliche faux-cinema: a bungling foreigner desperate to achieve acceptance in America clumsily rips-off it's more popular media (in this case, CSI, Saw and Cinemax). This is even more derivative of film than most of these wannabe blockbusters.
Don't be intrigued, the "game" already a direct-to-video level thriller; it's so consciously attempting to be a film that an adaption is wholly redundant. Only those who are culturally illiterate–which unfortunately is a good chunk of gaming critics and gamers–praised the "writing." It's one of those old Sega CD interactive movieswith higher production values and better technology.