Gears Of War Movie Falls Back Into Development Heck
In March 2007, New Line Cinemaannouncedthey would be making a big screen adaptation of Microsoft’s popular video gameGears of War.CollateralandPirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black PearlscreenwriterStuart Beattiewas hired to pen a script after turning in a 21-page treatment. A few months laterLive Free or Die HardhelmerLen Wisemancame aboard the projectto direct. Wiseman worked on the script withWantedscribeChris Morganfor a year, beforemoving ontoBilly Ray(Breach, Shattered Glass).
LA Timesnow reports that Wiseman is moving on, after having the budget slashed in half. He is now officially signed on to direct the apocalyptic thrillerNocturne,a project he was developingfor 20th Century Fox.
The cost cutting could be seenin an interviewproducerWyck Godfreygave in late 2009. He explains that they were trying to decide if the movie should take place in the time period of the games—in a war-torn post-Emergence Day world—or, if they should start off earlier and depict a peaceful time that’s shattered by the events of Emergence Day.
Gears of War follows the soldiers of Delta Squad as they fight to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from a relentless subterranean enemy known as The Locust Horde. The player assumes the role of Marcus Fenix, a former prisoner and war-hardened soldier. In cooperative play, the second player plays as Fenix’s friend and fellow soldier, Dominic Santiago (Dom). The two soldiers join up with Delta Squad and battle the Locust Horde through the course of an action-packed campaign.
As for Nocture, here is what we know about the project:
Sounds like an interesting concept. If Wiseman has one strength it is his pre-directing background in prop and production design, which couldn’t hurt a movie set after the end of the world. I’d assume that the end of the world will be visually intensive. No more details have been revealed, so we don’t know if the story is set in space after Earth is destroyed, or set on Earth after most of the inhabitants have been killed.
