The folks over at Variety had the chance to go one on one with Scott Greenberg, president of the production company behind the upcoming animated Dead Space prequel movie. He goes onto say that the film has been in development for some time and we should be seeing it on screens later this year.
"It got started a little over two years ago when I reached out to EA. We were looking for new sources of ideas. I believe and we at Film Roman felt that videogames -- the way comic books have become a source of stories in the past years -- games have the same influence. They're another great source to tap into. But it had to be the right way to do it. I worked closely with two guys in EA's business affairs group. We got to know the different games. We had to find right product to start off. They want to get the motor going on original IP. They are the best at games we feel we're the best at animation. So we figured it would be a good match. "Dead Space" is something they told us about from the get go. We started developing a film with them over a year ago as a prequel. I would go with them to every studio and meet people, see what games they have. Some don’t make sense as movies. There are a couple of others we have in development more as series for kids. We really wanted to figure out how to develop together. They do their story and we do ours. Somebody have great experience playing game and also a great experience watching it for more background. There will be enough links so gamers can enjoy it, but at the same time the film stands alone if you don't play the games. We had time to get to know each other and built trust. "Dead Space" is a game that's at the right place with the timing and we just worked closely to start develop script with their characters. It's a great one to launch off of. Then we'll do more hopefully"
One of the best lines in the interview is where Scott describes how they (production company) worked hand in hand with EA on developing the story for the Dead Space animated film. "They have a very detailed bible. It's basically "'Alien' meets 'Doom' in space." To get there, though, there's a whole mythology they built behind it. In the game there are planets with markings that unleash holy hell. We said, "Is there a parallel story?" There was some mutual brainstorming. We said it would be really interesting to tell a prequel story. Where the movie ends, the game picks right up.
We found a bunch of writers who they met and interviewed. Together we picked Jimmy Palmiotti, who writes comic books. As we started doing our story, the development of the game was always evolving. That’s cool for us. As they're producing sound effects we're using stuff they have. We have their world and their designs. That's a huge jump start to take their assets. We had a meeting two weeks ago with their producer and our director going over some scripts storyboards." Anything with that kind of setup sounds good to me, stay tuned to PX360 for more info on Dead Space as it comes about.
"Dead Space: the Event"... Film Roman's president on the upcoming animated movie based on EA's new game - Variety.com
