Of course, it could be argued that Hollywood is simply where video games go to die.
Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, the action game about two career criminals, is getting the big screen treatment. One day. Maybe.
The movie adaptation was first revealed in 2007 when the script was finished. A year later, Bruce Willis signed on to the picture.
“After Bruce Willis read it, he called it one of the best action scripts he’s ever read,” producer Adrian Askarieh said in late 2009, “and Bruce is an expert in terms of action scripts because he’s read everything over the last 20 years.”
Then that script was rewritten.
After rumours that Billy Bob Thornton would be joining the picture as Kane’s crazy partner James Lynch, Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx signed on.
The picture was promoted at the Cannes Film Festival and was supposed to go into production in August 2010.
Then the film spurted and sputtered, losing director after director: Simon Crane, Wayne Kramer and F. Gary Gray, Antoine Fuqua.
Yet it’s apparently still happening. “We’re doing a couple of rewrites but we’re still doing it,” Foxx recently told IGN. “And it should be a lot of fun, a lot of action.”
From the revolving door of directors, Kane and Lynch sounds like it’s floundering in Hollywood’s development hell. There’s already been one game sequel, and don’t be surprised if another one is squirted out before this movie gets done. Lots of movies get the green light and the majority of them end up never happening. Some movies languish in development hell for years (take John Milius’ Apocalypse Now script) before ever getting made.
Kane and Lynch isn’t the only game movie in development. Other high profile pictures include Uncharted and Heavy Rain. If one of these games movie is finally made and it’s a hit, brace yourself for a spate of game movies to hit theatres – much like what happened with comic books after X-Men was released. But for the time being, this project sounds more like Kane and Lynch: Dead Movie than Kane and Lynch: Dead Men.
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