‘There Was No Face Anywhere’: Why One Movie Producer Chose Uncharted Over Halo


Not to knock on the PS3’s signature action franchise, but the Uncharted games never sparked the kind of cultural fascination that the Halo franchise did under Bungie’s tenure. So, if you had to make a movie of one series, you’d pick Master Chief over Nathan Drake, right? Not if you’re Avi Arad, you wouldn’t.

With producer credits on the Spider-Man, X-Men and Blade movies and more, Arad’s partially responsible for much of the nerd-friendly fare that’s wound up on the silver screen over the last decade. He’s turning his attention to adapting video games nowadays and a new interview at IFC’s Fix blog explores why he didn’t jump onto the chance to option Halo when he had the chance:

“My problem with the ‘Halo‘ games was that there was no face anywhere. I didn’t know what to do with it. I thought about it a lot, because commercially it was huge. But when I look at things like ‘Metal Gear Solid’ and I’m reading the bible for it, and there’s this Cain and Abel story and all this shit, I’m like, ‘Now, that is a movie!’”

The interview also talks about how the facelessness endemic to first-person-shooters may make them less attractive to deal-makers like Arad:

“Sometimes I would find that video games lacked one particular component: the definition of the hero of the game,” he explained. “And that’s because you are that character – especially with the first-person shooters.”

Arad also declares that the still-brewing Uncharted movie will be the “first of many” films starring Nathan Drake, provided the film directed by Limitless director Neil Burger makes everyone involved oodles of money.

Avi Arad on the “Uncharted” movie and why he passed on “Halo” [IFC Fix]


The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


52 responses to “‘There Was No Face Anywhere’: Why One Movie Producer Chose Uncharted Over Halo”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *