John Carpenter, he was alright wasn’t he? The Thing is actually one of my favourite movies of all time; a movie about claustrophobia, terror, and weird shape shifting aliens from SPAAAAAAAAAACE. Sound familiar? Sound like a little game called Dead Space? Yep, well apparently John Carpenter has made similar connections and he’d be super keen to direct a Dead Space movie given the chance.
In an interview with Game Informer, he claimed that Dead Space is “ready-made” for the big screen.
“I maintain that Dead Space would just make a great movie because you have these people coming onto an abandoned, shut-down space ship and they have to start it up and something’s on board. It’s just great stuff,” he said. “I would love to make Dead Space [into a film], I’ll tell you that right now. That one is ready-made.”
Let’s be honest: John Carpenter hasn’t really made a great film in literally decades and the chances of him making a decent video game movie adaptation based on Dead Space are pretty slim. Still, I think the original Dead Space stands up as a pretty adaptable project. Tight(ish) script, great setting, interesting antagonists — I could sure go for an average-at-best Dead Space movie, couldn’t you?
Via Destructoid
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12 responses to “John Carpenter Believes Dead Space Is ‘Ready-Made’ For A Movie Adaptation”
inb4 “That’s basically Alien, ya dingus!”
Edit: I do agree that Dead Space is just about “ready made” for a movie adaptation. I think I’d actually prefer a small budget movie with (relative) unknowns cast for the film – casting a big name actor as Isaac will invariably lead to him removing the helmet after the first 5 minutes and discarding it. On the other hand, if we blow the budget right out, the film won’t stand a chance of recouping the costs; guaranteeing no-one will attempt to make sequels that become increasingly divergent from the space horror genre.
Ehhh, Alien is more about bringing something on board to their ship while Dead Space is about repairing a broken space station that’s overrun with zombies.
I don’t know if I completely agree with Carpenter. The plot is fine for a sci-fi horror film, but I can’t think of many films where the lead character is wearing a helmet the whole time and has zero dialogue and zero interaction with others. That works just fine for a game; actually it works great, it lends itself to creating atmosphere, but a movie…?
If you start adding people and removing the helmet then it would just be a “Dead Space” film in name.
I dunno… we’ve had good films with laconic characters before, they just weren’t hollywood films. Amelie and City of the Lost Children spring to mind immediately, and I’m sure I could research more. (Funny, weren’t both of those French?)
But yeah, if they were to play up the angle of Isaac being untalkative and doing most of his emoting via facial expressions rather than words… think, I dunno. Bruce Willis in Unbreakable.
But yeah. The other people need to be absent (which actors hate), Isaac would need to be helmeted as often as possible (which actors hate), with the hard work being on the actor to emote through body language and his reactions to the hallucinations/flashbacks.
If they can make me believe a story about a man looking for his wife in a claustrophobic, lonely world which thinks ‘going mad’ is too boring, then yeah, I’d be sold.
Which Dead Space though? Viscerals Dead Space? Or EAs Call of Dead Space?
I dig sci-fi/horror films. Even bad ones are worth watching.
John Carpenters Vampires was awesome! That being said, his last GREAT movie was They Live. I have to admit Id love to see him tackle Dead Space for sure…
Lets just hope the protagonist won’t be as silent as the first Dead Space 🙂
Then you stick a title like Event Horizon on it and you’re set!
He cant do it…Kurt Russell is kind of too old now.
Dude. David Morse for Isaac. Come oooooon!
Jon Carpentar’s made some great stuff, but he’s getting a little old now. He’s gotta be in his 70s at least! And his last films weren’t too crash hot.
I still love ‘the thing’ but I think it’s time to give someone else a go.
He’s 65 😉
Watch “Dark Star” and tell me this guy can’t make an awesome space movie.