Painkiller Shooting for the Big Screen
By Shawn on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 12:56 PM PST In Computer, Game Companies, Games, Microsoft
Guy Walks Into a Bar (”Starship Dave”) has acquired the feature rights to the videogame Painkiller from DreamCatcher Interactive. Painkiller is a PC FPS that centers around a character suspended in purgatory; caught between heaven and hHell and forced to be a pawn in the war against good and evil. The game spawned Painkiller: Hell Wars for the Xbox and DreamCatcher has a sequel in production.
Jon Berg and Todd Komarnicki, Guy Walks Into a Bar’s principals, and Matthew Weinberg are producing the project, which carries the intriguing tagline “Heaven’s Got a Hit Man.”
This will be the first time DreamCatcher has sold feature rights to any of their games. VP George Chastain told Daily Variety that DreamCatcher and Guy Walks Into a Bar sealed the deal partly “because of the shingle’s plans to blend the fast-paced action, the wide array of weaponry and cast of demonic characters in the feature adaptation.”
The track record for converting videogame to feature film is pretty dismal. Still it’s based on an idea that has sold fairly well at the box office in the past, so I’ll reserve judgment.
via Variety.com
