I have to respect Brett Ratner in a way, mostly thanks to X-Men 3: The Last Stand. It takes some doing to absolutely screw up an X-Men film involving the Dark Phoenix in such a way that angers both hardcore comic book fans and casual audiences alike. Well, now we may or may not get a chance to see him royally screw up a movie based on God of War. A new rumor has cropped up that Ratner is already on board as director for the project, which stems from a tidbit in the press release for the new Robocop movie:

“David Self’s credits include 13 Days and Road To Perdition.  He wrote God of War for Universal, to which Brett Ratner is attached to direct, and was a writer on Universal’s Wolfman currently in production.”

I knew Ratner was looking to do video game movies, but couldn’t he have at least gone for the more obscure titles, like Uwe Boll?

Via SlashFilm

Action heroes never die – they just get old, bald and fat or any combination of the three. When most actors in their fifties and sixties start to take meatier acting roles or give in to the age demographic and play fatherly figures in a family drama or family comedy; some actors who previously wowed us in the past with death-defying leaps from exploding buildings or single-handedly rescuing a group of POWs from a torture camp somewhere in Asia just can’t or won’t give up the ghost.

Despite the run on sentence above, you all know which ones I am talking about. Harrison Ford is just a bit old to be the dashing adventurer all the little girls fell in love with in Star Wars and Indiana Jones. He is no longer the Indy or Han that we knew, and he is most definitely not Jack Ryan any more – I am not suggesting that he do another movie with Anne Heche or one with his lady love Ally McBeal Calista Flockhart- I just think that he should play something more akin to his age group instead of a lothario or an action hero. Same with Sylvester Stallone. Look at the latest “Rambo” flick. Why in the world are these guys trying to bring back a youthful nostalgia to our existence with these characters? That would be like Clint Eastwood doing another Dirty Harry movie -all it does is not only show their age along with ours and do we really want to be reminded daily how old we really are?

Now comes Bruce Willis. Granted, he is not reprising his role as John McClane in another “Die Hard” flick, but he is supposedly on board to play Kane in the movie adaptation of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. According to Variety, Bruce Willis is negotiating to star in Lionsgate’s transfer of the Eidos game and it is to be directed by Simon Crane (second unit director and stunt coordinator for “Hancock,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “Troy” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”). The movie is expected to start shooting sometime in November and movie honchos are still looking for a actor to play Kane’s other-half Lynch.

Read the full article

Oh, Uwe Boll, you just can’t seem to catch a break. Not only are you having trouble getting theaters to show your latest abomination creation, Postal, but now you can’t even give free screenings away. Last Friday, almost 200 people were present for a free screening of the film in Hoboken, New Jersey, but around three-quarters of those people walked out midway. The main reason cited was some offensive scenes, particularly one where 9/11 terrorists hijack a plane, decide to fly to the Bahamas instead, and then accidentally crash it into the Twin Towers anyway when passengers try to take over the cockpit. For his part though, Boll doesn’t seem to fazed, stating that his film isn’t for everyone:

“Being politically correct, let’s say, the big studios are kind of overdoing it,” he said. “I feel it is time now to make a really wild movie, something over the top…We don’t spare any group. We don’t want to hurt anybody but we want to break the rules,” he said, “We want to make people think: What is a taboo? We want to make people start thinking about their own boundaries and rules.”

Good point, Uwe. I’m going to start thinking about my own rules and boundaries from now on: Rule 1) Stay the hell away from any theater showing a Uwe Boll film.

Via NJ.com

There is a hilariously accurate breakdown of the plot of Indigo Prophecy on Twenty Sided. For those of you who missed it, the game is basically an interactive movie that starts out intriguing, and then loses its way up until its schizophrenic conclusion.

Indigo Prophecy is, at its heart, a mystery story. Well, two mystery stories, really. The first is, “Why did Lucas kill that man in the bathroom?” The second is, “What in the name of Uwe Boll’s tiny malformed soul happened to the plot of this game?”

The first act plays like a psychological drama written by M. Night Shyamalan. (The Sixth Sense.) The second act plays like a stupid action movie by Jerry Bruckheimer. (Armageddon, National Treasure.) The third act is a swirling vortex of disjointed blatherskite, as if from the mind of Ed Wood. (Plan 9 From Outer Space.)

The article even comes with a writing guide for the game shown to the right. The author will take you step by step through each plot point laying out the whole story which is still pretty incomprehensible unless you opt for the peyote before reading it.

For those of you who have played Indigo Prophecy or have tried to follow the plot you’ll enjoy this. Anyone who hates SPOILERS and intends to play the game, but hasn’t got around to it yet should skip this article.

via Twenty Sided

Despite Electronic Arts optimistic backing of Steven Spielberg’s latest product Boom Blox, hardcore gamers are not impressed. Color me not surprised. Boom Blox is a casual puzzle game. There may be exploding blocks, but no one is shot or killed in gameplay.

However, many hardcore gamers don’t reserve their ire only for Spielberg. Its a common belief that Hollywood crossovers rarely make good video games; and sadly it holds true in most cases.

“I don’t like film directors’ games,” said Kanelly Reyes, a 20-year-old New Yorker who plays video games daily but prefers games that are more “original” than those typically produced by film directors.

“The game play is not that great in directors’ games. It’s just two different mind-sets.”

Just why is it that most games based on movies stink so bad? Of course the reverse seems to be true as well, especially with Uwe Boll slaughtering game after game on the big screen. If we can figure it out, maybe gamers will never again be subjected to anything like the Superman game.

via The Columbus Dispatch.com

Oh, Uwe Boll. You just can’t catch a break. The infamous director recently announced that his latest film, Postal, is getting an incredibly limited release on May 23rd. How limited? Four screens, and no, that’s not a typo. Why is that? Well, here are Boll’s rantings thoughts on the matter:

Theatrical distributors are boycotting Postal because of its political content. We were prepared to open on 1500 screens all across America on May 23rd. Any multiplex in the U.S. should have space for us, but they’re afraid… We have even tried to buy a few screens in New York and Los Angeles, and they won’t let us even rent the theaters! I urge independent exhibitors to contact us and book ‘Postal’! Audiences have been expecting the film and I don’t think exhibitors should censor what gets played in U.S. theaters.

Yes, it’s gotta be the “political content.” Theaters hate showing controversial political films. Remember Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11? Of course you don’t, because no theaters showed it due to its political content; “too many farting Bin Ladens,” they said. And it certainly couldn’t have anything to do with it being released around the same time as the new Indiana Jones movie. Plus the fact that all of Boll’s previous films have bombed at the box office couldn’t have had any impact on the theaters’ decision at all. I mean, it’s not like movie theaters are in the business of making money.

Via Kotaku

Oh, silly Uwe. You make so very many gamers angry with your terrible videogame-to-movie adaptations and box your critics and send angry messages to Wired. It’s all very amusing to me, since I don’t expect the movies he does to be any good regardless of the director, but his antics just make everything hilarious.

Boll’s most recent noteworthy actions were his comments on the inevitable Grand Theft Auto film. I’ll let you read his statement in its entirety, but first, you know who I think would be perfect to do a GTA film?

Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

With puppets.

Grand Theft Auto would be super interesting for me, and I think I would actually be the right guy to do it, because my movies are all bloody and violent and I don’t have a problem with action scenes. But look, they will go, in the end, with a Michael Bay or a Brett Ratner, and it will be a PG-13 movie made for $150 million. I think it would be better to make a $30 million, very hard, brutal movie without compromising, but I’m not optimistic.

A $30 million Uwe Boll GTA movie, or a $150 million Michael Bay GTA movie. Am I in hell?

via Game|Life

Looks like the Uwe Boll hate has become a monster that even the much loathed director himself cannot make any more horrid than it is already.Remember last month when Jonathan posted the news regarding the petition for Uwe Boll to stop making movies, and Uwe’s poor attempt at wit a couple of days later? Well, Stride gum is getting in on the hate and is offering each person who signed the petition a pack of gum, providing that the goal of one million signatures is reached by May 23rd. Those that signed up will be able to download a redeemable coupon if the target is reached.

Gary Osifchin, the Marketing Director for Stride, had this to say regarding his company’s stance on the industry’s plight:

“Since gamers are one of our most supportive groups, we’ve been looking for ways to return the favor. And what better way is there to get gamer’s backs than by helping them rescue their cherished videogames from the clutches of Uwe Boll?”

As of this post 251, 772 people have signed the petition, and while I think this is pretty damn hilarious, I would rather just go down to the store a buy a pack of Stride than waste my time on signing anything related to Uwe.

There’s good news for all of you that have signed the petition demanding that Uwe Boll stop wasting film. Blizzard is in total agreement. The “director” has admitted to being shown the door after proposing one of his infamous adaptations based on the World of Warcraft.

But if you’re not going to make a faithful adaptation, why make an adaptation at all? Apparently, the folks over at Blizzard wonder the same thing, since they practically laughed Boll out of their offices when he approached them about making a World of Warcraft adaptation, the director confessed.

“I got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard, and he said, ‘We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you,’” Boll revealed. “Because it’s such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it.”

I’m sure it was a case of open mouth exchange feet, but I can’t get over Boll’s inadvertent admission that it would have been a bad movie. Finally some honesty in Hollywood.

via MTV Movies Blog

Just the other day, Uwe Boll, the director every gamer and movie watcher loves to hate, stated rather off-hand that he would quit making films if an online petition received one million signatures (if you can’t remember, it was THIS PETITION RIGHT HERE). At the time, the petition had around 18,000 signatures. Since he mentioned his intentions though, that number appears to have grown to around 127,000. The infamous director has now responded — in somewhat broken English — to the growing number of signatures the with the sort of tact you’d expect from the man behind films such as Postal and Bloodrayne:

“Look, I’m not a f***ing retard like Michael Bay or other people running around in the business or Eli Roth making the same s***ty movies over and over again. If you really look at my movies you will see my real genius you know, and if you go on May 23 on Postal you will see that I deliver a movie what nobody else delivered in the last 10 years, what is way better as all that social critic George Clooney bulls*** what you get every f***ing weekend. You have to really wake up and you have to see me what I am. I am the only genius in the whole fucking business. Goodbye.”

That’s right, people. It’s not his fault that his movies are terrible, it’s your fault for not “getting” them. He also said that he hopes someone out there makes a pro-Boll petition. Oddly, I kind of agree with his views on movies, particularly where Michael Bay and Eli Roth are concerned. I just don’t agree with his views on his own movies.

Via MovieSet.com