Well, he can’t make anything worse than The Terminal, can he?
Steven Spielberg has agreed to develop three next-generation video games with Electronic Arts, the visionary makers of hit games such as FIFA International Soccer, FIFA Soccer ’95, FIFA Soccer ’96, FIFA ’97, FIFA 98: Road To World Cup, FIFA ’99, FIFA 2000, FIFA 2001, FIFA 2002, FIFA 2003, FIFA Football 2004, FIFA Football 2005, FIFA Street, FIFA 06 and FIFA Street 2.
Steven Spielberg (DVDs) will have his own office in the Los Angeles studios
of Electronic Arts, where he will develop three original game ideas
with the publishers – and work has already started on the first one. Spielberg
says:
"Having watched the game industry grow from a niche into
a major creative force in entertainment, I have a great deal of respect
for EA’s understanding of the interactive format."
While Neil Young, head of EA LA has praised the director by saying:
"No one is more at the centre of understanding gameplay
and great storytelling than Steven Spielberg.Being able to draw from Steven Spielberg’s experience
in crafting incredible stories and combine that with our view of
interactivity means you will have richer fiction, deeper characters and
better sense of immersion."
Spielberg signing with EA is just another
sign of how close the worlds of movies and games are becoming. In the
past, if someone tried to make a videogame adaptation of a film, it’d
end up as a horrible mess – the brainscars left on hecklerspray‘s brain
after playing an Amiga version of Hudson Hawk still haven’t healed.
Similarly, movie adaptations of videogames have been uniformly
dreadful – one of the most successful videogame movies so far –
Resident Evil – mostly relied on showing a bit of mimsy to get the
fanboys excited.
But all of this is changing, and it’s mostly thanks to Peter
Jackson. He’s had a very close relationship with the makers of the King
Kong videogame, and he’ll be executive producing the new Halo movie.
None of the Spielberg-developed games will be out for a few years,
but hecklerspray has got an exclusive first-look at what’s going on in
the studio. Watch the video here.
Read more:
Spielberg takes film magic to EA – BBC
[story by Stuart Heritage]