did you know already it has been ten years Since a deus ex movie announced? What once seemed like a natural step, a theatrical adaptation of a triumphantly resurgent video game franchise, ended up being nothing The series faltered due to mismanagement by the publisher and the film itself ended up barely making it past the “early draft script” stage.
All the time that’s going by means that every day it’s becoming safer for people involved in the film to talk about it, what leads us to it United States today story Interview with Scott Kinney, Head of Development at Prime Universe Productions. Kinney was involved in the deus ex Project at an early stage where he was “initially responsible for writing the treatments to bring studio executives on board.”
Kinney quickly settled on Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, who had just made Sinister
While I could have shared some of the more interesting/promising ones, I’ll highlight this one instead because if I had to groan out loud, so do you:
And a calm we’ve never seen flows through Jensen, the kind that comes with that ultimately liberating realization that everything you believed about yourself was somehow wrong, and now you understand the truth.
jensen
(low, to himself)
…Get up, Jensen.
BARRETT
(feeding t he minigun)
Was it!?
jensen
… I’m not like you, Barrett.
BARRETT
You’re a bloody August!
jensen
Yes, I am. But-
BARRETT
But what?
And Jensen MOVES and runs right at Barrett!
Barrett pulls the trigger as Jensen leaps, a blade sticking out of his right arm and slicing off Barrett’s arm cleanly. Barrett ROARS as arm and gun fall. With the other he hits Jensen. Jensen rolls, grabs the arm/mini-gat, lines it up –
jensen
I never asked for it.
–and Jensen FIRE!
Rounds slam into Barrett’s head. He falls with a THUD.
I’m sure everyone write in deus ex The script would have been contractually obligated to include this line, so let’s not be too harsh. After all, these guys have made some very good films together over the years. One thing that stood out to me aside from the script excerpts, though, was news about the processes required to ensure the adaptation didn’t stray too far from the spirit of the games.
Every treatment we’ve ever written to present to studio execs has been sent to the game developers for input,” says Kinney. “Same with the script, we received their notes on each version of the script. Everyone seemed happy with the end result. Anyone. And that is the tragedy of it.”
This “tragedy” is the project’s ultimate demise, which Kinney attributes to a shift in priorities at CBS Films.
I don’t think I really understood the studio’s reasoning at the time. They shared that Deus Ex wasn’t the kind of film they wanted to make or were comfortable with, that their overall strategy was to move away from action films like Dwayne Johnson’s Faster, which they had previously funded, to films like The to relocate duff. Of course, Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill left the project for Doctor Strange and it just died.
It is easily being unkind to video game adaptationsespecially given Hollywood’s shameful track record with them, but I’m genuinely a little disappointed that this never got off the ground given the staff involved and how cool the world of Eidos would have looked on the big screen.
You can Read more excerpts from the script United States today.