by: Stefan Kolle (via Business & Games)
20th Century Fox has acquired the movie rights to The Sims, the most succesful computer game franchise of all times. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. We know of the desperate (and often misguided) hunger of Hollywood to turn existing properties into movies. We've seen some great comic book adaptations recently (Sin City, anyone?), but in the gaming field I'm going to be generous by calling the results 'mixed at best'.
And the best of it? It's going to be live action….
In a general sense I appreciate cross-over attempts, for the simple reason that the general lack of attention for what is by far the largest section of the worldwide entertainment business is baffling. However, most attempts that we have seen so far are of horrid quality. In part due to Hollywoods tendency to drift towards the lowest common denominator, in part because the very nature of games makes it hard to translate them into different formats.
However, I could well imagine a great Pixar movie coming out of this – the life of a Sims-character, and how he deals with the constant manipulation by this weird outside force, sometimes known as 'User'.
I don't want to be too negative upfront – who knows, they might come up with something good. The team appointed by Fox has after all been behind such classics as Norbit, Scary Movie 3 and Eragon…..[/end irony] What I expect, however, is another major failure, which once again will lead the pundits to denounce the cultural and/or business value of gaming, and possibly damage the franchise in the process.
Original Post: http://businessandgames.com/blog/2007/05/the_sims_in_live_action.html
