Even though there’s no script or any creative attachments, the hot movie project of the week has to be Dead Island. It’s a videogame that won’t be released until November by Techland by X-Box 360 and PlayStation 3. There’s a stampede for screen rights that was prompted by a teaser trailer that sets a most touching context to a flesh-eating zombie premise. The teaser got 1 million hits in 24 hours. Lucky for producers Sean Daniel Company’s Daniel and Jason Brown and Union Entertainment’s Richard Leibowitz and Dmitri Johnson, they corralled the screen rights nearly a year ago. Studios and agencies are all over them, suggesting talent packages and story lines to try and make a screen deal. That will likely happen in the next week or so. The film will will follow a Memento-like storyline, even though the video game does not. Daniel knows his way around a big ticket movie, having produced The Mummy franchise, and Union has made screen development deals from vidgames that include Invasion Earth (with producer Ed Pressman) and Zero G and Blacklight, both of which were set at Fox. Here is the terrific trailer that has created such heightened interest:
Viral Sensation 'Dead Island' Takes Movie Shape
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Awesome project and a coup for all involved!
Yeah, I’m not keen on zombie pics, but this is HOT HOT HOT!
Somebody has a well-connected publicist. This is BARELY NEWS, if at all.
Actually, it’s quite possibly some rather remarkable news.
Just this single teaser trailer has created a massive buzz across the internet, obviously more so in gaming circles, but still in an awful lot more places too.
If treated correctly, then this could well be one of the few, -if not the- good movie adaptations of video games.
Saw this yesterday and it blew me away. It was very cinematic. It’s no surprise Hollywood has come knocking.
The premise and chain of events sounded so depressing . . . but the trailer is hypnotic and very cool.
I don’t get it – where is the touching premise? This just looks like a low-poly version of a scene from 28 DAYS LATER??
Here’s the deal. I don’t necessarily think that the zombie craze has worn out itself out completely – not just yet. However, we must, must, MUST start developing ORIGINAL material that does not reek of a rip off of the film that injected new life into the genre, only released a short while ago.
Yes, there is a such thing as DIMINISHING RETURNS, and if the audience gets treated to the same thing over and over and over again, you will see less and less of a profit. Just look at box office receipts from these zombie films and vampire flicks.
Profits are NOT on the upswing.
This is not a new phenomenon. It what always happens with anything good.
This trailer would take a mediocre animator two months to make. And it gets SCREEN RIGHTS? LOL!
It’s not the quality of the animation that has garnered so much attention, but the tone… the ability to tap into the horror of that situation WHILE somehow managing to connect to the humanity of those three people in a short amount of time. Add to that the violent turning of the girl against the father she was reaching out for just moments before and you have a pretty compelling 3 minute short.
Ok, maybe a bit hyperbolic, but I was impressed.
Play it forward, in real time, with real actors, and no soundtrack and it is mundane. Seen it. Seen it. Seen it.
And I was hoping to like it. Best thing about it is the title.
Yeah, watch The Dark Knight in reverse and its retarded. And the Sound of Music on mute is just appalling.
Sorry, sir, Your point is in valid.
Play Momento forward in real time and it’s mundane and been seen before too. What makes them BOTH great is the storytelling. Instead of wanting to see what comes next, you are desperate to see what came before (one reason LOST was so compelling), which is a way of storytelling. That doesn’t mean you can take any movie and reverse it and it will be good though. As with anything, it is how the story is crafted. If you think about it, there are NO new stories, it’s how the story is crafted and the execution that makes any story interesting.
Also it is about the trailer. If for instance the above trailer were, as RP put it, substituted for real actors in real time – backwards or not – anyone not a zombo-holic would instantly recognize that it is just “28 Days Later”, and likely look for something they haven’t seen.
However if they scrapped this trailer completely and added a new storyline – well then – it wouldn’t be “Dead Island” apparently, and then what was the point of optioning this game?
I think this was a typical Hollywood knee-jerk reaction and I doubt this will be released by a top 3 studio.
the black chick, how can you say this is great storytelling when it has been done before? Haven’t there been at least TWO mainstream zombie flicks released in the last 5 years that depict an infected child turning on their parents?
This has NOTHING to do with the trailer or quality of anything people. It is a VIDEO GAME, and whether a studio releases an adaptation or not, SOMEONE needs the rights in case the VIDEO GAME IS a hit.
OBVIOUSLY it is just 28 DAYS LATER, duh – no one is saying it’s not.
Sick, vile, ugly, demented, ultra-violent… oh, yes–it has big American Hollywood entertainment written all over it.
Which is why it was made by a Polish company, Einstein. Any more generalisations that you want to mete out?
Haha, I was going to post this. Educate yourself before you spew out nonsense.
Hollywood will make the films that bring in audiences. Repulsed by XYZ? Fine. Get a ton of people to stop going. As long as they expect people to pack the theaters, they will make the films. If you want to decry it, I ask you: Why wasn’t “Veggietales: Christian Movie for Kids” (or whatever) a giant box office hit? Because a whole lot more people went to go see “Saw III” or whatever.
Bash film ideas all you want. Start going to films you want to see more of. Stay away from ones you don’t. If you boycott them all, then the ones that make money will keep getting made. Even if it’s the kind you don’t like. And then, you can just STFU and stop complaining.
I don’t know that I’d call this terrific. It’s 30 seconds of anecdote stretched into three minutes because it’s all done in slow-mo, and the reason it has weight, if it has any, is because of the soundtrack. And yes, as Get With It points out, the good version of this scene was already done in 28 Days Later and then ad nauseum in the four thousand zombie/vampire movies that followed it. Wait, you mean some of the zombies are going to be people you know?! Care about?! What a twist!!!
I liked the trailer and think that its possible to have a zombie film with a degree of poignancy as well as horror. However, I’m wary of using a “Memento” like style to tell such a story. How exactly is that going to work? The reverse structure in Memento operated beautifully because the story was, at it’s core, a well-told psychological mystery. From the opening of the movie, we knew how the tale would end; the joy was finding out what the story was really about with all the character developments and plot surprises that occurred on our journey back. From a psychological perspective, the movie successfully placed the audience in the head of a main character who does not experience time and memory as normal people do. Guy Pearce’s condition — i.e. that he literally could not make new memories — gave a solid reason for the weird backwards structure (it made us just as confused as he was). This elevated the whole reverse-storytelling from a mere narrative trick to something that was intrinsic to the story.
While the psychological mystery might lend itself to this kind of story-telling, I think the subgenre of zombie films — at least the ones I’m familiar with — are a different kettle of (undead) fish. By and large, they are not mysteries but survival tales. The only mystery (aside from what caused the dead to rise, which is often never answered) is who will survive and who won’t. Yes, you can have such a story told in flashback by a “survivor”, but that is not a reverse structure — it is a framing device.
I’m not saying it can’t be done. As a fan of the genre, I’d love to see a zombie story told in a revolutionary style. My only concern is that the Memento style will be just another gimmick.
I saw this trailer today, and so did a lot of my friends. We were all blown away. However, hearing this news makes me think of one thing: SNAKES ON A PLANE. An internet sensation does not a movie sensation make.
Fabulous.
I don’t want to wait for the movie. I want producers of Walking Dead to buy the rights from creators of this game of this short and recreate this frame by frame with real actors for one of the episode openings in season two. They don’t even need write a storyline. They can just show it for 3 minutes to show the horror.
Congratulations to all concerned on the deal. I love zombie films but do agree with many of the above comments. This has to rise above the pack and the MEMENTO style narrative must be more than a gimmick, flash forwarding and back what is essentially a straightforward story.
I just want to second a lot of the comments here. Sure, this game trailer does a good job of stoking interest and tickling fanboy synapses, but is this a movie? It’s just another sign of the total creative bankruptcy in town and I find both the trailer and the alleged feverish bidding for rights depressing.
Showing increasingly horrific suffering at the hands of zombies (e.g. flinging a small girl through a window onto a lawn a couple stories down) is a game of diminishing returns. Audiences will get bored. But hey, make hay while the sun shines.
3 min trailer from the game put to shame an entire season of The Walking Dead. Great job.
If they TAKE THE TIME to write a good script, then this could be great. If they rush it, it will be a total POS. that simple. This rocked though as a teaser…if the game is good, this team will have scored a bog one buying this a year ago!
Just remember, MEMENTO was a movie about a guy whose memory reboots every five minutes, which is why it was told the way it was and was compelling. Unless the protagonist in this proposed movie-based-on-a-video-game-trailer (a new low for Hollywood) has a similar brain malfunction there’s no reason to think this sort of storytelling will work.
But then again, never overestimate the taste of the American 16 to 25-year-old male.
Trailer looks awesome.. desperate to see this hit the big screen. Judging by Sean Daniel’s track record this should be great. Very exciting!!
Yes the music and images make for a strangely engaging pairing and I did actually watch all three minutes.
But guess what, the music was already getting old after less than three minutes and the novelty of a little girl eating her dad’s face wore off in a matter of seconds. Good luck to whoever has to try to stretch this two-minute gimmick into a 90 minute zombie movie that we haven’t already seen before.
But whatever, kids on the internets say it’s cool so that’s all most people in Hollywood need to hear.
I worry for not only the state of the entertainment industry– but for humanity as we know it as well. what passes for entertainment is what truly terrifies me– not vampires or zombies.
Are you kidding me? I’d like to see ANY of you try this. Not everything is as easy as you may think it is. It’s easy to sit behind your computer monitor saying this sucks I could do better and not do it. If you could do it, you would be doing it. So get out of here with this BS. The people who put together this clip did a great job at editing and putting it all into a cool perspective. Your opinion means nothing in the long run, because this game WILL come out with or without your approval.
And don’t think I’m saying this is going to be a GREAT game, because it might not be I haven’t seen anything from it besides this yet. Just don’t knock something you haven’t seen yet.
This is a perfect trap for some sucker exec to lose their job over. Rush to buy the rights to something that on the surface looks cool, but guess what genius, by the time you have a script, have it shot and get your distribution slot, we’ll be in season 2-3 of “Walking Dead” and every one in America will say “why would I pay to see this in a theater”?
BTW, producers of “Walking Dead” will undoubtedly watch this trailer and use the “Memento” like device in the future rendering this useless, anyway.
So, go ahead lemmings, have at it. Can’t wait to see the axe fall on whose ever dumb enough to buy this one.
Check your sources. The rights haven’t been sold or optioned to anyone.
I don’t think it says the rights were sold or optioned. It says they’re packaging it now and trying to sell it. Isn’t Union a management company? They probably represent the project.
I like this. It looks like a proof of concept for something longer, and the “Memento” structure is as good an approach as any to the zombie genre. I wish it could stay animated, but, well, such is Hollywood.
I sincerely hope this is followed up by a spoof trailer of zombie’s attacking the Toy Story cast. Replace the little girl with Woody and the dad with Buzz Lightyear and THAT’s a viral video…
Haters gonna hate.
I liked the trailer. The idea of a movie sounds interesting.
if done right it could be pretty awesome.
I don’t think a zombie movie has focused on this type of situation in the way this trailer has., yes 28 days later did something similar, but imo there was no real emotional connect with the characters for me.
As for this one, it’s a little girl and as we know most little girls are good and kind hearted. So, taking all of that in to account, the viewer can some how through the midst of blood and gore and rotting flesh feel that need and that wanting to help her even though there’s nothing you can do. and when you get that emotion you get a good f*cking viral trailer for a Zombie Video Game that could potentially some how turn into a possibly great movie adaptation.