Who would have thought the director of Assault on Precinct 13 was a gamer? OK, let’s not get ahead of ourselves — he hasn’t said he plays tons of video games, he’s just confessed he’s a fan of the Dead Space game franchise and would like to turn it into a feature film. Wh-what? Yes, we’re talking about THE John Carpenter.
Talking to Game Informer (via Den of Geek), the legendary filmmaker expressed his desire to work on a film adaptation of the first entry in the aforementioned game series. He said:
“The first game was more – I guess it was like Alien – but not quite. It was a little different than that. […] I maintain that Dead Space would just make a great movie because you have these people coming onto an abandoned, shut-down space ship and they have to start it up and something’s on board. It’s just great stuff. […] I would love to make Dead Space, I’ll tell you that right now. That one is ready-made.”
While that doesn’t sound like a terrible idea at all, let’s review the last two films Carpenter directed — Ghosts of Mars (released in 2001) was such a commercial and critical failure that the director would not helm a film until 2009, when he started working on The Ward. Do you remember watching or even hearing about that movie? Neither do we.
This is all speculation, by the way. I might want to be in a Woody Allen movie one day — that doesn’t mean he’s eventually going to notice my fine acting. EA Games have released two animated movies set in the Dead Space universe (Downfall and Aftermath), and despite strong DVD sales, no further plans have been made for any other films.
What do you think? If John Carpenter were to direct a movie adaptation of Dead Space, would it be the first ever successful game-based film?