He's possibly the most hated man in gaming.
But love him or hate him, video game movie director Uwe Boll is here to stay.
Notorious for lashing out against critics of his video game adaptations (like "House of the Dead," "Alone in the Dark," "BloodRayne" and "Postal"), the German director somehow manages to keep making movies. His film renditions of "Far Cry" and "Dungeon Siege" are coming out next year, and recently Boll garnered the rights for independent games "Sabotage 1943" (Replay Studios), "Legend: Hand of God" (Master Creating) and "Zombie Massacre" (1988 Games). Last week, when I called the director to talk about how he acquired the movie rights to "Zombie Massacre" (as well as how the hell to say his name), I also wanted to learn what makes the man tick. Here's a sampling of what he had to say:
"Grand Theft Auto" I think is a great game, but it's also a little old-fashioned now, and the question is "Do we already have movies like this?" So even though it's a fun game and original, we need to question what would you gain if you made a movie out of it. Like with "Halo," it's a sensational game, but I don't think that the materials are perfect to make a movie. It could be very technical but not necessarily an emotionally- grabbing movie, and I think it's always important to have lead characters you can go with through a story. Like Jack Carver in "Far Cry" is a funny guy but he is also tough; he’s a little like a Bruce Willis type so you want to follow him. You want to know if he’s surviving the adventure. ... And I don’t think that in "Halo" a character like this really exists.
Um... Master Chief, anyone? Read on to find out what he thinks makes a good video game movie, his side of what happened with "Metal Gear Solid" and how Blizzard rejected him for "World of Warcraft."
We welcome guest-writer and MTV News intern Billie Edington to Multiplayer today and hope that you, dear readers, can help her with the kind of problem that occurs only when somebody loves video games ... too... much.
Right after today publicly became Bungie Independence Day, I quickly dashed off a few questions to those "Halo"-makers.
[UPDATE -- Friday, October 5, 6:20 PM EST -- Bungie has replied to a few questions we sent them.
With
Someone just shot you in "Halo 3." What was he just thinking?
The quest to 10,000 continues, and as I press on I am learning not only about the games, but about myself as well. As much as I love getting achievement points, there are some that just aren’t going to happen. I don’t have the time, energy, and in some cases mental capacity to handle getting some of these points. It’s just not going to happen.
Earlier today, I started seeing