Butler Plays Game with Crank Creators

[Hunter Rider]

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=20456

Source: The Hollywood Reporter
May 16, 2007


Lakeshore Entertainment is reuniting with Crank creators Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor for the Gerard Butler starrer Game, says The Hollywood Reporter.

The high-concept thriller takes place in the near future, when mind-control technology has taken society by storm. In this dystopian world, the ultimate online simulation environment is humans remote-controlling other humans in mass-scale, multiplayer online gaming.

Butler (300) plays Kable, the No. 1-ranked warrior in the highest-rated game, called "Slayers." With his every move tracked by millions, Kable's ultimate challenge is to regain his identity and bring down the system that has imprisoned him.

Game marks the third time Lakeshore has teamed with Neveldine and Taylor, who together wrote and directed Crank. The duo will write and helm Game, which will begin filming in January. Lakeshore's Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi are producing alongside Crank producer Skip Williamson.

Intriguing concept

 

[Jack Bauer]

Wasn't this called Running Man?

EDIT: Nevermind about my comment I saw the words dystopian world and game show and I thought it a remake of Running Man.

 

[Elisha Cuthbert]

Dude, this is cool but...these guys need to either make an actual videogame movie or stop repeating the same concept over and over again, it sounds just like Crank only more futuristic. I'm sure this one will have nods to Halo instead of GTA.

 

[ghost_x]

I think Butler has sold out far too quickly

 

[Movies205]

Dude, this is cool but...these guys need to either make an actual videogame movie or stop repeating the same concept over and over again, it sounds just like Crank only more futuristic. I'm sure this one will have nods to Halo instead of GTA.

If the formula works, runs with it... There uniqueness is in the action plus the star of a movie makes all the difference, for example would Beverly Hills Cop be BHC without Eddie Murphy?

 

[Elisha Cuthbert]

If the formula works, runs with it... There uniqueness is in the action plus the star of a movie makes all the difference, for example would Beverly Hills Cop be BHC without Eddie Murphy?

You'd have a good point if it wasn't for the fact that I hate Gerald Butler. Still, Crank was one of the best action films I've seen in a long time (probably because it felt like a trip back to the golden age of the action film), so I'm still looking forward to this.

 

[Movies205]

You'd have a good point if it wasn't for the fact that I hate Gerald Butler. Still, Crank was one of the best action films I've seen in a long time (probably because it felt like a trip back to the golden age of the action film), so I'm still looking forward to this.

I miss the days of Pre-action film... Like I'm talking Steve McQueen where there's a good story and realistically one giant action scene, that's it... I want see a movie like that again.

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=38456

Sedgwick and Hall Play Butler's Game
Source: Diva
October 18, 2007


Kyra Sedgwick (TNT's "The Closer") and Michael C. Hall (Showtime's "Dexter") have joined Gerard Butler (300) in Lakeshore Entertainment's Game, written and to be directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

The high-concept thriller takes place in the near future, when mind-control technology has taken society by storm. In this dystopian world, the ultimate online simulation environment is humans remote-controlling other humans in mass-scale, multiplayer online gaming.

Butler plays Kable, the No. 1-ranked warrior in the highest-rated game, called "Slayers." With his every move tracked by millions, Kable's ultimate challenge is to regain his identity and bring down the system that has imprisoned him.

Game marks the third time Lakeshore has teamed with Neveldine and Taylor, who together wrote and directed Crank. Filming will begin in January.

 

[Dark Donnie]

Good to see Micheal C. Hall getting work outside of TV...good actor!

 

[Tempest19]

This might be awesome, this is NOT Crank or Shoot Em' Up.

This is The Sims!!!! This is an analysis of where The Sims or that virtual 3D world thing could progress to!

I absolutely love this concept and it has quickly become one of my most anticipated films just based on that concept.

 

[AhabTheArab]

pay attention to these two film makers, they make fun of their audience blatantly (which they make BLATANTLY obvious that its the american public), but subtly as well. crank was a pretty good example of this.

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=39303

Ludacris and Zoe Bell Challenge Gerard Butler's Game
Source: Edward Douglas
November 14, 2007


Chris "Ludacris" Bridges (Fred Claus, Crash, 2 Fast 2 Furious) and stuntwoman Zoe Bell (Death Proof) have joined the cast of Lionsgate's upcoming untitled sci-fi action-thriller from Crank writers/directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

Previously titled Game, the film takes place in the near future, when mind-control technology has taken society by storm. In this dystopian world, the ultimate online simulation environment is humans remote-controlling other humans in mass-scale, multiplayer online gaming.

Gerard Butler plays Kable, the No. 1-ranked warrior in the highest-rated game, called "Slayers." With his every move tracked by millions, Kable's ultimate challenge is to regain his identity and bring down the system that has imprisoned him.

In the film, Ludacris is a part of Alison Lohman's resistance group called HUMANZ that is protesting the way that the prisoners are being used as part of these video games. We have no further info on the character played by Bell, although one would expect her to be heavily involved in the battle sequences.

 

[LeChuck]

Zoe Bell! My anticipation for this movie just went up.

 

[SolidSnakeMGS]

That news cancels all the coolness. Zoe Bell, yay! Ludacris, boo!

 

[Hunter Rider]

Ludacris was excellent is the SVU episodes he was in.

 

[Zombie_samurai]

have you seen ludacris on Law and Order SVU? He's actually a great actor given the right part. When I heard Ludacris' part I actually thought of Luke Cage and the human resistance in House of M

 

[SolidSnakeMGS]

I've only seen Ludacris act like...well Ludacris. Rappers may sometimes make good actors, but only when they're playing themselves or variations of themselves, IMO.

 

[DACrowe]

Wow, remember when Gerard Butler was a good up and coming actor doing interesting projects?

It seems he has gone to "300 rinse and repeat" mode far too quickly.

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=39355

On the Set of Gerard Butler's New Sci-Fi Action Flick!
Source: Edward Douglas
November 19, 2007

The last time ComingSoon.net was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it was for the Broken Lizard's Beerfest comedy, which was being filmed at the local botanical gardens. This time, we were brought down there to visit the green screen sets of Frank Miller's movie based on Will Eisner's The Spirit (you can read about that on Superhero Hype!), but Lionsgate gave us an added surprise when we learned that we'd also be spending some time on the set of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's new movie, a sci-fi action flick starring Gerard Butler that was once known as "Game" but will be called something else when it comes out late next year. (Or at least that's the plan.)

The dynamic duo of Neveldine-Taylor handed Lionsgate a nice surprise hit last year when their action film Crank starring Jason Statham broke out over Labor Day weekend, creating a niche base of action fans who can't wait to see what they do next. That aside, the real reason we were so thrilled about the set visit was because Mark and Brian are both very cool guys who have spent the last two San Diego Comic-Cons seemingly attending every party and hanging out with the online crew, somehow remembering many of us by name. (And believe me, it was pretty cool to have Mark see me from the director's chair and sign a greeting to show that he remembered me.)

We knew that the scene we were going to watch was part of an outdoor night shoot on location but as we drove past the site, from the road, all we could see was this enormous amount of bright light coming from a huge odd-shaped structure. This being New Mexico, it might not have surprised us if we had been driving past a just-landed UFO. As we approached, it looked every more bizarre, as it was a huge open construct with a metal roof, like the world's largest covered shed but there were no walls, and the entire inner area was filled with sand dunes. In fact, this was Albuquerque's one and only ABA BMX dirt racetrack, Duke City BMX, where the Olympic BMX team held their tryouts every year. But before you get all worried that Neveldine-Taylor didn't learn a lesson from the unintentionally funny scene in McG's Charlie Angels: Full Throttle, the track wasn't being used for what it was intended, because the sand hills and the deep pits were strewn with broken-down burnt-out cars, some still on fire, and all around this enormous brightly-lit space were giant white movie screens, which would be explained to us later. After the van drove around a bit trying to figure the best place to approach—an omen for an accident that would occur later during our visit—we approached this amazing scene completely unsure of what to expect. Up close it was even more impressive as we saw a couple crew members filling the pit liberally with smoke to turn it more into some sort of post-apocalyptic setting, and it took a few minutes for us to overcome the immediate sensory overload of being transported from the American SouthWest to something out of "Escape From New York."

The hosts for our visit was unit publicist Michael Umble, the film's executive producer David Rubin and Robert Burke, Lakeshore Entertainment's VP of Worldwide Marketing, who greeted our van and explained how they were only on Day 9 of a 53-day-shoot that would go through the New Year with the movie being shot 100% in New Mexico, first on location and then in Albuquerque's ABQ Studios. Michael and Robert gave us a run-down of the film's general premise, a concept that seemed simple at first, but it took the group of journalists a significant stream of questions before everyone understood what they were talking about. Essentially, the movie is set seven years into the future where a popular first-person shooter game called Slayers (possibly "Slayerz") is viewed on a worldwide scale. By then, video games have become so sophisticated that they're tied into the real world and the avatars being played in the video game are actually real-life death row prisoners who have been implanted with microchips in their brains by a corporation that allows players to control these convicts in deadly battle games where they fight each other to the last survivor. It's almost like "Second Life" meets "Doom" but with real people interacting, and then killing each other, completely beyond their own control.

The star of this deadly video reality game is Gerard Butler's John Tillman, an battle avatar known as Kable, who is being controlled by a teen named Simon, a legend in the gaming world played by Logan Lerman, who last played Christian Bale's son in the Western 3:10 to Yuma. So far, the duo have survived and won 27 games, more than any other player or avatar, and while winning has allowed them to get lots of upgrades, it's hinted that if one survives 30 such battle episodes, they get their sentence reduced. In the movie, Kable/Butler plays four key battle games of which the one we were watching was #2, but it was hinted that maybe his character wasn't fairly prosecuted and is on death row for something he didn't do—like that never happens, right?—but has found himself caught up in this game beyond his control. One of the producers mentioned that Gerard would have an American accent in the movie but that he wouldn't have that much dialogue, because so much of the movie involves the fighting and action scenes.

After the premise was explained in detail, we were introduced to James McQuaide, Lakeshore's in-house Special FX coordinator, and he told us about the special Red cameras that Mark and Brian and the crew were using on this film, being only the second production after Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara movie to use the hand-held cameras that can record 4 minutes of 4K digital directly to flash cards so that the dailies can be put into someone's pocket and taken to the FX house in L.A. They cost $17,000, each which is a fraction of the cost of a normal hi-def digital camera. He mentioned that just about every shot so far would require some sort of special FX or CG work, even if it's just to insert the "fly cams" that buzz around the battle environments to capture the action for the game player. He also told us that the large screens surrounding the make-shift arena would be showing all sorts of animated advertisements, just like there would be at a modern-day sports game or as seen in "Blade Runner," although they explained that the battles are taking place in real world environments and not arenas, which would be clearer once the city is added into the background in post.

We watched them do a take where there were maybe a dozen prisoner players running around holding guns, two or three guys zooming around them on motorcycles and then half a dozen more guys running around with cameras to capture the action from different angles. In the foreground, we got a glimpse of Gerard Butler himself, wearing a full military regalia with a cropped haircut and neatly-trimmed beard before he runs down one of the dirt embankments firing his gun, then suddenly, BOOM! A giant explosion rocks the scene, making everyone jump a few feet as cork bits from one of the cars blew everywhere. Yes, folks, we have pyro. Actually, most of the scenes we'd watch involved some sort of car on fire or loud explosion, and it was amusing to hear the series of yells from the crew before each take of "Fire in the hole!" There was even more amusement during one take when flying rubber body parts flew into the air during one such explosion. (Any worries about Neveldine-Taylor making an "E"-rated video game movie should be quickly dispelled.)

We watched a few more scenes, amused by the extras dressed as "Genericons" watching from the bleachers, unsure whether they were actually in the scenes or just killing time while watching the mayhem on set. These are also real prisoners but ones that are not being controlled by players. After a few takes, Mark, Brian, Butler and dozens of others gather around the monitors to watch some of the scenes that had been shot, and we were able to see what was going on in the deep pit into which Butler had run.

David Rubin told us a bit about some of the other characters in the movie like Gerard's wife Angie, played by Amber Valetta, whose picture could be seen on one of the computer monitors wearing a fetching blue wig. Alison Lohman plays the leader of a resistance group called HUMANZ, which is trying to put a stop to the games because they're cruel (and deadly) to the prisoners being forced to play them. He announced that rapper Ludacris has come aboard to be a part of this group, as well. John Leguizamo plays one of Kable's fellow prisoners who is also trying to figure out what is going on and why they can't control their own bodies.

Apparently, they'd already shot one of the movie's later battles sequences in downtown Albuquerque over the weekend with Mark filming the action while wearing their rollerblades, much like he did in Crank, and in another scene, Mark was hung from a rig that had him suspended 40-feet above the action running forward and dropping down into the middle of it. They also had created something called Container City that would be destroyed in one of the major battles, which would involve stuntwoman Zoe Bell. Rubin lives in Albuquerque and he was the one who spotted the BMX complex while location scouting and Neveldine-Taylor were so excited by the prospects of shooting in that locale that they created a battle specifically for the location, hence

In between set-ups, Gerard Butler came over briefly to say "Hi" and quickly told us to "put the pens away" as soon as it looked like the journalists were going into "interview mode" but he talked briefly about this new experience and how exhausting it was, especially with New Mexico's high altitude, but he also made sure to thank the online community for making 300 such a huge success, which was kind of him. "You made 300. It was the internet sites that did it," he admitted, "so I hope you can do the same with this… even if it's not as good." And then he laughed at his own joke as he was pulled away to get back to work. (It was fun to see Butler again in the same day as Miller since the last time we saw them together was when 300 was previewed at Comic-Con in July '06.)

After a few scenes were shot, we were escorted into the large pit nearest to us and watched as Brian and Mark set up a dolly shot with Lerman sitting down on the rig following closely behind Butler, something they were doing to really get the players into the game as the camera would go in from behind the player to the avatar/prisoner he's playing. Brian came over to quickly explain what was going on, "This is a 3-D shot, where we bring the game directly into the battlefield. When you see it on the screen, it will seem like he is controlling it at home. When the character runs, Logan moves with him. It will make sense when you see it."

As they got ready to shoot, we were scooted by the handlers out of the pit as two BMX bikes would be racing through the area where we were standing, and as the A.D. announced that the scene would include another explosion, they decided it would be wiser if we were moved even further away from the filming area. They began to run a similar scene with everyone running around the dunes with guns and the explosion went off like clockwork before the assistant director's voice came over the P.A. calling them to cut because "a van had driven through the shot." You guessed it, our driver had returned to pick us up and picked the wrong entrance and had shown up in the background of the battle sequence. But that seemed like a good cue for us to leave anyway.

Neveldine-Taylor's sci-fi action flick, once called "Game" and now referred to as Untitled Gerald Butler Sci-Fi Action Thriller (or something to that effect) is expected to be ready for release sometime late next year

 

[green]

Does anyone have a better version of this?

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=40293

Milo Ventimiglia in Game and Chaos Theory
Source: Entertainment Weekly
December 18, 2007


In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, "Heroes" star Milo Ventimiglia revealed that he has roles in both the Untitled Gerard Butler Action Thriller and Chaos Theory. Here are clips from the article:

Are you just chillin' now while the strike is on, or are you working on something new?
I'm pretty busy. I'm doing two features before Christmas. One is called Game, and that's with Gerard Butler and Amber Valletta. It's written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the same guys who did Pathology, the movie I have coming out in the spring.

Who do you play in Game?
A very interesting futuristic character that's not necessarily in control of himself.

"Not necessarily in control of himself"...
I think that's mysterious and cryptic enough.

You're used to answering questions like that.
Totally. And then I'm doing an independent film called Chaos Theory about a guy who leads a very organized life, and someone comes into that life and just sets a downward spiral in motion.

And you play?
I'm the bad guy. I'm not really a good guy in Game either.... Kind of two bad-guy roles for the holidays for me.

 

[Gotham]

Directors: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

Summary: Set in a future-world where humans can control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments, a star player (Butler) from a game called "Slayers" looks to regain his independence while taking down the game's mastermind (Hall).

Look of the Film:

A Little More Information:

• If a prisoner completes 30 levels of the game, they are let free. Butler's character is currently at level 27.
• Throughout the game, you are able to earn upgrades, which includes getting better armor and weapons.
• There are other people in the game called Genericons, who are prisoners with lesser sentences.
• Surrounding the players are "fly cams," which are orb-shaped video cameras that will be CGI'd in later.
• "Slayers" is actually the second game created by Michael C. Hall's character, the first being "Society," a Sims-like version of "Slayers" without any violence.

I didn't see another thread on the film mods, so if you have one, merge, I guess? Don't mean to clutter the board.

 

[Figs]

LOL, this sounds like it could be pretty damn cool.

The funny thing is...it's definetly inspired by video games obviously and I'm going to laugh my ass off if it turns out better than the majority of video game to film adaptations we've gotten so far.

 

[TNC9852002]

Ok, I'm sold on this one.

-TNC

 

[Carmine Falcone]

This might be cool. Crank was so fresh, energetic, original, funny and very well-timed. So, I'm atleast interested to see what these guys have cooked up this time.