As one of AX's most distinguished guests of honor, voice actor/screenwriter David Hayter was the focus of some the convention's most interesting and crowd drawing panels. On Friday, Hayter hosted an open Q&A panel with an audience of several thousand enthusiastic fans. While a majority of the questions were related to the Metal Gear Solid game franchise and countless requests to recite lines as Snake, Hayter did make mention of two new projects he is engaged in: an unannounced action/adventure film that he will likely direct, and a screenplay for the film adaptation of Capcom's Lost Planet. As of June, Hayter was engaged in preliminary talks to draft the latest game-to-film, however, when we spoke to him at an press exclusive panel this afternoon, it would seem that Lost Planet is closer to fruition than previously thought.
"It's not entirely confirmed yet," said Hayter. "But we are just closing the deal with Warner Bros. for me to adapt Lost Planet." Unfortunately, due to Hayter's contractual agreements, we were unable to obtain more specific information about the film. However, we did get a chance to probe into Hayter's approach to adapting games to film, having now been slated to write the adaptation for Lost Planet, and a treatment for the potential adaptation of Metal Gear Solid.
- Sirose Loyola
"There is gap in Hollywood between people who write good movies and those who appreciate good video games," he said. "I'm fortunate enough to be in both worlds. For myself, I try to make an effort to take the essence of the game, keep as much of that as possible, and still put it into a proper film structure."
Hayter continued to elaborate on the hit-or-miss nature of game adaptations, stating that the primary problem is that the size of a title's fan base directly correlates to a studio's commitment to quality. In response to more specific concerns regarding Lost Planet, Hayter went on to discuss aspects of the game that he intends on considering before writing the film adaptation.
"When they gave me Lost Planet to play to see if I wanted to write the movie, I looked at the environments, I looked at the vital suits, the armor, the creatures, and watched the story," he explained. "While I couldn't take those scenes and put them up verbatim, I can appreciate the core of the story and what it is about the character's journeys that grab people."
Unfortunately, Hayter was unable to give an estimated time frame for when more details regarding either of his current film projects would emerge. For all the latest on Lost Planet and AX 2008 stay tuned to IGN.
