The Playlist

The obsessives' guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, movie music, soundtracks, DVDs and more.

Interviews

Ridley Scott's Moses Movie 'Exodus' Opens Dec 12th 2014, Fassbender's 'Assassin's Creed' On May 22nd 2015

By Oliver Lyttelton
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May 18, 2013 9:58 AM
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4 Comments

News

We're closing on the mid-way point to the year, with several of 2013's biggest movies already in theaters, but as fast as films hit theaters, the studios nab future release dates sometimes years away, hoping to stake their claim on key territory. And last night, the release calendar just got three new additions across the next couple of years.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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October 22, 2012 9:43 AM
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3 Comments

News

Even as this week's "Silent Hill: Revelations" creeps into theaters, the search for a good -- or at least watchable -- video game movie continues. But game titans Ubisoft are at least being pro-active, taking a leaf from Marvel's approach and deciding to develop and partially finance their own movies, starting with one of their own crown jewels, the "Assassin's Creed" franchise.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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July 12, 2012 11:03 AM
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12 Comments

Features

After a few years that have seen studios deciding to focus on trying to make movies out of board games, it looks, from the last couple of days, as though video games are cycling back around as the hot source material. Monday saw Michael Fassbender announced as the star and producer of a film based on Ubisoft's hugely popular "Assassin's Creed" franchise, while yesterday a movie based on the long-running "Deus Ex" series was set up at CBS Films, Sony's "God Of War" film got new writers, and Dreamworks' "Need For Speed" got a firm 2014 release date.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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July 9, 2012 8:15 AM
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6 Comments

News

The history of the video game movie has not been a glorious one. With most games being fairly heavily derivative of movies in the first place, potential adaptations have struggled to become distinctive, and low-calibre talent has generally been involved to date, bastardizing games (e.g. "Super Mario Brothers") or simply choosing the wrong ones to adapt (like the string of movies based on beat-em-ups). When the not-very-good "Doom" is pretty much the high watermark of the genre to date, you know you're in serious trouble.

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 20, 2011 1:05 AM
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1 Comment

Video game to film adaptations haven't always gone over well, and arguably, there has only been one flat-out successful franchise created so far in the "Resident Evil" series of the movies. Yes, there were the "Tomb Raider" movies but after the second entry made less than the first, it faded from view (though it is getting a reboot), and let's not talk about the saga behind getting "Halo" to the big screen which now finds one of the most popular videogames of all time stuck in development hell. The true test of the potential "Silent Hill" franchise will come with the release of "Silent Hill: Revelation 3D" next year, while "Hitman 2" seems to have stalled out after announcing a director more than a year ago. All this to say that launching a big-budget tentpole based on console game is a tough business (just ask Disney about "Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time"), but with a built-in audience and some ready-made mythology it's hard to resist, which is why Sony is now going to the roll the dice on one of the biggest games out there.