So The Wolfenstein Movie's A Thing Again
It's been interesting to watch Disney's Wreck-It Ralph get showered with acclaim for being "the best videogame movie ever." I say that because, well, "best videogame movie ever" doesn't really mean anything. Heck, most announced films based heavily around games have yet to even reach a point where they could safely be called "existent" - let alone "good." World of Warcraft, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, and, er, Asteroids are all buried somewhere in Hollywood's screeching bowels, but will they ever see the light of day? Who knows. And now Wolfenstein's rejoining that venerable roster - with the co-writer of Pulp Fiction (the one who wasn't Quentin Tarantino) attached, no less. I vote for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Mecha Hitler.
Eurogamer brings word that it'll be both written and directed by Roger Avary, who - in addition to Pulp Fiction - did the honors on the first Silent Hill movie (the not-completely-awful one) as well. Production, meanwhile, is being handled by Samuel Hadida and Panorama Media, who describe Wolfenstein as, well, an action-adventure film along the lines of Captain America and Inglorious Basterds. Hadida explained:
"With Roger at the helm, we expect everyone will join us for a wild and fun cinematic ride that will grab contemporary film audiences with the same irreverent, hip, over the top approach that Roger brought to Pulp Fiction and the other films he has either written or directed."
"The film involves a classic assault on the bad guys, who are nominally Nazis, more evocative of Inglorious Basterds than the actual World War 2. It is a vaguely futuristic retro world as fun as Captain America, which has recently been reintroduced to the world audience with great success."
More promisingly, Avary cited Wolfenstein as a longtime favorite of his and even credited some of his writing sensibilities to the FPS grandpappy's brand of grim zaniness. The plot he's written, meanwhile, centers around two main characters - a young US army captain and a British special agent - who must battle paranormal Nazis and whatever "secret weapon" Hitler's packing. Fortunately, in an interview with Forbes Hadida added that a castle and B.J. Blazkowicz will definitely be involved. In other words, phew.
Still though, "Captain America rip-off" isn't exactly what springs to mind when I think of a Wolfenstein movie, and did Hadida and co even watch Inglorious Basterds? Because if so, I don't think he's remembering it right. But hey, maybe it'll be decent when taken on its own terms. Or maybe it'll just get sidelined like it did the first time they tried this - although that required a Writer's Guild strike and, er, vehicular manslaughter charges. Neither of those are particularly good things, so I'm just going to hope the movie comes out alright, I think.