It's not even out yet, but Sony Pictures have flung huge gobs of money at developer Ubisoft to get their hands on the movie rights to "Watch Dogs".
The game follows Aiden Pierce, a master hacker and former bad boy whose life of crime was directly responsible for a family tragedy. Now he's tooling around a future Chicago, hacking into anything and everything he damn well pleases, looking for revenge. You can locate people using CCTV, download information about them and even divert traffic in your favour to escape getting shot to bits by police.
Ubisoft was pretty clear about wanting to eventually turn the game into a movie, which is actually something it lends itself to a lot more than most game properties. Mass Effect or Bioshock might seem like easy movies to make, but the amount of stuff you'd have to cut to get them down to a watchable length would render the whole thing pointless. Like the ITV cut of Predator.
Watch Dogs is a good self-contained story, set in the only slightly distant future of a city that exists. The leap from small to big screen isn't insurmountable. Sony (partnered with New Regency) getting involved is a huge step forward. There's no writer or director or any of that stuff yet, but there's plenty of names on the list for both. That list will undoubtedly get longer when the game is actually released in November this year, on Playstation 4 and PC.
President of Columbia Pictures (the distribution arm of Sony) says, "It has tremendous potential as a motion picture and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work closely with Ubisoft’s internal creative team on the development of the project.”
Check out one of the frankly ace trailers below, see if you agree.
Words by Gazz Wood
Gazz Wood is a writer from The Northern Film School at Leeds Met University. As well as writing for Wireless he can also be heard on the monthly podcast Possibly of Interest with TV Producer Howard Cohen and special guests from the world of British TV and Cinema, plus his own weekly show Gazz Wood Has A Podcast. He can also be followed on Twitter @GazzPH90
Gazz Wood is a writer from The Northern Film School at Leeds Met University. As well as writing for Wireless he can also be heard on the monthly podcast Possibly of Interest with TV Producer Howard Cohen and special guests from the world of British TV and Cinema, plus his own weekly show Gazz Wood Has A Podcast. He can also be followed on Twitter @GazzPH90
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