Is it just me or has Ninja Theory became one of the most talked about game developers around since 2007? After working on one of the PS3’s earliest AAA ‘trojan horse’, Heavenly Sword, the Cambridge, England based team always have their name in the headlines. From saying that they didn’t make a dime off of Heavenly Sword to re-designing Capcom’s Dante into..uh, whatever he is, gamers far and wide know of Ninja Theory. Their latest IP, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is oozing with potential and the team knows it. That’s why they pitched the idea for a CG movie to all of the major film companies, but we won’t be seeing one anytime soon.
Mr. Ninja Theory himself, Tameem Antoniades, revealed to Destructoid that yes, a CG version of Enslaved, which would have used the Unreal Engine to power the movie, was pitched to every film company they could think of..but were turned down…by all of them. Ouch.
We were serious about it. We went to all the big studios in Hollywood and pitched the idea. They have no idea of what real-time means. They just care about how good it looks.
The thing was..it could have been made for cheap..but cheap isn’t what the studios what, said Tameem.
Then, the fact that you say you can do this for cheap has no interest to studios whatsoever because they don’t want to do it for cheap. They want Pixar and the other higher end [studios] to do it for 100 million dollars or 60 million dollars.
Does that mean the chances of a Enslaved movie is null and void? Not at all! With a script penned by Alex Garland (28 days later), voice acting by Lindsay Shaw (10 things I hate about you) and Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings) IF the game were to become a commercial success, Hollywood might come’ a knockin’..but the price tag might not be as cheap as before. It’s all about having the upper hand, am I right?
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West begins it’s journey homeward on October 5th in the US and on the 8th in EU. If you would like a taste of the adventure, make sure you check out the demo that hit the PSN earlier this week!
