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Houser also discusses the convergence of Hollywood and video games, and why we haven’t seen a "Grand Theft Auto" movie yet.
The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival has broken with tradition and included the first video game to be honored as an Official Selection. Game publisher Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire, which was developed by Team Bondi, allows players to enter the violent world of 1947 Los Angeles as an LAPD detective fighting against the criminal underbelly that ruled the streets during Hollywood’s Golden Age.... "
From the interview with Dan Houser cont.
"...Another hot topic these days is transmedia -- what are your thoughts on the role video games play today in launching new properties that span all sorts of entertainment?
No one has done it very successfully yet. Virtually all movies made from games are awful, while many games made from movies are also pretty horrible. This will change, but with an ever more discerning audience, the goals of taking something from film-to-games or game-to-film have to be more than financial. If you feel the property has something about it that is universal or could work in another medium, and it is not simply about making easy money, then that is something worthwhile. Too often, however, the aim appears to be to cash-in on the success of a particular game, book, pop singer, website, etc., and that usually produces mediocre results.
Why haven’t we seen a movie based on any of Rockstar Games’ blockbuster franchises?
We have explored a lot of movie deals, but we have just chosen not to make a movie. We love movies, but we also love games and that is what we remain focused on. If we were to attempt to make a movie, we would like to make it ourselves, or at least work in collaboration with the best talent, so at least if it is bad, we can know we failed on our own terms. But doing that takes time, and making games properly takes a lot of time. So, we may make movies one day, with the right property and the right partnership, but we have not found the time to do that yet.
Would something like LA Noire work on the big screen today?
Well, we spent a long time being told Westerns were dead, then we made Red Dead Redemption, which along with True Grit showed that well-made classic Westerns have life left in them in any medium. The same could be said of classic Noir - a great film could be successful now, just as Chinatown and LA Confidential were long after the 1940s."
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