News surfaced this week that Scott Faye, the producer of the upcoming Max Payne film, is currently working on adapting the infamous Duke Nukem character to the big screen.
The Duke Nukem franchise, developed by 3D Realms, began in the early nineties with its original PC game and sequel. However, Duke really made his mark in the video game industry in 1996 with the release of the third game in the franchise, Duke Nukem 3D.
This third installment took the notorious guns-a-blazing character from the traditional side scroller action game into the 3D first-person shooter genre with a ground-breaking hit.
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Along with its financial and critical success, the game earned much publicity for its controversial themes and content. Aside from the insane amount of violence and gore, it featured pornographic content such as XXX posters and strippers. There was also a bit of a stir over one of the common enemy characters being a “pig cop”… an actual cop transformed into half man, half pig. This led to several censored versions being released internationally to prevent any bans.
The series is finally about to continue with two new games planned for release, including the ever-delayed and almost-forgotten Duke Nukem Forever. Scott Faye’s goal is to have a script ready and use the hype of these upcoming two releases to help him shop and gain studio financing. At the moment, Faye is currently working on that screenplay.
In an intereview with Kotaku.com, Faye added:
“We’re expanding Duke’s ‘storyverse’ in a very significant major way without abandoning or negating any element that’s being used to introduce Duke to the next gen platforms.”
We all know movies based on video games tend to be (to put it lightly) not so great. The problem I see here, and what commonly happens with these genre films, is that they are just not translated well to the big screen. This usually happens when story elements are created or altered that do not match the original game’s content. For the hardcore fans who made the franchise a success in the first place, this can instantly take away from what the film should be.
Instead, it becomes simply a film using the brand name and not the source material. This is exactly what happened with the Doom movie.
This looks to me like it could be an incredibly fun big-screen action hit. However, I’m worried they will add too much backstory to the star character and maybe, too many secondary characters that do not belong. What I want is a throwback to the 80s action genre - just this guy with his massive guns destroying anything and anyone in his path spouting one-liners. That’s what the game was, and that’s why it was a success.
In the Kutaku interview, Faye also claimed that “as is the case with all of my game adaptations, I’d rather not make the movie than make a poor adaptation.” Faye’s only other game adaptation is Max Payne which is yet to be released, so we’ll see if he walks the walk.
Other projects he was a part of were small budget B-movies that did not do so well. So, it looks like we’ll have to wait and see on the quality of Max Payne and how it translates onto the big screen. I’m a little worried from the trailers, but will surely give it a chance.
What would you want from a Duke Nukem feature film?
Source: Kotaku.com
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11 Comments
In the game, the premise was that aliens were using human females to propagate their species and also doing genetic experiments on humans. I don’t see why they can’t keep that premise, just don’t have all the porn stuff. Arnie of the 90’s would have been perfect for this role.
Dolph Lundgren 15 years ago would have been perfect for the role.
From what I can see from the max payne trailer, he isn’t staying very true to the game. The movie looks like a constantine rip-off, and I don’t remember the Max Payne game having anything to do with demons or anything supernatural.
Kahless, if they don’t have Duke giving money to strippers to make them “shake it baby” it is not Duke Nukem…
Agreed
This must be an adult action film for it to work and warrant the Duke Nukem title.
Most of the famous lines from Duke Nuke’em that people know and love are references to movies like Army of Darkness.
So will they just re-use the lines anyway? Or come up with ‘new’ one-liners?
Anyone else want the Duke Nuke’em film to be Army of Darkness meets John Rambo? =)
Rev
Maybe they should just have Bruce Campbell play Duke Nukem and get it over with. He’ll just need to buff up before he can utter the line: “I’ll rip off your head and %$#@ down your neck.” lol
A Duke Nukem movie should be like commando but with aliens instead of South Americans.
@Ken J
Of course they have to have that; but the women don’t have to be nude, correct? We don’t need nude women, right guys? Guys? Why are you all looking at me like that?
“Of course they have to have that; but the women have to be nude, correct? We need nude women, right guys? Guys?”
Fixed.
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