Vin Diesel Is A Wheelman

Wheelman1

In life there are three immutable laws: Death, taxes, and apparently the impossibility of make a decent movie based on a video game.

There may be some which are enjoyable (or likable, or charming, or whatever other positive description you wanna’ give them (for me an example is the first Resident Evil), but in terms of quality, they just aren’t any good. Hopefully that can be remedied at some point in the future… perhaps with the BioShock or possible Metal Gear Solid movies, but at this point in time there are no live-action video game movies (there are a couple of animated ones that are decent, notably Street Fighter II) that could be considered “quality stuff.”

Need examples, do you? OK, try this partial list out for size: Doom, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil: Extinction, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros., Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Silent Hill, Hitman, Bloodrayne, Max Payne…. I could go on and on…

However, even in the face of this, studios seem hell-bent on making more of them. The latest is a live-action adaptation of The Wheelman, which is set to star Vin Diesel and be directed by John Singleton. The game was just launched last month, and it also features the likeness, voice and producing force of Diesel himself. It’s extremely basic storyline is of an experienced getaway driver who comes out of retirement to help a woman from his past.

Oh the complexities that could be driven from that plot…

Diesel had already bailed on the Fast and the Furious series after the first and before Singleton came on-board for the second (although he didn’t direct the third or fourth, but Diesel had a cameo in the third and was recently in the fourth… confused?). Maybe the two of them will come together to make the fast car movie they could’ve done before…

Well, maybe not…

The script for the film was originally written by Rich Wilkes (who wrote xXx), but has been rewritten by writing team Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell. It will be produced by Diesel himself (as he did with the game) along with Lorenzo di Benaventura. The studio developing/releasing the project will be Paramount Pictures.

Wheelman2

This was a project that was supposed to have gotten going back in 2006. The original plan was to make the movie and the game at about the same time, and then release the two of them in close proximity to one another (which may have stopped it being another one of those games-based-on-movies that are rushed just for the sake of getting it out there quickly). Sumner Redstone (the big honcho who owns Paramount and game company Midway) then sold 87% of his stake in Midway (the company which made the Wheelman game) and so it went to Ubisoft.

So here we are, three years later….

Until the third law is broken, all video game movies in production will be presumed to be bad, and The Wheelman is certainly included. It’s not a game I’ve played (I haven’t had a chance yet since it only came out last month) but by the sounds of it, it’s just a thin storyline that’s there simply to serve gameplay… and that usually is the thing which results in movies based off of these games being awful.

I welcome with open arms a video game based movie which ends up being defined as “great,” but as it stands at the moment the odds are not good.

What do you think of a live-action movie of The Wheelman? Have you played the game, and if so do you think it could make a decent movie?

Source: Variety

Tags: the wheelman,

Ken J

Well, I only say that because of the unusually high ratings Crank 2 and Terminator 3 got... Both in the 60's and both deserved nothing more than 25%...

SK-47

@Ken J, thank you for pointing out how bad rottentomatoes is as a source.
Event Horizon is really a good film! That and Mortal Kombat makes you think what the hell happened to Paul W.S. Anderson?

John "Kahless" Taylor

@Ross
Oh sure! Now I'm the only one looking stupid thinking Singleton directed xXx! :-)

Ross Miller

@Vin,

Thanks for catching that. While I was writing the post I got mixed up with the director of xXx and the first Fast and the Furious (both Rob Cohen) and John Singleton (who directed the secoind Fast and the Furious movie - 2 Fast 2 Furious - and is now directing Diesel in Wheelman... see, confusing:P).

It's fixed, thanks again.

SIN187UM

Some one should make a reality show where the challenge is to see if Hollywood can make a video game or Anime based movie that can be nominated for at least one Academy Award.

Vin

@ross miller "which Singleton also directed..." Singleton did not direct any of the XXX films, but Rich Wilkes wrote it.

790

Vin, just do what you do best and give us another Riddick movie.
I'm not paying to see some Fast& Furious/Grand Theft Auto bs film.

ogb

@SIN

I knew that, I made that argument for the sake of this thread and because Death Race is pretty similar to TM/V8

SIN187UM

@ Walwus

ROFL, Man that was a terrible video game movie adaptation. Every time I see the dvd at Blockbuster I just laugh, but you have peaked curiosity to view it at least one more time. I'll be sure to use it as a free rental though.

SIN187UM

@ ogb

Death Race is based off of the original movie death race, which(the original) was made into a game. So The twisted Metal and vigilante are actually based off of Death Race, not the other way around.

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@ Ken J

Lol Hollywood already has enough bad ideas about video game movies, but if they can actually pull off getting funding for production for Bubble Bobble then some one deserves a mild applause.

Walwus

@SIN187UM

You're right sorry. It was comics-cartoons-games-movies. I got carried away. BTW, just watched Super Mario Bros because I own it. :)

SIN187UM

@ Walwus

TMNT 1-3 were not based off of the games, but the comics/cartoon series.

Walwus

You just knew MK2 was going to be bad when Christopher Lambert wasn't going to be in it. And the chick that played Sonya decided not to come back either.

I don't know if I agree with you about SH being a "Good" horror movie. I'll give you creepy as hell but not good. A good horror film to me is one where no matter what the "hero" does it's not good enough to escape whatever fate lie in store for them. If they inexplicably act in a way that normal people would not act then I find it to be just ok and possibly more action than horror.

ogb

@Walwus

Say what you want but a lot of people liked MK and SH, so there is hope for video game movies (Gears of War, I'm looking at you)

Oh and TMNT 1 was a damn good movie, fun especially for kids.

@ Michael

Yeah, SH is underrated and got quickly forgotten and lost. Good horror movies are hard to find nowadays and SH was exactly that, a good horror movie.

Michael Claymore

Silent Hill was an excellent movie - one slab of atmospheric weirdness from start to end- so there's at least one great movie based on a video game. Strangely, i didn't remember it was from a game till ogb mentioned it, i guess i was searching my mind for action adventure stuff and those have indeed sucked.

Walwus

Not sure how I forgot about this one but TMNT I,II, and III! After looking back, Hollywood is nothing if not persistent.

Walwus

@ogb â€“ you dropped a few points with me when you said Mortal Kombat was AWESOME ïŠ
@Wickamo â€“ Iâ€™m gonna disregard your comments based on the fact that I donâ€™t think youâ€™ve ever seen said movies because you spelled Kombat with a â€œCâ€ â€¦TWICE!! ïŠ
@Ross â€“ DoA was a pretty bad movie and you could have added it to the list on speculation alone. Iâ€™m gonna have to disagree with you on Super Mario Brothers, how do you NOT love Bob Hoskins?
Here a few more game movies that you didnâ€™t add to the list that I feel should be on the good side:
Tron (Hello? How did you leave that one off?)
Cloak and Dagger ( Boom! 1st one to bring up an Atari game into a movieâ€¦bow to me!)
Double Dragon (Again Boom!)
At this point I have people laughing thinking to themselves, â€œWhere can I find a copy of these movies because I remember seeing them in the theater when I was youngerâ€
Wing Commander (I liked it but it didnâ€™t do so well in theaters)
Alone in The Dark (Anytime you make Tara Reid a Fâ€™n SCIENITIST, the movie will fail)
In the Name of the King (Poor Uwe Bolle, I think he has 4 or 5 game-to-movie credits under his belt and all of them bad)
Does anyone remember the Dig Dug fake trailer that played in theaters? It was suppose to be a movie trailer but it was just a fake for the game that was being released.

ogb

@ Vic

Difference of opinions so I respectfully agree to disagree. However Rottentomatoes.com, as Ken J pointed out, not the best back up source. IMDB has it 6.2 out of 36,000 votes and that's what it is, a generally accepted, above average flick that I really loved.

@ Gravatar, I know what you mean. DOA was hot garbage and so were the RE movies. However, and I know I'm one of the few who say this, I LOVED Soldier. Kurt Russel is just a badass and I love post apocalypse movies.

But I do have to say, Anderson redeemed himself, in my eyes, with Death Race. That was a fun FUN movie to watch. And on a side note, Death Race could be said to be based on Twisted Metal or Vigilante 8 (video games).

Ken J

Hey, don't give them any wacky ideas SIN...

GUNSMITH

ANOTHER GAMOOVIE-(VIDEO GAME TURNED LIVE ACTION MOVIE)..VIN, YOU KEEP CHOOSING THESE ROLES AND THAT EVENTUALLY WILL BE THE ONLY THING THEY CAST YOU FOR, BURLY RACER GUY-GET VIN..

SIN187UM

Event Horizon was decent but I can't stand anything after Mortal Kombat that Paul Anderson is involved in. Just Blah. RE 2 and 3. Dead or Alive baaaarrrrrffff. lets not Forget teh Terrible AVP movie, and I think he had a hand in scripting AVP -Requime. SOme one needs to make a movie Based off of Bubble Bobble to end the terrible Video Game movie madness.

Ken J

I've lost faith in Rottentomatoes.com Vic, lol.

I thought Event Horizon was merely OK. It was interesting in that it was different, but it wasn't anything I would watch more than once.

Vic Holtreman

@ogb

I could only stand to sit through it once and all I remember is how awful it was.

Backup:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/event_horizon/

:-P

Vic

Ken J

Excuse me ogb, I forgot to say "I thought" Shooter was horrible for the story, it is just my opinion, I know plenty of people who liked it. But like I've said, it was good on the technical side of the whole long range shooting stuff, but the story was crap, in my opinion.

ogb

@ Liam

Good points but I respectfully disagree completely. Yes the story was different than the games, but Gans never set out to redo the story lines completely. He borrowed from the SH1 and SH2 to create an original story that fits perfectly into the SH realm.

"I could care less about how when you shoot the creatures some acid like black goo comes spewing out at you, which never happened in the games."

- In the movie the creature sprayed acid as an attack, not necessarily just because it got shot. And in the 2nd game they had the EXACT same creature (actually the first creature you meet in SH2 under the bridge). So he got that down perfectly.

Silent Hill the movie captured exactly what the game captured. And for comparison reasons, it is VERY different than RE the movie, which was "jump out scary" whereas SH movie messed with your head a lot and created real fear and the feel of helplessness and loneliness.

I really strongly disagree with you when you say it was a brainless horror movie. It really wasn't.

@ Vic

Um okay...no offense but that's a strange thing to contribute to the conversation ("I hated it", period) But again, opinion based. I loved the movie, thought it was an awesome horror/sci fi movie, which we don't see a lot lately at all. Come to think of it, EH is a very underrated movie. Great plot, GREAT acting, good visual effects, etc. I think it's AT LEAST on the same level as Boyle's SUNSHINE.

@KEN J

Maybe i was mistaken but that's what I read a long time ago when it was being made. And as far as it being good/bad, I don't get it. You're throwing around words like "horrible" describing that movie. Was it really "horrible"? I mean it was a decent flick. I liked it more than an average person because they came close to nailing the shooting mechanics of the rifle and the person shooting it (Walberg spent a Ridiculous amount of time researching that role, training, etc.) Not saying it's great, but almost everyone thought it was a decent, slightly above average action movie. You say it's HORRIBLE. I don't know, maybe your standards are too high.

@ Dudelove

Good point

greenknight333

I thought Event Horizon was based on an original screenplay by Philip Eisner..

dudelove

Sorry for the double post.

Ken J, Shooter is based on a novel called Point of Impact.

dudelove

@Ross Miller

"Can those defending those video game movies REALLY say they are â€œgoodâ€ movies? I can accept fun, enjoyable, guilty pleasure, and such but in terms of qualityâ€¦ noâ€¦"

Well, isn't that true of most action movies? They simply exist to be fun, enjoyable, guilty pleasures? Not every movie has to aspire to be The Godfather Part 4, sometimes being Cammando 2 is all you need.

Ken J

I actually liked Mortal Kombat, lol. Yes, it was VERY cheesey, but that was what made it cool and funny to watch. The sequels were HORRIBLE however...

And about Wheelman, if you read the reviews, you'll see that even as a video game it sucked, so the movie can't be much better...

@ogb, where is it said that Shooter was based on Silent Scope?? I thought there was a novel it was based on? It's not just because they both have "sniper" rifles in it right? They're not even the same rifle... And besides the point, Shooter was horrible. Technically they got a lot of the long range shooting stuff right, but the story was just stupid. Conspiracy theory stories are hard to get right and that one missed (no pun intended) its mark big time in my opinion.