Fans of the Gears of War video game who were looking forward to seeing a big screen adaptation have had a lot of waiting to do over recent years, and it doesn’t look like the waiting will end any time soon.

Since Underworld director Len Wiseman was hired to direct back in 2008 the film has been in development hell for two years. Wanted writer Chris Morgan was hired to work on the script and last year he said the scope of the movie is “huge”, saying “look at the game and the scenario — the fact that the world is being taken over by the Locust, it has to be huge.” Len Wiseman was also thinking big, saying he planned on making a trilogy that would be “a harder edged Lord of the Rings”.

You would have thought that New Line, who produced The Lord of the Rings trilogy, would jump at the chance to create another epic franchise. However times have changed (New Line are now owned by Warner Bros. for one) and it seems they are less willing to take big financial risks.

From The L.A Times:

The studio has now cut the budget, going from a film that would have cost more than $100 million to one that will cost a good chunk less than that. It’s also reined in the story, turning it into a more simple, straight-ahead invasion story instead of a sprawling epic. Producers are looking for a new writer to handle all this, but haven’t found one yet. And Wiseman, while technically still attached, will likely not be a part of it when all is said and done.

It looks like they are back to square one. After finding a writer they’ll probably have to find another director, and then if New Line are happy with the budget the Gears of War movie may finally move beyond the scripting stage, albeit cheaper and less epic.

Any Gear of War fans have an opinion on this? Would you have preferred a $100+ million epic version, or would you be happy with a simpler, straight-ahead invasion story?

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A few weeks ago Evan Spiliotopoulos was hired to write the script for Wanted 2, which presented us with 2 questions. Firstly, Chris Morgan was already on-board as writer, so where did he go? And secondly, Evan’s previous credits include Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, how the hell did he land this gig? Thankfully both questions have now been answered with Wanted creator Mark Millar revealing Evan wrote a great un-produced action script, hence the hiring, and now Chris Morgan has explained his Wanted 2 situation to MTV.

We knew we wanted to do ‘Wanted 2,’ so we started developing a take and came up with a story that’s pretty good and develops the characters,” said Morgan. “But in the process of developing it, I also had commitments to ‘Gears of War’ and the samurai movie I’m doing at Universal.”

According to Morgan, Spiliotopoulos will provide the script for the story initially envisioned during the “Wanted 2? planning process, and Morgan will return later to consult and provide any rewrites that might be necessary.

“Evan is going to go ahead and write the story that we came up with and I’m probably going to come on later,” said Morgan. “So, I’m still part of the process, but I didn’t want to hold up the ‘Wanted’ production schedule.”

MTV then asked Morgan for an update on Gear of War:

“A draft went in and we’re talking about it now and we’re budgeting it out,” Morgan told MTV. “It’s looking incredibly good.”

“I think the gamer side is going to be thrilled with it,” said Morgan. “All the stuff you want to see, we put that in there and then we blow it out a little more, even. Now it’s just a matter of honing in on all of the character arcs and determining production types of things.”

For the uninitiated, “Gears of War” centers on the members of Delta Squad, an elite squadron that consists of rough-and-tough, chew-your-guts-out types of soldiers. Players assume the roles of Marcus Fenix, an ex-convict, and Dominic Santiago, a hardened soldier, as the squadron wages war against an insurgent alien race called the Locust Horde — a deadly collective that’s already promised to surface heavily in the film.

“It’s huge,” Morgan declared of the project’s scope. “One of the things they’re really talking about now is the budget of the film and how big of a spectacle this is going to be. My argument is, look at the underlying material. Look at the game and the scenario — the fact that the world is being taken over by the Locust, it has to be huge.”

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Since Len Wiseman was announced as director for a movie version of Gears of War last June we haven’t really heard much about it. However, Wiseman recently spoke to Bloody-Disgusting and revealed that he plans to make a Gears of War trilogy, and that it could be in 3D!

“I’m writing Gears Of War with Chris Morgan, who wrote Wanted,” he tells BD before explaining that he wasn’t much of a gamer until he saw GOW in his movie Live Free Or Die Hard.

“It’s going to be much more [on the] science fiction side of it than the creature side of it. I’ve always been much more of a sci-fi action fan than a horror fan,” he reveals also explaining that he wants the scope of the film to be told over the course of three films! “The hope is that were wanting to do a three movies and really cover the bases on everything. Basically a harder edged Lord Of The Rings.”

While Wiseman doesn’t say the films will be in 3-D, he does admit that he’s interesting in the new technology. “Yeah, I think about [3D technology] quite a bit,” he continues, “the more and more I get involved with these movies and the bigger they are the more you rely on CG effects to help you out. And you can do it properly; I’ve been a big fan of practical work and still am, it’s finding a way to incorporate them together.”

While comparing an upcoming franchise to The Lord of the Rings isn’t exactly new or exciting any more, this does sound interesting.

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Kotaku were at the Comic Con panel for the Gears of War movie and executive producer Cliff Bleszinski from Epic Games spoke about the movie and expectations.

“Look, we know that video game movies have been pretty bad,” Cliff admitted to the crowd, attempting to assuage their fears that the Gears flick will suck. “But just think how bad comic book movies were for such a long time. We hope [the Gears of War movie] will change that.”

What may depress aficionados of Gears meaty, steroid overdosed look is that the feature film may not live up to the dream casting of certain fans. In lieu of filling out Delta Squad’s armor with accurately voluminous meatheads, he’s hoping they’ll find some actors who can, you know, act.

“I know people have ideas where they want to see some wrestler, some huge buff guy,” Bleszinski “The thing we care most about is charisma, someone you’d want to watch for two hours.”

He has a point. Get people who can act, stick them on a 300 style training program and give them beefy armour to get them looking bigger, rather than hiring a WWE wrestler who couldn’t act themselves out of a paper bag.

Anyone have any casting suggestions? I’m not a Gears of War expert but these suggestions from an IMDB user look cool.

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Len Wiseman, director of Live Free or Die Hard and penetrator of Kate Beckinsale has signed up to direct Gears of War according to Variety. Wanted and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift writer Chris Morgan is currently writing a re-draft of Stuart Beattie’s version.

“Gears” is Microsoft’s second biggest seller after the “Halo” franchise, and gamemaker Epic always intended to branch the property out into various media, such as films and novels, with an extensive backstory it developed for the property.

New Line had initially aimed for a summer 2009 release for the pic, but further development on the project will now likely delay that plan.

Gears of War joins God of War, BioShock and Price of Persia in the game-to-movie adaptations. It’s becoming a new trend in Hollywood, and its good to see people who aren’t Uwe Boll directing these types of movies.

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