Warren Zide's Anthem Pictures has acquired the film rights to SoulCalibur, the popular fighting video game from Namco. The project will be Zide's first under Sony-based Anthem, his equity-backed financing and production shingle. The video game story revolves around two warriors who are chosen by Shaolin monks to recover and destroy a powerful sword that has fallen into the hands of an evil prince who plans to use it to open the gates of hell and destroy the world. SoulCalibur 2, the most recent version of the video game, has racked up sales of 5 million units on all platforms, and the game also is a critical fave. It received the best fighting game award at last year's E3 interactive game conference, and Electronic Gaming Monthly named it the multiplatform game of the year. Matthew Rhodes and Noel Vega are producing with Anthem. Jesse Warshal is overseeing it at Anthem. Zide, along with manager Craig Perry, produced Universal Pictures' American Pie franchise, which grossed more than $340 million at the domestic boxoffice. The two also produced the two Final Destination movies for New Line Cinema.
Hong Kong action director and star Sammo Hung Kam-bo will be getting behind the camera to bring another video game to the big screen. Hung has been lined up to helm a $50 million (.33million) adaptation of Soul Calibur, the all-action beat-'em-up from video games company Namco. Hung, well known in Asia as an actor and director, is not as well-known stateside as his former schoolmate and occasional co-star, Jackie Chan, but had a modest success in the U.S. with his recent CBS television series Martial Law. Aged 49 this year, Hung made dozens of martial arts films before coming to prominence on the Hong Kong scene as a director and star with his 1978 martial arts film, Fay Lung Kwo Gong (Enter the Fat Dragon). Soul Calibur, which should reach screens next year, is the latest in a spate of big-screen video-game conversions, which have included Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Super Mario Bros. The next video games to hit cinemas will be the live-action Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie, set for release in June, and a computer-animated Final Fantasy with Alec Baldwin, set to bow in July.
- 4/10/2001
- WENN
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