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Electronic Arts has announced that Starz Media will produce animated movies to three of its upcoming franchises, starting with a prequel for the action-horror title Dead Space.
Word is:
The script for the Dead Space animated feature
picks up the plot where the original comic book series ends and leads
up to the beginning of the Dead Space game. The story focuses on the events
aboard a futuristic mining spaceship, the USG Ishimura, after it pulls
a mysterious artifact from a remote dig site. The artifact triggers the
sudden invasion of a long-dormant alien presence, and the Ishimura’s
crewmembers find themselves locked in a frantic struggle to survive. The
animated feature is slated to premiere at the same time as the game is
launched.
This project signals both companies’ belief
that mass-appeal games provide opportunities for new and exciting programming
in a variety of different media. This announcement comes at a time when
the video game industry is valued at more than $30 billion worldwide for
packaged goods, wireless and online games in calendar year 2007 and game-inspired
entertainment is pervasive in movie theaters, on TV and across online
media.
Starz Media is currently in discussions with broadcasters
worldwide that have already expressed interest in airing Dead Space, which
is scheduled to be released via broadcast TV and then on DVD. The company
will launch international sales of the animated feature at the upcoming
MIP-TV market in Cannes, France. Starz Media will also market the movie
through its home entertainment company Anchor Bay Entertainment, as well
as via online and wireless distributors.
The deal with Starz Media and its animation unit
Film Roman reflects EA’s growing commitment to developing filmed
entertainment projects based on the company’s games. For Film Roman,
the venerable animation company behind “The Simpsons,” “King
of the Hill” and the pre-school hit “Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!,”
the booming video game business is fertile territory for developing new
hit movies and series.
“Due to the richness and complexity of stories
that have evolved for video games, they have become a type of entertainment
that can span generations and provide fantastic inspiration for other
forms of media; especially in the realm of animated features,” Film
Roman President and COO Scott Greenberg said. “We’re particularly
thrilled to be starting off with Dead Space.”
“We are really excited to be working with
Film Roman to create an animated feature that will tell the portion of
the Dead Space saga between the comic and game,” said Glen Schofield,
Executive Producer for Dead Space. “With the video game, comic book
and now animated movie, Dead Space has become a true multimedia brand.
Each of these elements delivers the story to new audiences and tells it
from different aspects and perspectives.”
Set in the far future, Earth’s appetite for
natural resources has become a major motivator for deep space exploration.
Immense, privately-owned and operated mining ships called “planetcrackers”
orbit planets and use sophisticated equipment to carve out entire city-sized
chunks of rock, reducing them to component elements and raw ore. When
communications go dead onboard the USG Ishimura, a famous planetcracker,
systems engineer Isaac Clarke is sent in to fix the problem. Once onboard
the vessel, Isaac discovers that the crew has unearthed an ancient and
malevolent alien presence far beneath the planet’s surface and brought
it onboard. Weaponless, alone and terrified, this lone engineer is burdened
with much more than simple survival – he must seal the alien horror
back into the dark rock.
Film Roman is producing “Dead Space”
in alliance with Digital Tetra Inc., in Korea. The Gotham Group of Los
Angeles, a leading animation representation company, helped put the production
arrangement together.
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