Silent Hill

[diggler]

Roger Avary(rules of attraction) is currently working on a script for a movie adaption of the poular videogame series. Cristophe Gans(Brotherhood of the wolf) is set to direct.

the names attached seem promising. could this be the first decent video game movie adaptation since mortal kombat?(you know you loved it)

[NEON MERCURY]

...thats phucking great news, seriously.  i have played these games before and they would make a cool film.  the games rely on what you dont see rather than an overdose of cheesy zombies and monsters[i.e. resident evil].  the vibe is more psychological rather than physical horror.  and the atmosphere is incredibly dreadful.  if anyone else played these games they would know exactly what i am talking about.  especially with silent hill 2.  people compare these game to like watching 'the shining' and since that fim is the greatest horror film of all time, i would be happy to see a film adaptation and the avery/gans duo is indeed promising.  i hope they keep it sylish[fog]...

[SiliasRuby]

This sounds soooo badass and I am really looking forward to this. I know exactly what you are talking about Neon, and I really hope they keep that same atmosphere and psychological feeling to it.

[MacGuffin]

Mitchell will do talking for 'Silent Hill'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

PARIS -- Radha Mitchell will topline the video game adaptation "Silent Hill," which TriStar Pictures will release in the United States, producer Samuel Hadida said Friday.

Principal photography is due to begin Monday in Toronto on the suspense horror feature, directed by Frenchman Christophe Gans ("Brotherhood of the Wolf"), and will run through July 22. The movie is budgeted at $45 million-$50 million, with additional casting to be finalized.

"Silent Hill" is based on the hugely successful Konami game in which Rose (Mitchell) desperately searches for her lost daughter in the mysterious, terrifying town of Silent Hill, where they are trapped. The screenplay was written by Roger Avary ("Pulp Fiction").

Hadida's Davis Films developed the film in association with Konami Corp.

"Konami sold over 4 million units of the 'Silent Hill' trilogy of games, and I'm thrilled that they have entrusted me with this valuable franchise," said Hadida, in a nod to his future expectations for the property.

Hadida co-produced the video game adaptation "Resident Evil" and its sequel with Sony/Screen Gems and Germany's Constantin, with a third installment in the pipeline. The first two movies, both starring Milla Jovovich, grossed $101 million and $129 million worldwide, respectively. Hadida also is preparing to go into production on another game spinoff, the samurai-versus-forces-of-evil story "Onimusha," based on Capcom's game. Davis Films is co-producing with Japan's Gaga Communications.

Australian-born Mitchell's recent screen credits include Woody Allen's "Melinda and Melinda" and "Finding Neverland."

Aside from TriStar's U.S. distribution rights, Hadida's Paris-based distribution company, Metropolitan Filmexport, has retained French-speaking rights. Focus Features is handling international sales in remaining territories.

The production team includes cinematographer Dan Laustsen ("The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"); editors David Wu and Sebastien Prangere, who both worked on "Brotherhood of the Wolf" (also produced by Davis); costume designer Wendy Partridge; production designer Carol Spier; and creature design by Patrick Tatopoulos ("I, Robot").

[MacGuffin]

Bean journeys to 'Silent Hill' with TriStar
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Sean Bean has signed on to star in "Silent Hill," the adaptation of the best-selling video game franchise. TriStar Pictures will distribute the film. Bean will play the husband of the female lead, played by Radha Mitchell, in the feature about a mother and a daughter looking into the secrets of an abandoned town. Christophe Gans is directing, Samuel Hadida is producing and financing the film via his Davis Film Prods. shingle and Konami Corp., and Roger Avary wrote the script.

[MacGuffin]

Sean Bean on Silent Hill
LOTR star says film is bizarre and spooky.
 
Filming is well underway on the movie adaptation of Konami's atmospheric Silent Hill video game. With Frenchman Christophe Gans, director of Brotherhood of the Wolf at the helm, the film promises to be genuinely spooky – a quality missing from other recent game adaptations, like the Resident Evil series.

Actor Sean Bean, whose skills have contributed to such films as The Fellowship of the Ring and Patriot Games, complimented Gans and his work on the movie so far in an interview with Sci Fi Wire. "I think it will be really good. Christophe Gans is the director. He's given [Silent Hill] a really quirky, bizarre feel, very spooky: a very European kind of genre film."

While the exact plot of the film has been kept under wraps, frequent readers may remember our previous report on the story. It involves a couple with a child who is dying of a terminal illness. The mother, named Rose, attempts to take the child to see a faith healer, but instead the two end up in an alternate reality – a demon-haunted ghost town called Silent Hill. Rose and her daughter both become pawns in supernatural power play, forced to make some difficult choices in order to survive.

Bean adds to this synopsis, saying that his daughter in the film is obsessed with a place called Silent Hill even before they encounter it. "She keeps mentioning 'Silent Hill, Silent Hill.' She's always trying to get there. She tries to get out of the house, wakes up in the middle of the night. My wife decides it might be a good idea to take her there. We're trying to confront her fears. She gets involved with a very murky, dangerous world, very creepy, which is all in different time levels as well. I'm in the real world, and I'm trying to find passages on different planes. It's quite interesting. I can hear her, but I can't see her. The way it's shot is in constant fog. There's always this fog cobwebbed around the Silent Hill world. The real world's just normal."

[MacGuffin]

Silent Hill: A Movie Made by Gamers
Writer Avery discusses adapting the horror flick.

Roger Avery, who wrote the screenplay for Silent Hill, was himself a fan and enthusiastic player of the original Playstation game.

"I remember it being so advanced in its story, atmosphere, in the way the camera and game engine operated and in how playable it was," the writer explained in an interview with Edge magazine. "I'd been into Resident Evil not only because of the story but because it had a fixed camera – I'm very much into the cinema of games and how that's gradually evolving. So I played Silent Hill, liked it and put it down like any other game before moving on with my life."

And then he met Christophe Gans, a French director who needed someone to re-write a French-language script he had for a Hollywood film version of the game. Avery fit the bill, and he was impressed with Gans's knowledge of Silent Hill and videogames in general. "You name a book and he's read it, name a game and he's played it (and he hasn't just played it casually - he's played it to the end). He's invested the 50-100 hours it's taken to finish all of these games. I don't know how he finds the time - he has no life separate from media. ...I was very comfortable around him and we became very good friends very quickly."

Instilling the movie with the same eerie, exploratory feel as the game was a difficult task, especially since that meant breaking from the usual movie mold. "Because of that, it became a very difficult script for the studio to accept. We had long passages with no dialogue. Christophe wanted to ensure that when we wanted to have dialogue, we wrote it big. But for the most part, much of the movie is a silent film - we wanted it to be full of silence. So there are scenes where Rose is just wandering through Silent Hill.

"In the script phase, we had long, long moments where seemingly nothing happens. It's all atmosphere – you're falling slowly into a world and experiencing it much like you would in the game."

Avery feels that while films are a good complement to videogames, there's a danger of game designers trying to make their creations too passive and cinematic, like a film, and less interactive like a game should be. Avery also took a poke at director Uwe Boll (Alone in the Dark) while outlining the responsibility filmmakers have these days with game adaptations:

"Maybe the question is: will Silent Hill make game designers more comfortable? Guys like Uwe Boll have done a lot of damage, and I don't know that one good game adaptation will undo all of it."

In other Silent news, the film's first still shot is up at Bloody Disgusting, showing lead actresses Radha Mitchell ("Rose") and Laurie Holden ("Cybil Bennet"). The movie also stars Sean Bean (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Island) as Rose's husband Christopher. It opens April 21st.

[noyes]

if he's a fan of the original Silent Hill for PS then this movie better really not be crap.

[analogzombie]

Given Avary's commentary on the Day of the Dead DVD, his past works, and the source material, this is one of my most anticipated movies of 2006.

[edison]

[MacGuffin]

Teaser Trailer

[matt35mm]

I don't know anything about the video game, but I like how this looks.   

[Figure 8]

I played all the games up until the fourth one and this looks like it could be a really cool adaptation.  I really like that teaser.

[Brazoliange]

http://www.meantimeprod.com/short_films/silent_hill_movie.html

amusing (horrible), but a different Silent Hill

Sony looks like they're doing a good job.

[noyes]

jesus, that screenshot is fuckin' spot on. the old buildings give it a great feel. amazing.
i just hope the story line is just as good.