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)
...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]...
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.
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").
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.
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."
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 (http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/4935), 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.
if he's a fan of the original Silent Hill for PS then this movie better really not be crap.
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.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonypictures.com%2Fmovies%2Fsilenthill%2Fpostercontest%2Fassets%2FD02_200R.jpg&hash=1b8200008bf127b5411def20509906a3d6c0dc42)
Teaser Trailer here. (http://flash.sonypictures.com/movies/silenthill/site/silenthill.mov)
I don't know anything about the video game, but I like how this looks. :yabbse-thumbup:
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: noyes on December 28, 2005, 09:46:58 AM
jesus, that screenshot is fuckin' spot on.
i could be wrong, but i think it's a publicity still. the real film may not contain that shot as we see it.
Quote from: Brazoliange on December 23, 2005, 01:34:23 PM
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.
I was just talking about Silent Hill recently. This trailer looks hilarious, I don't even need to see that short film. "You sure you wanna jump down that hole?" "Hell yeah."
I don't think they ever made a complete film, did they? It was like one of those fan trailers where they just made the one trailer.
New trailer
http://mp3content01.bcst.yahoo.com/pub06root3/Pub06Share12/yahoointernal/8/21763902.mov
Pyramid head looks fucking amazing. Taking original music from SH2 and putting it directly in is perfect. This just jumped to my most anticipated movie of 2006.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fus.movies1.yimg.com%2Fmovies.yahoo.com%2Fimages%2Fhv%2Fphoto%2Fmovie_pix%2Ftristar_pictures%2Fsilent_hill%2Fsilenthill_bigteaserposter.jpg&hash=e734e6c6547e60bb1753228aa7a6b8d74b82f6ce)
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=info&id=1808718754
sweet.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi11.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa175%2FLeven321%2Fsilenthillofthelambs.jpg&hash=8e1bc141269b7f21ff3b48621780c68bb968ad6f)
sweeter.
Silent Hill Poster Contest Winner
Winning design unveiled.
TriStar Pictures has announced the winner of its online competition to design the poster for the studio's game-to-film adaptation, Silent Hill. Chuck Waite of El Cerrito, California has been named the winner, and will receive a cash prize of $2500.
Waite's design received over 32,000 votes during the final voting period.
Participants in the contest, mainly fans and amateur artists, were able to download creative elements from the film in order to create their own Silent Hill posters. More than 185,000 fans cast their votes for one of 2050 poster designs submitted during the first phase of the competition.
The five finalists were revealed on Jan. 22 with fans voting online for the winner.
Silent Hill opens in theaters nationwide April 21. The film stars Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean. It was directed by Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) from a screenplay by Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction).
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fffmedia.ign.com%2Ffilmforce%2Fimage%2Farticle%2F691%2F691798%2Fsilent-hill-winner_1141074121.jpg&hash=a2443b849444c99bb76f7721737970ebbeda8ea7)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.doubleviking.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2006%2F03%2Fexclusive_silent_hill.jpg&hash=5a3d091c294972d1646a07c44ffe712683296490)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.aintitcool.com%2Fimages2006%2FAICNexclusiveSH.jpg&hash=7627d20e6c3916a50fc912f8b1361b41237a9b58)
Pyramid Head looks really good. They really nailed the visual style of the game this movie is based on. Here's hoping the story is up to par.
Scribe Avary game for 'Hill' adaptation
By John Gaudiosi; Hollywood Reporter
Roger Avary, best known as the writer of "Pulp Fiction," has been an avid video gamer all of his life. So he was more than ready when he received a call from "Brotherhood of the Wolf" director Christophe Gans asking whether he'd help translate Konami's "Silent Hill" from game to film.
"Christophe and I knew how passionate the video game fans are for 'Silent Hill,' " Avary says. "At the minimum, we didn't want to piss them off. We wanted to make this movie for them. They're the canaries in the coal mine."
The project also is evidence of a demographic shift that means game creators are having a more direct impact on Hollywood scribes, he says.
"Hollywood writers are getting younger," Avary says. "The old-timers who don't play games are writing less and less of movies of this sort. There are more younger people who grew up with gaming getting opportunities in Hollywood today."
"Silent Hill" marks the first time that Avary has been able to immerse himself in a video game franchise that he fell in love with years ago. He remembers that when he and Gans first discussed "Silent Hill," they knew that they wanted to approach it as gamers who wanted to be as true to the spirit and detail in the adaptation as possible.
The two creators spent several months in France playing through all four games of the franchise. "I hadn't played 'Silent Hill' for years," Avary says. "Your first reaction is the graphics have really gotten better since then. But then once you give yourself to the game, you fall into it just as well. In some ways, less detail gives you greater empathy for the character that becomes your avatar while playing."
Avary says that all too often, Hollywood producers get the rights to a video game and then look to reach a larger audience by going beyond its universe.
"Hollywood executives are very quick to want to throw out the source material of a game," he says.
" 'Doom' kills me. That was one of the movies I wanted to do so badly. I met with them early, on and I looked at the original script and asked, where's the 'Doom' in this?"
Avary recently was asked to work on the "Darkwatch" movie script, based on the Capcom vampire Western game of which he is a fan, but his schedule interfered.
His early interest in video games originally took him down a different path. Avary began playing games in the late 1970s and built his first computer from a kit -- a Rockwell KIM-1 -- and started his professional life as a programr for the Atari 800.
Even though he left the programming path for Hollywood, he never gave up his roots. Avary collects and restores such Atari Vector coin-operated machines as "Asteroids," "Space Duel," "Tempest" and "Battle Zone." He also spends hours playing PlayStation 2 games like "Driver: Parallel Lines" from beginning to end.
"In many ways, gaming has not changed much since the Atari 2600," he says. "It's still just polygons and fields and things bouncing into each other."
In other ways, of course, the changes have been dramatic. The impressive experiences made possible by next-generation graphics and sound have increased the costs of making games with the larger teams and more expensive technology they require.
"The thing to watch out for, when costs get high, suddenly you see less and less innovation occurring and more repetition of tried and true ideas," Avary says. This is evident in movies, he says, with big-budget Hollywood films lowering the odds of original stories making it to the big screen. There already are those in the game-development industry who have complained about the lack of interest game publishers show to original game ideas for next-generation consoles.
http://media.putfile.com/On-The-Set-Of-Silent-Hill
Quote from: McfLy on March 15, 2006, 03:56:41 PM
Here's hoping the story is up to par.
Ebert doesn't seem to think so...
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060420/REVIEWS/60421001
QuoteNot only can I not describe the plot of this movie, but I have a feeling the last scene reverses half of what I thought I knew (or didn't know).
Quote from: squints on April 21, 2006, 11:45:01 AM
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060420/REVIEWS/60421001
QuoteNot only can I not describe the plot of this movie, but I have a feeling the last scene reverses half of what I thought I knew (or didn't know).
sounds like mully drive.
A rental it is.
Honestly this is a must see. There's some amazing imagery in this, amazing sense of dread, amazing tone. Definitely a big screen movie. Ebert is right that the movie is weighed down by shitty exposition and bad dialogue but it doesn't sink it, I think.
I don't know if it's a must see, but I'm not sorry I spent over two hours (should have been ninety minutes) watching it. Once the exposition kicks in and Alice Krige starts ranting, it goes downhill fast, but up until then, there's a lot of good filler in between the five total minutes that are downright great (all the stuff involving weird figures lurching towards the camera). I don't know why Avary felt the need to tack on such a Ringu-ish third act. Maybe it's in the game?
All in all, it's not as simplistically satisfying as The Hills Have Eyes, but it's a little bit more imaginative.
I haven't seen this yet. It was on the must see list until i started reading reviews (which is stupid i should just go see it) but the thing i remember from the games I beat, Silent Hill 1 for the PS and silent hill 4 for the xbox, the story never really makes much sense but the visuals and scariness of the game are what i was spending over 12 hours on each game for. i'll probably wait a while longer, but eventually i'll see it.
I thought it was fucking horendously bad.
Yeah, imagery is awesome... and there are a couple of creatures that are just amazing, but the story is SO FUCKING ATROCIOUS!!! The story doesn't really make any sense and the execution is shit... I would have preferred NO PLOT, if it had just been the imagery, I probably would have loved it, but it's complete bogged down with some of the worst characters, shittiest stories, and crappiest dialogue since I dont' know what.
One of the biggest wastes of potential I've seen in a very long time. I really wanted this to be great, now I'm mad I saw it.
Damnit
Also, I was high when I saw it. So there's that. :(
Quote from: RegularKarate on April 23, 2006, 01:05:18 PM
I thought it was fucking horendously bad.
Yeah, imagery is awesome... and there are a couple of creatures that are just amazing, but the story is SO FUCKING ATROCIOUS!!! The story doesn't really make any sense and the execution is shit... I would have preferred NO PLOT, if it had just been the imagery, I probably would have loved it, but it's complete bogged down with some of the worst characters, shittiest stories, and crappiest dialogue since I dont' know what.
One of the biggest wastes of potential I've seen in a very long time. I really wanted this to be great, now I'm mad I saw it.
basically the same thing I thought, except I'm not mad but more disappointed.
there was no "ringu-ish" shit in the game, at all. Cheryl has short hair and so does Alessa.
ever since The Ring, if there's a little girl character in a movie and she's somehow evil
or becomes evil, she has to automatically turn into Samara.
"look at me.. i'm burning" i couldn't help but laugh at that. it was embarassing to sit there and witness that.
the imagery was amazing and it was million times more brutal than the game was, almost overly brutal.
i enjoyed the Janitor scene and the last scene immensely,
but the script was one of the worst scripts i think i've encountered in a movie, probably ever.
i strongly, strongly, strongly suggest that anyone who hasn't played the game yet to somehow get a hold
of a playstation 2 and buy or rent Silent Hill.
you'll see how amazing the movie could have been.
I'm kinda mixed between GB's and RK's reviews. I'm not a gamer, so I have no idea what the game is about and the characters/creatures. If the film had stayed more focused with Rose looking for her child it would have worked better; kinda like the third of act of Aliens stretched out. I've always been a huge fan of Radha Mitchell, so she was the perfect surrogate Sigorney. The cop character felt like she served no purpose. The whole plot about witches = :sleeping:
The biggest reason to see the film though are the creatures. They were utterly fascinating to look it; from that armless pod thing to the faceless nurses.
In terms of nailing the visual style of the source, this is the best video-game to film translation. In terms of story, its very similar to the plot of the first game in the series, but for some reason the game seemed to tell it far better. The score to the film was a pleasent suprise, they actually got the composer from the games to contribute some of his work.
Duo make a return to 'Silent Hill'
Roger Avary, Samuel Hadida sign on for game adaptation
Source: Hollywood Reporter
TORONTO -- Roger Avary and Samuel Hadida of Davis Films are climbing back up "Silent Hill."
The screenwriter and producer have signed on for a sequel to their 2006 video game adaptation.
The original, based on the Konami game, centered on a woman who travels to a desolate town to seek help for her ailing daughter only to find supernatural occurrences taking place there.
Davis Films aims to shoot the movie next year after "Resident Evil 4," which it's now prepping.
TriStar released the original "Silent Hill," which earned $47 million domestically; the label has not confirmed involvement on the follow-up.
Avary, best known for his work on Quentin Tarantino scripts such as "Pulp Fiction," also is penning video game adaptation "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" for Davis Films.
The deal is one of several projects for Hadida's company. The French-based banner has come to Toronto with two projects -- Michael Bassett's "Solomon Kane" and the Terry Gilliam-helmed "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus."
"Kane," based on Robert Howard's early 20th-century pulp novels that blend fantasy and history, screened in the Cannes market in the spring, and Davis Films is hoping for new attention and offers at TIFF. The pic is set to play Wednesday in the Midnight Madness section.
"The cut is basically the same, but a lot of distributors wanted to see it with an audience, which could really affect how a film plays," Hadida said.
Despite the lesser-known cast -- James Purefoy, starring in the title role, is perhaps the best-known name -- the filmmakers believe "Kane" could sell on the brand value of the Howard creation.
"The property is the star," said Paul Berrow, who is producing with Hadida.
"Parnassus" will be released by Sony Pictures Classics following an involved postproduction process that included a stop at Cannes in May.
In addition to the "Resident Evil" franchise, Hadida counts movies such as "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "The Rules of Attraction" among his credits.