A lot of people don’t know, but there was a time when the Hollywood oven was preparing for a film adaptation of Mass Effect, BioWare’s video game series. However, soon the problems and difficulties with his script arrived, the project slowed down and finally never came to fruition. Now, project manager of Mass Effect: Legendary EditionMac Walters has talked about what could happen to the movie.
“It seemed like we were always fighting IP“Walters told Business Insider. “What story are we going to tell in 90 or 120 minutes? Are we going to do it justice?Walters also spoke of a leadership change at Legendary Pictures as one of the reasons the film project ended up falling into oblivion. The studio bought the rights to a Mass Effect film adaptation in 2010, with Warner Bros. as dealer. “After that, it was not resumed, not for lack of trying“.
It seems that the attempts to bring Mass Effect to the big screen all fell on deaf ears, however other video game adaptations seem to have the wind in their favor: We currently have Resident Evil and Assassin’s Creed on the way, The Witcher made a big impact with its first season and the second season is right around the corner and finally la serie de The Last of Us de HBO. In addition, Netflix has planned productions of Cuphead y The Division.
And precisely because of everything we have told you in the previous paragraph, Walters considers that Hollywood’s current investment in high-budget projects has a more beneficial outlook for a possible Mass Effect adaptation.
“If you are going to tell a story with as much body as Mass Effect, a series is the way to do it“said Walters.”When we build a Mass Effect game, we have a backbone, or an overall story that we want to tell, but each level or mission is like its own television episode. It is not written in advance. It is written at the time we do it. So it adds to the main story and sometimes the main story is adjusted because we did something really good in that episode. So long-term storytelling is a great place for game franchises.“.
Although nothing is confirmed, Mass Effect fans shouldn’t throw in the towel just yet. As we have already commented: We live in a good time for video game adaptations to movies and series.
