Movie Chronicles » Gears of War Movie

Len Wiseman to Direct June 16th, 2008

Vari­ety are report­ing that Len Wise­man (Under­world) shall be tak­ing the helm on the Gears of War movie. We reported this rumor in August last year. Chris Mor­gan (Fast and the Furi­ous: Tokyo Drift) is also writ­ing a new draft based on Stu­art Beattie’s treatment:

Len Wise­man is suit­ing up to direct New Line’s “Gears of War,” based on Microsoft and Epic Games’ hit vidgame.

Chris Mor­gan is pen­ning a new draft of the actioner that Stu­art Beat­tie orig­i­nally tack­led. Scribe’s cred­its include Universal’s upcom­ing “Wanted” and “The Fast and the Furi­ous: Tokyo Drift.”

Fan­boys have been spec­u­lat­ing for nearly a year that Wise­man may helm the project; the game was fea­tured in his most recent pic, “Live Free or Die Hard.” But talks with New Line took place only over the last sev­eral months.

Wise­man will develop the story with Morgan.

I think the gen­eral con­sen­sus, from when Wise­man was pre­vi­ously rumored, was that he is a bad choice of direc­tor. Bring­ing in Chris Mor­gan, some­one that has worked on Fast and the Furi­ous 3 and lit­tle that is crit­i­cally acclaimed, sug­gests that the cre­ative minds behind this are want­ing to cre­ate an action-filled no brainer, with the major­ity of thought going into cool-looking CG action sequences rather than sto­ry­line and plot arcs. This news could poten­tially spell out doom (no pun intended) for the movie, con­demn­ing it to the world of low brow over the top action flicks. Gears surely deserves better.

Comments 6 Responses to “Len Wiseman to Direct”

Sam June 17th, 2008

yeah, not be a com­plete dick or any­thing, but GOW doesn’t exactly have much of a plot to begin with.


Zexis August 15th, 2008

Sam, I must dis­agree. Gears has a deep and con­sum­ing storyline…if only you look closely. Gears is about what hap­pens when the planet destroys itself, due to mankind’s folly. It’s about how peo­ple can band together, despite their dif­fer­ences, and fight for a com­mon cause. It’s about destroyed beauty, and an effort to save what is left…or be destroyed. Not to men­tion the many bonds of friend­ship and sto­ries of those still will­ing to fight back…

Should these things be over­looked by Hol­ly­wood, it will be a dark time for GoW fans indeed.


Chris November 19th, 2008

I agree with Zexis. The story is much more com­plex than most peo­ple will give it credit for. Mostly because all they see is the vio­lence. (which I love just as much as the next gear head.) But I was NOT a fan of either of the pre­vi­ously men­tioned movies in which this direc­tor has a claim to fame with. I truly hope the pow­ers that be come to their senses and give the game and fans a movie wor­thy of its title.


frank January 5th, 2009

it all comes down to $$$. the sec­ond hol­ly­wood gets wind of how well some­thing does, they want to get their meathooks into it to make a huge profit because they know it will be huge bolt to the the­aters out of the gate..and some­times you can tell just from whoe they hire as a director..most direc­tors who are very picky will not do such a film…others are up to the challenge..you can also tell from how quick the release date is anouced and from find­ing out how long the movie is…anything with a cap of 90 min. has money maker writ­tin all over it and is usu­ally doomed…this is from some­one who works in the industry..i try to remain optomistic especailly how some of comic movies and video game movies are “just now” start­ing to get a lit­tle better..and i stress a lit­tle better…gow has a great storyline..i do have a prediction…since dark knight and iron man, direc­tors and writ­ers are choos­ing to ground sto­ries to be more relis­ti­cally possible…i would not doubt that they will write that the horde were once human and went under­ground. i per­son­ally would love to see how in the world they are going to pull off the vio­lence in this one..especially with the lancer chain­saw and the one shot kills to the head with the sniper rifle…then, who are the actors…i would love to see micky rourke as phoenix…since sin city and the wrestler that just came out…i think he would be a good shot


JD May 17th, 2009

I have to agree with you guys. take Dom and his wife when she dies, it hurts Dom AND the player. Or When Tai kills him­self. also I think that that sur­vival of mankind is a good plot for a movie as well as the fact that there are still some unawnsered qwes­t­ions from the games


adfadf July 24th, 2009

what they should for the gears series is keep mak­ing gears of war 3 or 4 and then make gears of war aspho fields the game. now for the movie they should have wise­men direct other than the other guy. but they are gonna need a big bugget for this movie