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Prince Of Persia Film Director Dislikes Games
Here we go again. Another Hollywood type doesn’t think that video games can, or ever will be able to elicit true human emotion in the way film does. Instead of Roger Ebert this time, however, we have someone who’s actually involved in video games to some extent. Mike Newell, director of the Harry Potter movies and this summer’s Prince of Persia film adaptation says video games “bore the ass” off of him.
Speaking with CVG, the director asserts that most video game movies end up being rubbish because film makers try too hard to cater to the wants of gamers. With Prince of Persia he tried to remove the film as far from the game source material as he could and make a compelling drama around it.
“God *** the gamers!," exclaimed Newell. “Get them out of my head! The Prince Of Persia movie is a great big, general entertainment with a romance, a boy and a girl, comedy, action and a very good melodramatic story. It should be enormous, free reign entertainment. That's what a Bruckheimer movie is, and that's what this tries to do.”
He also admits that he has no real skill at video games, so his personal experience with them has been limited.
“I'm entirely incompetent at playing video games,” admits Newell. “In the Prince Of Persia game, you have to run across walls - I could never get more than three feet without falling into the revolving knives. I was hopeless.”
It’s rather interesting to have a director making a film based off a video game he admits not having much love for. Would we want someone handling a World of Warcraft or Halo movie who had this position?
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