In a recent interview to promote the upcoming Oldboy remake, screenwriter Mark Protosevich, whose credits include screenplays for I Am Legend, Poseidon, The Cell and a story credit for Thor, discussed the difficulty in writing and making the Mass Effect film adaptation.
According to IGN there has been buzz surrounding the idea of a film version of the massively successful game trilogy ever since the first installment came out in 2007. Finally, after three years of speculation, Legendary Pictures appointed Protosevich to bring the film science fiction film series to the big screen. However, the project is going to take a lot to come together. After all, when he came onboard the concept was a straight adaptation of the first game rather than just a story set in the same universe.
"It was the first game adaptation I did and it will probably be the only one," he says. "They're hard. I will freely admit it was hard. Because - especially with Mass Effect - there's just so much material. Narratively, with the game, you're talking about nine, ten hours of narrative you're jamming into two hours."
He freely admits that he wasn't ready for the task of cramming all of that story into such a short period of time. Mercifully the studio brought in a reliever after Protosevich drained through a few drafts of the script. As a result, he says he probably won't consider doing yet another video game adaptation in the future. He has learned first hand what many directors and film makes her learned in the past which is that it's very difficult to adapt a dense videogame, designed to give people something to do for hours upon hours into a tight two hour film.
Tell us what you think, can you see a game like "Mass Effect" being condensed into a film? If so would you still prefer to keep it in its own medium? Comment and share your thoughts with us below.
