'Gears Of War' Movie Won't Be Bogged Down By The Video Game, Will Be An "Alternate Reality"

Hollywood has been trying to make a movie based on the popular Gears of War video game franchise since 2007, shortly after the first game became a huge hit for the Xbox 360. The most recent attempt is in the hands of Universal, who is collaborating with Microsoft on the project. Last we heard anything about the project was the hiring of F. Scott Frazier, who wrote xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, to script the movie. But now some new details on what fans can expect from the Gears of War movie have surfaced thanks to The Coalition video game studio head Rod Fergusson.

Speaking with IGN, Rod Fergusson talked about how their approach to a Gears of War movie would be different from other video game adaptations:

"In order for the movie to be successful, it has to be a great movie first and a Gears movie second. Basically the way that we sort of reconciled that was, we said, 'Oh the movie should be an alternate reality. It should not be dependent on the game story, nor should it influence the game story.'"

That's not exactly a novel idea. Most video game movies aren't strictly adapting a specific storyline from a video game title. There are often many liberties taken with a property in order to bring it to the big screen. But what Fergusson is talking about is being less focused on bringing the rules and baggage from their video game universe into the movie's development. He further explained:

"I've heard of other franchises who come with this really large story Bible and this really sort of, here are all the rules now go and deal with 700 pages of how you live in our world. When we did it, we were two pages. I was like, 'Here's two pages of thou shall nots and recommendations.' We want people to have the freedom to have new ideas and to take things differently."

Now that's something which might actually help make development on a Gears of War movie go smoother. If the movie doesn't have to worry about the game's mythology or violating the sanctity of any details from the world of the video game, then they can just play with certain elements and make a movie that doesn't try to deliver a lot of fan service. It allows the movie to actually be creative in its approach to the material.

However, that doesn't mean everything you love about Gears of War will be thrown out the window. The movie will still be set on Sera, and more than likely the planet will have to worry about The Hollow, a honeycomb of tunnels and caverns permeating the planet's crust that was the home of the deadly Locust Horde, a race of reptilian humanoids, and the Lambent, infected variants of all the life found on Sera.

Plus, we'll probably see some of the characters from the Gears of War games popping up in the movie, though they may not be exactly as depicted in the game. Honestly, that sounds fine to me since it's the concept at the center of Gears of War that needs to be structured into a narrative that works outside of the video game structure. That's proven to be a challenge for every video game adaptation out there, so we'll just have to wait and see how Universal is going to handle it.