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FIRST LOOK

Fox Atomic Developing Adaptation of Blacklight Game - Updated!

by Alex Billington
March 19, 2009

It's rare we see deals made on video games that haven't even been announced, but it does actually happen occasionally in Hollywood. Fox Atomic has signed a deal with Zombie Studios for the rights to their forthcoming video game Blacklight. Fox will help develop the game as well as a comic book series and a feature film. Newcomer Jason Dean Hall will write both the video game and the big screen adaptation. "We are excited by the huge potential Blacklight has to succeed across multiple platforms," said Fox Atomic president Debbie Liebling. "It offers us a remarkable franchise opportunity for film." More info below.

Zombie Studios has put up a couple of concept art images from the game on their website. Blacklight is described as a covert military action story set 25 years in the future, but unfortunately that's all we know. The film, video game, and comics will feature the same characters and high caliber military action, but with unique, intersecting storylines that complement each other. Given the game is still being developed, I don't expect we'll hear much on this for a while. To be honest, I was sold on the concept art, as it looks pretty awesome (see above). Otherwise, I wouldn't have cared about this since it's so early in development.

Update: Zombie Studios has sent over the very first screenshot from the game. You can take a look at the screenshot below (click for full-size). It definitely looks like a very cool game and I can't wait to see more. We were told that this is the only screenshot from Blacklight that we'll see until Comic-Con. Enjoy!

Explore tags: First Look, Movie News, Opinions

Trystan

Cool? I mean without any actual info on the story all I can say is that the artwork looks pretty cool.
LINKFX

that's some pretty nice concept art. looks sexy, thanks alex!
LINKFX

Yeah I couldn't really find anything on their website for the art of backlight or anything. Maybe I'm just slow. haha. Anyways, all I can say is it looks like the typical flimsy property that was being developed just to try and sell it to bring in more money. I truthfully don't see a game, let alone a film being developed off a company that looks all it has is a simple 3d videogame classroom assignment to their names and a nice looking website. I'll wait to be impressed, otherwise, I have only cynical thoughts about this.
http://movies.iconocritic.com peloquin

Yay, a fresh idea! Too bad we don't know what it is yet...
Fisherr

Havent heard of the game...yet. Will do some search.
Squiggly

"Blacklight is described as a covert military action story set 25 years in the future, but unfortunately that's all we know." I know exactly what this game is. It's a Gears of War clone with a different name and not much else. It's 'near future' setting will allow them to make a bunch of crazy sci-fi guns and armor and shit, but still allow them to use reference for their architecture. Everything will be gray and brown. Everything will be more shiny than normal. The game will last two hours and consist of mostly aiming and shooting, the controls will suck ass (and no one will notice since all FPS / 3rd person shooter controls suck ass on consoles, considering the fact that graphics technology has been cranking away while controller technology has remained unchanged since the fucking NES). The 'script' for the game will consist mostly of people cursing and yelling retarded things at each other while the 'plot' will probably involve preventing some secret organization from setting off some kind of world destroying bomb or device or some such nonsense. The 'covert' missions will probably involve not being seen by the guards until you're close enough to shove your loud, bloody chainsaw up their ass or something equally retarded. Modern games in general suck. There are some interesting ones, but so far the 360 and PS3 are pretty much still in the "OMG, look at the number of polygons we totally put into this dudes face LOL!!! He can make facial expressions!!! Look, you can cut these dudes in half and then set this half on fire ROFL!! We can do advanced pixel shaders and make neat atmospheric effects and shit!!!!!!!1" There are a few exceptions. Generally you can tell how good a game is by how many colors the average screenshot has. Most of the games now are brown and gray. The brown represents how shitty they are and the gray represents how braindead you have to be to think you're having 'fun' while playing them. And 1) they're going to make a movie based on this idea and 2) (and most importantly) the movie is going to be written by the same guy who will be writing the game. I'm sorry, but that throws a HUGE red flag up for me. Games have gotten better about their scripts lately, but even the most well-scripted games are embarrassingly awful in film terms. And this is FOX we're talking about, so they've probably already contracted Uwe Boll to direct. This is FOX saying "shit, no one will let us make their movies into games anymore because all of our game-movies were garbage. I know! We'll make our OWN crap games to base crap movies off of!" /sorry for the rant
Silver

lol Squiggly is probably right though
midnightlight

Fuck this, I want a god damn halo game before this shit
Dan W

I agree with what 6 said for the most part. I think that not being able to totally customize your controller settings in most games sucks. And also I would love it if I could use a mouse and keyboard for 360. There have been some great games that have come out on 360. Games that on mine or anyone elses computer that didn't have the illest new graphics card wold either run extremely slow or the graphics would have to be set to low. I have gotten over the controller thing a long time ago, even though mouse and keyboard is the best way to play most games. Based on the screen shot the game will most likely just as #6 described it. Give it a great story and game mechanics and it could work though.
Squiggly

UPDATE!!! Uh oh, looks like I might have been wrong. There are a few blue-ish pixels in that screenshot! /sarcasm