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Legendary Hires New Screenwriter for 'Mass Effect' Movie Adaptation

by Ethan Anderton
October 24, 2012
Source: Variety

Over two years ago, Legendary Entertainment secured the rights to bring the popular Mass Effect video game franchise to the big screen. They had a small showing at Comic-Con once, but there weren't any major revelations. Initially, Thor screenwriter Mark Protosevich was hired to write the first draft of the script, but now a new writer is being brought in to take a crack at it. Variety says Newcomer Morgan Davis Foehl will adapt the video game series, making this his most high profile project to date, despite being hired and acclaimed for writing several different scripts in the past, including one that made the Black List in 2009.

Whatever Gets You Through the Night was the first script that got Foehl noticed when it made the yearly list of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, and then he also scripted an adaptation of the Top Cow comic Crosshair which is being developed by Mandeville for Summit Entertainment. In addition, his script Alien Sleeper Cell went into development in January of 2011. But Mass Effect will certainly boost his career if he turns in a good script.

Developed by BioWare and initially released in late 2007 for the Xbox 360, Mass Effect is a futuristic sci-fi game that takes place in 2183 and follows Commander Shepard, a veteran soldier and the commander of the spaceship Normandy, as he leads a team on a mission to defeat an ancient alien race that invades the galaxy every 50,000 years, wiping out all organic life. It's blockbuster material for sure, but we all know how video game adaptation work on film. Hopefully some solid development comes after Foehl turns in his new script.

Filed under Development, Movie News

From around the web:

Cody W

"No." Im a gamer, and I approved this message.
Pretendfanboy

F**k this shit.Why make a movie about commander Shepard?There's tons of potential in the world they created and just rehashing the story that everybody who is going to be interested in this experienced first hand whilst playing as their own version of Shepard won't do.I doubt they can top that.Besides,the ending sucked.I higly doubt the movie won't suck completelly.
Richie G

ugh, I finished me3 in the same week I went to see prometheus. Sympathy please. I suppose they could do this as long as they don't follow the story in the game, which turned out to be complete fail. I'd like to see the mischief Jack eluded to getting up to before the games and some other stuff, but I'd be quite happy without it to be honest
http://www.facebook.com/jake.luttrell.3 Jake Luttrell

My favorite video games, I finally understand the feeling that hundreds of fan boys get when people announce adaptations like this but I'm really having positive and negative emotions going on inside me. The game is just absolutely magnificent and very cinematic so I just hope they do my favorite game justice, I really really do. :/
Nielsen700

I'm a huge fan of the franchise, but I'm open to a movie. It will be difficult to do it justice though.
Jordan

Crap. Please don' ruin the series. I love Mass Effect with all my heart. The ending to ME3 was pure fail. I don't need another let down.
Payne by name

Would only work if they tried to reflect the wonder and heart of the 1st game as opposed to the mass market vanilla genericness that EA forced it to adopt for 2 and 3. If they go down that route, they might as well get Paul WS Anderson to direct it and have Milla Jovovich to star in it.
- Richie G
  
  played me2 five times, played me3 once but never again
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1593169740 Chris Amaya
    
    I did too. I loved and still love 2. I finished 3 once when it came out and have just recently picked it up for a second play through.
Kira Mae

No matter what they do, this will never work. The choice-based style of gameplay allowed each player to adopt Shepard as their own the way no video game protagonist could be before, and create their own unique experience. How can you possibly translate that to the big screen? Fans will howl with every decision Shepard makes, that that's not how "their" Shepard would have done it... they'd be best off abandoning the Shepard storyline altogether and focus on someone else within the Mass Effect world.
nightgoat72

They should approach each individual game as an LOTR-like trilogy. So, the whole thing would be a trilogy of trilogies. It could be awesome.
Lagoya

One of the most overrated games of all time. The film will just be a crap star wars/trek and will end up on the SyFy channel a couple of months after release.
OGbobby

Fuck this shit, we dont need a Mass Effect movie, we need a Halo movie.
- wexer
  
  We need neither.what we need is a faithfull and accurate adaptation of Heinleins novel Starship Troppers since both games are heavily drawing from that source.Verhoevens starship Troopers is fun but it takes some liberties with the material and leaves out a lot of fun stuff.I want ot see Troopers drop from space onto a planet surface with their drop suits and I want to see them kick ass with their powered suits.Most of all I want a faithfull adaptation of the novel.