watchmen posts

He's a screenwriter who has tons of credits in genre films including X-Men and this month's Watchmen movie. He's also the American voice for Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid games. He's David Hayter and now he's helping to launch a new entertainment company that will have games as part of its portfolio.

Variety reports that Hayter has teamed up with former Crystal Sky Productions exec Benedict Carver to create Dark Hero Studios. The story states that the new company "will generate film, TV, Internet and vidgame projects in the action, sci-fi and horror genres." Hayter is keeping very busy these days as he has written and will direct a werewolf-themed movie called Slaughter's Road that will begin production this summer.

While Warner Bros. Interactive plans to release a modern day downloadable brawler game to promote the upcoming Watchmen movie, the film's marketing machine have already created a fun browser based game that has the look and feel of a Double Dragon-themed arcade game.

The Minutemenarcade.com web site is the place to go to play the game which allows you to play as one of the Minutemen, the super hero team that in both the original graphic novel and film were in place during WWII. You can play as either the first version of Nite Owl and Silk Spectre as you guide them to beat up some thugs. It's simple but fun for at least a few minutes and its free. You will have to pay to get the real downloadable game Watchmen: The End is Nigh when it is released around the time the movie comes out in early March.

We are now just a month away from the time fanboys should start going crazy over the film adaptation of Watchmen. Will the movie be even a fraction as good as the original Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons mini-series? We have no idea and we have even less of an idea of how the upcoming downloadable game, Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, will turn out.

New screenshots of the upcoming action-brawler, set before the film's main timeline, have been released by Warner Bros. Interactive. You will be able to take out street thugs as either Nite Owl or Rorschach or you can go for some two player split-screen action. Deadline Games is handling the development duties and the game should be released around the time the film hits theaters.

This trailer for Watchmen: The End is Nigh shows some gameplay and combat moves will be able to pull off. The game, based on the upcoming movie that's based on the comic book by Alan Moore, is scheduled to release March of 2009

Download HD Watchmen: The End is Nigh Trailer (58 MB)

If you have been waiting on the edge of your seat to find out who will be hosting this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards...well, you need to get out more. However, we can tell you that actor-funny musician-panda voice guy Jack Black will be taking on the hosting duties for this year's event which the cable TV network will broadcast live on Dec. 14.

Black's appearance as host is almost certainly timed to work with some world premiere game footage of the long delayed Double Fine title Brutal Legend (Black is one of the voices in the game). Other games that will have new footage shown at the event include the game adaptations of the movies Terminator Salvation and Watchmen. New footage will also be shown of Mafia II, the Illusion Softworks open world crime action game that we haven't seen in a long time in any form. More surprise announcements are supposedly in the works. As we have previously reported, Sims and Spore creator Will Wright will receive the first ever "Gamer God" award from Spike TV at the event.

Last week Electronic Arts announced that 300 and Watchmen movie director Zack Snyder would help EA develop three unnamed games at their Los Angeles dev studios. Now Snyder himself is talking about the deal in a brief Q&A over at the SpoutBlog site. Snyder, who says he's a gamer himself, stated he already has some ideas on his game projects, saying, "I really want to kind of blow it out to where I can do a video game, and start to develop a movie along the same lines. That way we don't have like a short-lead game, but like a real game that has a real movie with it. One that really goes all the way."

Snyder's upcoming Watchmen movie is being developed into a downloadable title and he admitted that he wasn't happy at first with its progress but now says, "We have a game now that I think is awesome." Snyder doesn't have as much input over the Watchmen game, saying, "We've definitely had a lot of contact with them and I've given a lot of notes."

Electronic Arts continues to try to reach out to Hollywood filmmakers to get more game ideas. A couple of years ago they signed Steven Spielberg to a three-game deal (only one of those games has been released so far, the critically acclaimed Wii puzzle game Boom Blox). Variety now reports that EA has signed hot movie director Zack Snyder to a similar three game contract.

Like the EA-Spielberg pact, the new EA-Snyder deal will be based at the publisher's Los Angeles offices. While no info on the games themselves has been revealed, Snyder has the option of making any of the games he helps develop with EA into movies. Snyder gained fame for his 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead and had a major box office success in 2007 with his adaptation of the Frank Miller comic book 300. His next flick is the highly anticipated adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' classic graphic novel Watchmen. Warner Bros. Interactive plans to release a game version of the movie in two downloadable episodes.

Earlier this week we reported on plans to release a downloadable episodic game based on the upcoming super hero movie Watchmen (itself based on the classic comic book by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons). Now 1Up.com has posted up the first real preview of the title which they exclusively got to see behind closed doors at last week's E3.

Developed by Deadline Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive, the Watchmen game will actually serve as a prequel to the movie's events and features Nite Owl and Rorschach as playable characters in a city setting that takes place completely at night. According to the preview the game sounds like it will be an action-brawler as the two characters will fight criminals in their own distinct combat styles. As the movie will be rated "R" look for the Watchmen game to be rated "M" as things will certainly get bloody. The game will be scripted by long time comic book writer Len Wein (who also served as the editor for the original Watchmen comic) and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons will be an advisor on the game.

The trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Alan Moore and David Gibbons' classic Watchmen comic ran alongside The Dark Knight's released last week and went a long way into convincing people that such a movie might actually turn out to be good. Now Variety has confirmed that Warner Bros. Interactive will be releasing a game version of the movie. However you won't see the game in stores, at least not right away. According to the story, the game will be released for the PCs and other platforms as a downloadable episodic title.

It's hoped that releasing the game in this format will improve the quality of the game as a whole (usually game movies have short development cycles and get poor reviews as a result). At least two episodes are planned; the first will be released in March 2008 alongside the film while the second will be released in fall 2009 alongside the movie's DVD release. The title is being developed by Deadline Games (best known for their 2005 action title Total Overdose) and will feature the character Nite Owl and Rorschach.