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John Woo to Direct Spy Hunter Movie? 173

Posted by CowboyNeal from the oil-slicks-and-smokescreens dept.
shadowcabbit writes "Gameforms is reporting that director John Woo, who previously optioned Nintendo's Metroid series of games for the silver screen, is in negotiations with Universal to direct the 2005 film adaptation of Spy Hunter. The film, which will star Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock), has been in the planning stages since 2001, but has not yet begun production."
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John Woo to Direct Spy Hunter Movie? More

John Woo to Direct Spy Hunter Movie?

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  • bah, who cares (Score:5, Funny)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworldNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday May 22, 2004 @12:27PM (#9225134) Homepage
    What I want to see is a live-action movie based on Bump N' Jump. That would be great.

    • Re:bah, who cares (Score:5, Insightful)

      by w3weasel ( 656289 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @02:23PM (#9225678) Homepage
      Ummm, I can't see how they will derrive a plot from spyhunter... how could there plausibly be a state where 70% of the traffic is comprised of suicidal secret agents.

      I'm still waiting for Toe-Jam & Earl, the Movie!

      • Re:bah, who cares (Score:5, Funny)

        by DiscoOnTheSide ( 544139 ) <[ajfili] [at] [eden.rutgers.edu]> on Saturday May 22, 2004 @02:46PM (#9225784) Homepage
        Never been to Jersey eh? Don't worry, I won't hold it against you... :P
      • The Spy Hunter console video game has a movie-like plot.

        There is a multinational company that is actually run by a secret society. The company is named NOSTRA, from Nostradamus, and these guys take his prophecies way too seriously. There is this one prophecy about the Four Horsemen riding and a king rising to rule what's left of the Earth; they have a plan to launch four satellites into orbit and use EMP weapons to smash all the computers and such, hopefully plunging the world into a new Dark Ages, and t

  • The Music (Score:5, Funny)

    by nate nice ( 672391 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @12:28PM (#9225136) Journal
    I used to die on purpose just so I could hear the great music in that game. Sometimes I would wait for when I got a powerup, but usually I just liked driving real fast listining to the cool "spy" music that played for like 30 seconds. Needless to say I wasn't leader of the cool club back then either.
    • There, I have to agree with you. If they bring back the music, I'm seeing the movie. I don't care if it stars Paul Rubens and the special effects are done on a Apple IIe, I'm seeing it if it's got the soundtrack.

    • Re:The Music (Score:4, Informative)

      by CaptainCaveman_2002 ( 585652 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @01:13PM (#9225343) Homepage
      I read somewhere (can't remember where) that they had initially wanted to use the James Bond theme as the music for Spy Hunter.

      When that didn't happen, they used the theme from a spy TV show, "Peter Gunn."

      The music was written by Henry Mancini... so it was sure a step above what most video games had.

      • Re:The Music (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Mattintosh ( 758112 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @01:18PM (#9225365)
        Heh... IMHO, it's a step above the James Bond theme. Mancini made some kick-ass stuff. Pink Panther, A Shot in the Dark, the love theme from Romeo & Juliet (the 60's one), Baby Elephant Walk from Hatari... the list could go on like that for a while.
        • Don't forget probably his most memorable work - "Moon River."

          One time at band camp.... heh, really, we did a very nice medley of all of Mancini's best known songs. The solo in Panther was for the sax and made us trumpets jelous.

      • Re:The Music (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        One of the sound production buildings on the Universal lot is named after mancini

      • Re:The Music (Score:3, Interesting)

        by steveha ( 103154 )
        True. They couldn't afford the license fees for the James Bond theme, so they went with the Peter Gunn theme, and it really worked out.

        The Spy Hunter console game has several really cool musical themes, sort of based on the Peter Gunn theme, plus a grunge version played by a band called Saliva. I actually like the grunge version; Peter Gunn played slowly in a minor key with lots of guitar. As a bonus, there is a "music player" mode where you can play all the tunes without any explosions or other sound e
    • It's the Peter Gunn theme. You can probably find a version by the Blues Brothers fairly easily.
    • I'm amazed and a bit relived that I wasn't the only who thought the music was cool in that game. Like, really cool though.
    • I don't know for sure : The theme of Spyhunter, wasn't that from 'Peter Gunn' ? (that name comes to mind, but hence i only had 3 hours slept last night, it might as well be Roger Rabbit)
  • No misdirected woo, which is pretty much any John Woo film.

    • Re:No Woo (Score:2, Insightful)

      by neoform ( 551705 )
      I still can't figure out how he keeps getting work.. He's all explosion and nothing else.. his best movie was Face-Off and even that had the most implausible story.

      • Re:No Woo (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Golias ( 176380 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @01:20PM (#9225377)
        Blaspheme.

        His best movie was probably "The Killer", followed closely by "Hard Boiled."

        All of his Hong Kong movies pwn, All of his Hollywood movies are t3h suck.

      • The story was implausible, but I don't think that the surgery, or even the terror threat that made the surgery necessary, was what the movie was really about.
      • I still can't figure out how he keeps getting work.. He's all explosion and nothing else.. his best movie was Face-Off and even that had the most implausible story.

        You have obviously never seen one of his Hong Kong movies. He perfected the "buddy movie", in that his movies were not just Lethal Weapon-style action flicks with one comedian playing off a straight man - they were always emotional, usually with the "buddies" actually being villain/hero playing against each other. "The Killer" is the example

        • Re:No Woo (Score:3, Interesting)

          by IncohereD ( 513627 )
          A lot of Hollywood directors took inspiration from him, but nobody has managed to copy his formula.

          I actually thoroughly enjoyed The Corruptor, a Hollywood movie which definitely has elements of what you describe as "the Woo style" (not to mention Chow Yun-Fat). It's nothing earth shattering, but it's a damn solid action movie.

  • i wonder how different this will be ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BobWeiner ( 83404 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @12:30PM (#9225156) Homepage Journal
    ....compared to the James Bond franchise. The Spy Hunter game itself was influenced by Bond's gadget filled cars, so wouldn't this movie, in effect, be redundant?

  • Slow Motion (Score:5, Funny)

    by xluserpetex ( 666816 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @12:30PM (#9225157)
    I have a theory that John Woo shoots every movie at 60fps and just speeds up the ten minutes he doesn't want in slow motion.

  • Spyhunter (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Borg453b ( 746808 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @12:30PM (#9225158) Homepage Journal
    Now, I havent played the remakes - but I remember the arcadegame, the c64 port and especially the amiga port with fondness.

    Ramming motorcycles with your card, avoiding those annoying wheel cutters and tasting sidewinder missiles for bumping off innocents.

    What we need now though; as I discussed with my brother the other day, is a new carmageddonish game - preferably set in a madmax/falloutish world with excellent multiplay and a great singleplayer story rich mode.

    The shooter/car-carnage ratio is dangerously off scale.. gta is fun - but the softwarehouses keep churning out FPS'ers - We need weapons mounted on custom job-vehicles and fun bump'n run action..

  • If ya smellllllll... what The Rock.... is cooking (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Woo, that stinks.

  • Spy Hunter !?!? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You gotta be fucking kidding me. the game that was inspired by the cars in James Bond movies, is now inspiring a movie series?

    • You gotta be fucking kidding me.

      How can something like this surprise anyone who lived through the 'Street Fighter' video game inspiring a 'Street Fighter' movie which then inspired a 'Street Fighter: The Movie' video game?

      ~Philly
    • the game that was inspired by the cars in James Bond movies, is now inspiring a movie series?

      Of course, a movie-inspired video game will be produced....

    • I wonder if they'll use any Dodge Cruisers in the movie? The black ones always make me think of Spy Hunter and the Peter Gunn theme (ELP version).

      I wonder if that car was inspired by the game that was inspired by the cars in James Bond movies .. recursion overflow!

  • The End (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ThisIsFred ( 705426 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @12:43PM (#9225194) Journal
    While, looks like this is the end of the line for John Woo. This is about as low as one can stoop. Sorry if you disagree, but he has had a hand in producing some of the worst crap to ever be spattered on the silver screen. If you don't believe me, watch MI:2 and try not to wince. It the old rip-off-the-latex-mask-disguise device not once, but three times. Even the most lame Scooby Doo mystery managed to use this gag only once, and the audience wasn't asked to take Scooby Doo seriously.

    I look forward to the day when John Woo's next project is "Job Hunter".

    • Re:The End (Score:3, Interesting)

      by VanillaCoke420 ( 662576 )
      The face mask was important already back in the 60's series "Mission: Impossible". I liked both the M:I movies, and also Face/Off. It's not just mindless action, in my opinion.

      • Re:The End (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Borg453b ( 746808 )
        My grudge with the MI films was that they pissed on the original concept: Teamwork. The movie goes along with the standard: one action hero and ditches the one thing that made the series great: specialists cooperating
        • I do agree on that one. As a great action movie, the M:I-2 storyline could be under any other title. I wonder how the movie had turned out if they did it like the series, with the acting guy, the tech guy, etc. But as an action film it's still great.
        • the movie ditches the one thing that made the series great: specialists cooperating

          Good call... I had never quite fingered what was disappointing about the first MI movie, but I think that's it: the entire team is gruesomely killed off in the first couple of minutes.

          And oh yeah, the product placement of powerbooks was annoying...

          I never went to see the second movie.

    • Re:The End (Score:5, Insightful)

      by irving47 ( 73147 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @12:54PM (#9225244) Homepage
      In his defense, it was Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga that wrote MI:2. Woo just directed it. (yeah, THEM. The ones responsible for Star Trek Voyager.) (shudder)
    • Agreed. Adding to that, what exactly is this movie going to be about anyway, driving a tricked out supercar down a highway real fast, avoiding/blowing up bad guys, for 2 hours?
    • ... this is the end of the line for John Woo.

      Yes, but only because it's where he began (stylistically), and should've stayed, because he's quite good at it. Not everyone has to be Kubrick.

      [He used] the old rip-off-the-latex-mask-disguise device not once, but three times.

      Heck, he turned that device into an entire movie, FACE OFF. That the "latex" bled made it no less preposterous.

    • Re:The End (Score:3, Interesting)

      by halo8 ( 445515 )
      to adapt your point. ill state:
      John Woo should never be allowed to direct a full movie.. INSTEAD he should only be co-director.. get some one to direct the entire film, plot, acting, dialog, ect.. ect.. but get John Woo to direct the action scenes only.
      • Actually, a lot of directors do everything except action scenes in their movies. When you see the Assistant Director or Second Unit Director in the credits, chances are he did at least some of the action scenes, if not all. I'm sure John Woo could get that job easily :P
    • I had the misfortune of watching Paycheck last night. Ugh. I can at least say that Windtalkers is somewhat decent, esp since Cage dies (:
    • I think John Woo should go back to his old roots. Boiler Room was awesome. :)
      • Which boiler room was that? IMDB had only two matches for movies named boiler room: This one. [imdb.com]

        And this one. [imdb.com]

        Perhaps you mean one of his [imdb.com] other fine films.

        Anyways, Woo is a great director, and I'm not sure what you meant...go see The Killer... :D
    • but he has had a hand in producing some of the worst crap to ever be spattered on the silver screen.

      OK, but you must understand that Woo doesn't, and never intended to, make traditional Hollywood films. His films, and what his fans expect, are all about motifs:
      • Doves
      • Reflections (in water, sunglasses, windows, etc)
      • Double-gunning
      • Brief but frequent use of slow-motion in action scenes
      • Characters who assume one another's identities
      • Etc

      If you don't like that, you will of course think Woo films suck, but

  • I think I'm going to vomit! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do these Hollywood fucks have to poison every fond childhood memory of people who grew up in the 70s and 80s by making terrible movies based on anything that was popular back then?

    Then again, I really feel sorry for the generation that followed mine-- they're doomed to one day be treated to "Tetris: The Motion Picture"
    • You just had to go and open your mouth, didn't you?! Thanks.

    • Re:I think I'm going to vomit! (Score:5, Funny)

      by swankypimp ( 542486 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @04:48PM (#9226317) Homepage
      Announcer Guy: He's a superagent who plays by his own rules...
      Police Captain: You can't take on a 90 story building full of enemy spies by yourself!
      Vin Deisel: Sorry chief, I play by my own rules.
      [Turns, winks.]
      Announcer Guy: He's a wise-cracking Negro in the wrong place at the wrong time...
      [The Heroes run through a door way and stop cold. Slow motion pan of a roomful of guys with machine guns pointed at them.]
      Chris Rock: Daaaamn... I haven't seen this many weapons since the last time I was over at Jay Z's house.
      Announcer Guy: This summer, Vin Deisel and Chris Rock star in Elevator Action!
      Hot Chick: Going... down?
      [Things blow up, there is a Bad Ass slow motion kung-fu scene on top of an elevator, bad guys plummet to their deaths.]
      Vin Deisel: Now that's what I call getting the shaft.
      Chris Rock: Yeah, booooy!
      [This film is not yet rated.]
  • what the rock is cookin'. that's all that matters. the most electrifying man in sports-entertainment. hell, i'm going to see this one.

  • Henry Mancini (Score:2, Funny)

    by isny ( 681711 )
    Cue the Peter Gunn Theme Song!!
  • Honestly, the game was a 2-d top scroller that had no more plot than dodge, dodge, fire. He must be planning an exploding boathouse scene though, I'm sure of that: Spyhunters car speeds towards the boathouse. Helecopter hovers overhead raining down a birrage of bombs. The car zooms into the boathouse, Spyhunter leaps from car to boat. Bombs crash through the roof, and the boat is blown out into the river by the fire and shockwave. Cheers to turning one of the most simple videogames into a 100million doll
    • Honestly, the game was a 2-d top scroller that had no more plot than dodge, dodge, fire. He must be planning an exploding boathouse scene though, I'm sure of that: Spyhunters car speeds towards the boathouse. Helecopter hovers overhead raining down a birrage of bombs. The car zooms into the boathouse, Spyhunter leaps from car to boat. Bombs crash through the roof, and the boat is blown out into the river by the fire and shockwave. Cheers to turning one of the most simple videogames into a 100million dollar
  • Ok, what is the rock doing in the spy hunter movie. He is a good actor for some films but any kind of spy flick is not for him. Vin Diesel would be better, he is by no stretch a good actor, but he would be much better than the rock...

    The best actors would be either Pierce Brosnan, or Hugh Jackman. Get the bad actor out of their and lets get in an actor with style

  • Why a Spy Hunter movie (Score:5, Informative)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @01:40PM (#9225462) Homepage
    Basically, the reason why Hollywood is looking at a Spy Hunter movie is because the 3D, modern Spy Hunter game is so much fun.

    The original Spy Hunter was a favorite of mine, but would hardly inspire a movie. It was a top-down (third-person perspective) sprite-based scrolling shooter game, designed to be hard enough that it would pull in a respectable amount of coins in an arcade.

    The 3D Spy Hunter game, available for the major game console systems, plays differently and I think it is huge fun. It's a "second-person" shooter: like a first-person game, but you can see yourself (i.e., the car) to make it easier to figure out if you are clearing obstacles. Once you learn the game, you usually don't die; you are racing the clock and trying to find secrets in the various levels more than trying to survive. You have lots of weapons, an unrealistic amount of them, and it's surprising how I never seem to get tired of locking missiles onto bad guys and lighting them up. The music is also excellent in this game, enough so that I want to get Ogg Vorbis files of the music so I can listen to it when I'm not playing the game.

    The most recent Spy Hunter game, Spy Hunter 2, is different again. Your car is much more fragile now, and survival is a major problem. Your turbo boost doesn't recharge, you have to find and collect powerups to recharge it. And "boss" enemies are now a major part of the game. While I found the first one to be addictively playable, the second one frustrates me, and frustration isn't fun. Oh, and just in case you are a 12-year-old boy, there is now a female character with lots of polygons on her chest, moving in stiff, unrealistic ways as she walks and talks. Woo hoo! Who needs game play! And the music isn't nearly as interesting as in the first one.

    If you haven't tried the Spy Hunter console game, I recommend you do so. It's a fun hybrid of a first-person shooter and a car racing game, retaining the best elements of each.

    I'd be extremely happy if they ever release a "Spy Hunter 1.5" with the original game engine, just with new levels to play.

    http://www.spyhunter.midway.com/futuretense_cs/fla sh/spyhunter/ [midway.com]

    steveha
  • Ditch "The Rock" and cast Chow-Yun Fat as the spy hunter stricken with grief over a singer he accidently blinded while hunting a spy. The spy could be played by Danny Lee .... actually they should just restore "The Killer" and put it in all the theaters - it would probably cost 1/100 of what this visual abomination will.

  • But why The Rock? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @01:46PM (#9225497) Homepage
    I never pictured the driver of the Spy Hunter car as a big, hulking guy with muscles. Why not somebody like Clive Owen? (Did BMW build the G-6155 Interceptor?)

    Yeah, I know, because The Rock helps sell tickets when he is in an action movie. With The Rock on board the project, you don't need to worry about making an actual movie; you can string together a bunch of explosions and add The Rock and it will sell.

    I love the Spy Hunter video game but I don't know if the movie will be any good. Odds are against it, alas.

    steveha

  • Groundhog Day II (Score:4, Funny)

    by Thranduil ( 23392 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @01:47PM (#9225504)
    I hope they don't make it like I played Spy Hunter:

    1. Tractor-trailer drops off car
    2. Drive for a couple minutes, shoot/run cars off of the road
    3. Crash and burn
    4. Wait for tractor-trailer to drop off another car
    5. Repeat 2-4 until the movie's over.

    It'll be a plotless version of Groundhog Day [imdb.com].

  • The Big Question... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cereal Box ( 4286 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @01:53PM (#9225540)
    How will John Woo work a shot of flying doves into this movie?

  • Didnt they do this already? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TexNex ( 513254 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @02:06PM (#9225598) Homepage
    I seems to remember a movie called the Transporter that was pretty much all that spy hunter could & should be. It had bikes, boats, cars, and guns & gadgets...what else do you need to represent a video game which comprised of a vehicle knocking other vehicles off the screen using brute force & gimmic gadgets. We don't need a rehash of a pointless game that was about nothing more than destroying stuff. Good lord the next thing you know they'll do a movie about a martial arts tournament that decides the fate of the world...oh wait...that was mortal combat!
  • ...Knight Rider. You've got the super decked-out car, the van he comes out of... I mean, it's a perfect match, at least to start out with. As for young David Hasselhoff, I don't know that he was your typical "Action Movie Star", but he did a good job at being Michael Knight.

    So yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing a Spy Hunter movie, but I'd love to see a Knight Rider movie. Especially for the soundtrack.
  • Has every original idea already been thought of? We've moved from bad sitcoms, to bad animation, to bad videogames as cinematic plot devices? What's next? My Three Sons - The Movie? Burgertime?

    At least there may be some creativity (or at least some intellect involved in playing the Hollywood game). There's a rumor of Free Enterprise 2 [iesb.net] in development for Summer of 2005. Though I have a fear a sequel of this classic would destroy it.

  • Script Leaked! (Score:3, Funny)

    by BadMrMojo ( 767184 ) on Saturday May 22, 2004 @03:38PM (#9226002)

    Act 1
    Scene 1

    (The Rock steps into his car within the trailer of a semi. The rear door drops down and drags behind the truck in a spray of sparks. The car goes flying backwards - optionally spinning around in theoretically impossible fashion - and then takes off.)

    Scene 2

    (The Rock drives the car down a road. Don't ask what road. The background is mostly green. He shoots some bad guys with spikes on their hubcaps and curses whenever he bumps into a motorcycle.)

    Scene 3

    (Same as Scene 2... only the background is more orange-brown-ish.)

    Scene 4

    (Same as Scene 3... only the background is more grey-ish.)

    etc...

    • It's not *quite* as silly as it sounds. There's a Spy Hunter 2 [gamershell.com] release that came out not long ago. It wasn't very much fun.

      What makes Hollywood think that a good game means a good movie is beyond me -- perhaps marketing is *so* expensive that it's worth it to double up on effort. I can't figure out why Woo is so obsessed with doing a video game movie. Aside from Resident Evil (which wasn't a *great* movie by any measure), all of the video game movies I can think of have pretty much sucked.
  • That's nice. See, I was worried that some game that I have fond memories of might be too obscure and too un-film-like to be made into a really pathetically lame movie with a retarded wrestler blundering around in it. But it seems I was worried about nothing -- cause there's _nothing_ they can't stick a wrestler and a few minutes of tragically dull pseudo-Hong Kong brawling onto these days!

    What a relief.

    Thanks, Hollywood.

  • Yup... you guessed it... They will be directing the hit block buster action adventure thriller version of Q-bert based on the classic 80's arcade game!

    Fucking Sweet!

    Word is, Ben Affleck will play Coily!

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