Electronic Arts Goes Hollywood

For some time now, we've been seeing movies and games become close friends, with less than stellar productions being adapted from popular game series and with most big film releases being accompanied by usually mediocre games. Now, Electronic Arts, one of the biggest videogame publishers, is aiming to change that relationship by partnering up with UTA, a leader in the industry's talent and literary agencies in Hollywood. The aim of the agreement is to turn some of the most important pieces of intellectual property that EA has into successful large budget motion pictures and important television series.

The Electronic Arts press release does not go into specifics regarding the films that would be made, only mentioning names like Army of Two, Need for Speed, Dead Space and Mirror's Edge. So, Army of Two is considered worthy of being turned into a movie?

Electronic Arts is already involved with 20th Century Fox in an effort to bring The Sims to the big screen. Work on the script is almost completed, with the two partners being set to announce the date when filming will begin. Film Roman is also developing an animated series for television that is based on MySims.

Patrick O'Brien, vice president of EA Entertainment, stated that "UTA is an ideal partner for us to bring the richness and storytelling nuance of our popular games into other forms of media that give consumers more ways to experience these creative concepts," while Richard Klubeck, who is a partner at UTA, expressed his belief that the videogames company was an "emerging entertainment force."

It's unlikely we will see many projects based on videogames from Electronic Arts go into production quickly. It usually takes 2 to 3 years for a movie project to get off the ground, and videogame based movies are not exactly hot property right now, mainly because they do not bring in big revenues and also because of the success of comic book based movies.

The question still lingers: is anyone interested in an Army of Two movie?