Enslaved pitched as real-time Unreal Engine 3 movie, shot down by Hollywood
Ninja Theory has always had Hollywood ambitions. Its last game, Heavenly Sword, employed extensive use of motion capture, and had Lord of the Rings alum Andy Serkis as a pivotal contributor to the project. Before Enslaved was revealed, Ninja Theory's Nina Kristensen teased the possibility of a CG movie to accompany the game's release -- but what happened to Ninja Theory's envisioned film?
"We were serious about it. We went to all the big studios in Hollywood and pitched the idea," Tameem Antoniades told Destructoid. Unfortunately, Hollywood wasn't interested in Ninja Theory's vision: to create a feature-length film using real-time graphics powered by Unreal Engine 3 (used for the game). "They don't want to do it for cheap. They want Pixar and the other higher end [studios] to do it for 100 million dollars or 60 million dollars. To do it any other way is considered a huge risk, so it just didn't wash."
We can certainly understand the studios' hesitance towards the concept. While Enslaved certainly looks good, an Unreal-rendered movie probably wouldn't be pretty enough to appeal to the mass-market movie watcher used to Pixar. And with Enslaved having yet to prove itself as a valuable IP, it's no surprise that the film adaptation never came to fruition.
"We were serious about it. We went to all the big studios in Hollywood and pitched the idea," Tameem Antoniades told Destructoid. Unfortunately, Hollywood wasn't interested in Ninja Theory's vision: to create a feature-length film using real-time graphics powered by Unreal Engine 3 (used for the game). "They don't want to do it for cheap. They want Pixar and the other higher end [studios] to do it for 100 million dollars or 60 million dollars. To do it any other way is considered a huge risk, so it just didn't wash."
We can certainly understand the studios' hesitance towards the concept. While Enslaved certainly looks good, an Unreal-rendered movie probably wouldn't be pretty enough to appeal to the mass-market movie watcher used to Pixar. And with Enslaved having yet to prove itself as a valuable IP, it's no surprise that the film adaptation never came to fruition.
