Ubisoft’s feature film adaptation of upcoming open-world game, Watch Dogs continues to rapidly gain momentum.
Following a poll asking gamers who they wanted to see in the lead role of super-hacker, Aiden Pearce (Tom Cruise won), it appears that the movie has now officially selected its writers; Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the duo behind 2009’s beloved post-apocalyptic comedy, Zombieland. Reese and Wernick were also tapped to write the feature film adaptation of Marvel anti-hero, Deadpool for Fox, though that movie continues to linger in development hell.
These two seem like a slightly eccentric choice, given that Watch Dogs appears to be a very dramatic story, and Reese and Wernick primarily specialize in off-the-wall comedy. The closest thing they’ve penned to a serious-minded action blockbuster is last year’s ill-received franchise sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
Mind you, Reese and Wernick are likely simply turning in a draft. The script will likely be polished by other writers afterward, depending on how it turns out. Of course, given that the game is not even out yet, one has to wonder exactly how Reese and Wernick are going to be adapting the source game to start, beyond it involving at least a month’s procrastination.
Watch Dogs, the movie is being distributed by Sony Pictures under their Columbia Pictures subsidiary, along with New Regency, and will be handled directly by the game’s publisher, Ubisoft, thanks to their newly established Ubisoft Motion Pictures arm. Fox will handle international distribution of the movie outside of North America, though beforehand, Fox and New Regency will be pairing for another game-to-film adaptation for Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed, which will hit the big screen late in August next year. Sony Pictures is also working with Ubisoft on a movie adaptation of their Raving Rabbids franchise.
Watch Dogs, the game, meanwhile, will arrive after a lengthy delay out of a planned November 2013 launch window, on May 27th. It will initially launch for PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with the PlayStation builds promising at least an hour of exclusive bonus content. A Wii U version of the game is also in development, though it was indefinitely delayed to some time else in 2014. At this point, rumours peg the Wii U version of Watch Dogs as a Fall release.
Eggplante’s continuing to track your news on Watch Dogs, the game, and the movie, as we can pinpoint it.