Studio:
DreamWorks SKG.
Production Company:
Unknown.
Project Phase: Development Hell.
Who's In It:
No one confirmed as yet.
Who's Making It:
Jesse Dylan (Director); Mark Verheiden (Screenwriter); Jesse Dylan, Jeff Rosen (Producers); Based
on the arcade game The House of the Dead by Sega.
Premise: Uncertain, see Scoop Feedback for details.
Release Date: Unknown.
Comments: Not to be confused with the 1932 Russian film Myortvyj dom (which means "House of the Dead" when translated) or the 1975 film House of the Dead, a.k.a. Alien Zone.
Rumors: Unknown.
Scoop Feedback:
[Page draft submitted by Widgett, a resident of "The Duplex of the Dead."]
January 7, 1999... The bill for this winding up at DreamWorks? Mid-six figures, reportedly, and once the film is made, it goes to seven. This is after Dylan reportedly got the film rights first out of his own wallet. It's expected he will either work on this film or Neverwhere, whichever project seems to be ready for him first.
There's some confusion as to what the film's premise will be. The video game itself is a two-person shooter, and concerns two agents, Rogan and "G", sent to a genetics center to investigate some missing persons and a missing rescue team. They, of course, encounter scads of zombies and other undesirable preternatural types, and fight their way through it all with handguns, despite the rule that you never take on zombies with anything less than a pump shotgun.
Now--Cinescape reports that the plot will concern a group of partying zombies in a house all to themselves. After a young woman's friend is killed at one of the parties, she decides to go in with some "necro-warriors" and, um, crash the festivities. The young woman's name is Jenny, whereas the only female character of note in the actual video game is named Sophie, a scientist. Then Cinescape states that Verheiden will use the video game's storyline as a "blueprint" for the screenplay. Other sources, such as the Ultimate Gaming Resource simply state that they're going to veer away from the video game's premise completely.
Qwa? What gives? Zombie shoot-em-up or zombie fraternity flick? Can anyone elucidate?
[Originally appeared in Cinescape Online, Ultimate Gaming Resource, Next-Generation Online; reported by the very confused Widgett, who at least keeps a shotgun on hand...just in case.]