Movies
‘Dante’s Inferno’ Game ALSO Being Adapted to Anime
Didja enjoy a little of that animated Dead Space: Downfall feature from Anchor Bay and Starz? If so, they have more video game adaptations up their sleeve as Electronic Arts and Starz Media are readying their second animated feature, Dante’s Inferno, based on the videogame bowing next year. This is not to be confused with Universal Pictures’ feature film adaptation also in the works — but if you’ve been following the progress, this release is the first time the actual pot has been revealed. Enter the circles of hell below!
Film Roman, a subsid of Starz, will produce “Dante’s Inferno”, as it did with “Dead Space: Downfall,” which was distribbed by Starz in the fall and was tied to the release of EA’s high-profile sci-fi horror vidgame “Dead Space.”
Toon is the latest example of EA looking to create spinoffs of its future games as other forms of entertainment, including movies and TV properties.
“Inferno” will mirror the game’s plot and follow Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hell — limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery — in search of his true love, Beatrice.
Both are based on part one of Dante’s classic poem “The Divine Comedy,” better known as “Dante’s Inferno.”
Separate anime studios are being commissioned to create the nine circles of Hell.
Film Roman’s Joe Goyette (“Dead Space: Downfall”) is the producer on the project, which Victor Cook (“The Spectacular Spider-Man,” “Hellboy Animated: Blood & Iron”) is directing and Brandon Auman (“Iron Man: Armored Adventures”) is writing.
Game bows on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 next year. It’s being developed at EA Redwood Shores.
“The animated feature will be a great companion piece to the game,” said Jonathan Knight, executive producer and creative director for “Dante’s Inferno.” “The feature will explore aspects of the poem that the game does not, and will provide more insight into the characters and the unique story adaptation that the game has established.”
Starz Media is pushing the “Dante’s Inferno” toon and “Dead Space: Downfall” at the MIP-TV market this week in Cannes.
Anchor Bay Entertainment will distrib on homevid. Starz Media’s Worldwide Distribution group will handle international television and domestic syndication sales, while Starz Digital Media is overseeing digital distribution.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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