Remember when everyone creamed over the announcement trailer for the video game “Dead Island,” and then the game sucked? Yeah, me too.
But they’re still moving forward with a feature film, says Deadline, as it’s getting reanimated for the screen by Occupant Entertainment and publisher Deep Silver. The companies have pacted to package, produce, and finance a new film based on the bestselling vidgame played from the perspective of survivors fending off the undead on an island paradise.
Dead Island sold over 8 million units worldwide after its initial release, drawing huge viral buzz from a memorable teaser trailer depicting one family’s dream vacation gone horribly wrong, Memento-style. That video notched a whopping 1 million YouTube views in a day, won the Golden Lion in Cannes at the International Festival of Creativity, and caught Hollywood’s attention. (It even inspired its own live-action recreation.) Lionsgate bought the rights in 2011 but the project stalled when production head Alli Shearmur left the studio the following year in the Summit exec shake-up. When rights reverted back to the publisher, the company sealed a new deal with LA-based Occupant Entertainment, the indie production and financing shingle that launched with 2006 genre slasher All The Boys Love Mandy Lane – one of the original bidders on the property.
Occupant, meanwhile, is currently in production on horror thriller The Woods from director Corin Hardy, and is in post on the Sophie Barthes-helmed Madame Bovary starring Mia Wasikowska, Paul Giamatti, Rhys Ifans and Ezra Miller.