Altered Beast & Streets of Rage Getting TV/Film Adapations

Yeah, you heard right:

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Stories International has partnered with Circle of Confusion to produce adaptations of Sega’s video games “Altered Beast” and “Streets of Rage” for film and television.
Tomoya Suzuki, president and CEO of Stories International, will produce with Circle of Confusion partner Lawrence Mattis and Julian Rosenberg. Evan J. Cholfin, head of development and production, will executive produce the projects for Stories International — the production arm and joint venture of Sega Group and Hakuhodo DY Group.
Production-management company Circle of Confusion produces “Fear the Walking Dead,” “The Talking Dead,” “Powers,” “Outcast,” and “Dirk Gently.” Its recent films include “Spare Parts,” “American Ultra,” and “Mr. Right,” starring Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick.
Circle partner David Engel executive produced “Straight Outta Compton.”
Stories is producing film and television projects based on Sega game franchises, including “Shinobi” with Marc Platt, “Golden Axe,” “Virtua Fighter,” “The House of the Dead,” and “Crazy Taxi.” It said Monday that it is in the process of partnering with major studios, producers, and filmmakers to co-develop adaptations of these properties as English-language feature films and television series for worldwide release.
“These are some of the most well loved SEGA games, and we are thrilled to be working with Stories to adapt them into major film and television franchises,” Mattis said.
Suzuki, Stories, and Circle of Confusion are all repped by CAA.

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Source: http://variety.com/2016/film/asia/al...ws-1201933661/

Credits: Sonic Retro, who originally linked the article at their forums.

Discuss!

Interesting read. I actually think that Streets of Rage could make a good movie if its done correctly but I'm not sure about the other franchises.

This news doesn't mean that we'll necessarily see a movie or TV show anytime soon though. Movies can end up in development hell, get cancelled or get transformed into a project that ends up being almost totally unrelated.

I wonder if we'll see any involvement from Uwe Boll at some point.

Great, so Sega won't give us a new SoR game, which we've been clamoring for for some 20 years, but they'll give us a fucking movie or TV version that no one has ever asked for ever. Brilliant.

Shinobi could actually be cool if done right, though.

How many video game film adaptations that were considered exceptional or vice versa movies made into games. Yeah I know there are a small number of them but the vast majority of efforts don't go so well. I myself tend to stay away from this kinda stuff.

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Originally Posted by Mad Moham

I wonder if we'll see any involvement from Uwe Boll at some point.

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Doubt it

No.

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Originally Posted by Assman

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Shinobi could actually be cool if done right, though.

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i'm very sceptical about that... :|

SoR would have been great as an 90s action flick, with people like Shane Black or John McTiernan involved.

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Originally Posted by Assman

Great, so Sega won't give us a new SoR game, which we've been clamoring for for some 20 years, but they'll give us a fucking movie or TV version that no one has ever asked for ever. Brilliant.

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Well, at least we will get a rushed generic tie-in game (maybe by Platinum, who I like but are ver hit or miss)

I'm not looking for the movies to light the world on fire! BUt I'm hoping that it's something that is halfway decent and not corny!

At a minimum I hope they do justice to both franchises.

I can see Altered Beast having a good concept and storyline. Streets of Rage, on the other hand, will be harder to make interesting.

Lol. Virtua Fighter, yeah that will work :roll:

Personally the last thing I want is for these franchises to be whored out in such a manner. I try not to be such a stick-in-the-mud cynic these days but the chances of any of these being anything but an insult to the source material is infinitesimally small.

This sound absolutely backwards. Sega, how about some games with these IP instead of flushing money down the toilet? For christ's sake, there hasn't been a new game in either franchise in over 20 years. I seriously can't wrap my head around who they expect to care about these productions.

This is the kind of decision making that punted Sega out of the hardware business to begin with - If it's couterproductive, Sega wants a piece of the pie. If they MUST have a movie made out of one of their IP, wouldn't Bayonetta or Yakuza have made much more sense? You know, IP that at least some modern gamers are aware of, and could have cinematic appeal outside of gamer circles.

Man, it's just plain weird that Sega refuses to make new games with these IP, but is cool with film adaptations of them?!?!?! Does not compute! <head explodes>

It's free money to them. All they have to do is sit back. Same with all the Sega Genesis and Master System clones.

I've heard of the Altered Beast one. But I'm very (cautiously) stoked about the Streets of Rage one.

Yep, they just get money to hand off permission to somebody to make a movie and that's it, really, the costs on their end are relatively minimal.

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Originally Posted by OverDrone

Lol. Virtua Fighter, yeah that will work :roll:

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Eh, there's an anime already. The Game Gear game is based off the anime, even (hence all those cutscenes in the story mode).

And on Shinobi I'll just say:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvkjHxwq7ko
...how do you resub it and still manage to keep the wrong name? (should be Joe, not Sho, jeez)

I think that in practice it really ultimately depends on who's making the movie. The same series can go utterly wrong or completely awesome entirely depending on who's in charge.

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Originally Posted by Darguel

i'm very sceptical about that... :|

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What I'm picturing is a badass Joe Musashi Batman-ing around, lurking in the shadows and stalking his prey as he attempts to take down an evil organization and save his beloved over the course of a dozen or so episodes packed with ass-blasting fight scene choreography. Maybe something comparable to Arrow? I'm not saying it's in any way probable that it would be done right, I'd just like to see it if it were.

sega's really trying to make ends meet aren't they?

Has the movie announcement been made with the intention of making Sega's share price move sharply? Sometimes such stories seem to be made just for that reason, and little else comes of it.

Besides, there's already been a Streets of Rage movie, I guess you guys missed it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets_of_Rage_(film)





Before someone attacks me, yes I am aware that the 1994 movie has nothing to do with Sega, I'm joking.

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Originally Posted by Splatterhouse5

Man, it's just plain weird that Sega refuses to make new games with these IP, but is cool with film adaptations of them?!?!?! Does not compute! <head explodes>

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Because making a new Streets of Rage would cost Sega money and time (even though it would make back said production costs but they have trouble realising this), the movie rights they just sell off for some cash to some studio somewhere, they make a movie and Sega doesn't have to put a single penny into it.

I think the last chance we had of a new SOR was during the very short-lived beat em up revival with games like Reshelled, Double Dragon Neo & Scott Pilgrim and stuff, but thats come and gone so Sega will probably never give us a new SOR.

Although honestly those 3D concepts looked absolutely awful so is it any big loss?

The way I see it, we can either have two franchises that have been dead for over a decade or we can have two franchises with a slim glimmer of hope they'll be revived.

I'm not expecting much out of these, but if the shows end up being good or if they spark renewed interest in the franchise and by extension, create new games, I'm all for it.

Sega just wants to make Streets of Rage the Movie the Game.

I'd rather see brand new games.

I'd trust Netflix to get shows based on these properties right.

Didn't hear good things about The House of the Dead, but that was Uwe Boll.

Honestly, if we look at it with a critical eye, most of Sega's stories never had much originality to separate them from other western Hollywood blockbusters with similar themes. Panzer Dragoon might, because it was meant to be vague and surreal, but its very much style over substance. The gameplay experience was what made it interesting most of all. Even Shining Force's stories weren't that unique. Most video game plots have always been outdone by movies of their time, with few exceptions and only now are just catching up, but still not as incredible without the interactive experience. I think the ones that will do best would be a Sonic movie that is lighthearted and on par with the better Pixar or Disney films. I don't like how the Sonic series tried to be edgy when Sonic Adventure came out. None of Nintendo's franchises could be much better, either. Square-Enix, maybe, but forget it. Come to think of it, and as I suggested earlier, most video games stories don't have enough substance to be worth making into movies. A Call of Duty film is likely to be no better than other military film of the past except that it has the name to promote it. Again, the only thing distinguishing the experience of CoD versus a military film is interactivity.

That Angry Birds movie is probably one of the better examples of a game-film done right, and from a franchise with absolutely no plot at all. If there is a proper Mario or Sonic film, they need to use it as an example of just sticking with the lighter, more humorous ones for starters.

SoR: The Movie! Grand Upper-ing into theaters soon! Hope it has the same sort of fun as a Marvel film, and not a Depressing Comics movie.

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Originally Posted by miru

SoR: The Movie! Grand Upper-ing into theaters soon! Hope it has the same sort of fun as a Marvel film, and not a Depressing Comics movie.

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I'd prefer something more like The Warriors than a stupid comic movie personally.

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Originally Posted by Assman

What I'm picturing is a badass Joe Musashi Batman-ing around, lurking in the shadows and stalking his prey as he attempts to take down an evil organization and save his beloved over the course of a dozen or so episodes packed with ass-blasting fight scene choreography. Maybe something comparable to Arrow? I'm not saying it's in any way probable that it would be done right, I'd just like to see it if it were.

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This needs to happen! Please Sega, team up with Netflix and make this happen!

I don't know about TV/Movies, but all Sega would need to do for a 3D Streets of Rage game is break out the Dynamite Deka engine and slap the SoR license on. Personally I think the series dodged a bullet with Fighting Force.

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Originally Posted by midnightrider

I don't know about TV/Movies, but all Sega would need to do for a 3D Streets of Rage game is break out the Dynamite Deka engine and slap the SoR license on. Personally I think the series dodged a bullet with Fighting Force.

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I enjoyed Fighting Force on the PS1 back in the day and heard that it was originally intended to be a SOR game slated for release on the Saturn (whether as a direct sequel or as a spin off I can't remember) which suprised me because, although the similarities in scrolling beat-'em-up gameplay style are obvious, it just didn't feel like SOR to me.

SOR4 never did come to pass but, who knows, given the utterly unpredictable and eccentric nature of Sega's business decisions over the years perhaps that was for the best. I miss Sega's great IP's such as Shinobi, Golden Axe and SOR but when you look at some of the crap that's been released with Sonic's name attached to it over the years (with the exception of Sonic Generations) I'm not in any hurry to see any of Sega's classic IP's given modern 'reboots'. Films and TV shows would be nice however in one form or another.

Well, Fighting Force was a 3rd party game they tried to pitch to Sega to see if they wanted to turn it into a SOR game. As far as I'm aware they never got to develop a SOR incarnation of it (though a Saturn version was developed).

Honestly didn't play it so just going by videos, but I'd say that its main problems are 1) loading times just about everywhere, like every one or two rooms x_X and 2) some sections just draw on for damn too long (should be moving onto the next room sooner, really). Looks more like a case of bad execution than bad idea per se.