The Hollywood Reporter says Keith Arem will write, direct action thriller about mysterious epidemic; companion graphic novel also planned.
Many critics who gave solid reviews to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 criticized its story as being unrealistic and/or over the top. However, praise was near-universal for the game's voice acting, which enlisted the talents of such esteemed thespians as Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan), Kevin McKidd (HBO's Rome), and Keith David (Halo 3, They Live).
In an interview with GameSpot, the ubiquitous and mellifluous David heaped praise on the person who assembled and directed the cast for Infinity Ward. "What I absolutely adore about [talent director] Keith Arem and his work and his team is that they're painstaking," said David.
Today, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that Arem's next project won't be a game, but rather a live-action feature film--and not the Call of Duty movie under consideration.
According to the showbiz trade, the former audio director of Virgin Interactive and Electronic Arts Pacific has signed on to direct Frost Road from a script he penned himself. The action thriller will focus on a mysterious epidemic and its effects on a small East Coast town. It will be accompanied by a graphic novel developed by Arem, his business partner Brandon Humphreys, and artist Christopher Shy. The film will be bankrolled by Avenue Pictures, the production company behind The Player, Short Cuts, and the HBO miniseries Angels in America.
"I'm extremely excited about this story and thrilled to have the opportunity to bring the skills I've honed in the game industry to the big screen," Arem told the Reporter. "There's an incredible talent pool currently working in the game industry, and I hope that the success of Frost Road will give other creators the chance to show what they can do on a wider canvas."
Though it's his first live-action film, Frost Road will be only the latest project in Arem's long career. According to his production company, PCB Productions, he has produced, directed, or recorded "over 500 commercial releases in the game, film, music, television, and graphic novel industries." Besides Call of Duty 2, 3, and 4, Arem has worked on such games as Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Army of Two, Condemned: Criminal Origins, and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (abbreviated as Call of Duty: MW3 or simply MW3) is a sequel to Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. MW3 will immediately follow the events of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, where the Russians continue their invasion of the USA.
I swear, that photograph of the guy (above, in black and white) looks just like Edward Norton, but with less testosterone.
@shakensparco: Actually, I promise you - I really genuinely hated this game. No popularity drove me against or away from it. Seriously. I just thought it was boring, repetitive, and that the maps sucked. The single player campaign was jaw dropping in just how bad it was. It was just so unbelievably ridiculous. And no, I'm not playing off of what other people have said about that. So many folks thought it was dumb and unbelievable because it was. Oh, and the fact that the graphics had just slightly improved over MW1 was also a huge letdown... and the fact that at least a quarter of the weapons in the game were just mildly edited and polished models from MW1... and the fact that there was absolutely NO Doppler effect... and that there were like 5 different gun sound effects in all the game... and more stuff that I won't go into.
@mach-stem: Oh my gosh, "The Thing" is one of my all-time favorites... In my opinion, it is, hands down, the best horror movie ever made. It's absolutely fantastic :) Yeah, posting on gamespot seriously sucks. I also miss the old days of gamespot when the editor reviews of games weren't limited to intervals of ".5". The scores used to be more comprehensive, like a 7.8 or a 9.2... no it's all 7.5 or 8.0, or 9.0 or 9.5 :( Whoa, sorry- tangent! >.>
@SpacePirate6: Yeah, I had noticed it after I submitted the message and couldn't go in an edit my message. Anyway, I agree with you, that it does sound a little similar to 'The Thing'. God, I love that movie.
@mach-stem: Oops! You got BornGamer's name wrong :( And in my opinion, it's not necessarily a bad or uninteresting article, but it has no place here. Just because he played a big part in the development of the series doesn't mean it's a good idea to write an article about the new direction of his career... Could be a good movie though, who knows? For some reason, it barely sounds reminiscent of "The Thing", but I don't know why :P Hope it's good.
Doesn't seem very interesting. But it could surprise me. I take that back, Frost Road seems like it might be okay, but I'm not expecting anything from the Call of Duty movie.
The biggest reason people hate this game is because it's popular. That's why people hate Halo and that's why people hate shows like Naruto. You can disagree with me but it's true that people don't like popular things so they can stand out and feel superior.
@BomGamer: and some are really struggling to be on message boards and troll their opinion online..
@mechgt5 I just feel that the over hype and mass support of low quality games like this will be the bone crusher to the FPS genre, no need to get unbelievably hostile, if you like the game you like the game, just saying that I personally felt that it was horrible and I wanted to share why, I tried to post more but I went over the character count by about a thousand.... anyway, because of the record sales, every developer will try to copy the "addicting" gameplay of COD cuz that's what sells, its really disappointing
Great game if you like a broken toy, they did a mess with the multiplayer and i can't even believe that management approved those changes on the game/multiplayer platform to make it that open to hacks. GJ IW GJ Activision you really impress me every year
I reckon it'll be hectic if they actually made a Call of Duty movie. Its been a while since we had a great modern war film. The story in Modern warfare 2 was very short but the plot still has its shines. From what this guy has worked with in the gaming industry, i'll be excited to see what this new action thriller movie will deliver
He's not making the CoD movie...so it's not a videogame movie, however that doesn't mean it iwll be good.
oh boy another video game movie that will most likely suck because it doesnt follow the game its based on one bit.
I think the movie has a pretty source to start from, let's see what do they 'cook'......................
Considering how utterly ridiculous the MW2 campaign plot was I don't have high hopes for this :P
Their are other games which I see will be better in length and play time,SC Conviction for one, Dark Void, Bioshock 2, Aliens vs. Predator, Crysis 2 and the list goes on, and I almost forgot Rage.
@asilaydying4 & aaron12377 if you dont like the game...why do you come to something that is about part of it and try to kill other peoples feelings about the game?..if you dont like it, STFU!
Modern Warfare2 is an amazing game. Well deserved success. :) Hopefully this movie rocks too!
@kuroshiro99 1. you are my hero because of what you just said 2 to the rest of you still pounding your head against your desk because you believe modern warfare 2 was good and all of your friends keep saying its not, get over it! MW2 was a piece of trash, I almost puked when I saw all the amazing reviews for it and none of them seemed to mention that the storyline was full of plot twists and huge gaping plot holes in everything COD4 brilliantly set up for an amazing sequel. Multiplayer maps are unfun and un-original, gameplay in multiplayer is the same thing that we have been playing for 2 years now, and spec ops is nothing but storyline without the story.... I sure am glad that everybody marked this game 9-10/10 and all I hear out of game retailers is how I need to get this amazing game... IW has our money, now they should use it to make something worth the world's time
Unrealistic sure, over the top yes, but would we have it any other way? I thought it was dam fun.
Modern Warfare was 5 hours long at best... it was over after that 5 hours period. Now its December.. More than a 300 hours have passed by... but the game industry cannot still move on from 5 hours of gameplay... Grow up and move on.. MW 2 is over and done with.. now i want whats coming next in Jan Feb and God of war March. Releasing crap artcles like these with Modern Warefare 2 as the title, so ppl open it, is creating the sort of dumass propaganda that commercial sites are well known for.. but then i again i forgot what era i live in. and YES i came here only to get crystal on the subject. How bout some REAL news on the games that are coming next year.. like SC:coviction, Darksiders etc etc
@Revan_911 lol wat does unrealistic story line have to do with wat console someone is playing. the reason it is unrealistic is because of the over the top action like wat u would see in action movies. there is no realism in chasing enemies on snow mobiles jumping hundreds of feet in the air and falling off water falls without serious injuries or even death, o and the castle scene? com'n if you played the game you know that level was waaaay over the top. go ahead and play your waw that game was piece of trash compared to cod4
"The story was unrealistic??? People are so asleep. MW2, though i didnt liek how it lacked bullet wounds and carnage from WAW, MW2 had a great story line. This game shows you in war, there are no winners and soldiers are just pawns for war profiteers. It sounds crazy to all the misinformed people out there but it is true. The terrorist mission i realy liked because it shows just how dirty the CIA realy is. History is written by the victors..." I laughed really hard. Let me guess you are a 360 player..?
people in game industry can be far more creative than people in film industry. Good thing that Hollywood realize that
@thorsen-ink: Not sure why you are responding to me, but I stated that I understood what the article was saying. Unlike Darkside, I certainly think it is newsworthy and that many people would find it interesting and important to the game industry. However, it was something I'm not interested in. I'm not saying it shouldn't have been written, or that GameSpot should only post what I like. What I'm saying is GameSpot should work on making titles that are as unambigious as possible and -clearly- relevant to what the news story is about so I don't waste my time reading something I wasn't interested in in the first place. GameSpot tends to make titles that are potentially ambigious. In linguistics, ambiguity in this case arises from two or more deep structures within a given sentence, meaning the same sentence can be interpreted in multiple ways. I'm sure that I'm not alone in thinking that the news title I was clicking on was about the voice director of Modern Warfare 2 was helming the first film of the franchise. Odd as that sounds, the notion is intriguing nonetheless and I definitely wanted to read on further about it. Upon reading the article, I was disappointed to find that it was not about what I thought it was about. That is not to say that the title wasn't accurate. Only that it is potentially misleading. Thank you for taking the time to read my comment, and again thank you for your contributions to the site.
@ AD_06 Been playing the PC version since MW2 released, and no, CoD4 is not a better game. It's spammy and incredibly grenade happy compared to MW2. In my opinion, and this is after playing CoD4 since 2007, MW2 is a much more tactical and skill-neccesary game then CoD4 by a long shot.
@Darkside7972 @chesed The point of this article is to chronicle that a major talent from the game industry has been asked to direct a live-action film. The fact Hollywood is starting to choose game-industry insiders on the merits of their game work seems pretty newsworthy to me. It's another milestone on the convergence of the film and game industries, and a refreshing change from hearing a hack film director was handed the movie rights to your favorite game.
I think, if any COD were to be a movie it should be COD 4 because it had the best story line. We can all agree that it was a better game
MW2's story WAS unrealistic. and in that sense, kind of offensive to anyone with any historical / political / military knowledge whatsoever. however, it WAS pure entertainment and had to be taken as such. it delivered completely in that sense. so don't get me wrong, i absolutely love COD and am about to go play a whole mess of multiplayer. the fact remains though, the story was nonsense, straight out of an episode of 24 or something worse, and infinity ward will be the first to agree with that, they make games based on amazing individual scenes then construct levels out of them, then try to weave them all together with a patchwork story and it shows. also, the headline makes this seem like a COD movie is being made, buzzkill.
The story was unrealistic??? People are so asleep. MW2, though i didnt liek how it lacked bullet wounds and carnage from WAW, MW2 had a great story line. This game shows you in war, there are no winners and soldiers are just pawns for war profiteers. It sounds crazy to all the misinformed people out there but it is true. The terrorist mission i realy liked because it shows just how dirty the CIA realy is. History is written by the victors...
I know what the article is saying, but I was mislead by the title. Again. Seems like a ploy to click on one more link I don't care about.
so this trying to be resident evil now?? lolz dont get me wrong but modern warfare is fire!!!!
Wow do you people take time to actually read the article? Its not a game to movie project, just some dude who worked on MW2 making a movie.
@biggest_loser I don't think that it's a game to movie scenario, I think that "Modern Warfare 2 voice director helming first film" just means that the MW2 voice director is helming his first film, not the first CoD film
"over the top story"???? bull that stuff was once feared with russia invading usa thank god they made cameos to red dawn "dont you ever cry again"
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