Prince of Persia Videogame Movie Not a Videogame Movie

According to director Mike Newell, the far-off Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie based on the videogame is not in fact a videogame movie.

Asked about the project during promotions for his current film Love in the Time of Cholera, Newell said, "It's not a videogame movie. It's a great story. If you had read the script, you would know that it wasn't a videogame. It's very exciting and it's immensely romantic and it's like Lost Horizon. It takes you to somewhere you've never been."

Despite Newell's protestation, the script, by Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner and Day After Tomorrow screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff, is based on the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time entry in the long-running game franchise. To give himself background on the game and ensure that "key details" are accurate, Newell has an assistant playing the games.

"There's so much that will happen with that story because it's 1300 years ago," he continued. "This girl who was actually a kind of priest ... I'm sorry, I've been on it five days. I'm full of fucking ideas. It'll be terrific."

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Disney, and is scheduled for a summer 2009 release.

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You have an assistant playing the game? Well... at least that sounds like more than Uwe does.

I hope they can live up to this. Video games and movies are entirely different things, and certain people don't quite realize this often. ("We're hoping to make this very familiar to fans of the games...")

Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney tells me all I need to know about this movie, but just in case the point wasn't quite clear enough, the fact that this guy can't even be bothered to see the source material for himself tells me how much this movie is going to have to do with the game. Which is his point, I suppose.

well, yeah, he did make it very clear that it isnt supposed to be a movie version of the game, its supposed to be a movie, based on a game.......

Yet playing the game couldn't hurt, could it?

I mean seriously, would you make a movie from a book you haven't even read? What the hell...

Well, some people can't handle modern games.

Not entirely certain that those people ought to be directing movies based off of games, but there's certainly a valid reason why not to play them. I hope he's at least watching.

he's not a poor choice of director, he did Harry Potter 4, which was acceptable. I would mention 4 weddings and a funeral but that was 14 years ago

at least he's not Uwe Boll, *cough cough*

Haha, yeah. I remember Uwe saying that he had an understanding with Hideo Kojima about making a Metal Gear Solid movie.
Hideo's reply: "...WHAT? We have never, are not, and WILL NEVER work with Uwe Boll if a Metal Gear Solid movie were to be made."