New Line Acquires Gears of War Film Rights

New Line grabs the rights to film a Gears of War movie.

New Line Cinema has acquired the movie rights to the popular Xbox 360 game Gears of War from developer Epic Games in an auction. Temple Hill Productions (The Nativity Story) will be producing the film scripted by Stuart Beattie, who is also writing the Spy Hunter adaptation. Cliff Bleszinski, Gears' lead director, will represent Epic as the film's executive producer. Once the script is complete, Temple Hill and New Line hope to release a completed production in the summer of 2009.

Epic Vice President Mark Rein expected a movie to be borne from the game series. "We wanted to make an entertainment property that's not just for games but for other media. ... Our first and foremost philosophy is to do no harm, so we debated heavily the idea of doing a movie at all. But we feel we stacked the deck in our favor by working with the best players."

Wyck Godfrey of Temple Hill is not an experienced gamer, but sees potential in the game's brand. "I'm not a gamer but what blew me away about Gears was how it captures the mythology of a war mission and how high the stakes are."

Source: Variety