Not content with making videogames about himself, 50 Cent now wants to make a movie out of a videogame. He would also like to make a version of Tetris.
50 Cent’s partnership with THQ, the publisher of his game, Blood on the Sand, is proving lucrative beyond the just-released game. The hip-hop mogul now wants to get into the entirely respectable business of producing film adaptations of videogames, and he wants to start with THQ’s Saints Row franchise.
“With my relationship with THQ, they’ll actually see me develop Saint’s Row into an actual screenplay and into a film project,” 50 revealed during a conference call about Blood on the Sand. “I’m optioning the rights for that right now, so they’ll see that before they see me do it from my own perspective for my game.”
Call me crazy, but it might actually work. Saints Row doesn’t really have much narrative meat to it – it just has a barebones story and then a wacky over-the-top universe in which crazy things happen. It’s more about an atmosphere and a tone than anything else, and 50 Cent knows what it’s like to live in ridiculous and cartoonish faux hip-hop state of mind at all times anyway. In any case, there’s really not that much there to ruin, so why not?
With two games now fully under his belt, 50 Cent also seems to be thinking about taking game development to the next level. No, not 50 Cent 3 (150 Cent?), but something altogether different. “I’d like to be a part of developing, marketing and promoting a game I’m not actually in,” he told MTV. “It could be like Tetris. It’s one of my favorite games.”
50 Cent Tetris. That may make you doubt the man’s capacity for genius ideas, but listen to this. You know the premise of Blood on the Sand? 50 Cent gets a crystal skull, the skull gets stolen, and then 50 and his buddies chase bad guys all over Iraq-but-not-Iraq to get it back? That was his idea.
“The crystal skull actually exists,” 50 revealed. “It’s a diamond, an artifact. I saw it in a magazine in Dubai. I took it and said, ‘Make this what they’re after.'”
Published: Feb 24, 2009 11:30 pm