Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Queen's Burden - Opening Scene

This is the opening scene of a fantasy screenplay that I wrote. I still have some editing and revising to do before I'm fully finished. This may not be reproduced without the author's permission.


EXT. CENTER OF AMELIA’S CAMP – DAY

 

Two swords clash together as sparks fly upon first impact. Zoom out as two armored figures sidestep each other and trade another series of blows at each other. The first fighter is slightly thinner than the other but the fighter’s overall physical appearance is otherwise obscured by chainmail armor and a helm. The other figure has more bulk and is taller by a scant couple inches. This figure wears heavier armor and no helm but is clearly a young man as evidenced by the short brown hair and burly build.

 

The two trade more blows. The thinner, helmed opponent throws its sword down onto the male figure in a flurry of blows. The male fighter remains steady and deflects each blow without losing his footing.

 

The larger male opponent is now on the offensive. He pushes forward, thrusting and swinging his sword forward repeatedly with less speed but more power and focused force than his thinner opponent. The opponent parries the blows repeatedly and the two end up grappling with their swords pressing against each other.

 

The male fighter grits his teeth with exertion while attempting to break the grapple. He smiles through his teeth at his opponent.

JASUN

Must you always wear the helm while training, Amelia?

 

The other fighter shoves him back with a grunt. The fighter removes the helm and tosses it to the side. Underneath is a stern-faced, muscular, yet fairly attractive young woman in her early twenties, about equal age to the male opponent. Her blond hair is somewhat short save for the pony tail that her hair is tied back into. Her face is moderately dirty and sweaty from the recent training bouts. Her striking blue eyes glare back at the male opponent.

 

She makes a motion to her pony tail with the tip of her sword.

 

AMELIA

I don’t want you having something to grab onto during the fight, Jasun.


Saturday, September 8, 2012

Missing in Action: Video Game Movies


For those of you who pay attention to news within the gaming industry and social media, do you ever notice how often developers seem to squeal with excitement when they announce that they’ve attained the rights to turn their video game into a film adaption. And while that’s all well and good to hear that some of our favorite games are supposedly going to make it to the big screen, we usually end up going a few years wondering…uh, ok, what’s the status on these movies?!

I can think of a few recent examples of how films were announced for some of the most popular video games out there and how years later, we haven’t heard an ounce of news about how far along into production these movies are. Gears of War was slated to begin production of a film through New Line Cinema back in 2007 but, to the best of my knowledge, we haven’t heard much else. Well, other than the fact that the director supposedly fronting the movie dropped out to focus on other things.

Blizzard Entertainment announced a Warcraft film (also in 2007…go figure) and initially established that the film would be set for a 2009 release date. Here we are three years after that supposed arrival time and Legendary Pictures hasn’t given us much to hope for quite yet, other than the fact that Sam Raimi (Spider-Man director) would be directing the film and that the movie had supposedly begun production. WoW fans can only hope that Raimi can shift gears toward the project now that Spider-Man 4 was flushed down the toilet in place of a recently-released reboot.

Part of me also can’t help but wonder if we all really want to see these wayward movies released eventually. Video game movies have an infamous reputation for sucking after all. I don’t think a single video game movie released in the last two decades passed a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.