Castle Wolfenstein headed to the silver screen
Classic shooter Castle Wolfenstein, often credited with popularising the first person shooter genre, is getting the Hollywood treatment.
According to a press release from Panorama Media, Academy Award winning director Roger Avary will helm the new feature film. It won't be Avary's first go-round with gaming; he wrote the screenplay for Silent Hill, but he's best known for collaborations with Quentin tarantino on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and for the less violently inclined, The Rules of Attraction.
Samuel Hadida will produce; his production crew Davis Films is behind several Resident Evil films and both Silent Hill adaptations, as well as Solomon Kane and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus among many others.
Described as an action-adventure "in the vein of Captain America and Inglorious Basterds", Castle Wolfenstein tells the story of a US army captain and a British special agent on a top secret mission to Castle Wolfenstein, where Hitler will unveil a new weapon. Typically, things don't go as smoothly as planned, and the pair end up battling Himmler’s SS Paranormal Division.
“It is a big action adventure but also strongly character driven and based on a very solid story. The film involves a classic assault on the bad guys, who are nominally Nazis, more evocative of Inglorious Basterds than the actual World War II. It is a vaguely futuristic retro world as fun as Captain America," Hadida said of the project.
“I’ve been playing the Wolfenstein games since I was a kid, and feel that their outlandish sensibility has deeply influenced my own writing and directing throughout my career. I have always thought Wolfenstein, transformed and opened for the screen to wider audiences not familiar with the games, would be a major cinematic experience," Avary added.
The film has not been dated.
Castle Wolfenstein was first produced by Muse Software before joining id Software's stables. Wolfenstein 3D, id's first contribution to the franchise, was also its first first-person shooter, was highly influential.