Mass Effect: That's why film adaptation never worked

Mass Effect: That's why film adaptation never worked

Mass Effect

It's been a few years since a movie adaptation of Mass Effect for the cinema was announced. To date, however, there has never really been any progress in production and one can assume that the project has been put on hold. In an interview with Business Insider, Mass Effect author Marc Walters spoke about the difficulties they had with the film.

According to this, the team is said to have struggled again and again with which story you can get in 90 or 120 minutes want to tell - and whether this would even do the sci-fi series justice. It was clear to Marc Walters that a series in episode format would be the best thing for Mass Effect. Nevertheless, the author is convinced that sooner or later there will still be a Hollywood production. Only last week, however, details of an alleged Mass Effect series that are to be created together with Netflix actually emerged.

The focus of the story should not be Commander Shepard from the video game series. Instead, the series apparently revolves around events that took place in parallel with the Mass Effect trilogy. As in the template, viewers should be given the opportunity to change the outcome of the story through interactive content. Commander Shepard's gender can also be adjusted as desired. A confirmation of the series is still pending. Some time ago, actor Henry Cavill hinted at a Mass Effect production.

Source: Business Insider





BioWare On Why The Mass Effect Movie Stalled And How A TV Show Might Be Better

A Mass Effect film was announced in 2010 with Legendary set to produce and Warner Bros. on board to distribute the project based on BioWare's RPG series. One of the hired writers, Thor's Mark Protosevich, eventually dropped out, and the project never got off the ground. Mac Walters, a BioWare veteran who has been with the studio for 17 years and was a writer on the original game, explained in a recent interview why the film stalled.


He told Insider, 'It felt like we were always fighting the IP. What story are we going to tell in 90 to 120 minutes? Are we going to do it justice?'


Walters also mentioned that, as a result of a leadership change at Legendary, the movie studio was looking to focus more on TV. The producers then decided to restart Mass Effect, but it never worked out.


'It never picked up again after that, not for lack of trying,' Walters said.


He went on to say that Mass Effect has 'such an expansive' world that could be ripe for storytelling for film or TV. 'So many people I know in the TV and film industry have reached out to ask me when we're going to do it and saying we've got to do it,' Walters said.


Now, Walters believes that TV--not film--is the right way to tell Mass Effect's story outside of games. 'If you're going to tell a story that's as fleshed out as Mass Effect, TV is the way to do it. There's a natural way it fits well with episodic content,' he explained.


Walters added that each level or mission from Mass Effect is 'like its own TV episode.'


'It doesn't get written ahead of time. It gets written at the time that we get to it. So it gets added to the main story and sometimes the main story gets adjusted because we did something really cool in that 'episode.' So long-from storytelling is a great place for game franchises,' he said.


While a Mass Effect movie or TV might not be happening anytime soon, HBO is working on a Last of Us TV series starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. It, too, was originally envisioned as a film before switching to a TV series.


As for the Mass Effect game series, a new entry in the franchise is currently in development, but BioWare has said very, very little about it thus far.

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