Will Team Ico’s masterpiece put other movie adaptations in the shadow?

The critically acclaimed and huge fan favorite Shadow of the Colossus from Team Ico is shaping up for it’s “big screen” debut at the cinema. If the project actually pans out it will join the ranks of other movies based on games like Prince of Persia, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Max Payne, Tekken, Doom, Tomb Raider, Super Mario Bros and many more. Not exactly a great track record there.

Sony Pictures has, according to Deadline.com, signed with Josh Trank, most famous for the flick ‘Chronicle’. Also on board for the film adaptation is producer Kevin Misher, sort of a bigwig in the movie industry with movies like Public Enemies and The Scorpion King under his belt. Not as reassuring is the appointed script writer Justin Marks, who wrote the latest Street Fighter, The Legend of Chun-Li. Maybe not exactly the best source material imaginable but i think the red flag should be justifiably raised here.

Speaking of source material, the story arc of SotC is pretty great and works excellent for a game. With most backstory shrouded in mystery a young boy makes a deal with the local devil to save his precious female companion. While carrying out the deal, slaying the great colossi of the world, the protagonist boy faces doubts about his task at hand. Has he simply been tricked into killing the colossi while he was blinded by love? What stands out is the lack of details in the game making the player draw their own conclusions about what is really happening. While there is the occasional narrator talking about the world and it’s history it’s not really dense enough for a full fledged movie which makes me worried.

Don’t get totally bummed out yet though! Looking at a recent example, the movie War Horse did a great job portraying a man’s relationship and journey with his horse, and the latter almost rising to god like proportions. So there is that. The geek in me also wants to see the majestic colossi rendered in high definition for the movie screen. Hopefully with the mythical aesthetics of Fumito Ueda helping out with the project one can dream of an epic movie experience that will match the game counterpart!