Move over Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski. Rush Hour franchise helmer Brett Ratner wants to make movies based on video games, too! His interest seems piqued after working on a few ad-type spots for Activision's Guitar Hero. According to Ratner:

The games business is much more exciting than the movie business right now. I will be doing movies that come from video games.

Cue line about Hollywood unable to make good game movies.
Brett Ratner Bows Branding [Variety via Go Nintendo] [Pic]

Of all the games out there, I think Bioshock is the one that's the most engaging. I think the whole utopia-gone-wrong story that's cleverly unveiled to players is brimming with cinematic potential.

I'm interested in creating completely new genres. I'm interested in exploring an emotional response to a game, which I haven't really seen. I've seen the visceral adrenaline response, but I haven't really played a game where I feel...tremendous loss... The initial response is that gaming needs good writing. I've heard that. They need screenwriters. Well, hold on a second. Before you jump to that conclusion, I don't want to impose cinema's narrative onto a completely different medium. I think that's naive. The fact that the player is also the audience means you shouldn't be imposing a scenario where the audience is passive. Don't put those rules onto gaming. So out of that came in my mind new forms of narrative. I said, "Well, wait a minute, what if there is zero narrative?"

Verbinski's Game [Los Angeles Times Thanks, hogarth1!] [Pic]

Verbinski attacked the current publisher-developer business model, affirming that "Games are not merchandise." He spoke of his own struggles with game development, saying "With the Pirates of the Caribbean games, the business model killed the potential for something really unique." He explained "I'm not hiding my disappointment, because I know the fanaticism could have driven that world. Five years ago, while adult audiences were dressing up in pirate garb to attend the cinema, I lobbied heavily for an MMOG for Pirates to no avail, because it wasn't in their business plan."

The director blamed publishers for "responding to data and basing creative decisions on existing formulas" and "reacting to a world that is already passing them by", using brown, me-too first person shooters as evidence that the medium could be in danger of becoming sterile, if not for auteur developers who would "make the suits shit themselves" with bold new concepts.

While Verbinski's opening speech was certainly inspiring, probably mostly to rank and file creators who were looking to move beyond the bald space marine stereotype, it would seem that the director of Hollywood fare like The Ring and Mousehunt has large aspirations for game developers.

He did, however, refreshingly point to individual contributors in video game and film development as key factors in realizing the artistic zenith. Game designers, like directors, he said have an obligation to test executives—"You must make execs uncomfortable, whether they know it or not, and believe me, the good ones do"—to make their work "diverge from the path."

While the director may have seemed slightly green in his vision of game development—by his own admission, he's only played a handful of games—his passion for moving the medium forward seemed genuine. He referenced last year's DICE speaker Alex Rigopulos and the team at Harmonix at one point, lauding them for having the gall to convince RedOctane to manufacture plastic guitars to meet the fantasy of standing in front of a mirror with a tennis racket to virtually rock out. "They naysayers completely missed the point," he said, praising the visionaries at Harmonix for convincing investors to make the Guitar Hero series a success.

We certainly appreciated Gore's unbridled enthusiasm. We hope that he'll return at a future date, having learned more about the medium from DICE attendees, from his own experiences and from the experiences of his children, with a better grasp of the realities of video game development. Perhaps he'll have even played some of the genre's best storytelling games and will be able to contribute more to the conversation.

Expect more details from Gore Verbinski's keynote speech and his follow-up Q&A with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal throughout the week.