Hollywood Reporter is reporting that there's gonna be a "Call of Duty: The Movie" headed to the cinemas soon, if Activision carries out its intention of having one. According to an inside source, talks have been underway for the big screen version. Do we say "Uh-oh..."?

Stranglehold, the video game which served as a sequel to the 1992 movie Hard Boiled, is getting a movie adaptation, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Few games deserve a movie as much as Stranglehold does.

Details after the link.

The Hollywood Reporter has news of what could be a potential US$ 50 price cut for the Xbox 360's 20GB Pro model. Even more intriguing is the possibility that it could be introduced before E3. Learn more about it after the jump!

A lot of questions have yet to be answered regarding Take-Two Interactive's rejection of Electronic Arts' US$ 2 billion dollar takeover bid. While some believe that the company is holding out for a bigger offer, others have said that the company just wants to remain independent. Strauss Zelnick, the executive chairman of TT Interactive, recently gave his take on the rejection. To find out what he had to say, head on over to the full article.

For a game so faithfully tied to the motion pictures, Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) was designed to be anything but a movie game. San Diego-based High Moon Studios spoke to The Hollywood Reporter recently, and it was discovered that while the game picked up the Jason Bourne from the beginnings of "The Bourne Identity," it was designed to stand on its own two legs, separately from the movies.

 

"We started off almost making a straight 'Bourne Identity' adaptation," said chief creative officer Emmanuel Valdez. In the eyes of third-party onlookers, it would have been a wrong decision: the first movie premiered in 2001 -  the same year Robert Ludlum passed away - which was quickly followed with the second installment premiering just a year before the game development started.

"We knew we didn't have enough time to build a quality 'Bourne Ultimatum' game and come out with it at the same time as the movie. So we decided to do things differently, something new," Valdez stressed, and so it became that The Bourne Conspiracy would have to make do on its own. And yet it had to be original, but intimately close to what fans of the movie - the potential customers of the game - recognize from the big screen.

Striking a balance between the two, coupled with unavoidably difficult negotiations between the intellectual property owners and the creative force, was often the undoing of movie-based games. But Ludlum Estate, holders of the Bourne IP, made a choice that sealed the game's blockbuster potential.

They chose to hire a creative consultant to advise them during the game's development, and they selected independent game producer Matt Wolf, an industry veteran from Electronic Arts and SEGA Entertainment. "Head-butts" involved in the creative process were easily smoothed out, and it turned the movie hero into a hero perfectly sculpted for the video game scene.

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy will touch Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers by mid-2008 and will be released under the newly revived Sierra label of Vivendi.

Clive Barker, a renowned director and writer of horror flick "Hellraiser", keynoted the recent Hollywood & Games Summit 2007 (henceforth to be known as H&G 07) on games and movies as art in likeness and in difference. Though an icon of significant extent in a medium of entertainment so well-matured, his views on "games as art" appear as untainted as ever.

A couple of months earlier, a debate was roused to tackle if games could be considered art. The debate was highlighted by a single iconic movie critic, Roger Ebert, who claimed that the fact that games are "played" removes the primordial element of art: authorial control.

In an onstage interview at the summit held at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, Barker was asked by The Hollywood Reporter's Gina McIntyre what his views were on games being works of art, as compared to movies. With Ebert's claims mentioned, Barker had this to say:

That's [crazy]. This is a medium that’s barely 2 decades old, and [Ebert] is saying "Oh, there’s no 'War And Peace' yet" – of course there isn’t! You have to come at it with an open heart... Roger Ebert obviously had a narrow vision of what the medium is, or can be. It seems so high-handed. A lot of very very smart people, here in this room, are working to make these experiences extraordinary.

We can debate what art is, we can debate it forever. But if the experience moves you, some way or another, even if it just moves your bowels, I think it’s worthy of some serious study... Games mean something to a lot of people. ... Games aren’t about reviewers, they’re about players.

Clive Barker is currently working with Codemasters - the guys behind the well-received DiRT and Overlord - to create the horror title Jericho, after a previous game development experience with Electronic Arts' Undying. According to him, Jericho may have well been another novel to add to his resume, except for one thing: it would have been a really bad novel. He thought real hard about it, but eventually, Jericho just screamed game. Barker added:

It would make a ... terrible novel. It really would, it doesn’t work! It screams out to be something other. Maybe if games hadn’t existed, I would’ve made it a movie. But I much prefer the idea of having twenty hours to play this world, to enter this labyrinth than the two hours or the way movies are going now. I don’t know what it is with people, my bum gets sore! I like pirates and all, but jeez!

 

And in other news, Tinsel Town's Hollywood and Games Summit has officially announced their lineup of top movie and games industry executives slated to discuss issues of the game and movie collaboration for today's new age of the movie tied-in video game.

Sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter and the organizers of the Game Developers Conference, the second time running conference has now also revealed the lineup of panel discussions by both industry's experts and the keynotes to be rendered by Clive Barker and Thomas Tull.

You can expect the 2007 Hollywood and Games Summit to make a red carpet appearance by June 26, under the limelights of the world at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. Expect some of the movie-franchise game developers and publishers, such as Capcom, SEGA and Ubisoft to make a grand showing at the event.

Click on Full Article to view the included panels and keynotes in the two-day event.

Activision may have officially announced the signing up of Peter Cullen and Frank Welker to offer their voice talents of the game, but fans of Generation One (G1) of the lovable "Transformers" can rest assured that even the original voice actors of the many memorable bots of the 80s cartoon series will also provide their voices to Transformers: The Game.

Coming from an official press release just made available lately, the news is that Activision also signed up voice talents from the original animated series to create a game that speaks to both modern day and G1 fans. Activision has not called out any names in particular, but The Hollywood Reporter has caught Activision in meeting with G1 voice actors Keith David and Mark Ryan to reprise the voices of Barricade and Iron Hide, respectively.

Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox will join up with Cullen and Welker to fill in the dialogue of their respective characters in the movie for the game adaptation headed to the PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, PSP, DS and the PC. To keep authenticity to the maximum, Activision even had Flint Dille, the writer of the cartoon series, pen the story of the game, which is under development by developer studios Vicarious Visions and Traveller's Tales.

The Hollywood and Games Summit to be held the second time around will be keynoted by horror icon Clive Barker and Legendary Pictures' CEO Thomas Tull. According to a press release, the duo will be tackling a 360-degree perspective overview of the games and entertainment industries.

 

Clive Barker is slated to provide insight into the innards of how to create an interactive parallel universe through his unique artistic perspective on June 26. Thomas Tull, on the other hand, will get technical on content strategies for films and games and introduce his own strategies for providing financial opportunities to aid both sides of the industry.

As you may recall, Tull recently co-founded a game development company in Hollywood, known as Brash Entertainment. He will also be citing details of entering the game development venture during his keynote on June 27. Closely following the game industry's relations to the big screen, the GDC sponsored event will be tackling issues regarding simultaneous games development and movie productions.

Paula Parisi, VP and Executive Producer of The Hollywood Reporter, concluded the official announcement, saying:

We are thrilled to have Thomas Tull and Clive Barker as our keynote speakers this year. Their distinctive creative vision and experience with a variety of media forms serves as a key asset to both industries. We're looking forward to an event that is focused on an exchange of ideas and increased cooperation between filmmakers and videogame creators.