Corona | Coming Attractions

Electronic Arts has sold the film rights to its Army of Two video game to Universal Pictures. Released in March 2008, the third-person action shooter follows the exploits of two soldiers-for-hire as they are sent on combat missions around the world.

Universal has set Bourne Ultimatum writer Scott Z. Burns to adapt the game into screenplay format. Scott Stuber (The Break-Up) will produce the movie along with Electronic Arts, the first time that the game titan has taken an interest in being hands on with a movie based on one of their games.

"Because people experience the game in pairs, playing two guys who go against the world, Scott and I agreed this format presented an opportunity to make a great buddy film," the writer told Variety. "The ambiguity of these private military corporations lends weight to an intelligent thriller with relevance to what's going on in the world right now. You have contractors with their own agendas, and two guys whose friendship supersedes all the politics. I told EA right off the bat I wasn't a gamer, and that appealed to them because they didn't want to simply replicate the game."

Universal also has another gamerflick project in development called Bioshock, based on the 2K Games dark sci-fi adventure released last year, with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski developing it.

- Variety. Comment on this Scoop (0)