Writers Discuss Game-To-Screen 'God Of War' Adaptation

Yesterday, as the gaming community collectively salivated at and feared for what could come of a now-official "Metal Gear Solid" adaptation, the duo polishing a long-awaited "God of War" script discussed their approach to making the celebrated PlayStation-exclusive action franchise the next "Mortal Kombat" on screen as opposed to the next "Doom."

Previously, Mark Dunstan and Patrick Melton have also worked on scripts for "Saw IV," "Feast" and "Piranhha 3DD," displaying noses for horror but remaining untested in the realm of the pure-action epic. Immediately, the interview with IGN displayed that Dunstan, at least, could use a history lesson.

"The only problem with [the script] is it was written before 'Clash of the Titans,' 'Wrath of the Titans,' '300' and 'Immortals.' And those movies borrowed quite a bit from the 'God of War' stories. It was just a little bit outdated, so we wanted to differentiate it from those other movies."

Yeah, no.

The "God of War" canon presently spans three "numbered' titles premiering on the PlayStation 2 (for the first two) and PlayStation 3 consoles, with two PlayStation Portable titles filling in story gaps and later seeing release on the PS3 as the "God of War: Origins" collection. It's the story of Spartan warrior Kratos' struggle to both gain vengeance against the ancient Greek gods who betrayed him - particularly Ares, the God of War - and redeem himself for the murder of his family that resulted from a desperate battlefield deal with Ares himself.  A prequel to the first game, "God of War: Ascension," is in development.

While the movies mentioned might borrow from the games in terms of their looks, pacing and nature of action, Dunstan is far off-base with his "story" remarks. The first "God of War" hit store shelves in 2005. "Clash of the Titans" is a remake of a 1981 cult-classic Ray Harryhausen film. "Wrath of the Titans" was an unnecessary, bad sequel to the 2010 remake. "300" was a 2007 movie based off a 1998 Frank Miller graphic novel. Finally, "Immortals" is rooted in the ancient myth of Theseus.

Remember, kids: all elephants are grey. Not all grey things are elephants.

Where the two might actually improve on the games, is in that they seek to expand upon Kratos' humanity as opposed to keeping him largely a bloody-thirsty, carnage-soaked war machine. Melton plans to conclude the film's "first act" with Kratos' fateful battle with the barbarians and my-soul-for-victory deal with Ares.

"We're going to learn about him and understand how he operates," Melton said. "So it's potentially 30 minutes - give or take - of building up this character so that, when he does turn and becomes the Ghost of Sparta, we understand him as a human and we understand the journey that he's going to take. We're emotionally invested, so that it could go beyond just this one movie."

For as bloody and creative in their violence as the games have been, Melton isn't likening this project to any horror project he's taken on before. For one thing, the budget is as big as the stakes for the franchise.

"We know it doesn't have to be done for a million bucks in a garage. [Laughs] That helps too," he said. "But also, with a bigger movie like 'God of War,' you have to go quite a bit deeper into the character as opposed to a horror film, in which you generally need to get things going; people are concerned that that the audience won't have patience, so it's go, go, go, go, go. With 'God of War,' the studio's saying, 'We're going to spend $150 million to make this movie. We really need to understand this character and get behind him and feel his pain and feel his emotions so that, when he is in these giant set pieces, we're in there with him and we're feeling it.' That is a critique of some of these big actions films is that they often get too big and just become noise, you're not invested in the character.

Dunstan chimed back in to add, "There was a recent movie, which will remain nameless, that depicted the main character without any fear. When you do that, how are we supposed to be afraid through him? How are we supposed to gauge anything as a legitimate threat? It's become this dulling element. So with this, we take an intimidating presence such as Kratos, fighting and pursuing a bloodthirsty vengeance trail to the God of War. How do we make that genuinely scary? The man of action must prevail, but it's got to hurt getting there."

Pleasingly, these two seem to get it.

All things considered, this is actually one of the easiest game sagas to adapt. It's not a complex story at all. In fact, it's one that could've made a fine series of movies first before becoming games, though one shudders what would've then become of the games if subjected to the typical two-minute-drill licensed-game process. It doesn't have a complex, twisting continuity that could very well hamper "Metal Gear Solid" if not treated very, very delicately, or even the green-lit "Assassin's Creed" saga with pivotal events aplenty taking place across several historical eras.

The only question is, will "God of War" find the balance with audiences between respect for character and continuity, and delivering the gore, death and epic set pieces that became the series' hallmark?