The Movies details

Lionhead Studios has dipped into its postbag to answer some questions about The Movies, the forthcoming film-making sim for PC, PS2, Xbox and GameCube.

It seems that the biggest question for most Movies fans is whether you'll be able to make films full of blood, guts and assorted gratuitous violence - and sadly, the answer is No.

"As we're trying to make a game that appeals to everyone, we have to be careful so that we remain within our targeted age rating," says Lionhead.

"We're looking for the right balance to accommodate our older and younger players." Bahh.

Those who don't like violence anyway, preferring to watch boring films made in France where everyone smokes and nothing happens, may be pleased to know that "YES - you can add subtitles" to your movie.

"After you're done filming, you can edit your movie in Post Production, where you'll be able to add subtitles. And if you want to add a place and date, like "London 1999" for example, you can also use the subtitle layer for that," apparently.

Lionhead goes on to reveal more details of the set-building system, telling us: "You'll be able to make movies with the sets you placed down in your lot. The more sets you build, the more variation you can put into your movies.

"By the time you have played through the entire Movies' history, you'll be able to make a movie with every set available, use them as many times as you want in a movie and in as many different ways as the game allows.

"However, in the sandbox mode, the player can choose to jump to any era and immediately access all the content of that time period." Super.

And for anyone who's been wondering how they'll find the 'talent' to star in their movies, probably whilst also having dirty thoughts about the casting couch, Lionhead says there'll always be a queue of people outside the Stage School just begging to be made famous.

"You can take a close look at them to see if they have the right appearance, experience and mood to become one of your Stars. If you don't want them, you can drop them in the Reject room to throw them out of the queue and swap them for another wannabe.

"If you hire them and they don't have quite the right look, just drop them into Wardrobe to change their costume, hairstyle, etc... and restyle them." Hurrah! Let's all shave J-Lo's head!

Lionhead has yet to lock down an exact release date for The Movies, but we're told the PC game will be out some time in the autumn with console versions to follow. Click here for a full preview, and here for some screenshots.