Second Life-inspired movie planned

By Oli Welsh Published 18 December, 2008

Verbinski to direct, slams role-players.

Variety reports that Universal Studios and Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski are to make a film about a man who loses his life to an online virtual world.

The studio and helmsman have acquired the rights to a Wall Street Journal article by Alexandra Alter called 'Is This Man Cheating On His Wife?'

The article details the Second Life addiction of Ric Hoogestraat, a chain-smoking, diabetic middle-aged man who would spend as many as 20 hours a day living a virtual existence as a thriving young businessman, and who had an in-game marriage to another player (not his wife).

MTV reckons that Verbinski won't be making a straight adaptation of the real-life story, but rather using it as a starting point for a fiction about the "detrimental effects of role-playing" - slamming the perceived dysfunction of MMO gamers and virtual world users, in other words.

Steven Knight, who wrote the excellent Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things, will handle the script, so hopefully the film won't dumb down the issue too much.

Verbinski's leaning strongly towards the digital world for his subject matter; he's also slated to make a big-screen BioShock.

Beats adapting theme park rides, we suppose.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • penhalion #1 3 years ago

    About time these extreme users had a wakeup call! Maybe this movie will finally slap some sanity back into them.

    An MMO is just a game and should be treated as one. a few hours play a week is sane. 40 hours a week is the equivalent of having a second job!

  • seasidebaz #2 3 years ago

    SO will this be a porn movie with people flying and the scenery slowly loading in?

  • BigJonno #3 3 years ago

    Penhalion, as much as I agree that some people do put their real lives and health at risk with their gaming habits, a film bashing "extreme" users will not be taken that way by the general public and mass media.

    The intended message may be "Losing yourself in a virtual world is bad" but the message that people take away will be "Them thar videogames are the Devil, ayup. Bobby-Sue, stop playin' yer Poker-mans right now!"

  • Eraysor #4 3 years ago

    I think 20 hours a day of any single activity is pretty detrimental to your health.

  • SEVQA #5 3 years ago

    @Eraysor - not if its press ups ur doing!

  • mikeck #6 3 years ago

    Beats adapting theme park rides, we suppose

    Well said EG, well said ;)

  • hoster #7 3 years ago

    For some reason I misread the title of this article as 'Second Sight inspired movie planned'

    Is dissapointed.

  • schachmatt #8 3 years ago

    Eastern Promises was the most outrageously unbelievable and not comprehensible scripts Cronenberg has ever filmed.
    Mortensen and Cassel are fab, though.

    Quite sure this one will be by the numbers with enough budget to elevate it superficially.

  • TessaTickle #9 3 years ago

    Shouldn't Uwe Boll be doing this instead ? If a shit video game adaptation absolutely has to be made, I think it might as well be given good old Boll. That way, you know to avoid it. Having someone else do it may lull people into thinking it could actually be a semi-competent effort.

  • ChthonicEcho #10 3 years ago

    ...detrimental effects of role-playing...
    Oh, brilliant, here comes Hollywood with its misinformed, ignorant view on yet another activity it wants to make a film about. Second Life has as much to do with role-playing as WoW. Namely, next to nothing.

  • rhubarbandcustard #11 3 years ago

    I had a second life free trial for exactly one evening. Men being dogs and all, within minutes I found myself in a virtual sex dungeon doing unspeakable acts which had graphic animations while I and the other user typed out an increasingly lurid and disturbingly fun s&m soire.

    If I do have a latent S&M fetish to my personality I would rather it remain dormant than have Second Life encourage me to become more depraved than Aleister Crowley :)

    It was good fun though.

  • Greebo #12 3 years ago

    "@Eraysor - not if its press ups ur doing!"

    Pretty sure 20hrs of press ups would land most people in hospital :-)

  • ekko #13 3 years ago

    While a lot of SL (and other MMO) players do need a kick up the backside I can't help feel this is the film industry taking a swipe at the "Next Big Thing".

  • makeamazing #14 3 years ago

    Yes another game to movie failure? Hmm not convinced what I read in the article sounds like a good idea for a movie. Oh well, wonder when a good film of a game will be made.

  • Rodafowa #15 3 years ago

    About time these extreme users had a wakeup call! Maybe this movie will finally slap some sanity back into them.

    An MMO is just a game and should be treated as one. a few hours play a week is sane. 40 hours a week is the equivalent of having a second job!

    And if that's how people choose to spend their time, then all power to them. They're not hurting anyone else, so who exactly are you to tell anyone they need "slapping back to sanity"?

    This kind of sneering, nasty "nerd calling the nerd nerdy" thing drives me up the wall. MMOs aren't your bag. They aren't my bag. But they're harmless and literally hundreds of thousands of people enjoy them. Good luck to them, I reckon. It'd be a dull old world if we all liked the same things as Nigel Spackman.
    Edited by Rodafowa at 18/12/08 @ 13:11

  • Feanor #16 3 years ago

    But they're not harmless.

  • kangarootoo #17 3 years ago

    Nothing is harmless is done to excess, including press ups. But if we start trying to stop any activity that causes harm when carried out to excess we will be left with pretty much nothing.

    The issue is one of addictive personalities. If Second Life didn't exist people would find other vices to abuse. And a movie telling people with addictive personalities that they are shit doesn't help anybody.

    And even IF we accept that some people might let their Second Life usage get out of hand, it is still a far less damaging addiction than crack cocaine or gambling. Perspective is needed here.

  • zippie151 #18 3 years ago

    well another example of the film industry lacking ideas i think, but in all fairness if anyone wants to spend that amount of time on something like second life or any other mmo then thats fine by me, its their choice. I for one would like to escape to another world every so often but unfortunately repeatedly killing monsters or fetching items isnt my idea of it lol. Where are the epic exploration MMOs??

  • TriggerHippie #19 3 years ago

    I hope this is like that D&D movie with Tom Hanks in it. That put the fear of God into p&p role players and no mistake!
    Edited by TriggerHippie at 18/12/08 @ 19:58

  • kingkatt #20 3 years ago

    Huge missed opportunity to remake TRON for the modern age, i.e. man LITERALLY gets sucked into virtual world.