Paramount options Area 51 movie rights
Another Midway game gets movie treatment, although it's not clear if the game's voice acting talent - including David Duchovny - will figure in the transition.
Area 51 has become the latest Midway Games title to catch the attention of Hollywood, joining the likes of Psi-Ops and Spy-Hunter on the tinseltown radar, with Paramount Pictures announcing this week that it has optioned the rights to the extra-terrestrial tale.
Although Area 51 isn't even out yet, we already know that the PS2 and Xbox game features voice acting talent from David Duchovny (as hero Ethan Cole), Powers Boothe (as a chap called Major Bridges) and Marilyn Manson (oddly, as a grey alien called Edgar), although Paramount has admitted that the movie won't necessarily uses the same actors.
However we do know that it will be produced by Christine Peters of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days fame - and it's worth pointing out that Paramount is owned by Viacom, the head of which, Sumner Redstone, has been buying up Midway stock recently in what is generally viewed as a move to acquire the publisher.