DEAD ISLAND Movie in Development

The teaser only arrived online three days ago and already the studios want in on the action.

It was only three days ago that the heartbreaking and beautiful teaser trailer for the upcoming videogame Dead Island arrived online, and now with that video having gone viral, talk has turned to movies. Deadline and The Wrap have both reported that a stampede has broken out over the movie rights to the game. It’s a good thing then that producers Sean Daniel, Jason Brown and Union Entertainment’s Richard Leibowitz and Dmitri Johnson corralled the screen rights nearly a year ago and now studios and agencies are all over them, suggesting talent packages and storylines to try and make a screen deal.

The film will will follow a Memento-like storyline, even though the video game does not. Daniel knows his way around a big ticket movie, having produced The Mummy franchise. He has been producing movies for twenty years and has a varied resume of projects including Dazed and Confused, Tombstone and Mallrats.

Dead Island is an open world, first person zombie slasher developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver. Techland claim the game is far beyond a typical first-person shooter experience, due to a bigger emphasis on melee combat, role-playing elements and a clear focus on story-telling. The game is scheduled for release in November and will arrive on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Game synopsis: Set in an open world tropical island, hordes of different festering zombies await players around every corner while they embark on a variety of thrilling missions through the holiday resort. With firearms and ammunition being scarce the player must rely on utilizing found items as weapons for self-defense and fight off zombie hordes in intense melee combat. A diverse range of items can be collected and will later serve to transform the player’s ordinary makeshift weapons into serious instruments of destruction.

In addition to satisfying even the most bloodthirsty action fan’s fantasy, Dead Island also features role-playing elements which allow the player to develop one of the game’s unique character classes according to their preferences, all the while learning new skills and fresh tactics during their journey through the perilous environments of the island. What’s more, anytime during a game up to four players can seamlessly join together and experience the intense combat and immersive story with cooperative gameplay.

You can view the trailer in chronological order HERE