The Los Angeles Times reports that development on the Gears of War video game adaptation at New Line/Warner Bros. has stopped as the studio is scaling back the film’s story and budget.
They say that director Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard, “Underworld” films) is instead turning his attention to Nocturne at 20th Century Fox. That film is about a group of people who survive the end of the world and the mystery surrounding how they got to that position. Writers Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore came up with the idea and Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are writing a new draft of the screenplay.
The newspaper says that the Gears of War movie, with a script from Wanted writer Chris Morgan and some character work by veteran Billy Ray, was to be “a multi-generational epic with a big-canvas feel.”
They add that “the studio has now cut the budget, going from a film that would have cost more than $100 million to one that will cost a good chunk less than that. It’s also reined in the story, turning it into a more simple, straight-ahead invasion story instead of a sprawling epic.”
The producers are reportedly looking for a new writer to handle all this.
