'Wanted' video game preview

Angelina Jolie in "Wanted" (Credit: Jaap Buitendijk/Universal)

Most movie games are released when the film is in (or almost in) theaters. But the upcoming third-person shooter based on the summer sleeper hit “Wanted” not only wasn't timed to capitalize on the movie's release, it wasn’t even announced until weeks later—when the film was already a big hit.

Canny marketing strategy or huge gaffe? We asked executive producer Pete Wanat—who has worked on such film-to-game adaptations as “Scarface: The World is Yours” and “The Thing”—to get the low down on this third-person shooter, which Universal Pictures and Warner Brothers Interactive plan to release this winter.

Why wasn't the "Wanted" game announced until after the film’s release?
The game was never meant to be announced before the movie. This was a strategic choice on Universal’s part to help gamers understand that the game is independent of the film, which is the way Universal treats the games based on its franchises. The game comes first, and you can see that commitment to quality in [previous titles] “The Thing,” “Riddick” [“The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay”], “King Kong” and “Scarface.”

There was a core understanding that “Wanted” would be an awesome game because the universe [director] Timur [Bekmambetov] created from [writer] Mark Millar’s graphic novel was a place that gamers would want to play in. I hate the term “fantasy fulfillment,” but I suppose it does that as well. I just wish there was a better term for saying, “I want to do all the badass stuff the guy in the movie is doing!”

If the movie had not done well at the box office, would the game still be coming out?
Lucky for us, that didn’t happen. I doubt we would have stopped production of the game, since the game rocks regardless of the movie. But we also got to see cuts of the movie early on, so were never worried about how it would do. I saw the film six times prior to the premiere and it never failed to be anything but awesome.

The original comic was a lot more superheroic than the movie. Will the game be that way as well or will it stick to the (relative) realism of the movie?
The movie takes place in Timur’s universe, and while he might have stripped off the [costume] tights, he didn’t change the spirit of the books. We don’t have superhero tights in the game either, but fans will find even more nods to the comic in the game than in the movie.

How does the game’s story expand the one in the movie?
The game takes places minutes after the film ends. We see the game as an interlude between this movie and the next, if they make one; a side story that extends the fiction and gives awesome background into the “Wanted” universe.

Are Millar or the film's screenwriters working on the game’s story?
We shared our concepts with Mark, who provided us some good input on our storyline, and we worked closely with the guys from the film as well, but John Zuur Platten, who we worked with previously on “Riddick,” took over writing duties. The story [involves] Wesley and his mother, but it's not told in a boring kind of way. It’s a badass action story that has as many blow-your-mind twists as the film. I think fans of the comic will love it as well.

The game is a third-person shooter, but it seems that it could’ve also worked as a first-person one. Why did you decide to go third-person with it?
I agree we could have done it in first-person from the shooting point, but [ducking for] cover was and always has been a huge part of the game, and a place we felt we could really expand and innovate on. It also doesn’t hurt that we have James McAvoy as our lead. Why hide him behind a first-person view?