disaster movies – StuffWeLike

I Am Alive to Become Major Franchise

With the race for awesome graphics having finally rested, developers are coming up with some really innovative titles at last! Probably spurred by Portal, EA will be doing Mirror’s Edge and Ubisoft will do I Am Alive. What is so innovative about that, you ask? Well, I Am Alive will put you in your own disaster movie as you will have to use real-life skills and techniques to save yourself from an earthquake.

It looks like Ubisoft is all ready to turn the game into a franchise already. This is a pretty weird trend I’ve been noticing lately, with developers starting franchises before the completion of the first game (Mass Effect, Crysis being examples). Well, it’s not bad, so who’s complaining?

It is no genius guess that in the potential sequels, we may have our hero facing other objects of natural fury: floods, tsunamis, tornados, storms, maybe volcanos. In any case, you just know that if I Am Alive‘s style can be used on earthquakes, further iterations are inevitable. Oh well, guess the franchise idea wasn’t that far off either!

Also, the first trailer of the game was rather mysterious in itself. Perhaps the events of I Am Alive aren’t as natural as you think. Of course, we, who have been raised on the X-Files will be first to theorise this being part of some global conspiracy, alien invasion or some test created by our alien benefactors. So Ubisoft is going to have to come up with something more original in the story department.

Another question is if the game will at all work. I’m not saying that non-violent games don’t have a chance, but Portal was a work of utter genius, and I’d be shocked if we get a Portal every year. I Am Alive will focus largely on character interactions and problem-solving. Now that we mention it, I’m starting to think that a zombie survival game along the same vein would be awesome…

Hmm, I hope Ubisoft is listening.

J.J. Abrams doing Cloverfield: Earthquake?

After awing the cellphone-owning world with this year’s Cloverfield, J.J. Abrams will be looking into another disaster movie. Except this time, we won’t have any mysterious monsters. This time, it’s all going to be natural, ’cause Abrams will be doing an Earthquake film.

Signed on is David Seltzer, who will be writing the script with Abrams. Seltzer can be best known for his scripwriting expertise on all of the Omen movies (yes, even the crappy new remake). As usual, since this is a fresh announcement, we have very little knowledge of what the movie itself will be about other than earthquakes.

Abrams hints that relationships will be at the core, like in Cloverfield. While I can’t imagine a disaster movie that doesn’t involve emotions (Day After Tomorrow, perhaps?), Abrams did a decent job on Cloverfield, so I’m hoping for something here. Still, a notch higher than Cloverfield would be appreciated.

We’ve also no confirmation that the movie will use the handycam-style from Cloverfield, but that’s just some wishful thinking on my part. I mean seriously, that style makes all standard disaster movies look outdated.

Of course, still no info on Cloverfield 2. Perhaps Abrams is secretly developing it under the guise of this earthquake movies? Perhaps a viral marketing campaign will reveal clues? The mystery never stops!

Disaster Movie poster looks disastrous

In what is the most accurate movie title in the franchise, Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg present the next in line to their already disaster line of movie spoofs: Disaster Movie. We have the poster right here, and while it has a mildly good take on The Day After Tomorrow, the movie will have to be much, much better to offset the… well, disappointment (yes, too weak a word) from Meet the Spartans and- who are we kidding? The entire goddamn franchise.

The cast features Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra, for the booby goodness. Matt Lanter (the voice of Anakin from the upcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars TV series!) will be starring, with Nicole Parker and more people from the same bandwagon.

I, for one, am getting tired of this pricks. Its rime there are either really good Hollywood spoofs or none at all. It would probably be funny to see a “Spoof Movie” from someone other than Seltzer and Friedberg. Oh, and click the thumbnail below for the full-size poster, courtesy Cinematical.