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Ninja Theory: "We could make Beowulf for 20% of the cost"

Games Industry reports:

Ninja Theory's Tameem Antoniades has said he believes that his company could have produced a movie like Beowulf for the fraction of the cost by using a game engine - in fact, around a fifth of the estimated film's USD 150 million budget.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Antoniades talked of plans to move his company into movie and TV production - which would run alongside its games business.

"We see an entirely different area of progress: a form of independent production based on real-time game engine technology. We reckon you could do something like Beowulf for 15-20 per cent of the cost," Antoniades explained.

"If you are already creating hi-res assets for a game, then sharing these can bring that cost down even further... We have a lot of experience in performance capture, animation, rendering and so on. We can compete in the same way that indie films can live alongside blockbusters."
Superfragilistic - contributor
Published: 554 days 21 hours ago | News | PlayStation 3 | Xbox 360 | Industry News | Dev News
 
 

Showing: 1 - 19 of 19 Comments
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Rikitatsu - 554 days 21 hours ago
1 - Ninja Theory
you aren't a good dev team, Stop seeking attention
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shine1396 - 554 days 21 hours ago
1.1 -
good yes. of course their good. heavenly sword was very polished, exellent in a lot of areas. Cinematography, facial expressions, voiceovers and fluid gameplay, stunning colours and animations, all of which amounts to an anime the likes of which I haven't seen. But of course I will totally agree that heavenly sword is like a short burst, with no big bang at the end of it. Also the fact that they are not going to do Heavenly Sword 2 is kind of disappointing. Unless of course someone like Kojima takes over or something.
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thewhoopimen - 554 days 12 hours ago
1.2 - @1 Did you watch Heavenly Sword's cutscenes?
Have you ever watched Heavenly Sword's cutscenes? Bar-none it is THE BEST in the console generation. Better than uncharted, gears, cod4, or whatever game you care to wager. Andy Serkis (LOTR's Golem) directed most of the scenes and played Bohan in the game and it is fantastic.
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Chexd - 554 days 21 hours ago
2 -
They couldnt have got the visuals so good...They honestly think a game engine would beat a high-cost digital media hollywood suite?

Hollywood have more money, more technology and more talent.
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Tempist - 554 days 14 hours ago
2.1 -
You seem to neglect the factor that they had the restraints of a console to make their game (which is very, very, nicely done.)

Remove the fact that it has to be able to run on a console and just has to be rendered and it's an entirely new level of visuals. They could even prove this by altering the engine and making a 3 minute demo trailer.

I say they put their money where there mouth is and make that movie demo using the engine.
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deeznuts - 554 days 11 hours ago
2.2 -
Doesn't matter, game engines are not on the level of these CGI studio production teams yet. There is still a wide divide.
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BlackCountryBob - 554 days 11 hours ago
2.3 -
Pre rendered visuals using game engines look amazing, the visuals only take a downturn when they are rendered in real time using the game engine. A game engine pre rendering could look as good as the best CGI studio work in the world.
3 CNIVEK | 554 days 14 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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Tempist - 554 days 14 hours ago
3.1 -
At most really, they would have gotten $10-15 million. Voice acting doesn't pay that much (although they did do mo-cap work too).
3.2 CNIVEK | 554 days 13 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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AclayPS3 - 554 days 14 hours ago
4 -
Damn, too bad the chances of Heavenly Sword 2 are "very unlikely" according to Ninja Theory. I wish that they would make a second Heavenly Sword game because it had a lot of potential. I would even go so far as to say that Heavenly Sword was about just as cinematic as the Metal Gear Solid games.... Heavenly Sword was one of those games where you had that emotional connection with the characters in the game and games like that are just so rare these days.
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mistertwoturbo - 554 days 13 hours ago
4.1 -
The Problem with HS wasn't it's production values nor graphics or anything like that. Most of everything was pretty polished and well done. The main gripe with HS was the no jumping and unusual blocking as well as the short length.

Heavenly Sword 2 has the potential to be far greater.
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Kyur4ThePain - 554 days 13 hours ago
4.2 - Heavenly Sword was one of those games where you had that emotional connection with the characters in the game and games like that are just so rare these days
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Bubbles.
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okcomputer - 554 days 13 hours ago
5 -
I have no doubt that they could make a good cgi movie. A good video game though, not so much.
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BlackCountryBob - 554 days 13 hours ago
6 -
He makes a good point which seems yo have been missed by those whom have already commented; He is actually attempting to promote the idea of a togetherness being employed by Hollywood when using content. Rather than for example in a movie like Beowulf having a movie crew scanning the actors and then a crew of CGI people using them while at the same time having game developers having to do many of the same things. What he is promoting is the idea of uniting the work of a company like ILM or WETA workshops with game designers so that there is an increased level of co-operation and sharing of technology so reducing budgets.

Its actually a good point, why have 2 teams, 2 firms, 2 contracts having to take the same things twice when they could all be doen in one place instead.

Maybe this is the sort of thing which is driving to changes at LucasArts; it may be being folded into ILM.
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aggh im on fire - 554 days 12 hours ago
7 -
Well conssidering %55 of the budget went on the stars salaries they probably could make it cheaper but i don't wanna watch bewolfe starring the guys from Eastenders.
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BlackCountryBob - 554 days 11 hours ago
7.1 -
Read the article, he mentions nothing about changing the actors at all. His point is that 20% of the overall budget could have been wiped out if a company like Ninja Theory had done the behind the scenes work of the CGI and motion capture using existing technologies used in games and sharing assets with the official game of the movie makers rather than it being done by ILM or Weta.

No actors would change nor would their salary change. Read the article properly before commenting!
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Apocalypse Shadow - 554 days 11 hours ago
8 - some aren't getting it.
watch "kaena."

a good,full movie made from ingame assets.didn't cost a lot to make and looks great.video is poor but the movie was good.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

apocalypse...........
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Ludwig - 554 days 9 hours ago
9 -
Err, 80% of Beowulf's budget went with high-profile hollywood actors paychecks...

Besides, game industry artists are underpaid for such a job and would be all fully based on exploiting the youth's talent. (In the VFX industry the salary average is way higher.. but as next-gen marches in the amount/quality of the work is starting to get even.)
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