Magic movie in the works

[John Cox]

Fox bought the MTG movie rights. Supposedly it will be on a harry potter scale.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/fox-bring-magic-gathering-big-670529

[tito del monte]

While this definitely has the potential to a complete god-awful mess in cinematic terms I think it will ultimately be fantastic for the game.

As I've said over on facebook, when I put questions to Aaron Forsythe for my book on the game, he named a big budget movie as one of the things he still hoped to see - and something that ensured we would reach the next 20-year milestone. I share his optimism, in so far as this will ultimately take the Magic brand overground in a way wholly concurrent with the profile of gaming and fantasy in the 21st century. It will attract a huge new audience to the game that should secure its future for as long as we could possibly want. It will also put us, as Magic players, out there in the mainstream which I think is something we should probably be pretty proud of.

Will the story suck, the dialogue be hammy and the charm of our favourite game butchered by Hollywood? Quite probably. But this has been such a long-time in the making, that I hope Wizards have really waited until they could get it right. It's huge news and probably good news. None of us has to watch it (just as I've never had any desire to read any Magic fiction or pick up a Magic comic) - but if it brings a massive new demographic to the local game store to buy boosters, it can only be a good thing.

[Wagner]

Of course it's going to be awful and far from the source material, but the journey of the Weatherlight and its crew defending against the Phyrexian invasion could make for a pretty good journey or war movie actually. But, seeing as that was years ago and no longer relevant to the current cards, we'll probably get Jace and Garruk Vs Liliana since they now are the poster childs of the game.

[Prospero]

The Weatherlight Saga, with some rewriting, could be incredible.

Also, I think that Urza's story is a hell of a lot more compelling than anything that they're doing now.

I could be wrong, but I just don't see where they're going to get a compelling story out of what they're doing now. 

Though I can hope that Karn will play an important role, somehow.

[KrauserKrauser]

There is absolutely no chance that this is not a Planeswalker centric movie, likely Jace.

I just hope it's not a Jace coming-of-age story, I can only find so many hats to vomit in.

[quicksilvervii]

I agree with the comments above.  Anything with the current planeswalkers to me smells like a recipe for disaster.

Give me a story about Legacy Weapon or the Brother's War, and you have my excitement.

Though in all likelihood it'll be a shitter, I will probably see it anyway.

[wiley]

The brother's war in film would be absolutely amazing.  Anything from Lorwyn on will be complete trash that should never be put to film.

Unfortunately the amount of back story required for the weatherlight's saga would take up multiple films in itself, so I am either looking at the brother's war (which is part of that backstory) or something like the legends saga centered around jedit, johan and hazezon which had no walkers and remained an interesting story.

You could also do the dragons saga, but the amount of cg on that would probably be way too much.

[quicksilvervii]

Unfortunately the amount of back story required for the weatherlight's saga would take up multiple films in itself,

20th Century Fox has closed a deal to acquire the screen rights to the hugely popular fantasy card game from Hasbro and will develop the property with an eye to launch a massive franchise on the scale of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.

Sounds doable.  There are 8 Harry Potter films and 5 in the LOTR series so far.

[KrauserKrauser]

Here we go, how about the Weatherlight Saga but with Planeswalkers in the place of the classic characters. 

I wouldn't put it past them.

[quicksilvervii]

Here we go, how about the Weatherlight Saga but with Planeswalkers in the place of the classic characters. 

I wouldn't put it past them.

This doesn't even make sense.

The target audience is all geared towards those who play the game, anyway.  I can't imagine people outside of the M:tG spectrum being particularly interested in this.

[Klep]

I wouldn't get too excited about this yet.  It currently doesn't even have a script.  Lots of properties get to this point and then never end up with a movie, and this isn't even new to Hasbro.  You may remember Battleship from their last round of trying to exploit their properties for film, but Stretch Armstrong was also optioned around that time and never went anywhere.

[forests failed you]

I hope they make the films in a similar way to the way Marvel has done the Avengers and co.  They could incorporate a ton of different story lines.  It seems like a sick cross promotion to release a new block in October and have the movies to go right along with the sets. 

I really hope they think outside of the box Jace Potter.

[AmbivalentDuck]

This might sound silly to those who haven't studied advertising, but is Magic a story or a virtual reality? The point of virtual reality is that it's complete to the point of sneaking beneath your radar to cause "suspension of disbelief." MtG is a whole world and many worlds. While they told stories in the past (Brothers' War), the new planeswalker trend is meant to get the players to envision themselves as planeswalkers. Ie. "Here I Rule."

The planeswalkers don't really have compelling stories, but they sell packs because kids identify with Jace.

[Klep]

This will never happen, but I'd be pretty excited to see Andrew Bujalski do a movie about a Magic tournament like what he did with Computer Chess last year.

[Norm4eva]

Yeah, there's no way this won't be Walkers vs. Nicol Bolas. Bolas is a long-standing figure in Magic and is probably just about as infamous as Jace, although Jace probably edges out in sheer popularity. It's an easy angle to write, especially considering that the recurring nature of the popular walkers has been running since Lorwyn and shows no sign of discontinuing.

I don't just know this off the top of my head - which characters have had the longer run inasmuch as being directly acknowledged on the cards (IOW - the actual presence of Urza as a card instead of 'Blind Seer')? New planeswalkers, or those involved in the Brothers' War?

In any event -- I tend to get pretty overthink-y when it comes to translating games to movies. There are concepts one can work with in any given creative work that can be translated to other media, but you run a huge risk of it becoming pedantic and too literal. You have to account for heat loss when moving from game to screen. Consider the approach writers/directors took with the rash of video game movies in the 90s. Mortal Kombat knew what it was (derpy kung-fu) and so a lot of the aspects of the characters and their signature moves were hinted at, contextualized, and quite opposite from the actual gameplay, surprisingly non-spammable. If compared to, say, Street Fighter or Super Mario Brothers on the big screen - where there were some really really literal translations of concepts and characters and there was fail all over the place - honestly I'd say that was probably the strongest attempt of any of the "video game to live-action movie" readings, probably to date. (full disclosure: I have never seen Max Payne. [I probably will not see Max Payne.])

The last thing I want is a bunch of costumed cosplay characters constantly shouting "IN RESPONSE" or "SURGE OF THOUGHTWEFT" as they battle their way through planes and creatures. I think paying homage to the concepts of the game and the game-play is appropriate and necessary - so like, maybe Jace is a dick and constantly talks over people as they speak, but no one ever actually talks about it, or maybe just has a single line like "Is that all you do?! Interrupt when it's someone else's turn to talk?" or just some subtle acknowledgement of the nature of the character's colors that are being portrayed. But please oh please, if a single Magic card actually appears in the movie then it's over. If they have to cop the Harry Potter trick of announcing their spells as they cast them, I'm out -- may as well toss beanbags at each other declaring "Boomerang!! Shock!! Exsanguinate!!" Gross. Nope nope nope.

In other words, the biggest mistake they could make would be to write a kid's movie. I don't think kids actually like kids movies; they want something that entertains, sure, but if it's going to be one of those things you reference and think about for decades, there's gotta be some kind of substance behind it or else you'll just look at it in five years and realize you paid $11 to see a fucking 2.5 hour Saturday morning cartoon.

[zimagic]

This will be Jace and co. versus Nicol bolas.

Trust me.

For the first. Return to Zendikar for the second. Bolas Strikes Back (or Revenge of the Elder Dragon) for the third. "The Kobold, Unexpectedly Sacrificed to a Huge Dragon" for the start of the reboot with Squee getting easter-egg killed in the background of every battle scene to tie it all together.

Wonder if they will just jump straight in with Jace et al or get all 80's with a gamer heading home from FNM only to get mugged and ignite his spark, start walking the planes, rescue the princess and be back in time for tea........

[Nefarias]

Wonder if they will just jump straight in with Jace et al or get all 80's with a gamer heading home from FNM only to get mugged and ignite his spark, start walking the planes, rescue the princess and be back in time for tea........

Funny you mention that, because it's exactly what I was thinking. For me, the death knell would be if they try to tie it into any sort of modern day, "Here I Rule" (think Percy Jackson), "step-through-a-portal (think Narnia) style storyline. If it stays pure fantasy, I think it could be fine.

Assuming they aim at making this is franchise as the article implies, my guess is the first one would require a lot of exposition, so I think there would be a lot of actual Planeswalking and probably us getting introduced to the whole "Lorwyn five." Bolas is a good guess for a "big bad," but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't either. A lot of times they use a second-tier villian in the first movie, and hint at/introduce a larger evil at the end. If I'm correct at the whole "lot of Planeswalking" thing, I'd be surprised if there at least a little bit of Ravnica, especially considering it's importance to Jace and Liliana's backstory.

[Norm4eva]

Given the recent history of MtG, I would not be surprised if the first movie is Lorwyn 5 vs. Bolas and shows us some kind of dubious "is he or isn't he" defeat. If the movie tanks, then it tanks and nothing ever comes of it, but they've got their "complete story" with the Mickeys and Marios of the game having ample screen time.

If it takes off, they take a run at Phyrexians in sequels. They can chase Phyrexians across a few planes before calculating the remaining interest in the series, and then bringing it full circle back to Nicol Bolas, who was somehow "behind it the whole time". In this way they can introduce as many mid-bosses as they feel are necessary; Karn, Mirari/Memnarch, Braids/Chainer, etc etc. Braids would be a pretty easy go-to as your recognizable requisite complete sociopath.

Or something. Maybe it won't be that predictable.

[rpf5029]

Yeah, there's no way this won't be Walkers vs. Nicol Bolas. Bolas is a long-standing figure in Magic and is probably just about as infamous as Jace, although Jace probably edges out in sheer popularity. It's an easy angle to write, especially considering that the recurring nature of the popular walkers has been running since Lorwyn and shows no sign of discontinuing.

I don't just know this off the top of my head - which characters have had the longer run inasmuch as being directly acknowledged on the cards (IOW - the actual presence of Urza as a card instead of 'Blind Seer')? New planeswalkers, or those involved in the Brothers' War?

In any event -- I tend to get pretty overthink-y when it comes to translating games to movies. There are concepts one can work with in any given creative work that can be translated to other media, but you run a huge risk of it becoming pedantic and too literal. You have to account for heat loss when moving from game to screen. Consider the approach writers/directors took with the rash of video game movies in the 90s. Mortal Kombat knew what it was (derpy kung-fu) and so a lot of the aspects of the characters and their signature moves were hinted at, contextualized, and quite opposite from the actual gameplay, surprisingly non-spammable. If compared to, say, Street Fighter or Super Mario Brothers on the big screen - where there were some really really literal translations of concepts and characters and there was fail all over the place - honestly I'd say that was probably the strongest attempt of any of the "video game to live-action movie" readings, probably to date. (full disclosure: I have never seen Max Payne. [I probably will not see Max Payne.])

The last thing I want is a bunch of costumed cosplay characters constantly shouting "IN RESPONSE" or "SURGE OF THOUGHTWEFT" as they battle their way through planes and creatures. I think paying homage to the concepts of the game and the game-play is appropriate and necessary - so like, maybe Jace is a dick and constantly talks over people as they speak, but no one ever actually talks about it, or maybe just has a single line like "Is that all you do?! Interrupt when it's someone else's turn to talk?" or just some subtle acknowledgement of the nature of the character's colors that are being portrayed. But please oh please, if a single Magic card actually appears in the movie then it's over. If they have to cop the Harry Potter trick of announcing their spells as they cast them, I'm out -- may as well toss beanbags at each other declaring "Boomerang!! Shock!! Exsanguinate!!" Gross. Nope nope nope.

In other words, the biggest mistake they could make would be to write a kid's movie. I don't think kids actually like kids movies; they want something that entertains, sure, but if it's going to be one of those things you reference and think about for decades, there's gotta be some kind of substance behind it or else you'll just look at it in five years and realize you paid $11 to see a fucking 2.5 hour Saturday morning cartoon.

As you said, you may be over thinking this a bit.  The books do a pretty good job at keeping it as straightforward in terms of what one expects from the magical fantasy genre.  It loses some of the iconography of the turn-based game, but I'm sure it'll work somehow -- and they can throw in some magical creatures, lightning bolts, and counter magic to get the point across.  Even in the books "summoning" magical creatures / constructs gets a little weird, but I have faith.  

I agree with your second post, however.  It'll probably something like Agents of Artifice, focusing on the Golden Boy, Liliana, and Tezzeret as the primary actors. If they can squeeze Chandra and Garruk in there, great.  Other 'walkers could make cameos.  They could possibly even squeeze Karn in there somewhere -- the beautiful thing about Karn, of course, is that his mere presence in the movies gives them a chance to go back and tell the Weatherlight saga if the franchise takes off as a whole.  It would probably need 4 -6 movies to be done properly by itself, but I can imagine them doing it in as few as three.

Edit:  For example, Time Streams could be redone to focus more on Urza and Karn and less on the Academy itself, and could probably incorporate enough back story from The Brother's War and The Thran to make it all worthwhile -- and it would squeeze in the relevant (and not boring) parts of Bloodlines [Ideally, this would be a whole trilogy.... but I dunno if this is possible.

Rath and Storm / Tempest would be the basis for the second movie, introducing Gerard as both the reluctant hero and the center of Urza's plan.  This would probably mash together with Invasion to keep the pace going, but I can see where it would work. 

The third movie would, of course, be the rest of Invasion, Planeshift, and Apocalypse.

[MaximumCDawg]

Count me in the crowd that sees nothing but box office disaster ahead. 

Anyway, wasn't The Sorcerer's Apprentice basically Mtg: The Movie already?

[Norm4eva]

As you said, you may be over thinking this a bit.  The books do a pretty good job at keeping it as straightforward in terms of what one expects from the magical fantasy genre.  It loses some of the iconography of the turn-based game, but I'm sure it'll work somehow -- and they can throw in some magical creatures, lightning bolts, and counter magic to get the point across.  Even in the books "summoning" magical creatures / constructs gets a little weird, but I have faith.  

I agree with your second post, however.  It'll probably something like Agents of Artifice, focusing on the Golden Boy, Liliana, and Tezzeret as the primary actors. If they can squeeze Chandra and Garruk in there, great.  Other 'walkers could make cameos.  They could possibly even squeeze Karn in there somewhere -- the beautiful thing about Karn, of course, is that his mere presence in the movies gives them a chance to go back and tell the Weatherlight saga if the franchise takes off as a whole.  It would probably need 4 -6 movies to be done properly by itself, but I can imagine them doing it in as few as three.

Edit:  For example, Time Streams could be redone to focus more on Urza and Karn and less on the Academy itself, and could probably incorporate enough back story from The Brother's War and The Thran to make it all worthwhile -- and it would squeeze in the relevant (and not boring) parts of Bloodlines [Ideally, this would be a whole trilogy.... but I dunno if this is possible.

Rath and Storm / Tempest would be the basis for the second movie, introducing Gerard as both the reluctant hero and the center of Urza's plan.  This would probably mash together with Invasion to keep the pace going, but I can see where it would work. 

The third movie would, of course, be the rest of Invasion, Planeshift, and Apocalypse.

That'd be all well and good except the article doesn't really seem to say that they are sticking to the books (which I've never read). So for all anyone knows, it is a totally different story arc.

That's probably a blessing and a curse, and I say that with pretty much no knowledge about the books apart from whatever shows up in flavor text. Perhaps the books treat the characters appropriately, and perhaps one doesn't see a bunch of that "look how cleverly we integrated in-game mechanics into our story!!" damage. My fear is that whoever takes on the lion's share of the conceptualizing eschews whatever is redeemable in the books and instead tries to play it really straight, and just sucks a bunch of elements out of the game itself and tries to recreate them on the screen very literally and without any real care.

And heh, while I ain't even mad -- in regard to overthinking it. I had trouble digging up the exact quote because it's from an old GamePro magazine, but in an interview with Steven de Souza (who directed the Street Fighter movie that bombed so hard) he makes it a point to say that part of the SMB movie failing was because they do this whole "Oh! They have to jump high and make these funny noises when they do, so we have to put that in the movie." and he goes on to talk about how his movie isn't going to be like that and isn't going to just jam these concepts into the script, but like.. lol it kind of totally does, and it definitely sucks every time they directly reference Street Fighter moves/game elements. I just mean there's 'a right way and a wrong way', and it's kind of like porn; you can't really define it in words without traipsing into legitimate artistic territory, but you sure as hell know it when you see it.

[Ten-Ten]

Meh, LotR and Hobbit set the bar pretty high for any fantasy film. I highly doubt the story will have anything to do with anyone before Lorwyn. Sad actually. If anything, they will introduce a whole new storyline and characters, planeswalkers are mythic so maybe they make an appearance here or there but the story will be focused on non-walkers.
Either way, bad idea. Wont watch unless its either Weatherlight or Brother's war...

[iamfishman]

I think you are all wrong.  I think the movie will be about characters and a story we don't know about yet.

In the last few years, Wizards has gotten really good, from a marketing and advertising standpoint, of making the game something more than just the game.  They had us feeling like we were searchng for buried treasure at the Zendikar prerelease, siding with either the Mirran or Phyrexian throughour Scars block, and going on hero quests during the release of Theros.  They had pros and common player alike align themselves with a guild from Ravnica regarding planeswalker points and how we all fought hard to break open that Helvault to free Avacyn.

I am certain that this movie will align with the story of whatever block is currently being played.  Imagne if this movie was coming out tomorrow.  Wouldn't it make sense from the advertsing angle of selling boosters for it to tell us the story of how Xenegos rose to God status?  Kids go in to see the movie having never played magic and then walk past the store in the mall that has the huge poster of the bad guy Xenegos they just saw.  "Mommy, I want some of those Magic card things!"

And, how different would set previews be if instead of clicking refresh on Magic the Gathering.com at midnight, you had to wait in line for the midnight showing to get the first peek at the new planeswalker?

Thoughts?

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I think you are all wrong.  I think the movie will be about characters and a story we don't know about yet.

I don't think wizards has spent so much time developing recognizable characters and branding with the planeswalkers we all know to ditch them in what will probably be the biggest marketing opportunity to an untapped audience they'll get in a very long time. Possibly ever.

That's like saying, "hey, like what you saw? Got an attachment or like to a character? Well that's not what this product is really about/ rooted in! I hope you're still interested in developing new interest/ attachment."

Wizards has openly stated that part of making planeswalkers was to have something to be an iconic character, something relatable. They talked about how then staples of mtg, such as goyf, just don't do this. They even specificly made comments about how you just can't tell an interesting story staring tarmogoyf. Though I do hope iconic non-walker cards make tons of cameos.

[Bakalias]

Does anyone remember the D&D movies?
I sure hope it will be better than that...

[Norm4eva]

I think you are all wrong.  I think the movie will be about characters and a story we don't know about yet.

In the last few years, Wizards has gotten really good, from a marketing and advertising standpoint, of making the game something more than just the game.  They had us feeling like we were searchng for buried treasure at the Zendikar prerelease, siding with either the Mirran or Phyrexian throughour Scars block, and going on hero quests during the release of Theros.  They had pros and common player alike align themselves with a guild from Ravnica regarding planeswalker points and how we all fought hard to break open that Helvault to free Avacyn.

I am certain that this movie will align with the story of whatever block is currently being played.  Imagne if this movie was coming out tomorrow.  Wouldn't it make sense from the advertsing angle of selling boosters for it to tell us the story of how Xenegos rose to God status?  Kids go in to see the movie having never played magic and then walk past the store in the mall that has the huge poster of the bad guy Xenegos they just saw.  "Mommy, I want some of those Magic card things!"

And, how different would set previews be if instead of clicking refresh on Magic the Gathering.com at midnight, you had to wait in line for the midnight showing to get the first peek at the new planeswalker?

Thoughts?

I think that the best one could hope for would be to borrow against the characters they've established while also carving a new story.

In terms of its application -- regardless of which characters it revolves around, it will almost certainly be an analog to its paper predecessors in the way that Batman Begins leverages its characters against established motifs. No, I am not saying it will be as watchable as the Nolan Batman flicks, but I am saying that the IP will be roughly about as tied to their origins as Nolan's Batman series is to whichever series of Batman you wish to compare it to.

And honestly, they'd do well to do so; screenplay writers that are lifting from books almost without fail manage to include elements which "you only understand if you've read the books". Something that goes beyond the narrative established by the movie, but seasoned fans intuitively grok. I know that there were about two dozen instances of such moments over the course of the Harry Potter series; my wife read the books, but I didn't, and as a result we'd have these discussions about the nature of events in the films, and she'd point out some plot point or quirk that seems like a total deus ex but in the books is actually very explicitly detailed and not at all as ambiguous as it appears onscreen.

So they can take the sketches of characters and their motives from the books and use an identifiable concept - Lorwyn Walkers vs Bolas, for example - but otherwise, be freed of the boundaries of the books and established mythology and just create something (presumably, hopefully) watchable by a wider audience.

EDIT -- Also, I get that by nature of the concept of a Multiverse, it's true that infinite characters can be established or "waiting to be established", sure. But for obvious marketing reasons, they'd be foolish to eschew big characters that identify the story as being tied to the parts of Magic that we recognize. Setting something in Dominaria or Ravnica but using some bloke we've never heard of to tell the story would be IMO pretty hard to watch. I think even I after a while would be like "eventually, they do introduce fucking Jace, right??"

[serracollector]

I just hope they show a polar kraken and have someone describe it like the flavor text. And even tho its gonna revolve around new cards if any, I personally would love to see Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire, Shivan Dragon, Mahamotti Djinn, Force of Nature, and ofc Juggernaut as our original fatties of mtg.

[Shax]

I want to see a Black Lotus. Also seeing a Tarmogoyf chitter away after eating a treasure box of Legacy cards would be very thrilling.

[Norm4eva]

I just hope they show a polar kraken and have someone describe it like the flavor text. And even tho its gonna revolve around new cards if any, I personally would love to see Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire, Shivan Dragon, Mahamotti Djinn, Force of Nature, and ofc Juggernaut as our original fatties of mtg.

Deep Spawn or GTFO.