Wondered when Hollywood would stop making Fast And Furious films and finally take up Need For Speed? Well, the wait is finally over as EA has
reportedly sold the rights for the official Need For Speed film to DreamWorks and hired director Scott Waugh.
One of EA's biggest titles, the Need For Speed series is well known to almost every gamer. Since the release of the first title, the series has sold more than 140 million units worldwide, generating an estimated $4 billion in retail revenue, making it one of the biggest franchises in video gaming.
The press release announces that the films will be "high-octane" and "fast-paced" and rooted in the "culture of the 70s". Not specifying which game the movie will be based on, the movie still promises to be faithful to the franchise.
The franchise has been known for inserting short video sequences into its story based games like Carbon, Most Wanted and The Run. The sequences last from anywhere between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. As graphics improved over the years, fans started wondering whether a whole movie could be made incorporating racing scenes as well as narration. Looks like EA has heeded to these requests.
The movie combines the winning combo of DreamWorks and Spielberg, which produced the box office hit series Transformers. Brothers George and John Gatins have developed the original story with George writing the feature's screenplay and John, who also wrote the scripts for Real Steel and the upcoming Flight, producing the film.
Scott Waugh as director is best known for his military film Act of Valor. Relevant to the Need For Speed however, will be his experience on stunt crews for dozens of films, including movies like Torque, The Italian Job, and Biker Boyz.
For all those millions of fans out there who eat-play-sleep the games of this franchise, this news comes as a spectacular announcement. The hours spent racing in the fictional cities of Seacrest, Palmont, Bayview and throttling the nitrous and ramming police cars to gain bonuses has been the mainstay of this franchise.
But in the last few years, there has been a decline in sales of games. EA has not been able to pinpoint the main reason for this. Perhaps the movie could be an attempt to boost the series onto a larger platform of Hollywood and win back lost fans, many of whom were disappointed with the path the series took after Most Wanted.
Production of the film is set to begin around early 2013. Need For Speed is also releasing revamped Most Wanted. The new Need For Speed - Most Wanted is an open world driving game running on Autolog 2 servers which connects the friends and competitors. The game is set to release in on 30th October 2012.