Deadline reports that Dead Island, a video game franchise best known for its surprisingly poignant trailer was supposed to get a film adaptation from Lionsgate Studios, but those plans fell through after the departure of producer Alli Shearmur. Game publisher Deep Silver has now sold the film rights to Occupant Entertainment best known for the 2006 slasher film, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.
Dead Island the game followed a group of four strangers enjoying a vacation on a tropical island until one day they woke up to find the resort overrun with the undead. Similar to other zombie games such as Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising, the game used fast moving swarms of zombies as opposed to the slow, lumbering variety. The trailer shown above for Dead Island won an award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The game received mixed – partially because most felt the game didn’t have the emotional gravitas promised in the trailer – to positive reviews, sold over 8 million units at launch and has a sequel scheduled for 2015.
Occupant has not announced if its planned film will follow the plot of the game or aim for a tone closer to the trailer. Joe Neurauter and Felipe Marino with Occupant said,
Deep Silver has created a highly successful game franchise based on very cinematic, widely viewed and well received trailers, which provide a great template for launching a film franchise with a distinctive and commercial take on the zombie apocalypse.
The film is scheduled for release in 2015.
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