System Shock - The Live-Action Series

[6800cf857c807edx]

https://twitter.com/bingedotcom/status/1448308214790070272

“System Shock” goes Live-Action with an original series by @bingedotcom  and  @NightdiveStudio
 
Get ready for SHODAN!

[6800cf857cac5edx]

https://deadline.com/2021/10/system-shock-live-action-series-based-on-video-game-franchise-in-the-works-from-binge-nightdive-studios-1234854806/

Binge, an upcoming gaming entertainment streaming platform, has added a live-action series adaptation of Nightdive Studios’ System Shock to its slate of original programming.

The original System Shock plunges players into Citadel Station in the year 2072, where an unnamed hacker wakes from a coma only to be confronted by murderous robots, killer cyborgs, malicious mutants, and a malevolent AI named SHODAN that seeks to control Earth.

Nightdive’s Stepehn Kick and Larry Kuperman will serve as executive producers and Binge’s Chief Content Officer Allan Ungar will produce.

“I’ve always believed that a live action adaptation of System Shock would be the perfect medium to retell the harrowing story of Citadel station and its rogue AI that subjects the crew to unimaginable horror,” added Kick. “We’re very excited to see the talented team at Binge bring System Shock to life in horrifyingly real and new ways.”

“System Shock is an iconic franchise adored by gamers for more than two decades and a series that helped redefine what it meant to play an FPS,” said Ungar, Binge’s Chief Content Officer. “We’re excited to do right by the franchise – and the genre – in bringing System Shock to life. Get ready for SHODAN.”

The series joins Binge’s original content slate ahead of its 2022 launch. Binge will also adapt Ubisoft’s Driver into a live-action series and has teamed with El Rubius for his upcoming series Rubius Checkpoint. System Shock will stream exclusively on Binge, which seeks to create high-quality content for gamers.

The original System Shock title was released in 1994 from LookingGlass Technologies and Origin Systems. System Shock is set for a complete remake from Nightdive Studios.

[6800cf857cc65Kolya]

This could become a greater success than Keanu Reeve's Johnny Mnemonic and Billy Idol's Cyberpunk album.

[6800cf857cda3ZylonBane]

If this even ends up happening, I'm predicting the quality level will be about the same as a YouTube fan-made series.

[6800cf857ceffHikari]

Given the SS1 kickstarter still hasn't delivered a game six years after the fact? Also doubting.

Also unsure if I want some high budget affair or some shitty 90's made for tv with clearly not enough budget for it affair.

Then again I suspect this thing to launch in 2064 as a live news broadcasts about citadel as it happens.

[6800cf857d063Kolya]

I can't find anything this company created so far. https://binge.com/
It seems System Shock and Driver are their first gigs.

It's not clear if they have any relation to that other video company named BINGE which have lots of content on Youtube.

[6800cf857d33dsarge945]

This looks like it'll be terrible, but at least we're not getting another mystery box shit out by JJ Abrams and the rest of the talentless hacks at Bad Robot, so there's at least some hope for it

[6800cf857d514JDoran]

Has there ever been a good film or TV series based on a game? Theoretically, you can make a great film (or TV series, or book, etc) out of any game, even one as simplistic and arbitrary as Tetris. It's just a question of having talented enough writers, and allowing them the leeway to add to the story/base concepts as they see fit. But as we all know, for some reason, the writing in so many films and TV shows nowadays is so lukewarm and uninteresting.

I know the recent TV series based on the Witcher games (which were themselves based on a book series) was eagerly anticipated by some fans. I don't know how it turned out, though. Was it any good?

There have actually been some good books based on video games. The official Bioshock novel, Bioshock Rapture, is well worth a read, and the two Perfect Dark novels are good too.

[6800cf857d696voodoo47]

I can imagine a tv series set in the System Shock universe could work if done right, with the emphasis on DONE RIGHT. the numbers are stacked against this though, I don't think a good (live action) tv series based on a game exists. but hey, it has to happen at some point, riiight?

Witcher TV is ok, or so I've heard. not perfect, but not utter garbage either.

[6800cf857da75icemann]

Has there ever been a good film or TV series based on a game?

Been some excellent anime of several video games (Devil May Cry's anime is great). Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog (which also got a great movie), Dead Space and many more got decent cartoons/anime.

As far as live action, I love the original Mortal Kombat film (plus it got a great anime film). Sure it's cheesy, but it's great. Silent Hill got a good film. First Resident Evil film was great.

[6800cf857db82ZylonBane]

You're being very liberal with the word "great".

[6800cf857dcc7Hikari]

The problem with game adaptations is... well medium. Games are ment to be interactive so are crafted for players to fidle with things. TV and Movies need to have pacing so either they try to shove everything in and fail, or basically do an in name only.

So I don't WANT t osee The hacker. I want to see the leadup. I want to see the resistance. I want to see someone find out the hacker exists so the main thrust is to make sure he stays in shodan's blind spot and hold out til he wakes up since he's got military hardware.

[6800cf857dfe1ZylonBane]

I want to see the leadup. I want to see the resistance. I want to see someone find out the hacker exists so the main thrust is to make sure he stays in shodan's blind spot and hold out til he wakes up since he's got military hardware.

So you want one of those dreadful stereotypical prequels that exists not to tell any new story, but just to set up the story that everyone already knows. Except in this case "everyone" would only be the relatively tiny number of people who've played the game. To viewers who know nothing about the games, it would seem nonsensical why such a series would end at the exact point where the story seems to finally be getting to the good part.

[6800cf857e131voodoo47]

to make it simple, the product needs to be able to stand on its own feet, meaning it has to be entertaining even to those who have never heard of the franchise.

the already mentioned Witcher series is a good example, most likely - even if you never heard of the books and games, you probably can just watch it, and it will be interesting enough to keep you at the screen.

an excellent bad example would be the Hitman movies - putting rubber duckies and a bald guy in will not magically make a bad movie good.

[6800cf857fdd5ZylonBane]

The Witcher kind of has an unfair advantage in this comparison, since it started out as a traditional story (aka a book).

Paradoxically, I think a System Shock series would be better off without the Hacker at all. The story of Citadel station should form a continuous narrative from the release of SHODAN's ethical constraints to her eventual defeat. You can't have a major, all-important character suddenly pop up all deus ex machina-like in the middle of the series. The audience would have no connection with them, and to some extent it would diminish the struggles of the characters we'd been following up to that point. The game is only structured like that because it's a game. We sleep through the boring parts and and wake up for the shooty parts.

If we simply must have the Hacker, he could be rewritten as an actual employee of TriOp. Maybe he still tried to hack TriOp in the past and they recruited him. No healing coma, he's around for the whole thing. Come up with some other way for Diego to pressure  him into removing the ethical constraints from SHODAN.

Likewise, there's no need for the R-Grade Implant. That only exists because Looking Glass wanted an in-game explanation for the HUD. It would have no purpose in a TV show. At best it could be rewritten as some kind of advanced hacking tool that a character acquires at some point.

Now just get the Black Mirror guys to write it.

[6800cf857ffb3Kolya]

I adored the Castlevania anime series. I never even played the games. Don't know if that helped but from what I heard the series was generally very well received.

Another game series that could easily serve for a tv series is Legacy of Kain.

[6800cf8580387voodoo47]

I think a System Shock series would be better off without the Hacker at all.

that. I always recommend the same thing to all potential SS2 fm authors - no Soldier, no Shodan. be your own thing.

[6800cf858064eHikari]

ZylonBaneAs opposed to what? One of those dreadful affairs where you get a single man with little to no interaction for however long the production lasts? I realize it CAN work, but I don't trust these people to pull it off.

WE get it Zylon. You hate everything and any opinion anyone has. It is something that doesn't need to be said.

[6800cf8580a61sarge945]

The problem with game adaptations is... well medium. Games are ment to be interactive so are crafted for players to fidle with things. TV and Movies need to have pacing so either they try to shove everything in and fail, or basically do an in name only.

So I don't WANT t osee The hacker. I want to see the leadup. I want to see the resistance. I want to see someone find out the hacker exists so the main thrust is to make sure he stays in shodan's blind spot and hold out til he wakes up since he's got military hardware.

I see what you're saying

Even though games are interactive, there's plenty of space within those worlds to tell plenty of stories. I'd love a good film set in the Halo universe, and there's enough content there from the books and games that it doesn't have to be "the story of master chief"

The big problem with game movies is that Hollywood doesn't really see games as a valid art medium, or at least, don't really take gaming or it's fans seriously. They tend to think gamers are mindless children who will watch anything (judging by how many people buy loot boxes while complaining about them, maybe we are mindless, but I digress) so they usually recruit z-list directors and cheap actors and the whole movie ends up being a campy mess. That looks to be what's happening here with the System Shock series.

While I didn't think the Witcher or Sonic were perticularly great, they were definitely a cut above your average Uve Boll game movie, and I chalk that up to in part at least having some decent talent behind them. It also helped the Sonic movie greatly when they did their redesign after negative feedback, as it generated a lot of good will for the movie and people wanted it to succeed as a result (which it did if box office numbers are anything to go by).

I'd love to see what competent, highly talented directors could do with a decent script adapted from a game and some good actors. That said, when even billion dollar A-list movies are often low quality cash grabs or big empty setpiece spectacles, maybe there's no real hope for a nuanced game film where they DON'T just copy paste the main story.

[6800cf8580deevoodoo47]

The problem with game adaptations is... well medium. Games are ment to be interactive..

depends on the game really - you literally could just watch a good Hitman (the very first one) LP on youtube, convert it into a live action movie/miniseries pretty much scene by scene (perhaps cutting away the insta-clothes-changes and toning down the ragdolls, and adding a Max Payne style inner monologue), and you'd be done, fans of the game would go hell yeah, gimme. would still be just a slightly confusing and weird action flick for the regular audience, but hey, it's not like the currently existing Hitman movies are any better in that regard.

what I see as the main problem with.. any kind of //recent// movie that is trying to adapt something that already exists really, is that the person in charge thinks themselves a genius, I'm going to take this stupid computery pixel rubbish/dumb cartoon/dusty book some old dude wrote and make it amazing and great and show everyone how very smart I am and how I know exactly what I'm doing and the world will fall down to its knees in awe after seeing my creation, yes that's what I'm going to do, because I'm a genius who knows exactly what needs to be done!

no you're not, you are a mediocre moron that has managed to fail upwards a couple of times by sheer luck, and you are just going to take another work of art, kill it, gut it, wear its skin, and screech demanding respect.

[6800cf8581116sarge945]

no you're not, you are a mediocre moron that has managed to fail upwards a couple of times by sheer luck, and you are just going to take another work of art, kill it, gut it, wear its skin, and screech demanding respect.

This is most of Hollywood, to be honest

[6800cf8581434ZylonBane]

what I see as the main problem with.. any kind of movie that is trying to adapt something that already exists really, is that the person in charge thinks themselves a genius

Citation needed.

[6800cf85815devoodoo47]

that woman who butchered Star Wars comes to mind, but it's not like I'm making notes when I hear someone say something dumb, and I really can't be bothered to go through everything she said just to find the exact moment where she was boasting about how she's going to bring the franchise to a completely different level.

..well, she kind of did, I suppose.


anyway, people with no respect (or even hatred) for the original material somehow being allowed to take it, turn it into garbage, and release it definitely is a thing, citations or not. what did Tolkien say about evil? it can only corrupt, not create. counterfeits and mockeries, nothing else. how fitting.

speaking of Tolkien, he's next on the chopping block; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(TV_series)

[6800cf85816feZylonBane]

The Star Wars sequels weren't adapting something that already exists though, they were new material.

The Wizard of Oz, No Country for Old Men, The Godfather, Psycho, Planet of the Apes, Forrest Gump, Schindler's List, Silence of the Lambs, Blade Runner, The Shining... those were all movies that adapted stories that already existed.