The future of Silent Hill films?

[Droo]

I say go for it with more SH movies. As long as they dare to be different and do the whole 'scary otherworld, surreal monsters' thing it's still Silent Hill to me.

In other words, not a film adaptation of Downpour.

[DistantJ]

Downpour doesn't even need an adaptation, it's as good at storytelling as it can be as it is!

But I think if the monsters in a film were all humans like in Downpour then it would lose a lot of its appeal. On the other hand, the stretching corridors, floating rooms and neverending staircases would be amazing...!

[KiramidHead]

Downpour doesn't even need an adaptation, it's as good at storytelling as it can be as it is!

But I think if the monsters in a film were all humans like in Downpour then it would lose a lot of its appeal. On the other hand, the stretching corridors, floating rooms and neverending staircases would be amazing...!

Now that would be excellent fodder for a 3D movie.

[The Adversary]

>Team Silent would have just as much difficulty. I'd hate to see what their Silent Hill 5 or 6 would have been like<
Team Silent's games would have been perfect and flawless and no one would ever imagine complaining about them. Haven't you learned anything?

[KoRn_Child]

I don't hate Tomm Hulett. I just don't like the way he's been handling the series. The blame mostly falls on Konami though. Honestly I felt Barlow "got" the series better than Hulett or Waltz or any of those other guys, but I assume he's a Climax employee and not Konami.

I'm curious to see if Kojima jumps on board for the next game. Such a scenario would pretty much guarantee a better quality game than what we've been getting, but it would also likely be very different from what we're used to. If that happens I think it would be best to have Hulett there as well to kinda provide a balance.

[teosoleil]

I don't hate Tomm Hulett. I just don't like the way he's been handling the series. The blame mostly falls on Konami though. Honestly I felt Barlow "got" the series better than Hulett or Waltz or any of those other guys, but I assume he's a Climax employee and not Konami.

I'm curious to see if Kojima jumps on board for the next game. Such a scenario would pretty much guarantee a better quality game than what we've been getting, but it would also likely be very different from what we're used to. If that happens I think it would be best to have Hulett there as well to kinda provide a balance.

I'd like to see Barlow maybe collaborate with Kojima if such a game were to be made. The more creative minds, the better.

[KoRn_Child]

I don't hate Tomm Hulett. I just don't like the way he's been handling the series. The blame mostly falls on Konami though. Honestly I felt Barlow "got" the series better than Hulett or Waltz or any of those other guys, but I assume he's a Climax employee and not Konami.

I'm curious to see if Kojima jumps on board for the next game. Such a scenario would pretty much guarantee a better quality game than what we've been getting, but it would also likely be very different from what we're used to. If that happens I think it would be best to have Hulett there as well to kinda provide a balance.

I'd like to see Barlow maybe collaborate with Kojima if such a game were to be made. The more creative minds, the better.

Oh God. A Climax-developed Silent Hill game written by Barlow, with Kojima in a supervisory role as a producer, and running on the Fox Engine. I'll take twenty.

[eddieatemypizza]

i agree with the dude that said to just simply stop making movies.since when does hollywood ever make a good movie? Just wasting your money watching it in theaters. just watch it online for free so your not raped at the cash registers.

i'd rather silent hill become a tv series so it could have 25 episodes in a season to properly build up characters and story than trying to force a 7 hour game into an hour and half clusterf*ck of a movie. If it works for the walking dead than surely it would work for silent hill for christ sake.

[KiramidHead]

Just this year Hollywood has put out The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and Expendables 2. That's just three pretty good to great movies, and I'm sure there have been more.

[eddieatemypizza]

3 "good" movies in a whole 10 month time span...impressive..horray for medocrity!

[KiramidHead]

3 "good" movies in a whole 10 month time span...impressive..horray for medocrity!

There's plenty of good movies that come out of Hollywood every year. I just gave some examples.

[Yuki]

3 "good" movies in a whole 10 month time span...impressive..horray for medocrity!

You realize that not everything can be great, right? It's how the world works. Not every book can be good; not every song; not every film; not every television show (or every EPISODE of any given show). But I mean, why waste your money ever spending money on any entertainment at all when there's so much bad out there, right?

[DistantJ]

Kojima on Silent Hill? WTF guys, that'd be like asking Tarantino to remake The Exorcist or something.

[KiramidHead]

Kojima on Silent Hill? WTF guys, that'd be like asking Tarantino to remake The Exorcist or something.

The president of Konami actually asked him to make one on the Fox engine, so yeah. I'm personally fine with it as long he sticks to the gameplay aspect and lets Hulett/Waltz/Shatsky and possibly Barlow work on the story.

[teosoleil]

The president of Konami asked him? I thought it was just an idea that popped into Kojima's head.

[KoRn_Child]

Kojima on Silent Hill? WTF guys, that'd be like asking Tarantino to remake The Exorcist or something.

Kojima's storytelling style wouldn't work for Silent Hill, but the level of innovation and polish he brings to his titles is sorely needed by the franchise. So having him as a producer or some other sort of supervisory role would work out pretty well in my opinion. Plus, it's not like he'd ever consider directing a Silent Hill anyway, so I doubt he'd be too involved in the creation of the story.

Kojima on Silent Hill? WTF guys, that'd be like asking Tarantino to remake The Exorcist or something.

The president of Konami actually asked him to make one on the Fox engine, so yeah. I'm personally fine with it as long he sticks to the gameplay aspect and lets Hulett/Waltz/Shatsky and possibly Barlow work on the story.

I'd prefer Barlow over anyone else, but really Waltz did a decent job with Downpour so I'd be okay with him too.

[Yuki]

The president of Konami asked him? I thought it was just an idea that popped into Kojima's head.

I think first Kojima had the idea simply as a "Silent Hill on Fox Engine", but I think afterward Konami's president mentioned something.

[jdnation]

As for teh future films. I like the little nods at the end of Revelation. But I was disappointed with Revelation. It's quite an incompetent and rushed film. And I can't really speak much about Bassett's direction. Frankly only someone new would make me feel better about another film.

I'd have preferred an adaptation of 4

If they do 2, I can see it being about James, with Christopher searching for Rose in the background as anotehr character, kind of tying up the two stories together about husbands and wives, and whereby Chris can act as the knowledgale guy this time to reveal stuff about what he's learnt about Silent Hill to James.

As for future games and Kojima's involvement, it went like this:

- Kojima saw the poor state of Japanese development, and knowing the same problems he and his team ran into with MGS4's development and RISING's internal development failures, he made trips abroad to visit Western developers from Ubisoft to Infinity Ward to Naughty Dog to learn how Western Developers worked.

- His plan was to imitate Western developers by having his own in-house multiplatform, next-gen upgradable engine for company wide use within Konami. Kojima Productions bagan work on the FOX Engine with Metal Gear Rising. But with Rising failing to develop internally without Kojima's direct role, the game was handed to Platinum Games and FOX Engine continued to be developed with what we now know is 'Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes' and also another secret new IP project Kojima refers to as 'Ogre' and ately we also know that 'Zone fo the Enders 3' is also being pitched for use on the FOX Engine.

- Kojima was proud of how the FOX Engine was coming about and would tweet every now and again about what hypothetical games he'd love to be seen made on it.

- During this time, news of the new 'Silent Hill: Revelation' movie was going about, and Kojima beame interested and had rented the first Silent Hill movie to watch it.

- Kojima tweeted that he'd love to see a 'Silent Hill' game running on FOX, as he felt the closed environments of the games would allow for greater graphical detail and lighting and look great on their new engine!

- Others retweeted him back saying it wasa a great idea. Word spread around quickly. It got to the point where the excitement of at the possibility of Silent Hill being made by Kojima spread around the net and even at Konami.

- So the Head of Konami called Kojima personally and seriously asked him if he'd consider making a new Silent Hill game.

- Kojima revealed this information at PAX, but also said he was too busy to do it himself, but that it is a very good possibility that a new Silent Hill could be made on FOX internally at Konami led by someone else, possibly with some of his input and supervision.

- Kojima feels he's too scared by horror movies to really make a horror game, but thinks that maybe there are some cool ides that a scardey cat like him can contribute to making a good horror game.

- So Kojima encouraged fans to keep letting them and Konami know that this is something they want to happen. As far as we know, no actual project has been greenlit, but the possibility is very strong that they'll do one.

I hope it happens. Though I've been playing through downpour recently and thus far I like it. I think the guys at CLimax also deserve another chance. I liked 0rigins and Shattered Memories. If Konami's smart they can leverage it such that a good mainline Silent Hill title can be developed in Japan over the course of a few years with plenty of time to prepare and bake, while in the interim have Western Devs like Climax and Vatra experiment with some new horror IPs or some other neat ways of using Silent Hill that don't involve turning it into a fantasy action dungeon crawler.

Take a chance on the handhelds like Vita and 3DS even. Hell even an adventure novel would be excellent. I just finished Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward recently, and it was awesome! If Akysys can make money, then surely Silent Hill can benefit from sensible uses of its brand in sensible ways using a small budget, a talented writer, designer and artist! Give me a horror adventure novel with creepy puzzles and music with a great story!

[DistantJ]

I'd have preferred an adaptation of 4

Go watch it right now. It's better than any adaptation of SH4 could possibly be. the book inspired SH4, and SH4 inspired scenes in the film, so it's almost full circle.

[Dark Sky]

I'd love there to be another film, though hopefully it'll be a stand alone story. Preferably not based on 2, though. 2 is such a great story in the medium that it's in; a film won't do it justice. Also, although it'd be nice to finally have the sexed-up nurses and Pyramid Head in the story they were created for, by this third cinematic outing they'll have started feeling old and tired.

4 doesn't work as a game, but could make a fantastic movie.

I'm interested in people's attitudes towards developers and nationalities in this thread. Personally I really think the series lost something when it stopped being made by Team Silent. Not that Team Silent made only perfect games (because they didn't) or that all Japanese development teams are great (because I'm sure they're not). But there's something about the style of horror (with particular emphasis on run down buildings and bathrooms) and the monster designs in the early SH games which are so quintessentially Japanese. It does seem blatantly obvious to me that the Western games haven't really managed to recapture the particular vibes in terms of design and atmosphere from the first four games (with the possible exception of Origins).

Homecoming, for example, screams being an American production. It's glossy and slick, and takes its mythology and designs from the movie and other American horror films like Saw and Hostel. The fact that the main character is a soldier - practically an action hero - feels like a very Hollywood decision (compared to the ordinary every-persons of the Japanese games).

Origins and Shattered Memories have particular twists of humour and a cold core of repressed emotions which I will tentatively argue as being particularly British traits. And the first screenshots for Downpour screamed European with all that lush greenery and cablecars (I haven't played the game through yet so cannot comment further!)

Basically, I do believe that there are certain cultural traits which do have their routes in the country of origin. And I think that's true of so many films, books, music, and artwork generally. People are interested in the origins of the author/creator, and look for details within the work which they see as being evocative or representative of that culture. Sometimes it's more blatant than others, admittedly. But I do feel there is something in thinking that Silent Hill may be more 'at home' with a (good) Japanese development team.

Overall, though, I wish Konami would stop shopping the franchise around different developers; Silent Hill needs a new permanent home, rather than having to endure new teams finding their feet with it. Climax have proved that they can not only recapture the traditional Silent Hill vibe and do a convincing pastiche (in Origins) but also create something wholly original, new, and brilliant - which still feels like Silent Hill - with the fantastic Shattered Memories.

Worries that Sam Barlow is an inconsistent writer (between Origins and Shattered Memories) aren't founded, I don't believe, when you remember that Origins was in development by an American team before the Portsmouth branch of Climax was asked to take it over and shape it into something good. Considering the bulk of the game would already have been plotted and animations already created for the cutscenes (they're in the earliest trailers for the game), I think Barlow would have been having to do his best to work around the mess the earlier dev team left the game in. I think he and the game director Mark Simmons are very clever people who obviously completely understand what Silent Hill is and what Silent Hill can be, and - from the evidence we've seen - I wish the franchise was solely in their hands for the time being.