By Steven Zeitchik

Video games may not have always had the easiest time going from the console to the big screen. But the man in charge of adapting one of the most lauded video games out there wants fans to have a little faith.

In an interview with Risky Biz, Justin Marks, who will adapt "Shadow of the Colossus" into a feature film, said that the genre was relatively young, and that he believed well-selected titles could translate if they were handled wisely.

"I think many of the games haven't worked as movies because it's hard to find the right game. There are very few that lend themselves to movies," Marks said.

But that doesn't mean that Hollywood shouldn't try, he added. "If we started thinking that anything that worked in one medium shouldn't be adapted for another we wouldn't have a lot of the great movies we've had, because so many of them came from novels."

"Colossus," which Sony and producer Kevin Misher are developing, is unique because a player spends much of his time basically alone in the game's universe, and Marks said that as he began to write, he hopes to find himself in a better position as a result.

"With a lot of games there are so many elements in the universe you spend your time tearing down and tearing down," he said. "What's nice about this game is that it's so sparse so you can start building right away." He added that he understood fan's concerns that a studio might be tempted to add Hollywood flourishes like a cheesy sidekick but that he would strenuously avoid those cliches.

Marks also said he felt this would make a perfect adaptation because it already contained not just visual elements but many of the things that work on a movie screen. "This is a game that catches you unaware — it catches you on an emotional and experiential level, not just for the puzzles you solve."

And while fans are probably going to be skeptical about pretty much any beloved property that's turned into a story meant to appeal to the masses, he said he believed that with this property there was a nice symmetry between what the hardcore set appreciated and what the wider public wanted.

"With a lot of games you're caught trying to please the fans and the mainstream audience," he said. "What's so nice about this game is that it's all seen through such an adult lens, so that what pleases the fans also pleases a wider audience."

By Steven Zeitchik and Borys Kit

"Shadow of the Colossus" is heading to the big screen.

The colossally popular video game is being developed as a feature by producer Kevin Misher, who has set the project up at Sony; the studio's sister division Sony Computer Entertainment is behind the video game.

Justin Marks, the go-to young scribe who's writing "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" for McG at Disney, is attached to pen the script.

Colossus, which was developed for the PlayStation 2, was released in the U.S. in 2005. It quickly became a huge hit as well as a critical favorite.

The game centers on the character Wander, who along with his horse Agro travels across a Western-style landscape to defeat enemies known as Collosi, with Wander's larger aim to save the girl Mono.

Unlike many other games, Colossus is dominated by a minimalist landscape and lacks ensemble characters; instead, the challenge lies in locating the remote Colossi and uncovering their weaknesses through a series of puzzle-like challenges. Its scenes as well as its soundtrack are regarded by many as highly cinematic.

Romantic elements also pervade the environment, as does a surprise ending to rival some of the better  big screen whodunits. Guillermo del Toro has been among those who've called the game the Citizen Kane of the medium.

Video games have been a hot commodity recently in Hollywood development circles, with titles like "Max Payne" and "BioShock" attracting top level talent, though their boxoffice track record has been more checkered.

Misher has several movies set to release in the coming months, including the Channing Tatum-Terence Howard  street-fighting drama "Fighting" and the Johnny Depp period gang pic "Public Enemies."

The WMA- and Madhouse Entertainment-repped Marks also is attached to pen the comic-book adaptation "Suicide Squad" for Warners, which will be up next for him. He has also come aboard to write other pics based on complex worlds, including the horror-themed comic adaptation "Hack/Slash" for Relativity and a reimagining of 80's fixture He-Man and the Masters of the Universe for Warners and Joel Silver.

By Steven Zeitchik

Creating movies out of video games has always seemed a little like creating a car to look like a horse-and-buggy — fine to reassure those skeptical about the transition, but really, what’s the point?

That’s probably why we’re always a little surprised when a film adaptation of a video-game works at the box-office. A video-game that springs from iconic moments from, for example, “Scarface” appeals because it’s a cool bit of merchandising that extends the life of the original. But the other direction makes less sense — if you can actually become the character, why pay money to see a pale and static version derived from him?

Which is another way of saying that we’re surprised at the $18 million success of  ”Max Payne” at the box-office this weekend. Audiences uncharacteristically bent to the bigscreen, controller-less version of the underdog crimesolver, a lot more so than the did many previous vidgame-derived disappointments (”Doom,” “Silent Hill,” “Final Fantasy”). (”Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” of course did a hefty bit of business, but that was drawn from a game with an unusually sophisticated backstory and also had what anthropology grad-students might call the Angelina factor.)

“Payne” got shelled by critics (17% on Rotten Tomatoes) and gamer friends say filmmakers did little to satisfyingly deepen or extend the mythology. Like with other adaptations, the film couldn’t reinvent itself for the screen.

Still, the movie succeeded financially, at least in its devotee-friendly first week, and for Fox that should be enough. But creatively it also seems like another example of how, for all their respective virtues, the twin forms of vidgames and movies are too often shoehorned into one another. It’s a continuation of the problem, in reverse, of too many movies unconsciously taking their cues from video games;  look at how Indy 4 wandered from level to level–um, storyline to storyline–without narrative cohesion.

Don’t get us wrong — there’s plenty of creative, even cinematic, expression in video games, and tons of opportunities for cross-pollination between the two worlds as a result (check out the way the new outerspace shooter Dead Space owes a debt to James Cameron’s “Alien,” while “Payne” itself draws strongly from John Woo.) But the worlds may need to evolve more fluidly than they do with adaptations.

We once heard Paul Schrader say that the 20th century was the century of film but the 21st century would be one of another, far more interactive, medium. That strikes us as prescient. And as a reason why Payne may turn out to be a flash in the pan.

Movie tie-in games are making a comeback, writes the Wash Post. What the piece doesn’t point out, is that when it comes to animated movies that take years to make, there’s more time for the gamemakers to develop a decent game that comes out at the same time as the movie. And the digital universe of games and CG movies is utterly compatible. Also, this summer, as the game world takes a pause between formats, there’s actually more room to maneuver. According to screenwriter/fanboy Cheo Hodari Coker, movie attendance may be up this summer partly because there are fewer new games competing for the attention of the young male audience.