Gears of War the Movie

Variety reported today that New Line Cinema has bought the movie rights to "Gears of War." Later in the day GameSpot confirmed the announcement with Epic Games VP Mark Rein. The movie is targeted for a summer 2009 release, evidently to be done in conjunction with the game.
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Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean triology) has been tabbed to write the screenplay. Check out this quote from Beattie on how he got involved, strangely enough it was while he was playing "Gears" on Xbox Live.
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"This New Line exec, Jeff Katz, dropped me a message in my Xbox Live account saying, 'If we bought the game you're playing right now, would you write it?' And this was back in December. It shows you how on the ball New Line was. I'm going to write off my Xbox Live this year, accounting-wise."
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Now that's certainly the proper way to use the XBL text messaging feature.
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My only concern about this movie is two-fold - Will it ever actually get made (see "Halo", "Metal Gear Solid") and will it suck (see, oh forge it there's too many to list)? If I remember correctly, movies based on video games have won more Razzies than all of the Jennifer Lopez and Drew Barrymore romantic comedies combined. Hopefully New Line will avoid Uwe Boll and Milla Jovovich and a decent movie will get made.
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So who will star as "Gears" badass Marcus Fenix? Check my Top 5 most likely candidates below. If you have any suggestions for who would be a good lead, let me know.
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Top 5 Guys Most Likely to Star as Marcus Fenix in the Gears of War movie
1. Steve Buscemi
2. Manute Bol
3. Verne Troyer
4. Andy Dick
5. Robert Iler (Tony's son AJ from "The Sopranos")
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Coming up next week: A review of "Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2" and a running diary of the movie "Grandma's Boy".
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terry.terrones@gazette.com