Avatar Points Way to Future of Movie Games

Yannis Mallat had what he calls a "defining moment" three years ago this month. The CEO of Ubisoft's flagship game-development studio in Montreal, Mallat was pitching James Cameron and his producer, Jon Landau, on his idea for a videogame based on Cameron's Avatar.

He got straight to the point: The real star of Avatar isn't Jake Sully, the paraplegic vet at the center of the action. It's Pandora's the world Cameron created. And Pandora is in trouble.

"When we approached Avatar," Mallat says now, "the very first question we had was, 'What does Jim want to express?' The true meaning as we understood it." He looks about, grasping for the word. "Cupidité en anglais? 'Greed.' Greed is the cancer of life. In one sentence we defined it: What are humans doing on Pandora?"

Category: Gaming News | Tags: Avatar, Ubisoft, Wired.com, movie games, game breakthroughs, movies | Posted on: December 2nd, 2009