Legendary film director John Carpenter has reiterated his desire to make a Dead Space movie. Speaking to the A.V. Club (opens in new tab), Carpenter discussed adapting EA’s horror series after being asked if there were any games he’d considered turning into films.
“The only one I can think of, and I’ve mentioned it before is Dead Space,” Carpenter said to the A.V. Club’s William Hughes. “That would make a real great movie. I could do that.”
As Carpenter’s statement implies, this isn’t the first time the director has talked about making a Dead Space film. He previously mentioned the idea (opens in new tab) to Game Informer back in 2013, stating “Dead Space would just make a great movie, because you have these people coming onto an abandoned, shut-down space-ship and they have to start it up and something’s on board. It’s all just great stuff.” A keen gamer in general, Carpenter is a big fan of Visceral Games’ sci-fi horror trilogy. When asked by the A.V. club which Dead Space game was his favourite, the director replied. “Well, any of them were really good. I even like the last one, the action one nobody else liked.”
Carpenter hasn’t directed a feature film since 2010’s The Ward, explaining to Collider (opens in new tab)in 2019 that he “got burned out”. But he has more recently talked about getting back into (opens in new tab) filmmaking. A Dead Space movie would be a fitting comeback, given how the series is itself partly inspired by Carpenter’s work on the Thing, particularly with regard to the game’s hostile, mutating Necromorphs.
Alongside enthusing about Dead Space, Carpenter also discussed the games he’s been playing this year, stating he got “hooked” on Fallout 76 (opens in new tab). “I know it had bugs coming out, and a lot of it was put down, but I thought it was great.” He pointed to the games large-open world to “roam around” in as a major factor in its appeal. “That’s what I love about Fallout. There is a template to follow. There are missions, but you can do it differently. And they keep coming up with new missions every once in a while, and new ideas. It’s good. It’s really interesting.”