Max Payne Beats Box Office Senseless, 3D Realms Wonders What Went Wrong

Mon, Oct 20, 2008

We've condemned it. Mainstream reviewers have condemned it. But somehow, despite our warnings, well over one million of you went out and saw Max Payne anyhow. This weekend, the convoluted crime drama racked up $18 million at the box office, blasting past Dubya and running over a spoiled Chihuahua on its way to the No.1 slot.

But Scott Miller, CEO of 3D Realms and producer of the two Max Payne video games, is not pleased; and not simply because the subpar Payne could potentially reflect poorly on his new venture Radar Group. Rather, like us -- but far more quotably -- he takes the movie to task for utterly failing to accurately represent its source material.

We spoke with Scott Miller about both the Max Payne and Duke Nukem films back in September, at which point Miller was quite bullish about Payne:

GameCyte: How do you feel about Max Payne finally coming to theaters, seven years later?

Scott Miller: Really good! But only because I know we pulled off something extremely difficult. I wouldn’t be so happy if I knew that the film was Hitman quality. There’s little to be proud of with a product that doesn’t represent the game properly.

But in a recent interview at Edge Online, he indicated that there is indeed very little to be proud of. "There are several fundamental story flaws," Miller told Edge, "that have me shaking my head in bewilderment."

In my own review of the Max Payne movie, I called out the ludicrous plot without getting into too much detail about the film's anti-climax; I figured it wouldn't do to completely spoil the piece for potential viewers. But reading Miller's words, I think I owe you an apology for not warning you about this as well:

For instance, he said that one of Max Payne's enemies, the drug distributor Jack Lupino, is "lamely killed by one of the film's non-action characters."

In the first game, Max Payne finishes off Lupino.

Miller elaborated, "...The entire time we're told that this drug makes 1-in-100 people super-human, yet Lupino doesn't demonstrate this in the least. It should have taken a hail storm of bullets to bring him down, plus it should have been Max that kills him."

I won't say who kills Jack Lupino, but I will tell you that it takes less time to bring him down than a single one of the several scenes that show Lupino perched on a rooftop, waiting and watching for Payne with foreboding music playing in the background.

You can read a partial list of Miller's other complaints at Edge.

While we plan to wait until Max Payne's entire box office saga plays out before analyzing whether it makes a difference for Radar Group, it is worth noting that the firm was formed just this last year, and producer Scott Faye has been working with 20th Century Fox on the picture since at least June 2005.

Hitman, incidentally, made only $13 million its opening weekend, but went on to gross nearly $100 million worldwide.

3D Realms, Depth Entertainment, Max Payne, movie, Radar Group, Scott Faye, Scott Miller

This post was written by:

Sean Hollister - who has written 825 posts on GameCyte.

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4 Comments For This Post

lalinajimson Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
game based movie it is. Not like the game it was interesting to see the movie. Revenge moments are the ones I truly enjoyed. But didn’t understand the after life situations. Like science faction. Other than that tremendously made movie watch it my self at http://www.80millionmoviesfree.com clear and easy for me it is.
alphaxion Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Thing is, movies based on books don't normally represent them either - just look at how Hollywood butchered I am Legend and Jumper for evidence of this.
Why should we expect anything different when it comes to game adaptations?

I find it quite interesting that modern trends in gaming show an obsession with trying to be like films themselves, much like the early movies tried so hard to be stage musicals in its early years too.

While there is space for the epic games, I would like them to also return to their roots and produce something completely different to movies once gain. Games have the capacity to be so much more than movies are ever capable of, it's time we got back to exploring this side.
Sean Hollister Says:
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
@alphaxion:

I don't really have a yearning for the old school, where games were simple affairs based entirely on hand-eye coordination, rote memorization and high scores, but I would indeed like to see some triple-A titles where all the effort was pumped into gameplay and AI rather than graphics, sound and story.

I'm curious, what are you envisioning?
alphaxion Says:
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:16 am
Oh, I didn't mean a complete return of the reflex gaming, though there is always space for them.
I meant in the sense that a game doesn't need a grandiose plot that arches off left and right and is more convoluted than an episode of CSI on crack.

Video games can go further and do things that film and TV simply can't manage because of the very nature of the format - many of our greatest moments come from the gameplay or game mechanics rather than the script.

Those times we are rushing to rebuild a base or empire after an enemy swept through your territory and levelled almost everything before you killed their units, with the threat of someone taking advantage of the moment of weakness at any moment. Wracking ourselves with angst and tension until we know we're safe once again.

The suspense of genuinely not knowing what is going to happen next in a gloomy battlefield (think of your first mission in X-Com) or claustrophobic corridors.

The co-op play with a friend that turns into an epic battle with many moments of dread and elation in between.

Even ignoring the alleged plotlines that exist and finding our own fun in a game - wing walking your troop into bases in bf1942, beach parties on sen jinn village beach in WoW.

TV and film are push mediums, video games are web 2.0 (shudder) before web 1.0 was even a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee's eye.

That isn't to say there isn't space for the Hollywood style; I just hope games like darwinia/multiwinia and world of goo succeed in reminding us of the gaming aspect to video games once again.

GameCyte