The Inferno, part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, is one of the most profoundly influential works of poetry ever published. Most of what we imagine as Hell comes not from the Bible but from Dante’s intricate vision of the afterlife.
The video game Dante’s Inferno was a God Of War knockoff mostly notable for being what Visceral Games made to pay the bills before the Dead Space sequels got greenlit. Guess which one is actually getting a movie made out of it.
Yep, a video game its own developer barely remembers is getting adapted. To be fair, the game has a narrative throughline that the poem doesn’t, and all the game had to do was put the poem through a wood chipper!
On the other hand, Fede Alvarez, who you might remember from the disturbingly gross Evil Dead remake, is at the helm. And considering how hard the game strove to live up to Visceral’s nameplate, he’s probably a good choice for director:
Universal Pictures is setting him to helm the live action adaptation of the Electronic Arts video game, which is rooted in the famous literary work. Former Strike Entertainment partners Eric Newman and Marc Abraham are producing with EA Entertainment vice president Patrick O’Brien.
The irony is that for the movie to get even an R-rating, it’s going to have to trim the game heavily. One thing Visceral undeniably did right was design the game to be an over-the-top throbbing psychosexual nightmare. It was like watching Frank Frazetta and H.R. Giger collaborate on van art. If Alvarez is allowed to go for an R-rating, and keep the game’s design, it may be at least an entertainingly… gooey feature.