By Well, technically speaking the Mass Effect adaptation has another screenwriter, as it seems Legendary has scrapped whatever writer Mark Protosevich was working on and has decided to go with Morgan Davis Foehl, who will draft an entirely different script altogether. Foehl, who was an associate editor for FX’s Rescue Me and the Adam Sandler masterpiece Click, has had a few unproduced scripts that have been picked up around Hollywood, but this will be the first of his work to actually make it to the big screen if the studio likes what it sees. Legendary Pictures apparently went with Foehl because they “sparked to Foehl’s take on the project given that he is a Mass Effect fan and has also penned action pics with a strong espionage bent, material similar to the overall plot of the Mass Effect games.”
I suppose there are espionage elements to be found in the Mass Effect games, more so in the first than the others, but the scope of the trilogy grows to become quite the space opera, not to mention the fact that the games revolve around player choice, something that obviously cannot exist in a film. It is quite an undertaking to try to adapt something as complex and cared for as the Mass Effect universe, and if Mass Effect 3 proved anything it’s that there is very little that the fans will forgive when it comes to Commander Sheppard and his/her heroic exploits. To put it nicely, the guy’s not really in an envious position.
I’m curious as to whether this adaptation is something that really needs to happen. Mass Effect has a very deep universe (literally and figuratively), so much so that I think it would be much more interesting to have a movie that is self contained that takes place in the same setting as the games than to have an outright adaptation. What do you think? Does there need to a Mass Effect film at all, or would you rather let Commander Sheppard rest in peace?