Smash Bros

Rampage Director Brad Peyton Talks Animal Rights and Bringing the Arcade Game to Life…

- Poppy-Jay Palmer

IN AN AGE OBSESSED WITH FILM ADAPTATIONS, IT’S NO SURPRISE THAT VIDEO GAMES ARE CATCHING UP WITH BOOKS IN TERMS OF BEING SUITABLE SOURCE MATERIAL. LIKE BOOK ADAPTATIONS, VIDEO GAME FILMS ALSO EXPERIENCE VARYING DEGREES OF SUCCESS, BUT WITH GAMES UPPING THE EFFORT AND CREATING RICH STORIES, THE FILM TREATMENT POTENTIAL WON’T DWINDLE ANY TIME SOON.

But what do you do when the game your film is based on is literally just a giant ape smashing up a row of tower blocks? That was a thought that dawned on director Brad Peyton when he was asked to turn Eighties arcade game Rampage into an actual story. However, he soon saw the fact that the game doesn’t really have a story as a blessing as well as challenge.

“At first I wasn’t sure because I wasn’t sure what kind of movie they thought it was going to be,” Peyton admits, “and when I discovered they were open to me taking creative freedoms with it, building it up from the game and developing an original plot and characters I got excited. I thought there was a lot of opportunity there.”

In order to keep it as a Rampage film, as opposed to veering off and becoming just another monster movie, the director explains there were a couple of rules he needed to follow. “You have to adhere to the three creatures, the general kind of creatures they are, and ultimately what people respond to while playing the game is mass destruction and a city-setting,” he tells us. “I was like, okay, you can have the mass destruction of a city, that’s not going to be a problem!” He also confirms there will be a few Easter eggs in there for good measure.