Dead Island rights not sold yet; "big name" directors interested

I'll keep this brief because the behind-the-scenes issues of a software publisher I've never heard of before last Tuesday don't interest me all that much. For the last few days we've heard conflicting stories regarding the availability of the film rights to Dead Island, the video game phenomenon(??) that was kicked off because of one awesome trailer. Since then what we all expected to happen did happen, and it was reported that the film rights to the game had been snapped up by the Sean Daniel Company. Like a shot, we got a response from Koch Media, owners of the game's publisher, who stated that this simply wasn't true. So who to believe?

Matt Wagener, one of the suits over at Koch Media, spoke to the LA Times about the situation and lays out their side of the argument pretty flatly, but also takes a bit of a jab at one of the participants...

"There are a lot of different stories out there but the bottom line is that neither Union nor Sean Daniel has ever talked to Koch Media. Richard [Leibowitz, of Union] and [game developer] Techland agree there was never any rights. There was some misrepresentation on Techland's part about what rights they have and what they can organize, but Richard confirmed in an e-mail that these were just talks and he doesn't have the rights. [Leibowitz declined comment.] To be honest, I'm surprised that someone of Richard's caliber would even go out there and say this, if he did say it."

That's cool, but that doesn't answer this very simple question: Will there be a Dead Island movie?

"We've had a lot of inquiries, not only from Union but from other major players for film adaptation. The talks are very early and there's no deal whatsoever. Right now I'd say it boils down to three or four opportunities. Some are studios, not just bonders [financiers] like Union. We'd rather go with a big studio that can bring the creative side."

"We had a couple of big-name directors come to us. One of the top directors in Hollywood sent a studio his link to the trailer and said he was interested in this, and the studio contacted us. There are different opinions of course in how to do this. The first is that you find a producer and then he brings in a creative team. The other is to find a director first and he'll bring people along. My feeling is we should find a director first."

I don't know enough about Dead Island to make a real judgement on the prospects of a movie, but I do know that what most people are excited about that trailer, not the game itself. The game has nothing to do with that trailer, so I'd be interested in seeing exactly what storyline a a film adaptations clings to.