Q&A: Oddworld's Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna

Abe's cocreators talk creating a game and a movie at the same time; Shrek producer on board for feature film.

In April 2005, Oddworld Inhabitants closed its internal development studio after a decade's worth of work and four games in its eponymous Oddworld franchise. At the time, company cofounder and president Lorne Lanning said he was moving the operation into "massively multimedia properties," or franchises designed for a wealth of formats--like film and games and television--from their conception.

Now, after a year-plus of silence, Lanning has unveiled the company's first such property. Oddworld will be working together on an animated movie titled Citizen Siege, which is being described as "1984 for the 21st century." Assisting Oddworld in the development of the property will be Vanguard Animation, the studio responsible for last year's Valiant, and headed up by Shrek producer John Williams.

Lanning and fellow Oddworld cofounder as well as CEO Sherry McKenna sat down with GameSpot to discuss the movie and game aspects of the project (which are being worked on simultaneously), as well as what they've been busy doing for the last 18 months.

GameSpot: So, what's been going on? For a while there it seemed as if you'd vanished off the face of the planet...

Lorne Lanning: Yeah, we really haven't been visible for a little over a year. What we chose to do when we started the company 11 years ago was to build properties that would transcend media and really be premiere candidates for the 21st century digital entertainment. And for a while that worked out rather well.

And then the game business also changed a lot, and we see today a more conservative, risk-averse climate... So what we did a year ago was we said, "When we set out we wanted to create these stories as movies and we wanted to create new, fresh properties as well, but as long as we are continuing to run an internal development company then we're very constrained in what we have the ability to do," because in-house game production for a third-party developer is becoming more and more time-consuming.

So we chose to dissolve the interior production element and instead focus on the properties in a larger context.

What we wanted to do in birthing our latest universe was we wanted to sign a film development deal first, and so we've just done that on our latest property, and it's called Citizen Siege.

GS: Tell us something about this latest project, Citizen Siege?

LL: It takes place on near-future Earth, and it's highly relevant to current global social-political circumstances.

We felt that this would be our opportunity to truly design a film and game of a property at the same time. Sort of what everyone's talking about doing, but we still don't really see it happening.

We see one or the other being conceived first and the latter to follow, regardless of which medium started it. And this concept--Citizen Siege--was conceived as game and movie, as a fully fleshed-out game design and a fully fleshed-out story concept for a motion picture at the same time.

GS: Is it going to be a project where you have to do both--play the game and watch the movie--to get the full benefit of the story?

LL: No. Well, having said that, exactly what the marketing tie-ins will be will depend on who the game partners wind up being. The first piece of our strategy was just to secure what we felt was the hardest piece of the puzzle and that was the film deal, [for] which I will be directing the motion picture in 3D CG animation.

GS: Is it going to be anything like the Oddworld series?

It's a more mature-themed sci-fi action thriller. And that gives us an opportunity to break new ground with animated motion pictures where currently we're still largely in a plush toy storyline. This is going to turn up the intensity dial quite a bit.

This was an opportunity that we did not want to miss the timing of because we believe the audiences are now ready for this. Now, the concept, of a 3D animation for film and because the next-generation systems are a lot more powerful, the concept is a very tight marriage between game and movie. Now we can really deliver two triple-A experiences on two different mediums that will hopefully close the gap on what we've always wanted to do and the timing hasn't been right for. Now it is.

GS: Can you tell us anything more about the storyline or the characters?

LL: I can tell you that it's a world gone slightly awry. In this near future, the world is governed by corporatism. And within this world, an expatriate returns home to find himself in a certain state where he has been legally repossessed due to credit rackets run by the corporatism-ruled world.

Sherry McKenna: A lot of CG animated films are about talking animals. We really wanted to show that the medium of computer graphics can be just another medium to tell a story. And so, what we're doing is it's not the world of Oddworld, it's the world of the near future. It's going to be something totally different to any of the other CG-animated films that you've seen to date.

GS: It sounds as if it's going to be a bit of a political statement. Would you say the film and game will be very political?

LL: It has heavy political undertones.

SM: You don't really want to make a political film because people aren't that interested in political films, so I would say that it's more of a comment on what the world could be like in the near future if corporations continue on the path that they're on.

LL: I would say it's a 1984 for the 21st century.

GS: Are you a big Orwell fan?

LL: Oh yeah, huge. But I mean, 1984's a little dark, whereas this is really about the power of the human spirit and the potential of the individual. Anyone familiar with our previous work knows that that's always a strong underlying tone in the worlds that we create. This will be no different--it's just in a more relevant world. It's really a story about an everyman, a very common man who becomes something he never could have dreamed of through first unfortunate circumstances and then taking off the blinders to the world that he really lives in.

GS: How do you feel about working with John Williams [the producer of Shrek]?

SM: When we presented it to him, he looked at it [the idea] and also shared the same belief that CG-animated films don't just have to be about talking animals.

LL: It's great. We're really excited.

GS: So, would you say this is the highlight of your career to date?

LL: Yes. This is basically what I've been working towards my whole career. This opportunity is a real dream come true. For us, there's a lot riding on it, we took a lot of risks to get here.

When we closed down the games production division, it was very hard for the game industry to understand what was really going on because it's outside the box of the normal build game company, sell it to big publisher system. We were certainly in a position to do that but in doing so we wouldn't be able to follow the dream that we were after from the very beginning. It was highly risky to do what we did but we did it and now our dream's becoming real. But it was scary because if you decide to take the leap and you don't pull it off, they'll be laughing. So, basically, we're dead set on pulling it off.

GS: What kind of a time frame are you working on here?

LL: It will be a couple of years. Which is why right now, we don't want to go into too much detail--there'll be plenty of time for that.

GS: What's your opinion on other movie/games around at the moment?

LL: Well, they're largely tails wagging dogs. They're derivatives rather than original conceptions. Usually it's brand recognition and that's what they're banking on and that's what they're riding on. I think in general the quality of those has gone up since the Acclaim days, but still they're not really all that...

They're not conceived as original properties in the game realm when they come from movies. For example, we look at Spiderman and we go, oh well, swinging on ropes, OK, so that's what we'd like him to do because that's what he does in the movie. Or we look at you know, the King Kong movie and go, OK, we're just going to get in fights with all these dinosaurs and, you know... But they aren't really worlds that are conceived to stand alone. It's usually obvious which came first.

SM: It's really hard because, in a game, I mean the most important feature of the game is the gameplay. In a movie, one could say that what's really important is developing the characters and the storyline. So when you take a preexisting game and try to translate that into a movie, it's a little hard because your main character has not been developed necessarily the way you would do it if you started at the very beginning and created a character for a movie. So maybe that's one of the reasons why it's so difficult for preexisting games to be adapted into movies.

GS: There seems to be a general feeling that movies that come from games are generally not all that good...

SM: A lot of people feel that way because people aren't really aware of why they don't adapt well. So we have to be careful that when we come out with something people don't just automatically write it off. That's why we thought if we start with a movie and people really like that movie, then maybe they'll want to play the game, whereas the other way around...even if you're not consciously aware of it, you know that the character hasn't been developed the way you want it to, and the storyline hasn't been developed the way it would have been in a movie, so you know, people feel why go see the movie?

LL: And it's also another opportunity as a medium for gaming, for creatives to come out of this new medium and step into higher levels of storytelling. We could debate with RPG fans that RPGs are great storytelling, but really no one does it better than a great motion picture.

At one time film directors were coming from theaters, like Orson Welles. So theater was the natural stepping stone. And then commercial production happened on TV and then you had the Ridley Scotts that went from being commercial directors to film directors. Then you had music videos, which was the next area, and guys like David Fincher, they went a similar path to the one we did, started off in visual effects.

Directing films is an extremely hard job to land. But no one has really made a successful transition of going from video games to film. But there is an opportunity to do that also. There's a lot of pressure on us to do a great job for the other creatives in this industry so that they're looked at more seriously as storytellers by a mainstream entertainment audience. So if we do our job very well then we are essentially the next stepping stone for creatives to take that leap. As much as the games community wants to say, Well, we have our own Will Wrights and Warren Spectors and things like this, they're not getting movie deals. There's a tremendous amount of talent in this business that isn't really maximised because of the conservative environment.

GS: So we can be expecting a strong and involving storyline here?

LL: We always started with the script. I think that resonated with the fans of Oddworld. One of the things we were always recognised for was the story. In my opinion, I always massively compromised the story for the most important element of the medium, which is gameplay. In my heart I'm more of a storyteller first, and games was more of a way of embellishing stories for an exciting new medium.

27 Comments

  • Sagacious_Tien

    Posted Feb 3, 2007 4:15 am PT

    Oddworld is on hiatus. It's not completely over. Oddworld Inhabitants still own all the Intellectual Properties, as well as all the rights. They haven't ruled out lending the rights to anyone who wishes to make a game based on Oddworld. That is a rare but hopeful possibility. The basic storyline for the series has been completed, and we have been introduced to the three main characters of Stranger, Abe and Munch. Hopefully, we'll see them overthrow the Magog Cartel but there is no guarantee of it. At the moment, I'm clamouring Microsoft to make the two Oddworld titles backwards compatible, but perhaps that is in vain. I doubt this will bring new fans to the series, but playing through the games is such a joy.

    As for the film, it sounds just like the kind of breathing space Oddworld Inhabitants needs. You can tell from their concerns for the industry that gaming needs to grow up. The one publisher one developer deal may eventually be scrapped, especially as outsourcing has become so popular. The finance model and the mood of gamers needs to change. Games need to innovate, or we'll all end up playing the same thing over and over.

  • Madmatt253

    Posted Jan 2, 2007 12:47 am PT

    Is this the end of odd world?

  • _Sam_

    Posted Nov 8, 2006 1:31 pm PT

    I like the title, Citizen Siege. I hope they don't change it

  • maverickexe

    Posted Nov 7, 2006 6:37 pm PT

    You know they wont stray to far from the normal oddworld universe content... They are'nt that stupid. They did make Abe, and Abe is awesome. ;-)

  • theGAPster

    Posted Nov 6, 2006 8:37 pm PT

    This is excellent, an original movie and game tie ins! And the setting sounds extremely cool………….I just hope they’ll finish the oddworld universe after all it was meant to be a quintolagy.

  • DieselCat18

    Posted Nov 6, 2006 6:32 pm PT

    I'm a big Oddworld fan and I'm very excited to see this develope and how it all turns out.

  • Sagacious_Tien

    Posted Oct 31, 2006 12:02 am PT

    Noooo!

    I want more Oddworld DAMMIT!

  • Demon-Draco

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 4:24 pm PT

    More mature? Political? I like Lorne and all, but that doesn't sound like it's going to be in the same vein as Oddworld at all. I love the Oddworld universe! I hope he doesn't forget about it...

  • buruburu

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 2:37 pm PT

    Lorne has a great team, much skilled talent, and a script.... I'm looking forward to it. I like Orwell too. Shine on, people.

  • afterburner1978

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 2:34 pm PT

    Very good news indeed!

  • comthitnuong

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 2:29 pm PT

    citizen seige.....

  • Monstromo

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 2:23 pm PT

    I think Lorne turned a loser into a winner. What do you expect him to do after the failure of Oddworld? Now he has a game and a movie deal. He also might have a little income and a nest egg. Good for him. His games were awesome. I heard everybody gushing about psychonauts, but at least he's not doing the pay top dollar for a digital download.

    Here's an idea, he teams up with Double Fine to make movies and games. Now there is a winner.

  • JusticeCovert GameSpot staff member

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 2:04 pm PT

    ^^ Very excited

  • Toadstool1969

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 1:54 pm PT

    Lorne Lanning: "So we chose to dissolve the interior production element and instead focus on the properties in a larger context."

    In other words, he fired everyone and sold out. Oddworld was one of the most exciting and original properties around and could have seen much more development and exploration. It is an absolute shame that its been shelved like this.

    Lorne's a sharp guy ... but also a greedy freaking bast*rd. I guess he wasn't making the millions he hoped for when he started his development house so he decided to make a drastic course change. The guy has no loyalty to the gaming community... or even his own employees for that matter... and certainly not game development. The Oddworld dividends simply weren't large enough for his ego and so he's putting his "talents" elsewhere. Adios, Gordon Gekko. Don't let the "massively multimedia properties" door hit you in the a**.

  • Humbag

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 1:49 pm PT

    I miss abe.

  • dbeddow

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 1:45 pm PT

    Sounds a lot like oddworld (the whole corporate thing)...I would love to see a movie about Abe (fan of oddworld 1&2)...

  • thunderground2

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 1:11 pm PT

    cool been waiting for some oddworld news....

  • norabbitnofun

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 1:06 pm PT

    I'm just curious to see how it will turn out. This is a very competitive space. Despite the fact that talking animals is the main setting, the story telling of these movies is rather good (yeah, ok, focused more on youngsters) and you'll have work keeping up with a good story telling, while making sure you have a compelling universe.
    I would like to utter a wish. Please don't give up on humour because of the "near dark future with corporations" world. You've done good in that. And the main reason for me to dislike a number of creations in these worlds is because they miss the humour.

    Anyway, I salute your courage to face the challenge. Keep it up!

  • Poltergeist13

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 12:53 pm PT

    I'm a huge fan, can't wait to see how this project turns out.

  • Final Form

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 12:02 pm PT

    Like Peter Moloneux, Lorne Lanning has a tendency to talk really big and not deliver. I remember interviews with him regarding Munch's Oddessy; how it was going to be this whole simulated world that you'd go and visit, and not just a game. It turned out to just be a 3d version of the PSX oddworld games, with worse puzzles.

    Maybe this new project will turn out good, but I'll take everything he says with a grain of salt.

  • V-Nine

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 11:59 am PT

    A movie would be most welcome. I like the Oddworld series humor but the games I was none to excited about.

  • BONES991

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 11:58 am PT

    If they r making a movie make it set in oddworld. I miss oddworld.

  • psycho6575

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 11:22 am PT

    hmm sounds exciting but i want to see Abe somewhere

  • rudyHG

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 11:17 am PT

    I'm pretty conflicted. On the one hand, I'm very much approving of his "animation/games as a medium, not a niche" philosophy. But Lorne Lanning comes off as a bit of a pretentious jack-ass ala American McGee. Plus I'm getting a little sick of the "dystopian future where corporations rule everything" genre that these kinds of people seem to flock to.

    Still, the guy seems devoted to his ideas, hopefully something good can come of it.

  • nellyp007

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 11:13 am PT

    if I remember correctly Square made a film called Final Fantasy The Spiris Within and it was not a movie with talking animals but it was garbage anyway. Advent Children was good though

    But the people who made Oddworld trying to do a more serious project? I see trouble there.

    For a few years now there has been talk of games and movies co-existing together but I don't like that idea, Movies have come to a place where all the good ideas have been done and their current ideas are stale, so why would video games want to lump in with this stagnated media? we already get enough sequels and annual games as it is.

    as for reaching out to new audiences, Nintendo is doing that with their new systems the DS and Wii and they don't need a movie studio to get the job done

  • FrankieLA

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 11:11 am PT

    Agreed...i love CG animals, ogres, and cars but it would be cool to see an "indie" flick with all the technology at their disposal.

  • CheddarLimbo

    Posted Oct 30, 2006 10:41 am PT

    This is exciting... I'd love to see a CG movie that isn't full of talking animals for a change.

    It's important for game developers to take risks and try to reach new audiences and convey new stories. I'm really looking forward to this.

advertisement

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!

Related Game

Oddworld Stranger's Wrath Boxshot
Oddworld Stranger's Wrath

Game Stats

  • Rank:
    4,048 of 59,114
    (up by 168)
    XBOX Rank:
    70 of 1,182
    Tracking:
    1,846 Track It»
    Wishlists:
    1,101 Wish It»
  • Users Now Playing:
    399
  • Number of Players:

    1 Player

  • Top 5 User Tags:
    1. oddworld
    2. stranger
    3. strangers wrath
    4. action
    5. adventure
  • Teen Rating Description

    Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language. Learn more

Full Game Details »Close

Related Games

Recent News

See All News »

Site Blogs