Jordan Mechner is the Hardest Working Man In Showbiz you've never heard of.
As the creator of the original Prince of Persia games, he single-handedly pitched, won and then wrote the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring blockbuster, and now he's on a one-way path to scriptwriting movie stardom with an upcoming adaptation of 'Little Mermaid Kicks Ass' adventure Fathom, starring Megan Fox.
Sky Movies: So, could you give us a brief rundown of your involvement with the Prince of Persia franchise?
Jordan Mechner: I created and programmed the first video game version on an Apple II Computer 20 years ago. I was just out of college and videoed my brother running and jumping in the parking lot across the street from our hight school, which became the basis for the animation for the game.
In 2003 I got together with UbiSoft and worked with them to create the first modern console version which was The Sands of Time, which the movie is loosely based on.
I pitched it to Jerry Bruckheimer in 2004 and showed him a 2 minute trailer I cut together from video game footage, and six years later it's evolved into the story of the movie.
SM: Where did you get the original inspiration for the first game from?
JM: The game was very much inspired by platform games like Load Runner, but it had strong cinematic influences from movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and 1940’s Thieves of Baghdad.
SM: Why did you pick The Sands of Time in particular to base the movie on?
JM: I always thought Prince Of Persia would make a good movie somewhere down the line, and one of the challenges of crafting an old fashioned, classic adventure story is by making it fresh and showing audiences something spectacular that they haven’t seen it before.
The idea of this dagger, the dagger that could turn back time had never been seen on screen before and seemed fresh enough.
SM: What are the main differences when it comes to adapting video games into movies, and graphic novels?
JM: As someone who loves working in all three of those artforms, they’re all very different kinds of storytelling. The video games were created around the idea of what is fun for the gamer, with the story structured around that.
With the movie, you're no longer playing it, but watching it, so while you start with a similar story you have the opportunity for a broader canvas, and to show a much richer cast of characters.
SM: With the lines between video games and movies increasingly blurred, why do you think the majority of video game adaptations have been so lacklustre?
JM: For starters, I don’t think that every successful video game should become a movie. When you adapt from a game to a movie you lose the gameplay, the element that often you’re in control of and what makes the game so successful in the first place.
When you take that level of interaction away, what are you left with? To me, making a video game movie is no different to making any other movie. The story, the characters, it needs to be a cinematic process.
SM: Do you think the finished movie ahered to your original draft? Did it turn out how you imagined it?
JM: Oh, definitely. It’s the kind of movie that inspired me to make the games in the first place. It’s an adventure, it takes you to a different place, it’s a love story. In many ways it’s more spectacular than I imagined, just because of the incredible skill and the lavish production.
When I went on set in Morocco and saw the costumes, the racks and racks of armour, the magnificent horses, camels and hundreds of people all coming to the desert. To actually be there in the sandstorms, the rainstorms, the blistering heat, I think it really shows up on the screen.
SM: Do you think there's anything you've learnt on the film that you can take back to making the next Prince of Persia game? An Ostrich-racing minigame perhaps?
JM: I really wanted to do cameos as one of the Ostrich Riders, but they wouldn’t let me – they said it wasn’t safe!
SM: Considering the series' already proven adaptability, where do you see the future? A TV series, perhaps?
JM: The sheer fact that we're still talking about Prince of Persia 20 years after the original game is mindboggling - who knows?
SM: You're currently writing the screenplay for a film adaptation of Fathom with Megan Fox. How would you describe it? Is it The Little Mermaid if she could Kick-Ass?
JM: <laughs> Well Fathom’s based on the comic series by the late Michael Turner. Megan Fox plays a girl who’s always felt an affinity with the water and the ocean. It’s a spectacular brilliant adventure, but it’s just at the script stage.
