If there is one filmmaker out there who might be able to crack the much maligned video game to movie adaptation market, then Brian Taylor could have been the right candidate. Having brought us the action blockbuster Crank, Crank: High Voltage and the 2012 comic book adaptation sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Taylor had the grounding to bring the high octane title Twisted Metal to life.
The Sony video game has a loyal following and with larger-than-life characters that sport clown masks and machine guns, the recipe was there to make it happen. Speaking with Collider, Taylor walked through his plans for a feature that would have taken a number of cues from George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, but before that hit would even be made.
Budget Issues Put Brakes On Twisted Tale
As of 2012, Taylor was hired to helm the picture. Sony then made the odd choice of rebooting the video game and that left the project in limbo, despite sales for that console edition falling very flat and negating the whole process.
"It became like a 'tweener," he recalled. "Sony came out with a new version of the game, didn't really sell that well. So they had this property that was kind of like this 'tweener. It was a movie that felt like it needed to be $50m, but they didn't feel that the fanbase really merited that kind of movie; it really wanted to be more of a $15m movie, but the nature of it with the set pieces would've just made it too big... That was gonna be badass... It's bats***. It was kind of like Fury Road before Fury Road in a way. The set pieces in Twisted Metal were kind of the same thing. I'm not saying it would've been as good, I am definitely not."
Nic Cage Misses Out on Sweet Tooth Role
Taylor had enjoyed talked with Nicolas Cage from the Ghost Rider follow up and that agreement had put the film in motion. Yet the budget slashed from $50m to $15m with a new game that had flopped, it was just something that was not on the cards.
At the moment, that is.
"Even Sweet Tooth is kind of like the Fury Road guy, you know it's the mask and the clown with the crazy car. It kind of feels the same," he admits. "It's not worth doing it unless you can really push the envelope and do destruction people haven't seen before. So I don't know, it's sort of in movie purgatory, but I tell ya it's cool."
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