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Exclusive: Facebook Game, Mafia Wars, Being Developed Into a Feature Film

Facebook Apps: The New Feature Film Frontier / Dustin Rowles

Trade News | June 28, 2010 | Comments (17)

The extent of my knowledge when it comes to the social-networking game Mafia Wars is pretty much limited to the Mafia Wars badges that clutter Facebook feeds when I’m trying to find out something important, like what sandwich Skitz ate for lunch yesterday. From what I can gather from a cursory glance over on Wikipedia (oooh, when’s Wikipedia: The Movie going to come out?), Mafia Wars is like Sims for the Mafia: You master jobs to earn cash and experience, grow your criminal enterprise, and hire extra mafia members. I assume those jobs that need to be mastered include assassinations and the like. I assume also that it has an addictive quality, if 25 million people are playing the Zynga game. But, then again, it doesn’t take much to hook an iPhone audience — my wife once spent three weeks playing a FB game that involved building your own hair salon, and she’s much smarter than I am.

The point I’m getting at is this: Mafia Wars is being made into a movie, which I believe makes it the first Facebook game to get a feature development deal (don’t quote me on that, and I’m sure Farmville is close behind). Details are scant on the project, as what could the details possibly involve besides the logline, “crime thriller based on the popular video game.” Ted Field and Radar Pictures are developing the project, and given Radar Pictures’s recent output — Swing Vote, The Invention of Lying, All About Steve, Everybody’s Fine, and The Box — I wouldn’t buy a lot of HSX stock based on the idea. The project is being inputted into scriptwriting software out to writers now.


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Comments

If only I could block the movie the same way I've blocked the FB game, and therefore never have to see anything about it ever again.

Posted by: TK at June 28, 2010 11:01 AM

Hide button! Where's the damn hide button!

Posted by: Mrcreosote at June 28, 2010 11:11 AM

To this news I say Booo-urns! Booo-urns! Every thing sucks. They should really only turn Snath-approved Facebook games into movies.

Posted by: Pinky McLadybits at June 28, 2010 11:17 AM

Didn't they already make a movie about the hair salon game, Dustin? Except it was sassier and appealed more to the African-American demographic and came with a token white girl?

Posted by: admin at June 28, 2010 11:22 AM

THERE'S A HAIR SALON GAME ON FACEBOOK??!?!? Ahem. I mean, ha ha ha, admin!

Posted by: Pinky McLadybits at June 28, 2010 11:24 AM

Shush, Pinky! Next thing you know they're gonna make a Fish Wrangler game or whatever and we'll all be doomed.

Posted by: figgy at June 28, 2010 11:28 AM

It's actually not a game. It's just two hours of the Hypnotoad wearing a bowler hat.

I don't understand how you haters can't be behind this. It's a totally original idea. A young man starts out committing petty crimes, but then slowly works his way up through the mob until he's The Godfather. Along the way, he purchases Casinos, gets his buddies involved, who are all really a bunch of Goodfellas.

Wait a minute! This is the exact same plot to Ferngully!

Posted by: Prisco at June 28, 2010 11:30 AM

This should be pretty entertaining really. For the first thirty minutes, the movie's gonna run smoothly -- aside from the constant advertisements running along the sides for penis enlargements, 7-11 and the upcoming Farmville movie.

Then, you'll be able to watch the next thirty minutes, but there will be five minute delays between each interval while your energy level recharges.

Then, you can watch the last hour, but only if you go out and make three friends buy tickets to watch the first half hour.

And then half the time, the projector will breakdown and you'll have to rewatch that middle half-hour again. Also, you'll have to keep buying at least 186 popcorns even though you already gave most of your popcorns away to your friends who just started watching the movie.

And then to see the finale, you'll have to go buy a ticket to the Farmville movie.

Please don't let Zynga hurt me again.

Posted by: Prisco at June 28, 2010 11:43 AM

The saddest part about this whole shiticane is that I know people are just gonna eat this bullshit up.

Posted by: pooooooooop at June 28, 2010 12:32 PM

I'm going to break off this thread for a second and tell you what I saw today:

I was watching Attack of the Show, and on their scrolling news ticker at the bottom of the screen, there in black and white, it read "According to Pajiba," followed by news of the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots movie.

That's it. You're officially too big to fail. SOMEBODY GIVE THIS SITE A BAILOUT!

Posted by: ChristianH at June 28, 2010 12:34 PM

When they release the Farmville movie, we can officially call in the Rapture, right?

Posted by: Aislinn at June 28, 2010 2:01 PM

Prisco: Nailed it. God that thing went downhill. Fun while it lasted though but I block it now.

Posted by: TylerDFC at June 28, 2010 6:34 PM

I hate the world.

Posted by: Arthur Dent at June 28, 2010 9:00 PM

This might count as Wikipedia the Movie if it ever gets made:

http://globalvision.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Posted by: Christopher Campbell at June 28, 2010 10:49 PM

I would watch the Farmville movie if it involved a character so addicted to the game that they sold their children for Farmville cash. Then again, that wouldn't be a movie as much as a PSA.

Posted by: Teresa at June 28, 2010 11:47 PM

It would be nice if the person who wrote this article had at least played the game because he has no idea what he's talking about, he admits he's never played the game.Perhaps you guys should find someone who knows what they are talking about to write this article.He uses the word assume quite a bit in this article and we all know what assuming does....it makes an ass out of you and me.

Posted by: Stephanie F at June 29, 2010 5:20 PM

I originally had the thought of a FarmVille animé... will that come around too? Then 7-11 will re-sponsor that, as it seems that 7-11 has a thing for Japan. Then again, it's now HQ'd IN Japan. But it still doesn't explain the Middle Eastern/Indian people working at them...

Can't you just imagine that? Zynga... animé?
IT'D BE WORSE THAN END OF EVANGELION!!!

Posted by: Rob S at June 30, 2010 5:20 PM





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