Universal Set to Burn Baby, Burn with EA's 'Inferno'
Last week we reported that four major studios were stuck in a battle over film rights for a video game that hasn’t even been publicly shown yet. The game in question, tentatively titled Dante’s Inferno (and owned by Electronic Arts), takes players on a journey through hell a la… well, Dante’s Inferno. By end of day Friday, the game had still not been secured by a studio. Well, a lot must’ve happened over the weekend. Variety is reporting today that Universal has won the bidding war and reeled in the rights for the film adaptation. Universal secured the property for an unnamed seven digit number, but analysts see the victory for Universal as a product of another recent deal the studio made with EA. Uni and EA, you see, hooked up on an agreement that would give Universal screen rights to the popular EA game Army of Two. Does this mean we’ll see a long term-partnership between the studio and the game developer? Guess maybe we should see how Dante’s Inferno does first – since it doesn’t hit shelves until late next year and Universal won’t eye a release date on the film until shortly after that.
