Finally a reason to be excited about a Shadow of the Colossus movie

One of my favorite movies from the last ten years is Hanna, a dreamy, sharp, sleek putative action movie that turns out to be about parenting. In ways, it reminds me of Bioshock 2, a fantastic shooter that — wait for it — turns out to be about parenting. I love when genres unfold as expected, and as superlative examples of that genre, only to turn into a story with a powerful and relevant point about something you didn’t quite expect.

Hanna was directed by Joe Wright, who has directed various other movies, none quite like Hanna. Which makes me think screenwriter Seth Lochhead deserves much of the credit for what made Hanna special. Unfortunately, Lochhead has no other credits to his name. Hanna was his first and last movie. But that might soon change.

Sony has been fumbling around with Hollywood-izing Shadows of the Colossus for some years now, including its apperance in Reign over Me, a soggy 9/11 movie that tried to tie the game into some convoluted point about grief. Sony’s last Shadows of the Colossus project, a straight-up adaptation, was for Josh Trank, the writer and director of the found-footage superhero movie Chronicle. But now that Trank has finished his kiddie version of Fantastic Four and is moving on to work on a Star Wars thing, he’s got no time to direct adaptations of niche videogames. Shadow of the Colossus fans who saw Chronicle can breathe a sigh of relief.

Which leads us to the latest incarnation of a Shadows of the Colossus movie. Sony’s current intent is that it will be produced — and possibly directed, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves — by Andres Muschietti, a fellow who made a short movie called Mama that was developed into a disappointing feature film. The more exciting news is that Seth Lochhead is writing the script. Considering Hanna’s blend of languid fantasy with sharp stabs of action, this is great news for a movie doing justice to Team Ico’s own languid fantasy with sharp stabs of action.