Collision Entertainmnet picks up rights to Remedy Entertainment and 3D Realm's Max Payne

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A formal announcement has been made yesterday regarding the movie deal based on the Mature-rated PC game, Max Payne. However, as owners of the game will know, the game's instruction manual already revealed the future of Max:

""Don't worry -- you'll be seeing more of Max in the future," the manual reads. "Dimension Films and Collision Entertainment are teaming up to make a feature film based on 'Max Payne,' and further adventures of this character are already in the works.""

Collision Entertainment, headed by Paul Rosenberg and Scott Faye, has acquired film and television rights to Max Payne (which will also be heading to the PS2 and Xbox platforms later this fall) from video game producer 3D Realms and Finnish game developer Remedy Entertainment. Dimension Films will distribute domestically, with Abandon Entertainment handling international distribution.

"We are excited to have the opportunity to craft the next successful video game icon into a larger-than-life film icon," Faye said. "We are extremely fortunate to have a great creative partnership on this project with the game's creators, 3D Realms and Remedy Entertainment. We hope this will be the first of many creative collaborations."

"Everything was tailored for Max to hit the big time," says 3D Realms Entertainment CEO Scott Miller. "Most developers and game publishers don't put a strong focus on characters like they should, but we took a different tack with Max. We feel that, with Collision's creativity and expertise, we have the next great movie anti-hero on our hands."

Here's more from Yahoo:

"With a Hollywood-style revenge plot and a well-developed character, "Max Payne," a best seller on PC, should establish a new video game franchise for GodGames, which publishes the video game. Additional games are planned. This bodes well for the pending movie and TV deals."

Max Payne is the perfect character to bridge the 'Siliwood'-Hollywood gap," GodGames CEO Mike Wilson told The Hollywood Reporter. "He's a well-developed character, and the game has a great premise and story line. ... It's obvious that 3D Realms was thinking 'franchise character' when they developed Max in the first place. And the game is absolutely phenomenal, which doesn't hurt."

You may remember that Collision, Abandon and Dimension are already at work on another film based on a video game. Dimension also is distributing the movie version of game creator American McGee's "Alice," based the classic "Alice in Wonderland" tale. Wes Craven is attached as producer and director. John August is working on a screenplay, and McGee himself will serve as producer on the film. As with Max Payne, Abandon will handle international distribution.