Oddworld co-founder Lorne Lanning has announced that he'll be directing an animated movie entitled Citizen Siege, in association with John Williams' Vanguard Films, producer of the Shrek series. Industry veteran Lanning chose his combative keynote at GameCity to reveal Oddworld's latest project, which will be simultaneously developed as a videogame, using the same database of CG assets - a longtime ambition of Lanning's. The game is likely to be outsourced to another developer. Release is to be confirmed.
Lanning said little about the movie's content, but back in 2004, Citizen Siege was being mooted as a politically charged adventure game project. From the content of Lanning's stirring speech, which criticised the videogame industry for not doing enough to explore real-world issues, it's likely there'll be some topical elements. Pointing to movies like Fog of War and Iraq For Sale, Lanning wondered why videogames weren't doing more to challenge their huge global audience. He praised digital distribution as a method of disseminating thoughtful videogame projects - and wouldn't rule out this form of delivery for his forthcoming movie and game release.
