Deus Ex: Human Revolution Is a 'Cyberpunk Movie' Says Writer C. Robert Cargill

Feb 20, 2013 by Brian Gallagher

Writer C. Robert Cargill calls Deus Ex: Human Revolution a 'cyberpunk' movieBack in November, CBS Films confirmed that Sinister director Scott Derrickson will direct the video game adaptation Deus Ex: Human Revolution from a script he co-wrote with C. Robert Cargill. The project is based on Square Enix's successful video game of the same name, although screenwriter C. Robert Cargill recently made it clear that they are trying to ditch the stigma of a video game adaptation. Here's what the writer had to say, revealing they intend to make more of a "cyberpunk" movie. "Yeah, the chief philosophy is we're not making a video game movie, we're making a cyberpunk movie. We've taken a look at what's worked in video games and what hasn't, and really what we've broken down is what we think the audience really wants, [what] the audience that loves Deus Ex is going to want to see out of a Deus Ex movie. And it's not a rehashing of the game. What they want to see is, they want to see elements of the game that they love, but they want to see things that they hadn't quite seen in the game, that the game didn't allow them to see. So it's really allowed us to expand upon the things that happened in the game, and the game has such a great cinematic story to begin with that those elements are very easy to extract. But really, at its core, we just keep telling each other, 'We're not making a video game movie, we're making a cyberpunk movie.' And Scott and I are such big cyberpunk fans from way back in the day that that just really charges us up. Because that's what's so great about Deus Ex to begin with, is it really gets cyberpunk. I Eidos Montreal really understood the nature of cyberpunk and made 'the' cyberpunk game, and it is just fantastic, and we've just had a great time adapting it."

Director Scott Derrickson also revealed that they recently turned in a draft of their script to the studio, which has been positively received.

"Deus Ex is moving like a rocket. We've turned in a draft of that that everyone seems excited about, and we're very excited about that, and we've got a number of other projects that haven't really been announced that have a lot of momentum also. It's Hollywood, though. I've been doing this a long time, and you just never know what will come together when. There's so many moving parts that have to come together for a movie to get made."

C. Robert Cargill revealed that they are inspired by movies that push the envelope, such as District 9, Looper, and Inception.

"We're trying to break out. We're looking at movies like District 9, Looper, and Inception. Those are the molds of what we've been doing. Let's push this and do something new with concepts people love, but tell a story that they've never seen before, that just melts their brain. And that is just hyperkinetic and smart and just hits all the right buttons that genre audiences want to see. That's what we've gunned for. We haven't tried to build it around Johnny Mnemonic or New Rose Hotel."

Scott Derrickson added that there is a higher degree of difficulty with this project, since there hasn't been a truly great "cyberpunk" movie yet.

"Yeah, cyberpunk is difficult. There's a reason we haven't had a great cyberpunk movie yet. There's a reason why a sci-fi movie as great as Neuromancer has never made it to the screen. I do think there's a new wave coming, and not just because the technology and the effects are up to speed, but I think that there's a sensibility to cyberpunk that the movies are catching up with. That's kind of how we feel. We feel like the science fiction, the reason why we reference Inception, Looper and District 9 was that they were all movies that took certain familiar science fiction methodologies and turned them upside-down and brought a grounded realism to them. Time travel, aliens arriving on Earth, going into the dream world... Those are all things that you've seen a dozen bad versions of, and it dozen decent versions of that. But no one, until those three films, no one had gone into filmmaking from a grounded, realistic point of view and made something with a fresh aesthetic. And I think that there was a little bit of the Blade Runner curse, a little bit of The Matrix curse, where you've got these movies that touch on cyberpunk elements that aren't really cyberpunk films but they are so iconic, and so insurmountable. They're perfect films in their own ways, [but] no one has been able to break free of that, or no one has broken free of that, and tried to go at it completely fresh. I think that we're going to see a wave of them, I predict. I think that cyberpunk is going to break out. There's going to be a new kind of science fiction film, and it will be cyberpunk, and it will be amazing."

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is in development . The film is directed by Scott Derrickson.

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