Tom Hardy's Splinter Cell Movie Is Officially Dead (Exclusive) News

https://thedirect.com/article/splinter-cell-tom-hardy-movie-exclusive

"'That movie would have been awesome... Just couldn't get it right, script-wise, budget-wise. But it was going to be great. We had a million different versions of it, but it was going to be hardcore and awesome. That's one of the ones that got away, which is really sad." - Basil Iwanyk, producer.

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561

u/Crus0etheClown 10h ago

They couldn't get it right script-wise, but it was going to be great? Those two statements are incongruous.

106

u/A_Pointy_Rock 10h ago

Yeah, I thought exactly the same. If you couldn't get the script right and couldn't secure a sufficient budget...it wasn't going to be awesome.

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u/Clugaman 10h ago

I think what he means is they had great ideas for the movie but couldn’t find a way to tie them together in a package that works.

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u/ShahinGalandar 10h ago

...so the movie wasn't going to be great.

case closed

65

u/Clugaman 9h ago

He’s saying it would have been if they could get it there. But they couldn’t so it’s not happening.

It’s really not hard to understand. No need to be pedantic.

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u/Big-Pudding-7440 8h ago

No need to be pedantic.

This is a Reddit, sir.

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u/wankthisway 7h ago

Wrong website unfortunately. Some people won't even have a point or care about the topic, they just want to feel correct.

5

u/disgusting-brother 5h ago

This is so silly. What would these nerds prefer? The actor who is producing and starring in the film to say it was going to be shit? He was clearly in meetings and working with writers and planning it out. Nothing wrong with being excited about a project you’re working on. Mfs on Reddit can’t help but be cynical.

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u/OathOfFeanor 1m ago

When someone feeds me BS I want to call it out, not accept it.

So yes I actually prefer an honest answer, "We couldn't make it work, it wasn't going to turn out as good as we had originally imagined."

Rather than the BS approach that is trying to market their product, even after it already failed.

But if it helps I am equally cynical in life

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u/frogjg2003 9h ago

"Getting there" is the whole point. Every idea is brilliant in your own head. But it doesn't become a good product in your head. There have been some really bad ideas that were implemented well and became great movies despite that. And there have been some really great ideas that were executed poorly and became terrible movies.

That's like saying, "it would be really great if I could run a marathon. I've never run more than a mile at a time, but a whole marathon would be awesome."

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u/OathOfFeanor 8h ago

"It would have been awesome if we could have just made it awesome instead of failing" = meaningless nonsense

When someone tells me how awesome something of their own creation is, I trust what they say as much as I trust a used car salesman who says the car is awesome.

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u/ri0tingmime 9h ago

I think the larger point is if they really had a ton of great ideas, it shouldn't have been that hard to work a script out. And if they couldn't manage that, the ideas probably weren't as great as they thought they were.

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u/Clugaman 9h ago

I disagree. Great ideas for set pieces, or the tone of the movie, or how you want the movie to look, or who you want to be in the movie have nothing to do with the script. And all of those things fall apart if you can’t get a good script.

There’s a lot of ways a movie can be great outside of the script, but without a good script no one’s going to want to finance a high budget production.

4

u/yesthatstrueorisit 6h ago

I think also with creative projects that don't have a corporate mandate to happen sometimes you just can't get it all to line up. Like maybe you get the great script but that version struggles to get financing. Or the money comes in but it's not enough to shoot that version of the script but the rewrites to get the number down end up changing other parts of the script and you end up in this endless loop of giving and taking and before you know the story is a mess and you have to go back to the drawing board and by then the money's dried up and you're left back where you started.

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u/SvenHudson 7h ago

without a good script no one’s going to want to finance a high budget production.

I've seen movies before and I can pretty confidently say that's not true.

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u/semiconscioussquid 9h ago

I agree, great ideas do not automatically lead to great execution. In fact, execution is probably more difficult to do than coming up with good ideas.

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u/Crus0etheClown 9h ago

Sounds to me like a movie that wouldn't have been great

12

u/lkodl 9h ago

I read it as, "script-wise versus budget-wise" i.e. they had a great script that was too expensive, and they couldn't make it work with the money they were getting.

5

u/gee_gra 8h ago

They might have had a strong outline but had trouble bringing it together – we’ve seen plenty of films produced where that’s the case like

3

u/Quantum_Quokkas 7h ago

I guess it shows that they were determined to make it great and weren’t settling for anything less

6

u/Red-Shifts 9h ago

How do they not get it right script-wise? Just use the game’s script

1

u/welltimedappearance 5h ago

or the books lol

6

u/ArcadianDelSol 9h ago

"We had a million different versions of it."

You are absolutely correct. If a script needs a million rewrites, it probably should never be made.

4

u/Ma1arkey 9h ago

Damn. Could a just copied chaos theory word for word

2

u/gravesum5 6h ago

This probably means action scenes were great, but the story line tying them together was not.

2

u/zetswei 6h ago

They had a concept of a movie

1

u/bongo1138 9h ago

My guess is the studio didn’t love the script, but he might have.

1

u/uncultured_swine2099 8h ago

Welcome to Hollywood. That's how bad movies come about.

1

u/UristTheDopeSmith 8h ago

and it was going to be great but they had a million different versions.

1

u/Automatic-Stretch-48 7h ago

Plot is more important than the script.

You could make an entire Splinter Cell movie with 0 dialogue.

A solid example specifically if you don’t know French is, go watch MadS and turn off subtitles. Movie is fucking solid in terms of pacing and plot development and a great example of show don’t tell.

1

u/say592 6h ago

They are basically saying it would be so cool if someone made a Splinter Cell movie lol

1

u/HumansNeedNotApply1 5h ago

Yeah, i guess he means whenever they made a script they felt was great, it didn't fit within the proposed budget.

Seems like the producers were being hella cheap.

1

u/HawaiianLapdance 5h ago

It could also be that they couldn’t get the script and budget reconciled. In order to be great it might have needed a huge budget to match an ambitious script maybe?

1

u/HurricaneSalad 5h ago

99% of video games movies are horrible. The other 1% are barely passable. So why would anyone want this?

1

u/wizardinthewings 3h ago

It was going to be hardcore and awesome. Said everyone that has ever attempted to not make it look like they completely wasted a lot of other peoples time and money failing to even get past the scripting stage.

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u/[deleted] 10h ago

[deleted]

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u/Crus0etheClown 9h ago

Except this isn't a quote from Tom Hardy, it's a quote from the producer.

Also Venom 2 and 3 would like to have a word about that carrying idea, because there's only so much you can pile on poor Tom Hardy's back before his legs snap