Just before we get started, it's probably worth mentioning that we're quite fond of Gore Verbinski's work to-date. This does not offset the creeping trepidation that we might feel about Verbinski and Universal having snagged the movie rights to a Wall Street Journal article about Second Life user Ric Hoogestraat.
No, not rights to Hoogestraat's story, or that of his wife, or of his virtual spouse. Movie rights to a newspaper article. It isn't even really a terribly interesting story, as the stories of Second Life users generally go.
The essence of Hoogestraat's story is a simple one. He ran a bunch of businesses in Second Life (which we believe were profitable), and had a relationship with another user (Janet Spielman) online, during which he neglected his wife and kids. Hoogestraat's wife treated it like an affair, and Hoogestraat himself considered it all a game.
While not exactly common this sort of thing isn't unheard of.
Back in my great-grandma's day people would often fall in love by post, over a period of months or years, before finally meeting and marrying. My great-grandma did just that, in fact, and nobody thought that was the least bit odd or unusual. Apparently doing the same sort of thing over the Internet or the telephone is considered a bit peculiar in this day and age.
We're interested to see if any actual virtual environment as-we-know-it actually even makes it into this film. With all due respect to Verbinski and Steven Knight (who is pitched to write it) we don't think it is likely that we can expect the sort of stark and everyday technological realism of Nora Ephron's "You've got mail!" to make it into the script.
Basically, we'll be a bit surprised if anything recognizably like Second Life ends up in front of audiences -- because, frankly, Hoogestraat's story is a simple one about human relationships and not about technology. The sort of story that we'd normally expect an indie filmmaker to tackle.
Think more Contact than The Matrix. If Universal ends up shelling out the big bucks for digital effects, then they probably wasted their time licensing the original article, because they'll have lost the plot (so to speak).
We understand that an unannounced movie involving Second Life may already be in production. It will be interesting to see how the two films compare.
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