The guy in the red cape, Professor X's favorite mutants and even the folks searching for biblical codes are all getting video games this summer. But there's one Hollywood summer action hero who won't be appearing on a PlayStation near you anytime soon: "Mission Impossible" 's Ethan Hunt.

There is no "Mission: Impossible III" home console game due this summer or even in the planning stages, relegating the only "M:i:III" gaming option to a cell phone one that launches May 5, the same day as the movie.

So why would "The Da Vinci Code" get a PS2 game and not "M:i:III"? Tom Cruise. He has never appeared in a video game or even on the box art for a game, neither for 1987's "Top Gun" NES game nor the 2006 game based on the same movie, not for the one "Mission: Impossible" game released since Cruise began starring in the movie series, and not in 2002's "Minority Report." In that game, Cruise's character was made to look so unlike him that he was blonde.

Famous people sometimes don't lend their likenesses to video games for business or personal reasons, though they seldom publicly explain why. Al Pacino's representatives have declined in the past to comment about why the actor wasn't included in last year's "The Godfather" game (he will appear in this year's "Scarface," however). Tom Hanks doesn't appear in the forthcoming "Da Vinci Code" game, though, like Pacino's Michael Corleone in "The Godfather," his actual character will appear in the game. When asked why gamers haven't been able to ever play a game as Tom Cruise and if they can hope to control his likeness in the future, the actor's agent declined to comment.

There is little doubt that the impossible missions of "Mission: Impossible" would make for a good video game, but Michael Pachter, an analyst who covers video games for Wedbush Morgan Securities, pointed out that movie titles still carry a hefty risk. "Royalty rates for movie titles are generally high," he said. "It takes a great deal of confidence in the sales prospects to commit to the game. 'Catwoman' was a bust, 'Batman' a modest success. So it's not clear that a 'M:i:III' game would sell well, especially if the main character was blond."

Source: MTV

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Posted by Lawren at April 28, 2006 06:53 AM | Trackbacks (0)

You Said

Perhaps it has something to do with Scientology belief that video games are connected to their God and the gamer exerts control over the real person by controlling the likeness.

Says: at April 28, 2006 08:30 AM

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