Capcom looking to make Hollywood Movies
May 23 (Bloomberg) — Capcom Co., publisher of the “Resident Evil” video-game series, is in talks with Hollywood studios to jointly produce movies based on its software, President Haruhiro Tsujimoto said.
“We are in the process of working out contracts for several offers we received at the Cannes Film Festival last week and hope to make an announcement soon,” Tsujimoto said in a Bloomberg Television interview broadcast today, declining to provide specifics. “If realized, the projects will have a big impact on the game and movie industries.”
Capcom plans to cash in on its “Resident Evil” and “Devil May Cry” games to emulate Marvel Entertainment Inc.’s success in turning “Spiderman” and “X-Men” comics into movie franchises. The Osaka, Japan-based company forecasts revenue and profit will climb to records this fiscal year on sales of software for Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 consoles.
“We want to do with games what Marvel did with comics,” Tsujimoto said. The success of a $40 million film adaptation this fiscal year of “Street Fighter,” a film Capcom jointly funded and produced with News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, will determine prospects for the company’s movie business, he said.
Capcom shares declined 1.4 percent to 3,570 yen as of 9:25 a.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The stock has climbed 25 percent this year, outperforming the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average, which has dropped 8.4 percent.
The “Resident Evil” zombie-shooter series, known in Japan as “Biohazard,” has already been made into a film trilogy in Hollywood. The third movie in the series, released in September last year, helped the company sell more than a million copies of the game software introduced two months later for Nintendo Co.’s Wii console, Tsujimoto said.
The company this week said it projects to sell 2.3 million copies of the fifth installment of “Resident Evil” for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and personal computers this fiscal year. Last year, 2.3 million copies of “Devil May Cry 4” for the two game consoles were sold, Capcom said.
Net income will climb 10 percent to 8.6 billion yen ($83 million) in the year ending March 31, while sales will increase 15 percent to 95.3 billion yen, Capcom said on May 20.
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POSTED IN: Game Publishers, Industry News
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