“Dante’s Inferno” being developed by EA; movie studios already bidding for Hollywood rights

Who says Dante’s Inferno is hell? Apart from being picked up by Electronics Arts to be turned into a video game, four major Hollywood studios are reportedly duking it out to grab the rights to whip it up into a movie blockbuster. Hey, we didn’t even know they had game plans for this epic! Read up more on the full article.

Apparently, Electronic Arts‘ is creating a game version of Dante Aligieri’s Inferno, and it is definitely in hot demand. Four major studios are currently in a high-stakes bidding battle for its rights to made it into a movie version even before the game releases – or is officially announced.

As for the game, although the publisher has not said anything about theup coming project, it’s been found that they have already trademarked the name as early as February of this year: “Dante’s Inferno”. Well, okay. Makes sense seeing as it is about Dante Alleghieri’s “Inferno”.

The game will allegedly be a modern interpretation of the epic poem with the players fighting their way down the nine steps to hell. The plan is to have it scheduled for release late next year. E

As for the movie bit, A has been licensing its projects to Hollywood with Army of Two (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) and The Sims, among others, so this future cross-over shouldn’t really come as a surprise. What is surprising is that they didn’t even wait for the game to be released first. Usually, studios see first if the game title sells well before even considering to ship it to Hollywood. Dante’s Inferno, obviously, is the exception to that usual case.

The studios are reportedly racing to grab the rights for the said classic’s movie version are the following: Paramount, Universal, MGM and New Regency. Warner Bros. was also reported to be interested, but has since dropped out of the bidding last Thursday.

Hmm.. it should be interesting how the nine circles of hell would look like, both for the game and movie versions, don’t you think? We’ll be sure to keep a close watch on more updates for this one as they come. Our curiosity most certainly is piqued.