UPDATE: the below story, as reported by both Deadline and Variety, has been proven a hoax. [CinemaBlend]

Said CEO of Deep Silver’s parent company, Koch Media, in a press release:

“We are looking for quality above all else for a movie based on Dead Island. We want to do it the right way as film realizations of games (or vice versa) usually fail to deliver what the fans were looking for. We will not go down this route with Dead Island. Deep Silver profoundly believes in the quality and value of its Dead Island IP”

When Techland released its Dead Island video game trailer on Wednesday, the immediate Internet response was enthusiastic, to say the least.  The video quickly went viral, with many (including myself) hailing it as the greatest video game trailer of all time.

The trailer, which contains no gameplay footage, earned praise for its emotional, realistic take on zombie horror. In employing a non-linear, Christopher Nolan-style hairpin plot, the clip manages to convey in three minutes what most zombie films fail to convey in their entire run time: that every zombie was once a living human who died a horrible death.

It only took two days for Hollywood producer Sean Daniel (Dazed and Confused, The Wolfman) to scoop up the movie rights. [Deadline]

The game, which has been in development for years and will finally be released at an unspecified date later this year after multiple delays, has quickly become one of the most hotly anticipated titles of 2011. In it, the player controls one of four characters who wake up on a resort island during a zombie outbreak. Somehow immune to the disease, they must use only the items they find scattered around the island to survive.

The video game is going to have a hard time living up to its acclaimed trailer. In fact, the emotion of the trailer may very well translate better onto film than into the digital playground on an Xbox or Playstation. Whether the director ultimately decides to tell the Dead Island movie’s story in a linear fashion remains to be seen, and I don’t expect any more details to come out of this story for a while.

If you haven’t seen the video game trailer yet, check it out below. Make sure you have some tissues ready, it’s a real tearjerker.

Are you more excited about the video game or the movie? Why?

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