You can see the trailer we used for the original pitch here.

Most movie pitches don’t involve video, but with PoP, most of the studio executives weren’t familiar with the game at all, so it became an important way to introduce them to both the franchise and the world. As Jordan notes in his post, this trailer doesn’t really tell the story of the movie, but it does give a sense of the characters and style: the dashing prince’s acrobatics, the devoted priestess/princess, the dagger with its time-reversing slickness.

Jordan and I pitched seven studios over two days. Each time, the presentation was pretty much identical.

1. Introductions. Apologies for keeping us waiting. (1 minute)
2. John hyping Jordan’s prestigious videogame background. (1:00)
3. Play the video. (2:10)
4. Jordan describes the world of the Persian empire, using artwork. (:30)
5. John pitches Prince Dastan, using artwork of him. (:30)
6. John and Jordan alternate pitching story, introducing character/prop artwork as new things come up. (6:00)
7. Questions about story, tone and scale. “Somewhere between Pirates and Raiders. It’s not Lawrence of Arabia.”(3:00)
8. Promises that they’ll follow up. (1:00)

Altogether, we could get through the pitch in less than 20 minutes. Disney liked it, and sent us to Jerry Bruckheimer’s company, who bought it from Jordan. The film comes out next May.

Here’s the trailer we used for the pitch. The actual trailer for the movie is ridiculously good, and should be out before too long.

Prince of Persia movie pitch trailer (2003) from jordan mechner on Vimeo.

Surrounded by ardent fans, it’s easy to get sucked into Comic-Con’s vortex of enthusiasm, forgetting that even with 120,000 people descending on the convention center, that’s still a very, very self-selected group.

The same thing happens at Sundance: films that get a rapturous response in Park City often underwhelm at lower altitudes. Everything plays better to a hungry crowd, particularly one that has trekked a long way just to see what you’ve got.

But that’s not a reason to avoid either festival. If you can’t play to the base, you’re unlikely to push beyond it, either. A movie like Iron Man wants its geek bona fides before pushing further towards the mainstream. Where it gets trickier is a show like Pushing Daisies. Winning a small, ardent fan base can be self-limiting, particularly if it sets you off as a niche program out of the gate.

None of my projects are directly featured this year, though Jordan Mechner will be on a panel about his Prince of Persia graphic novel — a prequel to the movie — and Tim Burton will inevitably get questions about our next two movies.

Basically, my plan is to blog, post sketches, and answer questions people send in — most of which I expect will be about Prince of Persia.

Yes, he’ll actually talk about it. We’re both executive producers on the 2010 blockbuster, but he’s been vastly more involved over the past two years, visiting set in Morocco and generally keeping himself in the loop.

I’ll also continue to post blogs from the past via the “Old Journals” feature, telling the gritty, no-holds-barred, inside story of the first making of POP on the Apple II, 1985-1989. Not sure quite who will be interested in that one, but hopefully someone.

Not just that — Karateka. My brother and I spent a summer playing Karateka on the Atari 800.

So check out his site: jordanmechner.com.

It’s a perfectly good date, but I have no idea if there will be a movie to show. I don’t know if it’s getting made, or who’s directing, or who’s starring. No one knows, not even the people signing the checks. It’s still a project in development.

At this point, it’s fair to ask, “Hey John! Aren’t you executive producing Prince of Persia? Shouldn’t you be providing us readers with all the inside scoop?”

I’ll pass, thanks.

In fact, this is the last I’ll mention of Prince of Persia. Every time I bring it up, I get besieged with headshots from would-be princes, and re-ignite the debate about ancient ethnicity, a subject I have no particular interest or authority to address. The downside of making myself accessible is that people feel entitled to share their opinions, repeatedly and sometimes impolitely. I can handle that for one of my movies. But this is not my movie to make, and it’s not my movie to explain or defend.

I hope it gets made. I hope it’s terrific. I am basically an ocean of hope. But whatever happens, Prince of Persia will never be “my movie” the way Go, Big Fish, or The Nines are. I enjoyed babysittting the prince, but he’s not my kid. I’ll leave it to the real parents to speak for him.

It’s a giant relief to see The Lost Room, because it’s very similar to a show I nearly pitched this season — which would have involved Elle getting kidnapped, a cult, and mysterious goings-on. Since The Lost Room effectively precludes my idea, why do I classify it as a relief?

Because now I don’t have to write it.

Many of the projects I write — and the majority of the projects I produce — begin because an idea will present itself and I’ll think, “Wow, someone should really do that.” I’m sure a sizable portion of the American public has similar “why doesn’t somebody…” ideas. The difference is, I am that somebody. I can call up ABC and pitch a show and get a fair chunk of money to write it. But it’s not always the best use of my time.

“Someone should do a crime show set in Alaska” — six months writing and shooting the Alaska pilot

“No one’s ever done a show about private military contractors” — a year and a half writing three different versions of the pilot for Fox

“Prince of Persia would make a great movie” — going on three years executive producing an adaptation, which still doesn’t have a start date

So that’s why, sometimes, I’m delighted when someone else has the same good idea. I recently had 30 projects on my “To Write” list. Now I have 29. Actually, 28…

I just saw in the Slamdance catalog a listing for American Zombie. That’s a title I’ve had on my list for three years, without any real story to go with it, just a sense that, “Someone should make a movie called American Zombie.”

Now someone has. The director’s name is Grace Lee. I hope her movie’s terrific. Either way, I thank her deeply.

In a movie, the story is what the characters do. In a game, the story is what the player does. The actions that count are the player’s. Better game storytelling doesn’t mean producing higher-quality cinematic cutscenes; it means constructing the game so that the most powerful and exciting moments of the story occur not in the cutscenes but during the gameplay itself.

You can see the whole article here.

Anticipating your inevitable questions:

1. No, I don’t know when the movie will come out.
2. No, we haven’t cast anyone.
3. Yes, the movie is based on “The Sands of Time,” the first game in the series, which is lighter and more swashbuckling than the later games.
4. Yes, we’re aware of the fact that Babylon (games two and three) doesn’t have anything to do with Persia.
5. No, we don’t have a director yet.
6. Yes, I think it would be great to find a (relatively) unknown Persian actor to play the prince. It’s not my decision, though. Just my opinion.
7. No, don’t send headshots. Or links. I’ll delete them.
8. I’m serious. Stop.

Who am I kidding? I’ll end up having to close comments anyway. But in the meantime, you can see the promo here.

For those who don’t know, E3 is huge. Huge. Everywhere you looked, you saw flashing screens and guys with laptops waiting in lines to buy overpriced sandwiches. As Jordan put it, “It’s like a giant airport, and every flight just got cancelled.”

You often read about how the videogame and movie industries are such close cousins, but the movie industry doesn’t have anything that really compares to this. Sure, there’s the Cannes Film Festival and other international film markets, but those are really geared towards distributors. The target audience here was the hard-core gamer, the super-consumer whose tends to be the opinion-leader. Unlike a film festival, they’re not just showing you a trailer for the game, they’re putting a controller in your hands. They want you hooked.

It’s like Crack Con 2005.

Jordan and I have been working together for the past three months to come up with the movie’s storyline, and spent a week pitching it to various studios. What’s unusual about the deal — for me, at least — is that I won’t be writing the script. Rather, Jordan will write it, and I’ll be supervising, helping him out as much as possible. Jordan will be an executive producer, along with Chad Oman and Mike Stenson.

Like the videogame, the story is set at the edges of the Persian Empire during the 9th century. We follow an adventurous young prince — the black sheep of his family — who uncovers a dangerous artifact in a remote mountain kingdom. With the help of an enemy princess, he must stop a despot from unleashing a sandstorm that could destroy all mankind.

Those who’ve played the videogame will recognize many elements, although the underlying plot of the movie is quite a bit different. Neither Jordan or I wanted to directly translate the game to screen, a la RESIDENT EVIL. Rather, the goal is to make something like PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, swashbuckling and exciting in an entirely new world.

I’ll add updates over the next few months.