Fox is Developing a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE Movie That Audiences Can Control on Their Phones
20th Century Fox recently announced at CinemaCon that they were developing a new kind of story format and technology that will allow for audiences to make choices for the characters while watching the movie.
They have teamed up with an app called CtrlMovie, which was created by a company called Kino. The showed us a video that demonstrates how the whole movie experience would work. There are several points in the story where the audience will be given two options to choose from and they will vote on their phones. For example, if a character finds himself being confronted with a bunch of thugs in a dark alley, you can choose to fight them or walk away. It's pretty much like what Telltale is doing with their story-based games.
This offers various different outcomes for the movie. The studio announced that the first film to utilize this technology will be based on the classic Choose Your Own Adventure book series. The film is being produced by John Davis, John Fox, and Greg Berlanti. Chris Aronson, 20th Century Fox’s president of domestic distribution had this to say:
“Bringing game changing, innovative technology to audiences and enhancing the cinematic experience has always been a cornerstone of the Twentieth Century Fox brand and our next venture is the outstanding CtrlMovie technology we are utilizing for ‘Choose Your Own Adventure.’ This interactive experience, and the passionate, creative team behind this project, allow the true spirit of the beloved book series to fall into the hands of fans around the world.”
I honestly don't know how this is going to go over with audiences. While it's an interesting concept that could either be very annoying or fun. I just imagine everyone in the theater yelling out what everyone should choose. Then the choice with the most votes goes through. So, what about the experience for the people that whose choices didn't go through?
It just seems like there could be a lot of problems. I can see it working at home with friends and family, or even by yourself. I enjoyed Stephen Soderbergh's interactive HBO series Mosaic by myself, but doing that in a theater full of people, some of which will want to make different choices than me, doesn't appeal to me.
What do you all think of this Choose Your Own Adventure movie going experience? Do you think it will work?