With a production cost that some industry experts estimate at as much as $20 million, Enter the Matrix is likely to be the most expensive video game yet made. More important, the game, laced with an hour of new "Matrix" film scenes and megabytes of cinematic tricks, represents the closest collaboration so far between the converging orbits of moviemaking and game production in an entertainment universe that is finding new profits, partnerships and possibilities in ever more sophisticated digital technologies.
The game's 244-page equivalent of a shooting script was written by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the brothers who wrote and directed "The Matrix" for Warner Brothers Pictures, as well as two sequels that are being readied for release this year. (The game's release by Shiny Entertainment is to coincide with the May 15 opening of the first sequel, "The Matrix Reloaded.") Similarly, the films' set and custom designers and much of their departments did double duty for the game, as did the movies' Hong Kong fight choreographer, Yuen Wo Ping, and the films' lead actors.
"We had a notion to take the stars of the movies and have them play supportive roles in the video game and tell a story that is a companion story to the movies'," said Joel Silver, the films' producer. Blending the productions, he said, became essential to maintaining the quality and requirements of the "content driven" projects.
"There are scenes that start in the video game and will complete the movie," he said, noting that the game was conceived to "feel like it's a part and experience of the movie." Some of the plot lines intersect, and one of the player's missions is to get a character to a location pivotal to the story in "Reloaded."
Bruno Bonnell, chairman and chief executive of Infogrames, which recently acquired Shiny Entertainment, calls the phenomenon "a revolution in interactive entertainment."
Of her months of work on both the "Matrix" sequels and the game as the tough hovercraft pilot known as Niobe, Ms. Pinkett Smith said, "It's all one project."
Some of the bigger video game developers, like Activision and Electronic Arts, have also been quick to capitalize on securing licenses to movies, gambling millions of dollars on whether movie premises and characters can make top-selling games.
This year, besides Enter the Matrix, game enthusiasts can expect a slew of movie-related video games that are being developed with the increasingly close cooperation of the moviemakers and actors. Even Disney's "Piglet's Big Movie," due in theaters March 21, is being accompanied by a video game, Piglet's Big Game, made by Gotham Games. It took advantage of Disney's willingness to help blur the line between movie and game by giving both the same look, feel and vocals, said Greg Ryan, general manager of Gotham Games.
Last year, Activision, with games like Spider-Man: The Movie, and Electronic Arts, with Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, struck gold with movie-to-game projects. Both games, executives for the companies said, were created with unusually high access to the films' makers, including having the movies' actors reprise their roles specifically for the games.
And at an average retail price of $50 a game, the economics of translating a blockbuster movie into a game that could sell millions of copies is attractive, many gamemakers and moviemakers said.
"I think what is going on is that everyone has realized that we are going after the same target audience," said Kathy Vrabeck, an executive vice president at Activision, referring to young males. "I'm not surprised to see more convergence of movies and video games, bringing that experience into the interactive realm where they can continue that experience for hours and hours.''
Neil Young, an Electronic Arts vice president in charge of production for the company's "Lord of the Rings" game franchise, said he had video conference calls from his office in Redwood City, Calif., with Peter Jackson, the New Zealand-based director of the film trilogy.
"It is important to keep him in the loop," Mr. Young said. "We're trying to understand the language of the film and adopt and retain its core essence, but diverge in ways that are right for the game medium."
Mr. Young cautions that not every film, no matter how popular or celebrated, can be adapted into a video game. For example, gamers are not likely to see "The Hours" or "Chicago" games popping up on their Play- Station 2 consoles. Action, fantasy and science fiction genres appear to be the most adaptable.
"We rule out chick movies," Ms. Vrabeck said with a chuckle.
Trying to capture box-office lightning in a game cartridge is not new. Some of the first mass-market video games to emerge in the late 1970's were inspired by "Star Wars." But video games based on popular films have often disappointed gamers. For years, they tended to be marketing afterthoughts or blatant money grabs churned out with little more imagination than it took to flood the market with movie-themed lunch boxes and T-shirts, critics noted.
Only in recent years, with explosively powerful microprocessors and 3-D graphics chips, as well as the immense popularity of consoles like PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, have game technologies matured enough to begin to approach convincing filmlike qualities, said David Perry, president of Shiny Entertainment.
"And we're still in our infancy," he added.
High on a California hillside in temporary quarters near Laguna Beach, Mr. Perry, 35, is overseeing Shiny Entertainment's completion of Enter the Matrix, its most ambitious project since the company was founded 10 years ago. Because of the game's crucial tie-in with the film's release in May, the game must be finished some time in April. So, Mr. Perry said with cool confidence, the pressure is on him and his 70-member team to complete the game, which will be available for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and PC.
It was more than two years ago when Shiny landed the deal with the Wachowskis to produce the first commercial video game based on the world and characters of their blockbuster film. Mr. Perry said he remembered thinking how fortunate it would be if he could persuade the filmmakers to devote just a tad of the shooting for the "Matrix" sequels to the game's introduction.
He said he had no idea how committed the Wachowski brothers, who are known to be avid gamers, would be in lending their ideas and creative energies to the game itself. In addition to giving Mr. Perry and his game developers almost full run of the "Matrix" film studios and locations in the United States and Australia, they wrote the script, produced an hour of film sequences for the game and completed another hour that Shiny turned into computer-generated imagery that Mr. Perry calls "cinematics."
The effect, he explained, is having a game that is so thoroughly infused with "Matrix" action, scenery and characters that it does not simply retell the film's story, but greatly elaborates upon it. "Our game and 'Reloaded' run in parallel, but they do affect each other as the story goes down," he said.
On first impression, the game still has more of a video-game look than the deep, richly colored tone of a multimillion-dollar movie. But as Mr. Perry notes, the game's characters are designed to move with the agility and fine facial expressions of live action. A major reason is that the Wachowskis insisted that all the characters' movements in the game be based on those of the actors or their stunt doubles.
"When Jada reaches for a phone in the game, she was motion-captured reaching for a phone," Mr. Perry said, describing a painstaking process that required actors to wear custom-fitted suits and strategically placed markers so that an array of up to 32 special cameras could capture their movements. The information was then uploaded into computers and incorporated into digital versions of the actors.
And because the Wachowskis favor tight close-ups in their filmmaking, Shiny incorporated new methods for capturing fine facial expressions as well as scanning actors' heads - a technique that Mr. Perry calls alpha-mapping - to create faces and hair that look real.
Shiny Entertainment technologists also developed programs that can shift the tiny picture elements, or polygons, of an object or a character to where and when they are most needed. The result is a smooth fade from a long shot of two characters going hand to hand to a cinematic zoom into a close-up of a victorious expression.
Hard-core "Matrix" fans may be disappointed that they cannot play any of the leading characters, including Neo, who is portrayed by Mr. Reeves and who does appear in the game. But Mr. Perry said playing the film's practically all-powerful character did not necessarily translate into the most engaging game play.
Characters new to "The Matrix" in its film sequels - Niobe, portrayed by Ms. Pinkett Smith, and Ghost, a weapons expert portrayed by Anthony Wong - are the figures that can be guided through the game's seven major missions, which cross several game genres, including shooting, fighting, flying and driving. The goal is to help Neo and his crew save humanity.
"We're really, really focusing on letting people have fun," Mr. Perry said. "That's the most important thing."
Article by MICHEL MARRIOTT/NY TIMES