James Lee 08:38 (BST)
11/06/2008

Ninja Theory's Tameem Antoniades has said he believes that his company could have produced a movie like Beowulf for the fraction of the cost by using a game engine - in fact, around a fifth of the estimated film's USD 150 million budget.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Antoniades talked of plans to move his company into movie and TV production - which would run alongside its games business.

"We see an entirely different area of progress: a form of independent production based on real-time game engine technology. We reckon you could do something like Beowulf for 15-20 per cent of the cost," Antoniades explained.

"If you are already creating hi-res assets for a game, then sharing these can bring that cost down even further... We have a lot of experience in performance capture, animation, rendering and so on. We can compete in the same way that indie films can live alongside blockbusters."

The rest of the GamesIndustry.biz interview with Tameem Antoniades, in which he also discusses emotion in games and the possibilities in 3D gaming, is now available.

Tameem Antoniades is a featured speaker at the GameHorizon conference, taking place over 18-19 June at the Baltic Flour Mill, Newcastle.