The Movies - Development

Development

Production of The Movies began back in late 2001 in a Lionhead Studios brain-storming conference. The idea began when Peter Molyneux and a few other Lionhead Studios came up with a new idea for a simulation game inspired by the 1990s hit game Hollywood Mogul. However, the idea was to create a more diverse and lifelike strategy aspect to the game giving players the option to create their very own movie, a feature that Hollywood Mogul did not include. They announced the idea in April 2002 at E3 2002. The fan reaction was pretty big- The Movies booth was one of E3's most visited that year and many companies wanted to distribute the game. Lionhead Studios eventually chose Activision. The game took almost 4 years to make because of various changes to the graphic engine during production. It was finally released for Microsoft Windows in November 2005.

The game was originally going to be ported to PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but development of the console ports was halted immediately before acquisition of Lionhead by Microsoft. The game was officially cancelled on 7 February 2006. Poor sales was the reason cited for the cancellation. On February 8, 2006, Lionhead Studios announced that there was still hope for a console release, just without Activision as publisher.

In October 2006, the Macintosh version by Feral Interactive won a Bafta for the best simulation game of 2006 at the Bafta games awards. The Macintosh version added a number of additional features which aren't available in the original PC release, including iPod & HD resolution video export modes, integration with Apple's iLife applications such as iTunes, iMovieHD and GarageBand, and an extra bonus utility. The game was also nominated in the soundtrack category, although it did not win.