Sony's Siren headed to the silver screen

The film rights for Sony's survival horror series Siren have been optioned by Ghost House Pictures, with the game looking likely to be one of the next in line to be turned into a major movie.

The names involved in the deal are promising; Ghost House is the production company run by Rob Taper and Sam Raimi, who worked together on Evil Dead and the latter of whom is more recently known as the director of the Spider-Man series of films.

The current issue of movie trade paper Variety carries a report about Siren, stating that script writer Michael Gordon (whose only previous credited work is as a writer on the adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel 300, which is currently filming) will be working closely with Siren creator Keiichiro Toyama.

If Siren heads to the big screen, it will be following in the footsteps of another Japanese horror franchise, Silent Hill, the movie version of which due to be released in the coming months and is already attracting significant attention thanks to a fantastic trailer, not to mention the participation of writer Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) and director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf).

It's perhaps appropriate that Siren should follow Silent Hill in this way; not least since Siren creator Toyama was also a key figure in the development of the Silent Hill series for Konami.

The second title in the Siren series is due to be launched in Japan early this year, and international launches will follow later in the year.