April 5^th, 2002 (12:00am) - ’Minority Report’ Heads for Video Game

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - It looks like Tom Cruise will soon be getting the Lara Croft treatment.

Video game publisher Activision has landed the exclusive rights to create games based on the upcoming sci-fi action thriller "Minority Report," starring Cruise as a cop of the future.

The film, directed by Steven Spielberg, debuts June 21, with planned video games adapted from the movie expected to hit store shelves later in the year.

The deal gives Activision the rights to develop, publish and distribute games based on the Fox-DreamWorks co-production for the next five years, with titles for all gaming systems, including Sony PlayStation 2 (news - web sites), Nintendo (news - web sites) GameCube and Microsoft Xbox (news - web sites).

"’Minority Report’ lends itself well to a wide variety of game-play elements with intense futuristic storylines and gripping action-packed sequences," said Ron Doornink, president and chief operating officer of Activision.

Last year, actress Angelina Jolie propelled video game success in the opposite direction, bringing the character of digital action heroine Lara Croft to the big screen in the box office hit "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."

Likewise, model-turned-actress Milla Jovovich inhabited the mini-skirted, gun-toting character of Alice for the recent movie version of the popular video game "Resident Evil."