Oof.
CBS Films has acquired the rights to the entire Deus Ex franchise, which means every little enhancement, augmentation and awkward plot device spanning the last 12 years. Promising to make Deus Ex: Human Revolution the focus, CBS Films doesn't exactly have a great track record. Even attaching producers Roy Lee and Adrian Askarieh sounds all right, but take a second to check their track record.
Askarieh's bread and butter are video game films tailor made to hit certain points while doing whatever is worth a profit margin (see: Hitman) and languishes around because people forgot about it (Kane and Lynch, which was going to star Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx a long time ago). Lee just likes to make money through licensing and adapting projects from Asian markets to the United States, since his titles include Death Note, the Old Boy remake and a proposed remake of Battle Royal that was already called The Hunger Games.
The other important thing to keep in mind about CBS Films is that they're in desperate need of a franchise, or even a successful film. Out of the seven they launched since revamping their production slate in 2007. Their first film, Extraordinary Measures, which featured Harrleson Ford grumbling while Brendan Fraiser literally throws money at him, flopped. So far, only two films released by CBS Films have even remotely made their money back: the reimagined fantasy/Twilight fanbase appeal of Beastly ($27 million domestic/estimated $17 million budget) and The Back-Up Plan ($37 million domestic/estimated $35 mllion budget). The Woman in Black, while a success, also had the power of a certain actor famous for being The Boy Who Lived.
There's a good chance Deus Ex will sit on CBS for a while, trying to figure out the best way to save overhead while making something as cheap and ready to go as possible--within the next three or four years.
