Steven Spielberg wanted Minority Report GBA game to have guns removed
Have you ever heard of Minority Report: Everybody Runs? If you said no, we wouldn’t blame you.
Activision originally published the movie-based Minority Report: Everybody Runs for the Game Boy Advance way back in 2002. It was made by Torus Games. Alex Hutchinson, who directed the likes of Assassin’s Creed III and Far Cry 4, started his career working on that old GBA title.
Minority Report: Everybody Runs might be noteworthy if only for only one reason. During a recent episode of the Game Informer Show, Hutchinson revealed that movie director Steven Spielberg’s assistant reached out to the team during development. Spielberg apparently wanted the guns removed as they wouldn’t fit in with the GBA’s audience – which he felt was more kid-friendly. In its place, Torus Games was given a suggestion to replace the guns with the Sick Stick – a weapon already in the game – that makes you vomit.
Hutchinson revealed:
“The only interesting part of that development was getting an email at some point from Steven Spielberg’s assistant, who said, ‘I see there are lots of guns in your Game Boy game.’ And we said, ‘Well, there are a lot of guns in your movie.’ And they said, ‘Steven feels that maybe kids shouldn’t see those guns.’ … And we were like, ‘It’s a three month production, four month production on a Game Boy game.’ We’re just like smashing it out basically. It was lucky that it booted. And we were like, ‘We can’t change it.’ And he’s like, ‘But he has one idea. There’s another weapon in the game called the Sick Stick, which makes you vomit. Can you replace all of the guns with this since kids love vomit?’ And we said no. That’s the only good part of that entire development.”
