Massively

The essence of Hoogestraat's story is a simple one. He ran a bunch of businesses in Second Life (which we believe were profitable), and had a relationship with another user (Janet Spielman) online, during which he neglected his wife and kids. Hoogestraat's wife treated it like an affair, and Hoogestraat himself considered it all a game.

While not exactly common this sort of thing isn't unheard of.

Back in my great-grandma's day people would often fall in love by post, over a period of months or years, before finally meeting and marrying. My great-grandma did just that, in fact, and nobody thought that was the least bit odd or unusual. Apparently doing the same sort of thing over the Internet or the telephone is considered a bit peculiar in this day and age.

We're interested to see if any actual virtual environment as-we-know-it actually even makes it into this film. With all due respect to Verbinski and Steven Knight (who is pitched to write it) we don't think it is likely that we can expect the sort of stark and everyday technological realism of Nora Ephron's "You've got mail!" to make it into the script.

Basically, we'll be a bit surprised if anything recognizably like Second Life ends up in front of audiences -- because, frankly, Hoogestraat's story is a simple one about human relationships and not about technology. The sort of story that we'd normally expect an indie filmmaker to tackle.

Think more Contact than The Matrix. If Universal ends up shelling out the big bucks for digital effects, then they probably wasted their time licensing the original article, because they'll have lost the plot (so to speak).

We understand that an unannounced movie involving Second Life may already be in production. It will be interesting to see how the two films compare.

	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.