A movie that explains exactly what happened on the USG Ishimura before hero Isaac Clarke arrived on board is currently in production.

The movie, which is a joint project between Electronic Arts (EA) and Starz Media, will explain the background to the soon-to-be released Xbox game, Dead Space.

In the game, Clarke, a space engineer who works for the Concordance Extraction Corporation (C.E.C), responds to a distress call from the USG Ishimura, a "Planet Cracker" class ship that takes dead planets, and destroys them to extract valuable ore for the company.

But, in true outer-space terror tradition, he gets separated from his crew and faces a host whole of alien nasties on the ship after his blood.

The game is set to arrive on Halloween (which must just be a coincidence?) while the animated film could be released between mid-September and late October, initially as a TV special in multiple markets, followed by a home video release through Starz's home entertainment company, Anchor Bay Entertainment.

Reuters reports that there will be two versions of the film - a softer one for TV and a harder one with more blood and coarser language for the DVD.

>> Via - Reuters
>> Link - Dead Space