Spam and Second Life coming to a theatre near you

By Sarah Sluis

Pretty much everyone has received one of those poorly-worded, cryptic emails from a king in Nigeria.  The sender implores you to send him money so he can free up millions of his own funds--which he will in
turn send to you, if only you help.  Yeah, right.  The idea that a real person exists behind that spam, though, will be the subject of a new comedy starring Tracy Morgan.  The premise has a college student drunkenly responding to one such email (although apparently $100 million has been earned from these scams, no screenwriter would subject us to spending an hour and a half with someone gullible enough to do such a thing sober) and being surprised by a prince showing up at his doorstep.  There you have it, Freshman Roommates.  Last I checked, Morgan was 40, so it appears he will play the Nigerian prince, and T.J. Miller (Cloverfield) will play the college student helping Morgan secure his inheritance.  The selling point of this film is great, but when it all boils down will this be just another cultural difference, fish-out-of-water comedy, a tweak on the wife-seeking Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America?

Second Life, not spam, inspired the second Internet-related pickup.  After seeing a depressing WSJ article about a couple whose marriage is disintegrating due to the husband's involvement, and virtual marriage, in online world Second Life, director Gore Verbinski acquired the rights and has tasked Steven Knight with writing a screenplay based on the piece. 

I'm curious about how and even if Verbinski will depict the virtual world.  He's no stranger to special effects, having directed Pirates of the Caribbean, so what will he use to animate the virtual world?
Rotoscoping?  CGI?  Or live-action, which would be a deliberate choice in itself?  I definitely think there's a cheese factor with watching "real" action unfold with video game-type graphics.  For most people, Second Life is a bizarre curiosity, so watching people earnestly living out fake lives through avatars is either ironic or sad.  If the story is told from the perspective of the husband, Verbinski will need to use rotoscoping or live-action to make us understand his obsession.  If it's mainly the wife, graphics true to Second Life should stay intact.