Geeks don’t watch football. It’s a fact of life. But this may change for at least one night in the near future as fans of the upcoming title Dante’s Inferno will be tuning in Sunday for the big game when EA puts out its most expensive television ad ever.

Expected to be viewed by roughly 100 million fans, the Super Bowl has developed a reputation for some of the best, and worst, commercial debuts of the year. With the ever climbing price tag for commercial time during the Super Bowl, it is estimated that EA will be paying close to three million dollars for Dante’s Inferno to be shown amongst the center of the marketing universe for a mere thirty seconds.

Dante’s Inferno’s Super Bowl commercial, entitled “Hell Awaits…” will appear during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLIV as a final push in the game’s already extensive marketing campaign. In preparation for the game’s February 9th release date, just two days after the Super Bowl, “Hell Awaits…” concludes a campaign that included Facebook apps, action figures, comic books and an animated DVD feature.

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EA has teamed up with 20th Century Fox to turn their popular creature creator game, Spore, into a motion picture, Variety reports. Writing the Spore script will be Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, the team behind Disney’s upcoming “The Princess and the Frog” and directing will be Chris Wedge, director of Ice Age and Robots.

“I’m always looking for unique worlds to go to in animation,” Wedge said. “From every perspective — visually, thematically and comedically — the world of ‘Spore’ provides the potential to put something truly original on the screen.”

Released in 2008, Spore allows players to create and evolve a species from its earliest stages to its development as an intelligent and social creature by mixing role playing, action, and strategy. EA Entertainment’s Patrick O’Brien will produce “Spore” with Lucy Bradshaw, VP of Maxis Studio, the studio that developed the game with Will Wright, creator of “Sim City” and “The Sims” franchises for EA.

“With more than 100 million unique creatures uploaded to our website, it’s clear that people are passionate about the game, and it will be exciting to offer a powerful medium like film in order to expand their experience with ‘Spore,’ ” said Bradshaw.

Video game-to-film adaptations are pretty commonplace these days, especially if a game has a unique plot or premise. Which is why EA’s Spore looks to be an interesting but curious movie. What’s unique about Spore isn’t its plot or premise. It’s the gameplay. Gamers are able to customize their creatures in hundreds of ways, who interact with other gamer’s unique creations. How this will translate from the computer screen to the big screen remains to be seen.

EA also has plans for film adaptations of other popular franchises like The Sims, Army of Two, Dante’s Inferno, Dead Space, and Mass Effect.

Can video games actually be good mature comic properties? Very few have been able to in the past with World of Warcraft and the miniseries promoting Hellgate: London being the most notable exceptions. The sad truth about video game comics is they are often shameless promotion tools that end up showcasing the lack of overall story quality in the games that is often made up by graphics and gameplay fun, Gears of War being the prime example of a story so flimsy that a strong sneeze could burst through it but still considered great because of its gameplay mechanics.

But if there is anyone who can bring the classic epic poem turned video game, Dante’s Inferno, in to a quality comic read, it’s The Flickcast favorite Christos Gage, scribe of recent hit G.I. Joe: Cobra and his up and coming Absolution. DC Comics will be pairing him up with Incredible Hulk artist Diego Latorre. A first peek at the comic will be available this week at Comic-Con where EA will also be debuting the trailer for the upcoming Starz channel animated spin-off. Other than that, details have been slim about the comic project.

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