CARY, N.C. -- The company that made the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy will create a movie version of a video game made by Cary-based Epic Games.

New Line Cinema, a Time Warner subsidiary, acquired the movie rights to "Gears of War" this week. The movie version is tentatively scheduled for release in summer 2009, said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games.

The company will get a percentage of the film's gross revenue. Other details of the deal were not released.

"I'm not sure we will make huge amounts of money off the movie, but if it is done well, it will help the franchise," Rein said.

The very graphic, very violent game sells for $59.99 and was released in stores last November. It has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide and broke sales records for the Microsoft Xbox 360. It's also received industry and gaming awards.

Epic Games decided to sign the deal after it got a 21-page document describing how the movie would be presented. Stuart Beattie, who wrote the script for the movie "Collateral" and was a writer for "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," will work on the movie version of the game.

Cliff Bleszinski, lead game designer for "Gears of War," has worked with Beattie and will be the film's executive producer.

"Beattie really understands the characters here," Rein said. "It's got the potential to be ... not just a good game movie, but a good movie, even if you never played the game."