A portion of a Joystiq interview with Jerry Bruckheimer and Jordan Mechner...

J: As a producer, what was more important to you, making an entertaining movie or a faithful adaptation of a video game?

Bruckheimer: I think you have to do both. I think you have really got to entertain an audience. That is the key. Otherwise, you will be unhappy and the gamers will be unhappy. Because if they come see it, they are not entertained, but they see all the cool gameplay in it, they will walk out saying, "Eh, it was all right." So I think you have got to give them exactly what Jordan said: Give them a great story, great characters, and have recalls to the game. And that is what we have. We have a lot of recalls. So when you see the movie, you will say, "Oh, yeah! I remember that. That is cool. They took that ..." So you will see a lot of the game stuff that is in the movie.

J: Do you know if the trademarks could be for the movie, or are they related to tie-in product -- something else?

Mechner: Yeah. There is a bunch of stuff. There is a graphic novel. And with regard to games, Ubisoft Montreal, the team that I worked with on Sands of Time, is developing something new. I am not the guy that is going to make that announcement, but there is other Prince of Persia stuff in the works.

J: Did you set up this first film for a sequel?

Bruckheimer: No. I don't think ...

Mechner: I don't either.

J: How are you going to capitalize on this movie? Is there a new video game coming in 2010, or a collection of past games, or a tie-in with the movie? What's coming next year?

Mechner: All I can say is there are going to be some cool announcements coming out of Ubisoft in the next few months, but this isn't the occasion for me to make them.

J: You have seen the film in a test screening. What was your reaction to watching your creation like that?

Mechner: Yeah, I can talk about that. I was in Morocco. I was seeing some of these things get shot. But the first time I saw a rough assembly of Jake as Prince Dastan running on the rooftops with arrows being shot at him and swinging, I just got this big smile on my face that wouldn't go away, because I just felt like it was ... like what I saw in my imagination when I played the game, back when the character was 40 pixels high and his face was four pixels square, but seeing it like real in visceral in the best way.