Sony announces PlayStation Productions to bring games to life on the big screen
PHOTO: Naughty Dog
PUBLISHED ONMay 20, 2019 10:01 PMByAlexis Ong
In an effort to (finally) bring a semblance of quality to video game movie adaptations, Sony has announced its own studio: PlayStation Productions.
Excited to partner with our studios to make content the PlayStation community will be proud of https://t.co/39qXr4J9zd
— Asad Qizilbash (@aqizil) May 20, 2019
The new studio will focus on developing scripts from the Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) game catalogue — a treasure trove of franchise material. This includes the Uncharted film adaptation, which has been dragged out in limbo for years.
Twitter #Trending right now:
— OBlackThunderO⚡? (@BT_BlackThunder) May 20, 2019
"Sony has launched PlayStation Productions - a production studio to adapt its games for film & TV."
Me last year: pic.twitter.com/cAKzOY7XyO
PlayStation Productions will be run by Sony ex-marketing VP Asad Qizilbash and SIE’s Worldwide Studios chairman, Shawn Layden. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Qizilbash offered some background information on how this new venture came to be. “For the last year and a half, two years, we’ve spent time trying to understand the industry, talking to writers, directors, producers. We talked to [producer] Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Kevin Feige to really get an understanding of the industry,” he said.
Layden added that Playstation Productions is heavily inspired by Marvel’s comics-to-film success, but wants to run on a reasonably paced, quality-over-quantity schedule. “When fans beat a 40-50 hour game and have to wait three-four years for a sequel, we want to give them places they can go and still have more of that experience and see the characters they love evolve in different ways,” he explained.
This could mean re-reboots of Tomb Raider (though the last reboot was pretty good) and Mortal Kombat, blockbuster Final Fantasy movies, as well as original film franchises of God of War, The Last of Us, and Metal Gear Solid. We could even see animated movies of sleeper titles like PaRappa the Rapper and Spyro the Dragon. Imagine an Elder Scrolls Online or Bloodborne film franchise done right.
Fans online are already busy making casting requests for their favourite games.
Dear Sony Interactive Entertainment: if you're gonna create a Horizon: Zero Dawn TV show or movie, please cast Rose Leslie as Aloy! pic.twitter.com/gAUvQYa9OT
— Ryan | Jack of All Controllers (@AlphaFoxWarfare) May 20, 2019
Given Sony’s innate ability to synergise their film, television, and game divisions, this could mark a brand new era of high-quality series, either on streaming services or on the silver screen. Both Layden and Qizilbash have expressed a commitment to creative control and getting the “right director, the right actors, and the right screenwriter” for PlayStation Productions projects, which could finally elevate game-based storytelling to a more thoughtful, imaginative level.
Don’t mess it up, guys. Just look at Sonic The Hedgehog.