Kinetic Games has announced that a movie adaptation of its hit paranormal horror game Phasmophobia is officially in development at Blumhouse.
Released in 2020, Phasmophobia is a cooperative psychological horror game in which players take on the roles of paranormal investigators. Equipped with ghost-hunting equipment such as EMF Readers, Spirit Boxes, Thermometers, and more, they tasked with gathering evidence of paranormal activity within haunted locations. Its tense gameplay, which often results in hilarious moments (especially among streamers), resulted it in it becoming a viral hit upon its release.
Since its early access launch in 2020, Phasmophobia has surpassed 23 million in global sales, making it one of the best-selling multiplayer horror games.
Announcing the movie adaptation on the company blog, Daniel Knight (Dknighter), Director of Kinetic Games and Lead Developer of Phasmophobia, offered the following statement:
“We’re thrilled to officially announce that a Phasmophobia film adaption is in development - it’s a big moment for the whole Kinetic team, and the start of something really exciting. We never could’ve imagined the incredible heights this game would reach when it launched five years ago, and we’re so thankful to our amazing community for the lasting impact Phasmophobia has had in the gaming space and beyond. Working with Blumhouse and Atomic Monster marks an incredible new chapter for the game, and we can’t wait to share more as the project develops.”
Blumhouse is one of the leading production company's in the horror genre, famous for producing films on modest budgets and achieving high box office successes. The studio's 2007 movie Paranormal Activity had a total budget of just $215,000 and went on to gross $200 million.
In the years since, Blumhouse has continued to produce horror hit after horror hit, including Insidious (2010), The Purge (2013), Sinister (2012), Get Out (2017), Halloween reboot (2018), and M3GAN (2022). In 2023, the studio released Five Nights at Freddy's a box office hit pased on the popular video game of the same name.
Although Five Nights at Freddy's wasn't a hit with critics, with just a 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, it was incredibly popular with fans, which is really all that matters.
"Perfectly capturing the lore -- and the spirit -- of the source material, Five Nights at Freddy's is a long-awaited treat for fans of the games," the general fan consensus reads.
Assuming Blumhouse stays true to the overall paranormal horror spirit of Phasmophobia, it should prove to be another popular hit with gamers.