Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced the launch of PlayStation Productions, a new production studio that will adapt Sony's extensive library of PlayStation video games into film and television series.
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, PlayStation Productions will be headed by Asad Qizilbash and overseen by Shawn Layden, chairman of Worldwide Studios at SIE. Sony Pictures will help with the distribution, but the production of the projects will be handled firsthand by PlayStation Productions. Layden cited the success of what Marvel has done with its cinematic universe as inspiration.
"We looked at what Marvel has done in taking the world of comic books and making it into the biggest thing in the film world," Layden told The Hollywood Reporter.
"It would be a lofty goal to say we’re following in their footsteps, but certainly we’re taking inspiration from that."
PlayStation Productions is reportedly already working on its first slate of projects, though no specifics were announced. And there's certainly no shortage of possibilities. With a catalog of more than 100 original properties, Sony is sitting on a gold mine for potential movies and television shows to be adapted from PlayStation games. From
God of War to
Horizon: Zero Dawn to
The Last of Us, just about any of these PlayStation exclusive franchises would almost certainly make for some solid entertainment on the big or small screen.
"We’ve got 25 years of game development experience and that’s created 25 years of great games, franchises and stories," Layden said.
"We feel that now is a good time to look at other media opportunities across streaming or film or television to give our worlds life in another spectrum."
Turning video games into movies or shows is nothing new, of course. Even Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard have opened their own film and television arms to adapt their own games.
There's been countless video game adaptations, most recently
Detective Pikachu. But while the latest
Pokemon movie has done well with critics, most video game adaptations end up being a disappointment, both critically and commercially. 2016's big budget films inspired by
Assassin's Creed and
Warcraft both bombed at the box office. The list of disappointing video game adaptations far outnumbers the good ones.
Layden, however, appears confident that Sony and PlayStation Productions have learned from past studios' mistakes.
"You can see just by watching older video game adaptations that the screenwriter or director didn’t understand that world or the gaming thing," Layden said.
"The real challenge is, how do you take 80 hours of gameplay and make it into a movie? The answer is, you don’t. What you do is you take that ethos you write from there specifically for the film audience. You don’t try to retell the game in a movie."
"We want to create an opportunity for fans of our games to have more touch points with our franchises," added Layden "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."
What PlayStation franchises would you like to see adapted into a movie or television series?