Microsoft expands gaming franchises into films and TV including Sea of Thieves and Gears of War
Microsoft is undertaking a major strategic shift by actively pushing its biggest gaming franchises into movie and TV productions. As Entertainment Weekly report, the company is entrusting Hollywood creatives to develop properties such as Sea of Thieves and Gears of War for the big screen. This large transmedia effort is part of the company's attempt to become a less hardware centric gaming business with a multi platform approach.
A live action movie of the multiplayer pirate game Sea of Thieves is in production. The film will be produced for the game by filmmaking duo Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Spider Man Brand New Day) through Hisako Films. Another director will lead the film but Cretton will produce the work. The game presents a unique story because it has no one protagonist and no clear storyline.
In response to this significant creative challenge, Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty told Entertainment Weekly
we have a design challenge: the gamers and the fans are actually the protagonist of the film.
The goal is not to impose a traditional story, but rather to showcase the fun, highly social, and collaborative nature of the branding since day one. This emphasis on experience with community is part of an integrated effort to build cohesive cinematic narratives from open world territory.
Aside from the pirate adventures, Microsoft also has 2 separate projects in the works based on the Gears of War universe for Netflix. Jon Spaihts who co wrote Dune Part Two is writing a feature film with David Leitch pencilled in as its director. This will follow the story of how Delta Squad was formed and how they fend off a subterranean race threatening mankind. The film is said to echo the themes of brotherhood and camaraderie that Gears of War E Day the upcoming prequel game will have, and it will go in tandem with an animated Gears of War series made by Netflix.
The media extension continues to various other high profile properties within video games. Amazon Prime Video is producing a live action television series based on the Wolfenstein series, in the wake of the popularity experienced by their ongoing, and already in production for 3rd season, Fallout series. An adaptation of the mobile spin off game Fallout Shelter is also in production as a reality competition series. Further adaptations to be produced include Call of Duty features directed by Peter Berg and Taylor Sheridan, an animated series based on Minecraft for Netflix, and A Minecraft Movie Squared a theatrical sequel.
This aggressive push into Hollywood would not happen at an appropriate time in Xbox’s history-its 25 year anniversary of the brand. It is a reflection of the significant leap the brand has taken from its platform based first on hardware, to its role as a universally accessible entertainment ecosystem. In its early days, the brand depended on physical hardware, and online dedicated services such as Xbox Live to build communities. Shows like hit live trivia video game show 1 vs. 100 were one of the companies first tests of interactive entertainment, pulling hundreds of thousands of simultaneous gamers in 2 seasons.
In much the same way, several 1st party acquisitions in the early days such as studio Rare helped shape the early identity of the platform with technologically advanced titles such as Conker Live and Reloaded which demonstrated high fidelity fur shading on the original console. Over the decades, such cooperative and community driven experiments have provided the foundation for current day titles such as Sea of Thieves, launched on PC and Xbox One before coming to rival platforms such as the PlayStation 5. The conversion of interactive worlds such as these into linear movies and television shows is expected to keep the most lucrative brands alive across the wider entertainment industry.
