The news is just hitting hard and fast lately when it comes to video game movies and Sydney Sweeney. And we don’t mean in separate fashions; we literally mean those two topics combined. A few days ago we reported that Sweeney was going to be teaming up with director Michael Bay to produce a movie based on Sega’s “OutRun” racing franchise. That’s… a choice… considering the franchise has been dead for a decade and a half. Now we have reports that Sweeney is going to be executive producer and star of another video game based film, but this time for a game that people actually care about, “Split Fiction.”
“Split Fiction” is the third game by Swedish game development company, Hazelight Studios. The team there specialized in cooperative two-play video games where the players truly have to work together to solve the game’s puzzles and navigate from area to area. For example, their first title, “A Way Out,” is about two prison inmates trying to perform a prison break. The studio rose to prominence though with their 2021 title, “It Takes Two.” Two parents find themselves transformed into dolls and have to navigate their world to reverse the transformation and help their daughter.
This concept of being trapped in a fantasy setting extends to “Split Fiction.” Two writers, Mio and Zoe are effectively transported into the world of their own stories, which becomes even more complicated when the fantasy setting of one, bleeds into the science-fiction world of the other. Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians“) has been tapped to direct the adaptation of this game; a natural pick considering the lavish fantasy world he helped bring to life in his adaptation of “Wicked.” Adding an extra bit of potential comedic oomph to the project are writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick whose most recent work includes “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
Sweeney is reportedly starring in the film, but it has not been confirmed if she’ll be in the role of Mio or Zoe. Her role as executive producer would effectively be teaming her up once again with the production company Story Kitchen, who are also producing “OutRun.” As we previously reported, Story Kitchen is all over the video game to film adaptation scene, having previously worked on “Sonic the Hedgehog” and the “Tomb Raider” animated series for Netflix.
The glut of game to film adaptations does not seem to be slowing down and we can only imagine how many more we’ll hear about in the days to come thanks to “A Minecraft Movie” doing so extremely well. We’ll be here to update you on them as we get more info.
