PlayStation Productions Will Adapt PlayStation Games to Film and Television
PlayStation Productions is a new unit of Sony Interactive Entertainment with one objective. Its job is to go through the extensive gaming catalog and figure out which ones could become TV shows or movies. There’s no shortage of properties to choose from, and it looks like the first set of projects is even starting production.
Asad Qizilbash is heading PS Productions, and he recently told THR:
“Instead of licensing our IP out to studios, we felt the better approach was for us to develop and produce for ourselves. One, because we’re more familiar, but also because we know what the PlayStation community loves.
For the last year and half, two years, we’ve spent time trying to understand the industry, talking to writers, directors, producers. We talked to [film producer] Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Kevin Feige to really get an understanding of the industry.”
Meanwhile, Shawn Layden of Worldwide Studios at SIE has said:
“We’ve got 25 years of game development experience and that’s created 25 years of great games, franchises and stories. 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.
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. It would be a lofty goal to say we’re following in their footsteps, but certainly we’re taking inspiration from that.
You can see just by watching older video game adaptations that the screenwriter or director didn’t understand that world or the gaming thing. 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.”
I honestly question that second idea that they “know what the PlayStation community loves” as I remember a lot of members of said community wanting backwards compatibility and cross-play. One of those things is still not happening and the other has taken a lot of effort to get them to even try.
All that being said, I do commend Layden for recognizing you shouldn’t simply try to retell the game fans have already played. What games are you hoping get adapted? Live-action Crash Bandicoot anyone? There’s no way it could go wrong.