Sega’s Eternal Champions is the next video game series to be adapted for the big screen.
While it’s not surprising that filmmakers still scour video game catalogs for ideas, I can’t say that Sega’s 1993 fighting game was on my bingo card for the next series to be adapted.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, however, that is exactly the case: The author of the Jurassic World trilogy, Derek Connolly, is set to write the screenplay for the live-action film.
Connolly is also co-author of Detective Pikachu.
David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger will produce for Skydance, while Sega producer Toru Nakahara will oversee the adaptation, as he did with the Sonic the Hedgehog films.
Eternal Champions was released on the Sega Mega Drive in 1993. It spawned a sequel and several spin-off games, making it one of the best fighting game franchises in history.
“Eternal Champions” is just one of several adaptations currently in production, including Amazon Prime’s highly anticipated television series “Yakuza: Like a Dragon,” which is set to premiere on October 24.
Speaking of video game adaptations… Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick hopes that the new Borderlands film will be given “a chance” because “a lot of people worked really hard on it.”
Zelnick was asked about the film’s less-than-stellar early reviews on a conference call earlier this month. While he called the film’s “look and feel” “great,” he said the film’s performance would have “no financial impact” on Take-Two or the Borderlands franchise itself.