Sonic isn’t the only franchise that Sega wants to capitalize on through the silver screen.
Per an exclusive story from The Hollywood Reporter, Sega has partnered with a media company called Picturestart (Am I Ok?, Cha Cha Real Smooth) to develop film adaptations of Space Channel 5 and Comix Zone. Neither of these games should require any introduction to Sega fans who grew up in the ’90s, with both being memorable classics that released during that era for the Dreamcast and Genesis consoles, respectively.
Space Channel 5 details:
That project is being written by Barry Battles and Nir Paniry. Battles wrote and directed The Baytown Outlaws, a 2012 crime comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton and Eva Longoria. Paniry wrote and directed Extracted, a sci-fi drama nominated for the Emerging Visions Award at South by Southwest.
Comix Zone details:
Zone, an adaptation of the cult console game, follows a jaded comic book creator and a young, queer writer of color who, when sucked into the final issue of his popular series, must put aside their differences to stop a dangerous supervillain from sowing complete destruction. In the process, they wittily explore the ever-evolving art of storytelling itself.
Zone will be written by Mae Catt, whose credits include writing on the Emmy-winning animated DC series Young Justice, and the How to Train Your Dragon spinoff series, Dragons: The Nine Realm. She was also a writer on Netflix’s Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy.
Picturestart isn’t a total stranger to video game adaptations, being one of the companies responsible for producing Borderlands, a live-action movie based on Gearbox and 2K Games’ looter-shooter franchise. The film was directed by Eli Roth, whose credits include Cabin Fever and the Hostel movies.
Other figures that are involved in Sega’s new adaptations include Toru Nakahara, the producer behind both the Sonic the Hedgehog movie franchise and the upcoming Sonic Prime TV series. “Takumi Yoshinaga, Sega video game director, will join the team for Channel 5 while Kagasei Shimomura, Sega’s video game producer, will join the team for Zone.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter