Moving a game to the silver screen used to be a big deal. Only the most prestigious and meaty gaming franchises such as Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, Max Payne and Hitman were ever considered for the transition; and even then they more often than not failed.
Come 2015, somebody thought that making a movie based on Pac Man's endless pursuit of white dots was a good idea. It was not. Adam Sandler's Pixels movie is among the lowest-rated movies of all time even though it made $98.6 million in profits over its $145 million production and marketing budget. Movie producers quickly learned that highly recognizable game franchises can attract lots of movie goers regardless of the movie's quality. Since then, the Angry Birds movies was recently released to lackluster reviews and impressive profits. In the meanwhile, Tetris is well on its way to become a sci-fi trilogy.
The latest game to receive the movie treatment is Fruit Ninja.
New Line Cinema has acquired the movie rights for the game and plans to release it as a live-action family comedy, focusing on "a team of misfits who are recruited to become Fruit Ninjas in order to save the world."
Journey to the Center of the Earth executive producer, Tripp Vinson, will produce the new Fruit Ninja film while JP Lavin and Chad Damiani will write its script. A release date for the movie has not been set.
