Jon M Chu and Sydney Sweeney are joining forces for a film adaptation of Hazelight Studios’ new videogame Split Fiction. More on that below.
If you played Split Fiction, Hazelight Studios’ new co-op videogame, and you’re reading this, then congratulations. It means you made it through the game without any significant physical violence to/from the person you were playing with.
We recently reported that Story Kitchen, the company behind multiple game-to-screen adaptations such as the Sonic The Hedgehog movies, was looking to bring the somewhat intense gaming experience to the big screen. A search for a director and a cast begun in March and progress has been made, it seems.
Variety reports that Wicked’s Jon M Chu has signed on to direct and Sydney Sweeney will star. The script will be provided by Deadpool And Wolverine writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.
The game features two first-time authors, Zoe and Mio, who are promised a publishing deal by Rader Publishing, which sounds a little too good to be true. The company’s CEO, JD Rader, explains the writers will be able to “experience” their stories by hopping into a big machine of his making, but in reality, Rader is going to simply suck all the creative ideas out of their heads. Mio, suspicious of the whole deal, accidentally gets herself sucked into Zoe’s platform and the two end up hopping between differing worlds of fantasy and science fiction.
Like Hazelight’s previous games, It Takes Two (which also has a movie version in the works) and A Way Out, Split Fiction requires two players to play on the same device with a split screen and work together. This is all fun and games until one of you makes it through an area and the other keeps falling off a ledge or falling into molten chocolate. Nothing spruces up a relationship like working together to defeat a monstrous dentist, am I right?
Split Fiction received largely positive reviews and the film adaptation was announced just two weeks after the game’s release. There’s no word on whether Sweeney will play the science fiction oriented Mio or fantasy writer Zoe, but she is set to executive produce the project.
Story Kitchen is currently shopping the project around to studios, but we’ll bring you more news on the Split Fiction movie as we hear it.
