The long-running and hugely popular life simulator video game series The Sims is getting the movie treatment and there’s some exciting talent behind the project.
The Sims is set to be adapted into a movie, exploring the lives of its simulated suburban occupants in feature-length, cinematic glory.
Just in case you’ve never come across the popular series of video games published by Electronic Arts, The Sims series of games fall into the life simulator genre, allowing you to create and then oversee the lives of countless suburban residents. If you’ve ever fancied playing God, The Sims essentially allows you to do that, giving you the freedom to be a benevolent overlord (build your sims a new house) or a vengeful deity (burn down your sims’ new house).
In the game, there is no real narrative apart from the one that you create yourself, which poses an interesting question with regards to what on earth a film adaptation would do with a game that on the surface at least, doesn’t seem that well-suited to cinema.
That’s where LuckyChap Entertainment and Kate Herron come in.
As you probably know, LuckyChap is Margot Robbie’s production company (which is run by Robbie, Tom Ackerly, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr). The company is still riding high off the stunning success of last year’s Barbie, which in some ways is a similar product to The Sims. Both offer the opportunity for open-ended play, allowing those who interact with them to create their own stories. Both products also offer the polished veneer of an aspirational life, something that can be played up to… or subverted.
When you also add in the fact that Kate Herron, the director of the first season of Loki, has been drafted in to direct the film, you start to get a real sense of where things might be headed.
Loki's debut season earned plenty of plaudits for the way it dealt with some mind-bending ideas and we can imagine that Herron’s talent for subverting the accepted laws of reality might be one of the reasons she’s in the director’s chair for this one. Could we be looking at something like 2020’s Free Guy but told in a way that isn’t afraid to really challenge its audience?
At this point, we don’t know and that’s all speculation on our part. Until we hear more, we’ll have to wait and see what happens next.
Briony Redman (who has scripted an episode of this year’s Doctor Who) has co-penned the script along with Herron. Vertigo Entertainment and Electronic Arts are also producing. When we hear more on this one, including casting and production details, you can be sure we’ll let you know.
