In brief: Video game film and television adaptations have been hit-or-miss. Most have been massive failures except for a few here and there—the Netflix originals The Witcher and Castlevania being a couple of examples of diamonds in the rough. The recent capitalization of such adaptations reportedly has Epic Games looking to produce a Fortnite movie. Good luck with that.
Epic Games may be looking to expand its reach to Hollywood and is considering a Fortnite movie adaptation. Insiders familiar with the project told The Insider that the game company wants to “diversify” in the face of ongoing legal costs associated with its antitrust lawsuits against Apple and Google.
Earlier this year, Epic reportedly sniped several executives from Lucasfilm. Lucasfilm’s former vice president of Physical Production, Jason McGatlin, is now Epic’s president of Special Projects. McGatlin served as executive producer on all of the Disney-produced Star Wars films.
Could we see a live-action version of Fortnite similar to the Season 18 cinematic trailer?
The game developer also tapped Lucasfilm’s former VP of Production Finance, Chris Furia, and Lynn Bartsch, former Lucasfilm business and legal affairs boss, to reprise their roles in Epic’s new division. The anonymous sources say that talks of a Fortnite movie are already underway but did not delve into specifics.
It’s somewhat hard to imagine what a “Fortnite: The Movie” would look like. The game has 18 seasons of lore to pull from, including a comet collision in Season 4, an evil commando Santa Claus in Season 7, and a black hole that devoured the entire map in Season 10. Then there have been various crossover events that introduced several existing characters, including DC and Marvel superheroes, a Stranger Things, John Wick, the Predator, and even Halo’s Master Chief. Then again, a Fortnite movie could be something completely original but based in the Fortnite universe.
It is way too early to speculate what a big screen Fortnite adaptation would entail. Epic has not commented on the situation, so at this point, it’s all just rumor. However, if the report is accurate, a movie is not even in early pre-production. If the alleged talks are successful, it would likely be years before a film was released.