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Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Dmitri Johnson has teamed up with John Wick author/creator Derek Kolstad to kind the brand new media firm Story Kitchen.
Johnson is the founding father of dj2 Leisure, which specialised in taking beloved recreation franchises to broader leisure with the profitable Sonic the Hedgehog motion pictures in addition to Tomb Raider: The Animated Collection for Netflix.
In different phrases, we will count on to see extra online game franchises become motion pictures, which is the massive Hollywood development now and is the alternative of what used to occur the place motion pictures have been become video games. I consider this as reverse transmedia, and it’s a mirrored image of how recreation audiences have grown. Each Kolstad and Johnson have spoken about this at our earlier GamesBeat Summit occasions. I requested Johnson if this implies he’ll nonetheless adapt video video games to motion pictures and TV exhibits.
“Completely! If something, we’ll be tripling down on diversifications. We have already got some unannounced diversifications within the works, so we couldn’t be extra excited,” Johnson mentioned in an e-mail.
The companions mentioned in a press release, “After having spent the final a number of years working collectively and admiring each other’s storytelling chops, vitality, style, and concepts, we collectively got here to the identical conclusion: That the one approach to double down on cooking up essentially the most wonderful Franchises and Worlds attainable – was for us to unite as one.”
We’ve seen a variety of this taking place these days, with the Uncharted film from Sony, primarily based on the Uncharted recreation collection, and the upcoming TV collection that HBO is touting about The Final of Us online game from Sony. That is the same old transmedia technique, besides in reverse, because it has been centered on motion pictures to video games up to now.
dj2 Leisure will proceed its “first-look” rights settlement with Amazon Studios, the studio that made the Amazon Prime present The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy streaming collection. That implies that Amazon Studios will get first dibs on adapting dj2 Leisure’s ideas into motion pictures or video collection.
Mike Goldberg, an agent and previously an APA Associate, may also be part of as a cofounder for Story Kitchen. Story Kitchen will likely be a brand new “franchise-building media firm.” It can deal with the creation and amplification of “world-building motion” and non-traditional mental properties.
“If all of the world’s a stage, Story Kitchen goals to be the Shakespearean chief in Gun-Fu, Popcorn-Fu and Controller-Fu,” the corporate mentioned.
dj2 lately struck a strategic video game-to-producer first-look with Swedish online game writer, Uncooked Fury, to help them in adapting their huge interactive catalog into tv and movie. Uncooked Fury is the prolific writer behind such video games as Norco and the indie hit Sable.
Dan Jevons, Tim Stevenson and Howard Bliss, beforehand of dj2, will likely be becoming a member of the brand new firm in senior management roles.
Kolstad is taken into account one among Hollywood’s high motion writers as the author of John Wick, which is now in post-production for its fourth movie. Kolstad additionally helped Ubisoft adapt Splinter Cell for a Netflix tv present. He labored on an upcoming sequel to the No person film, and he was the producer on The Princess. Kolstad is engaged on constructing a number of different unannounced artistic universes…with extra to be revealed later this 12 months.
Johnson created dj2 Leisure as a manufacturing firm that tailored video video games into tv and movie. That firm is engaged on a movie adaptation of Hazelight’s It Takes Two online game in addition to Life is Unusual. Goldberg spent 9 years at APA as an leisure agent and accomplice. Story Kitchen will likely be repped by APA and Mike Goldberg’s purchasers are anticipated to stay at APA.
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