Shazam! Director David F. Sandberg returns to his horror roots with this adaptation of PlayStation’s 2015 horror hit Until Dawn. question? The original game was already an interactive movie.
The Hollywood Reporter shared the latest scoop on PlayStation Productions’ growing output of film and TV adaptations yesterday (January 17), adding that Screen Gems will co-produce the project with Sony.
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In addition to David F. Sandberg (who has spent the past few years far away in Washington, D.C.), Gary Dauberman is the star of recent horror films It, The writer of popular horror films such as “Annabelle” and “The Nun,” he is doing additional work on the original script. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, this book was written by Blair Butler of The Invitation.
For Sandberg, Until Dawn represents a return to horror after the two Shazam! movie, the last of which was a box office flop last year, like all of DC’s films in the final stretch of the DCEU. Meanwhile, Dauberman has become one of Hollywood’s most popular screenwriters. Two highlights on his slate of upcoming projects are an adaptation of Stephen King’s “Salem Manor” (which appears to be heading straight into “Max”) and a live-action “Gargoyles” series for Disney+.
To gamers, however, this new movie from PlayStation Productions may sound like the silliest thing they can think of when looking at the vast library of video games being adapted. Many have already expressed doubts about HBO’s The Last of Us being a direct retelling of a story that’s already been presented cinematically, but after all this is a game that behaves like a game and doesn’t use the same audio-visual language most of the time. However, with a production like Until Dawn, the initial experience is already cinematic. When you inevitably remove the “create your own story” element when you jump from an otherwise simple hack-and-slash feature to another medium, what’s left to impress?
Next up from the video game adaptation pipeline are Halo Season 2 (Paramount+) and Fallout Season 1 (Prime Video). TV seems to be better suited to these than movies so far, so expect more wins in that area.
