As always, without official announcements by The Sims Team or Electronic Arts, consider this to be an unverified rumor until proven otherwise.
According to entertainment website Geeks WorldWide, film adaptations of The Sims and SimCity franchises are currently in development at Legendary Pictures.
The [SimCity] film is being described as “A comedic version of a Roland Emmerich-esuqe disaster movie inside the world of SIMCITY” with the script being penned by Mike Rosillio. Studio executives Ali Mendes and John Silk are overseeing the development of the film. No director or actors have been announced at this time.
There is little information on casting and characters for “SIMCITY” as the only descriptions we have are for basic characters described as Dad, Mom, Son and Villain. Not much to go on.
On the matter of a Sims-specific film, GWW reported the following:
It appears characters will play dual roles in The SIMS game and out.
Early character descriptions include Katie as our lead female “A funny hot mess, good to her core.”
There is also Cliff a supporting male and his described as “Kate’s best friend, a cute nerd.”
Other supporting characters include Rick (Steel Nugget), a performer in a “mixed martial arts historical musical,” Cora (Bella), “Katie’s assistant” “Cora is sarcastic and bitter,” Dennis (Studio worker), an “uptight” partner at Katie’s firm, Jared the “womanizing douche,” Amanda (Nellie) is dating Cliff and described as “Pretty and slim,” finally we have Pam, Kat’s Mom and Bill a “Chubby” in kid SIMS who lives in the tree house behind Kate and offers advice.
It isn’t surprising that EA is attempting to develop their more popular game franchises into films. The Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokémon franchises recently found success transitioning over to film, and the Jumanji franchise was recently revitalized by incorporating heavy video game aspects.
It is important to note that this is not the first time EA endeavored to adapt games from The Sims franchise into film and television.
Back in 2008, EA launched a large film and television endeavor by signing with the United Talent Agency. At the time, a live-action The Sims movie was in development at 20th Century Fox under producer John Davis, with a MySims animated television series ramping up at Film Roman.
Below is the premise for Davis’ film, discussed in an article on Wired in 2008.
. . . A 16 year old kid . . . and his friend get their hands on this thing called “The Sims Infinity Pack”
But what they realize is that they can scan their world in, because this is the most life like, real Sims game ever. And as they are playing this they are all of a sudden realizing is what they are playing on the game is having an effect on the real world.
As we now know, this film project never did come to light. It is important to keep this in perspective with the recent GWW report. News that a film is in development does in no way guarantee that it will ever get released, or even have a script fully completed.
Nevertheless, we’ll be sure to keep you updated on any new developments with these film projects at Legendary going forward.
