Image: Maxis
We’re actually getting a Sims movie adaptation, out of all things.
In a strange turn of events, Electronic Arts and developer Maxis’ hit social simulation game franchise The Sims is getting a movie adaptation. The movie is being produced by Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap, which also produced Barbie last year. The movie has also lined up a director: Kate Herron, who directed Season 1 of Loki for Disney+.
Electronic Arts will also be involved in the movie’s production in a, “creative and producing capacity,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Sims gets a movie adaptation
In case you’re somehow unaware, The Sims is perhaps one of the most popular game franchises in history, allowing players to create playable human avatars called Sims and take charge of their lives. In the series’ latest entry, The Sims 4, players could give Sims different skills, jobs, relationships and various physical quirks (like vampirism) to make them more unique, and then build a house for them using a laundry list of decorations and furniture. Expansion packs for The Sims 4 have been released regularly since its launch, adding onto an already robust life simulation experience.
As far as video games go, The Sims does not lend itself as naturally to a live-action adaptation as, say, The Last of Us or Until Dawn. Still, Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap has experience in adapting the seemingly unadaptable, now emerging from strong awards season runs for the Greta Gerwig-directed Barbie and Emerald Fennell-directed Saltburn. Director Kate Herron also has experience with genre fare, having recently directed Season 1 of Marvel Studios’ Loki for Disney+.
Much like Barbie, The Sims doesn’t really have a story to adapt. One has to assume that the movie’s creators are aiming to tell a more metatextual story about Sims characters being controlled by outside forces, rather than a more literal story about people building houses, getting married, having children and then dying in a pool because there aren’t any ladders around.
The Sims movie currently has no release date. The Sims 5 is likely to launch earlier than the movie, given that it was announced a long two years ago.
