In yet another sign that Hollywood is looking more and more to video games to mine for IP, DreamWorks Animation has signed a deal with media company Story Kitchen to get video games-based movies and TV shows in its pipeline.
According to a report from Deadline today, Story Kitchen will be focused on “securing exciting, iconic, Videogame IP for DWA to adapt for global animated audiences.” The report notes that no adaptations are currently in development, but “future announcements are expected soon.”
Story Kitchen was launched in 2022 by someone with plenty of experience bringing video games to the big screen: Sonic the Hedgehog film producer Dmitri M. Johnson. Per its website, Story Kitchen specializes “in the adaptation of videogames and other ‘non-traditional’ IP into Film/TV.” The company just recently announced it’s working on a live-action film adaptation of Lovecraftian fishing game Dredge.
Story Kitchen’s other video game-based projects include a Vampire Survivors animated TV show, Netflix’s upcoming Tomb Raider animated series, Lionsgate’s film adaptation of Streets of Rage, and an It Takes Two adaptation for Amazon. DreamWorks, meanwhile, is known for series like Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, and How to Train Your Dragon.
The move comes as video game-based film and TV have increasingly flooded in over the past few years, with the so-called “video game adaptation curse” well and truly broken. Johnson’s Sonic the Hedgehog films continue to truck along, with a third one coming this December, and The Super Marios Bros. Movie was a massive hit last year, crossing the $1 billion mark and being the second-highest-grossing movie of 2023. Other big-screen adaptations of famous video games, including Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda, are on the way.
Over on the small screen, Prime Video just recently scored a hit with Fallout, HBO is currently working on a second season of The Last of Us, and animated series like the League of Legends-based Arcane continue to find success.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
