Nobody works harder to franchise out its stuff quite like Sony. After Spider-Man’s supporting cast repeatedly proved to be a live-action bust, the company’s now turning to adapting PlayStation games to TV and the big screen. From current hits like Horizon and Helldivers to the now-shelved Gravity Rush and Days Gone, it seems anything’s viable to be adapted.
Insomniac Games, the studio behind Ratchet & Clank and the recent Spider-Man titles, is hoping to jump on that trend. In a recent Variety interview, future co-head Ryan Schneider—who’s set to lead alongside Chad Durzen and Jen Huang when current CEO/founder Ted Price leaves in March—said there was interest in bringing the studio’s games to TV and film. The developer had an “early start” with the Ratchet CG movie from 2016, which was also accompanied by a PlayStation 4 remake of the original game that integrated plot points and scenes from the movie.
The Ratchet movie was such a commercial and critical disappointment at the time, it also junked plans for a potential Sly Cooper movie, and helped ice the entire franchise until 2021’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Still, Schneider thinks it’s as good a time as any to give another go at adapting one of its properties, and the action-shooter series in particular. It basically has to be this one franchise, since Sony and Marvel will keep making Spider-Man media until the end of existence, and other Insomniac franchises like Resistance or Sunset Overdrive have been shelved for some time, and the studio doesn’t currently seem interested in bringing them back. (They should!)
Right now, Sony’s got its hands full with adapting the franchises mentioned above, including Last of Us’ second season on HBO in April. Meanwhile, Insomniac’s primarily at work on Marvel’s Wolverine, which Dezern said he’d “love to talk about,” but only when the time’s right. “We have to be like Logan today, and remain very stoic until it’s time to pop the claws down the road,” he teased to Variety. “As much as we’re as much as we have pent up excitement, we got to hold on to it.”
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