After the Barbie movie's unprecedented box office success, it was only a matter of time before star/producer Margot Robbie and her LukcyChap partners, Tom Ackerly, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr, announced (via Jeff Sneider's newsletter) their next project, and the team is now set to produce a big-screen adaptation of mega-popular life-simulator video game, The Sims.
Kate Herron, best known for helming the acclaimed first season of Marvel Studios' Loki, is on board to direct and also co-wrote the script with Briony Redman.
The LuckyChap team will produce the feature along with Roy Lee and Miri Yoon of Vertigo Entertainment. Electronic Arts, which published the game, will also be involved in a creative and producing capacity.
Created by Will Wright, who originally conceived the game as a satire of American consumer culture, The Sims allows players to create characters and send them out to achieve ambitions (or, if they prefer, simply go through a series of mundane motions). It's become one of the most-played games of all time, with multiple sequels, spin-offs and expansion packs released since it first hit shelves back in 2000.
We don't have many more details to share at this time, but The Sims does share some similarities with Barbie (in that players control the narrative), and could well be adapted for the screen with the same offbeat/satirical approach. There's no word on whether Robbie will also star, but after Barbie, it wouldn't be at all surprising.
Check out a trailer for The Sims 4 for a better idea of what the games entail.
"The Sims is a series of life simulation video games developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and is one of the best-selling video game series of all time. It is also part of the larger Sim series, started by SimCity in 1989. The games in the Sims series are largely sandbox games, in that they lack any defined goals (except for some later expansion packs and console versions which introduced this gameplay style). The player creates virtual people called "Sims", places them in houses, and helps direct their moods and satisfy their desires. Players can either place their Sims in pre-constructed homes or build them themselves. Each successive expansion pack and game in the series augmented what the player could do with their Sims."
What do you make of this news? Any Sims players out there? Drop us a comment down below.