Video game giant Activision Blizzard announced in November that it has set up the new studio venture to create movies and television shows based on the company’s intellectual property with an aim toward developing franchises and cinematic universes based on such games as the best-selling Call of Duty, Skylanders, Diablo and StarCraft.
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The video game publisher said Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, that Stacey Sher will serve as co-president of Activision Blizzard Studios with Nick van Dyk, who assumed the role previous year.
Sher has produced more than two dozen movies, including multiple Tarantino films such as The Hateful Eight, Django Unchained, and Pulp Fiction. This is a joint production between Blizzard Entertainment and Legendary Pictures that went through years of development hell and director changes before finally entering production in 2013.
“I’ve found the best filmmakers to work with often want to hear the truth from the people they trust, that are always striving to be the best they can be”, said Sher on her past collaborations in an interview with Film School Rejects while promoting The Hateful Eight.
The hire of Sher by Activision Studios is not only a good get for the company, but with a talented producer on board, we may also see the end to gaming’s penchant for crappy film adaptations. Said Sher: “We’re not backing into a release date because there’s a hole in the schedule”. “I’m excited about our mandate to create filmed entertainment based on Activision Blizzard games that is as great as the games themselves”.
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In an interview with TheWrap, Van Dyk and Sher confirmed that “Call of Duty” is the first game they are planning to develop as a feature film. “Our model is unique: we have a rich library of franchises created over three decades with tens of millions of fans, direct relationships with our audiences and Activision Blizzard’s business capabilities, which enable us to operate with incredible efficiency in content creation, marketing and distribution as compared to the traditional studios”. Skylander Academy is the first production of the new studio, and it’ll premiere later this year. Kotick previously said he envisioned the unit scaling up to about 40 staffers in the near future.
