Mass Effect
Release date: TBA
We tried to pin down the current state of the Mass Effect movie in 2017, but honestly it's just a series of the rights being handed around the industry like a game of hot potato. Optioned in July 2009, with Blackhat writer Morgan Davis Foehl signed up for author duties in 2012, the movie now seems stuck in development hell. Ghost in the Shell and Inception producers are still listed as on board, but we can't help feeling that the ugliness around Mass Effect: Andromeda's launch last year has put this in cryosleep for the foreseeable future.
Dante's Inferno
Release date: TBA
Hands up anyone who had to search their brains before being able to claw back a memory of this Visceral Games weirdness? Yep, back in 2010 there was the whole game based on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, and publisher EA also promised us a movie. In 2013, Fede Alvarez - the guy who directed the Evil Dead remake - was announced as leading the project, but that was the last meaningful update.
Of course, 2010 did give us Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic, starring Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.
Temple Run
Release date: TBA
It might have been a while since you even had Temple Run under your thumb, but somewhere out there is a script about someone endlessly running away from things. Through a temple.
Announced in 2013, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them producer David Heyman was apparently in talks with Warner. Bros about the project. Nothing has been heard since then, thankfully.
Rabbids
Release date: TBA
If the Rabbids games, TV series, comic books, merchandise and VR attraction aren't enough to sate your twisted desire for slapstick woodland creatures, you can look forward to a live-action movie from Ubisoft and Sony Pictures too. Writers Matthew Senreich, Tom Sheppard and Zeb Wells are on script duty. There's been no update since 2017, but those Rabbids are tenacious little bastards.
Five Nights at Freddy's
Release date: TBA
We don't have a release date for the horror spin-off but we do know that top grade scare studio Blumhouse picked up the rights to make the movie from Warner Bros. last year. Earlier this year we found out that Chris Columbus - director of Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter movies - will write, direct and produce. However you feel about killer animatronic bears, credentials don't get more legit than that.
"The story is the big challenge. You know, Five Nights at Freddy’s should have been easier because there are books, there’s a lot of lore and storytelling. For a video game, I think it has more storytelling than almost any other," Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum told Inverse in November.
"But still, the story goes down so many rabbit holes. It goes down so many different directions. It’s big. Choosing which part to tell the first time out of the gate — and how to tell it — has been tricky."
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Release date: TBA
The Deus Ex movie has gone whisper quiet since its 2013 announcement, changing writers, directors, and even production companies since then. At last word Dr Strange writers C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson had signed up, and It and The Lego Movie producer Roy Lee was backing it.
Splinter Cell
Release date: TBA
Optioned way back in 2004, The Splinter Cell movie has changed its creative team a few times now, but one constant has remained: Tom Hardy is the live-action Sam Fisher. With Hardy as its star the adaptation feels a lot more alive than most of the movies on this list, and a 2017 interview with producer Basil Iwanyk suggested things were moving forward. "We’ve got a script. It’s a little long, but it’s the best script we’ve had," he said. "We’re going in there to figure out how to cut some pages and give it to [Tom] Hardy. This draft kind of addressed Tom’s notes. We’re going to give it to Hardy in the next couple of weeks and hopefully try to get it done this year."
Far Cry
Release date: TBA
Wash that Uwe Boll 2008 abomination out of your mind, this is a different project entirely, and direct from Ubisoft's own movie studio. There's even less information available for this project than Ubisoft's other movies like Splinter Cell and Rabbids, but industry sites say it was last optioned in 2016 and will follow a former Special Forces operative tracking down a missing journalist.
Meanwhile Ubisoft has been playing with other live-action shorts for Far Cry 5, which you can watch on Amazon.
Ghost Recon
Release date: TBA
Someone send Ubisoft's movie planning department a muffin basket because those people are busy. Not content with filling this list with Splinter Cell and Far Cry and those damn Rabbids, a Ghost Recon movie is also in development, with Michael Bay a possible director. Of course, if Bay is no longer on board Ubisoft could always tap up old buddy Ridley Scott, who produced its live-action short Ghost Recon Alpha, which was released in 2012.
