Borderlands
Release date: TBA
Lionsgate has picked up Borderlands for a live-action movie adaptation and has GI Joe 3 writer Aaron Berg working on the script. Don’t go worrying that that implies a toned down, kid-focused take on the game though. According to Lionsgate, the film is going for a fittingly “in your face” attitude, and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has posited that it is likely to get an R-rating. There’s been no significant word on the movie’s progress for a while, but the success of Mad Max: Fury Road’s desert-based anarchy in 2015 certainly can’t have hurt its chances of moving forward.
The Division
Release date: TBA
In addition to the now-released Assassin’s Creed movie, and upcoming adaptations of Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Watch Dogs, and Rabbids, Ubisoft is pushing ahead with The Division. It's genuinely exciting, because the post-viral, New York apocalypse film already has Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain signed up, and I would watch happily watch Chastain grout tiles for three hours, nevermind take on the end of the world.
The movie will be developed by the game publisher’s Ubisoft Motion Pictures wing, in partnership with Chastain and Gyllenhaal’s own production companies. Deadpool 2 director David Leitch will be at the helm, and Syriana writer Stephen Gaghan is holding the pen.
Firewatch
Release date: TBA
Now this is an adaptation that makes sense. Beautiful-looking, emotive, narrative-driven indie game? Yes. Yes, that is a far better fit than Tetris. Not that they’d ever actually make something as stupid as a Tetris movie, of course. (Yeah right. Just wait until you get a bit further into this article). But yes, developer Campo Santo has signed a games and films development deal with Good Universe (Neighbors, The Night Before), and a live-action Firewatch is sensibly up first. No word on a release date yet, but both parties seem very enthusiastic about the venture, so expect more updates soon.
Fruit Ninja
Release date: TBA
And just when it was going so well. Yes, Fruit Ninja is being adapted into a live-action family comedy. About ninjas, and the endless tribulations inflicted by their ongoing war against fruit. I don’t know, maybe a kumquat murdered the protagonist’s family, or he was betrayed in front of his clan by a scheming mangosteen. New Line picked up the project in 2016, so we should see something, anything, soon if it's still going ahead.
Gears of War
Release date: TBA
Big aliens, big men, a bunch of fans already primed to see more of both - a Gears of War movie seems like a sure bet, which is probably why it's been in the works in one way or another since 2007. After stalling around 2008, in 2016 news broke that it was now in development at Universal, and in 2017 Shane Salerno was writing the latest draft of the script. He wrote Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem and is also penning the Avatar sequels, so he knows his alien onions. It seems like this movie could actually be back on.
Gran Turismo
Release date: TBA
Unbelievably, yes, a Gran Turismo movie is going ahead. Even after we all saw how Need for Speed turned out, Yeah, even after that. This one has the writers of Red (and, well, Battleship) on board, and the director of Tron: Legacy, so expect it to look cool and be very shallow. No word on what it will actually be about, given that Gran Turismo has no plot whatsoever, but definitely do expect cars, er, doing something. They’ll definitely be doing something. Optioned in 2015, the last update was in 2017 and was that the script was being worked on. Fingers crossed it's got more in it than "vroom vroom."
Portal
Release date: TBA
In 2016 J.J. Abrams promised that "we have a meeting coming up next week with Valve, we’re very active, I’m hoping that there will be a Portal announcement fairly soon." Well, we're still waiting. Dan Trachtenberg was rumored to be involved with the script - he made an amazing live-action short film based on Portal - but he's pretty busy these days with a bunch of other cool projects including a Harry Houdini movie and a sci-fi movie called Crime of the Century.
