Activision Blizzard Studios Moving Forward With Film and TV Content for Video Game Franchises
Earlier this week during BlizzCon, Activision Blizzard officially announced the launch of Activision Blizzard Studios, a new film and TV studio division of Activision and Blizzard to develop original content based on the company’s video game franchises and intellectual property. Nick van Dyk, formerly of Disney, has been named the co-president of the studio, with another senior creative executive to be announced soon. Properties that the studio will be developing film and TV projects for include Skylanders, Diablo, Hearthstone, and StarCraft.
The first production for the studio will be an animated TV series, Skylanders Academy, based on the Skylanders and Spyro the Dragon franchise. The show is currently in production and has Eric Rogers (Futurama) as its showrunner. The show is set to feature Justin Long (Ask Me Anything, Alvin and the Chipmunks) as Spyro, Ashley Tisdale (Phineas and Ferb, High School Musical) as Stealth Elf, Jonathan Banks as (Breaking Bad) as Eruptor, and Norm Macdonald (Saturday Night Live, Mike Tyson Mysteries) as Glumshanks. Harland Williams and Richard Horvitz are also set to appear in the show. Hopefully that means Horvitz will reprise his role of Lord Kaos.
Activision Blizzard Studios also confirmed that the studio plans to develop a “cinematic universe” for the Call of Duty franchise. Call of Duty is one of Activision’s best-selling franchises ever, with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare becoming the No. 1 selling game on next-gen consoles. So it makes sense from a financial standpoint that the company wants to try and develop the games into a film franchise. A “cinematic universe” is pretty ambitious though considering the bad track record games have as movie adaptations. At least with comic book superhero films, there is more of a precedence. Activision Blizzard Studios wants a series of Call of Duty feature films and TV adaptations as well.
Speaking on the new film initiative for Activison Blizzard, CEO Bobby Kotick stated: “Activision Blizzard is home to some of the most successful entertainment franchises in history, across any medium. With the launch of Activision Blizzard Studios, our engaged fans can now watch the games they love come to life across film and television Activision Blizzard Studios is yet another way we’re celebrating our players and fans, and we expect that our film and television productions will entertain and delight whole new audiences, as well. I’m excited that Nick and his team will be leading this important new growth opportunity for Activision Blizzard. We intend to approach film and television development with the same unwavering commitment to excellence we are known for in game development.”
Nick van Dyk added: “Activision Blizzard Studios has the unique advantage of starting with a library of world-class intellectual property that includes some of the largest franchises which have not yet been developed in film and television. Our library spans more than 30 years of global entertainment culture and, in the last 12 months alone, fans of Activision Blizzard properties have played and watched our games online for more than 13 billion hours. This gives us a huge, passionate and deeply-engaged audience that is hungry for more great content built from the universes they already know and love-and which are extremely broad in their appeal. Activision Blizzard Studios is not just an exciting new business for our company, it is a synergistic complement to our core business. Our movies and shows will benefit from the remarkable IP created in our games and will further increase the awareness of, engagement with and passion for our franchises.”
Activision Blizzard Studios hopes to expand platforms for the company’s intellectual property to existing fans and new audiences around the world. Time will ultimately tell how much this initiative will pan out. While there are some big budget productions based on video game properties in the works, there are still bombs like the recently released Hitman: Agent 47.