The Japanese company starts an expansion strategy that goes through broadening horizons and looking beyond video games.
The Uncharted movie and The Last of Us series are underway. PlayStation Productions began its journey to transfer the great intellectual properties of the platform to the cinema and television. All this responds to an expansion plan of the company, which has also led Sony to publish Horizon Zero Dawn on PC. In an interview with PlayStation Blog, Hermen Hulst, head of Sony Worldwide Studios and co-founder of Guerrilla, not only explained the reasons for this decision, but also stressed the importance of PlayStation Productions.
"I would say that the purpose of creating PlayStation Productions is to make our stories, characters and worlds reach new audiences, as well as create content that makes our fans proud," he says. According to Hulst, the goal is to "form a team of film and television directors", always on the premise that they respect the sagas of games and are enthusiastic about the product. “We have owned our own franchises for more than 25 years and we have been delighted to find several PlayStation fans among these film and television creators. I have also understood that our series of games adapt perfectly to the linear narrative, ”he argues.
The Last of Us.
The creators of the game, fundamental piece
The manager emphasizes that PlayStation has a library of “exciting” intellectual properties, but its adaptation to other media will not be done anyway. They seek to "guarantee the authenticity" of the approach, so that "the creators of the titles" will be included in the creative process. “It's very important that the creators of the games are a big part of it. We don't just create direct copies of our games, we strive to adapt their stories to fit in this medium. ”
This is the case of The Last of Us, which will develop PlayStation Productions with Sony Pictures. The series is led by Craig Mazin, creator of Chernobyl, but Neil Druckmann, creative director of the game, will participate as a screenwriter.
On the horizon, after a few tumbles, Uncharted seems to be seeing the light. "We are very excited. The Uncharted movie starts shooting this month with Columbia Pictures. It has a magnificent cast, Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg and the most recent addition, Antonio Banderas. ” According to Hulst, the film will reach new audiences who "may not have heard about Uncharted before."
