Fruit Ninja is the latest game to be making the jump to Hollywood, with a new movie on the way based on the phenomenally popular fruit-slicing mobile game.
The movie industry is increasingly looking to big names in gaming in a bid to entice audiences to cinemas around the world. Microsoft"s Minecraft will become a movie in 2019, and Tetris - one of the most popular games of all time - is being made into a sci-fi trilogy.
Plans to bring Fruit Ninja to the silver screen follow the box office success of the Angry Birds movie. Despite less-than-stellar reviews, it"s so far grossed over $340 million, with estimated production costs of around $80 million.
New Line Cinema has now acquired the movie rights for Fruit Ninja, but unlike the Angry Birds production, it won"t be an animated film. Instead, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, the Fruit Ninja movie is being billed as a live-action family comedy, focusing on "a team of misfits who are recruited to become Fruit Ninjas in order to save the world."
Tripp Vinson - who was executive producer on hit disaster flick San Andreas and Journey to the Center of the Earth - will produce the new Fruit Ninja film. JP Lavin and Chad Damiani will write the script, but a release date hasn"t yet been set.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter via The Verge