So many video games have been adapted by Hollywood lately that players have begun to consider what’s next. Much of the next wave of adaptations are based on extremely popular games, and you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that Epic Games’ Fortnite would be getting a movie.
Speaking to Collider, Epic’s chief creative officer Donald Mustard was upfront in saying that there aren’t active plans for a movie (or show) based on the popular battle royale. He’s aware that a Fortnite movie would “get greenlit by any studio in a second,” partially thanks to Epic having a financial investment in the Joe and Anthony Russo’s production company AGBO. But he said that it just isn’t something on Epic’s mind right now, as it has “other stuff we’re working on at the moment.” (That may just be the developers focusing their attention on the game’s future seasons and crossovers, along with its continuous technological updates.)
That said, Mustard added he already knows what he’d want to do for a Fortnite show or film, narratively speaking. In relation to that and the larger adaptation boom the games industry is currently in at the moment, he said he wanted to “do stuff that always just feels authentic and is a great story. […] I know exactly the story I’d want to, but it’s not the focus right now. I don’t have time.” With how much the game proper has introduced new lore in different seasons or chapters of its lifecycle, it’s not like Mustard is lacking in narrative threads to pull from.
If and when that Fortnite adaptation gets off the ground, it’d definitely raise some interesting questions about its own existence, and as a larger transmedia property that’s crossed over with basically everything. With how popular the game’s been since 2017, Epic wouldn’t have trouble getting audiences onboard with the idea, and would be able to leverage its pop culture status to turn the adaptation into a hit, regardless of the medium it jumped over to.
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