Netflix, Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps And Story Kitchen Developing Feature Adaptation Of Video Game ‘Kingmakers’; Christopher MacBride Writing
Netflix has acquired a feature pitch based on the upcoming action-strategy sandbox game Kingmakers, developed by Redemption Road Games and published by tinyBuild. Christopher MacBride is adapting the script.
Securing film rights to the game is a coup for Netflix, which leveraged its creative partnership with 21 Laps, which had developed the project with Story Kitchen, to take it off the market preemptively.
While plot details on the film are vague, the upcoming game is set in medieval Great Britain where players go back in time to a war-torn era with a vast arsenal of modern weapons, change the course of history and save the future. The game features massive, real-time simulated battles.
21 Laps’ Shawn Levy and Dan Levine will produce along with Story Kitchen’s Dmitri M. Johnson, Michael Lawrence Goldberg and Timothy I. Stevenson. 21 Laps’ Emliy Feher will oversee development. Story Kitchen’s Elena Sandoval will oversee the project for the company. TinyBuild’s Alex Nichiporchik and Jon Carnage will exec produce.
MacBride is a Canadian writer-director who wrote and directed Flashback starring Dylan O’Brien and Maika Monroe, released in June 2021 by Lionsgate. MacBride broke onto the scene with his 2012 film The Conspiracy, a hit on the festival circuit.
He most recently wrote The Wolf, a global action-thriller for Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Amazon and before that rewrote Face/Off 2 for Paramount Pictures and Original Film with Adam Wingard attached to direct. Recently, Searchlight/Hulu came onboard to make his original psychological thriller Echo with Chad Hartigan attached to direct. He is repped by Range, CAA and Hansen Jacobsen.
21 Laps is currently an exec producer on the Stranger Things, with the first round of episodes having just bowed for the fifth and final season of the Netflix hit. The company is also currently producing Star Wars: Starfighter, which stars Ryan Gosling with Levy directing. 21 Laps is repped by WME.
Story Kitchen is spearheading adaptations of Tomb Raider, Life is Strange,Teddy Ruxpin for Amazon MGM Studios and Just Cause for Universal. Story Kitchen is repped by WME and Pryor Cashman.