Derek Connolly, the author of the franchise, whose works also include Jurassic World Films, was commissioned to write a live-action adaptation of the Sega video game Eternal Champions for Skydance.
David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger will produce for Skydance, while Toru Nakahara, who is adapting Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog Franchise, will produce for the video game producer.
Originally published in 1993, Eternal Champions was a fighting game developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis console. The concept, bear with me, was this: In order to change the Earth’s grim fate, an entity known as the Eternal Champion mobilizes the souls of important people from history, people who were destined for greatness but died before they could fulfill their promise. The individuals are thrown into a contest of champions, where the winner regains his life and becomes the hero the Earth needs to restore balance, while the others return to the moments before their deaths.
The game was praised for its diverse cast of characters, from Blade, a Syrian bounty hunter from 2030 AD, and Larcen, a burglar from the 1920s, to Slash, a hunter from 50,000 BC, and Jetta, a Russian noblewoman posing as an acrobat at the turn of the 20th century.th Century.
Rob Ree, who brought Skydance and Sega together on the project, is executive producing. Aimee Rivera will oversee the project for Skydance.
Connolly’s breakthrough came as co-author Safety not guaranteed with Colin Trevorrow, which won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay in 2013 and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance 2012.
Since then, he has built a reputation as a sought-after writer for franchises, whether they revolve around dinosaurs or lightsabers. He worked with Trevorrow on Jurassic Worldthe 2015 film that rebooted the dino franchise and grossed $1.67 worldwide, and the 2018 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. He also earned credits for Legendary’s Monsterverse entry Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and 2019 detective Pokemon.
More recently, he worked on Sony and Nintendo’s adaptation of the classic video game The Legend of Zelda, The film will be directed by Wes Ball, who just finished work on Paramount’s untitled Transformers/GI Joe crossover film project starring Chris Hemsworth.
He is represented by Verve and Ginsburg Daniels.
