On Thursday, media group Legendary Entertainment and game maker Hasbro announced they were partnering “to create a live-action feature film and television universe” based on the Magic: The Gathering IP. So far details are scant, but the project will begin with a feature film, with “television series and other content to be developed… as the universe expands”.
As anyone who has been following the progress of the Warhammer 40k Henry Cavill film deal will know, waiting for a media partnership to actually produce results can take a very long time. And aside from the incredible practical task of producing film and television, there’s a wider question of vision and direction: can Legendary Entertainment be trusted to translate the things that make Magic: The Gathering awesome to the big screen?
A joint press release from the two firms asserts that Legendary can “translate IP with robust fandoms into epic, creator-driven projects” in a variety of media “in a way that serves the property’s core fans while broadening its appeal to wider audiences”.
Legendary can certainly point to a good track record of adaptation projects it has worked on in one capacity or another. That includes the Dune Movies, the Christopher Nolan Batman films, the newer western Godzilla remakes, and even Detective Pikachu.
We struggle to point to any real howlers in its catalogue, at least as far as adaptations go. 2010’s Clash of the Titans was so dire we’d forgotten it happened; the Zach Snyder movie adaptations of Watchmen and 300 are divisive but not universally disliked.
Licensing deals of this kind are complicated beasts that take a long time to sort out, so this has presumably been in the works for months. We’re curious as to whether the narrative of recent MTG sets was influenced by a desire to court film studios. We can well imagine the game’s new mascot character Loot as a comic sidekick in a Guardians of the Galaxy style adventure comedy, or the face of a kid friendly ‘Littlest Planeswalkers’ spin-off cartoon…
The MTG release schedule has been rattling through wildly different planes and types of story of late, which could also prove useful for cinematic universe building. Although the wheels have come off the MCU recently, its general strategy of using the (comparatively) cheap media of comics to develop characters and storylines, and using the most successful ones as the foundation of far more expensive movies, makes sense from a top level business perspective.
MTG fans have had their hearts broken by promises of screen adaptations before. A Netflix animated series, originally planned for a 2022 release, looked like it was totally canned – until an announcement in November revealed that the wheels had been screwed back onto the project.
If you’re intrigued by the Magic universe but haven’t actually played the game (or haven’t played it in years), we recommend you start with the digital client MTG Arena. It’s free to play, has a solid tutorial, and gives you some complete MTG Arena decks to get started. You can pick up some more cards for free by checking out our guide to MTG Arena codes. If you like it, get along to your Friendly Local Game Store and meet your local community!
Source: Wargamer
