EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros is in talks with Shawn Levy to develop to direct Minecraft, the hot video game franchise that Warner Bros acquired in February on the heels of the studio’s success with The LEGO Movie. The game was created by Swedish indie developer Mojang AB (mojang means “gadget” in Swedish), and the film is being produced by Roy Lee through his Vertigo banner along with Jill Messick. Lee produced The Lego Movie with Dan Lin, which has sequels and spinoffs planned. Like that film, Minecraft provides a brand name and a blank canvas on which to launch a multiple audience quadrant film franchise. The Xbox version of the game has already sold well over 10 million copies.
In the actual game, players create their own avatar and are dropped into a blank world filled with nocturnal monsters. Players use cubes to create, build, and destroy structures and other forms across multiple game modes and various players.
Levy is good at shaping high concepts into hit films. He last directed This Is Where I Leave You for Warner Bros, and has directed and/or produced the Night At The Museum series, Real Steel, Date Night, and the just opened Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. His latest, Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb, will be released by Fox on December 19.
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Levy is repped by WME and attorney Matt Johnson.
