Thief, Square-Enix’s first-person stealth game series, may be making its way to the big screen. According to Variety, Straight Up Films has acquired the movie rights to the game series, with Roy Lee and Adrian Askarieh attached to produce. Both men are not strangers to video game films; Lee is currently developing the Minecraft film and Askarieh previously worked on the Hitman films.
The Thief series is already fairly cinematic in nature. It follows the exploits of Garrett, a master thief in a steampunk, dark Victorian universe. Dark magic, machines, and very forgetful guards stand in the way of Garrett in his quest to relieve the rich of their valuables. The series features four games, dating back to 1998 with the first release: Thief: The Dark Project. This was followed up by a sequel in 2000, and with a third game in 2004. Finally, the series was resurrected in 2014 under the title Thief. Each game features cults and secret societies, and a central theme was questioning the morality of the player’s actions as they navigated the world. This ambiguity, as well as the unique, stealth-based gameplay, resulted in the original Thief: The Dark Project to be hailed as an amazingly innovative title. It was rare for first-person games in 1998 to be anything but a Doom clone, but Thief challenged players to utilize stealth and distraction rather than sheer firepower to overcome the situation at hand.
Marisa Polvino and Kate Cohen, principal producers for Straight Up films, said of the series: “This popular game is entirely unique within the genre, which is why we’re particularly excited to be working with these canny, dedicated filmmakers to bring it to the screen.” Check out the trailer for the 2014 reboot below to get a sense of the cinematic flair the game possesses:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of_3FxnsCZc[/embedyt]
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Excited for a film adaptation of Thief? Who would you like to see portraying Garrett on the big screen? Let us know!
