Will Wright's Cosmos-Spanning Game Spore Gets A Movie Deal

Video games are telling some amazing stories these days. Which one is the latest to be optioned? The one that has no plot or story, of course! Publisher EA has struck a deal with 20th Century Fox to develop a CGI animated film based on game Spore, developed over many years by The Sims creator Will Wright. Ice Age's Chris Wedge is currently attached to direct.

Not only does Spore not have a plot, the creatures found within the game don't even have one specific look. Infinite variety is the whole point of the game; you create unique creatures that evolve over time from microscopic organisms into a race that might eventually span the galaxy. Variety quotes Wedge on the subject of the game: "I'm always looking for unique worlds to go to in animation. From every perspective — visually, thematically and comedically — the world of Spore provides the potential to put something truly original on the screen." In other words, we can do anything we want and still have some brand recognition. Fair enough. It's not like there's any real attachment to Spore, nor any serious resistance to a CGI animated film about cute/dangerous aliens expanding to take over the galaxy.

And the fun thing is, Spore pushes the evolution angle pretty hard. And while the evolutionary path in the game isn't quite scientifically accurate — it is linear, and prizes only species that develop intelligence — translating the basic scope of the game to film could result in the first big animated movie to be explicitly pro-evolution. Will Fox take this into account and write some form of creationism into the script? Or will Spore: The Movie just be a bunch of cute, toothy aliens running around for ninety minutes? I'm betting the latter.

Below is Will Wright's entertaining presentation on the game from EA's 2008 E3 press conference.