Move Over, Jack Sparrow, They’re Making A Sea Of Thieves Movie
26 years later, there’s a new captain on the horizon.
Long before superheroes took the box-office throne, before The Matrix or Star Wars or even Jaws spurred on waves of imitators, the adventure film was one of Hollywood’s most lucrative genres, and the pirate movie was one of its most popular offshoots. Swashbuckling adventures on the high seas were the stuff of cinematic legend as far back as Douglas Fairbanks’ The Black Pirate in 1926, and surged in demand in the 1940s and ‘50s with countless Errol Flynn films. Even now, decades after the genre’s heyday, it occasionally returns to remind us of its place in cinema history. There’s a reason we still get Peter Pan films, every millennial remembers Treasure Planet, and the original Pirates of the Caribbean series is still one of the highest-grossing trilogies ever.
Pirates have been a regular fixation of video games as well. From the earliest point-and-click pirate adventures to the remake of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag arriving next month, games have been a fantastic way for players to envision themselves as dashing explorers or diabolical brigands, and one of the most recent properties to embrace that was Sea of Thieves. An open-world multiplayer adventure built on exploration and alliances or conflict with other players, Sea of Thieves had to fight an uphill battle against controversy and criticism upon launch to become one of Microsoft’s most original gaming releases — and to celebrate that fact, the immersive pirate experience is unexpectedly coming to the big screen.
Sea of Thieves’ open-world sandbox is simple but thrilling.
In an exclusive story from Entertainment Weekly, it was confirmed that Sea of Thieves will be the next gaming phenomenon adapted into film, as part of a push to bring more Xbox properties to life. The movie will be produced by Destin Daniel Cretton (whose take on Spider-Man is only a few weeks away from hitting theaters) through his production company, Hisako, although a director hasn’t been announced yet.
From the sounds of it, Sea of Thieves’ community-oriented nature and expansive world will be the film’s focus in some capacity. “If you sit down to think about Sea of Thieves,” said Matt Booty, the Executive VP and CCO at Xbox, “it’s not ‘who are the main characters? What’s the plot?’” He went on to reinforce the game’s unique tone, pointing out that “it’s built on a very cooperative community, so you can start to sense what that’s going to be like.”
One of Sea of Thieves’ biggest draws is its emphasis on widespread collaboration, but how do you translate that into a movie?
Considering it’s been almost 10 years since the release of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and there have been no major films set in the Golden Age of Piracy since then, it might be a smart decision for Xbox’s next video game adaptation to be one that fills that niche (especially if the rumors of Disney looking to revive Pirates prove true). The major challenge the film faces is the lack of narrative foundation — playing Sea of Thieves gives you complete freedom to pillage and complete missions with your friends, but a movie will have to provide some sort of original story hook.
Regardless, it’s exciting to know that a game with a fanbase that ballooned the way Sea of Thieves’ did is coming to theaters. Hopefully, just as much thought and creativity is put into writing a clever story for a sandbox experience as there was for something like last year’s A Minecraft Movie.
Sea of Thieves does not yet have a release date.
