Activision plans many years of 'Marvel-esque' film/TV based on game IP

Remember back at the end of 2015, when Activision Blizzard announced it was getting into the business of making movies and TV in a big way by launching Activision Blizzard Studios?

Someone at The Guardian did, because they recently spoke to Studios co-presidents Stacey Sher and Nick van Dyk about how, exactly, the division aims to port the company's high-profile game franchises to less interactive mediums.

If you've ever had to think about how to complement your own game with other forms of media (videos, comics, short stories, etc.) you might appreciate Activision Blizzard Studios' plan: copy Marvel.

Specifically, the way the company has built what it calls a "cinematic universe" by putting out a bunch of films and TV shows (and comic books and webisodes and...) that all overlap and reference each other.

"“We have plotted out many years,” Sher said. “We put together this group of writers to talk about where we were going. There’ll be a film that feels more like Black Ops, the story behind the story. The Modern Warfare series looks at what it’s like to fight a war with the eyes of the world on you. And then maybe something that is more of a hybrid, where you are looking at private, covert operations, while a public operation is going on.”

The goal, added van Dyk (who, incidentally, used to work at Disney, is to adapt Activision's game properties into something with the impact of "a big, tentpole Marvel-esque movie" with an eye towards duplicating how he believes Marvel has established "these individual universes that interconnect and a timeline that makes sense, with consistent themes and Easter eggs.”

The rest of the pair's conversation with The Guardian includes some interesting bits about the future of Activision Blizzard's foray into internal film/TV production, and can be read in full on the newspaper's website.