Report: Spore Movie Lands Ice Age Director

EA continues with its plans to turn major game franchises into film, as Variety reports Ice Age's Chris Wedge is directing a CG-animated film based on the Will Wright-created game Spore. It's the sixth game-to-movie adaptation that EA has announced in about a year. "I'm always looking for unique worlds to go to in animation," said Wedge, who also directed 2005's CG film Robots. "From every perspective -- visually, thematically and comedically -- the world of Spore provides the potential to put something truly original on the screen." EA is teaming up with Twentieth Century Fox on the film. Writers Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, who wrote the movies The Princess and the Frog for Disney and the Ben Stiller-starring The Return of King Doug, are writing the script for the Spore movie. EA and Ice Age animation house Blue Sky Studios are producing the Spore film. EA Entertainment's Patrick Bradshaw and Maxis Studio VP Lucy Bradshaw are executive producers on the movie. Spore creator Wright told Reuters last August, following a deal between EA and Hollywood's United Talent Agency, that "[EA is] looking way outside the game space, such as TV, movies, etc. [for Spore]. We're basically planting the seeds to spread Spore out to a much wider group of people than would ever play a computer game." Spore released in September 2008 for PC, and EA has since released the franchise on Nintendo DS, Mac, and mobile, with a Wii version arriving this month. The game has players creating creatures on the cellular level, and they continually evolve into a spacefaring civilization. The Spore franchise has sold over 3.2 million units to date, according to the report. EA signed up with United Talent Agency in 2008 with the goal of bringing major game franchises to film, which would create a new revenue stream for the game maker and bring more awareness to its titles. Already, the wheels are turning on movies based on EA's Army of Two, The Sims, Dante's Inferno, Dead Space, and Mass Effect.