EXCLUSIVE: Terraforming Mars is the latest board game that is being set up for the screen.
Nascent production company Cobalt Knight, which was founded up by video game executives Christopher Kaminski and Christopher Knox, has optioned the screen rights to the game, which has sold over 1.5M copies.
The company is leaning towards a series but is also open for a feature take on the strategy game, which sees players compete to use resources and innovative technology to make the red planet inhabitable.
Cobalt Knight was founded to develop a slate of TV and film projects based on video games, board games, manga, comic books, novels and short stories.
It hopes that the Terraforming Mars narrative can highlights the game’s themes including existential tropes like class struggle, colonialism, and ecological collapse.
Cobalt Knight was co-founded by Kaminski and Knox. A former video game producer, Kaminski was a creative leader at Sega of America, where he produced the Sonic the Hedgehog, while Kaminski also previously worked with studios to develop big-budget feature adaptations of well-known video game franchises as well as MTV’s The Real World.
“The Terraforming Mars world offers incredible storytelling potential,” said Kaminski. “We are excited to explore the unique human drama that inherently comes along with running a company tasked with literally creating oceans, building prosperous cities, and balancing the ecology of plant and animal life.”
“In many ways, the game exhibits strong parallels to the Age of Discovery when European superpowers were sailing around the globe trying to lay claim to everything they touched,” added Knox. “This makes it the perfect choice for adaptation, using a distinct and hyperrealistic setting to revisit a familiar narrative conflict.”
Enoch Fryxelius, co-developer of Terraforming Mars and CEO, added, “Jacob and the rest of us brothers have invested many years in Terraforming Mars. It’s much more than just another sci-fi board game – it’s a vision of a possible and positive future for humanity not so far down the road. It’s based on real science ideas and ideas borrowed from science fiction. This could be us in 200 years. We are so excited to see this vision come to life on the screen. We hope this will expand the TM community even further. And we hope that more people will be gripped by the vision of a new home for humanity on Mars.”
Cobalt Knight is represented by attorney David Tenzer.
