Margot Robbie is making a Sims movie, has apparently found her niche
Robbie is producing a film adaptation of The Sims through her Barbie production company, LuckyChap
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Margot Robbie is apparently settling into her comfort zone—and that comfort zone is apparently situated somewhere smack dab in the middle of the Uncanny Valley—as THR reports that the Barbie star is set to follow-up her box-office smash hit movie about a fake woman learning to come to life by… producing a film adaptation of “fake people walk around, pretending to be alive” computer game sensation The Sims.
Robbie is set to produce the movie with her LuckyChap production company, which is currently riding high on the whole “produced one of the biggest movies of 2023" thing. She’s recruited Kate Herron, who’s best known for her work on the first season of Disney+’s Loki, to co-write and direct the movie, working with Vertigo Entertainment and Sims owners Electronic Arts.
And there’s a tendency, here, to go: Well what the hell would a Sims movie even be? The games are defined, after all, by being deliberately plotless: Your little computer people walk around, work jobs, eat dinner, use the bathroom, get in the swimming pool, find out the ladder into the swimming pool has been deleted by a cruel and capricious god, then drown and die. Repeat, until your mom notices what you’re doing, and tells you to go do your homework.
But that’s a very pre-Barbie—and, if we’re being honest, pre-Lego Movie—mindset. After all, the fact that The Sims contains no conventional narrative doesn’t mean it doesn’t have themes to explore—the mundanity of regular life, the constant need to keep your survival meters topped up, the inherent cosmic unreliability of ladders—and Robbie, specifically, has proven that she knows how to put together a team that can explore the conceptual space around a toy or game without having to make a straight 1 to 1 adaptation. Which leaves us in the weird position of being kind of into the idea of a Sims film adaptation—especially with a team like this.
17 Comments
RIP Margot, drowning in a ladderless pool.
it’s an opening night ticket for me if someone gets trapped inside 4 walls
Or pees on the floor because they can’t find the bathroom. Or catches on fire and dies while cooking. Note that I haven’t played the games since Sims 3 – I don’t know if 4 made the people less idiotic.
And it better be Will Ferrell who’s controlling the computer.
We’re one step closer to a big-budget thriller about urban planning.
https://www.theonion.com/city-councilman-unearths-magical-zoning-amulet-1819567998
I’m all in for a SimCity/Godzilla movie
I’m hearing a lot of early Best Original Song buzz for “Shlabeedoo Shur Shlubedee-Bauhadoo (Love Theme From The Sims)”
It’s Katy Perry’s time to shine!!!
People keep using The Lego Movie as a point of reference for adapting plotless video games, but like…. everything in The Lego Movie is made of Legos. Legos comprise the very substance of the film, both in the actual construction of nearly everything on screen, and in its thematic exploration of what playing with Legos means to people across generations. It doesn’t matter that Legos don’t come with a story because Legos ARE the story. It’s literally a movie about Legos themselves.
How does that translate to a live-action Minecraft or The Sims movie, in which you’ve immediately lost the iconic visual grammar of the game? Does the game exist within the universe of the film, like The Lego Movie or Barbie (or Fall Guy)? If so what new twist do you have to keep the premise interesting? If not, what connection to the game is left? Does either game even have the deep-rooted cultural history that made stories about Legos or Barbies compelling? What stories are there to tell?
Now I’m not saying there are no possible answers to these questions. Just that we can’t simply look to The Lego Movie to find them. It was doing something different.
I actually think Free Guy may be a relevant comparison, too. Really, at it’s core that movie and Barbie have a similar basic theme – main character becomes self-aware in world of NPCs
‘”And there’s a tendency, here, to go: Well what the hell would a Sims movie even be? The games are defined, after all, by being deliberately plotless: Your little computer people walk around, work jobs, eat dinner, use the bathroom, get in the swimming pool, find out the ladder into the swimming pool has been deleted by a cruel and capricious god, then drown and die.”’Now, see my experience is that they’d for some reason have chronic narcolepsy and then miraculously whip out a mop to mop up they’re puddle once awakened. Also sometimes I’d lose sight of them and see a blasted urn over by the sink…
Margot Robbie has become shockingly boring.
They better do the entire thing in Simlish with subtitles.
if this is anything other than margot robbie doing a dramatic reading of the sims 3 patch notes i’m out
The film would be about a small community who has to appease a capricious god. It’s a Nietzsche-esque nightmare. It’s Truman Show meets The Twilight Zone episode of the boy who rules over everyone.
If this film isn’t narrated by Werner Herzog, I’m gonna tear the screen off the theater wall.