20th Century Studios is developing a live-action film based on 99 Nights in the Forest, the Roblox survival horror game, with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert producing through their Ghost House Pictures banner and Josh Cooley writing the script.
The source game has players build a camp in a haunted forest and try to rescue four missing children while fending off a monstrous deer, its robed cultists, and assorted other creatures roaming the woods after dark. Released last year, it has climbed to become the seventh-most-played game in Roblox’s history, with close to 26 billion lifetime visits — the kind of number that makes a studio option look inevitable.
Cooley, who directed Toy Story 4 and wrote Transformers One, takes on scripting duties; no director has been attached yet, and 20th Century hasn’t set a release date. Executive producers include Romel Adam, who produced Evil Dead Rise for Raimi and Tapert’s shingle, along with Jose Cañas and the game’s three creators, credited collectively as Grandma’s Favourite Games: Alec Kieft, Matthew Hufton and Cameron Angland.
The deal continues a run of Roblox properties heading toward Hollywood adaptation, and it’s a natural genre fit for Ghost House, the company behind the Evil Dead franchise and a steady stream of horror produced since 2002. Whether a monstrous deer and its cult following can carry a theatrical feature the way they’ve carried a Roblox server is the obvious open question, and it won’t get answered until casting and a director are locked.
Heads up: a fan-made fake trailer for the adaptation has been circulating online and has been mistaken by some for real footage. No official teaser, poster or first-look image exists yet for the film, so treat anything claiming otherwise as unofficial.
