Sony has revealed a new Horizon movie is in production under Columbia Pictures.
As reported by Gamer Social Club, PlayStation Productions head Asad Qizilbash made this announcement at the recent CES:
“Columbia Pictures and PlayStation Productions are at the early stages of developing a film adaptation of the award-winning Horizon Zero Dawn.
Just imagine, Aloy’s beloved origin story set in a vibrant, far future world filled with the giant machines, brought to you for the first time on the big screen.”
Sony had previously attempted to get a Horizon show off the ground with Netflix starting from 2022. Plans for the show changed when Sony announced that they were no longer moving forward with producer Steve Blackman.
Sony handpicked Blackman as the showrunner, given his track record with Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. Their subsequent decision to pull Blackman from the project came a month after an HR complaint was field against him, alleging that Blackman fostered a toxic work environment.
One may surmise from all of this that Sony could have cancelled their Horizon show, in favor of making a theatrical feature. For what it’s worth, Sony has yet to officially announce a cancellation, so they may very well pursue both projects in tandem. Or they may have changed those plans for this movie to lead in to a show, if it’s successful.
A few weeks ago Sony reportedly ended plans to make more Spider-Man movies based on the web-swinger’s rogues gallery. Kraven the Hunter was certainly the final straw in a dismal run of films that included Morbius and Madame Web. The Venom movies may have their fans, but they were not enough to keep even more Venom projects going.
As for Horizon, this film may be part of bigger things for Aloy and her friends. We know a sequel to Horizon: Forbidden West, which will also be a single player open-world title is in development. Aside from that, there is a live service Horizon game in development.
Sony also recently released Lego Horizon Adventures, produced by Guerrilla Games, The Lego Group, and Studio Gobo. But then, Lego Horizon Adventures wasn’t particularly successful commercially or critically, and many fans expect the live service Horizon game will do the same.
So these things are not necessarily happening at a time when the Horizon franchise is riding high. This all ultimately points to Sony having the motivation to make this as good a video game movie adaptation as they can. Hollywood may be particularly turbulent nowadays, but we do expect Sony will get the best people they have at Columbia Pictures to guarantee its success as best as they can.
