Derek Connolly, the franchise writer whose work includes the Jurassic World films, has been tapped to write a live-action adaptation of a Sega video game Eternal Champions for Skydancing.
David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger will produce for Skydance, while Toru Nakahara, who oversaw Sega's adaptation Sonic the hedgehog franchise, will produce for the video game producer.
Originally released in 1993, Eternal Champions was a fighting game developed and released by Sega for the Sega Genesis console. The concept, bear with me, was as follows: in order to change the terrible fate of the Earth, a being known as the Eternal Champion gathers the souls of important people from history, people who were destined for greatness but died before they could fulfill their promise. The individuals are thrown into a championship match, with the winner regaining their life and becoming the hero the Earth needs to restore balance, while the others are returned to moments before their deaths.
The game was praised for its characters, who were a variety of characters ranging from Blade, a Syrian bounty hunter from 2030 AD, and Larcen, a burglar in the 1920s, to Slash, a hunter from 50,000 BC to Jetta, a Russian noblewoman posing as an acrobat in the early 20th century.and century.
Rob Ree, who brought Skydance and Sega together for the project, is executive producing. Aimee Rivera will oversee the project for Skydance.
Connolly made his breakthrough when he co-wrote Safety not guaranteed starring Colin Trevorrow, which won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Screenplay in 2013 and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance 2012.
Since then, he's built a reputation as the go-to writer for franchises, whether they're dino-centric or lightsaber-wielding. He worked with Trevorrow on Jurassic Worldthe 2015 film that revived the dino franchise and grossed $1.67 worldwide, and the 2018 film Jurassic World: Fallen KingdomAlong the way he earned credits on Legendary's Monsterverse entry Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and 2019's Detective Pikachu.
More recently he worked on adaptations of classic video games by Sony and Nintendo The Legend of Zelda, Wes Ball is a director and is currently working on Paramount's as-yet-untitled Transformers/GI Joe crossover film project, starring Chris Hemsworth.
He is represented by Verve and Ginsburg Daniels.