Remember Myst, the 1993 video game where you were on an island and you clicked on pieces of still art to move around and solve oblique puzzles? It’s back, in cinematic universe form. The Hollywood Reporter, uh, reports that Village Roadshow Entertainment Group — the same people behind that artsy-looking Joker movie — has acquired the film and television rights to the series and intends to adapt it across multiple platforms, with movies and TV shows (both scripted and unscripted) in the offing.
Okay, setting aside for the moment how an unscripted Myst series would work (a reality show where a bunch of randos have to find their way off an island by turning a crank the right number of times?), my immediate reaction to this to become very tired. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is hugely successful, so everybody wants their own, but while Myst was big in its day — there have been nearly 10 titles over the years with 15 million copies sold — I don’t know if people are clamoring for this much new Myst.
That said, the series is dense enough for it. I’m not going to pretend to understand all the series lore, but it involves a dude names Atrus and an ancient civilization called the D’ni with the power to pen books that connect to distant worlds. You can watch this 45-minute video on the making of Myst if you want to know more. Otherwise we’d be here all day:
The point is, there are directions a movie or show could go. I just don’t know if we need them to go anywhere when there are so many other cinematic universes vying for our attention. Showtime and Lionsgate are doing something like this with the Kingkiller Chronicle licenses, Netflix is readying a bunch of Narnia stuff, etc. But who knows? Maybe this is the eerily calm, slowly paced story I’ve been missing in my life.
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Rand and Robyn Miller, the brothers behind the games, are on board for the expansion. Point and click into fun?
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