Will The Producers Of DONNIE DARKO and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA Films Finally Get A MYST Movie Made??


Merrick here...

This really should've been posted yesterday - I was waiting to receive a fun write-up from some MYST-fanatic friends who, well, didn't deliver the goods. The road to hell...

This news is still quite valid anyway, so here ya go.

We've been hearing for a while that a feature film adaptation of the MYST games (available HERE) was feasible at some point, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. Many years of sputters and/or nothingness.

Maybe that'll change now that Hunt Lowry (producer of Michael Mann's LAST OF THE MOHICANS, DONNIE DARKO, and A TIME TO KILL) and Mark Johnson (THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA films, GALAXY QUEST) are teaming up with Adrian Vanderbosch and Isaac Testerman - aka Mysteria Film Group, holders of MYST's film rights - in the hopes of at long last actualizing a MYST motion picture.

As much of MYST's impact comes from its highly atmospheric and exploratory nature, adapting it to the big screen will be easy in some ways (there's already a lot of rich design and style in the game to build from) and challenging in others (there's no hard-driving narrative in the to fall back on when adapting the whole). Deadline says "The filmmakers will draw the plot from the mythology within the games, as well as a trilogy of companion novels Cyan Worlds published around them. [EDIT] One focus of the film will be the influence of a human who entered Myst and inadvertently brought down the civilization."

The original MYST game appeared in 1993, and was followed by multiple sequels (RIVEN, MYST III: EXILE, MYST IV: REVELATION , and most recently MYST V: END OF AGES.

Although the games themselves are many years old, Ubisoft's MYST site is still online and contains further resources for your consideration. The news section hasn't been updated since October 2006 - maybe someone oughta look into that before trying to convince investors that this is a viable property. I mean, I think it is a viable commodity...but a heinously out of date website doesn't exactly assert as much.