We’ve seen a lot of video game adaptations come and go over the years, but there’s one game franchise that has been crying out for a live-action adaptation for decades, but it’s been passed over time and time again. That franchise is Wolfenstein. For a while, Pulp Fiction co-writer / The Rules of Attraction writer/director Roger Avary was attached to make a film adaptation of the first game in the series, Castle Wolfenstein, but that project fell apart a long time ago. Now, Variety reports that a Wolfenstein TV series is in development at Amazon MGM Studios.
As Variety notes, the Wolfenstein franchise helped popularize first-person shooter video games. The games have largely centered on U.S. World War II solider William “B.J.” Blazkowicz. In the games, Blazkowicz goes behind enemy lines to fight the Nazis, only to discover they are engaging in bizarre experiments and the occult in an attempt to tip the scales of the war in their favor. Here some more information on the franchise: The first game, Castle Wolfenstein, was released in 1981. It and the 1984 sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, were top-down perspective games. Starting with Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, the games shifted to first-person shooters. There have been 14 games in the Wolfenstein series in total, with the most recent being the VR game Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot in 2019. The games are currently developed by MachineGames and published by Bethesda Softworks.
Patrick Somerville, who created Maniac at Netflix and Station Eleven at HBO Max, is attached to be the creator, writer, and showrunner on the Wolfenstein TV series, executive producing through his company chaoticgood.tv. Jonah Nolan, Lisa Joy, and Athena Wickham will executive produce for Kilter Films. James Altman of Keyframe Films and Jerk Gustafsson of Wolfenstein developer MachineGames will also serve as executive producers. Somerville says he has been a fan of the Wolfenstein games since he was a child.
The official logline for the Wolfenstein TV series is short and simple: The story of killing Nazis is evergreen.
Are you a fan of the Wolfenstein video game franchise, and are you glad to hear that a TV series adaptation is in the works at Amazon MGM Studios? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
The comment section exists to allow readers to discuss the article constructively and respectfully, focused on the topic at hand.
What’s Not Allowed