Every now and then I’ll read a trade announcement about an upcoming movie project and think, “Um, really? How’s that gonna happen?” This is one such moment. Variety is reporting that 20th Century Fox has acquired rights to the SIMS videogame and has set the project up with John Davis to produce a live-action movie. How? I have absolutely no idea. They certainly got themselves a profitable franchise, though; in 5 years of releases, the SIMS games have made over $1.6 billion. The only names attached to the film right now is Brian Lynch as screenwriter and Davis as producer.

In case you aren’t familiar with them, here’s more about the SIMS courtesy of Wikipedia:

The Sims is a strategic life simulation computer game created by game designer Will Wright, published by Maxis, and distributed by Electronic Arts. The game is a simulation of the day-to-day activities of one or more virtual people (dubbed “Sims”) in a suburban household located near SimCity.

First released on February 4, 2000, the base game has sold more than 16 million copies, making it the best-selling PC game in history. Including expansion packs, the franchise has sold over 70 million units worldwide as of January 2007. Since its initial release, seven expansion packs and a sequel, The Sims 2 (with its own expansion packs), have been released. A second sequel, The Sims 3, is also in the works. The Sims has won numerous awards, including GameSpot’s PC Game of the Year Award for 2000.

So basically you, um, control fake people for hours on end. Hmm…

I recall trying to play the game once, but gave up after about a few minutes. But hey, over 70 million copies sold. There must be something there, right?

Some images from the game. Man, it looks wild. Doesn’t it?